Hi there. Might as well get down to the basics.
My name is Harrison. I'm currently 18, although it was during a summer when I was 16 when this story happened. I have copper-colored hair and blue eyes, and I'm...short. Like, really short. And look more like I'm 10 than 20. See, I had a type of growth hormone deficiency during a period of years when my mom was going through a divorce and a hard financial time. Because of that, we didn't have the time or the means for me to get treated during the early puberty years. By the time that option was available, even though treatment might have helped some, I was already pretty old and didn't really want to pursue that direction.So yep, I'm an eighteen-year-old who looks like he belongs in an elementary school. But I'm pretty cool with it now. Not so much when I was sixteen, though. I looked pretty much the same back then as I do now, but I was a lot more insecure about it. And it became a major point when my adventures with playing tie up games began!
My mom and I moved into this apartment complex when I was around 12, when we were still going on hard times. Things are better now, but we're still in the same small apartment we started in. Most of the people in the complex were unfriendly, but luckily for me there was a pair of brothers around my age on the floor below that I could spend time with (they'll be introduced when they become important to the tale later).
My neighborhood, on the other hand, had a lot of families with kids. It included a few blocks of area with a smattering of apartments and small houses alike. I spent some time at other people's houses, but no one else is important to the story except one family. This was the family that lived on the corner of our block, a few houses down from the complex. Along with a younger brother named Connor, around 9 or 10 during this summer, there were twin girls my age who lived there: Keesha and Valerie.
Although they were twins, they certainly didn't look alike. Keesha had curly blonde hair that she usually wore to the shoulders, with green eyes, while Valerie had straight brown/black hair and brown eyes. They were both beautiful, but Keesha developed a round, cute sort of face while Valerie had a pointed, supermodel-type look. Despite their differences, they were both tall and well-endowed, and were top members on the school's cheerleading team. (Valerie actually got to be cheer captain her senior year.)
Anyway, that's plenty of introduction, so I'll start my retelling now.
The summer break had just started, and I was beginning to feel the effects of wanting to relax but having nothing to do. My other friends had already gone to their various summer camps and whatnot, so I'd have to entertain myself. I spent the warm days mostly biking around the neighborhood. (My bike was a pale, scratched blue. It had originally been a boy's Spiderman bike that I had spent a lot of time scraping the decals off of.) I was about to head out on a late Friday afternoon when my mom caught my wrist before I could leave.
"Could you just pop in down at Sydney's?" my mom asked. Sydney was Keesha and Valerie's mother and an acquaintance of my mom.
"Uh...sure, why?" I asked.
"She called about an hour ago to chat. Turns out that she and her husband's business is going to be taking them out of town every weekend this summer. She's recently been catching the twins up to no good, and she's nervous about leaving them at home. I told her you'd go check on them."
"Mom, I hardly know them."
"I know, but I already promised you'd check."
I sighed as I strapped on my helmet and headed out the door. It would certainly be awkward, but I knew that things would turn out worse if I didn't do as my mom said.
Or, rather, I thought they'd turn out worse. Turns out that I was very, very wrong.
I decided to get the visit over with and quickly biked down to their house. It was a pretty large lot compared to the other buildings in the area, with plenty of trees in the yard. I hesitantly walked my bike up to the door and rang the bell, trying to figure out what I was going to say.
It was Keesha who answered the door. Even though she had that round, cherubic look about her, she's always been the more fiery of the two. When she opened the door, she was wearing a tank top and jeans, and she gave me the most dismissive look I had ever seen. "What d'you want, kid?"
I tried to look mature, but, as was my habit, as I got nervous I swallowed and looked at my shoes, which didn't help too much. When it came to my own green T-shirt and jeans, I had been able to find clothes that weren't too childish, but with my mom's small budget we'd just had to get the sneakers that could fit me. These were bright red and blue, and had those lights that blinked when you walked, which thankfully had stopped working long before now. "I, uh...It's Harrison. You know, from your class?"
She looked me over. She was probably about to remark that she were to high school, not kindergarten, when a faint recognition went off in her eyes. "Oh yeah, you're that short guy who was in my...math class, I think?"
"History." I pulled my gaze up and cleared my throat, trying to make it sound deeper. "Hey, uh, I know this is going to sound weird, but your mom wanted me to just...come over and see how things were going."
"Huh? You mean...?" Suddenly her face became fiercer. "Seriously? We do one little thing wrong and she's having us checked up on? Oh hell no!" Luckily her anger didn't seem to be aimed at me, but at her mother. "Well you'd better come in and make sure we aren't praying to Satan or anything, huh?" She moved out of the doorway and gestured for me to come inside.
It was a very cozy house: a lot of the space was filled with knick-knacks and such. Keesha led me around through the kitchen and into a living room, where Valerie was sitting in a T-shirt and shorts on their fluffed couch in front of the paused movie that I had apparently interrupted.
Valerie gave me a much sweeter look than her sister had when I came in. "Oh, hi there. Are you playing with Connor today?"
Before I could say a word, Keesha jumped in. "He's Harrison, from high school. Says Mom told him to come check on us."
Valerie's look darkened as well. "I didn't think she'd have the guts to do something like that."
"Me neither, but I've thought of something that might make it all worthwhile. Here," Keesha said, gesturing to me. "Sit down for just a second. I've got to talk about something with my sister."
Nervously I perched on the overstuffed cushions as Valerie and Keesha retreated to the kitchen in a hush of whispers. I looked around, trying to find something to distract myself while I waited. My eyes moved to the TV. Apparently they had been watching a blockbuster superhero movie, and they had just happened to pause during a scene in which one of the main characters was tied up.
For some reason, I was fixated on that image, and I almost forgot where I was. There was part of me that was instantly repulsed by the idea of being tied up and stripped of all free will, especially since I already felt like I was patronized enough in my normal life. But, perhaps for the same reason, I suddenly felt a jolt of pleasure at the prospect, the idea that being "owned" and punished by someone would feel good, like I was useful in that small way. It was very disconcerting having those feelings for one of the first times in my life, and the events afterward would solidify them in my mind.
Suddenly something slammed into my back and tossed me to the ground, knocking the wind right out of me. When I had managed to get air back into my lungs, I noticed a pressure cinching into around my wrists. I tried to twist them away, but they were firmly pinned behind my back by whoever was sitting on me. A moment later, Valerie came into my view.
"Congrats, sweetie. You get to have an adventure today," she laughed.
"What are you doing? Let me go!" I yelled, wiggling.
Valerie tapped her chin. "Hmmmm...how about...no." She leaned down and looked right into my eyes. "See, here's the thing. My sister and I have been playing the whole tie up game with our younger brother for a while now. He's always been an easy target for our pranks. Unfortunately he finally got brave enough to rat out on us to our mother. She threw a fit. And she also apparently arranged to have us spied upon."
"I have no idea--"
"Of course you don't, but it doesn't matter." Valerie laughed again. "See, you and Connor are about the same size...and you came at the right time, in the right place. I think fate was handing me and my sister a new toy to replace the one we lost."
"Now come on," she said, lightly tapping my nose. "Let's get you all trussed up."