Judy had gone to her mother's the previous evening - Friday evening - her mother was poorly and needed her. Of course she had to go, but it left me feeling alone. End of the week, work over, I was looking forward to a good relaxing time with Judy and perhaps some friends, but Judy had to be away.
The trouble with these weekends is that by Saturday evening I'm in the pits of despair. Okay, depressed - let's not be over dramatic, but a Friday evening of telly, Friday night alone, Saturday morning supermarket shopping - I did it when Judy was away - Saturday afternoon at my mothers - by Saturday evening I was left feeling miserable. By half past seven I had resigned myself to another evening in with the telly and some videos. A walk first, to clear my head, but perhaps I could do with another good night's sleep as well.
I had a walk around the block, but on returning noticed something wasn't right with the house. There was a dim light in the house - but there shouldn't have been any. As I got closer the front door was open - but it shouldn't have been. As I entered the front door cautiously I heard people inside, I heard voices - and there shouldn't have been.
The voices were coming from the sitting room, so I headed there, not thinking about danger. At the door I listened for a few moments - clearly burglars, two voices, both female. They hadn't heard me. I sneaked out and got some things from a cupboard by the front door, then returned to the sitting room. I knew surprise was my best tactic. I quickly leapt into the room, slammed the sitting door shut behind me, turned the key in the lock, and in the darkness grabbed the first girl, in seconds wrestled her to the floor, onto her stomach and had her handcuffed, her hands behind her back.
The second girl panicked, ran for the door and scrabbled with the handle, shouting "Come on, Tammy, lets go……". I quickly grabbed her and wrestled her to the floor, and within seconds had her handcuffed as well.
With both girls squirming on the floor I turned on the light to see who I had caught. As the light came on I noticed the one called Tammy just getting to her feet, so I wrestled her to the settee, and ankle-cuffed one leg to the leg of the chair. Her other foot was lashing out but I left that for the moment. I picked the other girl up and cuffed her leg to the other leg of the settee, then cuffed the two ankles in the middle, with a struggle and some fighting, cuffing the two girls to each other. I've always found the cuffs that you put on hands or legs singly and then clipped together far easier to manage than the traditional handcuffs. They still had their hands cuffed behind them.
It had been a noisy ten minutes with a lot of swearing and struggling, but at last they were subdued, so I settled on a chair opposite them to see what I had caught and to catch my breath. On the left sat Tammy, a black girl about nineteen wearing jeans and a t-shirt. She was pretty dishevelled from the struggle, but I could see underneath she was quite a stunner, with a beautiful shapely figure and large breasts prominent under the t-shirt. The other - on the right - who's name I didn't know - yet - was a white girl, the same sort of age, but smaller than Tammy, slimmer, with short dark hair. Again she was pretty dishevelled after the struggle, but could be very pretty.
"What are you going to do to us, Mister?" It was Tammy who had broken the silence, her voice defiant.
I thought for a moment. "Well, I think I should call the police".
It was the white girl who spoke this time, less defiant. "Please don't do that, Mister. Just let us go, please."
"Let you go - why should I do that?"
Tammy spoke again. "Please mister, this is our first time. Ever." At that moment she surprised me - she burst into tears. I wasn't sure what to do so remained silent for a few moments.
"First time?" I was confused. "First time? What on earth were you doing?"
"Please mister, let us go." Tammy appeared to be their spokesman. "Let us go, we won't do anything again."
"Let you go? I need more of a story than that. First….." I pointed to the white girl, "……….. you must tell me your name."
After hesitating, she spoke. "I'm Lindsay."
After prompting a bit more, and refusing to unbind them, they told me their story at some length. Their parents were very strict, members of a particular small local religious sect. The sect had chosen courses for the girls and sent them to college. The girls had wanted to go, and had tried, but just couldn't do the work - they had not chosen the courses and didn‘t enjoy the subjects. The work was simply too hard. The parents had accused them of being lazy, there had been a row, and they had been kicked out, with their parents accusing them of chasing after boys rather than doing the work. They had been walking for three days, their money had run out, they were hungry, they had seen me go out so had decided to try their luck at burglary. It took them perhaps half and hour to get the story out. The more they spoke, the more I knew they were telling the truth, the more I realised they were good girls, caught up with a harsh group of cold people.
"Okay, Lindsay, Tammy, the first thing I will do is feed you, then we need to talk a bit more. I'm not going to release you, yet, but I will let you both have one hand to eat with." I undid the handcuffs and they let me handcuff them together with the hands which were between them. Their outer ankles were still cuffed to the settee, their inside ankles to each other. I made them a plate of chips and sausages which they ate greedily with their fingers. It was after they had eaten that I sat down with them again.
I know," I said with a touch of humour in my voice, "That you both need to go to the toilet. In five minutes you will, but first I have an offer to make you." The two girls looked frightened, but intrigued. I continued.
"The offer is this, and the choice is yours. In five minutes I am going to let you go, both of you, and I will take you to our spare bedroom out the back - it has an en suite bathroom and you can use it, and even have a shower if you want - there‘s plenty of towels there. I will also give you five hundred dollars to see you through the next few days, and you can chat, and talk, and you can decide what you do. The choices are these - you can simply walk out the front door, and I will never see you again…………….." I paused before continuing.
