A Tale of Two Brothers

by Nicholas H.

I woke up by a fist landing straight on my face.

“Aaaaaah – what the…” I rubbed my aching forehead. One of the twins lay on his back next to me, his bound hands resting on my chest.

“What did you hit me for?” I cried. Then I realized the auburn-haired kid was still profoundly asleep; he mumbled something and then he was quiet.

“Never mind, thanks for waking me up,” I said to start the day with a dose of sarcasm. Gently, I lifted the boy’s arms and placed them on his stomach. It struck me thus: they did keep them tied up all night!

“Wait a second, how come my hands are free?” I stared uncomprehendingly at them. Last thing I remembered about the previous night was drifting to sleep with my wrists securely bound.

The curiosity of knowing if anyone else was already up interrupted my thoughts, and I hastily dragged myself out of the warm sleeping-bag. For a time I sat staring at the snoring crowd of boyscouts. No surprise, it must be around 6 am. I yawned and waited until my grogginess faded out. Nothing else to do, I stood up and tiptoed my way out.

It was just after dawn indeed. The moist dirt and leaves squished under my feet and a cool breeze rolling down the steep hills through the woods struck me like cold water (after all, all I had on was my underwear!). I set to arrange the fireplace so I could warm myself up. I learned, however, that which I always thought of as an easy task didn’t reflect on the praxis – at least not for me – and in minutes had turned my mood upside down; no miserable sparks came from my clumsy efforts whatsoever.

While I knelt there, feeling no smarter than a caveman, I heard steps from behind. I whirled quite fast this time but my fears subsided by a sight that, far from frightening me, made me chuckle: the other twin, the well-built one, was hopping desperately in my direction – shirtless and bound hand and foot!

 “Hey you! Please, help! Remember me? I’m Dan! My brother and I were tied up with you last night!” I jumped to my feet, ran as fast as I could and clamped one hand over his mouth and grasped the back of his head with the other.

“Shut up! Are you trying to get us into more trouble?!!” I snapped at him, looking straight into his light brown eyes. Captors certainly don’t look kindly on noisy prisoners who wander around unsupervised.

Dan kept whimpering under my hand and twisting his head, a restless expression on his face, as though he truly had something important to say.

“Ok, but keep your voice down.”
 
 “Sorry ‘bout my screaming like that, but Nick, I really need your help man,” he whispered thankfully.

 “What’s the problem?”

“ ‘Bout an hour ago I woke up because of a… uh… full blader. The problem is I can’t go!” he motioned his hands all wrapped up in rope.

 He gasped for breath and continued, “Waking up one of the older guys was outta question, so I tried working with my teeth, but the knots were just too tight. When I saw you getting out I thought ‘hey, he might help me’, so, here I am,” Dan explained, visibly hurried to get done with the explanation part.

I smiled again at the distress of this 12-year-old who had by this time grabbed his crotch and started giving little jumps of impatience.

“Alright Dan, I’ll untie you, but be quiet. They’re probably gonna skin me alive if they catch me freeing one of their prisoners,” I said and a broad grin appeared on the kid’s face.

  As soon as I released his ankles and loosened the loops cinching his wrists, Dan said, “That’s enough Nick, I can’t hold it any longer!” and made a dash for the woods. A few minutes later he returned, now bearing a relieved expression; the boy then made himself comfortable on a nearby log and inspected, very amused, as I worked vainly with tree branches and lumps of dusty coal.

“A fire is more about flames than smoke, you know,” he mocked, seeing a deep cloud steaming from my abortion of a bonfire. “Unless you want to send signals to your Indian friends, hahaha.”

“So you think you can do it better?” I retorted.

         Without uttering a word, Dan rearranged the mess as I stepped aside; he gathered some sticks and twigs above large stumps, and then placed red-hot charcoal bits with dry leaves in the center. First came deep smoke, but aided by soft blows at the bottom, it soon awakened to a medium but steady fire.

         “Uh, I was getting there,” was all my pride allowed me to utter.

         “Yeah right,” said Dan and smiled. He had done it in two minutes - I had been trying for twenty -, and despite having his hands tied, much more effectively than I could have ever.

         As a pot of coffee - I had managed to retrieve it conspicuously from the tent - heated before us, we chatted about school, boyscouts, soccer and, last but definitely not least, tie-up games. He and his brother Billy had been playing it at home for as long as he could remember, but the role of those innocent games suddenly leapt to a different level when they decided to join their new church’s boyscout troop. Last weekend, at Sunday-school, Dan told me, the twins had overheard Mike’s patrol’s conversation. I cannot and won’t judge the veracity of the story he told me about that episode, although it’s probable some jazzing up was involved in order to impress me; if my memory hasn’t failed me much, the anecdote he told me goes like this:

***
 
         “…yes, take two more 2-meter lengths of rope; and an extra roll of tape, of course,” Mike told Klaus, who scribbled on a piece of paper. The twins, just behind them, surprised by the unexpected mention of binding material, strained their ears at once and leaned forward to try to catch every bit of what was being said.

“I talked to Adrian last night,” Mike explained. “So Wednesday: they come to our camp, sleep there –no surprise raids this time guys– and first thing in the morning battle is on. Okay?” The other boys nodded enthusiastically. Billy and Dan paid no further attention to the young preacher talking in front of the class -as if anyone ever had- and concentrated on every gesture and word between Mike and his mates.

“Adrian also told me they were bringing a new guy, so we’ll have some night fun instead.”

“Fresh meat!”

“Hey, nothing too harsh, just trussing the kid up good to scare him, like we usually deal with new ones…”

Dumbfounded, the twins looked at each other with thrill, open-mouthed at the sudden discovery of other kids who enjoyed the same games. They had just moved into the neighborhood two weeks ago and didn’t know whether they’d continue assisting to boyscouts’ activities or take up soccer practices – until now. Needless to say, there had been sporadical tie-up situations back in the boys’ former group, but not near as exciting and promising as the prospect of this patrol’s plans for the upcoming week. Through their unspoken agreement - one look and a mutual nod -, that special understanding, almost telepathic, all twins seem to have with each other, both boys put aside any second thoughts and decided right away they’d join them in whatever it was that involved TuGs.

“I’m sorry, you’re Mike, right?” Dan asked, interrupting their conversation. The boys turned around.

 “Hi, I’m Dan and this is my brother Billy. We’re new here and we were wondering if we could join the church’s boyscout group. You have one, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” answered a puzzled Klaus. “Sure, we can put you in Sam’s patrol and-”

“Actually, we want to hang around with you guys,” Dan broke in hastily. “You see, my brother and I, we… em… uh… ” 

“- like to tie each other up,” Billy filled in and put an arm around his brother. “Dan here does the rope-work. Actually, I think his only purpose in life is tying me up.”

The other kid blushed, but quickly retorted. “Look who’s talking! You’re always asking me to tie you up! I can’t remember one single day you didn’t spend an hour or two tied up!” Now it was Billy’s face tainted by two creeping scarlet patches. The boyscouts, in view of such a strong determination from these 12-year-olds, undeterred neither by shame nor embarrassment, burst out laughing.

“Keep it down, please, you boys back there,” echoed the man in front. They suppressed their laughter but no one said a word, for they were still a little bit shocked by the revelations of these two kids who seemingly were extreme tie-up games enthusiasts.

“Mike, the thing is we couldn’t help hearing your plan for tying someone up,” confessed Dan, “it sure sounds like lotta fun.”

“Can we play too?”

“Yeah, we’ll be nice and do as told,” Billy added, almost beggingly.

“Well…” Mike looked at his chums and pondered for a while, perhaps visualizing the effect of the new variables in his schemes; then, putting an end to the cajoling of the twins, he replied, “Okay!” with a mischevious grin.

According to Dan’s story, while they were thanking Mike, promising they’d give them no trouble and that they’d not regret it, someone knocked at the door to tell the preacher he had an urgent phone call. The man said he’d be right back and asked the oldest student, Mike, to continue reading (not the best decision, but I guess he didn’t have much choice). Mike went to the front of the class, leaving an empty seat between Collin and Klaus.

“Hey Billy, come here and sit with us,” said Collin glancing backwards. The boy got up, went all the way round but before he could sit, his brother came running, knocked him to the ground and stole his place.

“Dan, you jerk, that’s my seat!”

“I got here first!” With that, they began arguing, calling each other names. They conversely told each other to piss off and their voices soon rose to a shouting contest. Mike, who had been reading aloud and was at this moment obviously annoyed by that interruption, ordered,

“You two, the twins, cut it out. I’ll tell you this only once: sit down and shut up.”

“Okay, you heard him; give me my chair and go sit somewhere else,” Billy, who stood with his arms crossed, told his brother.

Dan sternly replied, “No, you retard – it means YOU go sit somewhere else!”

That last phrase must have got to Billy’s nerves, for he ferociously tried pulling Dan out of the seat by the arms; and failing doing so, he dragged the chair along with the boy on it. The friction from the metal leg against the tiles resounded loudly in the room – and in the head of a now really upset Mike.

“Come here! Now! I’ve had enough of you two.” He placed the book on the table and looked fiercely at them.

The twins froze. Slowly and shyly, Dan first, then Billy, walked up to the older boy.

“Sorry Mike, it won’t happen again.” There was a trace of fear in the boys’ voice; but not fear of a punishment, though. What they were most afraid of was that Mike would reconsider his early acceptance to allow them to participate in the games. 

“I’m sure it won’t.”

Not wasting his time, Mike grasped Dan’s hands by the wrists with one hand while he wound rope he’d taken out of his pockets around them with the other. Always deliberate and thorough, Mike tightened each loop to leave no slack for struggling.

Mike had placed the teacher’s chair in front of the desk. It was large, with long armrests and a high quilted backrest, wide enough… for two boys to fit –or, more appropriately, squeeze– in.

“Sit.” Dan was pushed down on the chair, and his ankles and knees were deftly bound in the same fashion. Next, he took an additional coil of rope, placed Dan’s already restrained arms on his lap and lashed them to his thighs, pinning the boy’s hands down. More rope – which Mike produced from seemingly bottomless pockets - was wrapped around Dan’s chest and arms to attach his extremities closer to his body; and as to immobilize the poor boy, one end of a short piece of rope was tied at the ankles, brought down the chair and behind, being finally lashed to the backrest’s support.

In the meantime, Billy stood there watching, delighted, as his twin brother was restrained to the point that moving an inch was impossible without falling off. When Mike turned to Billy, he had already put his hands together, fingers intertwined. Mike smiled.

“Oh, a willing prisoner.” General laughter came from the spectators.
 
 Within minutes, Billy lay tightly tied up on the chair next to his brother. Dan was lashed separately to the right armrest and Billy to the left one, but were drawn together by several coils around their arms and chests, going behind the backrest and around the boys’ bodies again.

The tying finished, Mike headed to the teacher’s desk and after rummaging inside one of the drawers, pulled out a shiny silver roll of duct tape. He plastered one strip each of Dan’s and Billy’s mouths, smoothing the surface with his fingers from cheek to cheek, making sure it stuck to their small faces and effectively kept their lips sealed.

“There you go. Ah, you know what? Today’s topic is exactly all about solidarity and sharing! Thanks for illustrating the point with a live parable, guys. See how sharing is better than fighting over it?”

More chuckles ensued as the twins mpphed through their gags.

With the twins quiet now, Mike went on reading, glancing occasionally at them.

Thirty minutes later, the teacher returned to find Dan and Billy still pretty much the same on his chair.

“Oh Michael, not again! This is the first time these boys come to our church and you’re already tying them up!”

“But Mr. X, they were fooling around, they didn’t let me read! Just ask the others.”

The man sighed.

“Could you please release them?”

“Oh, they can stay like that. They don’t mind. Seriously.”

“Michael!”

“Okay, okay.”

***

“After he untied us,” Dan continued telling me as we finished our coffee, “Mike introduced us to the other kids. Then they told us that, ‘cuz we were new, we had to go through an ‘initiation test’. I say it’s bunk - they made it up, but hey, we couldn’t argue with them. Mike told us we had to spend straight 24 hours tied up and -this is the tricky part- if we asked to be freed, for any reason, it’d start all over again.

“So, me and my bro’ve been tied up for 22 hours now, I think. Hmm. Yeah, that’s it. It started yesterday at 7 am when Mike kidnapped us from home,” he concluded.

“24 hours?!? Are you serious? That’s fucked up.”

“Nah, it’s no great deal you know, it’s not like we’re kept hogtied all the time…”

“Wait, why didn’t you tell me I wasn’t supposed to untie you? I just freed you.”

“Well, no, my hands are still tied,” he lifted them, “so technically, I’m not ‘free’. Besides, I needed to go,” Dan chuckled.

“Yeah, it’s been ok so far. Compared to what I heard you went through last night...” he let the sentence linger on, expecting me to fill him in with the details.

“Oh, yeah, last night! You can’t even imagine; I was so tired by the time they were finished that I didn’t even notice when they untied my hands. This morning though, your brother woke me up – he hit me in the freaking head!”

“Hahahahaha! That’s just like Billy. It wasn’t on purpose. He’s a sleepwalker you know, moves a lot in his sleep and waking him up is harder than–mphhhhhhffff!!!!” He was cut in mid sentence by a hand appearing out of nowhere. Then – I saw it coming - another one clamped over mine. I looked up and saw Klaus and Mike glaring back at me from behind.
 
“What the hell you think you’re doing here?” Mike, who kept his hand firmly placed over my mouth to muffle any sudden cry for help, whispered in my ear. No explanatory chances allowed, they dragged us back into the tent, where almost everybody was already up, and pinned us down to the ground.

“What if someone saw you? They’d say: ‘look how Mike doesn’t take care of his prisoners, they go out loose and he don’t even have guards on them!’ ” I couldn’t protest under the boyscout’s grips, but Mike was really starting to freak me out. He was acting like he was in charge of a concentration camp!

“Let’s get him ready. Adrian will be up in any minute,” said Klaus. James and Gus quickly tied my hands behind my back and my elbows as well. One boy squatted beside me holding two wadded socks in his hands.

“Open up.” I obeyed reluctantly and the bundle was shoved deep in and held by a line of cloth forced between my teeth and tightly tied off behind my head. They helped me on my feet. Only then I was able to catch a glimpse of Mike’s face: red in anger, wicked eyes, nervously squinting inside the tent.
 
“Where’s Collin? Where is he?! He was supposed to be keeping an eye on Nick!” Mike roared. A boy pointed towards a sleeping-bag on a corner where the boy was, all curled up and snoozing like a child. Mike looked down at him.

“Oh boy, I really don’t wanna see this,” Klaus said half-joking, half-disturbed, “let’s go outside.” They slipped my shorts up and marched me out of the tent. As we walked away, I could hear behind me, first cries of regret; then pleading, followed by screams and cries for help. And after that, all that came were faint and unintelligible muffled shrieks.