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.

“Hope you’re not starting a landscaping business,” I called as I stepped in. “You’d be two seasons off.”

Caleb stood up, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead. “Guy down the street wants it fixed. Told him I’d look at it, for a small favor. Or cash. Haven’t decided yet.”

“Or poker debt?”

Caleb grinned, his default expression when he knew he was up on you. “That too.”

I leaned against the workbench. “Speaking of games… you ever done one of those escape rooms?”

“Escape rooms?” He looked over, curious. “Can’t say I have. Why?”

“Did one with the office yesterday. Team-building thing.”

Caleb raised an eyebrow. “They lock all of you in a room together? That sounds like the start of a hostage situation.”

I laughed. “Yeah, it kind of felt like it. Fake vault setup, low lighting, cheesy music, timer on the wall. You know the deal.”

“So what, you crack some riddles and get let out?”

“That was the idea. Only problem was… the door wasn’t actually locked.”

He paused. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” I said. “There was this ‘emergency exit’ in the back that was wide open the whole time. Like, they said we were locked in, but if you needed to leave? You just… could.”

Caleb scoffed. “So no stakes. No real pressure.”

“Exactly.” I gestured toward him. “I don’t know, man. It just killed the whole thing for me. There’s no thrill if you’re not really trapped. Part of the appeal’s supposed to be that you have to solve your way out. Not just walk away when you get bored.”

Caleb gave a slow, thoughtful nod, like he actually understood. “Yeah, I get that. The whole point is the lock. The pressure. If there’s no real consequence, then it’s just a puzzle book with furniture.”

“Exactly.”

He smirked. “Can’t believe I’m agreeing with a guy who once lost 200 bucks on a pair of eights.”

“I thought I had you.”

“Your bluff was easy to spot,” Caleb shot back. “You’ve got the worst tell I’ve ever seen. Soon as you’ve got garbage, your left eyebrow goes on vacation.”

I groaned. “You’re like a bloodhound with that stuff. I don’t know how you do it.”

He just shrugged. “Poker’s not luck. It’s observation. Discipline. People think I win because I get lucky. I win because I watch.”

“You win because you’re a machine,” I said, grinning. “I’m not even the worst player on the street, and you’ve cleaned me out more times than I can count.”

“That’s because I play to win, Mark. Always. And when people lose to me? They pay up. No exceptions.”

There it was, that edge in his voice. Caleb wasn’t cruel, but he didn’t bluff when it came to bets or dares. If you said yes, you followed through. And if you lost, you made good. That’s how Caleb was. Cocky and a little ruthless, but in a way that made you want to match him, not run from him.

We talked a little more, about the usual stuff: work, neighborhood gossip, some busted plumbing job he’d taken on, but I noticed his mind had wandered. He kept looking at the tools on the wall. Running his thumb over a length of heavy chain.

“You know,” he said eventually, “I’ve never set up an escape room before.”

I looked at him. “Yeah?”

“But I think I could. Not some theatrical thing. Nothing silly. Just something real. Quiet. Inescapable, unless you actually figure it out.”

I tilted my head. “You’re talking about building one?”

“I might be,” he said. “For you.”

I laughed once, half-sure he was joking. “You want to build me an escape room?”

“Why not?” he said, serious now. “You forget what I do for a living?” He gestured around the yard. Tools, spare parts, God knows what else. “I rig things. Make things work that shouldn’t. I’ve wired half the guys on our street with security systems, fixed every bad foundation from here to Route 9, and turned a busted RV into a functioning sauna. You want a challenge? I’ll give you one.”

I paused. “You’re not actually going to lock me in something, are you?”

“I’m not going to pretend to lock you in,” Caleb said. “If I do this? There’s no open door in the back. No emergency exit. Once you’re in, you’re in.”

I stared at him, waiting for the punchline.

It didn’t come.

He walked across the garage and picked up industrial-grade padlock. It was clean, solid, unmistakably secure. He turned it over in his palm like he was already imagining it in use. “It’ll take me a few days to rig something proper. But if we start next weekend, you’ll have your shot.”

Next weekend. I did some quick math. That was Labor Day weekend. I hadn’t made any real plans. Still, this wasn’t exactly a cookout invite.

“You’re serious?”

“Dead serious,” Caleb said. “But if we do this, there are rules. My rules.”

“Okay…”

“No tap-outs. No changing your mind halfway. No ‘Caleb, I’m tired,’ or ‘Caleb, let me out.’ You go in, and you don’t come out until you earn it.”

I frowned. “What if it takes hours?”

“Then it takes hours.”

“What if I can’t figure it out?”

“Then you’ll have a long time to think about what you did wrong,” he said flatly. “Look, Mark, I’m not doing this halfway. If you want a real lock-in, I’ll give you one. But I’m warning you now: I won’t be your safety net. I won’t come and release you, and I won’t let you out if you get scared.”

“You’re really going to lock me in and challenge me?”

He grinned. “I told you. I play to win. You walk into my escape room, you better be ready to get yourself out.”

Caleb wasn’t the kind of guy to play soft. He had a reputation. Poker games where he’d cleaned out half the block. Dares he’d thrown down that ended with someone shaving their head or cleaning his gutters shirtless in January. He didn’t go easy on anyone. Not even people he liked. I should have walked away then. Should’ve laughed it off, made a joke about him being a psycho MacGyver and gone home. But I didn’t.

“I’ve got the tools, the space, the know-how,” he said. He walked over and slapped his palm against the doorframe next to me, close enough that I could smell the clean sweat on him, a whiff of sawdust and heat. “If I think it through, I could rig something up. Something that’ll actually test you. I mean something where you’ll have to think, feel your way through, earn your way out.”

I narrowed my eyes. “That’s… pretty intense, man.”

“Good,” he said, smiling. “That’s the point.”

“And I really mean no mercy, Mark,” he continued. “No emergency button, no yelling for help. Once that door closes, you’re locked in until you figure it out. I don’t care if you scream, cry, or piss yourself. You either solve your way out or you wait.”

I knew Caleb’s reputation. I’d seen him take dares too far, seen him hound guys for debts like a grinning loan shark. And yet, something about the way he talked. Confident, commanding, unshakably masculine. It kept pulling me in. Maybe I liked his intensity. Maybe I liked the idea of proving myself to him. Or maybe I just liked him, more than I’d ever admitted, even to myself.

There was something in the way he talked about this that sent a chill up my spine, but also that flicker of heat in my gut. He meant it. Every word. And the truth was, the idea of being really locked in, tested, alone with only my wits and whatever this rugged bastard could throw at me, it lit something up inside me. Every instinct in me said this was a trap. Maybe not a cruel one, but a trap all the same. But I still found myself nodding.

“Okay, let’s do it. I’m in.”

He nodded once, satisfied. “Good. Then we’ll see what you’re made of.”

***

The rest of that weekend passed in a strange blur. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d agreed to. I tried to play it cool. I watched TV, cleaned the kitchen, and I even made it to Caleb’s poker game Saturday night. But every time I looked at him across the table, my mind drifted back to the weight of those padlocks on his workbench, the smooth gleam of the chain, the way he said “no tap-outs” without blinking.

He hadn’t brought it up again at the game. Didn’t have to. Just gave me that look once or twice, like we had a secret. Like he already knew I was counting down the days.

By Monday, I was halfway convinced I’d made a mistake. But not the kind of mistake I wanted to undo. The kind that made my pulse quicken. The kind you go through with because not going through with it would be worse.

That week crawled. Every hour of work felt like background noise. I found myself walking by Caleb’s house every day, looking for signs of activity in the garage or yard. Sometimes I saw him carrying things. Lumber, cable, a big box from the hardware store that made my stomach twist.

On Wednesday, I passed him at the mailbox. He didn’t say anything about it then. Just nodded and smiled, like we were two guys with nothing between us but weather and small talk.

Then Thursday afternoon hit.

I was just getting back from work, loosening my tie, when I saw Caleb standing by the fence between our yards, arms folded. He had that look on his face again. Half challenge, half grin.

“Got a minute?” he asked.

“Sure.”

He didn’t waste time. “I finished it.”

I blinked. “The room?”

He nodded. “Basement’s ready. Took me longer than I expected, but it’s solid. Anchored in the slab. No shortcuts. Just like I promised.”

I exhaled slowly, feeling that weight in my chest again. “So tomorrow night?”

“That was the plan,” he said. Then he tilted his head slightly, calculating. “But you free tonight?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Tonight?”

“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “You were planning to call in sick tomorrow anyway, right?”

“I—wait, what?”

He gave me a knowing look. “Come on, Mark. Don’t pretend. I know how your brain works. You’ve already rehearsed what you’ll say. Headache. Flu symptoms. Maybe food poisoning if you’re feeling dramatic.”

“I would lean toward a migraine.”

“Smart. Can’t be disproven. You’re a terrible liar, but even you can sell a migraine.”

I laughed, shaking my head. “You really want to start this thing tonight?”

“Why not?” he said, voice low and steady. “Long weekend starts tomorrow. Might as well make the most of it.”

I paused. I should have hesitated longer. I should have asked questions. About food, about time limits, about what the actual setup looked like. But he was standing there with his muscles bulging out through a tight black tee, arms crossed, jaw sharp, eyes daring me.

And I liked it.

I liked him, even if I wasn’t ready to say that out loud.

“Alright,” I said finally. “Let me make the call.”

He nodded once and turned toward his house. “Come over when you’re ready.”

***

I didn’t pack a bag. Somehow that felt wrong, like bringing a cheat sheet into an exam. Caleb hadn’t told me what I’d need, and I wasn’t about to start asking for special treatment. If this was a dare, I was going to take it the way he dealt it.

I walked over around six.

The sun was just starting to dip low, streaking the sky with gold and violet. Caleb met me at the back door, expression unreadable.

“You ready?” he asked.

“As I’ll ever be.”

He led me down the stairs to the basement.

It was partially finished. Concrete floors, half-drywalled walls, exposed ductwork overhead. There was a bare twin mattress in one corner, a toilet behind a modest privacy divider, a jug of water. It was dimly lit by a single bulb overhead. I noticed a small window, but it was blacked out.

And then I saw it.

The chain.

Fifteen feet of thick, gleaming steel, coiled neatly on the floor like something alive. One end was already secured to a bolt sunk deep into the foundation, a welded ring that wasn’t going anywhere without serious tools and serious time. The other end of the chain lay open, a heavy steel collar resting beside it.

“Told you it would be real,” Caleb said as he watched me take it all in.

The collar was industrial. It was smooth and seamless, with a hinge at the back and a square mounting bracket for the lock in the front. It wasn’t just for show. This thing was meant to hold.

For a moment, I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move.

I’d joked about being locked up. Fantasized about what it might feel like. But now the reality of it was staring me in the face. No emergency exit. No staff member on the other side of a plexiglass door. Just me, Caleb, two padlocks, a collar, and a chain.

“Still think it’s a game?” he asked softly.

I looked at him.

He was calm. Still. Not gloating. Not mocking. Just waiting.

I reached down and picked up the collar. It was heavier than I expected. Cool to the touch. The hinge creaked as I opened it, and in that sound I heard something final. Something binding. I held it for a moment, weighing it in my hands, and in my head.

He stepped closer, and for the first time that day, I felt something shift in the air between us. Something unspoken.

He moved behind me. Quiet, methodical. I stood still, unsure if my legs were shaking or if the floor itself had gone unstable.

“You still want this?” he asked, slowly. “Last chance to back out.”

I turned my head just enough to see him, the curve of his jaw in the low light, the calm steadiness in his eyes. No cruelty. Just certainty.

I swallowed hard.

“I wasn’t expecting the collar,” I admitted.

He stepped past me slowly,. “You said you wanted to be locked in. Not kind-of-locked. Not supervised. Not pretend.” He looked at me with that signature smirk. “So what’s it gonna be?”

I hesitated. He saw it and stepped closer.

“Or was all that talk just talk?” he asked, tone edging toward a dare. “Because if you’re not actually ready for this, I can pack it all up, no harm done.”

My jaw tightened. He was doing this on purpose. Testing me. Poking the edge of my pride like a lion swatting at a wounded deer.

“Go ahead then, lock it on,” Caleb taunted, crossing his arms. “I dare you. Show me you’re not just playing around.”

My heart was pounding, and not just from nerves. It was something deeper. Excitement. Anticipation. Fear, sure, but the kind that makes your hands sweat in a good way. Like looking over the edge of a rooftop and deciding to jump.

I reached down, picked up the padlock, slid it through the bracket at my throat, and without giving myself time to second-guess—

Click.

A clean snap.

Like the sound of a jail cell door swinging shut in a movie.

And that was it.

There was no code. No remote-release mechanism. Just me, and steel, and the man who had put it there.

It was done.

The lock was on. The collar was closed. I was chained to Caleb’s floor—and I had done it to myself.

I didn’t know what to say. The silence that followed was loud in my ears, like my body needed a moment to register the weight now fixed to my neck.

Caleb just stood there, nodding once, slowly. No jokes. No applause. Just a satisfied look in his eyes that said, yeah, you passed the first test.

With the other end of the chain locked solidly to the bolt in the floor, I was tethered, fifteen feet in any direction, and no more.

“You move fast when you want to impress someone,” he said as he stood back.

I couldn’t tell if that was a jab or a compliment. Maybe both.

“You still good?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“This is it, Mark. From here on out, you’re playing by my rules.”

He waited a beat to see if I’d flinch, then turned and walked slowly to the stairs. At the top, he paused, glanced over his shoulder.

“I’ll check on you tomorrow,” he said. “No hints. No shortcuts. You figure your way out or you stay right there.”

Then he shut the door behind him.

I heard the latch click.

And just like that, I was alone.

***

For a while, I just stood there.

Fifteen feet of slack chain gave me room to move, barely. I walked a slow circle around the anchor bolt, feeling the tug as it reached its limits. I could sit, lie down, pace, but the chain was always there. Whispering at my neck. A constant reminder that I had stepped willingly into something I couldn’t back out of.

I reached up and touched the collar, ran my fingers along the curve of it. The way it sat snug but not choking. The way the padlock hung cold against my chest.

It was real. All of it.

And I had never felt so alive.

There was fear, sure. But beneath that, pulsing like a second heartbeat, was something sharper. Excitement. The clean, electric kind that only comes from surrendering control. From putting yourself completely in someone else’s hands.

It was the biggest thrill I’d had in years.

And it was only just beginning.

***

Interlude: Caleb’s perspective

He had enjoyed the sound of the final click. That sharp, metallic snap, the padlock closing around Mark’s neck. Caleb paused at the top of the steps, hand resting against the wall, just listening.

No hesitation. No protest. No second-guessing.

That surprised him.

Most guys would’ve flinched. Gotten cold feet. Made a joke and laughed it off. Mark didn’t. Mark locked the damn collar on himself like he wanted it.

Interesting.

Caleb hadn’t expected that level of follow-through. He had always pegged Mark as a little too careful. Bright, sure. Funny, easy to talk to, but cautious. The kind of guy who followed procedure. Who backed down from a bet once it got uncomfortable.

But something had shifted in Mark since that night they talked about the escape room.

He’d seen it in his eyes. When he’d picked up the collar, when he’d held the lock in his hand. There was nervous energy there, yes. But underneath it was a hunger.

He wanted this.

And that changed everything.

Caleb closed the basement door gently behind him and leaned back against it, arms crossed.

He didn’t think Mark had any idea how long this was going to last.

And that was the real challenge.

Anyone could handle being chained for an hour. Even two. But a full night? Longer?

Isolation does things. Changes your sense of time. Plays tricks on your confidence.

And the game hadn’t even started yet.

***

Mark again:

I don’t know how long I stood there after Caleb left.

Minutes, probably. Just pacing the length of my chain like an animal in a cage, running my hands along the collar to convince myself it was real. The padlock under my chin shifted with every step, clinking softly like a second heartbeat.

I should’ve felt trapped. Should’ve felt stupid, maybe even humiliated.

But all I felt was alive.

This was no fake escape room with reset buttons and emergency exits. I was chained. Collared. Locked in my neighbor’s basement, and I’d done it to myself. Voluntarily.

The absurdity of it wasn’t lost on me.

And yet I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face.

I took my time getting familiar with the space. The fifteen-foot range gave me a surprising amount of territory, enough to reach the mattress, the water, the toilet, and even a corner where a small metal workbench stood with a single drawer and an empty surface. But beyond that, I was stuck in a radius. No further.

At the other end of the chain was the other padlock secured to the anchor bolt. It was thick, hardened steel that bolt cutters would be useless against, and it had four rotating dials, each numbered zero to nine.

Caleb hadn’t said much about it, but I remembered the smug little glance he gave it on our way down. Like it was the centerpiece of his design. The way out.

I understood immediately that there were 9,999 possible combinations.

Unless I had the code—and I didn’t.

Or… did I?

I sat down on the floor and stared at the lock.

Somewhere in the back of my head, I heard Caleb’s voice. “You’re playing by my rules now.”

Had he already told me the code?

I thought back. The conversation at the fence. The stairs. The collar. Had he dropped a clue in all that tension?

Nothing concrete came to mind. But I remembered he’d looked at his watch at one point. Said something about the time.

Had that been intentional?

“You move fast when you want to impress someone.”

I chewed on that for a while. It was the kind of thing someone like Caleb would do, feed you the answer casually and watch you struggle to realize you missed it.

Dammit.

I could start guessing. I could even brute-force it, eventually. One combo at a time, spinning the dials.

0000

0001

0002

0003…

Each attempt would take maybe four seconds. That’s about 15 tries per minute, 900 per hour. Even working straight through, no breaks, it would take me over eleven hours to cycle them all.

And then the lights went out.

Click.

Just like that.

Dark.

No warning. No sound. No flicker. Just gone.

Total blackness.

I froze.

The silence was so complete it felt physical. The absence of light pressed in on me like water pressure at the bottom of the ocean.

I reached up, instinctively, and felt the collar. Still locked. Still real. Still very much on me.

I laughed, short and low, the kind of laugh you let out when your nerves don’t know what else to do.

Of course.

Of course he would do this.

Caleb hadn’t just locked me in, he’d handicapped the escape itself. Now, not only did I not know the combination, I couldn’t even see the damn dials to spin them.

I shuffled back to the mattress and sat down. The cold from the floor seeped up into my spine.

This wasn’t going to be a two-hour puzzle.

This was going to be work.

I lay back and stared into the void above me. My mind racing. Trying to reverse-engineer everything he’d said to me earlier. Replay the walk down. What had I missed?

I drifted in and out of sleep, minutes at a time, until something metallic brushed against my foot.

I reached down, fingers searching blindly through the dark, and found it: a small black plastic crank device wired into the wall. No label. No instructions. Just a crank.

I turned it slowly. Nothing.

Then faster.

The bulb above flickered once, dimly, and went dark again.

I turned the crank harder this time, for longer, until my arm burned and the blood rushed to my shoulder.

The light came on again.

Not bright. But enough to see.

Ten seconds. Fifteen.

Then it died.

That’s the game, I thought.

Caleb hadn’t just left me locked up. He’d built a loop: effort, light, puzzle, darkness. Over and over again.

If I wanted out, I was going to have to earn it.

One crank at a time.