Meeting the Scouts

by Nicholas H.

art by Cinched and Alfonsino

At some late hour, and for the second occasion that night, I woke up with the feeling of a hand pressed over my mouth. There was no point in screaming anyway, being all tied up, I wanted to inform Phil when his blurred figure became distinguishable in the dark; but his reaction to my mumbling was that prickly little smile of his, cunning, subtle, as though he knew exactly what I meant - and simply didn’t care.

“Just checking on you,” he whispered. “Everything okay?”

Although most of what I’ve written so far depicts rough treatment and recklessness when it came to capturing someone, we were actually more careful than whatever precipitated conclusion you might’ve already drawn. We did take care after each other. For example, it was mandatory among us to ensure the prisoners’ well-being from time to time. That is, to ask them if the tie-ups or gags were unnecessarily strenuous, a routine even more expected and counted on if they were to stay bound for a long period. Therefore, when Phil returned to check on me, I duly tested my bonds by struggling a bit, and having found no numbness in my limbs, I nodded. Lying in order to gain some slack and escape afterwards was out of question; it was considered most unclassy, the lowest kind of cheating and could mean the loss of the privilege in future captures. It wasn’t worth it. Besides, I was not like I wasn’t enjoying being comfortably hogtied as I was, on one side, my hands warm and sticky inside those socks, the fingers clutched in unyielding fists.

Phil then started pushing, dragging my bound body to one side of the bed.

“What on earth are you up to now?!” I said.

 “Hey! Remember what I said I’d gag you with if you didn’t keep quiet?” he snapped.

This is amazing, I thought. This kid’s like 2 years younger and is playing the tough guy on me! If my arms were free, I sure would’ve beaten the crap out of the little brat. But I really didn’t have much of a choice at that point and wasn’t very sure I wanted some filthy underwear going inside my mouth (I knew he wouldn’t do it, but I played along by staying quiet).
 
 “I brought you company so you don’t feel too lonely,” he said as he pulled someone by the arms, amused by his own words. Through the shafts of light coming from the little lantern Phil carried, I could see Adam, shirtless – the cloth was between his teeth – facing me with his wrists bound in rope.

“Adam here was on his way to the bathroom,” Phil explained. “To his bad luck, it happens to be just next to Adrian’s bed and was about to see something he shouldn’t. You can figure out the rest…”

I almost burst out laughing. I pictured Adam feeling his way through the dark room to take an urgent leak, when all of a sudden a shadow jumped, quickly yanked his t-shirt off, silenced him with it and wrapped rope around his hands. I wished I could have seen the look on Adam’s face then.

“Yea, he still doesn’t know what the hell’s going on!” Phil chuckled.

Without further ado, the blond assailant laid his new prisoner on his stomach right beside me and secured his ankles. Phil then lashed Adam’s hands to the left head post, and before he went any further, he turned me on my stomach, too, the hogtie exerting its pressure on my back. I felt the loops around my hands being loosened and my shirt removed. This gave me some scarce seconds to rub my wrists a bit – he didn’t let me remove the socks though - before Phil forced them up, above my head.

Phil then came up with an idea that made it creepy to dare imagine how much time he really spent devising his weird schemes: he passed my left arm in between Adam’s bound ones and tied my crossed wrists together, pulling the loose end and tying it off at the right head post. We were locked in a chain of arms! Stunned, we both struggled. It didn’t take me long to assess the precious advantage of this “trick”. He could have thus two boys on a bed with their hands tied to the right and the left head posts separately, and none of them would be able to reach any knots, because all efforts either boy could do to reach the post securing his own piece of rope pulled the other linked boy, who was in turn securely tied to the opposite side! We couldn’t budge from the centre of the bed! It was impossible to move to either side, as our movements were smartly limited by a balanced rope tension. And our bound hands were too far away from each other, picking each other’s wrists’ knots no longer an option.

You’re wrong if you think – as I naively thought too at the time - he was going to leave us just like that. No, not Phil; he simply loved to stop a moment before resuming the tying, so the prisoners thought he was done and started squirming, only to find out there was more to come. 

He did the same chain thing with our legs, bringing our bodies even closer. Next, he grabbed two more coils, which he used on our tied ankles to link our feet to our respective head posts, leaving our bent hairless legs dangling in the air. Yes, you’re right, and our four bare soles as exposed and vulnerable as a duck in a pond during hunting season. But thankfully, Phil wasn’t much of a tickler. Instead, he pursued deeper psychological torture: he checked every loop, tightened every turn and knot, while slipping piercing devious comments and remarks, thus shattering any escaping hopes we might have borne until then.

We squirmed in vain. His rope-work was too good. Even better than Adrian’s.

“Phil,” I said, “where on earth did you learn to tie li-mpph!” He took me by surprise from behind and stuffed a wadded cloth between my teeth.

“Here you go! I told you I’d do it, Nick! Thank me I didn’t keep my full promise and it’s just one of Adam’s socks,” Phil said, holding out the other sock, so nicely and devoid of sarcasm one could’ve actually considered thanking him!

I trashed and bucked, trying to spit the disgusting garment as I felt the taste spreading inside, but he had already used my folded t-shirt to hold it in place; when he reached down to knot it off at my nape, smiling, he whispered in my ear, “Don’t worry Nick, it ain’t Adam’s socks either. Just another hankie.”

He winked and opened his fist, revealing both socks. I sighed, relieved, and did my best to smile back. It was obvious he had pretended to look tough in front of my captive fellow.

Phil finished by placing pillows under our heads.

“Don’t worry guys, you won’t be like this for long,” he said as he got up and prepared to leave, “dawn is coming in an hour and I’ll set you free to eat breakfast… If you stay quiet.”

 Adam and I immediately stopped whimpering; we sure didn’t relish the prospect of remaining like this for the entire morning! It was okay while it was dark, but when the sun rose the basement would get warmer and soon we’d be covered in sweat – not to mention I was only wearing my blue briefs and it’d be sooo humiliating.

With that he crept away, leaving us to ponder our predicament and the increasing but manageable ache in our limbs. In a small single bed like the one we lay on, there was barely enough place for the both of us and we had to huddle together if we wanted to avoid the risk of falling. Adam and I had implicitly agreed with a glance at each other that there was pretty much nothing we could do to try to free ourselves, so we resigned to relax – well, as much as we could - and drift to sleep to the sounds of the forest and its animals coming from outside.

***

Summing up, as you may have noticed, our club was based on a highly motivational objective: vengeance. If a friend tied me up I’d certainly tie him up afterwards; if he tickled me some, I’d tickle him twice as much. It could continue like this for days, on and on in an endless vicious circle of tying each other for ego candies. We all knew in our hearts that when you tied someone you’d get without doubt the same treatment or worse – and that’s probably the main reason why we did it in the first place! Give a bunch of vengeful boys some coils of rope and that’s what you get. No hard feelings or resentment ever came as a result of our games, though. The vengeful lust, for us, was a mere deliberate pretext to have our buddies all tangled up.

In the midst of the most pleasurable dreams, someone began shaking my shoulders in short pushes. Very annoying short pushes.

“Nick…”
“Nick…”
“Nicholas…” I heard the voice whisper but didn’t pay attention nor did I bother to open my eyes, only murmured a couple of words which were smothered by the gag.

“Nick…” once again came to my ears. Then the poking started. One. Two. Three. Four…

Goddamit! I’m trying to get some sleep here! Can’t they wake someone up like normal people?

That was the THIRD time I was being bothered on a single night and I had the right to be pissed off. First, Phil with his crazy plan to tie Adrian which ended up with me in the same condition; then, surprise, surprise! It’s hi-let’s-tie-you-up-some-more-and-gag-you-while-we’re-at-it Phil again.

Now, I’ve had it. There’s no way I’m gonna interrupt my nap.

 All of a sudden, a pair of fingers wildly plunged into my sides, attacking with relentless vigor the well-known ticklish spots that drove me wild. Berserk. Absolutely crazy. Even the sore parts of my body were hit by the nervous impulses that flowed viciously from my ribs. Fully awake, I thrashed all I could in a frantic struggle, trying to avoid the intolerable searching fingertips.

“Mphhhhhhhff!”

“Now that I finally have your attention…,” Phil said, producing a broad grin. “I hope you love birds enjoyed your time together, but my dad’s calling us for breakfast,” the boy said.
 
With all the writhing I had done, Adam woke up and was glaring at our captor as furiously as I was. We had already been sweating profusely, and side to side, our skins stuck to each other’s.

 
“Mphhh mmmphh mppphff?” Are you going to untie us or what? I grunted, twisting my hands.

“Ok, ok, stay put, it’s gonna take some time to tackle these knots, cuz,” he didn’t resist adding, “you now, I’m so good at tying them.”

Phil proceeded to unravel the ropes and tackle the knots that deprived us of our liberty – but I knew, however, hadn’t it been for Mr. Silva, Phil would have been most glad to leave us like that.

The lights were turned on. Our jaws recovered some motion when he took our gags off. We soothed our dry throats by guzzling from a couple of water bottles Phil had brought.

“I want to know… glu-glu… I have the right to know what the hell did you tie me up for!” Adam demanded, who was still clueless as to why he’d been involved in all this.

Phil laughed, “Sorry, Adam, you were at the wrong place at the wrong time! Chill, I’ll tell you all about it.”

While Phil went on with his explanation, I finished untying my ankles; he had used a good ten miles of rope on us. When I turned my head sideways, I was amazed to see we hadn’t been the only ones to spend the night trussed up like turkeys: Tyler lay gagged and hand-bound on his bed, but he continued to sleep - hardly surprising -, a white sock inserted inside his mouth and another one tied around his head.

“So he got tied up too?” I asked Phil and jerked a thumb at Tyler.

“I had nothing to do with that one. He was already like that when I came to wake you up.” I shrugged.
 
         Adam and I headed to the bathroom and took a shower. When we came back, Chris was up and caught in an enthusiastic conversation with Phil.

         “Hey Nick, Adam, did you sleep well?” Chris bloated. “Hahahaha!”

         “Yeah, very funny…” I replied.
 
         “I don’t really care that much, Chris,” Adam said, “cuz Phil knows we’ll get him sometime; then we’ll settle things out.” He finished with a smirk.

“Oh, c’mon Adam… I’ve got nothing against you. I had to do it!” Phil tried to apologize, perhaps regretting to have an erstwhile prisoner now wanting to put him in god-knows-what of a predicament. Adam was evidently enraged, so he shrugged off the reconciliation offer as he had heard nothing and started putting on a pair of worn jeans.

         “Hey Chris, how come Tyler’s tied up?”

         “Well, your dear cousin here,” he said pointing at Tyler, “is one hell of a snorer. I couldn’t sleep, of course. I tried to wake him up and he never did, so, you see, I fixed it!” I laughed wholeheartedly and then went on to release Tyler. After some soft slapping and tickling, he passed to a less zombie state and began to yawn and rub his eyes.

         When we had all used the bathroom, Phil suggested right away that we go upstairs and have breakfast.

         Red in the face, “I’ll be with you in a sec. I have to untie my prisoner, er, brother,” Phil explained.

Food? No need to ask twice. We headed to the kitchen, where a maid ushered us to the dining room. I stood stupefied for a few seconds, gaping at the biggest table I’d ever seen. It was made of a huge single 50-meter linoleum tree trunk cut in half, its elegant, shiny, polished brown-bark gradually degrading inner-wise, on which a meticulous map titled “Silva’s Farm” had been hand-carved all over. It was so staggeringly gigantic that I remember thinking they must have rather built the house around the table, since I saw no possible way of getting that either in or out!

“Yea, it’s always like this the first time you see it,” said Chris, who had seemingly by then spent many a holidays there.

It took us 2 minutes to get to the other end of the table (i.e. the other end of the room) where our meal had been already served: everything one could’ve dreamed of having for breakfast in a farm - and with no adults around, we devoured the food as its suiting animals.

As I stuffed myself with yet another slice of a peculiarly exquisite fresh cheese, Adrian, followed by his younger brother, appeared through the door. The blond boy had his upper body wrapped in a generous amount of the soft cotton rope our group was so particularly fond of, encircling his arms, chest, and pinioning his hands to his navel. Phil marched him to a chair while Adrian uttered the wildest imprecations against his captor.

         “Sorry for the delay but I had to help him brush his teeth and all that,” Phil said. Excluding Adrian, we broke into boisterous laughter and resumed our meal.

         For the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon we played soccer, the activity we enjoyed the most, apart from tie-up games of course. Phil allowed his “slave” to play under one condition: his wrists had to remain tied behind his back.
        
“No problem. I’ll still beat you,” Adrian defied.
        
         And surprisingly, he did! Adrian scored 3 goals, whereas Phil only scored once.

***

Annoyed by all this melodramatic comedy, I asked, “Hey, why don’t we go find those boy scouts you were yakking so much about yesterday?”

“Well, we don’t know if they’re around in the first place,” Adrian said once he’d been ungagged.

“Oh, they are,” Phil barged in, “cuz I saw one of their posters in the rodeo, recruiting new scouts for their camping out week.

“ Haha, and it said ‘come join the wonderful scouting experience’, hahaha.” He rolled around on the grass, laughing his ass off.
“And??”

“It’s like… so gay!” Phil said, rolling around in laughter.

“So gay that they kicked your asses and left you tied up for hours?” I said.

Phil now grew serious.

“We were outnumbered,” sentenced Adrian, matter-of-fact.

“Yea, they were just lucky, that’s all! We’re much better than them,” Phil defensively exclaimed. “Whose side are you on anyway, Nick?!”

“Hey! Drop it, you two,” Chris interrupted. “Let’s get back inside to get ready if we really wanna win: sleeping bags, ropes, hankies, tape, the usual stuff… Plus, we need a pretty good plan this time.”

We all nodded. Except Adrian, who sounded somewhat apprehensive.

“You mean, like now?? It’s already getting dark… and… cold… why don’t we go tomorrow?” he asked. It amazed me that Adrian was actually chickening out! There was no trace whatsoever of his ingrained macho attitude.

“No. You do as I say, slave. And yes, we’re going now!” Phil sentenced in a solemn tone, delighted to be able to force his brother against his will.

“But…”

“No ‘buts’. Move!”

Phil helped Adrian on his feet and roughly pushed him towards the house, much to our amusement. We followed them.

         I reduced my pace and approached Adam, who I knew to be Adrian’s best friend, and asked him what was wrong.

         “With Adrian? He doesn’t want the scouts to find out his little brother tied him up!”

“But a REAL emergency, dad. Please don’t show up unless you really have to,” Phil pleaded.
“Agreed. I would never do anything that could embarrass you boys in front of your friends, anyways.”

“Sure.” Adrian’s voice carried a ton of sarcasm. When asked, the boys later revealed their dad was some sort of dental hygiene freak – he’d lost all of his teeth during a poverty-stricken childhood – to the point he once judged imperiously necessary to track both of his kids down in the middle of a manhunt game just because they’d left their toothbrushes at home.
“Do you have your teeth material with you? Dental floss?”
“Yes, dad.”
“Let me see them.” They opened their bags.
“Good. Remember, behind and up, right in that spot where the food-”
“Dad…”
“I’m embarrassing you already, aren’t I?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry,” he said with an apologetic smile.
“Can we go now?” Phil said.
“Sure! Take care and have fun, boys.”

Once we were out of sight, Phil ordered Adrian to cross his hands behind his back.
“Do you really have to?”
“Yep.”
“Can’t we make a truce until the game is over? I’ll let you tie me up as much as you want then.”
“Yea, as if I could trust a word you say!” Without further discussion, for Phil was known to be as stubborn as a mule, he wrapped and cinched the rope around his brother’s wrists, leaving a loose end as a leash he’d held on to during the whole journey as if his life depended on it.

Both of them led the way. They knew the forest all too well in its full extension; this was their realms and it was a certain relief to know we wouldn’t be in disadvantage regarding field reconnaissance. Within an hour, we reached a clearing among the high pine trees and shrubs, where a couple of tents had been settled and several boys clad in brownish uniforms were gathered around a campfire. They all looked up when we entered through the open path. One of them, who seemed to be the eldest, stood and with a smile on his face, greeted us.

       “Adrian!” the boy said. He was taller than the rest and bore a strong physical figure. I assumed he was about 15.
         “Mike,” Adrian said.
It was as if two generals were presenting themselves previous to a battle - almost comical.
         “Sorry I can’t shake your hand – I’ll explain it to you later -,” he said airily before pausing and went on, “Nice to see you again.”
            “Same thing. So, what brings you down here? I see you have two more friends with you,” said Mike with a jerk of his head that swung his blond hair clear of his eyes.
            “I’m Nick and this is my cousin Tyler,” I said and shook hands.
            “We want to give it a try again, Mike,” Adrian stated, “your patrol against my team.”
        “Adrian, Adrian buddy. Wasn’t it enough last summer? Aren’t you and your friends ever going to learn? You can’t beat us!
            “In the end, how many hours we kept you tied up? Five, six? Haha. I’m starting to think you only come here because you like to be punished so much.” This kid was even more arrogant than Adrian. And Adrian could make Napoleon seem rather meek.
            “So you’re not gonna play? Is that what you’re saying?” Adrian defied him now, the building tension thick enough to cut with a knife (how cheesy, but true).
        “Of course we are! We’re gonna show you who rules in this forest. Aren’t we guys?”
         “Yeah!!!” The group of boy scouts replied.
         “We’ll see that,” came Adrian’s rejoinder.
         “Only there’s a problem,” Mike said, “there are ten of us and you’re only six.”
“That’s no problem at all. We like challenges,” Adrian said. We counted on our swiftness and strength rather than number to win.
         “But we’ll do this in the morning. It’s getting late now and my troop’s a bit tired.
“We’re gonna lend you a tent for the night so you don’t have to go home and come back again tomorrow,” Mike concluded.
We looked at each other hesitatingly; this sudden hospitality was too good to be genuine. We hadn’t planned on this. In fact, we’d brought the sleeping bags to spend the night “on the wild”, at a reasonable distance from the lion’s den.
         “What? Do you think we’re going to launch some sort of coward attack on you while you sleep?!”
         “Well, yea,” Adrian answered. “Let’s do this: I’ll take one of your scouts prisoner as a guarantee.”
         Mike thought for a while, turned to one of the older boys who nodded his assent.
         “Fair enough. But, you’ll have to give us one of your teammates too.”

“I’ll do it!” In sheer impulse, I had raised my hand and eagerly shouted. Everyone was looking at me now, some even taken aback and raising eyebrows.

         “Well… if that’s okay with you, of course…,” I added promptly and lowered my head, as though they would be able to tell through my eyes that being the boy scouts’s captive had become a very appealing idea to me – though I didn’t know yet precisely why.

         Adam grabbed me by the shoulder and took me some meters away. He stared me right into the eyes and said,
         “Nick, we don’t have a clue what they’re going to do with you. Based on what I got to see from these guys last summer, it’s not going to be very nice. Are you sure you want to do this?”

         In my mind, one phrase appeared: “more than anything on this world” but instead of committing social suicide, I came up with all sorts of excuses: that this way I could spy on them, that I’d get a chance to overhear their strategies, the whereabouts of their hiding spots, and blablabla. I talked him into letting me be the one; because of the promise, Adrian had to remain with Phil, they wouldn’t trust Chris or Adam, but a nice newbie like me to torture was perfect.
         Adam stared at me, dumbfounded. “You really like this, don’t you?” he whispered and winked at me. My rather eloquent answer was to blush. We returned to the boys who’d been patiently waiting.
         “Okay, we’re gonna do it. Nicholas here’s joining you to make sure we, too, won’t try anything funny,” Adrian announced.
         “Great. Rob, my little bro, is going to be your insurance policy.” With that said, a small red-haired boy stepped to the front.
         “It’s all settled then,” Mike said. “Next point: dinner. Please let’s get something to eat. After working all day in that workshop, I feel I could eat a freaking horse!”
As we headed to the “kitchen”, Mike put an arm around Adrian’s shoulder and asked,
         “Now, tell me. How come are you tied up like this?”
         “Well, it’s a long story…”

                                               ***
         After the terms of the game were arranged, they set our tent as promised right next to theirs and due to the increasingly hot weather, we all agreed upon taking a quick dip in the nearby creek. Guided by the moonlight we returned to camp, where a big bonfire crackled and a surprise stew – we could only imagine what it contained - simmered in an oversize casserole.
On the ground, I saw two shirtless boys staked out and gagged, a sight that days ago, before our games had commenced, would’ve shocked me. Now, I simply asked a kid I had just met called Collin,
         “Why are they like that?”
         “Uhh… to keep them out of trouble.”
I shrugged. (What? It was a perfectly logic explanation!)
Soon the whole group, more or less 20 kids, sat on the logs around the fire, enjoying our meal and chatting. When we decided it was bedtime, Adrian, Adam, Tyler, Chris, Phil and I walked to our tent.
         I was about to get in when Mike grabbed me and said,
         “Nick, where do you think you’re going? You come with us now.” I had completely forgotten I would be sleeping with the scouts!
         “You know the drill. Turn around,” another boy ordered. He crossed my wrists and within seconds, they were deftly and snugly tied. My heart beating, I tested the bonds; the knot-work was remarkable, just as competent as the ones from Adrian’s repertory.
         “Goodbye guys, wish me luck!” I said to my fellows almost ironically, who were now giving the same treatment to their prisoner, Rob. Both excited and somewhat apprehensive, I was escorted to their tent and while I was being helped to get in, I thought,

         This sure is going to be one long night.