All posts by Cuffed Locked

Story

The Lock-In – Part 05

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By Cuffed Locked

I blinked awake to the glare of daylight flooding the basement. My arms were still cuffed behind me, the collar snug at my throat, and exhaustion felt like liquid in every muscle. My mind spun, trying to make sense of time again, when I heard the stairs creak. Caleb and Derek appeared at the top — effortlessly composed, as if they’d just stepped out of an ad for guys who never lose control. Caleb carried a fresh coffee, hair neatly styled and shirt crisp. Derek moved with an athlete’s ease, wearing a clean hoodie and joggers, smirking like he’d never been anywhere but in control. They didn’t rush.

Instead, Caleb lingered at the top step for a moment and said, soft, amused: “Nice spread.” He didn’t need to clarify. My posture, the cuffs, even the dull ache from the collar — they all spoke his language. I had asked for this.

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Story

The Lock-In – Part 04

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By Cuffed Locked

It must have been late Sunday night or maybe it was Monday morning already. I could not be sure because I had no clock, nothing to track time. I had been chained by my neck to a solid ring bolted to the floor of my hot neighbor Caleb’s basement since Thursday night after work, and I was starting to get scared because I definitely had to be at work again Tuesday morning! I was trying to free myself from his “escape room,” which, thanks to his friend Derek and a pair of police handcuffs, was really turning into more of a bondage torture room.

Yes I was bound, securely, and I as more physically sore and mentally frustrated than ever. But something in the ache reminded me that no matter the punishment, I was here by choice. Not by mistake. No hint. Just a very secure chain. A heavy collar. And a combination padlock I was still trying to jail break. I was still fighting.

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Story

The Lock-In – Part 03

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By Cuffed Locked

I was standing, barefoot, in a basement that stretched for miles. Walls of concrete rose endlessly in all directions. There was no ceiling. Just endless gray sky and a cold, metallic echo. A heavy iron collar clamped snug around my neck, and chains trailed from it in all directions. Not one, but dozens, all bolted into the ground like spider legs. They didn’t hold me still. They guided me. Each time I took a step, the slack on one chain would tighten, jerking me back. Every move required careful planning, and even then, I felt like a marionette tangled in its own strings.

In the distance, I saw Caleb. Arms crossed. Smirking. Dressed in a plain white t-shirt, jeans, boots. He looked clean, fresh, untouched by the dust and grime that clung to me. His hands were tucked casually into his pockets. Beside him stood Derek, spinning a pair of handcuffs on his finger like they were a toy. They approached slowly, bootsteps echoing across the hollow concrete floor.

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Story

The Lock-In – Part 02

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By Cuffed Locked

If you missed it, click for Part 1

My arm was going numb. I had been cranking for what felt like hours. Thirty seconds of spinning to earn maybe ten seconds of light. Long enough to try two combinations, maybe three, on the padlock securing my chain to the solid bolt in Caleb’s floor before the bulb overhead sputtered out and I was swallowed in darkness again. I’d started at 0000. I was somewhere around 0042 now. Forty-two combinations. It felt like nothing. It was nothing. And yet every few attempts meant another round of burning my shoulder, feeding that sad little generator like I was shoveling coal into a dying furnace.

And the second I stopped moving, the silence came rushing back in.

I was trapped in my neighbor’s basement, in a custom escape room that he challenged me to escape from with no safe word, no early outs. And no phone. No clock. No sunlight. I didn’t know if it was 3 a.m. or 9 a.m. I didn’t know if Caleb was upstairs, asleep, watching, or not even home. And somehow, that made it worse. When the light blinked on again, I caught my reflection in the metal face of the lock. My jaw was clenched. Sweat trickled down my chest.

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Story

The Lock-In – Part 01

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By Cuffed Locked

It was a Friday afternoon when I wandered over to Caleb’s garage, as I had dozens of times before. I usually stopped by on Fridays. We had one of those neighborly routines, not quite friends, not quite strangers, but something in between. I’d wander over with a beer and a story from the office. He liked my stories, and I liked watching him work. It was easy. Today, the late-summer heat was thick in the air, and the sound of Caleb’s tools echoed out into the driveway, clinks and whirrs like music he didn’t need speakers for.

His place always looked like the inside of a junkyard exploded and reorganized itself into a workshop. Piles of wires, wood scraps, old appliances taken apart and half rebuilt into God knows what. There was a sort of madness to it, but Caleb had a talent for rigging up stuff that worked. Dangerous stuff, sometimes. Genius stuff, always.

He was working on some half-dismantled snow blower, even though we were still a few months out from the first frost. That was Caleb, always two steps ahead, always building something, fixing something, or taking something apart just to see if he could put it back together better. He was shirtless, and his forearms flexed every time he twisted the wrench.

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Story

The Fifth Man

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By Cuffed Locked

I didn’t expect to end up in chains. But thinking back, I probably should’ve seen it coming. It started a few weeks before with a lawnmower and a stupid joke that I took seriously.

My name is Nathan “Nate” Keller, and about a month back I was out cutting my front yard. It was one of those hot Saturday mornings where the sun bakes the sidewalk and you question all your life choices. That’s when Grant Mason, my neighbor, a hot firefighter, leaned over his porch railing with his usual beer in hand and said, “Hey Keller, when you’re done with yours, why don’t you do mine next?”

He said it like a joke. I laughed like it was one.

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Story

The Alpha Who Moved in Next Door

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By Cuffed Locked

I couldn’t believe my luck when that smokin’ hot guy moved in next door. He drove a pickup truck. Tall and lean, short buzzcut, muscled arms and wearing a sleeveless T. If I had known the trouble I would eventually get into with this alpha guy, I might have thought twice before even going over there in the first place to introduce myself. He was bringing in some boxes that were stacked up in his driveway. I introduced myself as his next-door neighbor and offered to help.

He sized me up right quick and got me to help him move some of those boxes into his three-stall garage. He was friendly but also a bit devilish, almost cocky. Guys like that who are so good looking, in my experience, can often be trouble. I think he might have noticed me checking him out, but he didn’t seem to mind. He told me his name was Ryan and that he was a firefighter.

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