02 - Madeleine at the Stake
Story index at the bottom
By Jim (translated from German by Gillian B)
Wed Mar 17 00:40:49 Est 1999
Original German version by Jim
English translation by Gillian B
In my last story, I mentioned that the time Madeleine was tied up in her living room was not the only experience that my cousin Robert and I had with her. In May after the time of that first story, when Robert would probably have been 13, the three of us went to visit relatives of mine for a couple of days in their big country house. It was an unusually hot May day. Madeleine sat on the patio wearing a bikini and T-shirt, while Robert and I were in his room in the basement. His sister Christine, who I think was 10 at the time, was in her own room. My uncle and aunt were at work. It was not long before Robert and I began to hatch devious plans. I think we had actually already had ideas like these for some time.
As I mentioned previously, Robert's greatest ambition was to tie a girl to the stake. He suggested his sister Christine as our first victim "for practice", before we moved on to a grown-up woman. I was astonished at how well prepared he was: he had an enormous collection of old cords and ropes which had come from the stable where his sister kept her horse. He also had a whole bed sheet cut into strips. The plan he had worked out was to get Christine to play a Cowboys and Indians game - which she had often joined in before, but he thought she would not be enthusiastic about the idea of being a Cowgirl tied up by the Indians. That was exactly her reaction when we explained our plan to her in our room. Robert came up with the idea of drawing lots to decide who would get the unpopular role of victim. I only really liked that idea when it was Christine's name that was drawn. Robert told me later that he had written Christine's name on all three of the pieces of paper we had chosen from.
Anyway, she accepted her fate and allowed herself to be led into the small guest bedroom. Without further ado, she sat down on the floor and we tied her hands behind her back. We wound a rope several times round her body and Robert pulled it very tightly round his little sister. She complained about it a bit and I could see that she wasn't exaggerating. We bound her legs in several places and gagged her with a strip of cloth in her mouth and another one tied over it. We propped our bound prisoner up against a wall in the basement. We were not yet properly "Indian" so we went out into the garden to find a suitable place to put up Robert's wigwam (a plastic Indian tent from a toyshop) and most of all somewhere to "torture" our prisoner. When we returned to the basement, I was alarmed: Madeleine was in the room with Christine, who was still bound and gagged. She said to me, "I want to talk to you." In another room she said she had nothing against Robert's games, nor against me playing along with him as his cousin, but Christine was too young to be treated like that. I was very disappointed, but then Madeleine said nobly, "If you want to play at being Indians, take me instead." In protecting Christine, she had played right into our hands!
I was on cloud nine and the children also immediately agreed to this idea. Christine was freed and became one of the "Indians", while, at my suggestion, Madeleine went to dress up as a Cowgirl (partly to prevent ropes causing injury to bare skin). She looked great when she came back: calf-length boots, tight brown cord jeans, a frilly white blouse and a brightly coloured bandanna round her neck but no hat. Madeleine came straight to the point, "How do you want to tie me up?" We wanted to enjoy this game to the full, so first she had to hide somewhere in the house. We eventually found her in a wardrobe. She came out with her hands up. We marched her to the basement and into the guest room, where a big heap of rope was ready for her, which she accepted with equanimity. I addressed her in my best "Indian", "White squaw put hands behind back!" - which she did anyway voluntarily. I tied her wrists crosswise, using several turns of rope, led the rope up her back and round her chest a few times above bust level. I placed another long rope lower down, tied it to the first rope behind her back, pulled it tight and knotted the ends. Meanwhile, Robert bound her legs near the top of her thighs (just a bit embarrassing as he was a stranger to her) as well as above and below the knees. Christine did her best with Madeleine's feet. I examined everything to make sure it was all really secure - no early escapes to spoil the fun.
Madeleine played along brilliantly, squirmed in her ropes and lamented, "Please, great warrior, don't kill me. I only came into your country by accident. Please spare me - don't send me to the stake." How did she come to know our plan? Perhaps she expected as a matter of course to end up at the stake in an Indian game - she had not experienced anything like that at our hands.
Anyway, it was time to gag her. I knew that she did not particularly like it (tight ropes however bothered her less) but this time she had two balled up strips of cloth stuffed into her mouth. How practical her Cowgirl's outfit turned out to be - we used her bandanna to tie the gag in firmly. We left her like that lying on the guest room bed and, just to make sure, I locked the room door from the outside, provoking a loud "Mmmmppppffff" from inside.
The three of us prepared our Indian encampment in a secluded corner of the large garden surrounded by sheds, the wall of the house and a line of trees. We put the wigwam up and lit a "camp fire" (actually only some candles stuck in the ground together). The most important thing was the choice of a stake. We needed a tree trunk neither too thin nor too thick, so that it would be possible to cross Madeleine's wrists behind it.
We found a suitable small tree and used a pocket knife to trim the remains of dead branches from the trunk. Perfect! Our "stake" was a good 2 metres tall (over 6 feet) and was well away from other trees so you could easily go right round it. I remembered reading that Indians bound their prisoners with wet ropes or thongs which would shrink in the sun. Now was a chance to try it out. We soaked Robert's collection of rope in a big bucket of water for a short while. After that, Robert fetched his collection of plastic tomahawks and other equipment and everything was ready.
In the mean time, I had gone back to Madeleine's prison. This time she had made a strenuous effort to escape, to which the rumpled bed sheet and her dishevelled brown hair testified. I wanted to make sure this was all in the spirit of the game and briefly removed her gag. She smiled and said, "Everything's OK. Please make sure that Robert doesn't hurt me too much. Tell the children that we won't tell their parents about this game. And untie me before they get back." It was only early afternoon, so we had had her OK for three hours' tying time! I happily re-gagged her and carried her up the basement steps. Even quite a slim woman 1.60m (5'4") tall is a considerable weight to carry, which I had not realised from watching scenes like this in films.
We didn't untie her legs, but made her hop across the lawn to our Indian encampment. It was a delight to watch her efforts to make progress without falling over. She grunted through her gag and worked hard with her body hunched over. For the last 20m, I picked her up and carried her again. Finally, panting, she sat by our campfire, a well-tied bundle.
Robert spoke in "Indian", Christine giggled and Madeleine mmmmppppffed. I removed her gag and she asked, "Have you ever seen Indians keep their prisoners gagged in their own camp? How could they call for help?" We had to admit she was right. Also we could add exciting dialogue to our game, with Madeleine in her role as helpless victim, which she was playing with such talent. She stared with wide eyes at the stake, the pile of wet rope and Robert's instruments of torture beside it - all for her. "Please don't tie me to the stake, I'll do anything you Indians want." "At least don't tie me so tightly, please." "What do you want with a poor, helpless squaw?"
She was really brilliant. We led her to the stake and stood her against it with her bottom and her back against it. For an instant her hands and body were free. She massaged her wrists and brushed her hair away from her face, then she allowed us - with only token resistance - to pull her arms round behind her. I bound her wrists with a long piece of wet rope and wrapped it two or three times round the tree at hip level. We put lots of rope round her body, above and below her bust as well as crosswise over her shoulders. Robert was like a mad thing, rushing round our prisoner with rope. I checked that ropes were positioned correctly and were all properly fastened. Although her legs and feet were already bound, they too were secured to the stake with long ropes. Finally, she had another rope around her neck, but, naturally, not tight. During the tying she stood quite calmly, while the ropes were put in place.
I stood back for a moment to admire our efforts: Madeleine at the stake, tightly tied and surely with no chance of freeing herself. Her bonds were in themselves a form of "torture"; she couldn't turn herself more than a fraction in either direction. She asked why she had been tied with wet rope. Robert answered, "The sun will make them shrink and cut into your flesh, white woman!" The prisoner did not reply. (By the way, I can't confirm any shrinkage. Madeleine was tied to the tree for about two hours, and in that time the ropes hardly shrank at all. Perhaps we made them too wet.)
During the time that followed, our prisoner stood in the sun - it was an unusually hot May day - and (naturally) she didn't move. Sweat ran off her in streams, but she hardly spoke, bravely awaiting her fate. I was content to study her from all angles, as I walked round her from time to time. I think she basically quite liked this attention. She stood there tightly bound and sweating. I thought about what "torture" would now be suitable for Madeleine. It would naturally be uncomfortable, but not really painful. We three "Indians" withdrew and discussed the next move. Robert had lots of ideas like the one we actually put into practice, which I will describe shortly. Others, such as throwing knives to land next to her head, were non-starters.
To begin with, the children did a wild war dance around the stake with whoops and waving tomahawks. Madeleine rolled her eyes and occasionally called out, "Help!" as Robert brandished his toy weapons in front of her face. I was a quiet but well entertained spectator. Our prisoner and her tormentor carried right on with the game. Next, we added fire. We took several of the candles from our "campfire" and stuck them in the ground immediately under Madeleine's bound hands.
Slowly the heat rose upwards (it was naturally not really hot, and I checked to make sure of that). Madeleine twisted her fingers and writhed her whole body in its bonds to avoid the heat. With a pretence of fear, she protested that you couldn't do such a thing to an innocent squaw, and so on. We repeated this "torture" several times. Robert then wanted to set fire to brushwood around her feet, but a look of real fear came into Madeleine's eyes this time, so I vetoed this idea. We took a short break at this point and got cold drinks from the house, which we drank in front of our prisoner's eyes. She begged and pleaded for a sip, "Dying of thirst isn't part of an Indian torture." My response was natural, how did she know? "A cowgirl knows things like that," was her answer. Finally, after a quarter of an hour we gave her some. She really needed it.
Next, Robert shot at Madeleine with his home-made bow and arrows (rubber-tipped arrows). With wide eyes, she begged for mercy. The arrows whizzed past at a safe distance, with a sigh of relief from the bound prisoner each time. The climax was a little riskier, but worth it.
We got my uncle's dart board from the house and lashed it in front of our prisoner's tummy with rope. We frightened Madeleine by making a great show of getting ready to throw darts at the board. When we really threw darts, it was from a distance of only about 2 metres (about 6 feet) and with very little force. All the darts either stuck quivering in the board or fell to the ground. Madeleine stirred herself up for the culmination of her act and once again pleaded "for her life".
By this time, Christine had lost interest in this game and had gone back into the house. Robert and I finally followed her, it was just too hot. Robert, however, still went outside every few minutes to check on Madeleine's bonds and to report back to me, inside, that to his disappointment, they were not shrinking. After Madeleine had been our prisoner for about two and a half hours, I decided that was enough. I went outside to our perspiring white squaw and, to my surprise, she was gagged again and chewing energetically on the piece of cloth in her mouth.
Robert had not been able to resist the temptation to put the gag (which she disliked) back on our helpless victim. Now it was definitely time to untie her. I fetched a knife and in less than 10 minutes, Madeleine was completely free and slumped away from the stake and into my arms.
The first thing she did was to have a drink. She was a bit cross with Robert for gagging her a second time and also with me because I had not properly kept an eye on her at the end. What could I say - that I found Robert's actions acceptable? Exhaustion got the better of her and early in the evening she fell asleep like a baby.
Jim (translation by Gillian)
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Jim's stories Translated from German by Gillian B
- 01 - Madeleine (mM/F, M/mF)
- 02 - Madeleine at the Stake (mM/f, mMf/F)
Index of all stories in the "Archive for Everyone" section