“Looks like you could hang something heavy off of this. It was probably for a heavy bag. The previous owner was probably into fitness.” Pete said. “I only met him once when we signed the papers for me to purchase the house. He didn’t look like a muscled up guy.” I replied. Pete had pulled out his measuring tape and was jotting down some notes. We set a time and date for him to start the room. He was going to build some walls and close in a decent sized space to make a nice workout room for me. The ring was forgotten.
The room had been coming along nicely. I had begun the clean up of that corner of the basement and was getting excited to be able to paint and decorate it. I had a whole Pinterest board filled with ideas, expensive ideas. I was chuckling to myself as I was elbows deep in sudsy water in the kitchen sink as Pete plodded up the steps “Hey, did you know that you have a ton of shit in the back part of the basement?”
“Ugh, I know. It’s from the previous owner. He left it and I haven’t had a chance to go through it all.” I grumbled. “Wanna help me bring it up and pitch it? You never know, there may be something in there that’s valuable and I’ll let you keep it.”
“I doubt that there is anything in that pile that I would ever want.” he laughingly said.
“Then hush up about it, I’ll get around to it one of these days.” I shot back.
Day two and Pete had put in the can lights and framed up the room. He was about to start on the drywall and needed a hand. “Hey, come help for a minute!”, he yelled up the stairs. I trotted down to give him a hand. “Batewie…..batewie….batewie!”, he pointed as he called out with a mouth full of screws. Each time he tried to talk, the louder he got and the more I giggled. I knew what he was asking for, but it was fun to play like I didn't. He was pointing at the battery on the charging station that was sitting on a wooden box left behind. As I grabbed the battery, it stuck to the charger and I picked the whole thing up. Mid air the base of the charger fell, hitting the lid of the box and knocked the whole thing over.
“Holy shit!” popped out of my mouth as I peered down at the contents that had spilled out around my feet. There were chains and leather straps and what looked like cuffs. My face instantly felt hot. Before I could pick it up or scoot it into hiding, Pete rounded the skeleton of a wall and barked “What the hell is taking so……..hey, whatcha got there!” I whipped around to face him and couldn’t talk. He bent down and started sorting through the items in silence as I stood stone still watching. He stood up and was holding a very worn leather collar. It looked soft and the urge to reach out and touch it was too much. “I think I know what that hook is for now.”, he said as he locked eyes with me.
