Tigger9 : My True Story – Part 3 (f/f)

[Fordman]

My True Story part 3
By: Tigger9

Note: This story was recovered from the old site and edited for spelling and format to improve the reader’s experience.

Sundays were very slow days in our house. Each week, my sister and I normally woke up before anyone else, as the youngest ones always seem to, and dragged our duvets downstairs to the lounge where we would watch TV and eat cereal. Neither of us cared what time it was; it was enough to know that we had school tomorrow, which meant today must be a Sunday, and we had been watching cartoons for at least an hour so were well and truly tuned out. Eventually though, the sound of the front door opening and closing was followed moments later by S putting her head around the door to the lounge.

"Morning girl 3, morning girl 4", she chirped, girl 3 being my sister, the third eldest girl in the family, and girl 4 being me.

"Hello!" we chirped back.

"Is anyone else up yet then?" she asked, looking at my sister.

"Nope" she replied, not quite concentrating. It was annoying the way that she half listened to you when she was watching the TV, which was very often indeed.

"Ah." S looked around the room and eventually found something to say.

"You'd both better clear all this stuff up when you've finished, this room is getting into a state."

"What stuff?" asked my sister.

"Bowls, cups, duvets, magazines..." she said, pointing at things with her finger.

"Okay" my sister replied, again half concentrating. Eventually, S turned towards me.

"No baby reins today then, madam?" I looked back at her and smiled, feeling slightly red-faced as before, as though I'd been caught in the act doing something naughty. "I had them on for ages yesterday", I said.

"And she went in the buggy", my sister added.

"Oh, you fit into it then, do you?" said S. "What was that like?"

"Fun," I offered, hesitantly, "but a bit weird."

"I bet it was. Did you have plenty of room in it? Was it comfortable?"

"Yeah, and I could fit in the straps easily."

"The built in ones?" she asked.

"Yep, but I had my reins on as well."

"Did your sister click you in with the reins?"

"No, I just had them on and I put the pushchair straps on over the top of them."

"Ah," she said, looking interested, "well did you know that you can use the reins to tie little kids to stuff?

"No, how?" I asked, my curiosity seriously aroused.

"You use the little clippy bits at the back. You know the bits where the walking strap clicks on?"

"Yep."

"Well sets of reins come with a pair of little straps called anchor straps, and you can use those on highchairs, pushchairs, or anything you want to strap them to." Very intrigued at the idea of this, I ran up to my bedroom where I had taken the reins off yesterday and grabbed them off the floor before running back downstairs.

I unfolded them and started to look at them in closer detail; they did indeed have two small straps hanging from the clips with the walking reins, and it hadn't occurred to me to ask what they were for before now. S took the reins from me and explained how the anchor straps were attached to the harness after they had been looped around whatever it was they were being secured to. She asked me if I understood and I nodded, but I obviously didn't look quite convinced as she asked her next question.

"Do you want me to show you how they work?"

"How?" I asked, having some inkling of what she was going to say next.

"Go and get the buggy and we'll try it out."

I didn't need to be told twice. The idea of not only being put in the baby reins again but being secured into something by S, who I knew by now to be good at snugging up the straps on these things, sounded like fun. I ran into the kitchen where I had propped up the buggy the previous evening and wheeled it back into the lounge. I started unfolding it but S took it from me.

"Let me do that honey, I can do it quicker than you." And she was quite right; one fluid motion later and the buggy finished unfolding with a clack. She then walked over to the sofa, picked up the reins and headed towards me. She knelt down to be at my chest level and got the reins ready to slide up my arms.

"Are these adjusted to the right size then?" she asked not really expecting an answer as she stretched the harness out in front of me and drew it up over my shoulders, wrapping her arms around my waist. With a rapid, unhesitating action, the reins became snug and I heard the now familiar sound of the clasp fastening. Here I was again, a nine year old in a baby harness.

"Right," she said, picking me up by my armpits and dumping me into the pushchair, "in you get." S had always treated me like a toddler since she first knew me, when I was seven. It was the small things like putting my coat on for me rather than letting me do it, or constantly asking me if I needed to go to the toilet when we were out places.

Nothing embarrassing really and being thought of as the baby was something I was used to, but she made me feel a bit helpless and while part of me resented that because I was not a toddler, it made the other part of me feel very well looked after and safe. This was an extreme example - it would have been one thing to climb into the buggy myself but it was taken out of my hands as she swung me into the seat, as you would a tantruming toddler.

"These are the bits here" she said, pulling one of the harness clips around to the front of the reins just far enough so that I could see it on my left hand side. "This bit comes off and wraps on around the D-ring on the buggy" she continued, unclipping the anchor strap from the harness and attached it to the ring. I twisted around slightly so that I could see what she was doing, but I still didn't quite understand how it worked. "Then we do the other side exactly the same" she said as she repeated the motion on my right. "There we go, that's it."

With her hands on both of the harness clips, she pushed backwards into the buggy, pressing me snugly against the seat, and there was a pair of sharp clicks. She adjusted the anchor straps in another typically fluid motion, pulled her hands out and the feeling of tension at both sides of my torso told me that I had been anchored into the buggy. My sister and S looked at me expectantly and after a moment, I wriggled to see how much I was restrained. I was surprised to find that I could still move my shoulders but as I tried to pull against the buggy seat, I realized that I couldn't move my bottom out of the seat at all. The feeling was completely overwhelming. Being strapped into the car seat had been a very secure feeling that made me feel babyish but well protected; there was no feeling that I was being punished. With this though, it was completely the opposite and the image that went through my head was that of the tantruming child again. Knowing that so many toddlers rode in pushchairs without any straps on at all, I felt very babied and untrusted being strapped in with reins like this. It was the kind of thing you would do to a serial escapee toddler who would not do as they were told.

"How's that then?" S asked. "Like it?"

"I don't know", I said and it was quite true, I was conflicted. I knew we were just playing but for the first time, I didn't feel the exciting feeling of being restrained. I felt as though I was starting to understand why so many little kids complain when they are strapped into things.

"See if you can get free" said my sister and I thought that was a good idea, so I pulled out every escapee trick I could think of. I leaned around to one side and tried to release the clips from the anchor straps but as I strained against the seat, I put so much tension in the anchors that I had none of the slack I needed to unclip them. Giving up on those, I tried again to open the clasp and reached as hard as I could behind my back. I could feel the clasp and I knew how it worked but despite all my efforts, I just could not squeeze the sides together to release myself. I relaxed my arms and looked down at the reins, beaten by their childproof design. Knowing that I was helpless, S had walked over to the sofa and was doing the parental thing of passively tidying up after us, gathering our cups together and picking up cushions that had been flung off into the center of the lounge.

"Can I get out now?" I asked.

"But we've only just put you in there!" said S, sitting down on the part of the sofa she had just cleared.

"I want to get out now" I said again, getting the tiniest bit annoyed.

"Oh, okay then" said S, getting back up and walking towards me. She slid her hands into the seat either side of my waist and unclipped me from the D-rings, loosening the tension and making me feel much better. Once again, S picked me up out of the pushchair and stood me back up on the floor, my reins still snugly fastened over my pajamas.

"Are you keeping these on again for the moment?" S asked me and as I went to reply that I was.

I felt her reattaching the walking reins to my harness. "Oh, now wait a second" she said, reaching for the anchor straps which were still attached to the pushchair. "I'll leave these hanging from your reins so that they don't get lost" she explained, again fumbling with the clips behind my back. After another two clicks, I turned around and got back up onto the sofa to return to TV watching. In the meantime, S folded the pushchair back up and wheeled it out of the room.

I looked down at my reins again and was transfixed by them. Even though I had just found out firsthand what it was like to be strapped down with them, I still liked the safe feeling I had when I wore them.

My sister had become a bit disinterested since this had started and though she did find it slightly amusing to watch my fun with the baby reins turn into embarrassment, she was not really paying attention. S came back into the room and announced that she had left the buggy in the utility room if we wanted to play with it again.

"If you don't, you'd better remember to put it back in the attic because someone's going to fall over it in there eventually" she said, sitting back down with us on the sofa.

I decided to cuddle up, as I very often did, and leaned my head against her arm. We were very a very tactile family and S had long since become part of it, so my sister and I would readily cuddle up to her while we watched a film or were just sat in front of the TV in the evening, much to our brother's annoyance. "Hey you" she said, lightly stroking my back with her left hand. We stayed like that for a little while, and then she stopped stroking and picked up the walking reins, examining the webbing close up.

"What is it you like about these things?" she asked, which disarmed me because I didn't have an explanation ready. I didn't really know.

"I don't know, I just do."

"Is it the feeling of being the smallest, the baby that you like?"

"I don't know."

"I've never seen anyone of your age in reins but you see little kids all the time who look like they're hating being restrained in them."

"I hated mine," said my sister who was apparently still listening, "they were like my chains. Mum told me that I used to sit there in my highchair straining and straining to get out."

"Well that sounds about normal. But you like them, it would seem!" S said, again jiggling the reins so that the clips rattled around. "It's interesting that you can't get out of them even at your age. That means we could actually start using them on you properly."

I didn't really take that suggestion seriously, but she carried on. "Not for everyday trips but for when your lot have to go to an airport, or a theme park, anywhere with lots of people and a good chance that you'll get lost."

"But I won't get lost. I'm nine years old and I know how not to get lost" I protested, a tiny bit concerned now that they were actually suggesting this seriously.

"What about kidnappers though?" she said, baiting me. "Child molesters, abductors? Any of them could snatch you, and you wouldn't be able to do much about that."

I couldn't really argue with that and it did remind me that even now, when I went out somewhere busy with my mum, or particularly with my grandparents, they would always hold my hand tightly and tell me to stay close to them, as though I was a very small child who didn't understand what kidnapping was.

"At least with these," said S, gradually tightening her grip on the reins, "you don't have to remember to stay close. And you'd have both hands free as well." It made sense as she described it but I didn't like the idea of the reins being reinstated on big trips permanently. The idea was making my thoughts race and eventually, I decided to stop thinking about it.

"Can I get out of the reins now?" I asked, looking up at S. "I suppose so" she said, reaching down to release the clasp but before she could, I suddenly changed my mind. "No, I want to keep them on" I said and she pulled her hand away again. I then flip-flopped again.

"No, take them off actually", I said. "Please."

"Look, do you want them on or not?" she asked.

"I don't know" I said, again torn over whether I should enjoy the feeling of being harnessed or put this babyishness to one side. "Er..."

"Okay, how about this", S responded. "I'll take them off now, you two can go upstairs to get ready and then I'll take you out for a walk down the beach. Fancy that?"

My sister replied for both of us and ran past us up to my room to get herself dressed. In the meantime, S tapped me on the shoulder and told me to stand up. I did so and the telltale bit of tension above my waist told me that S was again holding my reins at short range. She then dropped the walking reins and unfastened the harness clasp.

"There we are then," she said, sliding the reins down off my arms, bundling them up and handing them to me, "off you go." I promptly ran upstairs and dumped them on my bed.