A Handy Way To Beat An Escape Room

"For the love of all that's holy; I'll give you a handjob for a hint if I have to!"

I love escape rooms. As a self confessed competitive soul and a lover of problem and puzzle solving, they scratch a very specific itch in my life that can, in it's own way, only be equalled in terms of pure satisfaction by the other of life's great pursuits.

I'm also, modesty aside for a moment, exceptionally good at them. Of the 34 I've attempted, the question has never simply been 'Will you escape?' but 'Will you escape in time to top the leader board?'

In those thirty four escape attempts, I've only ever failed twice. Once because the room was so badly constructed that the solutions to the puzzle were entirely arbitrary guesswork. It would have taken a near infinite number of monkeys a near infinite amount of time to ultimately compose the meaningless final combination in order to liberate one's dignity and put an end to the tedious affair. The second because a friend - who to this day only just remains as such due to their unforgivable incompetence - managed to find a hidden key early on in the experience and put it in his pocket 'for safe keeping' for when it would be needed, only to completely forget about it UNTIL THE FOLLOWING DAY.

No whodunnit mystery room as ever come so close to witnessing an actual murder.

On no fewer than thirteen occasions myself and my friends of various levels of enthusiasm have emerged from the rooms not only victorious, but having taken top spot on the leader boards.

Basically; we're shit hot at this stuff. Unless the room itself is hot shit.

On this particular occasion, four of us were gathered. Myself and two of my regular 'escape' team close friends; Charlie and Lisa, plus a relative newcomer in the form of Lisa's boyfriend Ewan. He was a potential rogue element to our tight-nit hyper efficient team, but had been duly warned that if he was decreed to be of no help, he'd be expected to keep of the way and remain on 'search the room and share everything' duty. I also told him that if we were to ever get stuck, I'd be checking his pockets.

The room's theme was something between 'Escape from Atlantis' and a vaguely Bioshock vibe - essentially a dilapidated under sea base in which we had to fix various faults with the submersible in order to escape. The tale of impending frantic and frenetic adventure beneath the high seas was woven and explained to us by the room's controller Brandon; and was delivered with all the enthusiasm and flair of a retail worker telling their 73rd customer of the morning to 'have a nice day'.

Brandon was a decent-ish looking studenty sort who I'd gauged to be 20/21. The 'just good looking enough' type who, as a student, you'd sleep with during your freshers week and have zero regrets about, but would subsequently never give a passing thought to again. Our session was clearly the first of the day as he was the only one present in the building, and was clearly still nursing what appeared to be a moderate to uncomfortable hangover from the night before.

"This is a 4 out of 5 star difficulty room, so you'll probably need a few hints along the way..." said Brandon in almost perfect monotone - the very definition of being present in body but not in spirit.

"Let me stop you there, Brandon," replied I, cutting him off mid flow and slightly snapping him out of his stupor. "We will absolutely not be needing any hints. There's no satisfaction if we have to be led hand in hand to the answers. We will best this room in record time, and we shan't need a hint to help us."

Reader, I know what you're thinking. Yes, foreshadowing is a powerful tool.

Brandon glanced at my friends perhaps wondering if they were in fact my carers and I'd been let on a rare day out. Charlie shrugged resignedly.

"Don't give us hints. It's really not worth the abuse you'll get."

"You sure?" asked Brandon, actually engaging with us for the first time beyond his traditional routine script. "There's a couple of really tricky puzzles which..."

"Brandon." I said, locking eyes with him so intensely I swear I saw him flinch. "You will not give us any hints under any circumstances - No matter how much any of these three cowards may plead, understand?"

He nodded back to me with a grave finality. He understood the assignment. While I heard all too familiar sighs behind me, Brandon flashed a brief smile. Maybe this might be fun for him after all.

With that, he opened the door and beckoned us to enter. He wished us luck, started the countdown and sealed us in.

I'll save you a blow-by-blow lengthy description of each of the room's puzzles which varied from the childishly simple; mirror writing on the back of a keysafe, to the actually doff your cap inventive; having to fill water receptacles with specific quantities of water to float a key to the surface. Suffice to say we took to the room with gusto and were making excellent progress, so much so that I boldly declared at the fifteen minute stage;

"We'll be out of this by 30 minutes. Start filling in those certificates now, Brandon. The ink will barely be dry be the time the door opens..."

Ah, sweet hubris.

It took fewer than five minutes for the proverbial egg to strike my smug face. We'd successfully unlocked every box/draw/cupboard and safe in the room. We'd uncovered, unlocked and solved seemingly everything in the second 'secret' room. But now we were stuck. There was no obvious means of progressing further and we were devoid of ideas of what to do next.

"Is that it?" I said to the heavens, feeling a little deflated. The room had offered such promise and for it to simple 'end' without an obvious signifier seemed like an appalling lack of planning and storytelling. I could picture myself already leaving an 'I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed' two and a half star review.

"Of course not," came a disembodied voice through the speakers. A voice that was failing entirely to contain a smug giggle. "you've missed something very important..."

"Not another word!" I shouted, perhaps a little too loudly. "Everyone, look over everything again. Even the locks and doors we've opened. And Ewan, turn out your pockets."

Before Ewan had chance to object, Lisa plunged her hands into his pockets groping blindly for a vital clue in a way he seemed to enjoy, so he chose to keep quiet. He'd pocketed nothing. Neither, apparently, had we missed anything obvious. We'd taken ten painstaking minutes to look back over everything we'd done and found precisely diddly squat.

Brandon asked us if we were ready for a hint yet. I replied enquiring if he'd take offence if he were to be told to fuck off and die. I was only being partially facetious.

"We don't panic. We don't stress. Let's look over everything again, check each other's work, and the time for recriminations will come later..."

This time we made progress. It transpired Charlie had slid a trunk along some rails in order to solve a puzzle, but had not realised it might slide back. Once we'd shunted it back to the original position we could see a covering to a hatch below. We all whooped with joy. Onlookers might have genuinely believed we'd just survived a submarine crash. However, our jubilations were short lived.

It needed a key to open. Specifically; 'the captain's key'.

"Getting closer!" said Brandon, encouragingly. I replied with a stoic silence.

You could audibly hear internal brain cogs whirring and turning as we all thought back. We'd heard mention of the Captain's key several times but, crucially, had never found it.

Pulling together all of the clues that made reference to the key yielded a secret message. That the captain had left the key with his most trusted member of the crew. But we'd searched the room. Top to bottom. By this stage; three or four times. There was nowhere left a secret hidden key could be. A member of the crew seemed to suggest the skeletal remains in the room; but we'd picked that clean of all clues as soon as we'd entered and rechecked dozens of times.

Yet again we were at a dead end.

And yet it still took me another ten minutes of being cajoled by my teammates into swallowing my pride and, whisper it; asking for help.

"Can we have a clue, please." I practically spat it.

"What was that?" asked Brandon, making precisely zero attempt to stifle his laugh. "We need a clue... Please."

I knew what was coming next. In his best (which is to say utterly shocking) impression of my accent; "You will not give us any hints under any circumstances - No matter how much we may plead, understand?"

I very nearly ground my teeth down the gum.

What ensued was what felt like several hours of what I'm sure Brandon would have deemed 'banter', but that would have been accurately described as a man not realising how close to his untimely death he was teetering. We asked for a hint. He declined, saying he'd been given strict instructions. We asked again, informing him we were really stuck and we'd just be standing around for twenty minutes doing fuck all without assistance and that technically it was his job, he told us the customer is always right and he'd been told by the customers to not offer hints, no matter how much they begged.

Eventually, through sheer blind frustration, I snapped.

"For the love of all that's holy; I'll give you a handjob for a hint if I have to!"

His demeanour changed immediately. Without even a breath of hesitation, the clue fell from his mouth. "Remember, I'm a member of the Captain's crew, and when I introduced you to the room..."

I didn't need him to continue. Everything suddenly snapped into place with a horrifying clang as the weighty penny finally dropped.

During the introduction to the room there'd been some flavour text about the captain always hiding things from his crew. As part of the general escape room rules we'd also been 'patted down' to make sure we weren't taking mobile phones in to provide light during the dark segment. I'd thought the whole patting down routine was odd at the time, but my brain hadn't fully engaged in Escape Room mode as we'd not actually entered the room, so I hadn't given it a second thought.

Until now.

I checked my pockets. The bastard had reverse pickpocketed me.

I pulled out a key.

Ewan was about to pass a comment, but wisely thought better of it when he saw the look of sheer venom in my eyes.

Having located the key, the remainder of the room took us less than five minutes.

As we unlocked the final door, Brandon was stood outside. He was beaming and applauding, seemingly delighted and entirely unaware of the fury and ire he had caused.

"Well done, guys. You're the first group I've ever had to finish that room with only one hint, and I think you've still made it into the top ten..."

He was genuinely pleased for us. I was still livid.

"Get in here and drop your fucking trousers."

Brandon thought I was joking. Ewan wasn't sure. Lisa and Charlie knew better. They made a swift exit dragging Ewan in tow. They said they'd meet me afterwards. I told them not to worry, it wouldn't take long.

Poor Brandon just looked confused. I told him in no uncertain terms that, like a Lannister; I pay my debts. And the nerdy reference seem to both land and inexplicably excite him. I confirmed with him that there was currently no one else within the building, and once again told him to get his cock out.

"What, right here in the room?"

I asked him if that would be a problem. He pointed out there were, by necessity, a lot of cameras in the room.

"And is that a problem?"

After a moment's thought, he got his cock out.

I immediately reassessed my initial review of Brandon. On first meeting him he was the guy you'd happily shag once as a student, but ultimately neither think or speak of again.

Reader, let me tell you; everyone who'd encountered Brandon would have spoken of him. His cock was the girth of my wrist and then some and, whilst I'm the first to admit that estimating size is far from my greatest skill, the thing must've been eight inches at a minimum.

I looked at in a state of shock and amazement; principally as I tried to figure out precisely how he'd managed to contain the thing in his trousers at all. I considered asking if his underwear was in fact a TARDIS but, given how well the earlier nerdy reference had landed, I worried it may prove too much for him.

I was so overcome by the size of the thing that I almost forgot how furious I was.

Almost.

I took a firm grip, spat on the behemoth, and started tugging.

Moments later I registered I was going to require both hands.

Brandon started talking again; something about how attractive he found puzzle solving skills, or some waffle of that variety, I think. But I really wasn't listen. I was like a bolted horse; blind and deaf to all but the fury. And, in the moment, the rage was entirely channeled into stroking this enormous cock.

With both hands in play I was able to deploy a double alternating corkscrew technique, which sounds written down significantly less arousing than (I hope) it is. Picture two hands making unscrewing motions in alternate directions while sliding their way up the shaft.

I was firm but not cruel. There's no surer way to ruin a handjob than by squeezing just a little too tight. Likewise you can go for speed but if you're overzealous it tends to have a counterproductive result.

I set about working Brandon's cock with the same tactical (and indeed tactile) approach as solving the puzzles of the room.

I briefly took the gargantuan head in my mouth - as much out of idle curiosity how comfortably it'd fit as out of actual desire - the momentary lip suction and tongue tickling the underside of the head evoking a hugely satisfying surprised exclamation from Brandon.

Realising this was perhaps the swiftest path to success, I continued stroking at pace while I leant forward again to run my tongue along what were clearly recently shaved balls. I got as far as my tongue taking the weight of the first before Brandon let out another satisfied grunt again.

"Mmm, fuck... Slow down or I'm gonna cum."

Of course this had precisely the opposite effect he was perhaps aiming for. I briefly took his left testicle wholly in my mouth impetus, and upped the pace of my stroking.

"Fuuuuuck!"

I disengaged and leant back just in time to see two enormous jets of cum fly past my head onto the floor of the escape room. His right leg almost gave way from the force of the release, but I kept stroking as best I could and earned another three or four smaller spurts. I could feel the familiar shudder of satisfaction begin to ripple through his entire body as he practically snatched his cock back out of my grip, unable to deal with any further sensitive stroking.

"Fuck me," he gasped, "that was..." he paused whilst frantically searching his vocabulary for a suitable word. Eventually he seemingly gave up; "...awesome!" "I know," i replied, because modesty has never been one of my strongest features. "Do you wanna maybe grab a drink or something later?"

Reader, I can't lie; I was tempted. But I'm also phenomenally petty, and this man had annoyed me.

So I smiled politely, and made my escape.