she sat there, barelegged and sort of innocent, charmed him. The day had
been filled with emotions - nervousness, embarrassment, daring,
excitement, foreboding and perhaps some covetousness - but yet he
entered the room feeling a sense of danger and disbelief. It was
impossible not to think of the trouble of keeping the game going, the
chances of being caught, the things that would happen when it was over,
quite truly, gave him sobering thoughts. It was only after some time he
really studied the girl before him.
     Silent, subdued of body if not of spirit, sweetly patient, or so he
thought, enduring just enough pain and discomfort to keep her alert, she
became to him a kind of girl he had never seen or suspected to exist. It
occurred to him that he had never seen a real woman in all his life.
     Girls were a pain in the ass. They urged you on then ran away and
stood giggling. They came in fantasies in the night. You needed girls
but they did not need you. That was the pain.
     But Nola was different. She was now. Though it was imposed and
enforced, she exuded a feminine quality of submission. The tension
between them changed as his guard hour wore along, changed between the
woman and him. Before it had been Nola tied up by kids and now suddenly
before him a woman brought to her proper, humble place by her MASTER.
She was given her role and he was playing his, a stunning conception.
This was living. But it was only him who was going to get it good when
all of this was over and finished.  

                            CHAPTER 9

     Things were harder for Paul.
     Everything was harder for Paul.
     He knew he laughed too loud and too soon. He cried too easily. He
could not fight yet he couldn't hold his temper a bit. His missed stupid
questions at school because he thought too much. The world was more
menacing to him than to others. Yet Paul also saw terrible terrors in
familiar shadows, and felt things that were not warranted, ore grief,
more beauty. His sensitivity went beyond the useful to the useless. Now
that he was thirteen Paul knew others did not understand him and never
would. He was a stranger in the world. Paul had to control an
uncontrollable self.
     Dianne, for example, could come home from a day like today with
Nola and help at home obediently. To look at her an outsider would
conclude that it has been merely another boring day.
     Paul, however, was still flushed and trembling with thoughts of
hours just past. The transgression of the children against an adult, the
possibilities of the Nola game to come, the inescapable punishment,
before which he writhed in anticipation, were burned vividly on his
mind. He sniffed and twitched and stared into space, he heard no words
when spoken to and was finally sent to his room by his parents, where he
sat in furious confusion and rage at the world.
     ...
     He was dreaming. Restless dreams. About the stories that Dianne had
told him about - Nola, cute in her nightie, tied and gagged, so
helpless, games he could play with her given the chance. He screamed
more in delight than in fright.
     "It's all right, mother." Dianne was first down the hall. "Paul's
just having another nightmare. I'll take care of it. Don't get up."
Entering his room and switching on the light, she saw his thin, bone
rigid face.
     "Dianne, I..I.." he said confused.
     Dianne actually smiled, but from relief, amusement, or contempt, it
was impossible to say. She looked down on her younger brother with
compassion.
     Throwing back the sheet, she saw that Paul's pyjamas were soaked,
his hair limp with sweat and his eyes wide, staring. She shook him
gently. "Wake up now. Sit up a minute." Going to the bathroom she
returned with some water and a towel to dry him with.
     She removed his pyjamas top and patted him dry. "Turn over." she
ordered, then lowered the bottoms and continued to dry him.
     Some time afterward, when he had quieted down a little, she turned
out the light and stroked his chest and stomach. She removed her
pyjamas, climbed into the bed beside him, and began to tell him about
the scary book she was reading and he listened closely to every horrible
word.

                           CHAPTER 10

     Having fed Nola, the kids had gagged her again, engineered her to
bed, spread-eagled and tied her there. She was embarrassed and angry -
had been all day - but at the same time she was strangely relieved.
After the morning's shocks of discovery, the hours of discomfort sitting
in the chair, the ordeal of being watched and guarded all the time, she
was almost pleased to be lying down, quiet and - for the instant alone.
The same position that had seemed intolerable before now seemed
bearable.
     That's not true, Nola said. People who are tied up don't just lie
around in comfort. Soon enough, the muscles round her underarms and in
her hips would begin to ache. She would hurt. "I can't stand it," she
groaned. But its going to happen anyway. The anticipation alone was
enough to throw her into unreasonable hysteria, make her exert every
ounce of her energy in one more desperate struggle to be free. Young
Bobby was improving as a jailer, however: he had used the longest rope
and her wrists were tied with hitches in the middle and the ends were
out of sight behind the headboard. There was nothing to tempt her or
raise her hopes. And she could not even sleep.
     ...
     The ache in her body that she had foreseen had set in now. She was
extended tightly, permanently and immovably, and now the muscles
protested.

                           CHAPTER 11

     The kids arrived earlier the next morning. Awake and squirming for
hours, Nola heard them yelling their way through the woods, up the steps
through the kitchen - Anxiously, she watched them fan into the room. She
was frantic to be allowed some movement, any movement, and she knew that
she would not be allowed so much as a twitch if she frightened them. She
lay very still and docile.
     At once, it was apparent that since she was taken captive her
jailers, at least, had lost their nervousness. This downgraded her
further and it was discouraging.
     "Shall we do it the way we did yesterday?" John said.
     "Yeah." Bobby was still a little sleepy. "Only this time I'm going
to put two turns of rope around her neck when she walks."
     "Why?"
     "Oh" - there was malice in his tone - "it'd hurt more."
     "Let me hold the rope behind her today." Paul's eyes darted with
energy from Bobby to John.
     "He likes to be behind girls." Cindy gave a very shy and knowing
smile.
     "I do not!"
     "Do so."
     "Let him." Dianne said.
     "Get the rope."
     Far more quickly than yesterday, they had Nola on her feet, elbows
tied to her sides, one hand tied up behind and almost between her
shoulder blades, her ankles hobbled. They were rougher, quicker, surer
- they seemed to have no further fear that she might somehow escape or
overpower them - and Nola made no resistance except that when she
finally sat up and before she stood up, she bent forward and eased her
hurting back a moment. This, they allowed her, and like any prisoner,
she supposed, she did not prolong her pleasure. She stood up stiffly;
she moved as they wished; and she co-operated fully. What had been
humiliating yesterday was simply more expedient - less painful today.
Moreover it avoided the futile defeat a one-handed struggle would bring
against six determined youngsters.
     Nola began to realize how people could be broken. You'd do anything
to please.
     They shuffled her to the bathroom where Dianne stood guard. Then
they put her in the chair and gave her the same breakfast of cereal and
juice except that they let her feed herself. Awkwardly, one hand was
free from the elbow down. She had to bend and strain and more or less
slurp. Quite naturally, she dribbled and Dianne was there to wipe her,
like a baby.
     Afterward - and she pleaded for this - the children even allowed
her to remain ungagged, though her free hand was once again bound up
with the other behind her back.  ...
     "Why are you doing it, Dianne?"
     "Hmmm?" Dianne had settled down on Nola's bed with her lewd book on
the Spanish Inquisition.
     When Nola spoke, she looked up cooly.
     "Me. Why are you keeping me tied up?"
     "It's only a game -" Dianne spoke off handedly.
     It stabbed Nola. They did not know how much they were hurting her;
even she did not entirely know. It was only just beginning to pile up.
Last night had been a nightmare.
     "It's only a game," Dianne said, "and besides, we aren't hurting
you."
     "You are too," Nola said definitely.
     "I haven't heard any crying and moaning and groaning."
     "How could I?"
     "It isn't hard."
     "How do you know?"
     "The same way."
     "They've tied me up. Worse than you. We've all taken turns."
     "You? The six of you? All of you?"
     "Um." Dianne was nonchalant. "It's a game we used to play. One time
they tied my hands to a tree limb and tickled my feet and put red ants
on my legs. I cried and they all laughed. I was there for a long time.
That really hurt."
     "And that's a game?"
     "Um." Dianne shrugged again.
     "Where did you ever get the idea to so something like that?"
     "I don't know. You see it on TV or in the comics." She looked down
at her book. "Do you know what people used to do with red hot pokers. Do
you read very much in college?"
     "Yes." She tried to stretch her muscles. She was tied tight and it
hurt. Still, at least she didn't have a gag in her mouth.
     "Not that, though."
     "Oh." Dianne seemed disappointed. "Anyhow, playing Prisoner can be
fun when it's not your turn."
     You used to do stuff like that when you were young yourself.
     "No, I didn't." It startled her.
     "Hmmm." Dianne barely made the sound at all, but she looked at the
captive closely.
     Nola felt the scrutiny. She met Dianne's eyes. Perhaps Dianne
didn't believe her, or perhaps she did and thought it odd. Whatever,
there was a degree of contempt in her look and Nola lowered her head.
     In fact, Dianne's question had started up a memory. Nola had been
raised in an apartment building. What she remembered now was an
uncomfortable relationship with the other kids. Specifically she
remembered the whispering and sniggering of kids in the parking lot at
night. A low murmur that dropped and turned to hostility if she
approached.
     "Hey, Nola, what d'ya do for fun?"
     "I know what I'd like to do with her - "
     Laughter -
     She was anxious for the warmth of the group that laughed and talked
so intimately, but at the same time this repelled her. She always turned
away and would hear the resumption of secrets and giggles over her
shoulder.





     They wanted her. She felt that boys and girls alike wanted her to
do something or they wanted to do something to her and afterward she
would be one of them. Nola didn't know what the suspected initiation was
- in her imagination any number of wild things - but she knew it would
be in a place somewhere far from help, that it would be in a crowd and
hands on her body and -- and -- and she knew that even if she forced
herself to begin, she would cry and get frightened of it and wind up
much worse than before. Nola would not be dirtied and the barriers
stood.
     "I don't know what the other kids did." she said to Dianne. "I
never played that way."
     Dianne smiled a faintly contemptuous smile.
     "You're going to play that way now!"
     ...

                           CHAPTER 12

     At lunch they had been talking about her but Nola could not hear
much of it. Afterward when John came to take his turn at guard he
brought with him a certain tension. It was so real that although she was
still ungagged, Nola said nothing at first.
     John came over and needlessly checked her ropes then sat down out
of her vision and it was quiet except that the room still held that
tension.
     After a while Nola turned her head and saw from the corner of her
eye that John was knotting one of the unused pieces of rope.
     "What're you doing?"
     "Nothing."
     "Are you sure?"
     "Sure." He looked up, mildly surprised. "What do you think I was
doing?"
     Nola frowned and faced forward again, more nervous now. The tension
just wouldn't go away. When John said or did nothing, however, she said,
"John, why're you doing this to me?"
     "I don't know." He was quiet then, "We thought it'd be fun, I
guess."
     "Is it fun, hurting people?"
     There was no answer but the tension tightened still more.
     Nola sighed. Yesterday the kids had not noticed or cared that she
hurt. Now she was telling them. It seemed to make no difference. What
she could not understand was why - all right, so they were going to go
on with it - but why. She couldn't raise even a hint of guilt or
sympathy or fear of punishment from any of them.
     I just can't get through. They don't care. What she wanted was
relief. Maybe she was embarrassing them. Taking a deep breath, she
contritely said, "I'm sorry, John."
     John seemed somewhat relieved.
     The tension seemed to drop. "Aw, that's OK," he said, "there's
nothing to be sorry about." When Nola remained silent he said, "Is it
too tight?"
     There!
     Sympathy!
     Nola was astonished. She almost held her breath so that she
wouldn't frighten the discovery away. Something had happened, the
tension was definitely lowering. By accident she had touched something
and the situation was better. Then she suddenly saw a pattern. It seemed
incredible for these sub teen and teen-aged children and yet the truth
was that the kiddies had fallen in love with her and determined to play
an erotic game with her. The fact that she was under dressed fitted with
that thought. I don't believe it, she said to herself. But she did. The
feeling she was getting from John, the one she could not understand was
in fact the same one she got from older men who thought they had a
chance to make her. How carefully she avoided them and here it was
again. And she was in no position to avoid it.




     Now what, Nola thought, a little wildly. If she continued  to
complain, aloof, it would spoil their game, she supposed. But turn her
loose. No. People and animals in packs were socially merciless. What was
more likely, if she continued, they'd turn angry and vengeful. They'd
punish her. These kids would make her play their game. But they
couldn't, she said to herself. Oh, yes they could - and would.
     On the other hand, No. This was a direction in which her mind moved
only with reluctance. The path of thought was dark and impeded by a
lifetime of avoidance.
     On the other hand, Nola still said, if I changed myself. Somehow,
if I was a little bit more like what they want me to be, what would
happen then? Maybe when one of the youngsters, in a fondness then
returned, would become sorry for her and let her go. After all, Nola
thought, what have I got to lose.
     Still - she held back the shadow self that she called sexy Nola,
who bleached real Nola's short hair, darkened her eyebrows and lashes,
chose padded bras, shortened her skirts, walked in a certain way for
certain people. Sexy Nola, who invited closer investigation. Now,
however, sexy Nola, usually forcibly submerged, might be just what was
needed.
     If SECRET SIX liked Nola the way she was now, if John had a thing
on about her, what in the world would they think of sexy Nola. She made
up her mind to try. The only problem was that after a lifetime of
suppression, sexy Nola wasn't the easiest thing to just turn on. Oh,
well. Her only question to herself, Can I?
     "Is it too tight?"
     Nola made several experimental, anguished, twisting movements and
permitted herself the smallest sound of someone in pain. She felt rather
amateurish about it, but it was a beginning. "Yes," she said, and said
it very meekly.
     John dropped the rope he was fiddling with and sat up indecisively.
Perhaps he was even timid.
     "Come feel for yourself. Please, John."
     He got up and came over behind her. "What is it? Your hands?"
     She bent away from him physically - as if in fear? pain? and yet
looked up at him through her eyelashes.
     "Mostly." she said.
     "Couldn't you loosen up just a bit or untie one hand and let me
move it around and get some circulation? You're really going to hurt me
badly if you keep this up."
     John could see that this was true.
     "Hmmm-" he considered and savoured a bit.
     "Think of something, please? I couldn't get away if I wanted."
     "OK." He released her wrists.
     "Oh! Oh-h-h-" The sound she made was sincere enough.
     There had been rope on her wrists almost without relief for
over thirty-six hours. She allowed her hands to fall by her sides. Blood
seemed to rocket straight out to the ends of her fingers and pulse
there. She flexed gently and brought her hands up to her lap where she
could see them. They were red splotched with little white freckles in
the palms and blue veins on top, and there were wide  indents in the
wrists where the cord had been.

     Sexy Nola closed her eyes and bit her lower lip and furrowed her
forehead. She was not an actress and could not cry on demand.
     "Umnm-" she tried to stroke her sore hands but one would not quite
reach the other.
     "What is it?"
     "It burns."
     "Is it better, though?"
     "Yes," she bit her lip. Bravely this time.
     Impulsively, even daringly, John reached down and took one of her
free hands in his and began massaging the inside of her wrist.
     "Ow!"
     "Does it hurt?"
     "No." In fact, it did. What her hands really needed was just to be
let alone, but she did not say it. "That's nice, but be gentler.
Please?" She looked up at him briefly and then lowered her eyes again.
She made an effort to relax. That was going to be the nicest, softest,
most maidenly hand that any boy ever stroked, even if it killed her. It
worked, and after a while, he took her other hand and chafed some colour
back into it. Such a game could not go on forever, however.
     At length he stood back. "What about your legs?"
     Sexy Nola looked up at him demurely, and he coloured a bit. Inside
she was in turmoil. Giving a teenage boy freedom to touch her was too
dangerous.
     "Oh, I see. Only my ankles."
     That morning, Bobby had tied her upper legs together above the
knees and then tied each foot out to its own chair leg - and the chair
legs were square and sharp. John changed this, eyes discreetly on his
work which went slowly. He untied each ankle and left them loose in
front of her. Afterward he slightly eased the rope about her bare knees.
     During all of this, Nola had the opportunity to examine her captor
more closely. He was strongly built and he was a clean boy with none of
the acrid smells she associated with men on the make.
     No, stop it, Nola said to herself. John is nearly a man. He's
bigger than I am, stronger and he can do a lot of things to me that I
can't stop - now. Anyway why stop it, sexy Nola said.
     Sexy Nola allowed herself to be handled with grace and opportunism.
She flexed her toes and rubbed her feet, sole on top, kept her knees
apart as much as the loosened rope would allow to give him a glimpse of
smooth inner thigh and docilely pressed her heels together when he
retied her ankles and tightened the ropes above her knees - and sighed
with gratefulness when he was done. John seemed to have a streak of
kindness in him, he was the only one who had helped her and she felt she
was making progress in gaining her freedom.
     "Thank you, John," sexy Nola flashed him another shy look beneath
eyelashes.
     "You can stay that way while I'm here," he said.
     "Stay her and talk to me."
     "Well...what about?"
     "Anything," sexy Nola said. "Just don't leave me alone."
     "Do you go steady?" John was still sympathetic.
     "No, not really."
     She twisted back and forth several times in a way that
emphasized her breasts.
     "Why?"
     "I don't know. I guess I don't want to."
     "On dates do they try to kiss you?"
     Nola looked up quickly and caught him blushing. She waited for his
answer with interest. Nola dropped her eyes looking down at her useless
hands lying beside her bare legs. She actually felt her femaleness in
relation to John's maleness. It had taken sexy Nola only a short time to
prove suspicion right. The youngsters - this one at least - most
definitely did regard her as having a sex and from old habit she
stiffened slightly.
     Enough of the come-on.
     "Some of them do," she said with what of a shrug she could manage.
     "Do you let them?"
     "No!"
     "Really? Never? We do."
     "Oh, you know," she said shortly, "what I mean is sometimes nice
boys. Some of them are so - It's like wrestling or something."
     "Wrestling?" John was curious and interested.
     "Just...grabbing and pawing."
     "Girls don't like that," she said.
     "Can I kiss you?"
     "No, John, I don't want to."
     "Why?"
     "It's silly. It doesn't mean anything that way."
     "Yes, it does."
     "How can it?"
     "Well - I like you-"
     "Ah." There were a great many directions in which Nola did not want
to see this little conversation develop, and in self- defence she fell
silent.
     "You still don't want to."
     "Well, it's no fun for me," she was curt - "like this."
     "You couldn't stop me."
     "That makes it worse."
     John eased to his feet and stood beside her and very much over her.
Nola turned and looked the other way but said nothing. It was suddenly
very quiet. She expected any second for him to put the moves on her,
grab her hair, pull at her nightie - it could be anything - and she
decided not to struggle. He was right, she couldn't stope him anyhow.
     Instead, however, she felt him take her wrist and pull it around
behind the back of the chair.
     "Give me your other hand."
     "Oh, John, no. Please."
     "Give it to me."
     "I don't want to. Please!"
     "Alright, then, don't give it to me."
     He wrenched her arm up between her shoulders.
     "Ouch! Ow! I will, I will. But don't make it so tight. Your're
doing it worse than it was."
     "You deserve it."
     "Please stop. You can kiss me if you want to. I don't mind."
     He began tightening the rope holding her arms taut. When she spoke
he hesitated only a second and went on with his work. Afterward and
silently, he retied her ankles to the square legs of the chair, cinching
up on them vengefully.
     "Ouch," Nola said. Damm, I pushed him away and made him mad. He's
just like a man. They try to kiss you then want to run their hand up
under your dress with that terrible look in their eyes. You might let
them if a kiss would let go of them. It was, she had found out; a place
to begin, with the other hand coming around under your breast and
fumbling with buttons and all the rest. Men had just one use for women
but she wanted so much more.
     She watched John stand up, obviously satisfied with his work. He
hurt me, he is hurting me, that'll teach me, she thought. He wouldn't
kiss me now if I begged him. He'll make me learn my lesson well, hours
of it. And I can't do anything about it.
     Things were now much worse than before.
     He was silent now. He stood looking her over - she did not raise
her head but she could feel it - on an almost inch by inch basis. So
much for sexy Nola's activities. I could never be a sexy person anyhow,
Nola thought. I just don't like what happens when everybody gets going
like that.  

                              CHAPTER 13

     Cindy relieved him so he could take a swim...
     John reviewed the afternoon with a degree of satisfaction. It was
a good as yesterday. Again he had felt the new thrill of the girl's
submissiveness but today he used that mastery. He had discovered that he
could tie and untie her himself. It changed a lot. He understood wheat
he learned. For favours he could give a lot. For favours he could give
she had to consent to be handled. For things he wanted she would not
give he could withhold favours. He knew now that the favour to be traded
was the giving or taking away pain. It hurt - was a very interesting
bonus. The most clear kind of power. He knew something terribly
fundamental and important.
     Tomorrow he might leave Nola gagged. He preferred her muffled
sounds and eye movements to her words. Tomorrow he would bargain more
shrewdly. She would have to beg more; if she wished to be ungagged, she
would also have to be kissed. And other things. Interesting things came
to mind.
     John's sex education had been liberal and vivid. He knew the theory
of sexual intercourse - fucking - a word which actually embarrassed him
but use by other boys. And one he did it the first time...He jumped into
the stream...
     Afterward, pleasantly winded from a furious swim, he waded up the
beach and stood towelling off near Bobby and Cindy. "Aren't you going
in?"
     "We've been."
     "Where's Dianne?"
     "Guarding."
     They all stretched out on the beach to wait for Paul and Barbara. 

                           CHAPTER 14

     Barbara followed Paul to the woods. When they were about halfway
she called softly to Paul. He stopped and turned, shaking, as if he
expected to be hit.
     "Sit here and talk for a minute."
     "What do you want to talk about?"
     "The game - prisoner."
     Paul groaned;; he did not want to talk about it.
     "Could you play with me - without the others. Dianne said I could
ask."
     She smiled coyly at him.
     "Why?" Paul was in turmoil.
     "It would be fun. You could do private things. I wouldn't tell."
     Paul was frightened, did not understand. Barbara did not even like
him yet...she was asking him to capture her and play prisoner. Like they
all did.
     "Dianne said you're the best at it, the scariest and have the best
ideas."
     "If you want," he stuttered. "I'll..I'll tell you when."
     ... 
                           CHAPTER 15

     "We have to go pretty soon..."
     "Yeah. We'll have to move her again."
     "That's easy." Bobby stretched out on his back and looked up at the
sky. "She can't get away."
     "Yeah." Paul twitched unconsciously.
     John sat down and was quiet.
     After a while, Bobby sighed. "This is boring."
     "What?"
     "This. Her. All of it," he sat up impatiently.
     "I think it's neat," Paul twitched again. "How many kids you know
have ever done something like it?'
     "What's the point, though? Move her here, move her there, feed her,
and do the same thing over again the next day."
     "I think it's fun."
     Paul leaned over and began to draw idly in the sand with his
finger. "But what'd be tough would be if we could do all the things you
do to real prisoners." He looked at Barbara.
     "Like what?" John said.
     "Aw-w-w, like we used to pretend. You know. Only really. Take off
all her clothes - and spank her bare ass, and whip her and stuff like
that." He let his voice trail off nervously and looked again at Barbara,
hoping the others did not notice.
     "We can't do that," Bobby said.
     "I don't know why not. Really."
     "Yes, you do. We're in enough trouble as it is."
     "What do you want to do with her. Turn her loose? Then you'd really
find out what trouble was."
     "Anyhow, how would you do it?" John said carefully.
     "Easy."
     "How?"
     "Scissors." For all its pinched and twisted features, Paul's
small face took on a look of angelic radiance. He was imagining things.
     "What?" Bobby said.
     "Scissors. Dianne has it all figured out." Paul began one of his
rapid-paced, squirming explanations. The expression faded to one of
intensity. "We take her to the basement, tie her spread out, right?
Dianne just cuts the things over her shoulder and along the side
and...and...it falls off." His pupils seemed to grow tiny and bright.
     "Aw, she wears underpants, too. I've seen 'em."
     "It's the same thing. Two sides or just pull them down."
     "Yeah, maybe." John admired.
     "Then what? What'd Dianne say?"
     "Nothing. But we could think of the rest."
     Bobby, looking a John, was silent.
     "But after that," Paul was encouraged by the silence, "we could do
all other kinds of cool stuff to her...He stopped. They had all played
together for several years. They knew what he meant.
     "No, you couldn't," Bobby said. "It'd make everything twice as bad
as it already is."
     "Why not?" All of his odd imagination seemed open to Paul at the
moment. He saw things the others could not.
     "Shut up!" Bobby said.
     "John?" Paul appealed for help.
     John avoided his glance. If no suggestion or solution appeared, you
simply looked gravely at the ground. Someone else would come up with the
proper ideas.
     In this case it was Paul - how often it seemed to be Paul - who,
for being younger and possibly less embarrassed by what he was saying
had put into words exactly what John vaguely wanted but dared not face
alone. Moreover, the suggestion came complete with a plan. Dianne would
do it. John and Paul would help if necessary. Cindy and Barbara would
stay out of the way. Bobby would finally agree. There was a peculiar air
of fate about the whole thing, as if from the first day they saw Nola,
they were going to capture her, as if from that moment on they had been
moving towards this further heightening of the adventure. They had
played similar games with each other. Choice, if it had existed, had
simply slipped away.
     "We'll have to make some new rules," he said finally.
     "When?"
     "About what?" Bobby was negative.
     "After Dianne takes off her clothes."
     "What kind of rules?" Paul went into a trembling spasm.
     "Wait a minute..."
     "Well, we still have to watch her - stand guard."
     "Sure..."
     "But we ought to be able to say what we want, and everybody should
help. You know, like if you want her gagged when its your turn, OK. If
you don't, OK. If you want her tied to a table, or a chair, OK, and if
you want her in bed or anything else, OK. What the person guarding
wants, we all agree to. And we help. If you want the door closed, OK."
     "The door?"
     "The cellar, if we're taking her there."
     "Why close the door?"
     "Just if you want to," John shrugged.
     "No!" Bobby jumped to his feet.
     "No, what?"
     "You're not going to get Cindy and me into any more trouble."
     "It's the same for everybody."
     "No, it isn't. Its my parent's house - " He waved his hands in
exasperation. "You're not going to take off anybody's clothes."
     "Dianne is."
     "No, she isn't either.!"
     "Who's going to stop it, then?" When he got to his feet, John's
size and weight advantage were unarguable.
     "Let me alone now!"
     "I haven't touched you."
     "Well, are you going to help us then?"
     "No! Don't make me." He was sobbing now.
     The four sat on their heels and watched him cry himself out. It
took a while.
     "What are you going to do? Give all this up?" Paul said.
     "Nope," John said, "we'll just have to make him a prisoner too."



     Bobby looked up. Both their faces were flushed and it was
apparent that they were ready to pounce. Bobby was no fool for his age.
To him, they could do it, even to Cindy, and a lot of bad things could
happen. Memory of Paul's cruel streak alone made him more afraid of
SECRET SIX than any adult. Besides, he was already in for it anyway.
     "Make up your mind. Hurry up."
     Bobby sighed, still sniffling a little.
     "OK, get a rope, Paul, I'll watch him."
     "No, wait a minute..."
     "What?"
     "Girls shouldn't be undressed with boys."
     "You're just scared. Are you in or not? Cindy and Dianne did it."
     "OK, OK, I'll do it. I'll help you."
     Paul dropped back on his heels, a little disappointed.
     "No telling lies and letting her go by yourself some night?"
     "No."
     "Because if you do, when everything's blown over, we're really
going to get you."
     "Yeah, OK," Bobby said dispiritedly. Something of the sort had been
going on through his mind. "But I'm still scared."
     Paul gave a yell of triumph and leaped to his feet.
     "Man, this is really neat."
     "Yeah, alright," John smiled and rose too. "We can talk to Dianne
about it on the way home tonight."
     Bobby - humiliated - followed. He thought Barbara would stick up
for him. On one hand, he had promised to do what he must do to survive
- be loyal to the kids, while on the other, the same pledge had
committed him to see and accept the stripping and humiliation of someone
from the adult world, a female to which he owed some loyalty. In
submitting to loyalty to SECRET SIX to escape pain and punishment he had
equally submitted Nola to their whims. 

                           CHAPTER 16

     Nola's third night in captivity began about four-thirty in the
afternoon when Paul, Dianne and John were ready to go home. Then, with
their endless caution - each of her limbs was always tied to something
or other - they fed her, got her to bed spread- eagled, and bound her
tightly. Afterward began the impossible hours. During her time as a
prisoner, Nola had passed far beyond shock or injured dignity. She
accepted the fact that there would be no early escape or release now.
She was the it of a children's game that had not run its course and
might well become worse. The matter was simply how to endure. Yesterday,
last night, she had been seized with spasms of irrational, physical
terror in which her arms and legs wrenched at rope which her mind knew
would not give. It produced needless pain, tightened loops which would
remain tight until they were untied hours later and as she recognized
this, she still could not stop her body's movements. Tonight she
resisted these struggles. Biting down on the rag between her teeth, she
willed herself to lie quietly. She was close to tears but could not cry
with the gag in her mouth. I can't, I just can't go on...

                           CHAPTER 17

     No more than Bobby did Cindy dare to turn Nola loose. She couldn't
move her alone. Still, she might remove the gag and talk to her and
that's all she wanted right now. It was a dangerous thing; it was daring
- for a ten year old.
     With resolution, even with a smile, Cindy went to the bedroom.
     At the quiet click of the overhead light, Nola blinked her eyes and
turned them towards Cindy, who in turn assured herself that it was safe,
that the prisoner was still imprisoned, then walked to the side of the
bed and with sudden courage, sat down on its edge, her hands in her lap.
     There was a brief moment in which child and girl, captor and
captive, met with eyes.
     "Are you awake?"
     Nod - yes.
     "Do you want to talk?"
     Nola did nothing for a moment. She could not shrug, but after a bit
she tossed her head as if to say, I don't care.
     The gesture seemed weary and Cindy suddenly felt sorry for her.
     "Will you make a lot of noise if I take off your gag?"
     Tired nod - no.
     Cindy reached up to the back of her own head and, taking a
curl of her short hair, twined it around her finger sensuously. She
smiled, "Will you let me put it back when we're through?"
     Yes-Yes. A nod, a nod.
     Cindy hesitated just another moment, feeling both frightened and
daring, righteous and naughty. Then she leaned down over Nola. "OK, turn
your head a little..." Putting her small fingers on Nola's cheek, she
managed to get her nails under the adhesive tape and pull. It pulled
Nola's skin but she persisted, and slowly, slowly, the adhesive came
away.
     "Ummm- " Nola opened her mouth and a least partially disgorged the
scrap of folded terry cloth she was forced to accept each time they
gagged her.
     It looked disgusting to Cindy - it was like some obscene
unknown-to-children bodily function and yet she daintily reached down
and pulled it out and laid it aside on the night table.
     Nola licked her lips.
     "Are you OK?"
     "No. I'm stiff. I hurt all over." Nola tried to move but could not.
"Just untie me."
     "I'm sorry - " and Cindy truly was.
     They looked at each other a minute.
     "Well, I'm hungry." Since the children had never cared about this,
Nola said it in a bored voice.
     "Thirsty."
     "A peanut-butter sandwich and a coke?"
     Nola sighed.
     "OK?"
     "OK!"
     Cindy rose and went to the door. There she turned primly and said,
"Would you like jelly with the peanut butter?"
     "Fine. Anything."
     In the kitchen, Cindy fulfilled her promise, and neatly. Cindy was,
for the moment, keeper of the prisoner. It was a demanding role.
Returning to the room with a tray, she made room for the tray on the
night-table.
     Nola drank greedily and then ate a little more slowly, Cindy
administering to her as if she were a child. When they were done, Cindy
returned the tray to the kitchen and ran back to the room. It was fun.
     "Does it really hurt that much, being tied up all the time?" Cindy
sat down gently on the edge of the bed.
     "Yes."
     "I thought so."
     Cindy frowned as if confirmed in some primate suspicion of her own.
     "It does me too," she said, "or it did."
     "You?"
     "When we used to play that way. I didn't do it much, but once in a
while they let me go with them."
     "Where?"
     "In the woods, down in the old cabin, wherever they wanted to
play Prisoner."
     "They did it to you too?"
     "Yeah," Cindy answered, "But everybody took turns, except Barbara.
She hasn't done it yet - it was part of the game." Cindy was flattered
that Nola suddenly looked more interested.
     "What was the game, really?"
     "I really don't know, the boys liked it best, I didn't."
     "You captured prisoners?" Nola asked.
     "Yeah." Cindy twirled a ringlet of hair in her finger again. She
would have put in it her mouth if it had been longer. She stared off
into space. "After a while it got boring."
     "Then that's not what your playing now?" Nola was coaxing.
     "Um mnnn!" Cindy was emphatic. She shook her head and continued to
look off somewhere. "I guess this is SECRET SIX. Paul invented it; it's
more fun. We're a bunch of terrorists living in the woods. We kill
people and stuff."
     "Oh..."
     Cindy smiled down. It did seen to her that Nola more or less
understood. "And we kidnap hostages and take prisoners and torture them
and stuff. It's kind of fun."
     "Fun!"
     "Well" - Cindy was a little apologetic - "when it isn't your turn
to be caught. Even then, it isn't too bad most of the time. Paul's the
really mean one though. When he's jailer, watch out."
     "How?"
     "Oh...he's always thinking up new things to do. Once he tied me up
so tight, he even tied my toes together. In just my underpants - she
blushed heavily. Then he tickled me."
     "But where were the rest of them?"
     "There. It was just my turn."
     "Didn't they do anything?"
     "Yeah. They laughed. And Dianne tickled my feet. After a while,
when I was crying they let me go. It was my turn."
     "Oh."

     For a moment neither of them spoke. Pursuing her own thoughts,
Cindy didn't notice at first. When she did, she resumed where, to her,
they had left off. "Paul likes girl's bums," she blushed again and
giggled. "He's the best at torturing. Mostly they let him. Except when
it's his turn, the Dianne does it. It's fun."
     "Real or pretend?" Nola said levelly.
     She really did understand, Cindy decided. That was just the way
SECRET SIX talked about it. "Both," she said brightly.
     "Well, they better not torture me!"
     "No," Cindy conceded. "I guess not. It's too bad though."
     "What's too bad?" Nola seemed like she was going to get mad slowly
the way grown-ups do.
     Cindy sought to placate her. "I dunno. It's just kind of fun having
you her to play with us, too."
     "I'm-not-playing."
     "Well, you are, sort of."
     "I'm not at all. What I want to know is when you're going to let me
go again. This hurts."
     "Well, they won't do it until after tomorrow anyhow, I guess."
     "Why tomorrow?" Nola seemed to have calmed down again. At any rate
she was sweeter.
     "They're going to take off you nightie and spank you. Your
underpants too."
     "What?" Nola suddenly lifted her head from the pillow and stared
straight at the little girl. You could almost hear the individual
letters coming out of her mouth.
     "W-h-a-t. What?"
     "It's just like the 'nitiation," Cindy jumped back a little.
     "We've all done it," she said. "It isn't all that bad anyhow. Well
- it's bad when it's you and everybody's laughing and all, but when its
someone else, its funny. Boys look silly with their things ..."
     "Where did you hear this?" Nola didn't raise her voice, but she
suddenly had that adult sound of now-you're-going-to-get- it.
     Cindy got up off the bed and backed away to safety. "We had a
meeting..."
     "Well, that's the end. Boys don't undress girls!" Nola looked up at
her wrists in turn and jerked on her ropes angrily. "You get Bobby in
here right now, and I mean now, or I'll start screaming."
     "But you're not supposed to be ungagged," Cindy paled, her heart
thumping. She was thinking trouble, trouble, trouble.
     "I said now!"
     Cindy sighed unhappily. This was unexpected, uncontrollable. The
other kids would get her for it.
     "Bobby! bob-bee-e-e!" Cindy shouted. "Bobby, get up!"
     Then Nola screamed. It was not a completely abandoned shriek - she
had little practice at screaming - but it was loud enough for openers.
     Badly scared now, Cindy ran out of the room for Bobby, followed by
another scream this time a little higher. In the hall she almost knocked
him down.
     White, rumpled, wide-eyed and only half seeing and under- standing,
he more or less danced back and forth from one foot to the other, trying
to get by her.
     "What is it?"
     "Hurry-y up!" Cindy cried.
     "Is she loose?" Bobby pulled back sharply, ready to run.