It's taken me a long time to be willing to write this. I'm unsure of my writing skills. But I finally decided to do it because I keep having nightmares about what happened and I hope sharing my ordeal will somehow help me get over it. There seem to be a lot of supportive people online here, at any rate.
I had the traumatic experience of being bound and gagged in my own home, in the context of a home invasion robbery. On that horrible day, it had been pouring rain continually. On my way in to my carport, I noticed a car parked in front of the townhouse next door to mine. There appeared to be a person in it. There was a local realtor's logo on the car door. I thought nothing of this because I knew that this particular townhouse was for sale.
When I got inside I shook off my umbrella in the foyer and then went to get out of my heels and hose. But the doorbell rang. I looked through the peephole and there was a well-dressed Latina woman standing at the door. I opened the door as far as the chain allowed and said, "May I help you?" She said she was the realtor who was selling the townhouse next door. She told me her cell phone had died, she didn't have her charger with her and she that she urgently needed to make a phone call. She asked if she could come in to use my phone.
I vacillated at this. Deep inside, something didn't seem right. I considered handing my cell phone out the door to her. But then I decided that she looked so respectable that I'd be OK if I let her in to make her call. And I felt guilty at the prospect of turning her away in the torrential downpour. So I opened the door and said, "Follow me, I'll show you where the phone is."
She shut the door and started following me down the hall. We got to the phone in the living room. She rummaged around in her purse, and then to my horror she produced a gun! Pointing it at me, she said "You're being robbed! You do what we say and you won't get hurt. Get on your knees and put your hands on top of your head!"
"We?", I thought; then I did as she said. I had always read that in this kind of situation, it's best to do what the robbers say and not argue.
She then took a cell phone from her purse and made a call. I heard her say, "It's OK, come on in." In a few minutes, I heard the door open and two men came in. Both were quite big, and had multiple tattoos and piercings. One had a duffel bag with him. He dumped it out onto the floor. It contained what looked like miles of rope, and some white cloths. At that moment, I realized that I was about to be tied up, and possibly gagged.
I was filled with dread and fear; I started shaking and tears welled up in my eyes. I begged them not to tie me up but one of the men pushed me roughly to the floor onto my stomach, saying, "Shut the fuck up bitch!".
Then he told the other man, "Go on, get started, I'll take care of her". As that man started up the stairs, my tormentor said, "Put your hands behind your back. Do it!".
Again, I hesitated inside. If I allowed him to tie me up and gag me, he would have complete control over my body; I would have no options at all. But I actually had no options anyhow, because the woman still had the gun trained on me. So I did as he said and put my hands together behind my back.
I felt him start to wrap the rope around my wrists. I don't know anything about rope but I know I didn't like the kind he had. It was brown and very rough and scratchy. After he had wrapped my wrists a few times, he did something (I couldn't see what), and all of a sudden the ropes became extremely tight, causing me to grunt involuntarily. He finished tying my hands and forced me to sit up.
Then he bound my feet just as tightly. I saw how he made it so brutally tight. After he wrapped my ankles, he turned the rope somehow and passed it between my ankles, so the rope now was perpendicular to the wrapping. When he pulled this tight, I groaned involuntarily again.
He knotted the ropes and then told the woman, "Find something to shut this bitch up".
The woman left the room as the man pushed me over back onto the floor. I couldn't throw my arms out to catch myself and I bumped my head on the floor.
At that point, the woman came back and said, "Use these". She handed him a pair of my panties. I prayed they were clean but this did not turn out to be the case. Regardless, the man began to slowly and methodically stuff them into my mouth.
He started by stuffing each of my cheeks, then finished stuffing the rest of the panties into the middle of my mouth, until my mouth was packed tight. They felt very far back in my mouth, and I was afraid I would choke. But he certainly had no concern for my safety or comfort. He took one of the white cloths, folded it into a wide bandage, and then centered it between my teeth. Then he wrapped it very tightly around my head and knotted it behind my neck with three hard, tight knots. I tried to push at the panties with my tongue, but there was no way I was going to be able to get them out without help.
At that point, he told the woman, "Keep an eye on her", and went upstairs as well.
She sat down across from me, crossed her legs, and said, "You did real good. You keep cooperating and you'll be fine". I was still terrified, however. I was afraid they would kill me, as they made no effort to disguise themselves. But I couldn't do anything about it; I was lying on the floor, with my hands and feet tightly bound and a gag tied in my mouth.
I tentatively tried to test my bonds. But there was no give in the ropes at all. They were very tight and uncomfortable. My hands were starting to go numb. Also, the heels I was wearing had ankle straps, and he had tied the ankle ropes over the straps, pressing the buckles uncomfortably into my ankles. And my gag was very subduing. I had to force myself to breathe quietly through my nose to avoid choking. My mouth was getting very dry. Then the woman saw me trying to struggle and warned me to lie still and keep quiet.
As I lay there helplessly trussed up and gagged on my own living room floor, I watched with dismay as the men came back downstairs, carrying my bedroom television, my jewelry box, and other valuables. All I could do was watch as they took everything of value from my townhouse. Finally they seemed to be done.
As the men carried my belongings out, one of them handed the woman a roll of duct tape. He said, "Fix her gag so we're sure she stays quiet after we go. And get her hogtied good and tight".
At that, the woman knelt beside me and untied the cloth from around my mouth. Before I could do anything she started wrapping the duct tape tightly around and around my head, over my hair and everything.
After she was done she took a short length of the rope and wrapped it between my ankles. She then ran the rope to my bound wrists and pulled hard. This drew my ankles right up over my wrists, arching my back. She knotted the ends off, and left me lying there. Finally, they all came back and checked to make sure all the knots were tight and that I couldn't reach any of them. Satisfied, they left me helpless like that.
While I was relieved that I was still alive, I realized I was still very much in danger. I tried screaming into my gag as loudly as I could, but only a faint muffled mewing sound came out, not enough to penetrate beyond the living room, much less the townhouse door. This certainly was nothing like I'd ever seen on TV or in the movies when people were gagged; they usually only seemed to have a scarf tied between their teeth or something and they usually seemed to still be able to communicate. But the man who gagged my mouth really knew what he was doing. It was physically impossible for me to make any kind of intelligible sound.
And the way they left me hogtied, I felt unbearably helpless. I could feel my bound feet against my hands, but I couldn't find any knots I could reach. No amount of wriggling or struggling produced any give in the rope. While struggling was very painful, I realized I had to do something to free myself because gagged as effectively as I was, there was no way I'd be able to generate enough noise to attract anyone's attention. And my hands were getting more numb by the minute; soon they'd be useless.
I started rocking left and right until I finally tipped onto my side. I found that I could inch my way across the floor by flexing and then straightening out at the waist. I made my way to one of my end tables, which I knew had a pair of scissors in the bottom drawer. Somehow I got them out and began the laborious task of trying to get loose.
The first thing I did was cut the rope tying my ankles to my wrists. Then with great difficulty I maneuvered the scissors between my wrists and began trying to saw my way through the bonds. I kept dropping the scissors because my hands were so numb, but finally I felt something loosen. I pulled hard and my wrists came free.
Then I pulled the horrid gag from my mouth and finally untied my ankles. My pantyhose were snagged terribly from the rough cord and there were deep rope marks in my wrists and ankles. I called the police as soon as I could collect myself. I had been gagged and hogtied for over eight hours.
The criminals have not been caught yet. My renter's insurance covered my losses. But it is going to take a long time to heal the scars left by this ordeal. I still kick myself for not trusting my gut instinct when the doorbell rang. I understand that apparently some people think being tied up and gagged is exciting. But it's no joke and no fun to actually have to lie brutally hogtied on the floor in your own home with a pair of panties stuffed and duct taped in your mouth, at the mercy of sociopathic strangers.
The End