(Content warning - young girls playing tie up games)
"Emily. Jane. I have put the dinner on. It will ready in an hour."
I called out to my daughter Emily and her friend.
Emily had asked to have a friend over for a sleep over this weekend and I had agreed. Jane was a nice kid and treated my husband and I and especially the house with respect when she had played over before. Jane was totally different from some of the other little horrors Emily had invited over to play.
There was no response. I rinsed my hands in the sink and wiped them on a Tea Towel.
I climbed the stairs and knocked on Emily's bedroom door. No answer. I opened the door to see Emily reading a Nancy Drew book on the bed with her MP3 headphones on. Some band or other was assaulting her eardrums with very loud metal music. I tapped her on her leg to get her attention and she jumped.
"Mom what are you doing in here?"
Her face turned a very bright red. I wasn't sure if she was going to blow a gasket when I entered her room.
"I knocked and you didn't answer. Dinner will be in an hour."
That was when I noticed Jane writhing around on the floor on the other side of the bed. She was red faced too and struggling to free herself from hands tied behind her back.
"Emily, what the hell."
Emily looked at me in shock horror.
So that was why she and Jane were red faced. I had caught them both playing tie up games, like I had with my sister and brother back when I was a kid. They were obviously embarrassed to be found out.
"So what game are you playing? Cops and Robbers?"
Emily shook her head.
"We are playing 'Spys'. Jane came into the room as a Secret Agent and I captured her and tied her up like in Charlie's Angels last week. We take it in turns, honest Mom."
Her cheeks were blazing red as I lent down and stroked her face.
"When I was a kid like you we played tie up games. We used to kidnap the Heiress and ransom her. Want to play? We've got an hour before dinner is ready."
I didn't want to shout and scream at Emily. I didn't want her to have to hide things from me. I had always been fairly open with my daughter unlike my mother with me.
I promised I would raise my children a different way to her. Emily's grandmother was one of those women who had babies as if they were a designer plaything, and then to be shuttled off to be cared for by nannies or aunts. Needless to say I never really saw eye to eye with my mother. There was a certain detachment and lack of affection.
Emily was a lovely precocious child I encouraged in every way. She was very inquisitive ten year old, and I encouraged her to ask as many questions as she wanted because I wanted her to be more aware of the world than I was as a child her age. That's why I decided to join in their game. Anyone can shout and scream, but it’s much harder to encourage kids to be themselves.
Jane and Emily both nodded they wanted to play.
"I see you decided to kidnap the heiress after all, Huh?" I pointed at Jane. "So what's the ransom then, Emily?"
Emily was looking open mouthed at me. I guess she thought I was going to scream at her. It perplexed her when I hadn't. I walked around the side of the bed to check on Jane.
"You alright down there Honey?"
Jane nodded she was okay, staring up at me with her big brown eyes. She had a scotch tape gag plastered over her lips. I rolled her onto her side and checked her hands and her ankles, smoothing down her flowery summer dress that had ridden up her thighs from her struggling. I rolled her back onto her back again. Jane's hands were lashed behind her back with shoe laces and Emily had tied them much too tight.
"Emily, what's the ransom? If we don't get that, we can sell her to that Shiek we met last night, for his Harem."
Emily smiled at me now.
"I was going to ask for a thousand bucks and a packet of Milk Duds."
"That's not enough for an Heiress like Jane. You should ask for a million bucks. Then you can buy as many Milk Duds and you like. I could get those black leather stiletto boots you saw me eyeing up in the Mall last week, too."
I brushed tresses of her auburn hair away from Jane's face, who had started to struggle to get free again.
"Jane's hands are tied a little too tight though Honey. I have something you could use if Jane still wants to play."
Jane nodded and then Emily.
I stood up and went to my bedroom. I opened the drawer and took out the six silk scarves I had bought or had been given as gifts over the years. Then I opened the closet and took a handful of John, my husband's, work ties he hardly wore anymore.
I marched into Emily's room and dumped them on the bed.
I pulled the tape from Jane's lips as gently as I could.
"You okay Honey?" I double checked as I picked Jane up sitting her on the bed.
"I am fine thank you Mrs Dickinson." She nodded her head.
"Now these shoelaces are turning your hands pink. They are way too tight."
I started to untie Jane's hands. I picked at the tight little knots with my nails and tutted as I chipped a bit of nail varnish off one of my nails. Then I motioned Emily to come over to the bed.
"Make sure she doesn't get away. I am going to re-tie her with these scarves. Now when you tie someone up, you must never tie anything near or around the neck. Okay?"
Jane and Emily both nodded their understanding.
Emily held Jane's hands loosely behind her back, palm to palm. I wrapped a scarf around her wrists twice, showing Emily what I was doing and then twisted the scarf as if I was going to tie a knot but then continued the scarf through the wrists cinching the wrists closer together. Then I tied the knot.
"How does that feel now, Jane?"
"It's lovely and soft and isn't digging into me at all."
"Try to wriggle out of it." I asked.
Jane struggled a bit. Then she was very vigorous. She still couldn't slip out of the scarf coiled around her wrists.
Emily looked in amazement.
"It doesn't have to be tight Honey. The way I cinched it between the wrists brought them close together but traps each wrist in an individual loop. See the colour returning to Jane's hands now?"
Emily nodded.
I picked the laces at Jane's ankles to release them.
"Your go."
I handed another scarf to Emily. She rolled the scarf into a sausage, and followed my tie.
She wrapped the scarf twice around the ankles like I had done with Jane’s wrists. Then she made a twist, before cinching the ankles and tying a knot on top of the cinch to hold the scarf in place.
"Now the Heiress is at your mercy. You can do all sorts of naughty things to her."
I started to tickle Jane around the ribs and the armpits. I slipped off her sandals leaving her bare footed, to tickle her feet. Jane begged me over and over to stop, through hysterical laughter.
"Emily do you think Jane is making too much noise when we tickle her?"
"I sure do Mom. There are a lot of scarves left. Can you gag Jane like they do in Charlie's Angels or Nancy Drew?"
"How do they do that?"
I handed Emily a scarf, as I asked, smiling innocently, knowing full well Emily meant a cleave gag.
"Like this Mom."
Emily rolled the scarf into another sausage and held it over Jane's mouth, who opened it wide ready for it to be placed between her lips and tied.
"There. Jane shouldn't give the game away now and we can still collect the ransom."
Emily beamed in delight as she tied a knot in the scarf behind Jane's neck.
"Well a million bucks will go a long way Honey, really it will."
I said pondering, holding a scarf in my hands.
"It will last me a whole lot longer though, if I double cross you and keep all the ransom money. Those Milk Duds will be really tasty when all that money is in my bank account, and I am on a beach in the Bahamas."
I caught Emily's arm and forced her to lay face down on the bed while I tied her wrists behind her, the same way I did to Jane.
"Hey, Mom. No fair?" she grunted back at me.
I propped Jane up so she could see what I was doing and holding Emily’s ankle, I showed Jane exactly how I had tied her wrists and ankles, while demonstrating on Emily's ankles.
Emily was wriggling around in her cutoff jeans and white T-shirt trying to free her hands.
I slipped Emily's Keds off her feet and pulled her pop socks off, discarding them on the floor. Then I mercilessly tickled her feet with my nails. Emily thrashed around the bed so I grabbed her ankles under my arm to resume the tickle torture.
I lifted the back of her T shirt, put my lips on her skin and blew a big wet raspberry on her back as she giggled away.
"I don't want you to call the Cops Honey, so I will gag you the same way as Jane."
I helped her to sit upright on the bed and pulled her T shirt down and brushed her tussled blond hair from her face.
She was growing up so fast and starting to look like a mini version of me.
Emily opened her mouth wide as I gagged her the same way she had done to Jane.
I picked them up and put them both on the floor side by side because I didn't want them both to roll around and fall off the bed and get hurt.
I took one of John’s neck ties and tied Emily's knees together, then did the same to Jane. Then I took another two of John’s ties and knotted them together to form one long tie. Then I tied one end to Emily's ankle, and the other to Jane's, trapping them to each other.
"Okay girls, dinner will be in half an hour, so I want you both untied and downstairs with your hands washed so you can set the table. I suggest you work together to free yourselves. If I have to come and release you there won’t be any apple pie and ice cream for dessert. Got it?"
They looked up at me and nodded together as I closed the door.
From the kerfuffle going on in the bedroom, I knew they were inching their way closer to each other to unpick the knots, as I trotted back down the stairs to check on the dinner.
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16.06.14