During a commercial Alan suddenly thought of something and asked, “You did say yes, right?” One time back when Jimmy had been in seventh grade a girl had called to ask him out and he had told her no because he was too busy. He hadn’t been, but dating wasn’t something he was comfortable with, so he had rejected the girl. Alan often wondered if this refusal to date, or to really make friends, had stunted his social growth, which was one of the reasons why he had so much trouble now?
“Yeah, I told her I would go,” Jimmy said.
Thank God! Alan screamed to himself and then out loud said, “Just wanted to make sure. Prom is one of those things you would care about missing ten years from now.”
“No I wouldn’t.”
“You would.”
“No, honest, I really wouldn’t and couldn’t care less about it.”
Alan didn’t feel like arguing, but knew Jimmy’s was wrong. Both their parents had missed their prom and still talked about the regret they felt at not having the memory or experience of it. “Well, whatever. I’m glad you’re going because I think you’ll have a lot of fun.”
“I hope so,” Jimmy said.
The show came back on.
Alan wondered what it would be like to be inside Jimmy’s head. Was it as calm in there as he tried to portray, or was his mind a mess? Actually, looking at Jimmy now, there wasn’t an ounce of calmness about him. Something was on his mind and it was making him extremely antsy — no doubt the call from Tina about prom. It was about time. Jimmy needed a date. He needed a social life. So far, with the exception of a few kids through grade school, his only friend had been him, and though that was fine, he needed friends outside of the family.
“Hey, now you and Tina could come play pool with me and Melissa over in Haddonfield,” Alan said.
Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t think she’d like that.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem like something she would enjoy. Tina’s not a pool hall sort of girl.”
“Well, you can always ask and find out.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
* * *
Jimmy couldn’t focus on That 70’s Show or the conversations Alan kept instigating because his mind was thinking about Samantha and wondering what it was like for her in the fallout shelter. Seeing women tied up with their hands over their head had been something he enjoyed ever since he was little, especially when it was long term, and now he couldn’t wait to see what several hours of standing like that done to her.
What was it like? What would the mind do with the time? What would it feel like?
These were questions he had been asking himself every time he came across a scene on TV or in a movie that featured a woman tied like that, ones which he usually recorded onto a VHS tape so he could watch them over and over again, his mind often wishing he could somehow venture into the actual scene and understand it. In fact, at times he even wished it was he that was in the scene — in the female form of course since he had no desire to see men in bondage — and had recreated a few from time to time. Unfortunately his scenes never got to last that long, and often weren’t accurate. Take the scene in the 1970s movie The Four Musketeers which had featured a moment where a young lady was chained to a wall by a set of iron wrist shackles. Jimmy had first stumbled upon in junior high and had finally been able to add it to his VHS tape a few years later once he found it on TV again. Every time he watched the scene he wished it were him — as the lady — who was standing there in the shackles just so he could understand what it was like. Reproducing the scene accurately by himself, however, was impossible, especially since he had no idea where to get shackles like that, nor the medieval dungeon setting, nor the dress. Worse, his inability to recreate it caused the craving to go unsatisfied. Putting himself in the mind of the person by interjecting himself into a similar scene was just part of it. He also wished he could see what would happen to her as she stood there for days at a time, her body unable to relax due to the chains, her legs unable to hold her up after a while and forcing her to just dangle from her wrists. He had no idea why he was fascinated by this, or why it produced such an intense sexual reaction in his body, but it did, and the more he saw the more his cravings went unfulfilled. It was bizarre.
“Still want to play Goldeneye?”
“What?” Jimmy asked, his mind returning to the basement. On screen the credits for That 70’s Show were rolling alongside an ad for South Park, which the two did not care for.
“Still want to play?” Alan was holding a controller.
“Oh. Sure.”
“What’s wrong?” Alan asked while the two set up the Goldeneye battle.
“Nothing?” Jimmy lied while scrolling through the weapon selections for the proximity mine setting. “Um, where do I get a tux?”
“Wow, I don’t really know. There’s gotta be a place in town somewhere or maybe up in Haddonfield. You could always ask in the office at school. They would know. Not many kids have their own tuxes.”
“Okay.”
Alan knew his brother would not ask. Instead he would search around town until he found a place, even if it did take him two hours longer. That was his way.
Jimmy clicked on the character selection screen and the two scrolled toward the right until they each found their favorite characters. From there Jimmy hit START.
“We doing minutes or points?” Alan asked. He hadn’t been watching when Jimmy selected.
“Ten minutes,” Jimmy said. “I don’t want the game to last too long since I was planning on going on a bike ride tonight.”
“A bike ride?” Alan couldn’t remember the last time Jimmy (or he for that matter) had gone on a bike ride. Would their bikes even be big enough for them now? “Which bike you using?”
“Dad’s old one. I fixed the seat and pumped some air into the tires.”
Alan hadn’t known this. “When did you do that?”
“Last week. I’ve been riding every morning.” He hesitated. “Didn’t you know that?”
“No. When do you leave?”
Jimmy let his breath out and thought for a second. “About five. I guess no one can hear me.”
“Nope. Can’t hear a thing all the way down there. That’s why I want the room. I could listen to music all night and no one would care.”
“Well,” Jimmy started. “Too bad there aren’t two rooms down there.” He shrugged. Nothing else followed.
The statement irritated Alan. He didn’t think it was fair that his older brother could have the only basement room just because of his age, but that was always the reason his parents gave.
The game loaded up.
Right away they both went for the boxes of proximity mines and then began tossing them in all the starting locations, which they had memorized years ago. Once they had done that they went in search of each other, both of them randomly tossing mines all over the level while trying to find the other player knowing that whoever died first was going to have a huge disadvantage since they would start several times in mined locations.
Alan was the unlucky one this time around. He saw Jimmy at the bottom of a stairway and tried to charge him. Jimmy, however, pulled out a pistol and shot him in the leg and since they had set the battle on the ‘license to kill mode’ it killed him right away. “Bastard!” Alan shouted as his character fell to the ground. It was no contest after that. Jimmy kept replacing the mines in the starting locations while Alan went through them and racked up kills. Eventually Jimmy did get too close to one and died himself, but the cycle of starting location death he went through wasn’t enough to close the gap and he won.
“Play again?” Alan asked.
Jimmy glanced up at one of the darkening windows and said, “No, I think I’ll head out on my bike ride now.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” He couldn’t wait any longer. He had to see her.
“Okay,” Alan said while wrapping up his controller. “Well, have fun.”
“I will,” Jimmy said, a nervous ring once again present in his voice. With that he headed up the stairs and out into the garage.
Alan followed a second later but continued all the way to the second floor and then looked out a window. Sure enough Jimmy was heading down the street on their father’s old bike. He watched until his brother disappeared into the darkening landscape, and then went into his bedroom where two hours of homework waited.
* * *
Samantha had actually just started drifting off to sleep when the sound of the door opening jolted her awake. All the pain came back, along with the fear.
Jimmy walked in.
Samantha stared at him as he closed the solid door and then turned to look at her. This time he was wearing gym shorts rather than jeans, and poking against them was an erection.
He’s going to rape me.
Jimmy looked up at the rope and then back at her. “Is it tight?” he asked.
Samantha didn’t know what to say.
“I asked you a question. Is it really tight?”
“Yes,” she said dryly.
“Well I’m going to lower you a little, but first you have to promise to do something for me.”
Anything to be let down.
Samantha tried to pretend it was her boyfriend Steven who had reached up her shirt and was now fingering her nipples and squeezing her breasts, but no matter how hard she tried, even when closing her eyes, she knew it was Jimmy and this made her feel sick.
Just tolerate anything he does to you and then spend time on the ground, Samantha said to herself. Don’t say anything.
Her body nearly shook with the thought of being free from the ropes and she couldn’t even begin to image what it would feel like. She had only been tied up for half a day, but already it was all she knew. This, now, was her life.
Jimmy’s hands stopped and pulled out from beneath her shirt. They were shaking.
“Let me down now?” she asked.
Jimmy nodded and then said, “But remember that there is more, and if you refuse to do it then I will hang you so high your toes won’t touch the ground.”
Samantha nodded silently, which was awkward with her arms pressing into her head, and said, “I know.”
Jimmy turned and walked over to the rope and began untying it.
One moment she was stuck with her hands over her head, the next her feet dropped to the ground as her body sagged. Relief did not come, however, because instantly her body was racked with muscle cramps. She cried out in pain.
Jimmy slowly lowered her all the way to the ground. It was basically a controlled collapse.
Samantha withered in agony as the fierce pins and needles raced across her body. The areas of pain were so large that she couldn’t distinguish where one ended and another began.
Tears fell from her eyes.
Her hands had the worst of it. For hours they had been a purplish tint, which meant blood was failing to get through to them. Now there was an onrush.
Slowly the pain began to fade and she managed to open her eyes. They drifted right to her hands, which were still bound, but not suffering. Hours earlier she had squeezed them into tight fists. Now she opened them. The pins and needles returned.
She ground her teeth together.
Jimmy came and stood over her.
She looked up at him.
He took a knee and began untying her wrists.
White impressions marked where the ropes had been pressed into her skin. It would be a long time before they faded.
Jimmy suddenly took her right hand and slowly began to massage it. His fingers worked some of the tenderness away and brought a bit of life back into them.
Initially she felt warmth toward him and wondered if he would let her go, but then it faded as the situation changing quickly.
He dropped her hand and stood up.
She felt a new fright as he looked down upon her.
“Reach up into my pants,” he ordered.
Samantha did not move.
“Do it or I will hang you from your wrists for an entire night.”
Samantha didn’t feel like she was in control as her hand went up his right leg and into the opening of his shorts.
* * *
Jimmy quivered with pleasure as Samantha’s fingers got closer and closer to his penis, which was thumping with anticipation and excitement. And then her fingers wrapped around it and began stroking. Never before had a girl touched him like this and his knees actually vibrated uncontrollably each time her fingers twisted around the head of his erection, almost as if there was a reflex point within it, one which the doctor had never explored with his tiny little rubber hammer.
The moment was amazing, pure bliss, yet over much too quickly, the pleasure fading fast once he had spurted his load. At home he would have stopped jerking himself off at that moment but Samantha didn’t, and when her fingers came back around over his wet penis head it actually hurt, as if the nerves were so fired up that they couldn’t take the slightest contact.
His hands had been in his hair during the moment of ejaculation, but then quickly went down to stop her hand, his lips going, “Okay, okay, that’s enough.”
Never in a million years would he have thought pain would so easily follow, or that he would need several minutes to recover.
* * *
“You can wash your hands if you like at the sink back there,” Jimmy said afterward. He was sitting in the corner, his breathing slowly but surely returning to normal. “The water runs. I tested it last week.”
Samantha went to the sink as quickly as possible and made sure to get everything off. She didn’t even want a molecule or atom of his semen to remain on her and wished the Hoods had installed a nuclear or biological decontamination shower in the small shelter that she could jump into.
“That’s enough, they’re clean,” Jimmy said after she spent several minutes scrubbing. “I have to leave soon, but before I go you can have a bottle of water from the shelf. Drink as much as you want.”
Samantha did as she was told, her mouth and body craving the water. Cramps hit about a third of the way through the bottle, which is when she stopped, her shaky hands struggling to recap it.
“Finished?” Jimmy asked.
“Yes,” Samantha said. Her voice was still weak. She then put a hand to her side hoping the water cramp would pass.
Jimmy stood up and grabbed the rope that had bound her wrists earlier and said, “Okay, give me your hands.”
“Wait,” Samantha said once she realized what he was going to do. “I thought you were going to let me stay down?”
“No,” Jimmy said. “You’ve been down half an hour. I have to go and I can’t leave you like this.”
“Please, don’t tie me up like that again. Please don’t. Please.” The tears returned as she slowly backed away into the corner of the room. “I won’t try to get out, I promise.”
“Don’t make me force you. You don’t want that.” His voice was calm, yet had a terrifying edge to it.
Samantha continued crawling backward, like a kid trying to escape a spanking, her sobs echoing through the small room.
Anger suddenly distorted Jimmy’s face and he came toward her, rope in hand. Seeing this, Samantha wished she hadn’t put up any resistance.
Jimmy grabbed her right wrist and pulled her toward him. Pain shot through her arm and shoulder.
“Please, I’m sorry,” Samantha whimpered.
Jimmy ignored her as he twisted the rope around her right wrist several times and then grabbed the left one and did the same. He then wrapped the rope around both wrists and tied it.
“Get over here,” he said while yanking her toward the rope that hung from the pipe in the ceiling. In one quick move he had a knot tied to the rope that bound her wrists and pulled her up.
Her feet left the ground. Her wrists felt like they were on fire.
“OH! Ahhh.”
Jimmy held the rope. “This is what it feels like
to be suspended by your wrists. Do you want that?”
Samantha couldn’t say anything. Her feet kicked madly through the air trying to find the ground.
“Do you understand me?” he shouted.
“Yes,” she cried, the word barely coming out.
The pressure on her wrists disappeared as her feet were once again lowered to the ground. The relief she felt was indescribable.
“You ever act like that again and I’ll leave you up there all night and hit you a hundred times with my belt.” Spittle flew as he spoke.
“I’m sorry,” she said while crying, tears nearly choking her. “Please, I’m so sorry.” A part of her was angry at the way she apologized, but the reasonable part knew this was the only way to survive.
Jimmy turned away and tied the rope back around the pipe. He then flicked the light switch off while leaving, which left the room in complete darkness. Samantha couldn’t see a thing, but the relief at him being gone kept her from being upset about the darkness. He had also tied the rope in a way that allowed both her feet to be flat on the ground. In time this position would grow unbearable as well, but at the moment it wasn’t, and that was all that mattered.
Chapter Three
Megan Reed was the first to hear that Samantha King was missing and instantly thought foul play was involved. Unfortunately her father, Sheriff Reed, did not share in his daughter’s theory and had his own opinion.
“I can’t put out a missing person alert, Dorothy. Not until she’s been gone forty-eight hours.” Sheriff Reed sighed after speaking. This was the third time he had told Dorothy King about the policy.
Megan was one room over from her father, yet despite the distance, she could hear how hysterical Samantha’s mother was on the other end of the phone.
“No, it doesn’t matter. She’s eighteen and therefore an adult. All I can do — no, I know she’s still in high school but it doesn’t matter — all I can do is put out the word to my deputies that she is wanted back home and to let her know this if they come across her.” Dorothy said something franticly. “I’m sorry. She’s an adult and can do what she wants as far as the law is concerned.” More hysteria. “Dorothy listen. She’s probably out with friends and just lost track of time.”
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