This story is an odd one for me, and I didn't discover why until I was well into the project. Fellow ticklephile tinkerally contacted me with a request for a story involving gagging and total sensory deprivation, so I wrote it, discovering as I did how much my own stories rely on interactions between tickler and ticklee.
Anyway, that's my working excuse for the choppiness and all the scene cuts. This story resisted revision the way few of my stories have, so here's the text that got away from me:
Butterfly
by
Kid Indy
"She has to rescind the story! I will not allow my government to be humiliated by this insolent American woman!"
"You can't go after her, Mister President! She's protected by American law, not Russian! They defend their reporters like royalty. We'll never survive the diplomatic fallout!"
"Then we've got to find some other way to put leverage on her. What do the secret police have?"
The head of intelligence turned on his walkie-talkie phone. "Bring me the Butterfly file."
* * * * * * *
A short man, identifiably Russian only when he spoke, sat at a small, round table in a Starbucks in Chicago. A taller, bald man took the seat across from him.
"Do we have our people in place?"
"Affirmative. The decoys will stakeout the reporter's house, and our extraction team is already on the ground in California."
"Where in California?"
"Where the target lives, of course."
The short man scowled; this giant jerk must be closer to the center of the command structure. "All contractors, no?"
"Our decoys are Russian, but not the actual operational team. From the beginning of the extraction to the end of the operation, the only hands on her will be American hands."
"Good. Keep me posted on the status of both."
* * * * * * *
Alissa walked the shiny-but-drab floors of the declining shopping mall, thinking about heading for her car. Her friends had dispersed for the evening, but for whatever reason she felt like walking just a while longer. Out of high school but not quite ready to start college, she wandered somewhat aimlessly through the early winter months as she wandered through the mall. She enjoyed her younger friends, but sometimes she wished she had just moved out of town and made a new start. She glanced down at herself, at once relishing her extended adolescence and wishing she had moved on. She still looked good in her hooded tight-shirt (no freshman fifteen if you're not a freshman), and her almost-knee-length khaki skirt showed off calves strong from walking. Her feet flopped along in her black skater-shoes, and she decided to head home for the evening. Lost in her own thoughts, she did not notice the man, thirty or so yards behind her, as he spoke a code word into a cell phone.
* * * * * * * *
"Religion? What do I care of religion?"
"Because our enemy is American, Mister President, and Americans' greatest weaknesses are their religions."
"And this will put pressure on the reporter, you think?"
"Of course. A religious population fears nothing more than strange religions, especially when they overstep polite boundaries."
* * * * * * * *
Alissa saw the large van parked next to her Kia, but she had seen enough gigantic vehicles in the mall's parking lot that she scarcely gave it a second thought. In fact, she never even heard the footsteps of the three large men over her own keys' jingling until they had rounded the corner and joined her in the cramped space between her driver's side door and the van's sliding door. She looked up and thought only for a split second about the self-defense class that she had taken as a high schooler; a man inside the van opened the door as the three men outside the van descended on her, and the four immobilized her limbs and hoisted her into the van with such speed that her scared kicks only moved their strong hands inches. They handcuffed her and duct-taped her ankles together, and within seconds they pulled a thick mask over her eyes and began strapping a ball-gag into her mouth. A whispering voice told her to breathe slowly through her nose or else she would lose consciousness, but the advice fell on deaf, panicked ears. Two doors slammed, and a third slid thunderously to a crashing shut. Her dark world swirled as she felt the van begin to pull out.
* * * * * * * *
"I'm not sure about this. I want to think about it for a while."
"What's there to think about, Brian? It's not like you have to hide your tastes from us; we're all the same here! And you know we're the ones with the honesty to pursue what we like."
"But these women--they like it?"
"So much we don't have to pay them. That's their charm--they've got a natural desire to be dominated. They want you to..." The man, at least a decade older than the college-age Brian, looked both ways to evade eavesdroppers. He lowered his voice to a projected whisper. "They want you to tickle and torture them. It's what gets them off."
"And they really voluntarily go along with it?"
"You worry too much, man. Come with us tonight, and you'll experience it. In the moment you'll enjoy it so much you won't have a question to ask."
* * * * * * * *
Alissa thought she had awakened, but only three of her senses would confirm it. She still tasted the sterile rubber of the gag, and every breath that she pulled through her nose was a mix of the space she occupied (she knew she was still in the van) and the warm smell of her gag-filled mouth. She gradually became aware that in addition to the blindfold, something was covering her ears and apparently keeping out all sound. Other than the air coming through her nose, her only contact with the world was the feeling of comfortable but undeniable bondage--she could only sense the cuffs on her wrists and ankles from the tension, but she definitely could not move any of her four limbs. Taking account of her body position and the feeling of motion, she guessed that they had secured her to one of the van's seats with arm rests. Her dark, silent world vibrated slightly for a while, then lurched as she imagined a van turning, then became stable again only to lurch again. She moved her fingers to make sure they would still move; they would. She did likewise with her toes and realized that somebody had taken off her skater shoes and her white ankle socks; her toes were wiggling only in open air. She began to breathe more heavily, and all of a sudden one foot of her small world exploded with sensation.
* * * * * * * *
The Korean girl squirmed against her bonds and moaned into the gag. The three men in the back of the van with her laughed as one of them scribbled his fingertips against her bare soles. He straightened his back out and looked at his team.
"She's a ticklish one alright. I still think this is weird, but the money is great."
"She is cute, that's for sure. Anyone know why we nabbed her?"
"There's never a why, man. Just a what and a how. And a paycheck."
"Tickle her foot again. I want to see her squirm again before we turn her over."
* * * * * * * *
Without eyes or ears Alissa could not make sense of whatever was tickling her feet, and with hands bound and mouth plugged, she could not do anything to stop it. Every time it started back up, she writhed (or at least it felt like she writhed) in ticklish agony, unable to bear the touching but undeniably swimming in pleasure every time it started and stopped.
When her silent world lurched to a stop, and when the now-familiar tactile hum of the engine stopped, the same large hands that had originally grabbed her unfastened her bonds, put the handcuffs back on, and picked her up. She could feel her midsection resting on a bulky, jacketed shoulder, and her body, the world (they were the same without eyes or ears) rose and fell with a walking cadence. They must be transporting her by foot. Her skin could feel the temperature change as she was carried inside and felt the steps' character change as they descended steps. Her skin, more sensitive for the deprivation of her other senses, could feel a shock wave as a heavy door shut behind her.
The man carrying her set her down on a thick-carpeted floor that tickled her bare feet just slightly. By this time she had become so sensitive that she could count six hands as they quickly removed the cuffs, put on a new set of comfortable bindings (she guessed they were lined with fur inside), and pulled her wrists directly above her head, she was almost sure by a cord attached to the cuffs. Now she began to panic as two hands held her in place, the cord still keeping her hands from coming down, and something (two more hands no doubt) started to loosen the drawstring on her skirt. She attempted to move her hips out of the way, but within seconds she felt it slide down past her knees and onto the floor. The wrist cuffs vibrated slightly, and two more hands pulled her arms apart. Now someone took her sweatshirt up and over her head, and as she stumbled to keep her balance, all four limbs were free, just for a fleeting moment, as the shirt pulled free, leaving her wearing only her wrist cuffs, her tank top, and her black thong.
She would ask herself in the next few days why she reached for the gag rather than the blindfold or the soundproof earmuffs, but even as her fingers touched it, the hands once again grabbed her wrists. Her hands went above her head, and rough fingers slid between the bottom of her tank top and her belly. In her darkness, she knew now that she had only her thong underwear and her black cotton bra on.
* * * * * * * *
Brian's anxiety rose as the car pulled up to a large house, the only one on its cul-de-sac. As he stepped out of it, he realized that the house was officially for sale but that now, in the middle of the night, nobody would ever distinguish it from the hundreds of McMansions that waited to be sold. "Does somebody in the club own this house?"
"No, man. You know how it is. The masses aren't ready for this kind of pleasure, so we have to stay underground." Mack, his liason and driver, got out, and Brian followed.
"We're not going to break in or anything, are we?"
Mack chuckled but then reassured him: "We don't do any property damage. And we never do this in occupied houses. Ease up, man." He activated a cell phone walkie talkie and said briefly, "We're here. Open up."
The front door of the split-level house opened, and Brian followed Mack into a basement. He could see that the underground room was lit with a fluorescent light and guessed that the light never showed on the street. Looking at his watch, seeing 9:04, he realized that for what he was about to do, this was the perfect hideout.
He stepped around the corner into the basement room and gasped. Three more men, all in masks, stood as guards on the thick carpet around a sight that both exhilirated and horrified him. A young woman, her features hidden by a sleeping mask and a ball gag, soundproof earmuffs over her head, otherwise nearly naked, only a black thong and a black bra covering up a smooth, limber body, was hogtied on the floor. Leather cuffs encircled each of her four extremities, and nylon cords leading through metal loops attached to the cuffs held her right wrist to her right ankle and left to left behind her, putting her belly against the floor and her back arched.
"Can she hear us?"
Only Mack spoke. "The only senses she has left are smell and touch, man. As far as smell goes, I hope you sprayed some deodorant on. As far as touch, well, that's what we're here to find out, right?"
"Whether I've got what it takes."
"That's right. If you're going to be part of House Zarathustra, you've got to tickle her into oblivion. Until your touches have taken the spirit out of her."
"And if I do, then there's more to come, right?"
"In all senses of come, man."
"But how am I supposed to get her to... you know... when her legs are tied up like that?"
"You have all the time you need, man. And you have your tool bag." He gestured to a black leather doctor's bag, and Brian reached in and felt his hand bump against a number of feathers, a plastic hairbrush, a fine-toothed plastic comb, and a high-speed electric toothbrush.
"I can use this on her..."
Mack nodded. "And if you want to get to some different spots on her, you can tell the Zoroastrian Brothers to move her into any position you want."
"Okay, then. I'll start here."
"Let 'er rip, Brian!"
Brian licked his lips and began to circle the young woman, his eyes greedily devouring her upturned soles.
* * * * * * * *
Alissa lay on the carpet (her belly told her it was carpet), waiting. With only her thoughts and the persistent smell of a new house to keep her company, her thoughts raced: who could be doing this? Was someone going to kill her? Where was she? What if someone tried to rape her? Would she ever get out of the hogtie position? Even as the minutes dragged on, she could think of no escape plans: her fingers and toes could wiggle, and she could move just a little bit on the ground by moving her torso, but she had no idea which was to move, and unable to see or hear, any direction was just as useless as any should she try to get away.
The questions stopped, but no answers came. Instead her foot, that foot growing cool in the darkness of her world, lit up as it had in the van. The difference was that this time, she could not kick her foot or squirm her hips; as she wriggled her toes, she felt the grip of another hand on her ankle. She tried to scream into her gag, but she could only hear her voice inside her own ears. She knew that fingers were stroking and poking and rubbing away at her soles, and she strained her muscles to move somewhere (she couldn't see where that where was), and the tickling fingers kept going. Her shoulders struggled to roll, and she could feel the carpet rub underneath her as the fingers tickled, and she laughed into her gag.
* * * * * * * *
Brian was almost out-of-body as he used one hand to secure the writhing feet and the other to tickle the creamy soles. The Korean girl moaned into her gag and writhed, and the hand keeping the ankle in place could feel every moment of struggle. He switched hands and drank in the struggle and the movement and the feeling of smooth skin underneath his fingertips. Noises came out of her where the gag was, and he couldn't remember a sound that made him harder faster. Seeing her body buck, he released her feet, wrapping himself around her shins and grabbing one hip with each hand. His quick squeeze brought more volume out of the gag, and he knew he had found a good spot. Feeling himself harden against his fly, he sat beside the girl's knees and reached between her hog-tie and her back, and his hands squeezed greedily at her hips, making her buck wildly against her bonds. His fingertips lapped up the wild energy, pressing in against the soft flesh.
* * * * * * * *
Alissa could hear her incoherent syllables in her own ear. The gag had rendered her unable even to beg for mercy from whoever had hands on her, and the denial of sight and hearing was making every touch shoot through her nerves more than any touch she could ever remember. When the fingers were squeezing her hips, which she already knew was her worst spot, she could feel every muscle in her body pulling against her bonds for nothing. When they scratched at her soles, she could feel her feet pivoting at the ankle, achieving nothing. With nothing in the world but those hands, and deprived of any power to respond, Alissa began to drink in the sensations in spite of herself, and her enjoyment was overwhelming her fear, starting to arouse, turning her on. When the hands went away, always to find another ticklish spot, she thought all kinds of thoughts. If this is a woman tickling me, does that make me a lesbian? If it's a man, is he going to kill me? Do lesbians kill women they've kidnapped to tickle? Is he going to buy me dinner afterwards? Usually one sentence unspoken was all the darkness would let her have; whatever monster was behind this, Alissa knew that it liked to tickle her.
Without warning (there is no warning in a ticklish vacuum) the tickling stopped, and Alissa once more felt more than two hands on her, holding down her limbs as they loosed her cuffs. Although she had felt exhausted before, her limbs once more flailed as they came free, and once again the men grabbed and held them. As with last time, she felt cords sliding through what must have been metal rings attached to her wrist cuffs, but her ankle cuffs did not change. She felt the hands pull her up to a kneeling position, and her wrists began to elevate above her head. Without the ability to separate her feet, she could not pull herself into a standing position, so she stayed kneeling, hands above her head, soles facing up, awaiting the next torment.
* * * * * * * *
Brian pulled one of the plastic hairbrushes out of the bag and grabbed both big toes with one hand. Rotating his wrist slightly, he forced her soles to stretch, and he immediately went to work with the brush. She began to buck again, straining on the rope, pulling her buttocks off her heels for a moment, then bouncing back down. Her muffled laughter was once again arousing him terribly, and a twinge made his pants slightly sticky inside. Dropping the brush, he dug his fingers high and inside, just where underarm became breast, and his fingers could feel the whole of her body's strength reeling from the touches. Her head began to thrash, her hair flying around the constraints of the gag and blindfold, and his own sense of smell told him that she was getting closer and closer to the little death. He dropped one hand back down to her exposed soles, enjoying the sight of her toes as they wriggled in protest, and began to whorl his fingers on her belly. "This girl is all kinds of freaky," he whispered to himself, then took her next pull on the ropes as an opportunity to slide a hand under her buttocks and begin to torture her ticklish behind.
* * * * * * * *
Alissa, alone with the sensations, at this point did not care whether these hands and whatever else touched her were a man's or a woman's; all she wanted was for them to stop, and she needed a hand free like she'd never needed a hand free before. No matter what anyone had ever told her before about women who pleasure themselves, she needed something to turn her loose. As the awful hands continued to torture every inch of her skin, breathing through her nose started to make her light-headed, a sensation that only heightened every ticklish touch. If only this person would take off the gag, she could say what she needed, that she'd give them whatever they wanted if only she could get off and go home. But nothing stopped; her body, one gigantic nerve ending without sight or sound to distract from the touches, would long since have betrayed her, if only there were someone to whom it could surrender.
* * * * * * * *
Brian stopped, panting himself, and made a motion to the men in the corners of the room. With gasping breaths, he said to Mack, "I'm going to have to hurry, or I'm going to break my own spirit!"
"Take all the time you need, Brian. This is the way of the gods and spirits. Her body belongs to you."
Brian leered at the body on the ground. "Do you have a table we could lay her on?" Mack grinned.
* * * * * * * *
The hands came back, this time lifting her off the ground onto a table, laying her facing down, her belly against a cool table top. The rope they attached to her wrist cuffs was different this time; it was a singular line holding her hands together over her head on the carpet, and when Alissa relaxed, it pulled harder. She pulled on it and realized that it was some kind of elastic cord. Her chin, she realized, was dangling off the end of the table, far enough that she could pull herself a few inches upwards (or frontwards, but she had lost most sense of direction) but unable to pull enough of herself off to fall forward. She felt ropes sliding through the metal rings on her ankle cuffs, and they quickly tugged her legs backwards and apart. She was facing down now, pulled tight by the ankle ropes but able to extend the cable attached to her wrists if she bent her knees. She began to flex her knees rhythmically, not loosening the bonds but stretching out her tired body a little bit.
* * * * * * * *
Mack placed a cylindrical tool in Brian's hand. "This is it, man. Break her spirit."
Brian looked down at the moist spot in the center of her panties and knew exactly what Mack meant. "Can I pull them down first?"
"No, man. Pull them down last. First enjoy watching her beg you for it. And don't forget to show her what happens to beggars."
Brian, his conscience long since having drowned in a flood of power and lust and power-lust, grinned and activated the vibrator as he inched it closer and closer to her ruined undergarment.
* * * * * * * *
Alissa could feel the air move beneath her panties, knew that whatever it was (later, back to her senses, she knew exactly what it was) could give her relief, if only it would move up the slightest margin. But as she started to bend her knees, to move herself onto her release, the source of the vibration moved away, only to return that torturous distance from her panties again. And as she descended onto whatever was there, a hand began to scratch at her sole, compounding her frustration with more ticklish touches. As her arms reflexively pulled on the rope above her head, her body slid away from that magical point in the dark space, the point in the universe that could give her satisfaction. Whoever was doing this was taunting her, not content with her surrender to the vibration but putting her through the humiliation of denial over and over again. Had she any resistance left she simply would have gone limp, but when the vibration got closer to her panties again, her knees bent, her body straining for release, only to be overwhelmed by a merciless squeezing and tickling on the back of her thigh. Her legs lost their strength, and the cord pulled her away from the vibrator. This time the hand would not turn loose, and Alissa squirmed like a bug on the table, kicking in vain but never getting the hand to relent even a little.
The hand relented, and before she knew it, a finger and thumb had grabbed hold of the big toe on her left foot. Her stomach only had a second to turn in anticipated horror before the vibrator slid along her sole, and she moaned her tortured pleasure into the ball gag. No longer even thrashing, her muscles began to spasm and shake her on the table. Then it stopped.
Breathing hard through her nose, she moaned in frustration every time the cycle began again: as she felt the vibrations get closer and closer to her panties, she would bend to receive it, but the vibrator would pull away, and he would tickle her some place else, making her laugh in spite of her frustration and humiliation. Whoever this jerk was (it had to be a man, she decided), he would tease her again and again, and her legs couldn't help but begin to flex again, and once more, just as she could feel release closer than ever before, a hand dug into her bottom rib, and she arched back, her knee unable to stay flexed to take in the only source of satisfaction in this dark hell. This time, not for spite or willfulness but from sheer exhaustion, she simply lay on the table, unable to move even instinctively.
* * * * * * * *
"Now?"
"Now."
Brian dropped the vibrator on the table and put two fingers inside the panties on each hip. He pulled them down quickly, recovered the dildo, and slid it almost effortlessly in. Her body tensed for one delicious moment, then fell limp. Brian grinned in triumph; the girl's spirit was broken.
But the night was not over. As Brian reveled in his moment of glory, the men rushed forwards, one ripping the panties the rest of the way off while other men undid the ankle cuffs. Brian, his own near-orgasm (he had already trial-squirted twice) ready to burst out of his pants, looked around confusedly as Mack approached him. "You've broken her body, Brian, but now you've got to finish her off. After an orgasm, a woman's body is twice as ticklish. You have the chance now to exploit that."
"Hasn't she had enough?" He watched as the men looped cord through her wrist straps' rings and pulled her up to her toes, suspended by a simple pulley from a ring in the ceiling.
"Come on, Brian. This is the House of Zarathustra. We're about going beyond enough. Are you up to it?"
Brian beheld the body, stretched out for him, and licked his lips. "I'm all kinds of up." He remembered those hips, how she bucked when she was hogtied, and quickly began to formulate a plan to work his way up to them. If they were twice as ticklish as they had been before, she was in for a tickling like she'd never had before. And as they shone naked in the fluorescent light, Brian was rising to a mountain that his mind had never climbed. But he'd have to work his way there, so he knelt down and grabbed one ankle, bending her knee so that the sole faced the ceiling.
* * * * * * * *
Alissa screamed into the gag when she realized the hands were not done, and she kept screaming when she realized that they had done something to make the touches much, much worse. She kicked out into space with her newly liberated foot, but the rope above her head kept her from any leverage, and she felt it bounce harmlessly against a body. (It felt like a man's body.) She had no shame left as she felt what was left of her orgasm slowly work its way down the inside of her thigh, and she found herself trying to beg even through the gag. When he switched feet, as she knew he would, she did not have the energy left to attempt to attack her invisible torturer; she simply yielded to his tickling, feeling her horror rise as she started to get hot again. When the fingers started working on her thighs, she felt herself dancing madly, and she heard the nonsense syllables of a gagged mouth ringing in her head. The hands embraced her waist, pulling a heavy body up to his feet, and she knew that she would do anything to please this man now, even if just to make him stop for being pleased. But there was no pleasing him; eight fingers soon enough began scrabbling around under her arms, the most ticklish her underarms had ever been, and she could feel herself getting wet again.
* * * * * * * *
Brian's nose told him that he might well have her on the edge of another orgasm, and he imagined just how ticklish those lovely, feminine hips were going to be. Without realizing what he was doing, he began to press up against her back, his member firing off like an artillery barrage as his greedy fingers squeezed and prodded those wonderful, delicious, perfect, ticklish hips. When he heard applause, he stood back in a moment of shock.
"Bravo, man. You're in. I'm going to take off the gag, and you can kiss your spirit bride." Brian did not even perceive the mechanical motions that took off the gag; his hungry mouth pressed against hers, and as he squeezed himself against her, he could feel her passion returning across her lips and teeth and tongue.
Stopping when he felt her exhale a grand gasp, Brian stepped back to look at his fellow Zoroastrian brothers. Other than himself and the woman, the house was empty. "Where did they go?" He rushed to the stairwell and looked up. Nothing.
"Please, please. I'll do anything you want. Just let me go home!" Brian turned around in shock to see a young woman whom he couldn't see before. His fear, overriding his lust, made him realize that he was alone in a house with a woman that he had just taken advantage of, maybe without her consent. Without any mental tools to figure out what to do, he rushed over to her, unbuckling her cuffs and letting her arms down.
* * * * * * * *
She took off her own ball gag and blindfold and looked at him as she took off the earmuffs. At once terrified of the man who had done this to her and grateful that she had her freedom back, all she could muster as she looked at him was, "Why?"
The young man fumbled to hand her underwear back to her.
* * * * * * * *
"So how did Operation Butterfly go?"
"As planned, Mister President. We've shipped the footage to the American television channels, and we've given the ultimatum to her newspaper. She'll have no choice but to rescind the story, lest we ruin her reputation as the mother of a cultist."
A door flew open, slamming the wall with heavy oak. A third man dashed into the room. "Mister President, turn your television to the American news feed!" He did, and America's right-wing news network came into focus.
"So does the liberal media have anything to say for a reporter's son who does these degenerate things with his girlfriend?"
The news feed cut to an interview with the son of the reporter, his arm around a Korean girl, both of them smiling. The girl answered first. "We're both adults now, and what we do doesn't hurt anybody. I think that if people get offended by it, they shouldn't have distributed the video."
The young man, smiling and beaming at the young Korean woman, followed up. "My mom is a reporter, and she knows how much the press can expose what people want to keep quiet. I just don't know why people are even talking about this when they know what my mom has found out about the president of Russia!"
The news anchor's head came back to the center of the screen. "And he's right. That is the big story of the night, a corruption, terrorist sponsorship, and illegal arms scandal that's shaking the Kremlin to its foundations. And our network will cover that. But for now, what can we even say about the moral state of the nation?" The young woman's head, framed in a rectangle, appeared on the side of the screen. "Remember, America. This could be your daughter. This could be your neighbor. This is why we're fighting for how America used to be."
The president growled. "I want all of our money back from those operatives, plus fifty percent. And I need you to execute our evacuation plan. Inform the prime minister that he's been named the acting president." His eyes, burning with rage, fixed on his chief of intelligence. "Why in Hell did you kidnap his girlfriend?"
"The dossier said nothing about that."
"Then whoever compiled that dossier needs shot as well!"
"What if the Americans arranged this after the fact? What if they paid the girl off?"
"That might be. At any rate, we're compromised. We must go into hiding. Get my belongings packed, and I'll start contacting my offshore bank about living expenses." The president glanced back at the screen. "And get me the uncut version of the video that they made. I should at least have some fun in exile."
Anyway, that's my working excuse for the choppiness and all the scene cuts. This story resisted revision the way few of my stories have, so here's the text that got away from me:
Butterfly
by
Kid Indy
"She has to rescind the story! I will not allow my government to be humiliated by this insolent American woman!"
"You can't go after her, Mister President! She's protected by American law, not Russian! They defend their reporters like royalty. We'll never survive the diplomatic fallout!"
"Then we've got to find some other way to put leverage on her. What do the secret police have?"
The head of intelligence turned on his walkie-talkie phone. "Bring me the Butterfly file."
* * * * * * *
A short man, identifiably Russian only when he spoke, sat at a small, round table in a Starbucks in Chicago. A taller, bald man took the seat across from him.
"Do we have our people in place?"
"Affirmative. The decoys will stakeout the reporter's house, and our extraction team is already on the ground in California."
"Where in California?"
"Where the target lives, of course."
The short man scowled; this giant jerk must be closer to the center of the command structure. "All contractors, no?"
"Our decoys are Russian, but not the actual operational team. From the beginning of the extraction to the end of the operation, the only hands on her will be American hands."
"Good. Keep me posted on the status of both."
* * * * * * *
Alissa walked the shiny-but-drab floors of the declining shopping mall, thinking about heading for her car. Her friends had dispersed for the evening, but for whatever reason she felt like walking just a while longer. Out of high school but not quite ready to start college, she wandered somewhat aimlessly through the early winter months as she wandered through the mall. She enjoyed her younger friends, but sometimes she wished she had just moved out of town and made a new start. She glanced down at herself, at once relishing her extended adolescence and wishing she had moved on. She still looked good in her hooded tight-shirt (no freshman fifteen if you're not a freshman), and her almost-knee-length khaki skirt showed off calves strong from walking. Her feet flopped along in her black skater-shoes, and she decided to head home for the evening. Lost in her own thoughts, she did not notice the man, thirty or so yards behind her, as he spoke a code word into a cell phone.
* * * * * * * *
"Religion? What do I care of religion?"
"Because our enemy is American, Mister President, and Americans' greatest weaknesses are their religions."
"And this will put pressure on the reporter, you think?"
"Of course. A religious population fears nothing more than strange religions, especially when they overstep polite boundaries."
* * * * * * * *
Alissa saw the large van parked next to her Kia, but she had seen enough gigantic vehicles in the mall's parking lot that she scarcely gave it a second thought. In fact, she never even heard the footsteps of the three large men over her own keys' jingling until they had rounded the corner and joined her in the cramped space between her driver's side door and the van's sliding door. She looked up and thought only for a split second about the self-defense class that she had taken as a high schooler; a man inside the van opened the door as the three men outside the van descended on her, and the four immobilized her limbs and hoisted her into the van with such speed that her scared kicks only moved their strong hands inches. They handcuffed her and duct-taped her ankles together, and within seconds they pulled a thick mask over her eyes and began strapping a ball-gag into her mouth. A whispering voice told her to breathe slowly through her nose or else she would lose consciousness, but the advice fell on deaf, panicked ears. Two doors slammed, and a third slid thunderously to a crashing shut. Her dark world swirled as she felt the van begin to pull out.
* * * * * * * *
"I'm not sure about this. I want to think about it for a while."
"What's there to think about, Brian? It's not like you have to hide your tastes from us; we're all the same here! And you know we're the ones with the honesty to pursue what we like."
"But these women--they like it?"
"So much we don't have to pay them. That's their charm--they've got a natural desire to be dominated. They want you to..." The man, at least a decade older than the college-age Brian, looked both ways to evade eavesdroppers. He lowered his voice to a projected whisper. "They want you to tickle and torture them. It's what gets them off."
"And they really voluntarily go along with it?"
"You worry too much, man. Come with us tonight, and you'll experience it. In the moment you'll enjoy it so much you won't have a question to ask."
* * * * * * * *
Alissa thought she had awakened, but only three of her senses would confirm it. She still tasted the sterile rubber of the gag, and every breath that she pulled through her nose was a mix of the space she occupied (she knew she was still in the van) and the warm smell of her gag-filled mouth. She gradually became aware that in addition to the blindfold, something was covering her ears and apparently keeping out all sound. Other than the air coming through her nose, her only contact with the world was the feeling of comfortable but undeniable bondage--she could only sense the cuffs on her wrists and ankles from the tension, but she definitely could not move any of her four limbs. Taking account of her body position and the feeling of motion, she guessed that they had secured her to one of the van's seats with arm rests. Her dark, silent world vibrated slightly for a while, then lurched as she imagined a van turning, then became stable again only to lurch again. She moved her fingers to make sure they would still move; they would. She did likewise with her toes and realized that somebody had taken off her skater shoes and her white ankle socks; her toes were wiggling only in open air. She began to breathe more heavily, and all of a sudden one foot of her small world exploded with sensation.
* * * * * * * *
The Korean girl squirmed against her bonds and moaned into the gag. The three men in the back of the van with her laughed as one of them scribbled his fingertips against her bare soles. He straightened his back out and looked at his team.
"She's a ticklish one alright. I still think this is weird, but the money is great."
"She is cute, that's for sure. Anyone know why we nabbed her?"
"There's never a why, man. Just a what and a how. And a paycheck."
"Tickle her foot again. I want to see her squirm again before we turn her over."
* * * * * * * *
Without eyes or ears Alissa could not make sense of whatever was tickling her feet, and with hands bound and mouth plugged, she could not do anything to stop it. Every time it started back up, she writhed (or at least it felt like she writhed) in ticklish agony, unable to bear the touching but undeniably swimming in pleasure every time it started and stopped.
When her silent world lurched to a stop, and when the now-familiar tactile hum of the engine stopped, the same large hands that had originally grabbed her unfastened her bonds, put the handcuffs back on, and picked her up. She could feel her midsection resting on a bulky, jacketed shoulder, and her body, the world (they were the same without eyes or ears) rose and fell with a walking cadence. They must be transporting her by foot. Her skin could feel the temperature change as she was carried inside and felt the steps' character change as they descended steps. Her skin, more sensitive for the deprivation of her other senses, could feel a shock wave as a heavy door shut behind her.
The man carrying her set her down on a thick-carpeted floor that tickled her bare feet just slightly. By this time she had become so sensitive that she could count six hands as they quickly removed the cuffs, put on a new set of comfortable bindings (she guessed they were lined with fur inside), and pulled her wrists directly above her head, she was almost sure by a cord attached to the cuffs. Now she began to panic as two hands held her in place, the cord still keeping her hands from coming down, and something (two more hands no doubt) started to loosen the drawstring on her skirt. She attempted to move her hips out of the way, but within seconds she felt it slide down past her knees and onto the floor. The wrist cuffs vibrated slightly, and two more hands pulled her arms apart. Now someone took her sweatshirt up and over her head, and as she stumbled to keep her balance, all four limbs were free, just for a fleeting moment, as the shirt pulled free, leaving her wearing only her wrist cuffs, her tank top, and her black thong.
She would ask herself in the next few days why she reached for the gag rather than the blindfold or the soundproof earmuffs, but even as her fingers touched it, the hands once again grabbed her wrists. Her hands went above her head, and rough fingers slid between the bottom of her tank top and her belly. In her darkness, she knew now that she had only her thong underwear and her black cotton bra on.
* * * * * * * *
Brian's anxiety rose as the car pulled up to a large house, the only one on its cul-de-sac. As he stepped out of it, he realized that the house was officially for sale but that now, in the middle of the night, nobody would ever distinguish it from the hundreds of McMansions that waited to be sold. "Does somebody in the club own this house?"
"No, man. You know how it is. The masses aren't ready for this kind of pleasure, so we have to stay underground." Mack, his liason and driver, got out, and Brian followed.
"We're not going to break in or anything, are we?"
Mack chuckled but then reassured him: "We don't do any property damage. And we never do this in occupied houses. Ease up, man." He activated a cell phone walkie talkie and said briefly, "We're here. Open up."
The front door of the split-level house opened, and Brian followed Mack into a basement. He could see that the underground room was lit with a fluorescent light and guessed that the light never showed on the street. Looking at his watch, seeing 9:04, he realized that for what he was about to do, this was the perfect hideout.
He stepped around the corner into the basement room and gasped. Three more men, all in masks, stood as guards on the thick carpet around a sight that both exhilirated and horrified him. A young woman, her features hidden by a sleeping mask and a ball gag, soundproof earmuffs over her head, otherwise nearly naked, only a black thong and a black bra covering up a smooth, limber body, was hogtied on the floor. Leather cuffs encircled each of her four extremities, and nylon cords leading through metal loops attached to the cuffs held her right wrist to her right ankle and left to left behind her, putting her belly against the floor and her back arched.
"Can she hear us?"
Only Mack spoke. "The only senses she has left are smell and touch, man. As far as smell goes, I hope you sprayed some deodorant on. As far as touch, well, that's what we're here to find out, right?"
"Whether I've got what it takes."
"That's right. If you're going to be part of House Zarathustra, you've got to tickle her into oblivion. Until your touches have taken the spirit out of her."
"And if I do, then there's more to come, right?"
"In all senses of come, man."
"But how am I supposed to get her to... you know... when her legs are tied up like that?"
"You have all the time you need, man. And you have your tool bag." He gestured to a black leather doctor's bag, and Brian reached in and felt his hand bump against a number of feathers, a plastic hairbrush, a fine-toothed plastic comb, and a high-speed electric toothbrush.
"I can use this on her..."
Mack nodded. "And if you want to get to some different spots on her, you can tell the Zoroastrian Brothers to move her into any position you want."
"Okay, then. I'll start here."
"Let 'er rip, Brian!"
Brian licked his lips and began to circle the young woman, his eyes greedily devouring her upturned soles.
* * * * * * * *
Alissa lay on the carpet (her belly told her it was carpet), waiting. With only her thoughts and the persistent smell of a new house to keep her company, her thoughts raced: who could be doing this? Was someone going to kill her? Where was she? What if someone tried to rape her? Would she ever get out of the hogtie position? Even as the minutes dragged on, she could think of no escape plans: her fingers and toes could wiggle, and she could move just a little bit on the ground by moving her torso, but she had no idea which was to move, and unable to see or hear, any direction was just as useless as any should she try to get away.
The questions stopped, but no answers came. Instead her foot, that foot growing cool in the darkness of her world, lit up as it had in the van. The difference was that this time, she could not kick her foot or squirm her hips; as she wriggled her toes, she felt the grip of another hand on her ankle. She tried to scream into her gag, but she could only hear her voice inside her own ears. She knew that fingers were stroking and poking and rubbing away at her soles, and she strained her muscles to move somewhere (she couldn't see where that where was), and the tickling fingers kept going. Her shoulders struggled to roll, and she could feel the carpet rub underneath her as the fingers tickled, and she laughed into her gag.
* * * * * * * *
Brian was almost out-of-body as he used one hand to secure the writhing feet and the other to tickle the creamy soles. The Korean girl moaned into her gag and writhed, and the hand keeping the ankle in place could feel every moment of struggle. He switched hands and drank in the struggle and the movement and the feeling of smooth skin underneath his fingertips. Noises came out of her where the gag was, and he couldn't remember a sound that made him harder faster. Seeing her body buck, he released her feet, wrapping himself around her shins and grabbing one hip with each hand. His quick squeeze brought more volume out of the gag, and he knew he had found a good spot. Feeling himself harden against his fly, he sat beside the girl's knees and reached between her hog-tie and her back, and his hands squeezed greedily at her hips, making her buck wildly against her bonds. His fingertips lapped up the wild energy, pressing in against the soft flesh.
* * * * * * * *
Alissa could hear her incoherent syllables in her own ear. The gag had rendered her unable even to beg for mercy from whoever had hands on her, and the denial of sight and hearing was making every touch shoot through her nerves more than any touch she could ever remember. When the fingers were squeezing her hips, which she already knew was her worst spot, she could feel every muscle in her body pulling against her bonds for nothing. When they scratched at her soles, she could feel her feet pivoting at the ankle, achieving nothing. With nothing in the world but those hands, and deprived of any power to respond, Alissa began to drink in the sensations in spite of herself, and her enjoyment was overwhelming her fear, starting to arouse, turning her on. When the hands went away, always to find another ticklish spot, she thought all kinds of thoughts. If this is a woman tickling me, does that make me a lesbian? If it's a man, is he going to kill me? Do lesbians kill women they've kidnapped to tickle? Is he going to buy me dinner afterwards? Usually one sentence unspoken was all the darkness would let her have; whatever monster was behind this, Alissa knew that it liked to tickle her.
Without warning (there is no warning in a ticklish vacuum) the tickling stopped, and Alissa once more felt more than two hands on her, holding down her limbs as they loosed her cuffs. Although she had felt exhausted before, her limbs once more flailed as they came free, and once again the men grabbed and held them. As with last time, she felt cords sliding through what must have been metal rings attached to her wrist cuffs, but her ankle cuffs did not change. She felt the hands pull her up to a kneeling position, and her wrists began to elevate above her head. Without the ability to separate her feet, she could not pull herself into a standing position, so she stayed kneeling, hands above her head, soles facing up, awaiting the next torment.
* * * * * * * *
Brian pulled one of the plastic hairbrushes out of the bag and grabbed both big toes with one hand. Rotating his wrist slightly, he forced her soles to stretch, and he immediately went to work with the brush. She began to buck again, straining on the rope, pulling her buttocks off her heels for a moment, then bouncing back down. Her muffled laughter was once again arousing him terribly, and a twinge made his pants slightly sticky inside. Dropping the brush, he dug his fingers high and inside, just where underarm became breast, and his fingers could feel the whole of her body's strength reeling from the touches. Her head began to thrash, her hair flying around the constraints of the gag and blindfold, and his own sense of smell told him that she was getting closer and closer to the little death. He dropped one hand back down to her exposed soles, enjoying the sight of her toes as they wriggled in protest, and began to whorl his fingers on her belly. "This girl is all kinds of freaky," he whispered to himself, then took her next pull on the ropes as an opportunity to slide a hand under her buttocks and begin to torture her ticklish behind.
* * * * * * * *
Alissa, alone with the sensations, at this point did not care whether these hands and whatever else touched her were a man's or a woman's; all she wanted was for them to stop, and she needed a hand free like she'd never needed a hand free before. No matter what anyone had ever told her before about women who pleasure themselves, she needed something to turn her loose. As the awful hands continued to torture every inch of her skin, breathing through her nose started to make her light-headed, a sensation that only heightened every ticklish touch. If only this person would take off the gag, she could say what she needed, that she'd give them whatever they wanted if only she could get off and go home. But nothing stopped; her body, one gigantic nerve ending without sight or sound to distract from the touches, would long since have betrayed her, if only there were someone to whom it could surrender.
* * * * * * * *
Brian stopped, panting himself, and made a motion to the men in the corners of the room. With gasping breaths, he said to Mack, "I'm going to have to hurry, or I'm going to break my own spirit!"
"Take all the time you need, Brian. This is the way of the gods and spirits. Her body belongs to you."
Brian leered at the body on the ground. "Do you have a table we could lay her on?" Mack grinned.
* * * * * * * *
The hands came back, this time lifting her off the ground onto a table, laying her facing down, her belly against a cool table top. The rope they attached to her wrist cuffs was different this time; it was a singular line holding her hands together over her head on the carpet, and when Alissa relaxed, it pulled harder. She pulled on it and realized that it was some kind of elastic cord. Her chin, she realized, was dangling off the end of the table, far enough that she could pull herself a few inches upwards (or frontwards, but she had lost most sense of direction) but unable to pull enough of herself off to fall forward. She felt ropes sliding through the metal rings on her ankle cuffs, and they quickly tugged her legs backwards and apart. She was facing down now, pulled tight by the ankle ropes but able to extend the cable attached to her wrists if she bent her knees. She began to flex her knees rhythmically, not loosening the bonds but stretching out her tired body a little bit.
* * * * * * * *
Mack placed a cylindrical tool in Brian's hand. "This is it, man. Break her spirit."
Brian looked down at the moist spot in the center of her panties and knew exactly what Mack meant. "Can I pull them down first?"
"No, man. Pull them down last. First enjoy watching her beg you for it. And don't forget to show her what happens to beggars."
Brian, his conscience long since having drowned in a flood of power and lust and power-lust, grinned and activated the vibrator as he inched it closer and closer to her ruined undergarment.
* * * * * * * *
Alissa could feel the air move beneath her panties, knew that whatever it was (later, back to her senses, she knew exactly what it was) could give her relief, if only it would move up the slightest margin. But as she started to bend her knees, to move herself onto her release, the source of the vibration moved away, only to return that torturous distance from her panties again. And as she descended onto whatever was there, a hand began to scratch at her sole, compounding her frustration with more ticklish touches. As her arms reflexively pulled on the rope above her head, her body slid away from that magical point in the dark space, the point in the universe that could give her satisfaction. Whoever was doing this was taunting her, not content with her surrender to the vibration but putting her through the humiliation of denial over and over again. Had she any resistance left she simply would have gone limp, but when the vibration got closer to her panties again, her knees bent, her body straining for release, only to be overwhelmed by a merciless squeezing and tickling on the back of her thigh. Her legs lost their strength, and the cord pulled her away from the vibrator. This time the hand would not turn loose, and Alissa squirmed like a bug on the table, kicking in vain but never getting the hand to relent even a little.
The hand relented, and before she knew it, a finger and thumb had grabbed hold of the big toe on her left foot. Her stomach only had a second to turn in anticipated horror before the vibrator slid along her sole, and she moaned her tortured pleasure into the ball gag. No longer even thrashing, her muscles began to spasm and shake her on the table. Then it stopped.
Breathing hard through her nose, she moaned in frustration every time the cycle began again: as she felt the vibrations get closer and closer to her panties, she would bend to receive it, but the vibrator would pull away, and he would tickle her some place else, making her laugh in spite of her frustration and humiliation. Whoever this jerk was (it had to be a man, she decided), he would tease her again and again, and her legs couldn't help but begin to flex again, and once more, just as she could feel release closer than ever before, a hand dug into her bottom rib, and she arched back, her knee unable to stay flexed to take in the only source of satisfaction in this dark hell. This time, not for spite or willfulness but from sheer exhaustion, she simply lay on the table, unable to move even instinctively.
* * * * * * * *
"Now?"
"Now."
Brian dropped the vibrator on the table and put two fingers inside the panties on each hip. He pulled them down quickly, recovered the dildo, and slid it almost effortlessly in. Her body tensed for one delicious moment, then fell limp. Brian grinned in triumph; the girl's spirit was broken.
But the night was not over. As Brian reveled in his moment of glory, the men rushed forwards, one ripping the panties the rest of the way off while other men undid the ankle cuffs. Brian, his own near-orgasm (he had already trial-squirted twice) ready to burst out of his pants, looked around confusedly as Mack approached him. "You've broken her body, Brian, but now you've got to finish her off. After an orgasm, a woman's body is twice as ticklish. You have the chance now to exploit that."
"Hasn't she had enough?" He watched as the men looped cord through her wrist straps' rings and pulled her up to her toes, suspended by a simple pulley from a ring in the ceiling.
"Come on, Brian. This is the House of Zarathustra. We're about going beyond enough. Are you up to it?"
Brian beheld the body, stretched out for him, and licked his lips. "I'm all kinds of up." He remembered those hips, how she bucked when she was hogtied, and quickly began to formulate a plan to work his way up to them. If they were twice as ticklish as they had been before, she was in for a tickling like she'd never had before. And as they shone naked in the fluorescent light, Brian was rising to a mountain that his mind had never climbed. But he'd have to work his way there, so he knelt down and grabbed one ankle, bending her knee so that the sole faced the ceiling.
* * * * * * * *
Alissa screamed into the gag when she realized the hands were not done, and she kept screaming when she realized that they had done something to make the touches much, much worse. She kicked out into space with her newly liberated foot, but the rope above her head kept her from any leverage, and she felt it bounce harmlessly against a body. (It felt like a man's body.) She had no shame left as she felt what was left of her orgasm slowly work its way down the inside of her thigh, and she found herself trying to beg even through the gag. When he switched feet, as she knew he would, she did not have the energy left to attempt to attack her invisible torturer; she simply yielded to his tickling, feeling her horror rise as she started to get hot again. When the fingers started working on her thighs, she felt herself dancing madly, and she heard the nonsense syllables of a gagged mouth ringing in her head. The hands embraced her waist, pulling a heavy body up to his feet, and she knew that she would do anything to please this man now, even if just to make him stop for being pleased. But there was no pleasing him; eight fingers soon enough began scrabbling around under her arms, the most ticklish her underarms had ever been, and she could feel herself getting wet again.
* * * * * * * *
Brian's nose told him that he might well have her on the edge of another orgasm, and he imagined just how ticklish those lovely, feminine hips were going to be. Without realizing what he was doing, he began to press up against her back, his member firing off like an artillery barrage as his greedy fingers squeezed and prodded those wonderful, delicious, perfect, ticklish hips. When he heard applause, he stood back in a moment of shock.
"Bravo, man. You're in. I'm going to take off the gag, and you can kiss your spirit bride." Brian did not even perceive the mechanical motions that took off the gag; his hungry mouth pressed against hers, and as he squeezed himself against her, he could feel her passion returning across her lips and teeth and tongue.
Stopping when he felt her exhale a grand gasp, Brian stepped back to look at his fellow Zoroastrian brothers. Other than himself and the woman, the house was empty. "Where did they go?" He rushed to the stairwell and looked up. Nothing.
"Please, please. I'll do anything you want. Just let me go home!" Brian turned around in shock to see a young woman whom he couldn't see before. His fear, overriding his lust, made him realize that he was alone in a house with a woman that he had just taken advantage of, maybe without her consent. Without any mental tools to figure out what to do, he rushed over to her, unbuckling her cuffs and letting her arms down.
* * * * * * * *
She took off her own ball gag and blindfold and looked at him as she took off the earmuffs. At once terrified of the man who had done this to her and grateful that she had her freedom back, all she could muster as she looked at him was, "Why?"
The young man fumbled to hand her underwear back to her.
* * * * * * * *
"So how did Operation Butterfly go?"
"As planned, Mister President. We've shipped the footage to the American television channels, and we've given the ultimatum to her newspaper. She'll have no choice but to rescind the story, lest we ruin her reputation as the mother of a cultist."
A door flew open, slamming the wall with heavy oak. A third man dashed into the room. "Mister President, turn your television to the American news feed!" He did, and America's right-wing news network came into focus.
"So does the liberal media have anything to say for a reporter's son who does these degenerate things with his girlfriend?"
The news feed cut to an interview with the son of the reporter, his arm around a Korean girl, both of them smiling. The girl answered first. "We're both adults now, and what we do doesn't hurt anybody. I think that if people get offended by it, they shouldn't have distributed the video."
The young man, smiling and beaming at the young Korean woman, followed up. "My mom is a reporter, and she knows how much the press can expose what people want to keep quiet. I just don't know why people are even talking about this when they know what my mom has found out about the president of Russia!"
The news anchor's head came back to the center of the screen. "And he's right. That is the big story of the night, a corruption, terrorist sponsorship, and illegal arms scandal that's shaking the Kremlin to its foundations. And our network will cover that. But for now, what can we even say about the moral state of the nation?" The young woman's head, framed in a rectangle, appeared on the side of the screen. "Remember, America. This could be your daughter. This could be your neighbor. This is why we're fighting for how America used to be."
The president growled. "I want all of our money back from those operatives, plus fifty percent. And I need you to execute our evacuation plan. Inform the prime minister that he's been named the acting president." His eyes, burning with rage, fixed on his chief of intelligence. "Why in Hell did you kidnap his girlfriend?"
"The dossier said nothing about that."
"Then whoever compiled that dossier needs shot as well!"
"What if the Americans arranged this after the fact? What if they paid the girl off?"
"That might be. At any rate, we're compromised. We must go into hiding. Get my belongings packed, and I'll start contacting my offshore bank about living expenses." The president glanced back at the screen. "And get me the uncut version of the video that they made. I should at least have some fun in exile."
