So here's the moment. The point of no return.
The promise is this: if you put your feet in the boots, you're in it for the duration. They'll pull the laces tight, strap each 20lb slab of lead to its foot and secure it with padlocks.
Remember the padlocks! The padlocks are the important bit.
Then they'll haul the 85lb belt over and stand you up before swinging it into your belly. You'll hold the whole weight on your hips as they work the buckles tight behind you, thread the "jockstrap" between your legs and pull it so hard you'd be on tiptoes - if you could bend your ankles ...
And there you will be. Rigged in full jock, committed to what comes next.
The dice. They come come before the helmet. Four cubes, one dot to six on the faces - nothing special about them; probably taken from a Monopoly set. You get to roll the dice across the bench you currently sit on.
Every dot is an hour in the diving rig. Roll a double, the double counts as double. Trebles treble. Et cetera, as they say.
You've done the calculations in your head already, working and reworking the numbers as they screwed the copper breastplate to the thick rubber-canvas dress. The least you can expect, on a 3-2-double-1 roll, is 9 hours of sweat and torment.
Roll four sixes and you'll be stuck in the suit for 96 hours. Four full fucking days! They laughed when you pointed this out as the rules were agreed. Said they'd remember to feed and water you as the days passed and the weight grew unbearable.
There's safe words, of course. Say the word and the torture will stop, the helmet will be unscrewed and lifted away - for a while. But the boots, they have to stay on. The rules say they'll be padlocked onto your feet and the keys ... they're in a time-locked safe.
So here's the moment. The point of no return.
How keen are you to put your feet into these boots?
You know you don't have to slide your feet into the boots. There's no coercion here. You could joke with your mates, suggest they have a go in the suit - maybe they'll bottle it just like you. Or perhaps suggest an alternative game involving heavy antique diving gear - a bagging, for example, or a sweat race.
There's other boots around, too. Step into a pair of 13lb canvas boots and you could have a real dive, with water, in the little lake outside. Some of the guys have dived the gear before: walking around the bottom of the quarry lake like those old black-and-white heroes. They said it was great fun - which is why you are here.
Lots of possibilities: we're all friends together here ... yes?
Nobody would be stupid enough to keep a mate strapped and locked in a fucking diving suit for four fucking days!
How well do you know these people? I mean, they all sounded friendly as you chatted to them online. You've all shared details of your various fantasies; some even said they had met up before to do more than just fantasise. Photos had been posted - they didn't look photoshopped.
... Though it's amazing what images some of those new artificial intelligence things can generate nowadays ...
... Are you still reading this?
Then you already know what you - I - would do. Here we go. Now ... doesn't that tight weight feel fucking magnificent?