dig dug dog
3rd Level Red Feather
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2001
- Messages
- 1,678
- Points
- 38
Even if you have been following this short series, I recommending starting again and reading it from the top to get the full flavor. But if you feel you must go straight to the new section first, use your computer to search for the word "misbehaving" and it will take you to the paragraph where part four begins.
Hope you enjoy!
dig dug
A Wife's Secret
As far as I knew, Karyn, my wife of three years, had never been ticklish. During many playful and, I think, skillful tickle attacks on my part, she rarely even cracked a smile. I mention this silly fact only as background to the odd sight I saw this week across the school gymnasium at Karyn’s high school reunion. As a former student council president, Karyn really looked forward to the event and to reconnecting with old friends. About 10:30 that evening I stood making small talk with a group of non-alumni husbands near the bar. I glanced over at Karyn just as a tall, thin, blonde woman extended one finger in my wife’s direction and began to wiggle it slowly back and forth. I thought for a moment that the woman was explaining how some gadget worked, but then a strange thing happened: I couldn’t hear anything being said, but I watched, puzzled, as Karyn started backing away from the blonde who moved toward her with a lone finger pointed at my wife’s midsection. The blonde, whose profile I could clearly see, smiled largely and a bit “evilly” as she stepped deliberately ahead.
My wife’s slow retreat was blocked suddenly as she ran straight into the back of a huge man in a dark suit who must have been a lineman on their high school football team. He turned around quickly and chuckled as he saw the woman coming at Karyn with finger drawn. Karyn seemed to be looking around for some easy escape, but then that guy clamped his massive hands to the sides of Karyn’s slim, 5’6” frame. She clearly wasn’t going anywhere for a while. When the woman reached my wife, Karyn tried to grab or block the blonde’s hands, but the woman was strong and quick and managed to penetrate Karyn’s defense. She pressed her long fingers forward and a moment later was able to reach my wife’s stomach through the black, sleeveless evening gown Karyn was wearing.
For a few seconds, Karyn just stood there; it looked like her lips were pressed together and she was staring straight ahead. But then my wife began to smile, a tight, uncomfortable smile, and squirmed slightly, or so it seemed, in reaction to the fingers pressing in on her body. As the blonde woman persisted in the tickling, you could now see Karyn’s beautiful white teeth; her squirming had definitely increased. And seconds later, to my great surprise, Karyn suddenly threw her head back and began laughing very loudly. In spite of the music playing, I could hear her distinctly across the room and, apparently, many others could too. The laughter seemed to encourage the tickler because it looked like she said something to the “lineman” who then gently pulled Karyn down toward the gym floor and onto her back. Laughing and shaking, my wife was in no position to resist. Quickly, the blonde moved to yank off my wife’s right, high-heeled shoe, wrapped her arm around Karyn’s ankle, and began tickling the bottom of her foot. Karyn went berserk. She flailed and bucked, jerking her limbs in all directions. The guy, I noticed, carefully cradled her head to keep it from hitting the floor. The sound of her laughter mounted higher in volume and pitch as more and more people in the huge room started to look. Then, almost as suddenly as it had begun, the woman stopped tickling Karyn and walked away. A few guys helped her up, she put on her shoe, brushed off her dress a little, and walked over to a bathroom on the far side of the room. When Karyn returned, she mingled, ate, danced and seemed to be completely enjoying herself. We didn’t have a real chance to talk until we left the reunion near midnight.
On the car ride home, after chatting about this and that, I piped up, “So that was a pretty interesting incident earlier.”
“What was?” Karyn said.
“Yeah, right—the little spectacle where you were attacked by some of your friends. Or do you always end up lying on the floor at social gatherings?”
“Oh. Did you see that? I didn’t think many people noticed."
“Only 100 or so,” I said.
“Yeah, well, some of those people haven’t changed a bit since high school. Especially Tracie.”
“You mean, this has happened before?”
“What has happened before?” she asked blankly.
“Karyn…I'd say you got the hell tickled out of you tonight.”
She didn’t say a word.
“I mean, I thought you weren't even ticklish. How many times have I tried and failed?”
“A lot,” she said, smiling slightly.
“Yes, a lot. What’s the deal with that?”
“Well, I’m not ticklish…usually.”
“Usually?” I said, urging her with on with my tone.
“Yeah, under most circumstances I really can't be tickled.”
“And under just what circumstances can you be tickled?”
She paused. “Would you believe, at high school reunions?”
I threw her a scowl.
“Jimmy, I know you like to tickle, but…I don’t want to be ticklish with you, or with anybody. I mean, you just feel so out of control.”
“I know,” I blurted out, “that’s the fun part.”
“See what I mean. Once you ‘ticklers’ know how to tickle somebody, you’re relentless. And when I get ticklish, I’m like a 15 on a scale of 1-10, so I don’t plan on making myself, well, vulnerable.”
I thought for a minute, trying to stay on this topic. “So who was the woman?”
“Tracie Evans—well, Kimbark now. We were on student council together and pretty close, actually. We kind of had a falling out senior year.”
“She’s cute,” I said, teasingly. Karyn nodded ‘yes’. “And she knows the secret of how to break Karyn Macintyre?”
“There’s no ‘secret’, Jimmy. I just can’t—”
Her cell phone rang. It was the babysitter checking in, as arranged, at midnight. “Great, great…Yeah, we’re about seven minutes from the house. Thanks, Lily.”
“Is everything OK,” I asked.
“Kelly was fine all night. She was crawling up a storm, according to Lily.”
The rest of the ride was pretty quiet. I don’t know what Karyn was thinking about, but I was replaying the evening’s tickle attack in my mind. I couldn’t quite get over the expression on my wife’s face as she was writhing around on the gym floor, while Tracie ran fingers up and down her foot. Like she said herself, Karyn was simply out of control, the laughter pouring out of her mouth, her eyes totally amused and yet a little panicky at the same time. Her arms might as well have been attached to the strings of a drunk puppeteer. It’s true that I had always ‘liked tickling’—growing up I would frequently tickle girlfriends and friends who were girls—but it was just fun for me, not a major fetish or anything. But something about what I saw happen to my wife that night really intrigued me and fired my imagination.
After we had looked in on Kelly and settled into bed, I was lying awake on my back, glancing occasionally at my wife's face concentrating on her book. No matter how tired she was, Karyn always read in bed for about a half hour before turning out the light. I wasn’t tired at all and I got up and walked over to the dresser across from our bed. Trying to look occupied, I examined my face in the mirror.
Attempting nonchalance, I said, “So, what did Tracie say before she came at you with her finger? I mean, she must have had some excuse for starting in on you like that.”
“Jimmy, are you still thinking about that? Come on, dear, can’t we just pretend it didn’t happen?”
“I’m just curious.” I went over and sat on her side of the bed next to her feet. “You think you know a person and then you find out something…you never knew,” I said lamely.
“Yeah, right, something really important and crucial to our relationship. Jim, it’s late. I’m going to bed.”
“Well,” and I smiled, “I could always…tickle the information out of you.” And with that, I reached out and grabbed the same ankle which Tracie had trapped a couple hours before. Now, based on past experience I didn’t stand much chance of getting a reaction—but then again, this wasn’t just any night.
Placing my fingers in the middle of Karyn’s right foot, I started scrabbling my short nails over her soft skin in what I thought to be the tickliest way I could. First, I went slowly in a deliberate pattern, then I speeded up and tried going in random directions.
Karyn sat there watching me. I, in turn, watched her face for any signs of the response I was hoping for, like the corners of her pretty mouth beginning to turn slowly upward. “Come on, Karyn…I know now that you’re really ticklish…don’t tell me this doesn’t affect you.”
She took a breath. “No, Jimmy, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t. Basically, I’m not ticklish. Tonight was kind of a fluke.” Then with a look of genuine sympathy she added, “I could fake it, if you want: Hahahahaha, heheheheeeee,” she ‘laughed’ and pretended to struggle a bit.
“But what did Tracie do that I’m not doing, or haven’t done before?” I sounded a little more desperate to myself than I intended. I tried to look more at ease. “What turns you into a ‘15’, dear?”
“Well…” I could see her choosing her words carefully. “There are just…certain times when it…gets to you. Very rarely, but I guess it depends on the situation. Actually, I never thought about it that much and, besides you, I’ve haven’t been tickled much as an adult. Now, Jim, can we please go to bed? It’s almost 1:00 and I’ve got a ton to do tomorrow.” She reached over and turned off the reading lamp.
*****
That was three days earlier. Outwardly, I dropped the subject as Karyn clearly wanted to, but it snuck back into my thoughts from time to time. And as I was chopping vegetables for Sunday lunch with Karyn’s family, I remembered my wife’s comment about not being ‘tickled much as an adult’. Does that mean she was tickled a lot as a kid? If so, and it was intense, that might explain why she’s had enough of tickling. Karyn was the youngest of four, with two older sisters and a brother just 18 months her senior. ‘Maybe I’ll have to do some research today’, I said to myself.
A couple hours later the house was full of Macintyres (or former Macintyres) and their families: her oldest sister Jackie, her husband Kevin, and the two kids; the other sister, Paulette, with her three kids; and then there was Teddy. Karyn’s mom was there too. All the food was laid out on two long tables in the living room and people mixed and ate and talked (and played) all over the first floor.
In talking with Karyn’s siblings that afternoon, I waited for some reference to their childhood so that maybe I could “naturally,” steer the conversation toward whether Karyn had been tickled as a girl. Not having any luck, when Karyn was in the other room and her two sisters were talking, I sidled up and gently poked Paulette in the ribs. As far as I could tell, she was the most ticklish of the three girls, and I got a big reaction: she jumped, giggled, and playfully slapped my hand.
“Jimmy, you’re terrible,” Paulette scolded.
“Well, you make such an excellent target,” I said logically, and then poked her other side for good measure. Then I waited for one of them to pick up on the tickling theme. Getting nothing, I added, “I mean, Karyn’s not ticklish at all.”
“I’m not sure I’d say that exactly,” Jackie offered, as the sisters looked at each other.
I tried to sound casual. “What do you mean?” But as fate would have it, Leslie, Paulette’s girl, and Dylan, Jackie’s boy, chose that moment to begin fighting loudly over the video game they had been playing. Both moms headed straight over to the kids and hustled them off in separate directions.
I mentally shrugged my shoulders and started to clean up some dishes and leftover food. About ten minutes later, as I was washing up in the kitchen, Jackie came in.
“Can I help?” she asked in her strong, but friendly way. Jackie and Karyn actually looked a lot alike, both with soft, light-brown hair, high cheek bones, and excellent figures.
“Sure. Just talk to me while I put stuff away. That would help. I hate doing dishes and our little dishwasher is already full.”
“That’s easy enough. But are you sure you don’t want me to dry? Ya know, we first-borns always have to make sure things get taken care of the right way.”
Seeing a possible opening, I said, “Yes, I know. I remember the surprise party we threw together for Karyn two years ago.” Jackie smiled. “By the way, being oldest did you have to take care of little Karyn a lot?”
“Oh, yeah, all the time. Babysitting, making her meals, helping with homework. The whole package.”
“Did Paulette and Teddy play with her much too?”
“Paulette, yes. Teddy—I’d say he mainly tried to torture her. That’s another time I would step in.”
I swallowed. “Torture? Nothing serious, I hope.”
“No, no. Holding her upside down, bringing bugs into the house and showing them to her…stuff like that.”
I put another small plate in the cupboard.
“Oh!” Jackie blurted out. “And he used to love to take Karyn’s hands and lightly punch her in the face with her own hands and say, ‘Karyn, why are you hitting yourself, why are you hitting yourself?!’”
“I did that to my younger sister a few times too,” I confessed. Then, taking a breath, I suggested, “He probably tickled her all the time, too, right?”
“Seems like you have a little thing for tickling, Jim.” She chuckled and I’m sure I blushed, but Jackie didn’t seem weirded out or anything. “In fact, that’s the one thing I wouldn’t let Teddy do to her. If I caught him trying to tickle her, or if I found out about it afterwards, I would slap him around. He was very scrawny back then. Or I’d threaten to tell mom about his Playboys. I’m completely ticklish and dad got me tons of times when I was young, so I didn’t want Karyn to suffer, especially from Teddy who didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘mercy’.”
Jackie looked like she was going to add something. I waited.
She glanced at the kitchen door and lowered her voice a touch. “We only tickled Karyn when she did something very bad.”
“We?”
“Well, after mom and dad got divorced, I took a bigger role in disciplining the younger kids. If Karyn did something really bad—like the time she was 12 and we found her trying a cigarette behind the house—we would take her upstairs and I had the others tickle her for like half an hour straight, while I would lecture her about what she had done wrong and how unacceptable and unfortunate it was.”
“Unfortunate?”
“Yeah,” she said, laughing. “For some reason, when I was in college I got really attached to the word ‘unfortunate’. Everything bad or sad or inconvenient became ‘unfortunate’ to me. Anyway, we tickled Karyn as punishment, as I played amateur psychologist. But that was the only time I let her get tickled at home.”
“Did this happen often?
“I don’t know, over the years maybe a dozen times.”
“Huh, that’s interesting.” I tried to process the information I had taken in over the last couple minutes. “Jackie, by the way, did you know a girl who went to high school with Karyn named Tracie Evans?”
“Of course, she used to be one of Karyn’s best friends.”
“What happened between them?”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly the proudest moment for the Macintyres. Karyn got into big trouble at school. Maybe I should let her tell you….” Jackie stood debating with herself for a second. “Let’s just say Karyn almost let Tracie take the fall for a problem on student council that was really Karyn’s fault. Karyn told the truth in the end, but Tracie wouldn’t forgive her.”
“Sounds very unfortunate,” I said.
*****
At times over the next few days, I considered what I learned about Karyn. When young, Karyn got tickled really long and hard for misbehaving. And Tracie Evans (or whatever her name is now) was able to tickle my wife. Karyn had done something really bad to Tracie when they were in high school. Apparently, I concluded, Karyn is only ticklish now when the person has a good reason to be tickling her, when Karyn knows she “deserves” it for something she’s done. If true, this presented interesting possibilities. All I had to do was identify some little screw up on her part: dinging the car, missing a bill payment, or whatnot. I wasn’t at all sure how serious the infraction would have to be in order to create the right frame of mind in Karyn, so I decided to wait for something pretty significant.
And wait I did. Weeks passed while Karyn was nothing but a model wife. The worst thing she did was neglect one time to buy the beer I asked for. It was hardly a capital offense since we lived half a block from a liquor store. Then, one Monday morning almost a month later, when I had basically forgotten what I was waiting for, I walked into work at 8:52, ready for an important 9:00 office meeting. The receptionist, Kim, looked at me with curiosity and mild distress.
“Is everything OK, Jim?”
“Great, Kim. How are you?”
“You know the meeting was moved up to 8:00, don’t you? Stan has to fly to Houston later this morning. He had me call everyone at home yesterday; I spoke to Karyn. Didn’t she tell you?”
“Uh…no,” was all I could say. I hurried into the meeting very anxious and annoyed. I was supposed to make a short presentation. As I walked in, my boss was talking. He shot me a look that was more disappointment than anger. I could see a pile of new material in front of each person sitting there. The white board behind Stan was covered with large print, in multiple colors, outlining ideas that, I assumed, had been generated in the last hour. I sat in silence for the next 10 minutes, barely taking in a word, until the meeting ended.
I went quickly over to Stan, but he began before I could say anything. “Jim, we’ll have to discuss this later. I’ve got a plane to catch and I’ll be in meetings all day. Have Tim catch you up.” I nodded and headed back to my office.
As I sat there, literally scratching my head, I picked up the phone to call Karyn and ask what happened to the message from work. Then I remembered. I put down the receiver and in spite of being upset, embarrassed, and nervous about Stan’s eventual reaction, I couldn’t help but smile. The hours passed slowly at work that day.
In the evening Karyn put Kelly to bed upstairs at about 7:30. My wife was still wearing her work clothes, including black skirt, white top, and sheer panty hose. Coming downstairs, she plopped down next to me on the living room couch, kicked her shoes off, and we watched television for a while. I think Karyn sensed something was up with me; she started asking about my day at work.
My responses were pretty well planned out. I suddenly turned heated and sarcastic. “Well, dear, it wasn’t exactly my best day ever.”
Karyn seemed taken aback. She rarely heard me use a tone like this. Then, apparently, it hit her: the call yesterday. The meeting change.
“Oh my God, Jimmy! I forgot to tell you about the phone call from work! What happened… what happened? I was in the middle of five different things…Kelly was crying…I am SO sorry!
I played it cool and just shook my head slowly back and forth a little.
“Was it really bad?” she asked and grabbed my hand. I gently pulled it away and stood up.
“Yes, it was bad. I had a presentation to give.” I let my voice escalate. “It was really embarrassing and Stan looked very upset.” But not quite as upset as I was making it sound.
“Jimmy—that’s awful and it’s all my fault. What can I do? Can I call Stan tomorrow?”
“No, that’s not a good idea. I haven’t even had a chance to talk to him about it yet. He had to fly out of town this morning.”
Karen looked despondent, but if I was going to do this thing right, I couldn’t let her off the hook. “How could you just forget about an important message? I mean, write it down or something!”
“I know, I know.” She looked away from me and then stretched out face down on the couch.
A minute later I went over, picked her legs up by the ankles, sat down, and then lowered her feet onto my lap.
“You know what he said on his way out of the office?” I was improvising now or, you could say, lying. “He was saying that this kind of behavior was unprofessional and unacceptable.”
“He did?”
“Yeah, ‘unacceptable,’ can you believe that?” I started to ‘absent-mindedly’ stroke the soles of her feet. As it did this, I noticed that Karyn crossed her feet a couple times, interrupting my touches.
“What can I do to make it up to you, Jim?” Karyn asked with a certain sad sweetness.
The moment had arrived. “Well, you’re just lucky you’re not ticklish, Kar, otherwise I’d really give it to you good.”
“Right,” she said. “not ticklish, not ticklish.” I thought I felt the muscles of her legs tense up.
I chuckled in a dry way. “Maybe I should get Tracie Evans over here. She seems to have the knack.” Then I began to tickle Karyn’s feet in earnest. “You really screwed up, big time.”
“Jimmy…don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“You’re, you’re, trying to tickle me.”
“Yeah and you totally deserve it this time, you naughty girl.” I turned up the intensity, teasing the soft area under her toes. “Even though you’re not ticklish, I might just keep going like this all night as punishment.”
“No, please…I didn’t mean to…hahahahaha, stop, Jimmy.” She was kicking now and I had to hold her ankles down with one arm to keep them in place. “I won’t do it ag…heeeheee, haahaahaaaaahahaa….”
“Karyn?” I said, “Are you laughing, you bad, bad, girl? Does this tickle you?!” I reached up and squeezed her waist. She twisted hard and the giggling came out much more strongly, so I pulled myself out from under her legs and straddled her back, digging my fingers into her sides and ribs.
“Noooooooo, hahahahahahaaaaaaa, hooohoooooooo, stooooooop.”
“Seems like you’re pretty ticklish now, Karyn,” I had to raise my voice over the sound of her laughter. I wanted to see her face and I managed to flip her onto her back without too much difficulty by continually poking her ribs as I turned her. I started to prod at the sides of her breasts which, for the first time in my experience, proved now to be an extremely sensitive area. Karyn’s mouth flew open as far as possible; I could see all her teeth at once. Her eyes were tightly shut and her head rocked back and forth as if to say ‘no, no, a thousand times no’. Her hair was falling across her forehead and she was starting to sweat.
I decided to try her underarms, so I raised her left arm and tickled there with my free hand, adding, “Do you know what it’s like having your boss call you unacceptable??”
“Jiiiimmyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!! NOOO, hahahahahahahahahahaaaaa, NOOOOOOOOO, ittickles, ittickles, heeeeeeeeheeeeeee.”
Quickly, I unbuttoned her top and pushed my hand inside it to tickle the bare skin of her smooth armpit. She bucked violently at this point and I had to work not to lose balance.
Suddenly, I stopped tickling and waited for her to catch her breath somewhat. “I thought you weren’t ticklish?”
She was still breathing a bit heavily. “Well…I…I…”
“Yes??…Why is it different tonight?” Sitting on Karyn’s waist, I reached behind me, felt for her kneecap and squeezed a little above it. I was rewarded with a loud squeak and a look of shock on her face.
“I told you…sometimes, I’m ticklish…”
“When? When are you ticklish?” I said, knowing the answer, of course, but wanting to hear her say it. I held my hands in a pre-tickle position over her tummy to emphasize my expectation of receiving a proper explanation.
“No, don’t!” Karyn defensively held her hands in front of mine. “If I tell you, will you…use it against me?"
“You’re not exactly in a great bargaining position, sweetheart.” I placed my hands under her chin and teased around her neck, prodding very gently. Karyn just stared at me until I said, “Don’t you think you deserve what I’m doing after the hot water you got me into?” With that, she slammed her chin down to her chest in an effort to prevent my fingers from moving anywhere, and she began to giggle rapidly. “Wow,” I said. “You’re ticklish there, too?”
“Noooohohohohoooohoooooooo, okokokok.” I took the OK’s to mean that she was willing to talk. “That’s it…it tickles because, because…I deserve it…I guess it’s like you have…a ‘right’ to tickle me.”
“You bet I do!” I launched into a fresh tickle attack to her midsection and she exploded even more loudly than before. Somehow, having admitted my ‘tickle rights’ made her even more vulnerable and her laughter was incredibly unrestrained, almost a wild cackling sound. Over the next five minutes I tried many other spots on her body, with great success, especially her hip bone, on both sides, and even her ears. I could tell she was getting awfully worn out since her hands were offering less and less resistance to my maneuvers.
Reaching under her now-loosened skirt, I started to pull down her pantyhose. Karen perked up instantly. She knew what I was after and began to kick, but she was too weak from all her previous squirming, bucking, and laughing. I wriggled the hose all the way to her ankles and in a final, dramatic move yanked them off, exposing Karyn’s size six feet. I sat on top of her calves.
“Don’t tickle my bare feet, Jimmy. Not under, you know…these circumstances.”
I replied, “Stan did send me an e-mail late in the day.”
“He did”? She sounded nervous.
“Yeah, he said that my lateness today was troublesome…no, no, not troublesome— ‘unfortunate’. He said it was ‘most unfortunate’. That can’t be good at all, can it?
“He…said ‘unfortunate’?”
I nodded silently and put my fingertips on her heels. Very slowly I dragged my fingers up along her soles until I reached the tips of her toes. Her feet squirmed, and I felt her knees quiver under me. Then I started over, doing the exact same thing again. “What do you think he meant by that, Karyn?”
She didn’t say anything. A few seconds later, I glanced behind me and saw that she had both hands clamped over her mouth. I resumed my slow tickling pattern, up her soles from heel to toe, never varying the rhythm. Each time I did this Karyn jerked a little bit more, particularly, I noticed, when I moved over the valley of her high arches. The fifth time across her feet I started to hear some high-pitched, muffled sounds. Now, instead of lifting my fingers and replacing them at the bottom of her soles, I guided my fingers softly back down her feet just the way I had come up, maintaining constant contact.
“I really hope I have a job next week.”
Laughter spilled out from behind Karyn’s hands, more softly than before, but more desperate. She tried to sit up, then fell back down. Then she began to beat the couch with her fists. When that stopped, I look back and caught her pulling at her hair…moments later she was holding her hands in a position of pleading and supplication. And all the time she just laughed from deep within her very core. It seemed unstoppable, uncontrollable.
Twisting my head around again, I said, “Have you been wicked, Karyn?” Through another spike of laughter she weakly nodded ‘yes’. “Are you ticklish with me, Karyn?” Again, the same response. “Now that I think about it,” I added, “keeping this secret from me about being so ticklish was pretty bad too…very, very unfortunate….”
Karyn’s eyes grew wide as I got up and repositioned myself. I squeezed my hands into both of her underarms and tickled.
Hope you enjoy!
dig dug
A Wife's Secret
As far as I knew, Karyn, my wife of three years, had never been ticklish. During many playful and, I think, skillful tickle attacks on my part, she rarely even cracked a smile. I mention this silly fact only as background to the odd sight I saw this week across the school gymnasium at Karyn’s high school reunion. As a former student council president, Karyn really looked forward to the event and to reconnecting with old friends. About 10:30 that evening I stood making small talk with a group of non-alumni husbands near the bar. I glanced over at Karyn just as a tall, thin, blonde woman extended one finger in my wife’s direction and began to wiggle it slowly back and forth. I thought for a moment that the woman was explaining how some gadget worked, but then a strange thing happened: I couldn’t hear anything being said, but I watched, puzzled, as Karyn started backing away from the blonde who moved toward her with a lone finger pointed at my wife’s midsection. The blonde, whose profile I could clearly see, smiled largely and a bit “evilly” as she stepped deliberately ahead.
My wife’s slow retreat was blocked suddenly as she ran straight into the back of a huge man in a dark suit who must have been a lineman on their high school football team. He turned around quickly and chuckled as he saw the woman coming at Karyn with finger drawn. Karyn seemed to be looking around for some easy escape, but then that guy clamped his massive hands to the sides of Karyn’s slim, 5’6” frame. She clearly wasn’t going anywhere for a while. When the woman reached my wife, Karyn tried to grab or block the blonde’s hands, but the woman was strong and quick and managed to penetrate Karyn’s defense. She pressed her long fingers forward and a moment later was able to reach my wife’s stomach through the black, sleeveless evening gown Karyn was wearing.
For a few seconds, Karyn just stood there; it looked like her lips were pressed together and she was staring straight ahead. But then my wife began to smile, a tight, uncomfortable smile, and squirmed slightly, or so it seemed, in reaction to the fingers pressing in on her body. As the blonde woman persisted in the tickling, you could now see Karyn’s beautiful white teeth; her squirming had definitely increased. And seconds later, to my great surprise, Karyn suddenly threw her head back and began laughing very loudly. In spite of the music playing, I could hear her distinctly across the room and, apparently, many others could too. The laughter seemed to encourage the tickler because it looked like she said something to the “lineman” who then gently pulled Karyn down toward the gym floor and onto her back. Laughing and shaking, my wife was in no position to resist. Quickly, the blonde moved to yank off my wife’s right, high-heeled shoe, wrapped her arm around Karyn’s ankle, and began tickling the bottom of her foot. Karyn went berserk. She flailed and bucked, jerking her limbs in all directions. The guy, I noticed, carefully cradled her head to keep it from hitting the floor. The sound of her laughter mounted higher in volume and pitch as more and more people in the huge room started to look. Then, almost as suddenly as it had begun, the woman stopped tickling Karyn and walked away. A few guys helped her up, she put on her shoe, brushed off her dress a little, and walked over to a bathroom on the far side of the room. When Karyn returned, she mingled, ate, danced and seemed to be completely enjoying herself. We didn’t have a real chance to talk until we left the reunion near midnight.
On the car ride home, after chatting about this and that, I piped up, “So that was a pretty interesting incident earlier.”
“What was?” Karyn said.
“Yeah, right—the little spectacle where you were attacked by some of your friends. Or do you always end up lying on the floor at social gatherings?”
“Oh. Did you see that? I didn’t think many people noticed."
“Only 100 or so,” I said.
“Yeah, well, some of those people haven’t changed a bit since high school. Especially Tracie.”
“You mean, this has happened before?”
“What has happened before?” she asked blankly.
“Karyn…I'd say you got the hell tickled out of you tonight.”
She didn’t say a word.
“I mean, I thought you weren't even ticklish. How many times have I tried and failed?”
“A lot,” she said, smiling slightly.
“Yes, a lot. What’s the deal with that?”
“Well, I’m not ticklish…usually.”
“Usually?” I said, urging her with on with my tone.
“Yeah, under most circumstances I really can't be tickled.”
“And under just what circumstances can you be tickled?”
She paused. “Would you believe, at high school reunions?”
I threw her a scowl.
“Jimmy, I know you like to tickle, but…I don’t want to be ticklish with you, or with anybody. I mean, you just feel so out of control.”
“I know,” I blurted out, “that’s the fun part.”
“See what I mean. Once you ‘ticklers’ know how to tickle somebody, you’re relentless. And when I get ticklish, I’m like a 15 on a scale of 1-10, so I don’t plan on making myself, well, vulnerable.”
I thought for a minute, trying to stay on this topic. “So who was the woman?”
“Tracie Evans—well, Kimbark now. We were on student council together and pretty close, actually. We kind of had a falling out senior year.”
“She’s cute,” I said, teasingly. Karyn nodded ‘yes’. “And she knows the secret of how to break Karyn Macintyre?”
“There’s no ‘secret’, Jimmy. I just can’t—”
Her cell phone rang. It was the babysitter checking in, as arranged, at midnight. “Great, great…Yeah, we’re about seven minutes from the house. Thanks, Lily.”
“Is everything OK,” I asked.
“Kelly was fine all night. She was crawling up a storm, according to Lily.”
The rest of the ride was pretty quiet. I don’t know what Karyn was thinking about, but I was replaying the evening’s tickle attack in my mind. I couldn’t quite get over the expression on my wife’s face as she was writhing around on the gym floor, while Tracie ran fingers up and down her foot. Like she said herself, Karyn was simply out of control, the laughter pouring out of her mouth, her eyes totally amused and yet a little panicky at the same time. Her arms might as well have been attached to the strings of a drunk puppeteer. It’s true that I had always ‘liked tickling’—growing up I would frequently tickle girlfriends and friends who were girls—but it was just fun for me, not a major fetish or anything. But something about what I saw happen to my wife that night really intrigued me and fired my imagination.
After we had looked in on Kelly and settled into bed, I was lying awake on my back, glancing occasionally at my wife's face concentrating on her book. No matter how tired she was, Karyn always read in bed for about a half hour before turning out the light. I wasn’t tired at all and I got up and walked over to the dresser across from our bed. Trying to look occupied, I examined my face in the mirror.
Attempting nonchalance, I said, “So, what did Tracie say before she came at you with her finger? I mean, she must have had some excuse for starting in on you like that.”
“Jimmy, are you still thinking about that? Come on, dear, can’t we just pretend it didn’t happen?”
“I’m just curious.” I went over and sat on her side of the bed next to her feet. “You think you know a person and then you find out something…you never knew,” I said lamely.
“Yeah, right, something really important and crucial to our relationship. Jim, it’s late. I’m going to bed.”
“Well,” and I smiled, “I could always…tickle the information out of you.” And with that, I reached out and grabbed the same ankle which Tracie had trapped a couple hours before. Now, based on past experience I didn’t stand much chance of getting a reaction—but then again, this wasn’t just any night.
Placing my fingers in the middle of Karyn’s right foot, I started scrabbling my short nails over her soft skin in what I thought to be the tickliest way I could. First, I went slowly in a deliberate pattern, then I speeded up and tried going in random directions.
Karyn sat there watching me. I, in turn, watched her face for any signs of the response I was hoping for, like the corners of her pretty mouth beginning to turn slowly upward. “Come on, Karyn…I know now that you’re really ticklish…don’t tell me this doesn’t affect you.”
She took a breath. “No, Jimmy, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t. Basically, I’m not ticklish. Tonight was kind of a fluke.” Then with a look of genuine sympathy she added, “I could fake it, if you want: Hahahahaha, heheheheeeee,” she ‘laughed’ and pretended to struggle a bit.
“But what did Tracie do that I’m not doing, or haven’t done before?” I sounded a little more desperate to myself than I intended. I tried to look more at ease. “What turns you into a ‘15’, dear?”
“Well…” I could see her choosing her words carefully. “There are just…certain times when it…gets to you. Very rarely, but I guess it depends on the situation. Actually, I never thought about it that much and, besides you, I’ve haven’t been tickled much as an adult. Now, Jim, can we please go to bed? It’s almost 1:00 and I’ve got a ton to do tomorrow.” She reached over and turned off the reading lamp.
*****
That was three days earlier. Outwardly, I dropped the subject as Karyn clearly wanted to, but it snuck back into my thoughts from time to time. And as I was chopping vegetables for Sunday lunch with Karyn’s family, I remembered my wife’s comment about not being ‘tickled much as an adult’. Does that mean she was tickled a lot as a kid? If so, and it was intense, that might explain why she’s had enough of tickling. Karyn was the youngest of four, with two older sisters and a brother just 18 months her senior. ‘Maybe I’ll have to do some research today’, I said to myself.
A couple hours later the house was full of Macintyres (or former Macintyres) and their families: her oldest sister Jackie, her husband Kevin, and the two kids; the other sister, Paulette, with her three kids; and then there was Teddy. Karyn’s mom was there too. All the food was laid out on two long tables in the living room and people mixed and ate and talked (and played) all over the first floor.
In talking with Karyn’s siblings that afternoon, I waited for some reference to their childhood so that maybe I could “naturally,” steer the conversation toward whether Karyn had been tickled as a girl. Not having any luck, when Karyn was in the other room and her two sisters were talking, I sidled up and gently poked Paulette in the ribs. As far as I could tell, she was the most ticklish of the three girls, and I got a big reaction: she jumped, giggled, and playfully slapped my hand.
“Jimmy, you’re terrible,” Paulette scolded.
“Well, you make such an excellent target,” I said logically, and then poked her other side for good measure. Then I waited for one of them to pick up on the tickling theme. Getting nothing, I added, “I mean, Karyn’s not ticklish at all.”
“I’m not sure I’d say that exactly,” Jackie offered, as the sisters looked at each other.
I tried to sound casual. “What do you mean?” But as fate would have it, Leslie, Paulette’s girl, and Dylan, Jackie’s boy, chose that moment to begin fighting loudly over the video game they had been playing. Both moms headed straight over to the kids and hustled them off in separate directions.
I mentally shrugged my shoulders and started to clean up some dishes and leftover food. About ten minutes later, as I was washing up in the kitchen, Jackie came in.
“Can I help?” she asked in her strong, but friendly way. Jackie and Karyn actually looked a lot alike, both with soft, light-brown hair, high cheek bones, and excellent figures.
“Sure. Just talk to me while I put stuff away. That would help. I hate doing dishes and our little dishwasher is already full.”
“That’s easy enough. But are you sure you don’t want me to dry? Ya know, we first-borns always have to make sure things get taken care of the right way.”
Seeing a possible opening, I said, “Yes, I know. I remember the surprise party we threw together for Karyn two years ago.” Jackie smiled. “By the way, being oldest did you have to take care of little Karyn a lot?”
“Oh, yeah, all the time. Babysitting, making her meals, helping with homework. The whole package.”
“Did Paulette and Teddy play with her much too?”
“Paulette, yes. Teddy—I’d say he mainly tried to torture her. That’s another time I would step in.”
I swallowed. “Torture? Nothing serious, I hope.”
“No, no. Holding her upside down, bringing bugs into the house and showing them to her…stuff like that.”
I put another small plate in the cupboard.
“Oh!” Jackie blurted out. “And he used to love to take Karyn’s hands and lightly punch her in the face with her own hands and say, ‘Karyn, why are you hitting yourself, why are you hitting yourself?!’”
“I did that to my younger sister a few times too,” I confessed. Then, taking a breath, I suggested, “He probably tickled her all the time, too, right?”
“Seems like you have a little thing for tickling, Jim.” She chuckled and I’m sure I blushed, but Jackie didn’t seem weirded out or anything. “In fact, that’s the one thing I wouldn’t let Teddy do to her. If I caught him trying to tickle her, or if I found out about it afterwards, I would slap him around. He was very scrawny back then. Or I’d threaten to tell mom about his Playboys. I’m completely ticklish and dad got me tons of times when I was young, so I didn’t want Karyn to suffer, especially from Teddy who didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘mercy’.”
Jackie looked like she was going to add something. I waited.
She glanced at the kitchen door and lowered her voice a touch. “We only tickled Karyn when she did something very bad.”
“We?”
“Well, after mom and dad got divorced, I took a bigger role in disciplining the younger kids. If Karyn did something really bad—like the time she was 12 and we found her trying a cigarette behind the house—we would take her upstairs and I had the others tickle her for like half an hour straight, while I would lecture her about what she had done wrong and how unacceptable and unfortunate it was.”
“Unfortunate?”
“Yeah,” she said, laughing. “For some reason, when I was in college I got really attached to the word ‘unfortunate’. Everything bad or sad or inconvenient became ‘unfortunate’ to me. Anyway, we tickled Karyn as punishment, as I played amateur psychologist. But that was the only time I let her get tickled at home.”
“Did this happen often?
“I don’t know, over the years maybe a dozen times.”
“Huh, that’s interesting.” I tried to process the information I had taken in over the last couple minutes. “Jackie, by the way, did you know a girl who went to high school with Karyn named Tracie Evans?”
“Of course, she used to be one of Karyn’s best friends.”
“What happened between them?”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly the proudest moment for the Macintyres. Karyn got into big trouble at school. Maybe I should let her tell you….” Jackie stood debating with herself for a second. “Let’s just say Karyn almost let Tracie take the fall for a problem on student council that was really Karyn’s fault. Karyn told the truth in the end, but Tracie wouldn’t forgive her.”
“Sounds very unfortunate,” I said.
*****
At times over the next few days, I considered what I learned about Karyn. When young, Karyn got tickled really long and hard for misbehaving. And Tracie Evans (or whatever her name is now) was able to tickle my wife. Karyn had done something really bad to Tracie when they were in high school. Apparently, I concluded, Karyn is only ticklish now when the person has a good reason to be tickling her, when Karyn knows she “deserves” it for something she’s done. If true, this presented interesting possibilities. All I had to do was identify some little screw up on her part: dinging the car, missing a bill payment, or whatnot. I wasn’t at all sure how serious the infraction would have to be in order to create the right frame of mind in Karyn, so I decided to wait for something pretty significant.
And wait I did. Weeks passed while Karyn was nothing but a model wife. The worst thing she did was neglect one time to buy the beer I asked for. It was hardly a capital offense since we lived half a block from a liquor store. Then, one Monday morning almost a month later, when I had basically forgotten what I was waiting for, I walked into work at 8:52, ready for an important 9:00 office meeting. The receptionist, Kim, looked at me with curiosity and mild distress.
“Is everything OK, Jim?”
“Great, Kim. How are you?”
“You know the meeting was moved up to 8:00, don’t you? Stan has to fly to Houston later this morning. He had me call everyone at home yesterday; I spoke to Karyn. Didn’t she tell you?”
“Uh…no,” was all I could say. I hurried into the meeting very anxious and annoyed. I was supposed to make a short presentation. As I walked in, my boss was talking. He shot me a look that was more disappointment than anger. I could see a pile of new material in front of each person sitting there. The white board behind Stan was covered with large print, in multiple colors, outlining ideas that, I assumed, had been generated in the last hour. I sat in silence for the next 10 minutes, barely taking in a word, until the meeting ended.
I went quickly over to Stan, but he began before I could say anything. “Jim, we’ll have to discuss this later. I’ve got a plane to catch and I’ll be in meetings all day. Have Tim catch you up.” I nodded and headed back to my office.
As I sat there, literally scratching my head, I picked up the phone to call Karyn and ask what happened to the message from work. Then I remembered. I put down the receiver and in spite of being upset, embarrassed, and nervous about Stan’s eventual reaction, I couldn’t help but smile. The hours passed slowly at work that day.
In the evening Karyn put Kelly to bed upstairs at about 7:30. My wife was still wearing her work clothes, including black skirt, white top, and sheer panty hose. Coming downstairs, she plopped down next to me on the living room couch, kicked her shoes off, and we watched television for a while. I think Karyn sensed something was up with me; she started asking about my day at work.
My responses were pretty well planned out. I suddenly turned heated and sarcastic. “Well, dear, it wasn’t exactly my best day ever.”
Karyn seemed taken aback. She rarely heard me use a tone like this. Then, apparently, it hit her: the call yesterday. The meeting change.
“Oh my God, Jimmy! I forgot to tell you about the phone call from work! What happened… what happened? I was in the middle of five different things…Kelly was crying…I am SO sorry!
I played it cool and just shook my head slowly back and forth a little.
“Was it really bad?” she asked and grabbed my hand. I gently pulled it away and stood up.
“Yes, it was bad. I had a presentation to give.” I let my voice escalate. “It was really embarrassing and Stan looked very upset.” But not quite as upset as I was making it sound.
“Jimmy—that’s awful and it’s all my fault. What can I do? Can I call Stan tomorrow?”
“No, that’s not a good idea. I haven’t even had a chance to talk to him about it yet. He had to fly out of town this morning.”
Karen looked despondent, but if I was going to do this thing right, I couldn’t let her off the hook. “How could you just forget about an important message? I mean, write it down or something!”
“I know, I know.” She looked away from me and then stretched out face down on the couch.
A minute later I went over, picked her legs up by the ankles, sat down, and then lowered her feet onto my lap.
“You know what he said on his way out of the office?” I was improvising now or, you could say, lying. “He was saying that this kind of behavior was unprofessional and unacceptable.”
“He did?”
“Yeah, ‘unacceptable,’ can you believe that?” I started to ‘absent-mindedly’ stroke the soles of her feet. As it did this, I noticed that Karyn crossed her feet a couple times, interrupting my touches.
“What can I do to make it up to you, Jim?” Karyn asked with a certain sad sweetness.
The moment had arrived. “Well, you’re just lucky you’re not ticklish, Kar, otherwise I’d really give it to you good.”
“Right,” she said. “not ticklish, not ticklish.” I thought I felt the muscles of her legs tense up.
I chuckled in a dry way. “Maybe I should get Tracie Evans over here. She seems to have the knack.” Then I began to tickle Karyn’s feet in earnest. “You really screwed up, big time.”
“Jimmy…don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“You’re, you’re, trying to tickle me.”
“Yeah and you totally deserve it this time, you naughty girl.” I turned up the intensity, teasing the soft area under her toes. “Even though you’re not ticklish, I might just keep going like this all night as punishment.”
“No, please…I didn’t mean to…hahahahaha, stop, Jimmy.” She was kicking now and I had to hold her ankles down with one arm to keep them in place. “I won’t do it ag…heeeheee, haahaahaaaaahahaa….”
“Karyn?” I said, “Are you laughing, you bad, bad, girl? Does this tickle you?!” I reached up and squeezed her waist. She twisted hard and the giggling came out much more strongly, so I pulled myself out from under her legs and straddled her back, digging my fingers into her sides and ribs.
“Noooooooo, hahahahahahaaaaaaa, hooohoooooooo, stooooooop.”
“Seems like you’re pretty ticklish now, Karyn,” I had to raise my voice over the sound of her laughter. I wanted to see her face and I managed to flip her onto her back without too much difficulty by continually poking her ribs as I turned her. I started to prod at the sides of her breasts which, for the first time in my experience, proved now to be an extremely sensitive area. Karyn’s mouth flew open as far as possible; I could see all her teeth at once. Her eyes were tightly shut and her head rocked back and forth as if to say ‘no, no, a thousand times no’. Her hair was falling across her forehead and she was starting to sweat.
I decided to try her underarms, so I raised her left arm and tickled there with my free hand, adding, “Do you know what it’s like having your boss call you unacceptable??”
“Jiiiimmyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!! NOOO, hahahahahahahahahahaaaaa, NOOOOOOOOO, ittickles, ittickles, heeeeeeeeheeeeeee.”
Quickly, I unbuttoned her top and pushed my hand inside it to tickle the bare skin of her smooth armpit. She bucked violently at this point and I had to work not to lose balance.
Suddenly, I stopped tickling and waited for her to catch her breath somewhat. “I thought you weren’t ticklish?”
She was still breathing a bit heavily. “Well…I…I…”
“Yes??…Why is it different tonight?” Sitting on Karyn’s waist, I reached behind me, felt for her kneecap and squeezed a little above it. I was rewarded with a loud squeak and a look of shock on her face.
“I told you…sometimes, I’m ticklish…”
“When? When are you ticklish?” I said, knowing the answer, of course, but wanting to hear her say it. I held my hands in a pre-tickle position over her tummy to emphasize my expectation of receiving a proper explanation.
“No, don’t!” Karyn defensively held her hands in front of mine. “If I tell you, will you…use it against me?"
“You’re not exactly in a great bargaining position, sweetheart.” I placed my hands under her chin and teased around her neck, prodding very gently. Karyn just stared at me until I said, “Don’t you think you deserve what I’m doing after the hot water you got me into?” With that, she slammed her chin down to her chest in an effort to prevent my fingers from moving anywhere, and she began to giggle rapidly. “Wow,” I said. “You’re ticklish there, too?”
“Noooohohohohoooohoooooooo, okokokok.” I took the OK’s to mean that she was willing to talk. “That’s it…it tickles because, because…I deserve it…I guess it’s like you have…a ‘right’ to tickle me.”
“You bet I do!” I launched into a fresh tickle attack to her midsection and she exploded even more loudly than before. Somehow, having admitted my ‘tickle rights’ made her even more vulnerable and her laughter was incredibly unrestrained, almost a wild cackling sound. Over the next five minutes I tried many other spots on her body, with great success, especially her hip bone, on both sides, and even her ears. I could tell she was getting awfully worn out since her hands were offering less and less resistance to my maneuvers.
Reaching under her now-loosened skirt, I started to pull down her pantyhose. Karen perked up instantly. She knew what I was after and began to kick, but she was too weak from all her previous squirming, bucking, and laughing. I wriggled the hose all the way to her ankles and in a final, dramatic move yanked them off, exposing Karyn’s size six feet. I sat on top of her calves.
“Don’t tickle my bare feet, Jimmy. Not under, you know…these circumstances.”
I replied, “Stan did send me an e-mail late in the day.”
“He did”? She sounded nervous.
“Yeah, he said that my lateness today was troublesome…no, no, not troublesome— ‘unfortunate’. He said it was ‘most unfortunate’. That can’t be good at all, can it?
“He…said ‘unfortunate’?”
I nodded silently and put my fingertips on her heels. Very slowly I dragged my fingers up along her soles until I reached the tips of her toes. Her feet squirmed, and I felt her knees quiver under me. Then I started over, doing the exact same thing again. “What do you think he meant by that, Karyn?”
She didn’t say anything. A few seconds later, I glanced behind me and saw that she had both hands clamped over her mouth. I resumed my slow tickling pattern, up her soles from heel to toe, never varying the rhythm. Each time I did this Karyn jerked a little bit more, particularly, I noticed, when I moved over the valley of her high arches. The fifth time across her feet I started to hear some high-pitched, muffled sounds. Now, instead of lifting my fingers and replacing them at the bottom of her soles, I guided my fingers softly back down her feet just the way I had come up, maintaining constant contact.
“I really hope I have a job next week.”
Laughter spilled out from behind Karyn’s hands, more softly than before, but more desperate. She tried to sit up, then fell back down. Then she began to beat the couch with her fists. When that stopped, I look back and caught her pulling at her hair…moments later she was holding her hands in a position of pleading and supplication. And all the time she just laughed from deep within her very core. It seemed unstoppable, uncontrollable.
Twisting my head around again, I said, “Have you been wicked, Karyn?” Through another spike of laughter she weakly nodded ‘yes’. “Are you ticklish with me, Karyn?” Again, the same response. “Now that I think about it,” I added, “keeping this secret from me about being so ticklish was pretty bad too…very, very unfortunate….”
Karyn’s eyes grew wide as I got up and repositioned myself. I squeezed my hands into both of her underarms and tickled.
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