The Damsels Guidebook to Distress and Other Unfortunate Situations Part 1
Β© Copyright 2019 - Emma Bond
The front door bell had rung several times. Then it went silent before the knocking had commenced. I prayed for whoever it was to just go away and leave me alone. It was only when I heard the front door latch being opened and the sound of stiletto heels tapping over the wooden floor boards of my hallway I lost the plot and started to go frantic.
"Hey sis I know you are in. Your car is in the driveway. Come on stop mucking about. You promised me you would come... Holly Shit!"
My sister had searched the house tracking me down in my bedroom. The heels had slowly tapped their way from my hall to my living room. Then down the hall; tap, tap, tap, to the kitchen. There were more swear words. "Paula! Where the hell are you?" I could hear the soft pad, pad, pad, as the heels climbed the carpeted stairway. There was a slight squeak as the bathroom door had been pushed ajar. If I had been sitting on the throne I would have answered her for Christ sake.
The bedroom door flew open and my sister's jaw dropped open. Next was the stunned registration of my predicament. Only then came the realization and the expletives, as disbelief, turned into the questioning, "how the hell had I gotten into that position?"
"Oh my god! What the fuck happened Paula." She rushed to my side before halting in her tracks and I looked up at her perfectly tanned and shapely legs as she towered over me. My eyes came back down to the five inch Louboutin sling back shoes she was wearing in a gorgeous shade of pink, with obligatory red leather soles.
" 'Ice 'umps." I managed to muffle from my gagged mouth. (Hey they really were nice pumps!)
She glared down at me. Her curly blonde hair was held back in a ponytail, but the tail was draped over her left shoulder onto a sleeveless silk blouse that was left several buttons open to display her ample dΓ©colletage. The Louboutin's matched a leather knee length baby pink pencil skirt. She stood in front of the bedroom window and a halo of sunlight radiated around her. She looked stunning. She also wasn't in a rush to bend down to untie me either.
My sister Abigail was twenty nine and had been many things to me in my twenty four years of life. She was a tormentor; a baby sitter; a shoulder to cry on; and my hero and protector all through my life. Sometimes when Mom had gotten mad with me she stood up for me. She took several slapped legs for me back in the day. She had sorted the bullies that plagued me at school. She had covered for me when I came back late from a girlfriends party. She hid the fact from mom when I was fifteen that I had spent my first night out with a guy after the "walk of shame" home. Then she had held my hair back from the toilet bowl when I had been dumped a couple of days later and had drunk myself to oblivion on cheap vodka. Even when all that drink had resurfaced and she was moaning about flecks of my vomit on her new jeans and that she wasn't cleaning up the bathroom after me. She still stayed with me and held my hair out of the way. She did clean the bathroom too while she gave me the "irresponsible" lecture incorporating condoms and safety until I could get a word in edge ways and told her I had made him wear a "Johnny" before he could touch me. I remember getting a sympathy hug from her after I told her that.
Seeing me in my current predicament, my sister stood before me aghast!
So what could put the fear of god and the mask of horror onto her face you might well ask?
I guess I really should start at the beginning....
Seventies reruns in a nutshell. WTF you ask?
Seventies reruns were to blame. There were no satellite TV channels at the time. You had the TV beamed into the home via aerials or if your family was better off you got cable which had a heap more channels to watch. Well sis and I used to play Charlies Angels. I wanted to be the gorgeous Jaclyn Smith who played Kelly Garrett and Abbie was always Farah Fawcett's Jill Munroe. She had the piercing blue eyes and the pretty golden blonde hair and always insisted on it. Well we watched along and the next day we went out and played the parts. When something went wrong I remember being fascinated as the girls were tied up and sometimes gagged too.
If you look back at it now, some of those seventies shows with the damsels were quite intense. Actresses; girls all want to be called actors now; really got tied up. Gags went into the mouth and behind the teeth. Sometimes there was an evil villain who knotted the cleave gag first. The shit over the mouth gags that used to infuriate me and my sister from the fifties and sixties shows could always be slipped off, and we usually did that. Seeing cop shows like Charlies Angels and how they got tied up, made it so much more realistic. And my sister used to make sure I got tied up properly. She came up with the plot and played several roles; goodies and baddies. The clothes line that hung in a long line down the garden with a pole to hold the line up when loaded with wet washing always got taken down and use on my hands and torso. She became pretty good at tying me up too. At first I always offered my hands out in front.
She called me silly. That the Angels were tied hands behind them or were handcuffed in some dastardly way. If I wasn't going to play properly then she wouldn't play with me at all. Well I didn't want to be left out so I usually sighed and let her get on with it. She could be mean and sometimes tied me tightly. When it was my turn to tie her I wasn't very good and she wriggled out to capture me again. We had been playing like it for a couple of weeks. We made sure to hide our games from Mom who would come out and yell blue bloody murder at us both for dirtying her clothes line by rolling around the floor in it. She didn't come and free me though. I remember her tutting and shaking her head and then going back indoors to finish the dinner or whatever it was she was doing at the time.
Well somehow or other after one exciting episode with one of the angels bound and gagged and locked in a dark cellar, we went out to re-enact it. I found myself trussed up tight, hands behind me "De Rigueur"; when suddenly out of my sisters pocket she pulled one of mothers silk neck scarves. Abbie held a corner and let it unfold while standing over me gloating how weak and stupid the Agency was and that they should fire me and get a real agent who knew what they were doing. The silk she trailed over my cheek and I turned away to avoid it. When she did it again I glared at her although the silk was soft and brushed gently along my cheek. It felt nice. Then she laughed as all I could do was look up to her and her smug gloating face. Her blue eyes were twinkling with mischief. Then she took the scarf and knotted it at the centre. Up until then we had only played tie up. She knelt down with her legs astride my chest as she ever so very slowly brought the knotted silk closer to my face. I remember wriggling and I turned my face to the side to prevent her.
She laughed. Well I wasn't just going to open my mouth to let her do it. As a budding damsel in distress one needed to do the required amount of struggling first before finally submitting to one's fate. I was surprised when Abbie pinched my nose as I was still pursing my lips together. I held on before spluttering to gasp some air into my lungs. The knot was forcefully shoved into my mouth and she twisted my head moving my long mousy blonde hair out of the way before knotting the scarf tight at the base of my neck. It was the first time we had used a gag. I must have gone all wide eyed in shock as I remember her stroking my cheek softly to soothe me.
I remember after she gave me a couple of minutes to get used to things, she pulled me over to Daddy's shed. She pulled open the door before she unceremoniously dumped me inside, wedging me next to the lawnmower. I was struggling to wriggle free in vain. The "piece de resistance" came seconds later. Abbie rolled me onto my side as best she could and with some left over cord at my bound ankles; bent my legs back and hogtied me. Not that I knew what a hogtie was back then. I was shocked. My wrists suddenly pulled towards my feet became tighter and I knew then I wouldn't be able to escape until she let me go.
She sat and looked at me with a big beaming smile. The mischievous twinkle was still in her eye. She checked the knots and made sure the rope knot wouldn't slip before she turned on her heel; her flowery sun dress flouncing as she turned; and then she locked me in the shed leaving me bound, gagged and very alone in the dark. It was a day of firsts for me. The first time I had been gagged while trussed up tighter than a Thanksgiving turkey. The first time Abbie had left me alone while in my bondage. It was also the first time I had ever been locked up in the dark.
I admit that I was scared for the first few minutes. Outdoors in the sun it had been hot. Mother had moaned about putting on sun cream, but in the shed it was nice and cool. I could hear faint noises on the other side of the wooden door. There was a slight breeze ruffling the leaves in the big Oak at the bottom of the garden. I heard the creak of the rope swing hanging from the lowest branch of the Oak. Birds were cheeping all around. It's amazing what your ears pick up when you can't see anything, if you concentrated.
The shed had a different smell than any room I had been in before too. It was the smell of wood. Well I guessed it was wood. Treated wood, but not varnish. More an oil based coat. I know Daddy treated the wooden fences, so I guessed he had also done the outside of the shed. I thought I would be more scared. There were cobwebs in the opposite corner that I noticed when Abbie had shoved me down on the floor. The shed smell reminded me of how Daddy smelt when he had been working out here or at his work bench in the garage. It was comforting rather than scary.
I tried to struggle a little. I knew it was futile, but it was expected of a cute damsel in distress. I had to be cute because Mom always said I was. I had dimples in my cheek and all cute girls have dimples. I also had a small button nose that Daddy sometimes tried to grab and take off. I knew it was just his thumb between his fingers, but I always had to clutch at my nose just to be sure it really was still on my face. It always made him smile when I did that. I couldn't move much, but I had a feel just to see if there was anything I could use to lever the rope off me or at least to chafe the rope to make it easier to break. It wasn't happening. I was at the mercy of Abbie to come let me out, but I also knew she would torment me by making it look like I would never be let out. I tried to move just to keep some feeling in my wrists and ankles which seemed to be a continuous dull ache, because any movement of my legs and ankles pulled my wrist and any movement of the wrists pulled the ankles taut.