Strelnikov
4th Level Red Feather
- Joined
- May 7, 2001
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By Strelnikov
Copyright 2009 by the author
Dramatis Personae (in order of appearance)
Brittany Righetti
Brittany is 18, and has lived on Tickle Street all her life. She has long dark hair and brown eyes, a beautiful Italian face and features, curves in all the right places. She has a bit of an attitude, but it can quickly be destroyed if she's tickled. She's horribly ticklish, and her twin older sisters always take advantage of that.
Vicky and Veronica Righetti
They’re “mirror twins” – identical, but Vicky is a lefty (Latin “sinister”) and her twin Veronica is right handed. They’re 20 yrs old, medium height, with very trim and fit figures that they maintain by martial arts. They have wavy dark brown hair worn shoulder length, dark brows and lashes, brown eyes. They’re Jedi Masters of tickling, and super-ticklish too – they’ve been tickling each other for years.
********************
Everybody has experienced the Doppler Effect – a familiar example is the train whistle. The tone has a higher pitch when the train is speeding toward you than when it is standing still; the faster the train, the higher the pitch.
A similar effect, just as real, applies to human psychology rather than atmospheric physics. Most of us have experienced that one too...
Brittany Righetti woke up to sudden disorientation. She tried to move her arms, but they were pinned to her sides. She felt fingernails just touching the soles of her bare feet.
Her eyes fluttered open. She was rolled up in her blankets. The sky outside the window was bright with morning light – the clock on the nightstand said 7:45. Brittany saw her sister Vicky grinning mischievously down on her. She didn’t see Veronica, Vicky’s twin, but knew those were her fingernails at her feet.
Like Brittany, the twins were tanned Mediterranean beauties, with dark hair, dark brows and lashes, brown eyes. They were two years older, a little taller, wore their hair shoulder length as opposed to Brittany’s nearly waist-length mane. But still the family resemblance was a strong one. They had already showered – as usual, they were dressed alike. Jeans shorts and black tube tops today, and probably barefoot, not that it does me any good, thought Brittany.
It was a Saturday morning, like every other for as far back as Brittany could remember. Brittany had a deal with the twins, no less firm for being unwritten. They tickled her silly every Saturday morning, but unless she instigated it, they left her alone the rest of the week. She thought sometimes that 70 years from now, they would stump into her nursing-home room on their walkers to tickle her arthritic feet. She didn’t bother to struggle – they had her, and she knew it.
“Good morning, little sis!” the twins chorused. “D’you know what time it is?”
“Yah, it’s Tickle Time,” Brittany said sourly. “Getting a late start, are we?”
“My, you’re grumpy this morning,” Vicky said.
“Morning grumps piss us off,” Veronica said.
“Got to make ‘em laugh,” the twins said in chorus.
“OK, OK, I’m smiling,” Brittany said, forcing a smile and trying to postpone the inevitable. “See?”
“You can do better than that,” Veronica said, and gave one foot a little tickle.
“Hehehe! Just get it over with,” Brittany said and giggled.
Veronica sat on the bed and trapped Brittany’s ankles in a leg lock. “Time to laugh,” she said cheerfully, and dug in, tickling fiendishly. Brittany arched her back and laughed at the top of her lungs.
Veronica covered Brittany’s soles with tiny flicks, using just her nail tips and making just enough contact to tickle horribly. She switched to longer nail strokes along the crease in the exact center of the right sole – Brittany’s toes twitched and curled as she laughed her head off. The left sole got the same treatment, forcing a solid stream of helpless laughter. Then in the arches, just behind the soles, tickling with both hands – Brittany howled with forced mirth, helpless to resist the well-techniqued tickling.
Veronica drew overlapping circles down both arches, tickling like crazy. She drew circles, squares and other tickling shape on Brittany’s heels, savoring the laughter – Brittany was red faced and sweaty, eyes closed, tears of laughter running down her cheeks, right on the edge. Veronica saved the best for last – two hands again, tickling the back of the arches and onto the heels. Those were the sweet spots, where it tickled unbearably – Brittany’s laughter went off the scale.
Veronica gave Brittany a break. “You awake yet, Little Sis?” she asked, releasing the leg lock.
Brittany took a deep, shaky breath. “Yah... ” she said breathlessly. “That tickled... so much... ”
“It’s supposed to,” Vicky said, taking Veronica’s place. “Ready for Round 2?” She circled a single nail around the ball of Brittany’s foot – it tickled maddeningly.
“Not re– hehehe! –eally,” Brittany said and giggled. “AH-HAHAHA! HAHA-HAHAHA!” she laughed as Vicky got down to business, tickling with verve and gusto.
“Go easy,” Veronica advised. “She’ll last longer if you do.”
“Anything worth doing is worth overdoing,” Vicky said, raising her voice over Brittany’s laughter. “Right, Little Sis?”
But Brittany was laughing much too hard to answer – all she could do was lay there and laugh.
Vicky spread Brittany’s toes, two by two, tickling between each pair and getting burst after burst of laughter. She held the toes back and tickled left to right on the soft skin underneath, then onto the stretched out soles in a zig-zag path right to left. The tickling had sensitized Brittany’s feet – she was laughing harder now. Vicky took full advantage, made a Peace sign and scratched the balls of both feet, and Brittany laughed with wild abandon.
Vicky guitar-chorded Brittany’s heels, and musical laughter poured out in a flood. She drew circles, squares and other tickling shapes on both arches, covering the sensitive skin with unbearable tickling. Then a two-handed spider-walk in the sweet spots, tickling at warp speed, and tickled Brittany into red-faced, gasping silent laughter.
“Oops!” Vicky said. “Looks like I got too eager.” She released Brittany and unrolled her. “Oh well, it was fun – for me, anyway. See you at breakfast.”
Brittany thought it over while she showered, but came to the same conclusion she always did. Gotta get even, but they’ve got me outnumbered so there’s no fighting them. Can’t outrun ‘em either, so I’ll have to outsmart ‘em.
Fortunately, that wasn’t difficult. The twins were as bright as she was, but they lacked her talent for misdirection and mischief.
She came downstairs for breakfast in shorts and t-shirt. Like her sisters, she didn’t bother with shoes. Mom and Dad didn’t comment on the tickle fest. Tickling was just part of life in this family – every female member of their extended family was a tickle maniac.
The girls got to work doing maintenance on their backyard pool after breakfast – skimming the leaves and drowned bugs off the surface, vacuuming, adding a little chlorine. They took a break after a while. The twins claimed two of the poolside chairs, set another between them, and sat with their feet propped up on the arms of the third chair.
Brittany checked out their feet – a little dirty, as expected, but both twins had some sort of dark mark on the soles of their left feet. She sat in the foot-rest chair between them and looked closer.
“What’s this?” Brittany asked, circling a nail tip on the ball of Veronica’s foot.
“Hahaha! What’s it look like?” Veronica said.
“A number 2. And this?” flicking gently along the crease in the middle of Vicky’s sole.
“Hehe-haha! A Roman numeral I,” Veronica said and giggled. “Hehehe! Quit!”
Brittany shifted in her chair, getting ready to run for it. “Relax,” Vicky said. “You’re safe ‘til next Saturday.”
Veronica added a caveat: “Unless, of course, you piss us off.”
“Tickling our feet– ” Vicky started.
“ –would piss us off,” Veronica completed the thought.
Some people found their tag-team conversation style disorienting and vaguely disturbing, as if the twins shared a telepathic mind-link, but Brittany was used to it. She raised both hands in surrender. “OK, OK, I won’t do it again,” she lied.
Vicky looked at her twin, and a silent message passed between them. “You get a pass,” they said together.
Brittany visibly relaxed. “So what’s the deal?” she asked.
Another look, like mirror images, and Vicky spoke for both. “We were messing with our boyfriends yesterday. Answering to each other’s names, randomly trading shirts to keep them guessing, that kind of thing.”
Brittany knew all about that game, though she knew them too well to be fooled. “And so?” she prompted.
“They tickle-tortured the truth out of us,” Vicky said. “I’m the first-born, so David put that Roman I on my foot. In ink. Daniel gave Veronica the 2.”
“So they can check the foot notes, huh?” Brittany said. She knew all too well how much that tickled.
“Uh-huh. We hate to let the guys get the best of us, but it won’t wash off – it has to wear off.”
The Devil bit Brittany on the butt. “You’re thinking about it all wrong,” she said. “Think of it like a cattle brand, in those old Westerns we used to watch with Grandpa. That won’t come off either, because it’s scar tissue. But cattle rustlers had a way of– ”
“Running iron,” the twins chorused.
“Yup – change it to something else,” Brittany said. “I’ll take care of it,” she added quickly.
Another exchanged glance, and a short pause. “OK. It was your idea, so why not?” Veronica said for both.
Brittany stood up – she gave both pairs of feet a quick tickle, and was rewarded with a stereo giggle. “Go lay down on the lounge chairs – backward, with your feet up. I’ll be right back.” I outsmarted ‘em, she thought gleefully – I get to tickle ‘em to death, and they asked me to do it! Must be the Dopeler Effect, that odd tendency for dopey bad ideas to seem like good ones if they come at you fast enough...
The twins were side by side, feet up, when Brittany returned. She dragged a small table over and laid out her gear – a jar of warm soapy water, a ball-point pen, two old-fashioned badger-bristle shaving brushes that had belonged to Grandpa. She pulled two pairs of old nylons out of a pocket, tied their ankles together and tied them off to the tube frames at the top of the loungers. “Don’t want you two moving around too much,” she explained. She dipped a brush in the water and flicked the bristles on Veronica’s inky sole – Veronica squirmed like a worm and laughed her head off.
“What d’you think you’re doing?” Vicky demanded. The twins were holding hands – Veronica’s knuckles were white with the strength of her grip.
“Might as well start with a clean slate,” Brittany answered. She worked her way across both soles, brush-tickling fiendishly and making Veronica laugh like mad.
“You’re enjoying it too much,” Vicky said over her twin’s ticklish laughter.
“Busted,” Brittany admitted, brushing a tickling figure-eight in Veronica’s arches with her left hand. “You talk too much,” she added, dipping the second brush and applying it to Vicky’s soles. The twins laughed like maniacs in two-part harmony, tears of laughter rolling down their cheeks.
Vicky and Veronica laughed and laughed as Brittany flicked the brushes back and forth across their toes and soles, up and down from toes to heels and back again, then figure eight's on both pairs of feet. She switched to brushing in big circles covering both feet, and that was the worst, because once on every circle it got THE SPOT – the same as her own, in the arches just in front of the heels and onto the heels behind. Every time the brushes flicked the sweet spots, Brittany gave them a few extra quick strokes, and the laughter went off the scale. Both twins laughed their heads off, red-faced, streams of laughter pouring out of them.
“I like it when you girls do things together,” Mom said. Her daughters had her coloring and features – Brittany knew she would look like this in another 25 yrs or so.
Brittany quit and grinned at Mom. “Me too,” she said. “Care to watch?”
“Some other time – I’m sure there’ll be one,” Mom said. “Have fun, girls!”
“Time to laugh some more,” Brittany said, and tickled both pairs of feet. The tickling bristles flicked their soles, side to side, up and down. Veronica and Vicky arched their backs and laughed like maniacs. They were past being able to struggle, unable to resist the fiendish tickling or even form a coherent thought. Their toes twitched and curled as they laughed and laughed.
Brittany stopped. “OK, that’ll do,” she said, a little regretfully. She laid the brushes down and rinsed off the soap with a few splashes of water.
“My butt’s... getting wet... ” Veronica gasped.
“Sorry,” Brittany said insincerely. She flicked her well-manicured nails on the 2 on Veronica’s left sole. “Now to kill some time ‘til they’re dry... ”
“Hehehe! Give me– haha! –a break!” Veronica begged and giggled. “HAHAHA-HAHA-HAHAHAHA!”
“Vicky, you’re way too quiet,” said Brittany, and gave her inky sole crease the same treatment with her other hand.
“Eep!” Vicky squealed. “WAH-HAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHA!”
“Ooh! I guess that really, really tickles!” Brittany said. She tickled side to side across both pairs of soles, over and over, watching their toes twitch and curl. She danced her nail tips in their arches, and the twins laughed like madwomen. Her tickling fingernails flicked and scratched the sweet spots again –their musical stereo laughter filled the air.
Brittany stopped again. “I guess I tickled ‘em dry,” she said cheerfully. “Hanging in there?”
“Oh... Ghod... ” Vicky gasped. Brittany was right-handed – Vicky had gotten the worst of it. But Veronica wasn’t much better off.
“Well, good, ‘cause I figured out what I need to do,” Brittany said. “The guys used a blue pen, but all I could find was black – it’ll take a litttle more effort to cover it up, but I can handle it.”
“Couldn’t... find... a blue... pen...?” Veronica said, scowling.
Brittany grinned. “Nope. Not that I looked all that hard. Now let’s see... ” The 2 was a script type, with a loop at the bottom – Brittany picked up the pen, held back Veronica’s toes and closed the open side of the number with a left parenthesis, making a letter Q. Veronica laughed helplessly at the top of her lungs.
“Really tickles, doesen’t it?” Brittany said. “Are we having fun yet?” She thickened and darkened the circle, enjoying the laughter, taking care to cover up every bit of blue ink.
Brittany paused again. Veronica giggled, breathless and sweaty, coming down off the tickle high. She blinked away tears and took a long deep breath. “Is... that... it?”
“Nope,” Brittany said. She went over the tail of the Q and extended it into the arch just behind the sole crease. That was an especially ticklish spot, so she gave it some extra attention. Then a heavy black line along the sole crease, making multiple passes and driving Veronica wild. Finally, another heavy line on the soft skin under the toes, side to side, just touching the top of the line on the sole crease, making a letter T. Veronica laughed, and laughed, and laughed some more.
And then Brittany had a brainstorm. She added the finishing touch, drawing a fast figure-eight on the sweet spot, then lines for hair, closed eyes, tears and laughing mouths – twin ticklish smileys. That finished it – Veronica laughed herself breathless.
“That was mean, Brittany,” Vicky said crossly. “Look at her – she’s wiped out.”
“Just like I was this morning,” Brittany said, unrepentant. She held back Vicky’s toes. “It’s your turn – get ready to laugh!”
And laugh she did! Brittany started under Vicky’s toes, merging the line with the top of the roman I and turning it into a T. She darkened the line in the sole crease – hey, gotta cover up the blue, right? – getting great reactions and a flood of laughter. Vicky was maybe a hair more ticklish than her twin – Brittany cheated a little, and circled a nail tip in the spot behind the sole crease. Vicky laughed helplessly, uncontrollably, eyes closed, tears streaming.
It won’t do to repeat Vicky’s mistake, thought Brittany, so she eased off – Vicky was just giggling now. “Doin’ OK?” she asked.
“Ah-haha-haha! You finished– hehe! –tickling– haheha! –me? Hehehe!”
“Half-way there,” Brittany answered, and circled the pen tip around the ball of Vicky’s foot. Vicky bucked and squirmed and laughed her head off. Brittany kept it up, matching the mark on Veronica, savoring the ticklish laughter. Then the tail of the Q, merging it with the base of the T, and Vicky’s laughter went off the charts.
“Ease up, she’s turning purple!” Veronica said.
“Spoilsport!” Brittany said, but she quit. Vicky took a deep, shaky breath. “Break’s over!” And now, the finishing touch to my revenge...
Brittany attacked the sweet spot on the unmarked foot. “Hey, that’s– HAHAHA-HAHAHA-HAHA-HAHAHA!” Vicky laughed, cutting off her protest. She was very near the limit of her endurance. Brittany duplicated Veronica’s twin laughing smileys on Vicky, then dropped the pen and finished with a two-handed spider walk in the sweet spots. Vicky ran out of air, tickled breathless.
Brittany admired her handiwork. Both twins now had a matching QT on the left foot – “cutie”. But Veronica’s laughing-twins smiley was on the left foot – Vicky’s was on the right. “Aw shit, I screwed up,” she said, feeling uncommonly pleased with herself. “Well, I’ll fix it,” she added, picking up the pen again.
“No you won’t!” Veronica said, reaching up to untie her ankles. “You just about tickled us to death!”
Brittany got to work on Vicky’s ankle bonds. “I tried,” she said. Payback is a bitch, she thought.
Veronica inspected her inky sole, wincing a little – her abs must be pretty sore. She checked Vicky’s feet and saw the twin smileys on the right foot. “You did that on purpose,” she said accusingly.
“Moi?” Brittany said, the picture of wounded innocence. “Would I do that to you?”
“Fuckin’... A... you... would... ” Vicky said breathlessly. Already her color was better. “Oh well... Thanks, I guess.”
“You’re welcome,” Brittany said. “Pool’s clean enough – I’m gonna change into my swimsuit.”
Brittany heard laughter from poolside when she came out onto the back porch in her bikini. Veronica was on her tummy, with her feet in Vicky’s lap. Vicky was inking a twin-smiley on Veronica’s unmarked right foot and tickling like crazy. Brittany paused on the porch to watch, but Vicky was finished, it seemed. She quit and rubbed the tickled foot. “OK, my turn,” she said, handing Veronica the pen.
The twins switched places. Vicky laughed again as Veronica drew matching smileys on her left foot. Not bad for a day’s work, Brittany thought smugly. I got to tickle ‘em both, and they asked me to do it! And then they had to tickle each other to fix my “mistake”...
“Hey, I just thought of something,” Brittany called out as she walked toward the twins. “I leave for college next Wednesday. Today was your last Tickle Time ‘til Thanksgiving. Hope you enjoyed it.”
Veronica finished and laid the pen down. “Stick it in your ear,” she said. “C’mon, Vicky, let’s get our swim suits on too, and wash off some of this sweat.”
Brittany launched an air mattress and drifted, working on her tan. The twins came back and paddled around in the water, nothing too active. Brittany understood – her abs were sore too.
The morning got hotter. Brittany slipped off the raft and submerged to cool off. She surfaced, climbed out of the pool and went inside to get a Coke. Returning, she sat in one of the chairs.
“You could’ve got us some drinks too,” Vicky called out.
“Didn’t know you wanted ‘em,” Brittany answered.
“Never mind,” Veronica said, climbing out of the pool. “I’ll get ‘em.”
Vicky got out too. “Getting waterlogged,” she remarked. She sat beside Brittany and inspected her well-inked left sole. “Cutie. Grandpa called us that.”
“He called me Trixie,” Brittany said. “He thought I’m tricky, I guess.”
“You always were one for mischief,” Vicky agreed. “But– ”
“You’re not the only one,” Veronica said from behind, and suddenly Brittany was trapped in her chair by a round, donut-style pool float, pinned to the chair back with her arms pinned to her sides.
“Thought you were gonna get away with it, didn’t you?” Vicky asked, shifting her chair around to Brittany’s front.
“Yah,” Brittany said glumly. “Guess not, huh?”
“Nope,” Veronica said. She took a seat facing Vicky. “Might as well give ‘em here.”
Brittany sighed and put a foot in each lap. “What about our understanding?”
Each twin trapped an ankle in a simple leg lock – that gave them both hands free to tickle. “You outsmarted us today,” Vicky said.
“We didn’t think to put any limits on what you did,” Veronica amplified.
“So you took advantage– ”
“ –and tickled the– ”
“ –shit out of us– ”
“ –and that’s OK because– ”
“ –we asked for it,” they said together.
“Then why– ” Brittany started, puzzled.
“Because you overdid it– ” Vicky interrupted.
“ –with the twin smiley-faces– ” Veronica added.
“ –and that pissed us off,” they finished in chorus. “Tickle tickle, Little Sis!”
Vicky led off, guitar-chording Brittany’s left sole and tickling like crazy. Veronica joined in, spider-walking her nail tips up and down the crease in the middle of Brittany’s right sole. Brittany arched her back and howled with forced mirth, toes twitching and curling, trying desperately to pull her feet away.
Veronica spread Brittany’s toes and scratched in between, tickling between each pair – Brittany let out a extra-loud burst of laughter each time. Not to be outdone, Vicky made a Peace sign and zig-zagged the nails on the ball of Brittany’s foot and along the sole crease. Veronica spider-walked her nails up and down the arch, making little contact but driving Brittany wild. Vicky matched her – synchronized tickling, one of their specialties. The overload of tickling sucked away Brittany’s strength – she was helpless now, red-faced and sweaty, laughing her head off. It couldn’t get any worse, could it?
It could, and it did. Vicky tickled the sweet spot – four nail strokes in succession, three times a second, and the laughter went up a notch. Veronica did her one better – same technique two-handed, back arch and sole, and Brittany’s laughter went off the charts. Again, Vicky matched her twin, and the tickling filled Brittany’s universe. They’ll tickle me to death, she thought despairingly, laughing at the top of her lungs.
She was a mess when they finished with her – limp and sweaty, tickled out, hair in tangles, face streaked with tears. Her throat was desert-dry – her abs felt like they had been beaten with a board. Her feet still tingled from the tickling, but she knew better than to rub them – the twins considered that bad form, and would have tickled her again.
And worst of all, she thought, I had it coming – those twin smileys were a prime example of the Dopeler Effect at work. This time, I outsmarted myself.
***THE END***
Copyright 2009 by the author
Dramatis Personae (in order of appearance)
Brittany Righetti
Brittany is 18, and has lived on Tickle Street all her life. She has long dark hair and brown eyes, a beautiful Italian face and features, curves in all the right places. She has a bit of an attitude, but it can quickly be destroyed if she's tickled. She's horribly ticklish, and her twin older sisters always take advantage of that.
Vicky and Veronica Righetti
They’re “mirror twins” – identical, but Vicky is a lefty (Latin “sinister”) and her twin Veronica is right handed. They’re 20 yrs old, medium height, with very trim and fit figures that they maintain by martial arts. They have wavy dark brown hair worn shoulder length, dark brows and lashes, brown eyes. They’re Jedi Masters of tickling, and super-ticklish too – they’ve been tickling each other for years.
********************
Everybody has experienced the Doppler Effect – a familiar example is the train whistle. The tone has a higher pitch when the train is speeding toward you than when it is standing still; the faster the train, the higher the pitch.
A similar effect, just as real, applies to human psychology rather than atmospheric physics. Most of us have experienced that one too...
Brittany Righetti woke up to sudden disorientation. She tried to move her arms, but they were pinned to her sides. She felt fingernails just touching the soles of her bare feet.
Her eyes fluttered open. She was rolled up in her blankets. The sky outside the window was bright with morning light – the clock on the nightstand said 7:45. Brittany saw her sister Vicky grinning mischievously down on her. She didn’t see Veronica, Vicky’s twin, but knew those were her fingernails at her feet.
Like Brittany, the twins were tanned Mediterranean beauties, with dark hair, dark brows and lashes, brown eyes. They were two years older, a little taller, wore their hair shoulder length as opposed to Brittany’s nearly waist-length mane. But still the family resemblance was a strong one. They had already showered – as usual, they were dressed alike. Jeans shorts and black tube tops today, and probably barefoot, not that it does me any good, thought Brittany.
It was a Saturday morning, like every other for as far back as Brittany could remember. Brittany had a deal with the twins, no less firm for being unwritten. They tickled her silly every Saturday morning, but unless she instigated it, they left her alone the rest of the week. She thought sometimes that 70 years from now, they would stump into her nursing-home room on their walkers to tickle her arthritic feet. She didn’t bother to struggle – they had her, and she knew it.
“Good morning, little sis!” the twins chorused. “D’you know what time it is?”
“Yah, it’s Tickle Time,” Brittany said sourly. “Getting a late start, are we?”
“My, you’re grumpy this morning,” Vicky said.
“Morning grumps piss us off,” Veronica said.
“Got to make ‘em laugh,” the twins said in chorus.
“OK, OK, I’m smiling,” Brittany said, forcing a smile and trying to postpone the inevitable. “See?”
“You can do better than that,” Veronica said, and gave one foot a little tickle.
“Hehehe! Just get it over with,” Brittany said and giggled.
Veronica sat on the bed and trapped Brittany’s ankles in a leg lock. “Time to laugh,” she said cheerfully, and dug in, tickling fiendishly. Brittany arched her back and laughed at the top of her lungs.
Veronica covered Brittany’s soles with tiny flicks, using just her nail tips and making just enough contact to tickle horribly. She switched to longer nail strokes along the crease in the exact center of the right sole – Brittany’s toes twitched and curled as she laughed her head off. The left sole got the same treatment, forcing a solid stream of helpless laughter. Then in the arches, just behind the soles, tickling with both hands – Brittany howled with forced mirth, helpless to resist the well-techniqued tickling.
Veronica drew overlapping circles down both arches, tickling like crazy. She drew circles, squares and other tickling shape on Brittany’s heels, savoring the laughter – Brittany was red faced and sweaty, eyes closed, tears of laughter running down her cheeks, right on the edge. Veronica saved the best for last – two hands again, tickling the back of the arches and onto the heels. Those were the sweet spots, where it tickled unbearably – Brittany’s laughter went off the scale.
Veronica gave Brittany a break. “You awake yet, Little Sis?” she asked, releasing the leg lock.
Brittany took a deep, shaky breath. “Yah... ” she said breathlessly. “That tickled... so much... ”
“It’s supposed to,” Vicky said, taking Veronica’s place. “Ready for Round 2?” She circled a single nail around the ball of Brittany’s foot – it tickled maddeningly.
“Not re– hehehe! –eally,” Brittany said and giggled. “AH-HAHAHA! HAHA-HAHAHA!” she laughed as Vicky got down to business, tickling with verve and gusto.
“Go easy,” Veronica advised. “She’ll last longer if you do.”
“Anything worth doing is worth overdoing,” Vicky said, raising her voice over Brittany’s laughter. “Right, Little Sis?”
But Brittany was laughing much too hard to answer – all she could do was lay there and laugh.
Vicky spread Brittany’s toes, two by two, tickling between each pair and getting burst after burst of laughter. She held the toes back and tickled left to right on the soft skin underneath, then onto the stretched out soles in a zig-zag path right to left. The tickling had sensitized Brittany’s feet – she was laughing harder now. Vicky took full advantage, made a Peace sign and scratched the balls of both feet, and Brittany laughed with wild abandon.
Vicky guitar-chorded Brittany’s heels, and musical laughter poured out in a flood. She drew circles, squares and other tickling shapes on both arches, covering the sensitive skin with unbearable tickling. Then a two-handed spider-walk in the sweet spots, tickling at warp speed, and tickled Brittany into red-faced, gasping silent laughter.
“Oops!” Vicky said. “Looks like I got too eager.” She released Brittany and unrolled her. “Oh well, it was fun – for me, anyway. See you at breakfast.”
Brittany thought it over while she showered, but came to the same conclusion she always did. Gotta get even, but they’ve got me outnumbered so there’s no fighting them. Can’t outrun ‘em either, so I’ll have to outsmart ‘em.
Fortunately, that wasn’t difficult. The twins were as bright as she was, but they lacked her talent for misdirection and mischief.
She came downstairs for breakfast in shorts and t-shirt. Like her sisters, she didn’t bother with shoes. Mom and Dad didn’t comment on the tickle fest. Tickling was just part of life in this family – every female member of their extended family was a tickle maniac.
The girls got to work doing maintenance on their backyard pool after breakfast – skimming the leaves and drowned bugs off the surface, vacuuming, adding a little chlorine. They took a break after a while. The twins claimed two of the poolside chairs, set another between them, and sat with their feet propped up on the arms of the third chair.
Brittany checked out their feet – a little dirty, as expected, but both twins had some sort of dark mark on the soles of their left feet. She sat in the foot-rest chair between them and looked closer.
“What’s this?” Brittany asked, circling a nail tip on the ball of Veronica’s foot.
“Hahaha! What’s it look like?” Veronica said.
“A number 2. And this?” flicking gently along the crease in the middle of Vicky’s sole.
“Hehe-haha! A Roman numeral I,” Veronica said and giggled. “Hehehe! Quit!”
Brittany shifted in her chair, getting ready to run for it. “Relax,” Vicky said. “You’re safe ‘til next Saturday.”
Veronica added a caveat: “Unless, of course, you piss us off.”
“Tickling our feet– ” Vicky started.
“ –would piss us off,” Veronica completed the thought.
Some people found their tag-team conversation style disorienting and vaguely disturbing, as if the twins shared a telepathic mind-link, but Brittany was used to it. She raised both hands in surrender. “OK, OK, I won’t do it again,” she lied.
Vicky looked at her twin, and a silent message passed between them. “You get a pass,” they said together.
Brittany visibly relaxed. “So what’s the deal?” she asked.
Another look, like mirror images, and Vicky spoke for both. “We were messing with our boyfriends yesterday. Answering to each other’s names, randomly trading shirts to keep them guessing, that kind of thing.”
Brittany knew all about that game, though she knew them too well to be fooled. “And so?” she prompted.
“They tickle-tortured the truth out of us,” Vicky said. “I’m the first-born, so David put that Roman I on my foot. In ink. Daniel gave Veronica the 2.”
“So they can check the foot notes, huh?” Brittany said. She knew all too well how much that tickled.
“Uh-huh. We hate to let the guys get the best of us, but it won’t wash off – it has to wear off.”
The Devil bit Brittany on the butt. “You’re thinking about it all wrong,” she said. “Think of it like a cattle brand, in those old Westerns we used to watch with Grandpa. That won’t come off either, because it’s scar tissue. But cattle rustlers had a way of– ”
“Running iron,” the twins chorused.
“Yup – change it to something else,” Brittany said. “I’ll take care of it,” she added quickly.
Another exchanged glance, and a short pause. “OK. It was your idea, so why not?” Veronica said for both.
Brittany stood up – she gave both pairs of feet a quick tickle, and was rewarded with a stereo giggle. “Go lay down on the lounge chairs – backward, with your feet up. I’ll be right back.” I outsmarted ‘em, she thought gleefully – I get to tickle ‘em to death, and they asked me to do it! Must be the Dopeler Effect, that odd tendency for dopey bad ideas to seem like good ones if they come at you fast enough...
The twins were side by side, feet up, when Brittany returned. She dragged a small table over and laid out her gear – a jar of warm soapy water, a ball-point pen, two old-fashioned badger-bristle shaving brushes that had belonged to Grandpa. She pulled two pairs of old nylons out of a pocket, tied their ankles together and tied them off to the tube frames at the top of the loungers. “Don’t want you two moving around too much,” she explained. She dipped a brush in the water and flicked the bristles on Veronica’s inky sole – Veronica squirmed like a worm and laughed her head off.
“What d’you think you’re doing?” Vicky demanded. The twins were holding hands – Veronica’s knuckles were white with the strength of her grip.
“Might as well start with a clean slate,” Brittany answered. She worked her way across both soles, brush-tickling fiendishly and making Veronica laugh like mad.
“You’re enjoying it too much,” Vicky said over her twin’s ticklish laughter.
“Busted,” Brittany admitted, brushing a tickling figure-eight in Veronica’s arches with her left hand. “You talk too much,” she added, dipping the second brush and applying it to Vicky’s soles. The twins laughed like maniacs in two-part harmony, tears of laughter rolling down their cheeks.
Vicky and Veronica laughed and laughed as Brittany flicked the brushes back and forth across their toes and soles, up and down from toes to heels and back again, then figure eight's on both pairs of feet. She switched to brushing in big circles covering both feet, and that was the worst, because once on every circle it got THE SPOT – the same as her own, in the arches just in front of the heels and onto the heels behind. Every time the brushes flicked the sweet spots, Brittany gave them a few extra quick strokes, and the laughter went off the scale. Both twins laughed their heads off, red-faced, streams of laughter pouring out of them.
“I like it when you girls do things together,” Mom said. Her daughters had her coloring and features – Brittany knew she would look like this in another 25 yrs or so.
Brittany quit and grinned at Mom. “Me too,” she said. “Care to watch?”
“Some other time – I’m sure there’ll be one,” Mom said. “Have fun, girls!”
“Time to laugh some more,” Brittany said, and tickled both pairs of feet. The tickling bristles flicked their soles, side to side, up and down. Veronica and Vicky arched their backs and laughed like maniacs. They were past being able to struggle, unable to resist the fiendish tickling or even form a coherent thought. Their toes twitched and curled as they laughed and laughed.
Brittany stopped. “OK, that’ll do,” she said, a little regretfully. She laid the brushes down and rinsed off the soap with a few splashes of water.
“My butt’s... getting wet... ” Veronica gasped.
“Sorry,” Brittany said insincerely. She flicked her well-manicured nails on the 2 on Veronica’s left sole. “Now to kill some time ‘til they’re dry... ”
“Hehehe! Give me– haha! –a break!” Veronica begged and giggled. “HAHAHA-HAHA-HAHAHAHA!”
“Vicky, you’re way too quiet,” said Brittany, and gave her inky sole crease the same treatment with her other hand.
“Eep!” Vicky squealed. “WAH-HAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHA!”
“Ooh! I guess that really, really tickles!” Brittany said. She tickled side to side across both pairs of soles, over and over, watching their toes twitch and curl. She danced her nail tips in their arches, and the twins laughed like madwomen. Her tickling fingernails flicked and scratched the sweet spots again –their musical stereo laughter filled the air.
Brittany stopped again. “I guess I tickled ‘em dry,” she said cheerfully. “Hanging in there?”
“Oh... Ghod... ” Vicky gasped. Brittany was right-handed – Vicky had gotten the worst of it. But Veronica wasn’t much better off.
“Well, good, ‘cause I figured out what I need to do,” Brittany said. “The guys used a blue pen, but all I could find was black – it’ll take a litttle more effort to cover it up, but I can handle it.”
“Couldn’t... find... a blue... pen...?” Veronica said, scowling.
Brittany grinned. “Nope. Not that I looked all that hard. Now let’s see... ” The 2 was a script type, with a loop at the bottom – Brittany picked up the pen, held back Veronica’s toes and closed the open side of the number with a left parenthesis, making a letter Q. Veronica laughed helplessly at the top of her lungs.
“Really tickles, doesen’t it?” Brittany said. “Are we having fun yet?” She thickened and darkened the circle, enjoying the laughter, taking care to cover up every bit of blue ink.
Brittany paused again. Veronica giggled, breathless and sweaty, coming down off the tickle high. She blinked away tears and took a long deep breath. “Is... that... it?”
“Nope,” Brittany said. She went over the tail of the Q and extended it into the arch just behind the sole crease. That was an especially ticklish spot, so she gave it some extra attention. Then a heavy black line along the sole crease, making multiple passes and driving Veronica wild. Finally, another heavy line on the soft skin under the toes, side to side, just touching the top of the line on the sole crease, making a letter T. Veronica laughed, and laughed, and laughed some more.
And then Brittany had a brainstorm. She added the finishing touch, drawing a fast figure-eight on the sweet spot, then lines for hair, closed eyes, tears and laughing mouths – twin ticklish smileys. That finished it – Veronica laughed herself breathless.
“That was mean, Brittany,” Vicky said crossly. “Look at her – she’s wiped out.”
“Just like I was this morning,” Brittany said, unrepentant. She held back Vicky’s toes. “It’s your turn – get ready to laugh!”
And laugh she did! Brittany started under Vicky’s toes, merging the line with the top of the roman I and turning it into a T. She darkened the line in the sole crease – hey, gotta cover up the blue, right? – getting great reactions and a flood of laughter. Vicky was maybe a hair more ticklish than her twin – Brittany cheated a little, and circled a nail tip in the spot behind the sole crease. Vicky laughed helplessly, uncontrollably, eyes closed, tears streaming.
It won’t do to repeat Vicky’s mistake, thought Brittany, so she eased off – Vicky was just giggling now. “Doin’ OK?” she asked.
“Ah-haha-haha! You finished– hehe! –tickling– haheha! –me? Hehehe!”
“Half-way there,” Brittany answered, and circled the pen tip around the ball of Vicky’s foot. Vicky bucked and squirmed and laughed her head off. Brittany kept it up, matching the mark on Veronica, savoring the ticklish laughter. Then the tail of the Q, merging it with the base of the T, and Vicky’s laughter went off the charts.
“Ease up, she’s turning purple!” Veronica said.
“Spoilsport!” Brittany said, but she quit. Vicky took a deep, shaky breath. “Break’s over!” And now, the finishing touch to my revenge...
Brittany attacked the sweet spot on the unmarked foot. “Hey, that’s– HAHAHA-HAHAHA-HAHA-HAHAHA!” Vicky laughed, cutting off her protest. She was very near the limit of her endurance. Brittany duplicated Veronica’s twin laughing smileys on Vicky, then dropped the pen and finished with a two-handed spider walk in the sweet spots. Vicky ran out of air, tickled breathless.
Brittany admired her handiwork. Both twins now had a matching QT on the left foot – “cutie”. But Veronica’s laughing-twins smiley was on the left foot – Vicky’s was on the right. “Aw shit, I screwed up,” she said, feeling uncommonly pleased with herself. “Well, I’ll fix it,” she added, picking up the pen again.
“No you won’t!” Veronica said, reaching up to untie her ankles. “You just about tickled us to death!”
Brittany got to work on Vicky’s ankle bonds. “I tried,” she said. Payback is a bitch, she thought.
Veronica inspected her inky sole, wincing a little – her abs must be pretty sore. She checked Vicky’s feet and saw the twin smileys on the right foot. “You did that on purpose,” she said accusingly.
“Moi?” Brittany said, the picture of wounded innocence. “Would I do that to you?”
“Fuckin’... A... you... would... ” Vicky said breathlessly. Already her color was better. “Oh well... Thanks, I guess.”
“You’re welcome,” Brittany said. “Pool’s clean enough – I’m gonna change into my swimsuit.”
Brittany heard laughter from poolside when she came out onto the back porch in her bikini. Veronica was on her tummy, with her feet in Vicky’s lap. Vicky was inking a twin-smiley on Veronica’s unmarked right foot and tickling like crazy. Brittany paused on the porch to watch, but Vicky was finished, it seemed. She quit and rubbed the tickled foot. “OK, my turn,” she said, handing Veronica the pen.
The twins switched places. Vicky laughed again as Veronica drew matching smileys on her left foot. Not bad for a day’s work, Brittany thought smugly. I got to tickle ‘em both, and they asked me to do it! And then they had to tickle each other to fix my “mistake”...
“Hey, I just thought of something,” Brittany called out as she walked toward the twins. “I leave for college next Wednesday. Today was your last Tickle Time ‘til Thanksgiving. Hope you enjoyed it.”
Veronica finished and laid the pen down. “Stick it in your ear,” she said. “C’mon, Vicky, let’s get our swim suits on too, and wash off some of this sweat.”
Brittany launched an air mattress and drifted, working on her tan. The twins came back and paddled around in the water, nothing too active. Brittany understood – her abs were sore too.
The morning got hotter. Brittany slipped off the raft and submerged to cool off. She surfaced, climbed out of the pool and went inside to get a Coke. Returning, she sat in one of the chairs.
“You could’ve got us some drinks too,” Vicky called out.
“Didn’t know you wanted ‘em,” Brittany answered.
“Never mind,” Veronica said, climbing out of the pool. “I’ll get ‘em.”
Vicky got out too. “Getting waterlogged,” she remarked. She sat beside Brittany and inspected her well-inked left sole. “Cutie. Grandpa called us that.”
“He called me Trixie,” Brittany said. “He thought I’m tricky, I guess.”
“You always were one for mischief,” Vicky agreed. “But– ”
“You’re not the only one,” Veronica said from behind, and suddenly Brittany was trapped in her chair by a round, donut-style pool float, pinned to the chair back with her arms pinned to her sides.
“Thought you were gonna get away with it, didn’t you?” Vicky asked, shifting her chair around to Brittany’s front.
“Yah,” Brittany said glumly. “Guess not, huh?”
“Nope,” Veronica said. She took a seat facing Vicky. “Might as well give ‘em here.”
Brittany sighed and put a foot in each lap. “What about our understanding?”
Each twin trapped an ankle in a simple leg lock – that gave them both hands free to tickle. “You outsmarted us today,” Vicky said.
“We didn’t think to put any limits on what you did,” Veronica amplified.
“So you took advantage– ”
“ –and tickled the– ”
“ –shit out of us– ”
“ –and that’s OK because– ”
“ –we asked for it,” they said together.
“Then why– ” Brittany started, puzzled.
“Because you overdid it– ” Vicky interrupted.
“ –with the twin smiley-faces– ” Veronica added.
“ –and that pissed us off,” they finished in chorus. “Tickle tickle, Little Sis!”
Vicky led off, guitar-chording Brittany’s left sole and tickling like crazy. Veronica joined in, spider-walking her nail tips up and down the crease in the middle of Brittany’s right sole. Brittany arched her back and howled with forced mirth, toes twitching and curling, trying desperately to pull her feet away.
Veronica spread Brittany’s toes and scratched in between, tickling between each pair – Brittany let out a extra-loud burst of laughter each time. Not to be outdone, Vicky made a Peace sign and zig-zagged the nails on the ball of Brittany’s foot and along the sole crease. Veronica spider-walked her nails up and down the arch, making little contact but driving Brittany wild. Vicky matched her – synchronized tickling, one of their specialties. The overload of tickling sucked away Brittany’s strength – she was helpless now, red-faced and sweaty, laughing her head off. It couldn’t get any worse, could it?
It could, and it did. Vicky tickled the sweet spot – four nail strokes in succession, three times a second, and the laughter went up a notch. Veronica did her one better – same technique two-handed, back arch and sole, and Brittany’s laughter went off the charts. Again, Vicky matched her twin, and the tickling filled Brittany’s universe. They’ll tickle me to death, she thought despairingly, laughing at the top of her lungs.
She was a mess when they finished with her – limp and sweaty, tickled out, hair in tangles, face streaked with tears. Her throat was desert-dry – her abs felt like they had been beaten with a board. Her feet still tingled from the tickling, but she knew better than to rub them – the twins considered that bad form, and would have tickled her again.
And worst of all, she thought, I had it coming – those twin smileys were a prime example of the Dopeler Effect at work. This time, I outsmarted myself.
***THE END***
