Let's Go Play at the Adams'

Far more quickly than yesterday, they had Barbara 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 Barbara 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 cooperated fully. What had been humiliating and infuriating yesterday was simply

more expedient, less painful today. Moreover it avoided the futile defeat a one-handed

struggle would bring against

five determined youngsters.

·

Barbara began to realize how people could be broken. It would be just the way you read

about it in books. Everything would be brought down to the tiniest little pleasures

measured out by the cc. from the tiniest little eyedropper. Drop, pleasure; no drop,

misery. Someone else's hand would be on the little bulb, and you'd do anything to

please them. Even as the recognition occurred to her, moreover, she was padding out

of the room behind her captors.

They shuffled her to the bathroom where Dianne once more stood guard. Then they put

her in her chair with yards of cordage around her, and gave her the same breakfast of

cereal and juice except that they let her feed herself. Awkwardly. One hand was free

from 60

the elbow down, and she was gagged, of course. She had to bend and strain and more or

less slurp. Quite naturally she dribbled, and Dianne was there to wipe her gown as you

might wipe a baby's. She slid her hand inside the shortie top and held the cloth away so

that she could dab it with a dampened napkin. Barbara would have given up, bent over,

and wept for her own helplessness in all of this had it not been that she was now terribly

hungry and that this little meal was one of the pleasures she had been thinking about.

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 and the rag

and chloroform were left in plain sight to remind her of the children's power. It was another

little pleasure. Speech.

"Why are you doing it, Dianne?"

"Hrnnn?" Dianne' had finished her share of the morning's chores and settled down on

Barbara's bed (which she had neatly made) with her rather lewd book on ancient

practices--or so Barbara thought of it. When Barbara spoke, she looked up coolly.

"Me. Why are you keeping me tied up? Why did you do it in the first place?'' Barbara was

sitting faced away from Dianne, but she could see her in the vanity mirror.

"I don't know. It's only a game-s-" Dianne spoke offhandedly.

It stabbed Barbara. 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-appropriately-a

nightmare.

"It's only a game," Dianne said, "and besides, we aren't hurting you."

"You are, too," Barbara said, definitely.

"I haven't heard any crying and moaning and groaning."

"How could I?" "It isn't hard."

61

"How do you know?"

"The same way." Dianne continued to cradle her book though she had given up any

pretense of reading. "They've tied me up. Worse than you. We've all taken turns."

"You? The five of you? All of you?"

"Um." Dianne was nonchalant. "It's a game we used to play. One time I let them tie my

hands to a tree limb, and they left me there most all the afternoon. In the woods. That

really hurts."

"And that's a game?"

"Um." Dianne shrugged again.

"Where did you ever get the idea to do something silly like that?" Barbara almost said "like

this."

"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 when they were binding up the last sheaf of wheat in the fall

and somebody came by the threshing floor while they were doing it? You know what they

did to a king of England with a red-hot poker? Do you read very much in college?"

"Yes," Barbara yearned upward toward the ceiling and tried to stretch her shoulder

muscles. They had tied her overtight again. It hurt. Still, she was careful; at least, she

didn't have a gag in her mouth. "Not that, though."

"Oh." Dianne seemed disappointed. It was as if college wasn't going to be for her. "Anyhow,

playing Prisoner's not all that great an idea. You used to do stuff like that when you were

young yourself."

"No, I didn't.” Barbara wasn't used to being included in some older generation. It startled

her.

"Hmnn." Dianne barely made the sound at all, but she looked at the captive closely.

Barbara felt the scrutiny. Looking up into the mirror, she met Dianne's eyes. Perhaps