By Hunter Perez

It was Friday at one in the afternoon and I was in my kitchen making a pot of coffee when someone began knocking on my front door to the melody of “Kung Fu Fighting.” There was only one guy who make himself known in that manner.

“Come on in, Jock,” I declared as I opened the door.

Jock raced in with a great smile on his face, wrapped his large muscular arms around me and hoisted me high. “Bingo, baby, I just got my first contract for my new video production business. And it’s a government contract, too, so I’ll be making a ton of money.”

Jock swung me around in a bear hug, perhaps not realizing the depth of his strength. “Jock, you’re squeezing the air out of my lungs. Put me down and I’ll make you some coffee.”

Jock released me and after a few deep breaths I felt better. He sat at the kitchen table, happier than I had seen him in the longest time.

“I can’t wait to get started on this,” he exclaimed. “I always wanted to produce and direct video documentaries, and this is my first chance. And I want you and your boyfriend to star in the video.”

I paused over the coffee pot and turned around cautiously. “If you’re referring to Simon, he’s not my boyfriend. In fact, I was hoping to see the last of him.”

Jock looked at me with a perplexed grin. “What happened, Bingo? Didn’t you say he comes over every night once he gets off work at the gas station? Didn’t you say he was built like a Celtic god, with his alabaster skin and floppy red hair? And didn’t you say he’s the best sex you ever had?”

“Yes and yes and yes,” I answered. “That’s not the problem. The problem is when he’s out of bed and puts his clothing back on. He’s the laziest slob imaginable. All he does when he’s over here is lay on the couch and watch television.”

“But that’s what you do in your leisure hours,” Jock said.

“Yes, but it’s my home,” I replied at a higher decibel, turning back to add extra coffee to the pot for Jock. “He makes a mess of things around here – I have to rewash the dishes because he leaves food on the plates, and don’t get me started about what he does in the bathroom. And we had a fight the other night about the television – I wanted to see a lecture on C-Span about the life of Bertrand Russell and he wanted to watch professional wrestling.”

“So, who won?” Jock asked.

I plugged in the coffee pot and took a box of chocolate chip cookies from a cabinet above the sink. “He grabbed the remote control, then grabbed me by collar and stuck my head between his thighs. I spent the evening locked in his leg scissors while he watched wrestling and yelled obscenities whenever Roman Reigns was on the TV screen.”

“And I wasn’t invited over?” Jock laughed. “We could’ve had some tag team fun with you.”

“You gingers are all alike – crazy,” I grumbled as I plopped the cookie box on the table and sat opposite Jock. “So tell me, Fellini, what is the first production you are creating?”

Jock sat up straight and beamed, clearly proud of his achievement. “Well, the state health department contracted me to do a public safety video on the dangers of self-bondage. Do you realize how many die each year in self-bondage accidents? This video is going to…”

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “You said you wanted me as your star? What exactly am I doing in this self-bondage video?”

“It is a self-bondage safety video,” Jock corrected as he opened the cookie box to examine its contents. “And I see you as the guy who gets stuck in self-bondage – the how-not-to segment of the video. I am also interviewing sex therapists and I have a friend who’s a physician’s assistant who…”

“Wait, wait, wait,” I interjected, leaning over the table. “So, you want me in a video where I’m stuck in self-bondage? I know I’ll regret asking this, but what am I wearing in this video?”

Jock stared into the cookie box intently. “Oh, I don’t know. You’ll need a ball gag, because you’re not going to be able to call for help. And I was thinking maybe a black nylon thong, which would show up nicely considering how pale you are.”

As Jock began to move his fingers into the cookie box, I reached out and grabbed it from him while jolting to my feet.

“You want me in a video where I bumble my way into being trapped in self-bondage while wearing a ball gag and a black nylon thong?” I yelled. “Jock, of all the harebrained schemes you’ve come up, this is the worst. Don’t you think I have any self-respect? Don’t you think I have any dignity? What makes you think that I would ever degrade myself into being seen by the public in such a ridiculous manner?”

Jock leaned back in his chair and gazed at me with a stoic seriousness. “I’ll pay you a thousand dollars, cash.”

I bit my lower lip, inhaled and exhaled through my nostrils, nodded slightly and returned the cookie box to its previous place. “Have a cookie. The coffee will be ready in a minute.”

* * *

The next morning, Jock turned his basement into his video studio. An old metal folding cot was in the middle of the space, surrounded by bright lights on stands. Jock had his video camera on a tripod and he fussed about lighting the cot until it met his satisfaction. I was off to the side, sitting on a three-legged stool wearing that dreaded black thong while Simon, his lean muscular body clad in a tight black t-shirt and tighter black jeans, stood behind me and attempted to massage my tense shoulders.

Jock clapped his hands to gain our attention. He picked up a notebook and handed it to Simon, then picked up a large black bag and handed it to me.

“Okay, guys, we’re ready to start,” Jock announced. “This should take no more than an hour or 90 minutes – besides, I want to get done as fast as possible because I’m getting my new piano delivered today at five – I need to rearrange the living room to have it set up properly. Now, Simon, that’s the script in the notebook with all of the directions for Bingo. Bingo, your props for the scene are in the bag. Bingo, you’ll walk about 10 paces back from the cot, then turn and slowly approach the cot, sit on it and empty the bag’s contents on the bed. Then Simon will read from the notebook and Bingo will follow. All good? Good! Now, let’s get started.”

Simon stood behind Jock and I counted 10 paces from the cot. Jock squinted into his video camera and yelled “Action!” I started walking to the bed and Jock immediately yelled “Cut!”

“Bingo, can you try to walk a little sexier?” Jock said. “Remember in ‘Saturday Night Fever’ how John Travolta strutted? Something like that?”

I shrugged my shoulders, went back 10 paces and waited for Jock to yell “Action!” I did my best to emulate John Travolta, but it wasn’t good enough.

“You’re walking like you have a bad case of sciatica,” Jock grumbled. “Let’s forget the walk and just start on the cot. Again, Simon reads from the notebook and Bingo follows. Try it again. Ready? Action!”

I sat on the cot and turned over the bag, emptying its contents before me. There were ankle shackles with a long chain, two pairs of handcuffs, a ball gag, and a set of keys on an enormous key chain. I picked through the items waiting to hear Simon read out what I was supposed to do, but he said nothing. After 15 seconds of waiting, I turned and looked to see Simon studying the notebook’s pages. Five seconds later, Jock turned around to see what was happening.

“Cut!” yelled Jock. “Simon, what are you doing?”

“You asked me to read from the notebook,” said Simon, looking up blankly from the pages.

“I didn’t mean read it to yourself,” Jock said. “You’re supposed to … oh, never mind, I know the script by heart, I’ll tell Bingo what he needs to do. Let’s start the scene from the top.”

I put the props back in the bag and after Jock yelled “Action!” I emptied the contents back on the cot and listened as Jock instructed me to take the ball gag and secure it tightly in my mouth. I picked up the ball gag, examined it and then looked at Jock.

“This isn’t new, is it?” I asked. “Who was the last person to use this?”

“Cut!” yelled Jock. “I don’t remember the last time it was used – it might have been at the Summer Solstice party when we got drunk and offered Ralphie as a sacrifice to the sun god.”

“Well, I want this washed off,” I insisted. “I don’t want Ralphie’s germs in my mouth.”

“Oh, for the love of…okay,” Jock barked, his face starting to turn a pale shade of crimson. He took the ball gag from me and gave it to Simon, ordering him to clean it in the basement’s bathroom. Simon took the ball gag and disappeared, returning within the minute with the object still wet. I put the props back into the bag and waited for Jock’s direction.

When Jock gave the instruction, I started the scene again. I shook the still-wet ball gag and began to put it into my mouth, but after a few seconds I pulled it out and wiped my lips.

“There’s still soap on this,” I complained. “Simon, you didn’t clean this properly.”

“I did clean it,” Simon protested.

“Yeah, like the way you clean the dinner dishes,” I bellowed. “I had to rewash everything because you left food stains all over them.”

Jock rumbled to the bed and yanked the ball gag from my hands. “I’ll clean it for you, okay? Damn, what the hell is wrong with you guys? For the money I’m paying you two, I could have gotten Derek Pain.”

Jock stormed off to the bathroom, cursing to himself. I glowered at Simon, who averted his eyes and looked at floor unhappily. Jock returned, threw the ball gag at me, and stated coldly that we were to try the scene once more.

With this take, things seemed to work. Jock directed me to secure the ball gag, then to wrap the chain for the ankle shackles to the foot of the cot and to lock each set of handcuffs on opposite sides of the head of the cot. I followed his instructions to trap my feet in the ankle cuffs and to lay on my back, placing the key chain by the right side of my head. I was then told to place my wrists into the open handcuffs and maneuver them so the cuffs would click shut. In the course of three minutes, I went physical freedom to self-imposed imprisonment.

“Brilliant!” announced Jock, smiling for the first time during the shoot. “Now, pretend to struggle with your wrists and make it look like you’re accidentally knocking the keys off the cot.”

I followed Jock’s request and shook my handcuffed wrists about, catching the keys with my thumb and sending them off the mattress to the floor with a metallic thud. Jock unscrewed the camera from its tripod and sat at the edge of the bed, pointing the lens at my face.

“You’re doing great, Bingo,” he grinned. “Now, you realize that you’re stuck on the cot and there’s no one around to help you. I want you to give me a look of sheer horror and shake yourself like you’re fearing the worse.”

I widened my eyes and began to rock back and forth, shaking my head to give the impression of terror. But Jock frowned and put down the camera.

“I’m not getting it,” he complained. “Now, Bingo, try to pretend this is a real situation and you’ve just trapped yourself in this situation. Imagine how you would feel – the shock, the anxiety, the painful realization that you made a terrible mistake. Okay, give it another go.”

I attempted once more to meet Jock’s expectations, but after a minute he put the camera down again and groaned.

“No, this isn’t working,” he muttered before turning to Simon. “Can you please get me that red bag that’s over on the worktable in the corner?”

Simon obeyed and returned with a small red bag. Jock put his hands into the bag and extracted three large wooden clothespins.

“This will make you feel the emotions I want you to express,” Jock said as he pulled down my thong, attaching two of the clothespins to my balls and squeezing my foreskin where he fastened the third.

The pain from the clothespins created the worst possible sensation and I started to convulse, yelling into the ball gag in fury. I rocked back and forth, trying to shake off the clothespins, but they wouldn’t dislodge. I tried desperately to force myself up, only to be kept in place by the handcuffs. Jock grabbed his camera and focused on my upper body.

“Perfect!” he exclaimed as he weaved back and forth to capture my sudden agony. “That’s the reaction of a guy who accidentally locks himself into inescapable bondage. Bingo, you don’t know how wonderful you look.”

I tried to scream “Get those damn things off me,” but the ball gag was jammed in my mouth and I was unable to produce any intelligible sound. Jock moved around the cot, capturing my predicament at multiple angles. After a few minutes, Jock’s cell phone began to ring. He put down the camera and took the call.

“Hello?” he said. “Oh, hello, what’s up? Yes, I’m at 3330 Maple, the Tudor house at the end of the street with the pink flamingo on the lawn. Wait, you’re here now? I thought you were coming at five, you’re very early. Okay, okay, I’ll be at the front door.”

Jock put his phone back in his pocket and leaned over me. “You’re not going to believe this, Bingo, but the piano movers are hours early. I just need to run upstairs and let the movers in.”

Jock gave the camera to Simon and added, “Now, Simon, don’t touch anything. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Jock raced up the stairs from the bedroom, leaving Simon with his camera and me bound to the bed with a ball gag in my mouth and three clothespins pinching the life out of my groin. Simon held up the camera to his face and aimed its lens at me.

“You know, you’re very photogenic,” he said softly. “Someday I’d like to take a photo shoot of you.”

I tried screaming through the ball gag and while motioning my head to my groin, hoping that he would relieve me of the clothespin torture, but my attempt at messaging didn’t sink in with him.

“I don’t know, but lately you seem very angry at me all of the time,” he continued, with a pang of sadness in his voice. He carefully put the camera on the cot and kneeled so we were at the same level for eye contact. “I’m sorry if I do things that make you unhappy with me. You’re the very last person that I want to upset. I really love being your boyfriend.”

I tried again to scream out what I wanted while motioning my head to my crotch, but Simon just smiled slightly and started to tousle my hair – only to quickly withdraw his hand.

“Oh, damn, sorry,” he whispered. “Jock didn’t want me touch anything.”

I looked at Simon with utter astonishment. “Oh, Simon,” I thought to myself. “You are so physically beautiful, but you’re dumb as a brick.”

I could hear Jock’s footsteps pounding down the stairs. He raced over to us and said, “Simon, I am going to need your help upstairs for a few minutes – I have to rearrange the living room furniture to fit the piano.” He then looked at me and said, “Bingo, I am going to set up the camera for a time lapse sequence that is supposed to show you being unable to escape what you put yourself into. Just keep doing what you were doing earlier, but try not to look at the camera. And try not to make too much noise – I don’t want the piano movers to get the wrong idea about what we’re doing.”

Jock put his camera back on its tripod, aiming the lens at my upper body. He pressed a couple of buttons and moved away, putting his hand on Simon’s back to push him along.

“What about the clothespins?” Simon said, pointing to my crotch.

I felt a rush of elation with Simon speaking up about my discomfort. But Jock looked at my groin and answered, “Don’t worry, they won’t fall off.” Jock then reaching down to squeeze the clothespin fastened to my foreskin, nodding in affirmation over his observation about its strength. I thought my eyes were going to pop out of my head from the pinch, but Jock and Simon didn’t seem to notice as they hurried up the stairs.

I laid helpless on the cot, the ankle shackles and handcuffs starting to become unpleasant intruders into my flesh while the clothespins took complete ownership of my balls and cock. My teeth chewed worthlessly at the ball gag that robbed my voice while my eyes tried to avoid the lights shining mercilessly on me. In this state of imprisonment, the only part of my body that seemed to function without impairment were my ears – I listened to an endless parade of heavy footsteps, the dull thudding of furniture being pushed about, a muffled stream of voices and an occasional burst of laughing.

I don’t know how long I was in this position – it could have been 15 minutes, but it felt like 15 hours. I could hear something heavy being slowly rolled across the floor above me, and I assumed that was the piano. This sound abruptly stopped when the object was directly above me and there was a brief silence, followed by the awkward plunking of isolated piano keys and more laughing. I expected the ceiling to collapse on me, but incredibly I started to hear the jaunty sounds of the Scott Joplin tune “The Entertainer” being played in a clumsy, goofy manner with more than a few wrong notes being struck.

“Really?” I thought, wincing as the evisceration of Scott Joplin’s tune became musical salt rubbed in my self-bondage wounds. “I just hope no one asks for an encore.”

Mercifully, no one made that request. I heard laughing and more muffled talk, then a few minutes later Jock and Simon came galumphing down the stairs.

“Bingo, you didn’t tell me that Simon played the piano,” Jock called out as he reacquainted himself with his camera. “Your boyfriend is full of surprises. Okay, now we’re ready for the final shot of our video with Simon coming to your rescue – art imitating life, eh?”

I glared at Jock and wondered what the hell he was talking about. But Jock didn’t explain himself – instead, he moved the camera and just yelled “Action!” Simon walked to the head of the cot, kneeled, picked up the keychain and smiled as he jangled the keys over my head.

“Cut, perfect!” Jock proclaimed. “Simon, you’re a born actor. Really, have you ever considered going into acting?”

Simon blushed and giggled and mumbled something that I could not understand. Then, Jock’s cell phone began to ring again and he took the call.

“Hello?” he said eagerly. “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, I am available to get you a video. Oh, definitely, definitely. You want it when? Oh, sir, you are lucky – I have my team here with me. We can shoot something right now and I can have it edited and scored by this evening. Yes, sir, consider it done. Thank you, sir.”

Jock returned the phone to his pocket and sat next to me on the cot, petting my leg. “Bingo, you won’t believe this, but that call was from the guy who runs the Dream Boy Bondage website. One of his video creators was supposed to hand in a hot wax scene to go online tomorrow, but the guy didn’t turn in his work. I was just asked if I could get something over to Dream Boy Bondage by this evening to go online in its place. And, Bingo, since you’re in a perfect Dream Boy Bondage scenario, all I need to do is have Simon drip hot wax on you and we’ve got a new gig. Isn’t that great?”

Simon stood up and held out the keys to my entrapment. “But, Jock, what do I do with these?”

“I’ll take them – we don’t need them right now,” he said, grabbing the keys and stuffing them in his pocket.

I started to furiously pull at my handcuffs and shook my head no violently while attempting to push my voice through the ball gag. Jock watched me patiently and then raised an index finger to his pursed lips. I obeyed his call for silence as he leaned into my face.

“You’ll get another thousand dollars in cash, okay?” he whispered.

I narrowed my eyes, thrust my head back into the mattress and nodded slightly. Jock patted my cheek and asked Simon to bring a scissor and a box from the worktable. Simon returned with the box and Jock opened it, extracting a large red candle and a cigarette lighter.

“Okay, Simon, all you need to do is light the candle and wave it back and forth across Bingo’s body. And use the scissor to cut that thong off him – we don’t need it, and those clothespins will be the money shot for us.”

Three minutes later, the thong was sliced off as Simon stood over me with a lit candle. Jock aimed his camera at us and yelled “Action!”

Simon held the candle at a 45-degree angle and slowly waved it from the chest to my knees and back. As the first droplets of hot wax fell on clothespin-pinched balls, Simon smiled at me serenely and mouthed, “I love you, Bingo.”

And as I tried to retain my composure as the slow rain of hot wax fell on my bare flesh, I fixed my gaze to the ceiling and wondered, “Why do I keep getting myself into situations like this?”

The End

Metal would like to thank Hunter Perez for this story.