munchausen
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Here's the next chapter of my "Little Epic That Could." Hope you enjoy it. Feedback is greatly appreciated, and is sure to hurry further sequels, if anyone shows interest.
The Voyage Out, Part Five: Someplace Else. Barefoot on a Beach. Aerobics Nightmare.Comforting Revelations.
[Leah Maitland, Courtney Frost, Dr. Akhana Mesani, and Francesca Carlisi have just passed through a dimensional vortex and landed on a magnificent, deserted beach in another world. Look, it’s really getting so you have to read the previous parts to follow this thing. If not, just stick around, and I promise that somebody good looking will eventually get tickled.]
Leah and Francesca stood gazing out over the crystalline blue waves, quietly contemplating the unfathomable series of events that had led them to this place. Courtney and Dr. Mesani still slept peacefully on the warm sands behind them; to their admittedly limited medical knowledge, they seemed unharmed. The athlete Francesca, physically the most resilient of the group, had awakened shortly after Leah, and the two now stood largely at a loss for words.
“I suppose we should either wake the others up or move them out of the sun before they burn,” Leah said at length.
“I suppose,” said Francesca. “But have you noticed that as warm and clear as it is here, the sun doesn’t seem to be burning us? Even the sand isn’t burning our feet.” She wiggled her bare toes contemplatively in the pleasantly warm sand. “From what Ellefson told me, this entire world was developed in response to a Sorceress’s design. Her magicks are designed to counteract most minor irritations--dogs don’t bite, bees don’t sting. It’s as if a Julie Andrews character designed a fantasy world. Maybe that’s why the sun isn’t burning us.”
Leah glanced at Francesca, then around at the picturesque beach. “You mean she created this world? Like God or something?”
“No, not exactly. She more replicated some places that struck her as particularly pleasant on earth, and apparently on other planets, then used some sort of mystic cloning technique to introduce inhabitants millennia ago to see how they would develop and evolve in an idealized world. That’s why she came up with “Laughter Energy” as the ultimate clean, renewable power source. Apparently things run pretty well here, except that she was too naive to account for human greed and ambition. There are some places that use slaves to produce energy in quantities that can be weaponized, and that can be harnessed in dark perversions of the sorceress’s magic. That’s why Yelena Kant and her crew tried to do what they did. It’s also why poor Ellefson was engineered--to be a fighter immune to mirth magics.”
“The two of you became pretty close during the course of this cruise, didn’t you?”
“He’s the most honest man I’ve ever met. He’s incredible.”
They were quiet for awhile, then walked down toward the water. It was an ideal temperature, cool without being cold, as the lapping waves bathed the women’s bare feet. Francesca closed her eyes, sighed, and burrowed her toes into the wet sand. “Ah, mi piedi,” she said. “These poor feet deserve this luxury after what happened on board that horrible ship.”
“So what did happen to you? We lost track of you until you and Ellefson showed up to save us.”
“Oh, my god,” Francesca shuddered violently. “I can hardly stand to remember....
“We had all decided to go about our daily business in order to avert suspicions until you and Courtney were able to figure out a game plan. I knew that Ellefson would know the location of the central chamber, but I could not endanger him by getting him directly involved before we had a definite course of action. Yelena Kant’s magicks may have been helpless against him, but at her order Caliban could perhaps have put a knife in his throat as he slept. So, I had placed him on a nonspecific stand-by, and both of us were just waiting for the other shoe to drop–pardon the unfortunate choice of words.
Anyway, I was leading my least favorite aerobics class just before things deteriorated. One of the perks of the cruise was, of course, individualized attention, so I offered these small-group clinics. This one was limited to three whiners–all women. They were all in pretty good shape, and all looked slim and toned, but they hated to work at it, and would moan and groan every time I tried to push them. Maybe you’ve seen them around. One was Deborah Esperanza, the jet-setter, daughter of that shady South American billionaire–long black hair, a little shorter and darker than mine, real tall and willowy, pretty, but always looks pissed off? Right. Then there was Stazia Maximoff, little Russian girl in her early twenties, brown hair in a bob, small and perky except when bitching about having to sweat. The ringleader was Eleanor Winterthorne, the old money blue blood. She’s probably forty, but looks much younger through surgery and through busting her ass. You’ve probably seen her out by the pool–shoulder-length dark hair in a super-expensive style, always decked out in jewelry and those man-killer sunglasses, usually being attended to by two or three men a little more than half her age. Anyway, she’s in good shape, and would complain even louder if she didn’t see results, but she would protest every time I tried to kick it up a notch, and the other two followed her lead. God, that class was always horrible!
“Anyway, things were going about as usual–I was bouncing along, trying to stay cheerful and get them to work, and they were glaring at me and grumbling–when the strangeness started. I was taking them into some high kicks when they all just stopped and stared, the strangest looks on their faces. I thought they had just decided to quit on me, in protest–it had happened once before, and I had to kiss their pampered asses to get them to start up again. So I say, ‘Please, ladies. Stay with me. I know this is hard. Some of it is hard for me, and I do it for a living. But if you want to stay healthy and fit, especially as you get older–‘ I shot a veiled look at Eleanor, expecting indignation, but got only that same strange expression of surprise–‘you have to really push yourselves, and my job is to make you.’
“Still they stared, until suddenly little Stazia let out a little scream. I turned just as the Giggler’s arms wrapped around mine and lifted me off the floor.
“Now I can only imagine that Yelena made this one a little bit special, since it didn’t act the way I saw others behaving later. I was familiar with Yelena Kant’s magic in theory, but not in its specific manifestations, so I was not certain what it planned to do with me, except that it would undoubtedly not be enjoyable. It moved very slowly, taking its damned time. It played with me, turning me upside down and every which way, all very slowly, and, for the three students who were getting over their initial shock, very comically. Still slack-jawed, they began to enjoy watching the thing juggle, roll, and flop me around. Deborah began to giggle first, then the others joined in, pointing at my plight and laughing. They did not know what was happening, but they knew that their hard-assed aerobics instructor was being manhandled and humiliated.
“My hair had come loose and hung in my face. My sports bra had shifted, and I think one of my boobs was peeking out. ‘Get help! Please!’ I shouted, but they ignored me, utterly unafraid and enjoying themselves immensely. Eleanor, the blue-blood bitch, started to taunt me. ‘Just hang in there, sweetie. I know its hard, but you’ll be fine.’ The others, showing a nasty vindictive streak, joined in with similar jibes–‘Come on, Francesca, we thought you were strong. What is it that you tell the self-defense group? Don’t be a victim?’ I was blushing like a fire engine–it was all so embarrassing.”
Francesca paused, tossing her thick raven mane of hair. A hint of blush returned to her golden cheeks. “I hate to tell the rest,” she said sheepishly.
“Come on,” said Leah. “You saw what Yelena was doing to me. I don’t think there’s much room for pride in this little group.”
Francesca smiled. “I suppose you are right. Anyway, the thing finally tired of flopping me around like a rag doll. One of its arms encircled mine, pinning my elbows tightly to my sides. I remember my escaped boob was bulging out just above it–a proud moment, I must say. It then brought my legs out in front of me, holding me in a sitting position, suspended above the ground, feet a little more than shoulder-width apart. Two arms held each of my legs, one at the thigh, the other just below the knee. Other than the failed sports bra, I was wearing ankle-length spandex tights, aerobics shoes, and ankle socks. The thing sprouted two more hands and slowly, teasingly untied my shoes and eased them off, then peeled off my socks to leave me barefoot.
“So here I was, the hated aerobics bitch, suspended in front of the class, helpless to do anything but wiggle my toes at them as they stared at the bottoms of my bare feet. Now, I imagine you’ve noticed that my feet, they are a little on the, ah, large side...” Leah smiled and shook her head slightly. Actually, she had noticed that Francesca’s feet were big, and had been kind of reassured, as her own were certainly not petite, but she saw no reason to reinforce a sore point. She cast a sidelong glance at her own bare foot, side by side with Francesca’s, and noted that the Italian woman’s, while shapely and feminine, was noticeably larger.
“So, anyhow, little Stazia, who probably wears a size zero shoe, starts in on how big my feet are. ‘Wow! She must wear a fourteen or something! Look at those things!’ The other two joined in wholeheartedly; I think Eleanor called them ‘gunboats.’ It was all very unpleasant. But it was only the warm-up, as I am sure you have guessed.
“Suddenly the thing sprouted two more hands and just kind of ...tweaked the soles of my feet. Now I am ticklish like the devil on my feet–my father used to call me his little Solletica–so I let out a shriek and just about jumped out of that monster’s grip. I had expected something like this, based on what I knew about Yelena’s magic, but that did not make me any more ready for it when it happened. After that first tickle, I just curled up my toes and started saying Hail Marys in my head...
“But the thing did not tickle me any more. It did something worse. As you might imagine, all three of the little aerobics harpies were immensely amused to see me jump and squeal when it tickled my feet. Then, the hands that had done the tickling pointed at the bottoms of my feet and then beckoned.
“Whatever intelligence Deborah Esperanza may have lacked in other areas, she was quick as a shot to take the hint this time. ‘It wants us to tickle her feet!’ She said, with a kind of fascinated glee. The other two paused, incredulous, for the space of a few seconds. Then, Eleanor Winterthorne walked up and smiled coldly, her face inches from mine. ‘Well, Francesca? How does that sound to you? Surely a vigorous young athlete like you isn’t troubled by something as silly as tickly feet? Are you?’
“As awful as it is to admit, I begged. It was probably not the best strategy. ‘Please, ladies, do not do this to me. Go get some help. Get Ellefson. Who knows what this thing might do next?’
‘This thing seems quite friendly to me,’ Eleanor purred, stroking one of the Giggler’s arms. She stepped back, still staring into my eyes. ‘How about it, girls? Shall we take a little revenge on Miss Drill Sergeant here?’
“‘Ooh, I bet her feet are all sweaty and gross after doing aerobics,’ Stazia said. She probably had a point, but how rude! At any rate, Eleanor was not about to let this get in her way. ‘We’ll just have to clean her up a bit then, right girls?’ She took some wet wipes out of her bag, and she and the other witches started using them to wash my feet. Ai! It was terrible. Those cold, sudsy cloths, and the devilish fingers beneath, rubbing and sliding all over my bare feet, slipping under the arches, digging between the toes, sliding up and down the bottoms. The washing itself tickled unmercifully, and they obviously helped it along, lingering over sensitive spots, spending about five times as long on the soles as on the tops, going between my poor toes nine or ten times. I could not control myself, even for a moment: from the very start, I just howled. I’ve got some strong lungs, and I’m surprised I didn’t shatter a window or two as those awful Furies painstakingly ‘cleaned’ my helpless feet.
“Of course, that was only the warm-up. Once they were satisfied that my feet were clean, they set to tickling in earnest. Eleanor, the ringleader, stood at the right foot; the other two shared the left. Since the soles of my feet were all wet and soapy, their wicked fingertips slipped and slid around with murderous effectiveness, finding every sensitive wrinkle and cranny. Again, I could do nothing but curl and wiggle my poor toes as they tortured me with tickles. Never have I laughed so hard; I nearly deafened myself as I screeched and giggled. For the most part, my eyes were clenched shut, fighting back tears, but when I opened them every now and then during brief lulls I saw my torturers smiling and giggling wickedly, thoroughly enjoying themselves, saying ‘Coochie Coochie Coo!’ in a parody of my Italian accent, and making little comments like ‘She can’t take it there!’ and ‘My god, how long can she last?’ I have to admit, I had begun to ask myself the same question.
“Through my hilarious haze, I realized that they had stopped. Stazia was saying something about how dry feet were more ticklish than wet, and how she couldn’t stand to have her feet touched when they were powdered. I honestly could not see any deficiency in the ticklishness of my moist feet, but the other two heard her out, dried my feet with their towels (with much incidental but not accidental tickling in the process), and then sprinkled baby powder over them and lightly rubbed it over the bottoms. I took the opportunity to appeal to them again–‘Please, ladies, you have certainly gotten your revenge on me. I promise to be easier on you in the future. But you do not understand the real danger here. We could all be in very great WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!’”
Leah started at the sudden outburst, but realized that Francesca, though initially reluctant, was now warming to her tale. Leah had to admit, the statuesque Italian was a natural storyteller.
“My own scream cut me off in mid-sentence as Eleanor pulled my toes back and scratched her long, manicured nails rapidly over the dry, powdery arch of my foot. I decided very quickly, as I jerked like I was being electrocuted and heaved with laughter, that Stazia may have had a point The other two also employed the light, spidery, scratchy approach in tickling the bottom of my other foot, driving me into more convulsions and yips and squeaks. I could not decide whether it was worse when they tickled the arches from the top of the heels to the balls of my feet or when they held the toes back and scratched at the very base of them, though both seemed unquestionably like the top two most horrible sensations I had ever experienced. Fairly quickly, my laughter became silent heaves, and I could hear the little whispery scratches of their nails on the soles of my powdered feet. Tears were now pouring down my face, and I could only make little squeaky noises. And they would not let up, no matter how pathetic I became. My thighs and glutes ached from fighting the bonds and from the spasming of my legs; my calves were sore from wiggling my toes. My lungs felt raw and ragged as I gasped for breath. I thought that I would never escape, made victim of both Yelena Kant’s magic and the resentment of these pampered princesses.
“Just as I thought I was going under, Ellefson burst into the room–apparently the other Gigglers had started appearing, and he wanted to check on me. The three women screamed and backed away as he brushed past them and tore the Giggler’s arms from around me. When I was free, he destroyed it with a single blow.
“I lay catching my breath in his arms. The three bitches mumbled apologies, claiming that it was only a joke and that I was probably faking my exhaustion. Ellefson had no time for them, and ignored their prattle as he helped me to my feet and we made our way to the door.”
“My god, those bitches,” a voice behind them said. The pair turned to see Courtney and Akhana standing a little ways behind them, looking about somewhat blearily. They had clearly been listening to Francesca’s story with some interest.
Francesca smiled for the first time since beginning her story. “Oh, there was some comfort in the whole affair,” she said warmly. “As Ellefson and I were leaving, a Giggler appeared for each of my torturers, snatching them up and pulling off their shoes and socks. From the brief impression I got, their ticklishness was not much short of my own. My last image of them is of the three of them, side by side, upside down, and barefooted, while a Giggler sprinkled Stazia’s baby powder over the bottoms of their feet and then tickled their soles. I could hear their screaming and laughing all over the ship, even amidst the racket everybody else was making.”
Akhana chuckled. She had taken off her lab coat, shoes, and panty hose, and now wore only her conservative blouse and gray skirt. “If it makes you feel any better,” she said, when the oldest one, Eleanor, was in my office for the physical, she literally screamed for mercy when I did the bottoms of her feet. She had wanted to keep her socks on, and got very huffy when I told her she had to be barefoot. I found out why pretty quick. The other two were pretty tenderfooted, too–Stazia actually cried”-- (“like you, dear,” she said to Courtney, who blushed and stuck out her tongue)–“and Deborah, during the brief moments when she could breathe, actually threatened to have her father’s goons take my life if I didn’t leave her feet alone.”
They all chuckled for a moment, then fell silent for an awkward few moments. Courtney broke the silence with the question on Leah’s mind:
“So, what do we do now? We’re on a beach in another world, we have one outfit each, and three of us don’t even have shoes. Do they have stores here?”
Akhana turned to her and winked. “I brought my locator and charts in my bag, among other things. Remember, I had planned on coming here, one way or another. As deserted as this beach looks, it is only this way because of the sorceress’ conceptions of what makes beaches pleasant. Not a mile away is a small village, with a shuttle-train to a very large city. And as for stores...” She held open her bag, revealing stacks of brightly colored bills in denominations ranging from fifties to thousands. “Honey, I sure hope there are. Yelena Kant gave me a hell of a payday for this job, and I think its only fair to share and share alike.”
“Oh my God! How much is there?” Leah asked, wide-eyed.
“Should be the equivalent of two hundred thousand, our money. I was supposed to get more when we reached this side, but that probably isn’t going to happen now, is it?” She smiled wryly. “At any rate, the city of Khalkasa–where, I believe, Ellefson told you to go, in order to find our way back, Francesca, should be a short distance from here. I propose we go into the village of Delryn, a short distance away, do a little stopgap shopping there, then catch the train for Khalkasa. On the way, I’ll explain as much as I know about the way things work over here–which, I’m afraid, isn’t a whole lot. I do know, though, that we should be able to find a way back in Khalkasa. May I suggest, though...”
Dr. Mesani paused, as if considering, a slight smile on her face.
“What?” Asked Courtney, never patient.
“Well, I’ve got an awful lot of money here that I won’t be able to spend on the other side. We’re all supposed to be cruising for another couple of weeks anyway, and I know for a fact that no-one will be checking very closely after any of us. No offense.”
“None taken,” said Courtney, smoldering at the thought of her distant, wealthy parents.
“So, I say that once we figure out how to get back, we just enjoy being here awhile. Live the high life. Two hundred grand is a lot to spend on a vacation for four. And how often do we get to travel to a sorcerous paradise?”
Leah shook her head as if to clear it. “Look, I still don’t exactly have a handle on what’s happened to us, where we are, and how the hell this place even exists, never mind how we got here. I’m not saying no, Akhana, but let’s just wait on the party until we get our bearings.”
“I don’t know, sounds like fun to me,” Courtney said, kicking up a spray of water with a bare foot.
“I must find Ellefson. Beyond that, I have few plans, and little to call me back right away.”
“Excellent,” Dr. Mesani said, smiling broadly. “Then, let’s be off to Delryn. From there,” she looked reassuringly at Leah, “we’ll see.”
Next: Delryn and Beyond. Local Culture. Courtney lends a hand (or foot.)
The Voyage Out, Part Five: Someplace Else. Barefoot on a Beach. Aerobics Nightmare.Comforting Revelations.
[Leah Maitland, Courtney Frost, Dr. Akhana Mesani, and Francesca Carlisi have just passed through a dimensional vortex and landed on a magnificent, deserted beach in another world. Look, it’s really getting so you have to read the previous parts to follow this thing. If not, just stick around, and I promise that somebody good looking will eventually get tickled.]
Leah and Francesca stood gazing out over the crystalline blue waves, quietly contemplating the unfathomable series of events that had led them to this place. Courtney and Dr. Mesani still slept peacefully on the warm sands behind them; to their admittedly limited medical knowledge, they seemed unharmed. The athlete Francesca, physically the most resilient of the group, had awakened shortly after Leah, and the two now stood largely at a loss for words.
“I suppose we should either wake the others up or move them out of the sun before they burn,” Leah said at length.
“I suppose,” said Francesca. “But have you noticed that as warm and clear as it is here, the sun doesn’t seem to be burning us? Even the sand isn’t burning our feet.” She wiggled her bare toes contemplatively in the pleasantly warm sand. “From what Ellefson told me, this entire world was developed in response to a Sorceress’s design. Her magicks are designed to counteract most minor irritations--dogs don’t bite, bees don’t sting. It’s as if a Julie Andrews character designed a fantasy world. Maybe that’s why the sun isn’t burning us.”
Leah glanced at Francesca, then around at the picturesque beach. “You mean she created this world? Like God or something?”
“No, not exactly. She more replicated some places that struck her as particularly pleasant on earth, and apparently on other planets, then used some sort of mystic cloning technique to introduce inhabitants millennia ago to see how they would develop and evolve in an idealized world. That’s why she came up with “Laughter Energy” as the ultimate clean, renewable power source. Apparently things run pretty well here, except that she was too naive to account for human greed and ambition. There are some places that use slaves to produce energy in quantities that can be weaponized, and that can be harnessed in dark perversions of the sorceress’s magic. That’s why Yelena Kant and her crew tried to do what they did. It’s also why poor Ellefson was engineered--to be a fighter immune to mirth magics.”
“The two of you became pretty close during the course of this cruise, didn’t you?”
“He’s the most honest man I’ve ever met. He’s incredible.”
They were quiet for awhile, then walked down toward the water. It was an ideal temperature, cool without being cold, as the lapping waves bathed the women’s bare feet. Francesca closed her eyes, sighed, and burrowed her toes into the wet sand. “Ah, mi piedi,” she said. “These poor feet deserve this luxury after what happened on board that horrible ship.”
“So what did happen to you? We lost track of you until you and Ellefson showed up to save us.”
“Oh, my god,” Francesca shuddered violently. “I can hardly stand to remember....
“We had all decided to go about our daily business in order to avert suspicions until you and Courtney were able to figure out a game plan. I knew that Ellefson would know the location of the central chamber, but I could not endanger him by getting him directly involved before we had a definite course of action. Yelena Kant’s magicks may have been helpless against him, but at her order Caliban could perhaps have put a knife in his throat as he slept. So, I had placed him on a nonspecific stand-by, and both of us were just waiting for the other shoe to drop–pardon the unfortunate choice of words.
Anyway, I was leading my least favorite aerobics class just before things deteriorated. One of the perks of the cruise was, of course, individualized attention, so I offered these small-group clinics. This one was limited to three whiners–all women. They were all in pretty good shape, and all looked slim and toned, but they hated to work at it, and would moan and groan every time I tried to push them. Maybe you’ve seen them around. One was Deborah Esperanza, the jet-setter, daughter of that shady South American billionaire–long black hair, a little shorter and darker than mine, real tall and willowy, pretty, but always looks pissed off? Right. Then there was Stazia Maximoff, little Russian girl in her early twenties, brown hair in a bob, small and perky except when bitching about having to sweat. The ringleader was Eleanor Winterthorne, the old money blue blood. She’s probably forty, but looks much younger through surgery and through busting her ass. You’ve probably seen her out by the pool–shoulder-length dark hair in a super-expensive style, always decked out in jewelry and those man-killer sunglasses, usually being attended to by two or three men a little more than half her age. Anyway, she’s in good shape, and would complain even louder if she didn’t see results, but she would protest every time I tried to kick it up a notch, and the other two followed her lead. God, that class was always horrible!
“Anyway, things were going about as usual–I was bouncing along, trying to stay cheerful and get them to work, and they were glaring at me and grumbling–when the strangeness started. I was taking them into some high kicks when they all just stopped and stared, the strangest looks on their faces. I thought they had just decided to quit on me, in protest–it had happened once before, and I had to kiss their pampered asses to get them to start up again. So I say, ‘Please, ladies. Stay with me. I know this is hard. Some of it is hard for me, and I do it for a living. But if you want to stay healthy and fit, especially as you get older–‘ I shot a veiled look at Eleanor, expecting indignation, but got only that same strange expression of surprise–‘you have to really push yourselves, and my job is to make you.’
“Still they stared, until suddenly little Stazia let out a little scream. I turned just as the Giggler’s arms wrapped around mine and lifted me off the floor.
“Now I can only imagine that Yelena made this one a little bit special, since it didn’t act the way I saw others behaving later. I was familiar with Yelena Kant’s magic in theory, but not in its specific manifestations, so I was not certain what it planned to do with me, except that it would undoubtedly not be enjoyable. It moved very slowly, taking its damned time. It played with me, turning me upside down and every which way, all very slowly, and, for the three students who were getting over their initial shock, very comically. Still slack-jawed, they began to enjoy watching the thing juggle, roll, and flop me around. Deborah began to giggle first, then the others joined in, pointing at my plight and laughing. They did not know what was happening, but they knew that their hard-assed aerobics instructor was being manhandled and humiliated.
“My hair had come loose and hung in my face. My sports bra had shifted, and I think one of my boobs was peeking out. ‘Get help! Please!’ I shouted, but they ignored me, utterly unafraid and enjoying themselves immensely. Eleanor, the blue-blood bitch, started to taunt me. ‘Just hang in there, sweetie. I know its hard, but you’ll be fine.’ The others, showing a nasty vindictive streak, joined in with similar jibes–‘Come on, Francesca, we thought you were strong. What is it that you tell the self-defense group? Don’t be a victim?’ I was blushing like a fire engine–it was all so embarrassing.”
Francesca paused, tossing her thick raven mane of hair. A hint of blush returned to her golden cheeks. “I hate to tell the rest,” she said sheepishly.
“Come on,” said Leah. “You saw what Yelena was doing to me. I don’t think there’s much room for pride in this little group.”
Francesca smiled. “I suppose you are right. Anyway, the thing finally tired of flopping me around like a rag doll. One of its arms encircled mine, pinning my elbows tightly to my sides. I remember my escaped boob was bulging out just above it–a proud moment, I must say. It then brought my legs out in front of me, holding me in a sitting position, suspended above the ground, feet a little more than shoulder-width apart. Two arms held each of my legs, one at the thigh, the other just below the knee. Other than the failed sports bra, I was wearing ankle-length spandex tights, aerobics shoes, and ankle socks. The thing sprouted two more hands and slowly, teasingly untied my shoes and eased them off, then peeled off my socks to leave me barefoot.
“So here I was, the hated aerobics bitch, suspended in front of the class, helpless to do anything but wiggle my toes at them as they stared at the bottoms of my bare feet. Now, I imagine you’ve noticed that my feet, they are a little on the, ah, large side...” Leah smiled and shook her head slightly. Actually, she had noticed that Francesca’s feet were big, and had been kind of reassured, as her own were certainly not petite, but she saw no reason to reinforce a sore point. She cast a sidelong glance at her own bare foot, side by side with Francesca’s, and noted that the Italian woman’s, while shapely and feminine, was noticeably larger.
“So, anyhow, little Stazia, who probably wears a size zero shoe, starts in on how big my feet are. ‘Wow! She must wear a fourteen or something! Look at those things!’ The other two joined in wholeheartedly; I think Eleanor called them ‘gunboats.’ It was all very unpleasant. But it was only the warm-up, as I am sure you have guessed.
“Suddenly the thing sprouted two more hands and just kind of ...tweaked the soles of my feet. Now I am ticklish like the devil on my feet–my father used to call me his little Solletica–so I let out a shriek and just about jumped out of that monster’s grip. I had expected something like this, based on what I knew about Yelena’s magic, but that did not make me any more ready for it when it happened. After that first tickle, I just curled up my toes and started saying Hail Marys in my head...
“But the thing did not tickle me any more. It did something worse. As you might imagine, all three of the little aerobics harpies were immensely amused to see me jump and squeal when it tickled my feet. Then, the hands that had done the tickling pointed at the bottoms of my feet and then beckoned.
“Whatever intelligence Deborah Esperanza may have lacked in other areas, she was quick as a shot to take the hint this time. ‘It wants us to tickle her feet!’ She said, with a kind of fascinated glee. The other two paused, incredulous, for the space of a few seconds. Then, Eleanor Winterthorne walked up and smiled coldly, her face inches from mine. ‘Well, Francesca? How does that sound to you? Surely a vigorous young athlete like you isn’t troubled by something as silly as tickly feet? Are you?’
“As awful as it is to admit, I begged. It was probably not the best strategy. ‘Please, ladies, do not do this to me. Go get some help. Get Ellefson. Who knows what this thing might do next?’
‘This thing seems quite friendly to me,’ Eleanor purred, stroking one of the Giggler’s arms. She stepped back, still staring into my eyes. ‘How about it, girls? Shall we take a little revenge on Miss Drill Sergeant here?’
“‘Ooh, I bet her feet are all sweaty and gross after doing aerobics,’ Stazia said. She probably had a point, but how rude! At any rate, Eleanor was not about to let this get in her way. ‘We’ll just have to clean her up a bit then, right girls?’ She took some wet wipes out of her bag, and she and the other witches started using them to wash my feet. Ai! It was terrible. Those cold, sudsy cloths, and the devilish fingers beneath, rubbing and sliding all over my bare feet, slipping under the arches, digging between the toes, sliding up and down the bottoms. The washing itself tickled unmercifully, and they obviously helped it along, lingering over sensitive spots, spending about five times as long on the soles as on the tops, going between my poor toes nine or ten times. I could not control myself, even for a moment: from the very start, I just howled. I’ve got some strong lungs, and I’m surprised I didn’t shatter a window or two as those awful Furies painstakingly ‘cleaned’ my helpless feet.
“Of course, that was only the warm-up. Once they were satisfied that my feet were clean, they set to tickling in earnest. Eleanor, the ringleader, stood at the right foot; the other two shared the left. Since the soles of my feet were all wet and soapy, their wicked fingertips slipped and slid around with murderous effectiveness, finding every sensitive wrinkle and cranny. Again, I could do nothing but curl and wiggle my poor toes as they tortured me with tickles. Never have I laughed so hard; I nearly deafened myself as I screeched and giggled. For the most part, my eyes were clenched shut, fighting back tears, but when I opened them every now and then during brief lulls I saw my torturers smiling and giggling wickedly, thoroughly enjoying themselves, saying ‘Coochie Coochie Coo!’ in a parody of my Italian accent, and making little comments like ‘She can’t take it there!’ and ‘My god, how long can she last?’ I have to admit, I had begun to ask myself the same question.
“Through my hilarious haze, I realized that they had stopped. Stazia was saying something about how dry feet were more ticklish than wet, and how she couldn’t stand to have her feet touched when they were powdered. I honestly could not see any deficiency in the ticklishness of my moist feet, but the other two heard her out, dried my feet with their towels (with much incidental but not accidental tickling in the process), and then sprinkled baby powder over them and lightly rubbed it over the bottoms. I took the opportunity to appeal to them again–‘Please, ladies, you have certainly gotten your revenge on me. I promise to be easier on you in the future. But you do not understand the real danger here. We could all be in very great WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!’”
Leah started at the sudden outburst, but realized that Francesca, though initially reluctant, was now warming to her tale. Leah had to admit, the statuesque Italian was a natural storyteller.
“My own scream cut me off in mid-sentence as Eleanor pulled my toes back and scratched her long, manicured nails rapidly over the dry, powdery arch of my foot. I decided very quickly, as I jerked like I was being electrocuted and heaved with laughter, that Stazia may have had a point The other two also employed the light, spidery, scratchy approach in tickling the bottom of my other foot, driving me into more convulsions and yips and squeaks. I could not decide whether it was worse when they tickled the arches from the top of the heels to the balls of my feet or when they held the toes back and scratched at the very base of them, though both seemed unquestionably like the top two most horrible sensations I had ever experienced. Fairly quickly, my laughter became silent heaves, and I could hear the little whispery scratches of their nails on the soles of my powdered feet. Tears were now pouring down my face, and I could only make little squeaky noises. And they would not let up, no matter how pathetic I became. My thighs and glutes ached from fighting the bonds and from the spasming of my legs; my calves were sore from wiggling my toes. My lungs felt raw and ragged as I gasped for breath. I thought that I would never escape, made victim of both Yelena Kant’s magic and the resentment of these pampered princesses.
“Just as I thought I was going under, Ellefson burst into the room–apparently the other Gigglers had started appearing, and he wanted to check on me. The three women screamed and backed away as he brushed past them and tore the Giggler’s arms from around me. When I was free, he destroyed it with a single blow.
“I lay catching my breath in his arms. The three bitches mumbled apologies, claiming that it was only a joke and that I was probably faking my exhaustion. Ellefson had no time for them, and ignored their prattle as he helped me to my feet and we made our way to the door.”
“My god, those bitches,” a voice behind them said. The pair turned to see Courtney and Akhana standing a little ways behind them, looking about somewhat blearily. They had clearly been listening to Francesca’s story with some interest.
Francesca smiled for the first time since beginning her story. “Oh, there was some comfort in the whole affair,” she said warmly. “As Ellefson and I were leaving, a Giggler appeared for each of my torturers, snatching them up and pulling off their shoes and socks. From the brief impression I got, their ticklishness was not much short of my own. My last image of them is of the three of them, side by side, upside down, and barefooted, while a Giggler sprinkled Stazia’s baby powder over the bottoms of their feet and then tickled their soles. I could hear their screaming and laughing all over the ship, even amidst the racket everybody else was making.”
Akhana chuckled. She had taken off her lab coat, shoes, and panty hose, and now wore only her conservative blouse and gray skirt. “If it makes you feel any better,” she said, when the oldest one, Eleanor, was in my office for the physical, she literally screamed for mercy when I did the bottoms of her feet. She had wanted to keep her socks on, and got very huffy when I told her she had to be barefoot. I found out why pretty quick. The other two were pretty tenderfooted, too–Stazia actually cried”-- (“like you, dear,” she said to Courtney, who blushed and stuck out her tongue)–“and Deborah, during the brief moments when she could breathe, actually threatened to have her father’s goons take my life if I didn’t leave her feet alone.”
They all chuckled for a moment, then fell silent for an awkward few moments. Courtney broke the silence with the question on Leah’s mind:
“So, what do we do now? We’re on a beach in another world, we have one outfit each, and three of us don’t even have shoes. Do they have stores here?”
Akhana turned to her and winked. “I brought my locator and charts in my bag, among other things. Remember, I had planned on coming here, one way or another. As deserted as this beach looks, it is only this way because of the sorceress’ conceptions of what makes beaches pleasant. Not a mile away is a small village, with a shuttle-train to a very large city. And as for stores...” She held open her bag, revealing stacks of brightly colored bills in denominations ranging from fifties to thousands. “Honey, I sure hope there are. Yelena Kant gave me a hell of a payday for this job, and I think its only fair to share and share alike.”
“Oh my God! How much is there?” Leah asked, wide-eyed.
“Should be the equivalent of two hundred thousand, our money. I was supposed to get more when we reached this side, but that probably isn’t going to happen now, is it?” She smiled wryly. “At any rate, the city of Khalkasa–where, I believe, Ellefson told you to go, in order to find our way back, Francesca, should be a short distance from here. I propose we go into the village of Delryn, a short distance away, do a little stopgap shopping there, then catch the train for Khalkasa. On the way, I’ll explain as much as I know about the way things work over here–which, I’m afraid, isn’t a whole lot. I do know, though, that we should be able to find a way back in Khalkasa. May I suggest, though...”
Dr. Mesani paused, as if considering, a slight smile on her face.
“What?” Asked Courtney, never patient.
“Well, I’ve got an awful lot of money here that I won’t be able to spend on the other side. We’re all supposed to be cruising for another couple of weeks anyway, and I know for a fact that no-one will be checking very closely after any of us. No offense.”
“None taken,” said Courtney, smoldering at the thought of her distant, wealthy parents.
“So, I say that once we figure out how to get back, we just enjoy being here awhile. Live the high life. Two hundred grand is a lot to spend on a vacation for four. And how often do we get to travel to a sorcerous paradise?”
Leah shook her head as if to clear it. “Look, I still don’t exactly have a handle on what’s happened to us, where we are, and how the hell this place even exists, never mind how we got here. I’m not saying no, Akhana, but let’s just wait on the party until we get our bearings.”
“I don’t know, sounds like fun to me,” Courtney said, kicking up a spray of water with a bare foot.
“I must find Ellefson. Beyond that, I have few plans, and little to call me back right away.”
“Excellent,” Dr. Mesani said, smiling broadly. “Then, let’s be off to Delryn. From there,” she looked reassuringly at Leah, “we’ll see.”
Next: Delryn and Beyond. Local Culture. Courtney lends a hand (or foot.)
