Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 17:47:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: David Brown <tugger049@yahoo.com>
Subject: The Scarecrow

The usual caveats.  If you are under eighteen, please come back when you
can legally read this sort of story.  If you don't find ropes and gags
enhancements to erotic encounters, you probably won't enjoy this; if you
do, then you well may.

Please do not post this tale to any other site without permission, and
please do not post it as your own work.  These stories take work (enjoyable
work, but work nonetheless), and I enjoy receiving the credit.  Alan Katz,
this means you!

			       THE SCARECROW

I suppose you might say it began with the crows.  Or else with the wedding.
Of course, if you wanted to trace the entire history of the whole affair,
and the motives of every man involved it would all go back much further.
But I don't think we want to do that, so let's say it began with the crows,
and start there.
	Or else with the wedding.  Actually, the wedding itself has nothing
to do with the story, but it was because of the wedding that I came back
that Saturday afternoon, late for my usual on the back porch get-together
with John and his brother James, and Rick.  And it was also the reason I
was all dressed up in a suit.  I still kept some of my city friendships,
and when Jan and Bill invited me to their wedding, I was happy to go.  I
had had a good time, too, considering, and since I don't drink, nothing of
that was a factor in what happened.  But when I parked the car in front of
the house, and walked around to the back, I was almost an hour late, and
the other fellows were sitting on my back porch, beers in their hands and
smiles on their faces.  It had been a beautiful Indian summer day, warm and
clear and dry, with just that clean hint of coolness in the air that gets
your blood going and makes you feel you must be right with the world for it
to look the way it does, going out in a glory of bright color before the
winter comes at last.
	I was walking up the steps when John let out a soft wolf whistle
and James said, "Gosh, isn't he pretty!"
	I glared at John, said, "Yeah, right," to James, and headed on into
the kitchen to get myself some iced tea.  Nobody locked doors in our neck
of the woods, and I knew the three had helped themselves to the beer I kept
in the fridge for just such days and them.
	"No, I mean it," James said as he got up and followed me in.  "You
do look, OK, not pretty, but handsome, Steve, you really do."
	I gave him a look, one raised eyebrow and a rueful smile, and
poured myself a tall glass of the tea.  I wasn't sure what to make of his
remark.  I'm not so bad for a man pushing sixty, I suppose.  I'm tall, over
six feet, and I work out a bit to keep myself in shape.  I've been lucky
enough to keep my hair, though it's all Grey now, like my mustache, and I
suppose I never was too hard on the eyes and am not so now.  I looked at
James over my glass.  He and his brother were both medium tall, and
dark-haired and fair-skinned, John with gray eyes and James with light
brown.  John was about forty, James a few years younger, and both were in
fine shape from the work they did.  The two of them owned a little organic
vegetable farm they and John's college buddy, Rick, had run for the last
fifteen years.  John wore a walrus mustache, James had changed his beard
for a goatee a year or so ago.  I had always thought them both very
good-looking men, John the more butch of the two, James masculine enough
but with a rather touching boyishness about him that was hard to describe
but hard to resist.
	The screen door slammed, and I looked over to see Rick standing
there, a smile on his bearded face.  Rick was closer to my age--he had been
a grad student when John was an undergrad--and there was plenty of gray in
his light-colored hair and beard.  He had only a few months ago cropped
back the long pony-tail he had worn for years, and trimmed his mountain man
beard into a closely barbered but still thick, almost military affair on
his big jaw.  He was a big man all over, taller than I was, considerably
heavier, fleshy without being fat, with handsome features and friendly but
very shrewd eyes.  I liked John and James, a lot.  I wasn't sure I trusted
my feelings for Rick.  He drew me too hard.  I had known the three of them
since soon after I had moved six months before to this house fifty miles
north of town, but there were still things about all of them I was unsure
about.  I suspected that there was more to John's and James' relationship
than you might suppose would be between brothers; I could never quite
figure how Rick fit in there.  But I liked them all, very well, and they
seemed to like me.
	Rick crossed the room to get himself another beer.  As he opened
the door, he looked me up and down and then said with his slow smile, "I
agree with James.  You look very handsome, Steve, or, no," he corrected
himself, "you always look handsome, but you look very distinguished all
dressed up like that."  I registered with pleased surprise that Rick
thought I was handsome, something he had never had occasion to mention
before.
	"Thanks," I said, rather ungraciously, I am afraid.  I was feeling
a bit shy about this attention, although I seemed to like it well enough
not to run off and immediately change out of the clothes that had
occasioned it.  I wasn't all that duded up, or so I had thought when I
dressed that morning for the wedding: my good, navy blue pin-stripe, a
light blue shirt, a dark blue and white and black rep silk tie, and a silk
handkerchief of a paisley in similar colors puffed in my chest pocket.  The
sort of thing, really, that I had worn almost every day before I retired
early, got into the used book business out of my house and more recently on
the net, and didn't need to dress up for work any more.  Not that I
disliked good clothes.  I didn't.  In fact, I liked them, and me in them,
truth to tell, but there wasn't much call for them as my life was now.
Which was partly what lead to the crows.  And the scarecrow.  And what
happened that day.
	I went out onto the porch, James and Rick following, and looked out
over the field.  I guess you could call it a field.  The house, a
turn-of-the-century, two-story farmhouse, sat on three acres of land, land
long gone from being tilled to brush and woods.  The only cleared area was
near the farmhouse itself, a half-acre or so, some of which I had planted
in corn and other vegetables in the hope of eating from my own produce.
The plot of tilled land was maybe a hundred by a hundred feet, half of it
planted in corn.  The crows had shown an interest in the latter very soon
after the ears began to ripen, and I had lost my patience with the crows
not long after.  So, city boy that I am, I had made a scarecrow, much to
the amusement of my present friendly company.  I hadn't had a great deal in
the way of old clothes.  Who does, nowadays, when you think of it?  But I
did have a closet full of suits that I had been meaning to give to the Good
Will but had not, suits I certainly didn't need any more.
	I had found a decided amusement in making a scarecrow from my old
gray suit.  I kind of felt as if the scarecrow were really me, out in that
plot of land, keeping away the marauding crows.  And being the man I am, I
didn't just stick the suit up on a couple of sticks and let it go at that.
No, I did the real thing, or what I fondly thought was the real thing.  I
made a project of it.  The stake I used was good and tall and heavy and
well- pounded into the earth, and the cross beam for my alter image in the
yard was stout as well.  I stuffed straw with a will and gave the figure a
full-formed body and arms and legs, and I used an old pillow case to make
the head, though I stopped short of giving him any features.  But I gave
the silly fellow a complete outfit, not just the suit: a shirt, and a tie,
and even, on a whimsical impulse, a silk handkerchief for his chest pocket,
and an old fedora I had on his pillowcase head.  When I was done, he was
sturdy, he was well- dressed, and he stood in the field looking like the
perfect gentleman scarecrow.  The only trouble was, the crows didn't seem
to mind his presence at all.
	John and James and Rick had gotten a good chuckle over my
handiwork.  James had found it funniest, but Rick had simply smiled his
slow smile.
	"Looks like you've got a dandy for your farmhand, Steve," he'd
said.
	"Oh, no," I'd replied, "that fellow's me, me from another life
before, doing some good now, working in the fields."
	Rick had raised an eyebrow and chuckled while James and John
laughed.
	Oddly enough, though, the idea that the scarecrow was myself had
taken hold in my mind.  I mean, every once in a while, over the month he
had stood out there, in the sun and wind but not, fortunately for his fancy
dress, the rain, since it had been a very dry October, I had looked out at
that tall, still figure and wondered what it would be like to be him for
real.  I had said he was me from a former life, and he was dressed in the
clothes from that former life.  I found myself ruminating on the idea more
than once, but to no sure end.  It was just a fancy, really, a queer idea,
me as a dandy scarecrow in a cornfield.  And yet, there was something to
the idea, I couldn't help but feel.  I was sort of like my scarecrow.  I
was still a city boy, out of place, enjoying the feel of the sun and the
air, but not quite at home, not really.  Rather like my scarecrow image out
in the yard, doing his duty and enjoying it maybe, dressed in the wrong
sort of clothes.
	I was thinking something of the same thing now, as I stood on the
porch in the long, thick light of the late afternoon, prompted, I suppose
by the clothes I was wearing.
	"What are you thinking, Steve?"  Rick asked from behind me.  This
was a common question from him, to John and to James as well as to me.  He
seemed to gain great amusement, in a kindly way, at getting us to spout out
our thoughts and then in examining them.  Sometimes, as now, I answered him
truthfully, or more or less so.
	"I've kind of been thinking the last month that my scarecrow out
there, my dandy farmhand, as you called him, is well, more me than meets
the eye."  I turned and grinned sheepishly at him and then glanced at the
other two.  John looked interested, James looked puzzled.
	"That's an odd thought, isn't it?" Rick said.
	I shrugged.  "I don't know.  Something about how he looks out of
place in the yard in those clothes; it makes me think of me being out here,
in the countryside, I mean." I smiled at him again, not sure how to say
what I meant and not completely sure what I meant in the first place.
	Rick was looking at me with a smile that had a tinge of sadness to
it, and he seemed about to say something, when James suddenly burst out,
"That's an idea," and laughed that oddly infectious laugh of his.
	"What's an idea, little brother James?"  John said.
	"Steve all dressed up like the scarecrow in his own yard, and
thinking he is the scarecrow in his yard.  Maybe he should."  He paused and
then looked at his brother and then at Rick with a smile I can only call
wicked.  "Be the scarecrow. Really, I mean."
	Rick looked half-puzzled, as if he thought he knew what James
meant, but was hesitating to think he was right.  John just grinned back.
	"What do you think, Rick?"  he asked.  "It might be fun."
	"For who?"  Rick said quietly, but he was smiling broadly now.
	"For us, anyway, you and me and James here, and maybe for Steve,
too.  You never know."  And he raised an eyebrow mockingly.
	I was watching them all, almost sure I knew what they meant, but
not quite.
	"Let's!" James said eagerly.
	John looked at Rick, who shrugged.  "Just so no one gets hurt."
	James jumped up.  "Of course not, Rick, I like him too much, you
know that!  And besides, I don't like hurting, you know that, too!"  He
grabbed me by the arm and started leading me down the steps.  "Com'on,
Steve, you're gonna be scarecrow for a day."
	I chuckled and tried to shake him off, but John was at my side and
took my other arm, and they both pulled me down the stairs.  Rick was right
behind us.
	"What are youggulummmmmph!"  I started to say, but my words were
abruptly cut off when Rick reached from behind me and stuffed his
handkerchief into my mouth.
	"Oh good," James said, "you're gonna gag him."  He dragged his
handkerchief from his pocket and reached it back to Rick.  We were standing
at the foot of the steps, John and James holding me from either side and
Rick behind me.
	"Mummmph!"  I mumbled a protest into Rick's handkerchief and tried
to spit it out, but John had his handkerchief out and he stuffed it between
my lips, forcing the double wads of soft cloth in deep.  "Mmmmmph!
Mmmmmmm!"  Even as I grunted into the gag, Rick brought James's
handkerchief, which he had rolled into a thick bandage, over my head and
dragged it back between my jaws.  He pulled the cinch tight and knotted it
firmly at the base of my skull.
	"Mmmmmmmmmmmmmph!"  Astounded and indignant, I grunted into the
gag, but I found that they knew their business and I was pretty well
silenced.
	From behind me, Rick said, "That should hold him for now.  I'll get
some of his own handkerchiefs and the clothesline while you two take him
over to the scarecrow."
	I heard him clomping back up the steps as John and James began to
hustle me across the yard.  I was mumbling protests into my gag the whole
way, and struggling to get free, but John and James, though smaller, were
stronger than I and it was, after all, two against one.  I was still
convinced that the whole thing was a joke, although being gagged for real
like this had startled me, and so I did not struggle as hard as I might
have.  I did give them some trouble, however, and they had only just
managed to bring me up to where the scarecrow stood when Rick rejoined us.
He had the clothesline from my laundry room over one shoulder and a big
handful of my own handkerchiefs in one hand.  He was grinning broadly now.
It seemed that if he had had any reservations about what I still regarded
as a silly joke, they were gone now.
	"Mmmmmmph!  Mmmmmmph!"  I jerked in the two men's arms.
	"How're we going to do this?"  Rick asked.
	"You take the scarecrow down, and then we'll put Steve here in his
place," James said.
	Rick looked a bit doubtful, but, stuffing my handkerchiefs into the
front pocket of his overalls and dropping the rope to the ground, he set to
work on the scarecrow.  The rest of us watched him, me grunting into my gag
in protest a few times, and John and James glancing from him to me,
grinning the while.  Rick took off the figure's fedora, pulled off the
pillowcase head, and then reached up and undid the tie, pulling it free and
dropping it to join the hat.  Then he dragged out, with a little
difficulty, the sturdy stake I had used as the crossbar for the scarecrow's
arms.  When he did so, the arms drooped suddenly to the figure's sides, and
I couldn't help but think that the poor straw man must be feeling some
relief, after standing with his arms stretched out all that time.  Piece by
piece, Rick took the clothes apart, almost as if he were undressing a real
man, pulling out the bundles of straw I had used to assemble my scarecrow
as he did so.  In a few moments, the clothes were lying on the ground, the
bundles of straw, starting to unravel now, beside them.  He stood up and
turned to us.
	"Mmmmmmmph!"  I grunted at him, and he came to stand in front of
me, a half- rueful, half wicked smile on his handsome face.
	"Cat got your tongue, Steve?"  he asked softly.
	"Mmmmmmmph!"
	Rick turned to James.  "OK, now what?"
	"Tie that stake across the other one, like a cross."  Rick nodded.
Taking up the rope, he used his knife to cut off a length, and then he tied
the two pieces of wood as James had directed.  He was thorough and neat in
the work, lashing the cross stick firmly in place and knotting the rope
tight.  As soon as he was done, James and John forced me over to the wooden
cross the stakes now formed and spread me on it with my back to the wooden
beam.
	"Now tie him to it," James commanded.  Rick grinned at me, raised
an eyebrow at my protesting mumble, muffled by my gag, and followed James'
order.  He first cut off a couple of lengths of the rope, and then,
swinging the remaining clothesline over his shoulder, proceeded to lash
first one hand, then the other, tightly to either end of the crossbeam.
John and James held me in position as he worked.  He pulled the rope snug,
coiling it in several close turns around my wrists, and knotting the rope
securely.  I jerked and struggled, but John and James, with only a little
difficulty, held me in place.
	"Now ."  James began, but Rick cut him off.
	"I know what to do," he said.  And he did.  He cut off a length of
clothesline, and used the cord to bind my ankles firmly to the base of the
upright stake, again pulling the rope tight and knotting it firmly.  Then,
while John and James still held me, he used two more lengths to secure my
upper arms, close up to shoulders, to the crossbeam.  Now I was too bound
up to free myself or struggle effectively, and John and James stood back.
Rick continued to rope me up to the wooden cross.  He bound my chest to the
crossbeam and the upright, crisscrossing the cord tightly from over one
shoulder, across my chest, and under my arm, and then back again, pulling
the lashing tight and repeating it several times on either side before
tying it off snugly.  He passed a length of cord around my waist and pulled
it tight, cinching me back close to the upright.  He used more rope to bind
my legs above and below my knees, lashing them tight to the upright as
well.  When he was done, I could barely squirm in my bindings.  I was
pulled up snug to the wooden cross and lashed against it very tightly,
unable to do more than strain at the coils of rope.
	John and James had watched Rick secure me so thoroughly with wide
smiles.  When he was done, James said, "That will hold him, won't it?"  and
John nodded his agreement.
	"Mmmmmmph!  Mugummmmmph!"  Struggling with the ropes that held me
helpless, I grunted at them into my gag.
	Rick looked at me, a lazy smile on his handsome features.
	"Now I'm going to improve that gag, Steve," he said to me.
	He took out my handkerchiefs, separated three from the lot, and
handed the rest to John.  "Hold those," he said.  I should say, perhaps,
that I had rather a large collection of handkerchiefs, and that I was
ridiculously choosy over them.  I preferred them as large as possible, and
with colored borders to them.  The three Rick had in his hand were
therefore very ample squares of soft cotton, white in the center and
bordered variously with dull maroon or navy or forest green stripes.  He
proceeded to shake open the three big squares, layered them one on the
other, and deftly rolled them in upon themselves to form a huge puffy wad.
Tucking that into the bib of his overalls, he stepped close to me, and
reached behind my head.  As I said, Rick is taller than I am.  The stake
behind me prevented me from easily bending back my head to look into his
face, and I was glowering at him under my brows.  He grinned at me as he
loosened the knot in Jack's white handkerchief that he had tied through my
jaws and then let it fall to my chest.  I started to try to work loose the
gag in my mouth, but he was there before me, gently easing the sodden wads
from between my teeth.
	"What the heck are you ."  I started to say indignantly, but Rick
cut me off by bending close and kissing me on the lips.  His lips were warm
and surprisingly soft, his mustache and beard prickly but gently fuzzy, and
his kiss was tender.  And long.  I felt his tongue tease at my lips and
front teeth, but I was too astounded to respond.  After a moment, he pulled
back.
	"You are such a handsome old fellow, Steve," he said quietly.  Then
he took the huge wad of my own handkerchiefs he had prepared moments ago
and shoved it into my mouth.  I was still too dazed from the kiss to
resist, and I let him fill my mouth with the immense ball of soft cloth.
	"Good man," he murmured, and he brought up the handkerchief from my
throat and retied it through my jaws, pulling it mercilessly tight, so that
I groaned into the enormous wad that blocked my mouth.  He pulled the cinch
hard, looking down into my eyes, an expression that strangely mingled
tenderness and triumph in his own brown gaze, and then he pulled the
handkerchief yet tighter, and tighter still, before knotting the ends off
in a secure knot.  Without looking away from me, he said, "Give me a couple
of his handkerchiefs."
	John reached him two more of my own big handkerchiefs, and Rick
used them, as he had the others, to form a second great wad, smaller than
the one that was now deep in my mouth, but still huge.  With his gaze again
on mine, he stuffed this second wad between my lips, in front of the
tightly tied handkerchief.  He was strangely gentle and at the same time
insistent, slowly but surely forcing me to accept that second ball of soft
cloth between my distended jaws.
	"Another," he said, and John handed him another handkerchief.  Rick
rolled it swiftly into a thick bandage, and this he bound through my jaws
and pulled tight, binding in the second wad of the gag he was securing into
my mouth.  He pulled the band of cloth with the same almost savage severity
as he had pulled the first cinch, and knotted it hard behind my head.
	"Mmmmm.  Mmmmmm."  I moaned softly, all that I could do with those
huge wads of my own big handkerchiefs filling up my mouth from throat to
lips.
	Rick smiled at me, or was it at the helpless moans that were all I
could make?  "Two more," he said, and John gave him the last two of my
handkerchiefs.  Rick deftly folded one, a big affair with dark blue and
pale blue stripe in its border, into a wide bandage.  He pressed the other
handkerchief, one with all pale blue borders, in a thick pad over my
gag-filled mouth and used the wide bandage to bind it into place.  He
wrapped the wide, soft swath of cloth around my head and over my cheeks,
bringing the ends behind my head and pulling them tight, very tight, into a
knot at the base of my skull.  I whimpered softly, unable to stop myself,
as he pulled the knot home.
	"Mmmmmmmphtpht!  Mmmmmmmmmummmmm!"  I struggled to cry out, drawing
my breath deep into my bound chest and straining to force out the loudest
noise I could.  Smothered, completely inarticulate moans, senseless and
thoroughly muffled, were all I could manage through that cruel gag.  Rick
took my head in his hands then, and stared down into my eyes.
	"Cat got your tongue, Steve?" he whispered.  "What are you
thinking, Steve?"
	I stared up at him.  His big hands were gently rubbing the sides of
my head, his fingers toying with the edges of my ears.  He was smiling.  He
had never looked so handsome as he did now, close to me, so close I could
feel his breath on my face, his eyes gazing intently into mine.  I strained
against the ropes that bound me, suddenly desperate to put my arms around
this man.
	"Why don't you answer me, Steve?  Hmmmm?"  He was smiling now, his
expression gentle, tender.
	I struggled with the gag desperately.  "Mmmmmmm.  Mmmmmmmmmph.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmph."  My own big handkerchiefs bound around my head were
unbelievably tight, the knots that held them digging hard into the base of
my skull.  The great wads of soft cloth that smothered my cries and made it
so hard to take a deep breath pressed my tongue down and forced my jaws
into an almost immobile gape.  At the same time, the huge balls of cloth
filled that distention to overflowing.  I had never been so cruelly-nor so
effectually-gagged before.
	"Why don't you talk to me, Steve?" Rick whispered.  "Hmmm?" He
smiled, still caressing the side of my head gently.  "Is it . because
you're gagged, Steve?  Hmmmm?  Is that it?  You can't answer me because you
have that nice big gag of your own handkerchiefs in your mouth?  Is that
it, my handsome one, eh?  You're gagged?"
	Unable to help myself, feeling myself begin to succumb to the
seductive sound of Rick's deep voice, I nodded in agreement.  He was right.
I was gagged.  I was truly gagged, smotheringly, completely, thoroughly
gagged, rendered utterly inarticulate and incommunicative by the huge wads
and thick swaths of my own handkerchiefs.
	"Umm hmmmmmph."  I groaned my acquiescence through the soft,
mouth-filling gag.  Rick nodded at me slowly as he let his hands fall and
stepped back.  Still looking at me, he said, "Now what, my friends?"  Able
now, for a moment, to take my eyes away from Rick, I saw that John had his
brother pulled back up against him, one of his own strong arms wrapped
around the younger man's chest, and a big hand clamped hard over his
brother's mouth.  Above that big hand, James' brown eyes were wide and
bright, darting from me to Rick and back again.  "Pity you used all those
handkerchiefs on Steve there," John said with a grin.  Rick turned around
and I saw his smile broaden.  "I could use a few to muffle up little
brother James, here," Jack said.  "There're a whole drawerful more up in
Steve's room," Rick said.  "How about if I run up and get some for you?"
He didn't wait for an answer but, with a smiling glance and a wink at me,
hurried off, ran off really, his big body looking oddly graceful as he
swiftly gained the porch and disappeared into the house.  John, James, and
I were left looking at each other.  "Mmmmmph.  Mmmmmmmmmmm."  I mumbled
hopelessly into my gag.  My emotions were a strange tangle of
contradictions.  My indignation at being manhandled this way by the three
of them was long over.  I felt a kind of embarrassment at being so helpless
in front of the two brothers.  But that stemmed from having them see, or so
I suspected, that I had been enjoying all too much the whole affair,
despite my indignation, enjoying it moreover in a way that I was almost
ashamed to admit, even to myself.  I wondered, no, I worried if the
stiffness of my privates in my trousers was obvious to the other two, and
most of all, if Rick knew-and what he thought.  And what he intended.  John
and James, meanwhile, stood and waited.  John's attention was clearly on
his brother and on the far door of the house, I realized.  James looked
sidelong at me more than once, but he too watched that door.  It was only a
moment before Rick returned, appearing abruptly in the dark opening and
clomping swiftly down the stairs and across the yard.  "Let's tie his hands
first," he said quietly.  John snorted with a grin.  "I did that while you
were communing with your handsome captive," he said.  I saw that indeed
James' hands were roped behind his back.  Rick grinned back.  "Okey dokey,
then, do I gag him or do you?"  "You do it.  I wanna watch."  I watched,
too, as Rick gagged the other man, using my handkerchiefs in the same way
he had used them to gag me.  Evidently, I thought, he had gagged men
before, had had a great deal of practice in gagging men, and had perfected,
as I knew very well, his technique.  James, I saw, submitted docilely, even
eagerly, to being silenced, and I seemed to sense a bond between the three
men in the act that told me it was something with which they were all three
intimately familiar.  Rick unfolded and gathered into a wad, however, not
just three but, to my amazement, four of my big handkerchiefs.  When John
lifted his hand from James' mouth, grasped his brother's chin, and yanked
his jaws open, Rick thrust that enormous ball of soft cloth deep into
James' mouth, forcing the younger man to take in the whole huge wad.  James
moaned, but not, I thought in pain.  His moans, and the way he writhed in
his older brother's arms, expressed not resistance to the brutal gag but
his deep desire.  Rick took a rolled handkerchief and bound it with
unrelenting tightness between the other man's jaws, pulling it savagely
tight and knotting it off with brutal severity behind his head.  James
twisted his head to look up at his brother while Rick prepared a second,
this time three handkerchief, wad.  John looked down at the man in his arms
with a kind of amused tenderness that somehow shocked me and yet made me
feel an obscure envy.  Then Rick shoved the second wad into James' mouth,
forcing it in without mercy and then binding it in with another rolled
handkerchief.  As James gazed up at him, he finished off the gag with a
folded pad over the younger man's mouth and a wide-folded handkerchief tied
so tightly and cruelly around his head I was surprised the fabric did not
tear from the strain.  With a wicked grin, Rick added a handkerchief
blindfold to James' bonds, something the younger man seemed to genuinely
resist, but, held by his brother and with his hands tied, he was helpless
to do so successfully.  John now pushed his brother to the ground and Rick,
grabbing the man's feet, brought them up behind him.  John used the long
tail of rope hanging from the bindings on his brother's wrist to put James
into a snug hog-tie.  The two other man stood and looked down at their
second captive.  James struggled, rolling uselessly from side to side.
"Mmmmmmmmph.  Mmmmmmmmm."  He twisted his handkerchief-swathed head and
moaned into his gag.  The sounds he made tightened my sex in my groin and I
moaned softly in unconscious response.  "Well," John said, grinning at
Rick.  "Now what?"  Rick smiled slowly back.  Pointing at James, he said,
"I think this little boy needs to go home, don't you?  It's his nap time."
John chuckled, and looked sidelong at me.  "And what about him?"  "I'll see
to the dandy scarecrow," Rick said.  John nodded as he bent down over
James.  "Help me get this little boy into our truck."  Rick leaned down and
took James' feet while John took his shoulders and together they hefted up
the bound, blindfolded, and gagged man and carried him across the yard and
around the corner of the house.  I waited, pulling at the ropes that
secured me to my post, barely admitting to myself how aroused I was by my
helplessness, by my huge soft gag, and by my wonder and hope at what Rick
would now do.  I heard the brothers' truck start and then drive away, and a
moment later, Rick came back around the corner of the house.  He paused
there, looking across the yard at me, and I gazed back.  I twisted my head
and mumbled uselessly into my gag.  "Mmmmmmummmph.  Mummmmmmmph."  Rick
glanced up at the porch and then climbed onto it, grabbed a chair, and
plunked it down at the top of the stairs.  Seating himself, he took out his
pipe and his tobacco and prepared to smoke.  As he did so, he glanced up at
me in a leisurely fashion, giving me a slow, satisfied smile.  The stakes I
was tied to held me facing sidewise to the house and porch.  I could look
over at Rick by turning my head to my left, or else look out across the
fields in the valley by staring straight ahead, or to my right, through the
trees that edged my little garden, see the railroad tracks on the edge of
my property.  The afternoon was easing off, and as Rick sat and smoked, and
as I stood, gagged and bound, in my garden, the long light of dusk
thickened around us.  For some while, neither of us moved, Rick because he
evidently chose not to, I because I was helpless to do otherwise.  I tested
and savored my bonds.  The ropes that held me were very tight, and they
pulled me upright into snug immobility against the sturdy wooden cross.  I
pulled hard at the lashings, but I found that they were firm, the repeated
coils pressing in thick bands around my limbs and my torso, clasping me
closely against the stakes.  I managed little give in my bindings, and no
real movement at all.
	My gag was equally secure.  The huge wads of my own handkerchiefs
that Rick had stuffed into my mouth forced my jaws far apart and filled the
gape between them with a solid mass of thick, soft cloth.  My tongue was
pressed to the floor of my mouth beneath the heavy rolls of the
handkerchiefs, and I could gain no purchase in my bite, though I strained
hard to do so.  The thick swaths of the cinches that held the double wads
of my handkerchiefs in place were knotted with ferocious severity, and I
found I was unable to loosen them even slightly.  The thick pad and final
swath which Rick had bound over my mouth and around my face were pulled
firmly into a snug seal, closing my lips and cheeks over the huge, tightly
tied in gag, and muffling me up completely.
	There is something that compels a man who is gagged to test his gag
repeatedly, as if he cannot believe that he has been deprived of so
fundamental an ability as speech.  He gathers his breath time after time
and tries to say something, to make some articulate noise, to shout for
help, and he is foolishly surprised again and again to discover that he is
gagged, and that to be gagged is to be silenced and muffled and
inarticulate.  I was no different.  Over and over I struggled with the
huge, soft wads of handkerchief that filled my mouth to overflowing, trying
desperately to make some sensible sound, and over and over again my gag
defeated me, reduced my attempts to muffled grunts and senseless whimpers.
	"Mmmmmmmph.  Mugulummmmmmmph."  Again and again I mmmmmphed
stupidly into my thick and smothering gag, while Rick watched me, pausing
now and then to take the pipe from his mouth and to smile at the faint and
hopelessly muffled sounds that were all I could make.
	After a short while, the sound of a train came from long in the
distance, the faint sound of its wheels rumbling on the tracks.  I glanced
over at Rick, to see what his response might be.  Setting down his pipe, he
clambered down from the porch and came to stand beside me for a moment.
Then, with a grin, he reached down and scooped up the fedora from the
ground and plunked it down onto my head.  Then he took up the rest of the
clothes he had discarded when he took down my original scarecrow and
returned with them to the porch, laying them carefully on one of the chairs
before again seating himself and taking up his pipe.
	The train was louder now, and I knew that soon it would round a
little rise a quarter mile or so off and then come intermittently into
sight as it wound its way up the valley to pass at the rear of my land.  I
strained to see it and suddenly, there it was, the first engine, followed
by two others, and behind them, one by one, the long line of freight cars
of varying sorts.  Slowly the engines dragged the train up the gradual
incline toward us, and then the first of them moved with smooth, powerful
ease behind the thin screen of trees at the edge of my land.  The tracks
were not far distant, only several hundred yards away, and I could see the
engineer at his post as the great machine rolled by.  He glanced idly our
way, looked for a moment, and then raised a hand in friendly greeting.  I
turned toward Rick, and found he had lifted his own hand in reply.  Whether
the engineer saw the movement of my head, and if he did, what he thought of
it-a scarecrow who moved?-I will never know.  The same fellow had likely
seen the oddly dandified scarecrow in my garden for days and weeks past,
and surely he was used to it by now.  Except for the movement of my head,
from that distance, I had probably not looked enough different to catch his
notice.  My own scarecrow had been simply a man in a suit absurdly set up
to scare the crows.  Bound and gagged though I was, perhaps I looked no
different.  The three engines moved past, the man in the second ignoring
both Rick and me, the third lifting a hand in slow greeting like the first,
and then the train rumbled by, car after car, tank, flatbed, boxcar, a long
trail of them clanking and trundling at the edge of the yard until at last,
the caboose came into view, went past, and the whole line was beyond me.  I
strained to look over my shoulder at the dark red of the caboose
disappearing into the trees.  "Mmmmmmph!  Mmmmmph." I called after it
hopelessly into my thick and smothering gag.  I am not sure why.  No one
could hear my muffled and gagged cries even a dozen yards off, and
certainly the engineers could not have heard them, and if they had, what
would they have done?  And I did not, in truth, wish for any rescue.  But a
sudden melancholy, a sudden feeling of loneliness had swept through me as
the caboose disappeared, and I strained in my bindings and struggled with
my gag.  Rick put out his pipe, pocketed it, and came down from the porch
to stand beside me. The light was turning thick with early dusk, and it
laid a sort of golden glow over the man, touching his hair and beard with
bright gleams, and flushing his warm skin with a deeper ruddiness.  He lit
his pipe then, watching me, a gentle smile on his face.  I stared back at
him, tightly trussed up to the wooden cross, brutally gagged, completely at
his mercy.  And deeply aroused by my helplessness at the hands of this
handsome man.  Rick sighed and shook his head, a wry smile on his lips.
"You really are a good- looking fellow, Steve.  You know that?"  He looked
at me as if he expected an answer, despite the severe gag he had secured in
my mouth.  I shook my head.  "Don't you now," he said softly.  He put his
pipe on the ground, stood up, and came to me, all in one quick motion.
Resting his big arms on my shoulders on either side of my head, he bent
close to me, looking into my eyes.  "You're a very good-looking man,
Steve," he said quietly.  He reached up to run his hand lightly down the
side of my face.  "Big and tall, and well-built, and with that nice gray
hair, and that bushy mustache, and that nice chin, and those blue, blue
eyes, and your nice smile."  He was looking me over as he spoke, still
gently stroking my face.  "Oh yes, Steve, you're a real handsome old man."
He grinned at me.  "I've wanted to fill your mouth with a big gag like that
one since I first saw you down at Limbeck's grocery store.  Bet you didn't
know that, did you?"  Again, he seemed to pause for my answer, and I shook
my head.  "Um ummph," I mumbled, with difficulty, into my enormous gag.
Rick took a deep breath.  "Oh Steve, you don't know how it turns me on to
hear you make those little gagged sounds."  He rubbed a big thumb over the
thick binding of cloth that sealed up my mouth.  "I love gagging you,
Steve, and I love seeing you like this, all tied and helpless and gagged."
I stared back at him.  Then I began to jerk at my ropes and grunt into my
gag.  "Mmmmmph!  Mugummmmmmph!  Mummmmmmmmph.  Mmmmmmmmmph!
Mummmmmmmmmmph!"  Rick watched me intently, his brown eyes locked on mine.
I sagged, tired for a moment by my struggles.  Rick caressed the side of my
face again.  "You're all right with this, aren't you."  It was just not a
question.  I looked up at him and then nodded.  And then, to my shame, I
felt tears welling up and filling my eyes.  Rick clasped me in his arms,
holding himself up close to me despite the stakes I was so awkwardly and
securely bound to.  He cupped my head in his big hand and cradled it
against his shoulder.  "Hey, hey, hey, hey," he said softly.  "Hey, hey,
Steve, don't cry, please don't cry, I won't hurt you, my handsome one, no,
no, don't get all scared on me."  He pulled back and looked anxiously into
my eyes.  I gazed back at him.  I struggled, mastering my tears, and
straining to swallow over the massive gag.  Rick continued watching me, his
face inches from mine.  "You OK, Steve?"  I nodded and struggled with my
gag.  "Umm hmmmph."  I nodded again.  "Um hmph."  He stared into my eyes,
his brown eyes intent under their heavy brows, for a long moment.  Then he
smiled.  "It's getting cold, my handsome old man."  It was, the damp air
creeping close and chilling me under my suit.  I had not noticed, until he
mentioned it, but now I shivered in my ropes.  "I'm gonna take you inside."
Rick moved to my right arm and loosened the rope that bound my hand to the
crossbeam.  I struggled half-heartedly, but he had no trouble forcing my
arm down and binding my wrist to the upright stake behind my back.  He
repeated this with my left arm, but this time he also lashed my wrists to
each other.  Then he reached down and freed my legs, removing the tight
lashings that held my ankles and knees to the upright stake.  Finally he
untied and pulled away the ropes that bound my upper arms and torso.  Now I
was standing, a little unsteadily, with just my hands bound behind my back
and to the stake.  I tugged at the rope and mumbled into my gag.
"Mmmmmmmph!  Muguluuummmmmmph!"  Watching me with an amused smile on his
handsome face, Rick coiled several lengths of the rope and slipped them up
over his shoulder.  Then he went behind me and untied the knots that held
my bound hands to the stake.  Taking me by the shoulders, he turned me
around and marched me across the yard to the porch.  I struggled and
mumbled into my gag, but he was easily the stronger, and, tied and gagged
as I was, I gave him no real trouble.  In a moment, he had me inside the
house, and then he pushed me ahead of him, up the back stairs to the second
floor.  We were soon in my bedroom, where he flicked on the overhead light,
and then he half tossed, half shoved me onto my bed.  Using the ropes he
had brought, he rebound my legs at the ankles and the knees, and then stood
for a moment, looking down at me.  He bent over and turned on the bedside
lamp, then crossed the room and turned off the glaring ceiling light.  Then
he went to my bureau.  The top drawer, the one where I kept my
handkerchiefs, was half open, and with a sly glance and smile at me, Rick
took out a big handful of my handkerchiefs and stood for a moment, hefting
them in his hand and looking over at me. Then he came back to the bed and
mounted it, straddling my thighs and dropping all but one of my
handkerchiefs onto the coverlet beside me.
	"I guess I'm gonna have to tie and gag your little soldier, too,
Steve."
	I stared up at him, puzzled by his meaning, but I was in no
position to ask or protest.  He reached down and unzipped the fly of my
trousers and then, reaching inside, pushed my briefs out of the way and
curled his big fingers around my hard, sore cock and my aching balls.
	"Mmmmmmph!  Mummmm!"  I moaned into my huge gag.
	Rick grinned as he carefully drew my dick and balls through my fly.
"There," he said softly, "your little soldier is sure on parade, isn't he?"
	I began to realize what he meant by tying and gagging my little
soldier.  Opening the handkerchief in his hand, he deftly rolled it on the
diagonal into a thin, soft band.  With quick fingers, he tied the
handkerchief around the base of my privates, pulling the band snug, almost
but not quite painfully so, and then he wrapped the ends around the base of
my balls and pulled it tight and knotted it off.  My balls were stretched
out from my cock and held by the tight handkerchief in a shiny globe.
	"Your little soldier is all tied up, Steve, isn't he?"  As he
spoke, Rick gently massaged my strained dick with his fingers, caressing
the shaft and paddling the tender tip.
	"Mmmmmmmmmmm!  Mmmmmmmmmmm!"  I moaned helplessly into the huge gag
of my own handkerchiefs and bucked beneath him, pushing my dick into his
firm hand.  "Mmmmmmmmmph!  Mmmmmph!"
	Rick bent close, his eyes looking into mine.  "Not yet, fella," he
murmured, "not just yet."  He pulled back and took up another of my big
colored-border handkerchiefs.
	"Now I'm gonna gag your little soldier, Steve."  I wasn't quite
sure what he meant by gagging my dick, but in a moment, I understood.  He
folded the handkerchief diagonally once and slipped it, folded edge down,
point up, behind my hard cock.  He folded the point down over my dick, and
then brought the two ends around, enclosing my dick in the soft cloth.  He
wrapped the ends fully around the base of my cock and knotted them tightly,
so that my dick was completely enclosed in a soft sheath of cloth-gagged,
so to speak.  The friction of the soft, clean cloth around my cock and
especially on its sore and tender tip brought me close to the edge yet kept
me hovering there, straining and aching but unable to quite lift myself
into cumming.
	Rick smiled own at me.  "There you are, Steve, my boy," he said
quietly.  "There's your little soldier, all tied up and gagged, just like
you."  He reached for another handkerchief, and then undid his own fly.
With a grin, he pulled out his own rigid dick and his heavy balls.  "Guess
I'll tie and gag my little soldier, too."  And using the handkerchief in
his hand and yet one more, he "tied and gagged" his cock and balls, just as
he had tied and gagged my little soldier.
	I watched, fascinated, as he used my handkerchiefs to bind up and
muffle up his privates, strangely stirred by his idea of tying and gagging
our little soldiers.  There was something perversely tender about the image
his words conjured up, and about the reality of our cocks all bound up in
the handkerchiefs.  When he was done binding his own privates, he took up
another handkerchief from the stack beside me.  He rolled it narrowly, and
then, lowering his groin close to mine, he first knotted the handkerchief
around the base of my privates, and then, pressing yet closer to me, so our
groins touched, he knotted the handkerchief around the base of his own.
Now we were bound to each other literally.  Slowly the big man lay down on
top of me, taking me into his arms and pressing close, our
handkerchief-bound groins rubbing against each other.
	"Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmph!  Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!"  I struggled against the
ropes that bound me, against the enormous gag that silenced me, against the
strong arms that held me.  My dick was hot, trembling, almost ready to give
way.  Rick smiled down at me.
	"That's my man," he murmured against my cheek, his breath warm and
sweet, his mustache thick and brushy.  "That's my man, Steve.  Struggle,
struggle and try to yell.  I love to hear the sounds you make with that big
gag in your mouth."
	At his urging, beneath his avid gaze, I obeyed him, straining again
at my ropes and moaning into the smothering gag.
	"You're gagged, aren't you, my man, my Steve, my handsome one,
aren't you?  All tied and gagged, and your little soldier's all tied and
gagged, too, isn't he?"  He picked up another handkerchief as he spoke, and
began to fold it diagonally into a wide thick bandage of soft,
maroon-bordered cloth.  "But a man can't be too gagged, ever, can he,
Steve, my boy?"  And he pressed the thick swath over my already trebly
gagged mouth and pulled it tight, tight, his eyes staring down at me.
Suddenly, still holding that handkerchief pressed over my mouth, around my
head, pulling hard on it to add that final thick seal of a gag over my
already thickly gagged lips, he pumped hard against me, our groins grinding
into each other, the soft cloth of our dicks' handkerchief gags, as he
called them, easing the friction.  He pumped harder, and harder, and I
arched up into him, whimpering and mewling into my huge gag, and suddenly
he gasped, and cried out, and jerked, and I felt my own gism shoot out with
a delicious pain from my dick into my dick's gag, and I cried out into my
own huge gag.
	"Mmmmmmmmmph!!  Mumummmmmmmmmmmmmmmph!!"  Several hours later, I
was standing in front of the bedroom window, looking out into the back
yard.  There was an early moon, almost full, and its light shone silvery
blue over the corn and the trees and the stakes to which I had been bound.
Rick embraced me from behind, and I brought my hands up to clasp them over
his where they rested on my chest.
	"What're you thinking, Steve, my boy?"  he whispered into my ear.
	I smiled, but said nothing.
	"Hmmmm?" he coaxed.  We had had a shower together and a good
dinner, once he had released me, slowly and teasingly, from the tight ropes
and the brutal gag he had put on me.  Now he was gentle and comforting, and
I leant back against his furry body.
	"I don't know," I said.  "I was looking out there and remembering
my scarecrow, and my thinking that he was me in some odd way."
	Rick gazed into the back yard, rubbing his bearded cheek against
mine.
	"I felt like I didn't quite fit in, like I said earlier," I went
on, "like that scarecrow in his dandy clothes."  I shivered a little in the
cool air coming from the half-opened window.
	Rick nodded beside my head and tightened his embrace.  "But I
brought that scarecrow in from the cold, and now he's mine, isn't he?"
	I pulled away a little and looked at him sidelong, with a half
smile.  "Yeah, I guess he is."
	Rick grinned.  Then, to my surprise, since I had not realized he
had it in one hand, he brought up one of my big handkerchiefs, folded into
a wide roll.  The middle was especially thick, and I realized as he pushed
it into my mouth that he must have another of my handkerchiefs inside.  He
drew the bandage of soft cloth firmly between my teeth and knotted the ends
tightly behind my head.
	"Mmmmph," I mumbled into the gag.
	Rick cupped my cheek in one hand and smiled.  "You were wrong about
that scarecrow, Steve, my boy," he said softly.  "He was doing just what he
should have been, standing in his field, doing his job the best he could,
making the most of what he had, until the right farmer came along."  He
grinned at me.  "And now he has.  Come to bed, scarecrow."
	He used another of my handkerchiefs to bind my hands together in
front of me.  Then he pushed me gently down onto the bed and threw the
covers over me.  Turning off the light, he crawled in beside me, and pulled
me close.  I laid my head against his chest, and drifted toward sleep,
contented, tied, and gagged.

Copyright 1999 David W. Brown
Compliments, complaints, brickbats, kudos:  tugger049@yahoo.com