It wasn't surprising that the weekly reality TV show 'Tied Up Kids' was popular: three adults vying for a cash prize and seven kids being bound over a period of 48 hours. The money for the 'winning' adult was for being the most inventive when it came to tying up the children, and secret cameras placed around the 'Big Brother' style house recorded the bondage for the edited highlights as well as the live feeds.

Like all these type of shows, there was certain to be disagreement and tensions. Each of the adults -- chosen at random from different backgrounds -- had to get along sufficiently well to get the tasks done but also to prove they were worthy of the money at the end of it. The seven children received a small token for their participation.

The actual house (usually called the TUK house) used in the show was a sprawling, well-lit and multiple mirrored modern construction with dozens of hidden cameras broadcasting what happened to the children.

There was no privacy anywhere, and the house had the usual large kitchen, big communal bedroom, fully functioning bathroom with large bath and roomy shower, luxurious living area and outside was a swimming pool. The house also had an interview room where the 'voice' would ask questions and examine motives as well as issue challenges.

The adults would listen and complain or object or enthuse; the children taken there would be ungagged for the interview and asked how a certain position or restriction felt. It was usually the only time in the period of the show they were allowed to speak.

The children themselves ranged in age from five to fifteen and were deliberately chosen from different backgrounds. There was a random process in the selection of the seven used, too. The children to be tied up were placed in small boxes around the house when the three adults arrived. There were in fact twelve plain boxes with six boys and six girls in each. They were each naked, gagged, handcuffed and placed in a box: the viewers tuning in had no idea what the sex was of the kids in the boxes and the three contestants had no idea either. They had to decide which box they would open and take whatever child was in it. Extra cash was available if they got a young girl, or a young boy. When they had their seven, the other boxes were removed off camera and the three adults had to search the house for the handcuff keys.

Eventually when the kids were uncuffed the actual contest of bondage would begin. It was a condition of the show that each child would spend the 48 hours in some form of bondage: at bedtime they were tied or chained or strapped down. At meal times they were tied to chairs and fed. The only rule was they had to come out alive and with all bodily parts intact.

There was nothing in the rules about sex or punishments, and though whips weren't provided often the show was famous for the way people improvised. There were ropes, cords, chains of different lengths and weights, leather and rubber straps, ball and ring gags, adhesive tape, bandages, clothes pins, clips and a range of rods, tubes, poles and spreader bars. Padlocks were provided though a quirk of the show was to have the actual keys to them put in unusual places; a typical challenge might be for a heavily chained boy to find the keys in the garden, or a young girl climb on a table while fastened in a spreader bar so she could reach a key where it was dangling from a hook.

The TUK house also had typical bondage furniture: hard back chairs, some with open seats, a single bed without a mattress, pulleys and hooks in ceilings, body cages and beds with numerous anchor points. The point of the show however was inventiveness and relying on the obvious would not earn them many votes from the public watching.

The one thing that made the show popular was that everything was seen. Hiding anything from a fellow contestant was good, but hiding things from viewers was forbidden. In fact, what few clothes there were allowed were see-through plastic and thin rubber, and it was the adults who wore those if they wanted to.

Obvious arousal was a good thing to see, the producers said.

One of the show's popular approaches was to have the chance that some of the children chosen for bondage were in fact the offspring or relatives of the contestants. It was always interesting to see how a person, male or female, would react to tying up their daughter or nephew or even grandchild. Some did it well, some with caution. But as winning was about getting votes everyone knew that in the end the child may be a relative but they were going to be tied up or restrained.

Sometimes too 'celebrity' children were used: it wasn't unknown for a child actor to be one of the seven tied up, and if well-known enough the son or daughter of a celebrity was used. People, the show producers knew, liked seeing someone famous being bound.

The show we are looking at this week has three different adults. Tom, a middle-aged man, has two female companions: Clarissa, an ageing lesbian and Sara, a twenty nine year mother. It would be fair to say none of them was attracted to the sixty year old lesbian but both she and the man wanted the young woman, whose well-shaped breasts and long legs were a delight to see.

The kids they 'chose' from the twelve boxes were three boys and four girls. Nathan, a five year old boy, was picked alongside Harry, an eight year old boy who had appeared in several TV shows and Benny, the ten year old son of Sara. She looked quite shocked when she saw her only son appear from the box and perhaps even more surprised that he immediately sprang an erection on seeing his naked mother.

The girls selected were six year old Penny, ten year old Taylor, twelve year old Shawnee and thirteen year old Charlotte, who was Tom's niece. Again, he looked surprised though quite delighted when the naked, cuffed and gagged girl emerged. Charlotte already had quite prominent breasts and her uncle wasted no time in finally getting to feel them.

The bondage started at once. Nathan was bound with straps and hoisted up on a pulley, dangling over the dining table, Harry was tied to a chair with his legs drawn up under the seat and his elbows tied together with wire and Benny bound face to face with Shawnee with their arms tied behind the other's back so their lips were mashed together with a 'sharing gag' as if they were in a permanent kiss.

Charlotte was spread-eagled on a bed and her fully erect uncle whipped her belly before masturbating in her face. The viewers would, as it turned out, not be too thrilled with the way the man concentrated too much on his own niece.

The sixty year old Clarissa however was to earn good early votes by the way she put the youngsters Taylor and Penny in a sixty-nine arrangement, strapped together so they had no choice but to lap at each other's little cunts. The ring gags they wore allowed them to get their tongues out, and they were beaten by Clarissa if they stopped licking. She also had them fastened in clear view of several of the cameras so there was a bonus to see the close ups of the girls' faces and busy tongues.

The tasks began to come in: one child had to be tied up in the swimming pool with an oxygen mask and feed and that bondage fell to Harry. Weights were fastened to him to keep him under the water for an hour with air coming down a tube. When Sara pissed into it, her votes surged enormously.

Shawnee was selected for a body cage, which was then lowered into a hole in the garden dug by all the other kids in chains, though Charlotte was allowed to be the 'overseer' and given a flogger to remind the others to work hard and dig faster. Shawnee was left out all night with just her head out of the ground and it was unfortunate it rained hard. In the morning the other children pissed on her head to 'clean her up.'

A 'viewer's request' came in and little Penny was bound with cords and placed in a glass box. The box was put on the dining table and she had to watch, all squeezed up and securely tied, as the others ate while she didn't. Later the starving child was bound in front of a dog's bowl and ate from that, though some revolting things were put in it.

Benny was tied up and put in the shower by Clarissa and hosed down with icy water. He was left shivering before Taylor joined him and she was hosed down too.

Nathan began to get some serious attention. He had to march round the edge of the swimming pool in chains and straps, pulling a heavy weight behind him. In time that weight was replaced with a heavily bound Shawnee on a small trolley and the circuits began again.

Tom was still lusting after his niece and had chosen her to be punished with clips and clothes pins as she sucked his erect cock. He put a rope round her neck to urge her to go faster or slower, as he wished. His cruelty however was giving his votes a brief surge.

Another viewer's request was for electro-torture, and a battery and terminals were supplied. The adults chose Penny and Nathan for this; the little boy was exhausted from his efforts still but he was tied back to back with the youngest girl and the terminals clipped to their tongues, little nipples, small cunt lips and cock. The TV production people had supplied a meter that showed the current levels and a game was made up where other children danced in chains and mimed to hit songs and the 'winner' of each round got to flip the switch for some torture for the helpless kids. Needless to say the amount of torture was relatively small but the way the secured kids struggled was amusing.

The three boys were later bound in a triangular arrangement facing inwards and obliged to kiss each other while the girls beat them and taunted them for being 'faggots.'

Taylor was secured to a pole that kept her arms out at the side and she had to find a way to eat her meal that night with a rope round her neck attached to strong elastic so as she bent forward the rope tightened on her throat. She also was gagged and chained up outside in a dog kennel. In the middle of the night, Tom slipped out to screw her as could be seen by the special night vision cameras. He spent time screwing her young arsehole and spanking her.

There was more bondage with children tied up or tied down, suspended or beaten by other children, often with the ones with the floggers and whips in chains. One popular act was to have the well strapped up oldest girl Charlotte suck the small cock of the tied up Nathan until he had a visible erection. Several times she had to pause, spit on it and resume sucking.

The act was repeated with the secured Nathan eating out tied up Shawnee and then sucking the chained Benny's cock. The well trussed Taylor was encouraged to tongue the equally well bound Harry's asshole.

But the winning event was probably the way Clarissa and Tom, perhaps frustrated their failed efforts to seduce Sara, ganged up on her. They got her on to a bed, tied her down with legs pinned apart and it took no persuasion to get Sara's son to fuck his mother. He was put in place over his mother but was clearly ready for this. True to the contest Benny had been tied up and when Clarissa mounted the boy with a strap-on as he repeatedly screwed his mother the older woman's votes went to a record high.

When all the TUK votes were counted Clarissa - who never missed an opportunity to get the girls to 'clean her out properly' -- was the eventual winner, and she was invited back for a special 'all-winner's contest' as was little Nathan and the pretty Charlotte. They would go in a box at one of the final TUK shows and perhaps, if lucky, be chosen again for bondage and punishment.

(Producer's note: the five children in the boxes who weren't chosen for the show spent the same time in a concrete shell held in rigid positions and on show in the garden as statues. Some viewers wondered why the statues were different sizes and positions each week and though many may have thought they were just casts of children secured, a few people knew that not being chosen resulted in being a statue for 48 hours. A special feed for liquid food and water was built into the statue and waste conducted out with hidden tubes, but it was one of the show's great secrets and amused the producers. They plan one day to release a DVD called Statued Up Kids showing the process and revealing the secret.)