Capt. Spalding
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***The following F>M, M>F tickle tale is copyright 2002 by the author. All rights reserved, and a great many lefts, as well.
***This tale, with its modest sexual gymnastics, is intended only for readers 18 years and older. (I know how to scare away the minors. Ahem! The protagonists in this tale are…MARRIED. Wow! Look at ‘em run! Works every time. Reminds ‘em of their parents.)
We all know the old saw about the advantage of starting the day with a good breakfast. Our hopelessly amorous, helplessly ticklish couple returns with a more titillating way to wake up.
Stephanie and Simon
in
ALARM CLOCK? HAH!
by Tee Hee Lawrence
Tuesday morning dawned cold and clear. Stephanie stood at the steamy kitchen window overlooking her backyard garden, remembering the tall, laden tomato plants and lush herb plots of the previous summer. She was snug in her ankle-length, thick, white terrycloth robe and banana yellow woolen slipper socks (and nothing else—for she had just enjoyed a luxurious hot shower). Still, she shivered and hugged her sides in sympathy for her garden, sleeping beneath a thin blanket of pristine snow. She reached for her mug of Morning Thunder tea, steaming on the breakfast nook. Taking a deep quaff, she almost purred as its charged warmth spread through her.
During the workweek--though she usually didn’t have to be in the office or court until much later in the morning--she habitually arose at 5 A.M., trying to catch up on case paperwork as the night gently surrendered to sunrise. If the backlog of court documents seemed reasonable, she would work on a chapter of the legal thriller she’d started writing last summer.
The debut novel starring beautiful and brilliant Rosalind Steppenwolf, maverick counselor-at-law, was coming in fits and starts. Steph had come up with a crackerjack springboard, based on a rare legal technicality, during a beer-and Sangria-fueled conversation at her firm’s last Memorial Day cookout. She hit upon an unbeatable courtroom ending while waiting out a long jury deliberation in July. Since then, she’d been hammering away at the body of the novel, between her dynamite opening and her wow finish. When she rose early to write, she could avoid any well-meant kibitzing from her whodunit-happy husband, Simon, who was most definitely NOT an eager, early riser.
Steph felt proprietary towards her novel’s protagonist. Roz was described as a rich-figured 5’, 8”, and possessing long, strawberry-blond bangs, luminous large blue-gray eyes, shapely legs, graceful hands and feet, and a warm, full-lipped smile to melt the frost off of any judge. It just so happened that the character bore an uncanny, only slightly idealized physical resemblance to the author. Roz’s iron will, headlong fearlessness, and oft-indulged penchant for sexual and swashbuckling adventure, however, were character traits that beguiled her envious creator. Steph found herself laboring longer and harder over Roz’s character, dialogue, and personal life than over the persnickety technical details that supposedly drove detective fiction.
She wasn’t sure how long she had stood there, gazing out the window while she said aloud softly the dialogue she’d written for Roz that morning. All she knew was that when she glanced at the panda clock over the breakfast nook, the time was 7:28. And Simon had made her swear the night before that she would unfailingly, hope-to-die-a-horrible-death-by-a-means-he-the reader-of-a-1000-mysteries-would-devise, awaken him no later, not-one-minute-past 7:30! He had a major audit to present to the executives of a key account downtown at the unholy hour of nine sharp. She chugged the remaining tea and sprinted upstairs to Rip Van Winkle’s lair.
After absurdly (considering what she had come to do) tiptoeing into the bedroom, Stephanie stood over her snoozing husband. They’d been married almost a year, but she still got a little misty-eyed and sappy with affection for her banty rooster when she came upon him this way. He was lying on his stomach, with his left cheek resting on his pillow. His left arm extended so that his hand hung out limply over the side of the bed. He was snoring softly into his pillow. He looked like a rambunctious little boy who’d unwillingly surrendered to sleep but eventually given himself entirely over to it. She couldn’t resist bending over him and softly kissing him on his right temple. She felt her pleasure center begin to tingle as she kissed him lightly along his cheek.
She had hoped that, even as it was exciting her, it might at least begin to awaken him, but, no, he didn’t stir at all. She smiled. Simon really did sleep like a log. He himself often joked that the only way to wake up a log was to dynamite it. She stood by his bedside table, contemplating such violent means (like taking her grandmother’s heirloom alarm clock from the dresser and setting it ringing—“’Loud enough to wake the dead!” her grandfather used to moan—next to his ear). She was sure, though, that she hadn’t the heart to do that to such a sweet sleeper.
A glance across the bed at the Daliesque “melted clock” on her bedside table told her that it was 7:35. He would be perfectly pissed, she thought, if she didn’t wake him soon. At the same time, Simon hated being awakened by shrill alarms or blaring clock radios. He claimed that being so violently pulled from sleep discolored his entire day. He counted on her to wake him promptly, decisively, but gently.
Hovering over his ear, she called out, tentatively, “Simon, hon’. Time to get up!” The log lay unmoved. 7:36. Time to get serious.
Standing tall, she cleared her throat, she said—in a slightly modulated version of her ringing courtroom voice, “Simon, rise and shine! It’s past 7:30.” Nada. Was it premature to consider going downstairs, getting an ice cube, and sliding it down his back? No, she decided. It might cause him to leap out the window. She wanted him up, but not necessarily down and out and in traction. 7:37. Postpone procrastination.
Moving closer to his bedside table--intending to kneel beside him, nuzzle his neck with her cold nose, nibble his earlobe, and croon “Good morning, Starshine!” directly into his ear, she accidentally knocked his current bedtime mystery to the floor. Picking it up, she noted that the title was MORNING GORY. She winced and shook her head. Surely, she thought, such a pun was in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On further consideration, however, she realized that that title could be most apt in this home if she didn’t awaken him soon. 7:38. Drastic measures might be necessary.
She was about to place the book back on the table when she noticed the tip of a goose quill extending above the top edge. She opened the book and saw that the nub, not to mention the blade of the quill, was stained with blue ink. The once pristine white feather was the sole vestige of Simon’s brief flirtation with handwriting notes to friends “as they did in Mozart’s day.” What a mess he’d made with fountain ink and sealing wax, before he quickly returned to impulsive, acronym-choked e-mails. Now, the broad, stiff quill had been reduced to the role of bookmark, except for those occasions when he used it to tickle her nose as she was drifting off to sleep beside him. 7:39. Inspiration sought.
Steph began to close the book over the feather when she froze. She looked over at Simon’s sweetly sleeping form and smiled mischievously. “Why not?” she thought. “Tickling’s as good a way as any to rouse him, and it IS…gentle. Sort of.” She bit her lip as she did what to Simon was unconscionable: she folded the corner of the page the quill marked so that he wouldn’t lose his place. She removed the quill and closed the book, settling it back on his bedside table next to the Buddha with the tiny glowing clock face in its belly.
Kneeling beside him, she stroked the palm of his dangling hand with the feather. She gently circled the feather tip inside his earlobe. She swept the blade under his goatee. To all of this, he imperceptibly moved in response. “Well,” she thought, “these just aren’t his spots. I’M deathly ticklish ALL over. I’m probably the only person alive with ticklish kneecaps. But Simon is ticklish in only a FEW spots. Happily, in those spots, he’s OFF the scale.” She knew that she would have far greater success—and more fun—at his other end. She chuckled and walked to the foot of the bed. 7:40. No more Ms. Nice Wife.
She grabbed the edge of the gray down comforter and pulled it back over the foot of the bed, over Simon’s still form, until one edge met the other at his shoulder. Then she yanked the sky blue sheet tucked under the foot of the bed and pulled it back until it rested, furled, upon the doubled comforter. Simon’s torso, clad in red-striped pajama bottoms, was revealed to his waist. Steph smiled and shook her head, marveling that she could have so easily displaced the comforter and the sheet without his even stirring.
She knelt by the foot of the bed and contemplated his pale, upturned soles, placed almost parallel about sixteen inches apart. Simon’s feet were, unlike his muscular 5’, 6”, bantamweight frame, rather small and delicate. His toes were short with plump little pink pads. He really was a tenderfoot, she thought; at this time of year especially, he never, ever walked barefoot. Why, she thought, I think his feet are softer and more tender than mine. She gave in to a wicked chuckle, thinking, “This really IS going to be fun!”
Propping her right elbow on the bed next to his right foot, she rested her chin in her right palm. Steph was unaware of her grin as she began slowly sweeping his right sole with the blade of the feather. It was on her fourth pass up the sole, when she twirled the feather tip amidst the bottoms of his toes, which saw the toes twitch, and the foot jerk a few inches. “Hmmmm!” Steph murmured aloud. “Someone here may have tick-lish toes!”
She moved the feather to his left sole, this time intently stroking for a few moments along his pale arch. The foot noticeably quivered. She then danced the feather tip between the toes, which twitched immediately. When she swept the feather down the sole again, the foot jerked to the right. “Yup! Definitely ticklish!” she stage-whispered. The upturned soles were now side-by-side. She said, “Why, thank you, Simon! How convenient!”
She leaned across the bed and rested her right forearm firmly against the backs of his bare ankles. She hoped this would hold his feet to the feather, so to speak. Then, she began a lively feathering of the closely aligned soles. She teased the edges of his heels. She circled his meeting insteps. She traced the wrinkles near the tops of his soles. Through all this, she had felt a subtle tensing of muscles in his lower legs. Finally, with her tongue tip poised on one side of her lips, she dug the nub of the quill deeply between each of his toes. She heard him mumble faintly and giggle softly, as his toes splayed. Exasperated, she said, “OK, you! Let’s see you snooze through THIS!”
She dropped the feather to the mattress and began to scratch under his toes with her neatly manicured, clear-polished nails. “Tickle-tickle-tickle,” she whispered. This time, his mutters were sprinkled with distinct chuckles, and his feet struggled beneath her. She tickled him thus only a few moments more before he sighed in his sleep and turned over onto his back. His feet now rested, toes up, about eight inches apart before her.
“Gimme a foot!” she barked. Grasping his left heel in her right hand, she dug five furious fingers into the middle of his sole. Still asleep, he tried to draw his foot away, but she held firm. “Oh, no, you DON’T!” she murmured. “Kitchey-kitchey-COO!” She began playing with his toes, between which she snaked her fingers playfully. “This oughta tickle you awake, sleeping beauty! Tickle-tickle!”
While he muttered and chuckled lightly, however, he apparently did not awaken, for his eyes remained closed. Meanwhile, his foot managed to evade her grasp, and he crooked his leg so that his foot rested further up the bed. As her eyes followed his evasive maneuver, her gaze fixed on another, more delicious development. A telltale bulge was growing beneath the fly of his pajama bottoms.
“Well, PART of you’s awake,” she cracked. She reached forward and released a snap on the fly. The swelling head of his penis peeked through the opened fly.
“Hell-ooo!” she sang to the peeking pecker. “Curious? BIG mistake.”
She began to tease the head of the curious member with the tip of the feather. Steph thought she heard a swallowed gasp from the head of the bed. She nodded knowingly, and began to stroke with the blade of the feather along the stiffening shaft, increasingly extended through the fly. With each feathery stroke, Simon’s member quested further and further beyond his pajamas, giving a delighted Stephanie more and more of a tickle target.
“Kitchey-kitchey-COOOO!” she teased. “Heh-heh! Simon, you do better ASLEEP than many guys do wide AWAKE.”
As she tickled him, she could see his bare tummy flutter above the waist of his pajamas. His toes betrayed a telltale curl. She spied his tightly closed lips helplessly form a smile.
“Let’s see,” she said in a conversational tone, “What should I do with this inviting member?” She brought her mouth just above the straining tip and puffed warm breaths upon it. She lightly stroked under the head with her nails. Simon audibly gasped. His eyes flew open, but he quickly squeezed them shut again.
“Uh- huh. I think,” Steph said, “that someone is playin’ possum.” She began to move up the bed. “Since you’re conveniently not wearing a shirt, dear, it should be easy to find out.” She snaked her hands under the comforter and plunged her fingers into his unprotected armpits.
Simon’s eyes and mouth opened wide as he screamed, “AHHAHAHA! OK! OK! I”M UP! I”M UP! HAHAHAHAAAA! STAHHAHAAPPIT, STEPH!” He tried to sit up, but
Steph’s spirited tickling was undoing him completely. She was delightedly spidering five fingers
under each of his arms, which he was desperately, futilely trying to press against his sides.. She was doing her best to but lightly stroke his tender pits with her short but sharp fingernails.
“WHA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAA! O-HO-HO-KA-HAY! YOU-HOO-HOO WI-IH-IH-IN! STAHAHAHOP!”
As her head was still under the comforter, Steph’s voice was muffled when she insisted, “OOOHH-NO! I don’t stop ‘til you’re OUT of this bed!” She continued to tickle him vigorously under his arms. She was enjoying herself too much to show him any mercy.
Helpless with laughter, he might finally have wriggled out from under her and leaped
howling from the bed. And that might have been that—he finally awake, rushing to shave and shower and dress and gulp coffee and inhale a bagel in half the time necessary so as to roar out of the driveway with a prayer of being on time. Steph would sit on the bed, watching his frenetic efforts, teasing him about his being a slugabed AND a tickle toy.
Ah, but as she straddled his middle while intently tickling his underarms, her robe providentially parted, revealing her warm and glistening tender triangle. Simon’s terrifically tumescent member found little resistance then as it snaked through her short, pale red curls and nudged apart the very moist lips between her legs. She gasped—and so did he—as, wondrously without effort, he slid sweetly into her. She suddenly sat upright and, digging her nails reflexively into his sides, began to rock in his saddle. As he chuckled with ticklish agony, his hands happily found the swell of her ass. His eyes closing again—this time with bliss--he chortled as his middle found and matched her rhythm. Feeling as if she were floating over him, Steph squeezed her eyes shut in concentration, trying not to let his energized fingers inadvertently tickling her ass to cause her to giggle herself loose from his massive mooring.
As Stephanie and Simon slowly, sinuously surrendered to one another, time seemed to slow, then stand still. Their passion built with the gradual inevitability of a pressurizing volcano, until, muscles taut, breaths caught, they mutually erupted with bellows of pleasure and were seized by shudders of scintillating synchronicity.
Disregarded, the bedside clocks ticked and hummed and inexorably pushed the minutes forward. Whatever went on in this bed—reading, puzzle solving, sleep, merciless tickle torture, or mind-blowing passion—it was all the same to them.
As it turned out, then, for all of Steph’s compulsive early rising—and her good intentions to awaken Simon as he requested, neither could resist indulging in a timeless pleasure. So, faces flushed not only with embarrassment—they were BOTH late for work.
******
Now, one would think that would be lesson enough for anyone: that tickling someone can have unforeseen and unstoppable consequences. Ah, but turnabout is always fair play—ESPECIALLY where tickling is concerned. Thus, a few days later….
…It was Saturday afternoon. Since early morn, Stephanie had been a chore machine. Clad in an oversize old school sweatshirt, well-worn corduroys, a pair of floppy gray woolen socks and comfy moccasins, she’d done two loads of laundry, changed the cat box, and applied new wallpaper to one wall of the downstairs bathroom. At two, she permitted herself a break, whipping up a yogurt smoothie in the blender.
As she sat sipping her smoothie at the breakfast nook, she scanned the review of a local rep production of MY FAIR LADY. Featured in the cast were her younger sister and her brother-in-law. Normally, Steph and Simon reserved Saturday evening for stay-at-home romance with the phone off the hook. Tonight, however, they’d delay their billing and cooing to go cheer the young thespians.
Before leaving for the 7:30 performance, though, Steph was hoping to paper another wall of the bathroom. To do that, however, she needed Simon to return from the hardware
store with more supplies. He had left late in the morning to give his beloved vintage Volvo an
oil change and a hand wash at a do-it-yourself car care center. (Sweet guy that he was, she
still wouldn’t let him near her Lexus. Uh-uh. She took care of that.). He’d better return soon, she thought, because it was also his turn to make supper. Almost before they knew it, it would be time to dress and rush off to the theatre. Her sister would be inconsolable if they were late.
Unable to return to her papering until Simon returned, Steph, feeling a tad sleepy after
her smoothie break, decided to take the load off her feet for a few minutes. She went into the den, intending merely to catch her breath while reading a law journal. She plopped herself on the couch and kicked off her moccasins. However, her workweek had been a demanding one, with late hours and especially short sleep. So, her body seized on this opportunity for catch-up, and, soon, the law journal had fallen to the floor and she had fallen deep into sleep.
A considerable time later, Simon returned from the car care center with his beloved old Volvo. He entered the house, ready to apologize profusely to his wife. She had warned him to be home no later than 2:30—indeed made him repeat the deadline FIVE times before letting him go. But he couldn’t help it. He’d happened to meet another vintage Volvo enthusiast at the car center, and, just like that, they’d had the cars parked nose-to-nose with the hoods up and themselves happily trading Volvo lore. Almost before they knew it, hours passed by.
Now, here it was, past 4:00, and he was tiptoeing into the house with the sack from
the hardware store. He knew it was corny, but he hoped that his other bags, bearing the florid orchid that he’d gotten for her to wear tonight, as well as the pint of Ben ‘n’ Jerry’s Chunky Monkey (her favorite), would placate her. He would then roll up his sleeves and make a fabulous roast chicken and jalapeno risotto dinner tout suite. Then, they could put on the dog and leave on time for his hammy sister-in-law’s star turn as Eliza Doolittle and his brother-in-law’s warbling “On the Street Where You Live.”
The house was so quiet. She wasn’t in the downstairs bathroom that she was determined to redecorate. Where was she? Ah, he realized, she must be in the den, working on that book she didn’t want his help on. He thought he’d sneak in as she intently worked at the computer and loom over her shoulder, scaring the daylights out of her.
She was in the den, but not at her desk. Rather she was stretched out snoozing on the couch. Her calves rested on a pillow, her ankles on the padded armrest, and her socked feet hung in space, toes pointing to the ceiling. Beneath her feet, her moccasins lay askew on the floor. He observed that her right toes, while slipping off the left shoe, must have snagged her left sock, causing it to slip over her heel. The toe of the sock drooped halfway down her sole. Playfully, he pulled at the sock, causing it to slide entirely off of Steph’s foot.
Seeing his wife’s shapely bare foot-- unblemished by callus, with a soft, generously wrinkled sole and perfectly proportioned toes, their nails trim and reflecting a clear polish—almost caused Simon to whistle softly in admiration. Her foot was like Stephanie herself in toto—not spectacularly endowed or flashily adorned, but simply, irresistibly lovely. He felt idiotic, kneeling by the couch, waxing sentimental over her sweet face, guileless in sleep, sweetly snoring, and her pretty bare foot, heedlessly dangling in space. But he couldn’t help it. He was nuts about this lawyer.
Kneeling by her feet, Simon tried to reconcile the tough, no-nonsense, sharply articulate
attorney with the sweet sleeper before him. He’d proudly witnessed Steph in action many times, but sometimes felt a twinge of sympathy for a prosecutor she’d undressed in open court
with a surprise witness or a brilliant line of questioning. Simon bet that some of those rivals she’d trumped would give a lot to know her Achilles’ Heel. Lost in thought, he idly pulled the woolen sock from her right foot, baring its smooth softness as well.
The Swiss clock on the bookcase singly chimed the half-hour, snapping him out of his reverie. “Uh-oh. 4:30,” he thought. “Better wake her up yon Sleeping Beauty…or she’ll slug me. But how? Ah, of course! With a kiss, dummy!” He was moving to plant a big smooch upon her soft lips, and thus draw her gently to consciousness, when he stopped. He thought, “Steph’s Achilles’ Heel? Why, that’s obvious. She’s easily the most ticklish person I know. She’s hugely ticklish EVERYWHERE. But, especially…”--He smiled sublimely as he knelt again at her feet, staring all the while at her pretty pink toes. —“…upon her cute and tender tootsies.”
Remembering her mischievous tickley wake-up call a few days earlier, he decided that kissing was still called for, just not on her snoring puss. With a smirk, he knelt by her hovering bare feet. Bringing his lips close to her soft, pink toes, he blew gently back-and-forth under them. Hearing her sigh, he thought, “Who would think that so serious and successful a young attorney could be so…sensitive?” He rubbed his mustachioed upper lip against the tips of her left toes. Her toes wiggled slightly, and when he repeated the prickly pass, she moaned in her sleep and pulled her foot back.
Eyes bright with mischief, Simon held her bare right ankle firmly with both hands and planted a warm, wet kiss upon the ball of her foot. Her toes twitched. Traces of vanilla and honey bath oil wafted off of the moist warmth between her toes. He kissed lightly down her sole, and then up, before rubbing his goatee chin against her arch. This elicited a sleepy giggle from her. It was all the encouragement that he needed.
Wetting his lips, he kissed across the fleshy pads of her toes and back. She wiggled her toes, and tried to pull her foot back. He then flicked the tip of his tongue between her big and second toes, sliding it repeatedly back and forth. This earned a breathy burst of tiny giggles, and more wiggling and yanking, all of which continued as his tongue patiently probed between each of her tender toes in turn. Finally, he slid his mouth over her big toe, sucking it wetly, and stroked under the digit with his tongue. Her soft giggles morphed into a faint, astonished moan.
He could have continued, blissfully teasing her thus indefinitely, when his eye caught the clock. Nearly 5:00. “Uh-oh! We don’t have time for you to be slowly teased awake, Counselor. You’re still probably going to sternly lecture ME about punctuality. And I haven’t forgotten your merciless wake-up call the other day, either, even if what followed put Wheaties deliriously to shame. Now then, I wonder what your rivals would give to see you reduced to a laughing loon, hmmm?”
Maintaining an iron grip on her right ankle with his left hand, he dug five frenetic fingers fiercely into her soft sole. Screaming, “NONONODOHOHOHOHONT!” she bucked on the couch, threw her arms into the air, yanked her left leg back, and kicked out with her right leg.
So sudden and powerful was her kick that a stunned Simon was quite unable to prevent the ball of her foot from slamming into his nose. He yelped in pain and, covering his blood-spouting
proboscis, fell back onto the carpet.
Steph thrashed giggly on the couch for a few moments before she was aware that Simon was moaning in distress on the floor. Biting her lip to contain her remaining giggles, she knelt by her stricken hubby’s side and crooned, “Oh, Simon! I’m so sorry! But you shouldn’t tickle me when I’m dozing like that!”
Holding one of her socks tightly against his nose, Simon sat up and said, “I dhoh!
I dhoh! I gotta bad feeling ‘bout dhis.” He lowered the sock. “Id it—id it--?”
Steph pressed her lips together to keep from bursting out into laughter over his
cartoon nasal voice. Rubbing his forehead, she glanced at his stricken nose and then, looking
into his narrowed eyes, said, with as much gravity as she was able to summon, “Honey, we need to get you to the emergency room.”
*******
Hours later, Steph and Simon met Steph’s sister Dina and her husband David backstage after the latters’ triumph in MY FAIR LADY. Steph gushed, “You guys were terrific! I see a lightning path to Broadway!” Dina and David blushed with pleasure at her kudos. The beaming couple froze, however, when Simon stepped out from behind Steph to offer his congratulations. “Duh Tony’s in duh bag,” he croaked from under his heavily bandaged nose, capped with a clear plastic guard held by elastics that stretched behind his head.
“T-thanks, S-Simon. B-but, what happened?” whispered Dina. “We wondered why you weren’t in your seats when the overture started. Did-did you have an accident?”
“’Sorry we missed the first act, kid,” said Stephanie, putting her arm around Simon’s shoulders as she reached out and squeezed her sister’s hand. “But Simon and I were redecorating the downstairs bathroom, and you know how clumsy he is. Walked right into a ladder. The dope.” Simon rolled his eyes. Steph was having a bit too much fun at his expense.
“Oh, Simon,” Dina said, dripping with sympathy, “I’ll bet that didn’t tickle!”
“Tickle?” chirped Steph. “No, THAT didn’t tickle, did it, Simon?” She elbowed him in the ribs.
Able to restrain himself no longer, Simon grabbed Steph’s sides from behind and, with
glee obvious despite his nose dressing, dug his fingers with great gusto into her ribs. Steph collapsed to the floor with laughter.
“Doh! DAT dickles!” Simon said with some satisfaction, as he and the thespian couple joined Steph in unrehearsed mirth.
*Dedicated to all the loving couples out there who just can’t keep from tickling each other, no matter the potential dangers…
***This tale, with its modest sexual gymnastics, is intended only for readers 18 years and older. (I know how to scare away the minors. Ahem! The protagonists in this tale are…MARRIED. Wow! Look at ‘em run! Works every time. Reminds ‘em of their parents.)
We all know the old saw about the advantage of starting the day with a good breakfast. Our hopelessly amorous, helplessly ticklish couple returns with a more titillating way to wake up.
Stephanie and Simon
in
ALARM CLOCK? HAH!
by Tee Hee Lawrence
Tuesday morning dawned cold and clear. Stephanie stood at the steamy kitchen window overlooking her backyard garden, remembering the tall, laden tomato plants and lush herb plots of the previous summer. She was snug in her ankle-length, thick, white terrycloth robe and banana yellow woolen slipper socks (and nothing else—for she had just enjoyed a luxurious hot shower). Still, she shivered and hugged her sides in sympathy for her garden, sleeping beneath a thin blanket of pristine snow. She reached for her mug of Morning Thunder tea, steaming on the breakfast nook. Taking a deep quaff, she almost purred as its charged warmth spread through her.
During the workweek--though she usually didn’t have to be in the office or court until much later in the morning--she habitually arose at 5 A.M., trying to catch up on case paperwork as the night gently surrendered to sunrise. If the backlog of court documents seemed reasonable, she would work on a chapter of the legal thriller she’d started writing last summer.
The debut novel starring beautiful and brilliant Rosalind Steppenwolf, maverick counselor-at-law, was coming in fits and starts. Steph had come up with a crackerjack springboard, based on a rare legal technicality, during a beer-and Sangria-fueled conversation at her firm’s last Memorial Day cookout. She hit upon an unbeatable courtroom ending while waiting out a long jury deliberation in July. Since then, she’d been hammering away at the body of the novel, between her dynamite opening and her wow finish. When she rose early to write, she could avoid any well-meant kibitzing from her whodunit-happy husband, Simon, who was most definitely NOT an eager, early riser.
Steph felt proprietary towards her novel’s protagonist. Roz was described as a rich-figured 5’, 8”, and possessing long, strawberry-blond bangs, luminous large blue-gray eyes, shapely legs, graceful hands and feet, and a warm, full-lipped smile to melt the frost off of any judge. It just so happened that the character bore an uncanny, only slightly idealized physical resemblance to the author. Roz’s iron will, headlong fearlessness, and oft-indulged penchant for sexual and swashbuckling adventure, however, were character traits that beguiled her envious creator. Steph found herself laboring longer and harder over Roz’s character, dialogue, and personal life than over the persnickety technical details that supposedly drove detective fiction.
She wasn’t sure how long she had stood there, gazing out the window while she said aloud softly the dialogue she’d written for Roz that morning. All she knew was that when she glanced at the panda clock over the breakfast nook, the time was 7:28. And Simon had made her swear the night before that she would unfailingly, hope-to-die-a-horrible-death-by-a-means-he-the reader-of-a-1000-mysteries-would-devise, awaken him no later, not-one-minute-past 7:30! He had a major audit to present to the executives of a key account downtown at the unholy hour of nine sharp. She chugged the remaining tea and sprinted upstairs to Rip Van Winkle’s lair.
After absurdly (considering what she had come to do) tiptoeing into the bedroom, Stephanie stood over her snoozing husband. They’d been married almost a year, but she still got a little misty-eyed and sappy with affection for her banty rooster when she came upon him this way. He was lying on his stomach, with his left cheek resting on his pillow. His left arm extended so that his hand hung out limply over the side of the bed. He was snoring softly into his pillow. He looked like a rambunctious little boy who’d unwillingly surrendered to sleep but eventually given himself entirely over to it. She couldn’t resist bending over him and softly kissing him on his right temple. She felt her pleasure center begin to tingle as she kissed him lightly along his cheek.
She had hoped that, even as it was exciting her, it might at least begin to awaken him, but, no, he didn’t stir at all. She smiled. Simon really did sleep like a log. He himself often joked that the only way to wake up a log was to dynamite it. She stood by his bedside table, contemplating such violent means (like taking her grandmother’s heirloom alarm clock from the dresser and setting it ringing—“’Loud enough to wake the dead!” her grandfather used to moan—next to his ear). She was sure, though, that she hadn’t the heart to do that to such a sweet sleeper.
A glance across the bed at the Daliesque “melted clock” on her bedside table told her that it was 7:35. He would be perfectly pissed, she thought, if she didn’t wake him soon. At the same time, Simon hated being awakened by shrill alarms or blaring clock radios. He claimed that being so violently pulled from sleep discolored his entire day. He counted on her to wake him promptly, decisively, but gently.
Hovering over his ear, she called out, tentatively, “Simon, hon’. Time to get up!” The log lay unmoved. 7:36. Time to get serious.
Standing tall, she cleared her throat, she said—in a slightly modulated version of her ringing courtroom voice, “Simon, rise and shine! It’s past 7:30.” Nada. Was it premature to consider going downstairs, getting an ice cube, and sliding it down his back? No, she decided. It might cause him to leap out the window. She wanted him up, but not necessarily down and out and in traction. 7:37. Postpone procrastination.
Moving closer to his bedside table--intending to kneel beside him, nuzzle his neck with her cold nose, nibble his earlobe, and croon “Good morning, Starshine!” directly into his ear, she accidentally knocked his current bedtime mystery to the floor. Picking it up, she noted that the title was MORNING GORY. She winced and shook her head. Surely, she thought, such a pun was in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On further consideration, however, she realized that that title could be most apt in this home if she didn’t awaken him soon. 7:38. Drastic measures might be necessary.
She was about to place the book back on the table when she noticed the tip of a goose quill extending above the top edge. She opened the book and saw that the nub, not to mention the blade of the quill, was stained with blue ink. The once pristine white feather was the sole vestige of Simon’s brief flirtation with handwriting notes to friends “as they did in Mozart’s day.” What a mess he’d made with fountain ink and sealing wax, before he quickly returned to impulsive, acronym-choked e-mails. Now, the broad, stiff quill had been reduced to the role of bookmark, except for those occasions when he used it to tickle her nose as she was drifting off to sleep beside him. 7:39. Inspiration sought.
Steph began to close the book over the feather when she froze. She looked over at Simon’s sweetly sleeping form and smiled mischievously. “Why not?” she thought. “Tickling’s as good a way as any to rouse him, and it IS…gentle. Sort of.” She bit her lip as she did what to Simon was unconscionable: she folded the corner of the page the quill marked so that he wouldn’t lose his place. She removed the quill and closed the book, settling it back on his bedside table next to the Buddha with the tiny glowing clock face in its belly.
Kneeling beside him, she stroked the palm of his dangling hand with the feather. She gently circled the feather tip inside his earlobe. She swept the blade under his goatee. To all of this, he imperceptibly moved in response. “Well,” she thought, “these just aren’t his spots. I’M deathly ticklish ALL over. I’m probably the only person alive with ticklish kneecaps. But Simon is ticklish in only a FEW spots. Happily, in those spots, he’s OFF the scale.” She knew that she would have far greater success—and more fun—at his other end. She chuckled and walked to the foot of the bed. 7:40. No more Ms. Nice Wife.
She grabbed the edge of the gray down comforter and pulled it back over the foot of the bed, over Simon’s still form, until one edge met the other at his shoulder. Then she yanked the sky blue sheet tucked under the foot of the bed and pulled it back until it rested, furled, upon the doubled comforter. Simon’s torso, clad in red-striped pajama bottoms, was revealed to his waist. Steph smiled and shook her head, marveling that she could have so easily displaced the comforter and the sheet without his even stirring.
She knelt by the foot of the bed and contemplated his pale, upturned soles, placed almost parallel about sixteen inches apart. Simon’s feet were, unlike his muscular 5’, 6”, bantamweight frame, rather small and delicate. His toes were short with plump little pink pads. He really was a tenderfoot, she thought; at this time of year especially, he never, ever walked barefoot. Why, she thought, I think his feet are softer and more tender than mine. She gave in to a wicked chuckle, thinking, “This really IS going to be fun!”
Propping her right elbow on the bed next to his right foot, she rested her chin in her right palm. Steph was unaware of her grin as she began slowly sweeping his right sole with the blade of the feather. It was on her fourth pass up the sole, when she twirled the feather tip amidst the bottoms of his toes, which saw the toes twitch, and the foot jerk a few inches. “Hmmmm!” Steph murmured aloud. “Someone here may have tick-lish toes!”
She moved the feather to his left sole, this time intently stroking for a few moments along his pale arch. The foot noticeably quivered. She then danced the feather tip between the toes, which twitched immediately. When she swept the feather down the sole again, the foot jerked to the right. “Yup! Definitely ticklish!” she stage-whispered. The upturned soles were now side-by-side. She said, “Why, thank you, Simon! How convenient!”
She leaned across the bed and rested her right forearm firmly against the backs of his bare ankles. She hoped this would hold his feet to the feather, so to speak. Then, she began a lively feathering of the closely aligned soles. She teased the edges of his heels. She circled his meeting insteps. She traced the wrinkles near the tops of his soles. Through all this, she had felt a subtle tensing of muscles in his lower legs. Finally, with her tongue tip poised on one side of her lips, she dug the nub of the quill deeply between each of his toes. She heard him mumble faintly and giggle softly, as his toes splayed. Exasperated, she said, “OK, you! Let’s see you snooze through THIS!”
She dropped the feather to the mattress and began to scratch under his toes with her neatly manicured, clear-polished nails. “Tickle-tickle-tickle,” she whispered. This time, his mutters were sprinkled with distinct chuckles, and his feet struggled beneath her. She tickled him thus only a few moments more before he sighed in his sleep and turned over onto his back. His feet now rested, toes up, about eight inches apart before her.
“Gimme a foot!” she barked. Grasping his left heel in her right hand, she dug five furious fingers into the middle of his sole. Still asleep, he tried to draw his foot away, but she held firm. “Oh, no, you DON’T!” she murmured. “Kitchey-kitchey-COO!” She began playing with his toes, between which she snaked her fingers playfully. “This oughta tickle you awake, sleeping beauty! Tickle-tickle!”
While he muttered and chuckled lightly, however, he apparently did not awaken, for his eyes remained closed. Meanwhile, his foot managed to evade her grasp, and he crooked his leg so that his foot rested further up the bed. As her eyes followed his evasive maneuver, her gaze fixed on another, more delicious development. A telltale bulge was growing beneath the fly of his pajama bottoms.
“Well, PART of you’s awake,” she cracked. She reached forward and released a snap on the fly. The swelling head of his penis peeked through the opened fly.
“Hell-ooo!” she sang to the peeking pecker. “Curious? BIG mistake.”
She began to tease the head of the curious member with the tip of the feather. Steph thought she heard a swallowed gasp from the head of the bed. She nodded knowingly, and began to stroke with the blade of the feather along the stiffening shaft, increasingly extended through the fly. With each feathery stroke, Simon’s member quested further and further beyond his pajamas, giving a delighted Stephanie more and more of a tickle target.
“Kitchey-kitchey-COOOO!” she teased. “Heh-heh! Simon, you do better ASLEEP than many guys do wide AWAKE.”
As she tickled him, she could see his bare tummy flutter above the waist of his pajamas. His toes betrayed a telltale curl. She spied his tightly closed lips helplessly form a smile.
“Let’s see,” she said in a conversational tone, “What should I do with this inviting member?” She brought her mouth just above the straining tip and puffed warm breaths upon it. She lightly stroked under the head with her nails. Simon audibly gasped. His eyes flew open, but he quickly squeezed them shut again.
“Uh- huh. I think,” Steph said, “that someone is playin’ possum.” She began to move up the bed. “Since you’re conveniently not wearing a shirt, dear, it should be easy to find out.” She snaked her hands under the comforter and plunged her fingers into his unprotected armpits.
Simon’s eyes and mouth opened wide as he screamed, “AHHAHAHA! OK! OK! I”M UP! I”M UP! HAHAHAHAAAA! STAHHAHAAPPIT, STEPH!” He tried to sit up, but
Steph’s spirited tickling was undoing him completely. She was delightedly spidering five fingers
under each of his arms, which he was desperately, futilely trying to press against his sides.. She was doing her best to but lightly stroke his tender pits with her short but sharp fingernails.
“WHA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAA! O-HO-HO-KA-HAY! YOU-HOO-HOO WI-IH-IH-IN! STAHAHAHOP!”
As her head was still under the comforter, Steph’s voice was muffled when she insisted, “OOOHH-NO! I don’t stop ‘til you’re OUT of this bed!” She continued to tickle him vigorously under his arms. She was enjoying herself too much to show him any mercy.
Helpless with laughter, he might finally have wriggled out from under her and leaped
howling from the bed. And that might have been that—he finally awake, rushing to shave and shower and dress and gulp coffee and inhale a bagel in half the time necessary so as to roar out of the driveway with a prayer of being on time. Steph would sit on the bed, watching his frenetic efforts, teasing him about his being a slugabed AND a tickle toy.
Ah, but as she straddled his middle while intently tickling his underarms, her robe providentially parted, revealing her warm and glistening tender triangle. Simon’s terrifically tumescent member found little resistance then as it snaked through her short, pale red curls and nudged apart the very moist lips between her legs. She gasped—and so did he—as, wondrously without effort, he slid sweetly into her. She suddenly sat upright and, digging her nails reflexively into his sides, began to rock in his saddle. As he chuckled with ticklish agony, his hands happily found the swell of her ass. His eyes closing again—this time with bliss--he chortled as his middle found and matched her rhythm. Feeling as if she were floating over him, Steph squeezed her eyes shut in concentration, trying not to let his energized fingers inadvertently tickling her ass to cause her to giggle herself loose from his massive mooring.
As Stephanie and Simon slowly, sinuously surrendered to one another, time seemed to slow, then stand still. Their passion built with the gradual inevitability of a pressurizing volcano, until, muscles taut, breaths caught, they mutually erupted with bellows of pleasure and were seized by shudders of scintillating synchronicity.
Disregarded, the bedside clocks ticked and hummed and inexorably pushed the minutes forward. Whatever went on in this bed—reading, puzzle solving, sleep, merciless tickle torture, or mind-blowing passion—it was all the same to them.
As it turned out, then, for all of Steph’s compulsive early rising—and her good intentions to awaken Simon as he requested, neither could resist indulging in a timeless pleasure. So, faces flushed not only with embarrassment—they were BOTH late for work.
******
Now, one would think that would be lesson enough for anyone: that tickling someone can have unforeseen and unstoppable consequences. Ah, but turnabout is always fair play—ESPECIALLY where tickling is concerned. Thus, a few days later….
…It was Saturday afternoon. Since early morn, Stephanie had been a chore machine. Clad in an oversize old school sweatshirt, well-worn corduroys, a pair of floppy gray woolen socks and comfy moccasins, she’d done two loads of laundry, changed the cat box, and applied new wallpaper to one wall of the downstairs bathroom. At two, she permitted herself a break, whipping up a yogurt smoothie in the blender.
As she sat sipping her smoothie at the breakfast nook, she scanned the review of a local rep production of MY FAIR LADY. Featured in the cast were her younger sister and her brother-in-law. Normally, Steph and Simon reserved Saturday evening for stay-at-home romance with the phone off the hook. Tonight, however, they’d delay their billing and cooing to go cheer the young thespians.
Before leaving for the 7:30 performance, though, Steph was hoping to paper another wall of the bathroom. To do that, however, she needed Simon to return from the hardware
store with more supplies. He had left late in the morning to give his beloved vintage Volvo an
oil change and a hand wash at a do-it-yourself car care center. (Sweet guy that he was, she
still wouldn’t let him near her Lexus. Uh-uh. She took care of that.). He’d better return soon, she thought, because it was also his turn to make supper. Almost before they knew it, it would be time to dress and rush off to the theatre. Her sister would be inconsolable if they were late.
Unable to return to her papering until Simon returned, Steph, feeling a tad sleepy after
her smoothie break, decided to take the load off her feet for a few minutes. She went into the den, intending merely to catch her breath while reading a law journal. She plopped herself on the couch and kicked off her moccasins. However, her workweek had been a demanding one, with late hours and especially short sleep. So, her body seized on this opportunity for catch-up, and, soon, the law journal had fallen to the floor and she had fallen deep into sleep.
A considerable time later, Simon returned from the car care center with his beloved old Volvo. He entered the house, ready to apologize profusely to his wife. She had warned him to be home no later than 2:30—indeed made him repeat the deadline FIVE times before letting him go. But he couldn’t help it. He’d happened to meet another vintage Volvo enthusiast at the car center, and, just like that, they’d had the cars parked nose-to-nose with the hoods up and themselves happily trading Volvo lore. Almost before they knew it, hours passed by.
Now, here it was, past 4:00, and he was tiptoeing into the house with the sack from
the hardware store. He knew it was corny, but he hoped that his other bags, bearing the florid orchid that he’d gotten for her to wear tonight, as well as the pint of Ben ‘n’ Jerry’s Chunky Monkey (her favorite), would placate her. He would then roll up his sleeves and make a fabulous roast chicken and jalapeno risotto dinner tout suite. Then, they could put on the dog and leave on time for his hammy sister-in-law’s star turn as Eliza Doolittle and his brother-in-law’s warbling “On the Street Where You Live.”
The house was so quiet. She wasn’t in the downstairs bathroom that she was determined to redecorate. Where was she? Ah, he realized, she must be in the den, working on that book she didn’t want his help on. He thought he’d sneak in as she intently worked at the computer and loom over her shoulder, scaring the daylights out of her.
She was in the den, but not at her desk. Rather she was stretched out snoozing on the couch. Her calves rested on a pillow, her ankles on the padded armrest, and her socked feet hung in space, toes pointing to the ceiling. Beneath her feet, her moccasins lay askew on the floor. He observed that her right toes, while slipping off the left shoe, must have snagged her left sock, causing it to slip over her heel. The toe of the sock drooped halfway down her sole. Playfully, he pulled at the sock, causing it to slide entirely off of Steph’s foot.
Seeing his wife’s shapely bare foot-- unblemished by callus, with a soft, generously wrinkled sole and perfectly proportioned toes, their nails trim and reflecting a clear polish—almost caused Simon to whistle softly in admiration. Her foot was like Stephanie herself in toto—not spectacularly endowed or flashily adorned, but simply, irresistibly lovely. He felt idiotic, kneeling by the couch, waxing sentimental over her sweet face, guileless in sleep, sweetly snoring, and her pretty bare foot, heedlessly dangling in space. But he couldn’t help it. He was nuts about this lawyer.
Kneeling by her feet, Simon tried to reconcile the tough, no-nonsense, sharply articulate
attorney with the sweet sleeper before him. He’d proudly witnessed Steph in action many times, but sometimes felt a twinge of sympathy for a prosecutor she’d undressed in open court
with a surprise witness or a brilliant line of questioning. Simon bet that some of those rivals she’d trumped would give a lot to know her Achilles’ Heel. Lost in thought, he idly pulled the woolen sock from her right foot, baring its smooth softness as well.
The Swiss clock on the bookcase singly chimed the half-hour, snapping him out of his reverie. “Uh-oh. 4:30,” he thought. “Better wake her up yon Sleeping Beauty…or she’ll slug me. But how? Ah, of course! With a kiss, dummy!” He was moving to plant a big smooch upon her soft lips, and thus draw her gently to consciousness, when he stopped. He thought, “Steph’s Achilles’ Heel? Why, that’s obvious. She’s easily the most ticklish person I know. She’s hugely ticklish EVERYWHERE. But, especially…”--He smiled sublimely as he knelt again at her feet, staring all the while at her pretty pink toes. —“…upon her cute and tender tootsies.”
Remembering her mischievous tickley wake-up call a few days earlier, he decided that kissing was still called for, just not on her snoring puss. With a smirk, he knelt by her hovering bare feet. Bringing his lips close to her soft, pink toes, he blew gently back-and-forth under them. Hearing her sigh, he thought, “Who would think that so serious and successful a young attorney could be so…sensitive?” He rubbed his mustachioed upper lip against the tips of her left toes. Her toes wiggled slightly, and when he repeated the prickly pass, she moaned in her sleep and pulled her foot back.
Eyes bright with mischief, Simon held her bare right ankle firmly with both hands and planted a warm, wet kiss upon the ball of her foot. Her toes twitched. Traces of vanilla and honey bath oil wafted off of the moist warmth between her toes. He kissed lightly down her sole, and then up, before rubbing his goatee chin against her arch. This elicited a sleepy giggle from her. It was all the encouragement that he needed.
Wetting his lips, he kissed across the fleshy pads of her toes and back. She wiggled her toes, and tried to pull her foot back. He then flicked the tip of his tongue between her big and second toes, sliding it repeatedly back and forth. This earned a breathy burst of tiny giggles, and more wiggling and yanking, all of which continued as his tongue patiently probed between each of her tender toes in turn. Finally, he slid his mouth over her big toe, sucking it wetly, and stroked under the digit with his tongue. Her soft giggles morphed into a faint, astonished moan.
He could have continued, blissfully teasing her thus indefinitely, when his eye caught the clock. Nearly 5:00. “Uh-oh! We don’t have time for you to be slowly teased awake, Counselor. You’re still probably going to sternly lecture ME about punctuality. And I haven’t forgotten your merciless wake-up call the other day, either, even if what followed put Wheaties deliriously to shame. Now then, I wonder what your rivals would give to see you reduced to a laughing loon, hmmm?”
Maintaining an iron grip on her right ankle with his left hand, he dug five frenetic fingers fiercely into her soft sole. Screaming, “NONONODOHOHOHOHONT!” she bucked on the couch, threw her arms into the air, yanked her left leg back, and kicked out with her right leg.
So sudden and powerful was her kick that a stunned Simon was quite unable to prevent the ball of her foot from slamming into his nose. He yelped in pain and, covering his blood-spouting
proboscis, fell back onto the carpet.
Steph thrashed giggly on the couch for a few moments before she was aware that Simon was moaning in distress on the floor. Biting her lip to contain her remaining giggles, she knelt by her stricken hubby’s side and crooned, “Oh, Simon! I’m so sorry! But you shouldn’t tickle me when I’m dozing like that!”
Holding one of her socks tightly against his nose, Simon sat up and said, “I dhoh!
I dhoh! I gotta bad feeling ‘bout dhis.” He lowered the sock. “Id it—id it--?”
Steph pressed her lips together to keep from bursting out into laughter over his
cartoon nasal voice. Rubbing his forehead, she glanced at his stricken nose and then, looking
into his narrowed eyes, said, with as much gravity as she was able to summon, “Honey, we need to get you to the emergency room.”
*******
Hours later, Steph and Simon met Steph’s sister Dina and her husband David backstage after the latters’ triumph in MY FAIR LADY. Steph gushed, “You guys were terrific! I see a lightning path to Broadway!” Dina and David blushed with pleasure at her kudos. The beaming couple froze, however, when Simon stepped out from behind Steph to offer his congratulations. “Duh Tony’s in duh bag,” he croaked from under his heavily bandaged nose, capped with a clear plastic guard held by elastics that stretched behind his head.
“T-thanks, S-Simon. B-but, what happened?” whispered Dina. “We wondered why you weren’t in your seats when the overture started. Did-did you have an accident?”
“’Sorry we missed the first act, kid,” said Stephanie, putting her arm around Simon’s shoulders as she reached out and squeezed her sister’s hand. “But Simon and I were redecorating the downstairs bathroom, and you know how clumsy he is. Walked right into a ladder. The dope.” Simon rolled his eyes. Steph was having a bit too much fun at his expense.
“Oh, Simon,” Dina said, dripping with sympathy, “I’ll bet that didn’t tickle!”
“Tickle?” chirped Steph. “No, THAT didn’t tickle, did it, Simon?” She elbowed him in the ribs.
Able to restrain himself no longer, Simon grabbed Steph’s sides from behind and, with
glee obvious despite his nose dressing, dug his fingers with great gusto into her ribs. Steph collapsed to the floor with laughter.
“Doh! DAT dickles!” Simon said with some satisfaction, as he and the thespian couple joined Steph in unrehearsed mirth.
*Dedicated to all the loving couples out there who just can’t keep from tickling each other, no matter the potential dangers…
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An accident, I know, but it's a good reason for him to get revenge! 
