“You mucky fuck-pig. What am I going to do with you? You’re shitted up to the eyeballs. You’ll muddy up the van if I let you ride home in it. I think I should leave you here ‘til it rains again. That’ll get some of the mud off. Or there’s a stream just over that rise. I could drag you over there and dunk you in it. What do you say to that?” he asked belligerently.
I knew better than to say anything when he was on one of these highs. He was turned on by the situation and, tired and stiff as I was, I got off on my total powerlessness. He grabbed at the network of ropes laced around my body and dragged me back towards him, “But I’ve got a better Idea” he leered and produced a pair of the short stumpy emergency scissors, the sort we always keep handy during roping sessions. They will cut through anything, but he was waving them menacingly under my nose. “I’ve got a little surprise for you. A special surprise new experience. A way to get you home without mucking up the van.”
With one deft snip of the scissors my boots fell away from my wrists and my knees screamed with pain after being immobilised for so long. Before I knew what was happening, he was kneeling at the side of me and rolling me sideways. Over and over he flipped me ... on my front, on my back, on my front. Systematically he was propelling me across the mud and grass and sheep shit of the moor. My head was spinning and my body being battered even though it was thickly padded and booted.
The rolling stopped as suddenly as it started. I didn’t know where I was but he had rolled me to exactly where he wanted me to be. As I lay flat on my face panting, he knelt across me and talked into my ear as I tried to keep my face out of the longish grass. “Now I have a little plan and I think you’re going to like it ... not a lot, perhaps. But, on the other hand, you being a kinky little sod, perhaps you might. Whichever way, you’re in no position to argue ... and if you do, I’ll just gag you. Understood? Nod if you’re hearing me.”
I nodded, wearily.
He stood up and moved away, leaving me lying on my face and resigned to whatever fate held in store. I heard the sound of what might have been a large sheet of plastic. If he was going to wrap me in a tarpaulin, how the hell was he going to get me up into the van, I thought. He was spreading it alongside me, but I deliberately didn’t turn my face to look. When he was ready he grabbed a couple of ropes and rolled me onto it ... ‘it’ being the sort of Bodybag the police and ambulance service use for transporting human remains.
With each limb still elaborately trussed and my wrists and ankles firmly roped I was in no position to put up any resistance. The menacing bag had a strong full-length zip ... and this was open. With another quick move he again rolled me over and I was suddenly lying face down inside the waterproof and (as far as I knew, air-tight) PVC bag, and Tony was already closing the zipper around my feet and lower legs.
“I got this by mail order a month ago. I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to use it on you. All the mud and shit will stay inside, I could even pour a couple of buckets of water into it and it wouldn’t leak. I could shovel a few spade-fulls of mud into it with you and roll you around a bit, and still get you home without you mucking up the van. But would I do that? No, because I’m nice and you’re my buddy.”
With that I felt a few more snips of the tough scissors and the heavy waxed ropes fell away from between my wrists as I lay face down.
“I want to see a smile, buddy,” he said, “can you turn over?”
With an effort I obliged, struggling as my lifeless arms and the muddy suit dragged against the inside of the strong-smelling plastic of the Bodybag. Tony was holding the sides of the open zip as I painfully manoeuvred myself onto my back and looked up into his rugged grinning face.
“Hi, kid,” he said, “You’re going to love the next bit. Night, night.”
He began to close a second zip-pull somewhere above my head, and from down around my groin the other pull was drawn to meet it. Tony contrived to leave a small opening so that I could still see out. He smiled down at me and said “I could padlock the two zip-pulls together but I think with those mitts on, you won’t expect to get very far.”
With that the zip closed and darkness fell inside the wonderfully pungent bag. I lay there exhausted but relieved to find that there was enough air coming in from somewhere. Later I learned that Tony had doctored the bag by adding a few discrete air holes.
I was not surprised when I felt my feet rise and the bag start to be pulled along the bumpy ground. It slid easily and with my padded back and shoulders and still numb arms, I felt very little of it. I was too pleased to be heading home to care. I knew I was in good hands and I had survived. When the movement stopped I knew we’d reached the van. I heard the doors open and a tug on the top corners of the bag urged me to sit up. Strong arms lifted my torso until I was standing (somewhat unsteadily) inside the bag. A bear-hug from the front and I was sitting on the edge of the back of the Transit van. A lift of my legs and I was gently slid inside the van.
“I’ll wake you when we get there” I heard him say as he closed the doors.