Shem the Penman
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[If you're curious as to why these tales from the vault are showing up again, see the note at the top of the repost for "The Stars Are Right."]
LANGUAGE BARRIER
another one of those stories
YOU MUST BE OVER 18 TO READ THIS. BY "THIS" I MEAN THIS STORY, NOT THIS NOTICE. JUST SO YOU KNOW.
Elise Brenner hurried through the lobby of the office building, oblivious to the stares she was getting. A slender five-foot-eleven, she was taller than many of the Japanese men around her; behind her, her petite interpreter, Miss Reiko Takado, struggled to keep up with Elise's long-legged strides. Elise didn't notice, though she normally would have. She was furious.
Miss Takado caught up with her at the lobby door. "You should not have spoken so harshly to Mr. Nobeyama. He is unused to being treated like that -- especially by a woman."
"I don't care." Elise ran a hand over her short-cropped brown hair, sighing wearily. "A whole week of negotiation, and he won't back down on his position. I've tried and tried to tell him that Palmer Industries won't go for the deal he proposes, but he's just not listening."
"Mr. Nobeyama is used to getting his own way." There was something nervous in Miss Takado's tone.
"Well, so am I," snapped Elise. "If I signed that contract of his, my boss would kill me. Ah well, at least it's over -- I'll be leaving Japan tomorrow morning. Hey, is that our car out there?"
They hurried across the street and slid into the back of the car. Miss Takado spoke to the driver, giving the address of Elise's hotel, and the car pulled away from the curb.
Elise sat and watched the Tokyo cityscape go by. After a few minutes, she sat up and touched Miss Takado. "This isn't the way back to the hotel, is it?"
Miss Takado looked around, eyes widening, and spoke to the driver. Instead of responding, he pulled a small mask from under the dashboard and clamped it over his nose and mouth. Elise became aware of a sickly-sweet odor in the car. "What the hell -- " she gasped, and then yawned widely.
"No! Oh, no!" Miss Takado pounded frantically on the door, but could not open it. Her blows became steadily weaker, her eyes fluttered shut, and she slumped back onto the seat -- next to Elise, who had collapsed a second earlier.
Elise woke up to find herself restrained. She was still dressed in her business clothes, minus the jacket, but she lay on an old-fashoned brass-framed bed, wrists and ankles lashed to the framework. The bed was a bit too short for her, so her ankles rested on the footboard itself. Looking over the end of the bed, she saw a bizarre sight: Miss Takado, awake, was in a large overstuffed chair -- upside down. She rested on her neck and shoulders, her wrists fastened to the legs of the chair, her own legs thrown over the back of the chair and secured with rope around the ankles. Standing behind her chair was a Japanese man in jeans and a Metallica T-shirt, smiling at Elise.
"What -- " Elise began dizzily, looking around. It seemed like an ordinary hotel room, except for the cork paneling on the walls and the absence of windows.
"We are in a House of Tickling." Miss Takado's voice was low and despairing. "Mr. Nobeyama has arranged to have us taken here."
"What's going on?"
The Japanese man approached her, holding a clipboard and a pen, which he set on the night table beside her bed. Twisting her neck, Elise could see that the clipboard held a copy of the contract she had spurned earlier. The man went back to his post behind Miss Takado's chair as she said, "He has explained to me that you must sign the contract."
"Or what?"
"Or we will be tickled." Cold chills marched down Elise's spine, though she tried to muster a disdainful look.
"What about you? Why are you here too?"
"I am to be tickled first, since I am your employee and you have a duty to protect me. If" -- Miss Takado swallowed visibly -- "if my torment does not persuade you to relent, then you will be tickled yourself." She paused, and then went on in a quavering tone, "Ms. Brenner, I am very ticklish. I will not be able to endure this. As your employee, I beg you, do not make me undergo this." The man began to take off one of her shoes, and her leg shook.
Elise stared, the horror of the situation coming to her. But she knew what she had to do. There was no way she could let one woman's (_two_ women's, a nasty thought reminded her) feelings get her to do something bad for the company. "This is crazy! I told you, I can't sign that contract. I could lose my job."
The man set the shoe aside. Miss Takado's stockinged foot dangled in the air, toes curling in anticipation. "_Please_, Miss Brenner -- "
"Tell him that," Elise said firmly.
Miss Takado spoke with manifest reluctance, then burst into giggles almost immediately as the man lightly traced a fingertip along the bottom of her small foot. Elise watched in mingled amazement and horror as her companion's heretofore imperturbable demeanor was lost in a matter of seconds. Eyes screwed up, a huge grin stretching her face, Miss Takado wriggled wildly in her inverted position as the tickler's fingernails scratched up and down her sole. When he began to take off her other shoe, Miss Takado's eyes snapped open and she looked up at Elise with naked pleading in her gaze.
"Please," Miss Takado begged, "assent to Mr. Nobeyama's wishes. Don't let this go any further."
"I can't!" Elise was suffering, both sympathetic to Miss Takado's plight and fully conscious that she could be in equally dire straits before long. But another part of her said, _It's just tickling. Can you tell Mr. Preston that you made a bad deal because someone threatened to tickle you? You'll get through it ... and so will she. Anyway, she's just a hired hand -- you don't owe her anything._
The man threw Miss Takado's shoe aside. She addressed him in rapid-fire Japanese, which broke off in a yelp as he started, with delicate thoroughness, to tickle both feet simultaneously. He looked directly at Elise as his hands worked, ignoring the squirming woman in front of him. Elise closed her eyes, but couldn't shut out the sounds of Miss Takado's ticklish agony. "Please, Ms. Brenner!" she wailed. "I cannot -- oh -- hahahahahahaha -- be tickled! I am too -- t -- HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You must stop this, pleasepleaseplease!" She switched to frantic Japanese, similarly broken by peals of laughter. The man's reply was soft but firm, and Miss Takado gave a loud, despairing yell. "Ms. Brenheeheeheeheeheehee! Don't let him -- ohhhhhhh!"
The man paused in his work and said something to her. Miss Takado, gasping for breath, couldn't respond. To prompt her, he circled a fingertip around one arch. She jerked wildly and blurted out, "He says -- heehee! Stop! -- says that if you do not sign now, he will ... he will begin to tease me in other places." The translator's eyes were wide, and her voice quavered. "Please, you must stop him. If he tickles my -- " She broke off, looking up at her tormentor mistrusfully, and received another ticklish prompt for the delay. When she had gotten the subsequent giggling fit under control, she continued, "I am even more ticklish in ... other places. I will go crazy. Ms. Brenner, I have helped you all week -- please, help me now."
Two sets of eyes stared at Elise: the tickler's curious, Miss Takado's frantic and swimming with tears of laughter. Elise bit her lip nervously. The tickler knelt by the side of the chair and pulled Miss Takado's blouse out of her waistband, beginning to unbutton it. The smaller woman shivered as her golden skin was bared: taut belly, wide-open sides, heaving ribcage, tight white bra, sweat-dappled chest. When she was fully exposed, he turned back to Elise, regarding her with a quizzical expression.
Elise took a deep breath. Looked away from Miss Takado's damp gaze. Shook her head. "I'm sorry, I really am, but ... no." The final word was all but drowned out by Miss Takado's scream of laughter. Despite herself, Elise couldn't help looking. The man was still kneeling by the side of the chair, leaning over the arm, so as not to spoil her view of Miss Takado's torment. His fingers kneaded her ribs, digging and releasing in an ever-changing rhythm. Miss Takado's entire body bucked and gyrated as if she were trying to dance to the beat of alien music, and her feet, even with her ankles bound, kicked the air. Her mouth was wide open, her face rapidly darkening as a thin, nearly continuous shriek of laughter poured out of her. Elise stared in horrified fascination, unable to keep herself from imagining the same fingers playing on her own most ticklish spots. The thought brought goosebumps to her skin, and she gave a slight involuntary wriggle. _Come on, tough it out_, she chided herself.
But it was hard to think tough with Miss Takado loudly and violently going to pieces right in front of her. The tickler had finally paused to let her take a breath, lightly running his fingers up and down her sides as if in search of somewhere new to tickle. Her body was rigid with tension, her eyes flicking back and forth. Finally, he took hold of one elbow and pulled it slightly away from her body, opening up her armpit to its widest extent. A look of pure desperation passed across Miss Takado's face as his other hand glided with exquisite slowness down her bare side toward its goal. She threw herself against the bonds with all the strength in her small body, and Elise imagined that she heard the chair creak. Miss Takado screamed in Japanese, and while Elise had no idea whether the words were meant for her or the tickler, their import was clear: not there, please, I can't stand it, no more.
The tickler paused his downward-sweeping fingers just inches from the underarm and looked up at Elise once more. Miss Takado's face was screwed up into a mask, her entire body cringing away from the expected contact. "Get it over with," Elise said wearily. "I'm not going to do it." Though he may not have understood her words, her tone was clear, and he shrugged as if to say _Suit yourself_ before tracing the rest of the way into Miss Takado's armpit, fingers scrabbling.
Miss Takado's reaction was so extreme that he might as well have stuck an exposed wire into the soft hollow. Her eyes snapped open, her body convulsed, and she let out a shriek that quickly climbed into the only-audible-by-dogs range. He slowed his assault, brushing a single fingertip through the hypersensitive zone, and Miss Takado wriggled with an energy that would have done credit to a girl a quarter her age, her breasts jumping and belly heaving as giggles were pumped out of her in a torrent. Elise thought she heard her name mixed in, but couldn't be sure. The tickler let go of Miss Takado's elbow, and she immediately tried to close her arm, but the rope around her wrist kept her from moving in close enough to inhibit the action of that torturing finger. Miss Takado yowled in helpless frustration while he reached slowly, almost ceremoniously, across her body to slip his hand into her other armpit. His fingers barely moved, but their slight yet relentless undulation sent Miss Takado into fresh paroxysms of hysteria. She bounced up and down in the chair, an astonishing feat considering how little leverage her position afforded her, and her head rolled from side to side. Nothing could dislodge the man's fingers from her most sensitive flesh, however, and at last she sagged back in the chair, too exhausted to struggle further. And still he mercilessly caressed her under the arms, forcing the high-pitched, insane laughter from her.
"Stop it!" Elise shouted despite herself. Apparently the man understood that much, for he did stop. Miss Takado's head lolled back, her face dark from the combined effects of gravity and hysteria. Her eyes were closed, and she breathed in great heaving gasps. The man rose from her side and picked up his clipboard, showing it to Elise and addressing her.
"Will ... you sign?" Miss Takado's voice was hoarse.
"I ... " The man sat down on the bed beside her. Elise couldn't keep from flinching. _Tough it out!_ "I won't!"
With a shake of his head, he set the clipboard aside. Slowly he passed his hands up and down the length of Elise's body, hovering inches above her skin, pausing above potentially ticklish spots. He spoke again, and Miss Takado immediately translated: "He will tickle you now unless you sign." She almost sounded pleased at the prospect. "He says he knows your flight back to America does not leave for six hours. If he has to tickle us for that long, he will."
Elise glanced at the clock on the night table -- 11:45. God. She tried to hold her body immobile, keep her best poker face as he glided his hands up and down, watching her closely for some telltale reaction. Though on the outside she was doing her best mannequin imitation, to herself, Elise was babbling _Not the feet, don't let him start with the feet, please, keep him away from there, anywhere but there, please ... _
He reached out and carefully undid one button of her blouse, one just over her navel. With equal care, he passed one hand through the gap created, his palm resting on the warm skin beneath, fingers splayed and tensed slightly, ready to burrow into her soft tummy. "Your last chance," Miss Takado translated for him.
"Tell him to go to hell."
Elise regretted her flash of bravado a second later as his hand contracted, fingers digging in. Though she bit back her giggles, there was no hiding the sudden, involuntary rippling squirm that passed through her body like a sine wave. He shifted the position of his fingers microscopically and dug in again, the forefinger of his other hand corkscrewing into her ribs simultaneously. Elise's body lifted free of the bed for an instant and then bounced back down as she let out a childish squeal of mirth. "He says it seems you are as ticklish as I am," Miss Takado translated as the man spoke further, scrabbling his nails over Elise's ribcage, the thin fabric of her blouse no protection. "Perhaps you are even more so. He will find out." Elise, lost on a sea of laughter, barely heard her, but was certain there was a note of amusement in Miss Takado's normally formal voice. Damn her, she was enjoying this! How could she ... Elise's angry thoughts were broken as the man pushed his hands up under her blouse, digging into the sides of her slender waist just above her hips.
"Eeeeeeeeehahahahaha! Quit that!" Elise's limber body contorted, but there was no escaping the tickling. The man kept her occupied with one hand on her lower belly while he finished undoing her blouse with the other. Her blouse only had buttons halfway down, but with its tails pushed up around her ribs, she might as well have been naked from the waist up for all the cover it afforded. He looked down at her with a smile and patted her bare belly, making her jump, then spoke once more.
"He is enjoying this so much, he intends to tickle you for another hour before he asks you to sign again," Miss Takado translated. The interpreter giggled, definitely amused now. "Too bad for you, Ms. Brenner. You should not have been so stubborn."
"You rotten -- !" Elise tried to sit up, but the restraints pulled her back. "Look," she said to the man, "I'll sign anything you want if you just tickle _her_ under the arms for a while more."
Miss Takado gasped, then angrily spoke to the man. He looked at her, then back down at Elise with his brows furrowed. "I told him that you said he is inept and foolish," Miss Takado said, smiling angelically, "and that you would never sign anything for him even if he tickled you for six _days_."
"She's lyiiiiiiiiiiiHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Elise's furious shout melted into laughter as the man, scowling, burrowed all the fingers on each hand into her ribs, each twitch of the fingers bringing a fresh yell and jump. Miss Takado watched the spectacle with a satisfied smile. The angry tickler was completely merciless, his hands racing around Elise's body, one tickle following so fast on another that she had no time to draw breath. The bedsprings sang under Elise's bouncing, thrashing body, and though her mouth was wide open in a scream, no sound emerged. Finally, after an eternity, he slowed, resting his hands on her waist. Elise, limp as a used noodle, sucked in deep draughts of air, feeling sweat wriggle its way between her breasts and down her stomach. She barely heard the man speak to her.
"He asks you if that was inept," Miss Takado supplied, grinning. Elise didn't dare say anything that the interpreter might twist into another insult. She stared at the tickler through eyes that welled tears, trying to communicate with him by telepathy: _I'll sign! I'll sign! Just stop!_
Apparently he wasn't telepathic -- or didn't care -- because his hands began to slip downward, molding themselves around the curves of her long, slender legs. Elise's eyes went big with horror, and her legs twitched violently.
"I'll sign!" she shouted, forgetting her earlier resolution to say nothing. "I'll sign! Just don't tickle my feet!"
Miss Takado said nothing. The man looked at her curiously, but continued to slide his hands along her legs, digging in his fingers behind her knees.
"Heeheehee -- Miss Takado! Please! Tell him! Don't let him -- !" The hands were on her calves now. "Miss Takado! Reiko! You can't -- please -- I'm sorry I let you get tickled! Just stop him, pleasepleaseplease!" He was unbuckling one of her shoes. Elise's feet twitched frantically. The shoe came off, was set aside ... and Miss Takado spoke.
For an endless, frozen moment, the man looked up the length of her body at Elise, his fingertips inches from her sole. Then he rose, Elise sagging in relief, moved to the head of the bed, and untied her right wrist. He handed her a pen and moved the clipboard within reach, going to untie Miss Takado while Elise struggled to complete the contract properly. She could hear them speaking to one another in Japanese.
When he came back, he picked up the pen and clipboard -- and then, to Elise's shock, took her wrist and tied it back into place again.
"Hey! What's the idea?" she demanded.
Miss Takado, disheveled and half-undressed but free, came to stand beside the man, who smiled down at Elise. In perfect English, he said, "Miss Takado and I agree that you need to learn the obligations an employer has toward an employee. While I have an appointment elsewhere, Miss Takado has agreed to provide instruction. Her contract with you expired at midnight, so there is no conflict of interest. Thank you for an entertaining evening, ladies, and good night, Ms. Brenner." He left the room, leaving a speechless Elise alone with Miss Takado.
Miss Takado grinned down at her, raising one long-nailed hand. "Six hours should afford us plenty of time to drive the lesson home. I believe I shall begin with the feet."
In the hall outside, the man paused to button his jacket. Elise's screams were faintly audible. He smiled and shook his head, walking off down the passageway.
LANGUAGE BARRIER
another one of those stories
YOU MUST BE OVER 18 TO READ THIS. BY "THIS" I MEAN THIS STORY, NOT THIS NOTICE. JUST SO YOU KNOW.
Elise Brenner hurried through the lobby of the office building, oblivious to the stares she was getting. A slender five-foot-eleven, she was taller than many of the Japanese men around her; behind her, her petite interpreter, Miss Reiko Takado, struggled to keep up with Elise's long-legged strides. Elise didn't notice, though she normally would have. She was furious.
Miss Takado caught up with her at the lobby door. "You should not have spoken so harshly to Mr. Nobeyama. He is unused to being treated like that -- especially by a woman."
"I don't care." Elise ran a hand over her short-cropped brown hair, sighing wearily. "A whole week of negotiation, and he won't back down on his position. I've tried and tried to tell him that Palmer Industries won't go for the deal he proposes, but he's just not listening."
"Mr. Nobeyama is used to getting his own way." There was something nervous in Miss Takado's tone.
"Well, so am I," snapped Elise. "If I signed that contract of his, my boss would kill me. Ah well, at least it's over -- I'll be leaving Japan tomorrow morning. Hey, is that our car out there?"
They hurried across the street and slid into the back of the car. Miss Takado spoke to the driver, giving the address of Elise's hotel, and the car pulled away from the curb.
Elise sat and watched the Tokyo cityscape go by. After a few minutes, she sat up and touched Miss Takado. "This isn't the way back to the hotel, is it?"
Miss Takado looked around, eyes widening, and spoke to the driver. Instead of responding, he pulled a small mask from under the dashboard and clamped it over his nose and mouth. Elise became aware of a sickly-sweet odor in the car. "What the hell -- " she gasped, and then yawned widely.
"No! Oh, no!" Miss Takado pounded frantically on the door, but could not open it. Her blows became steadily weaker, her eyes fluttered shut, and she slumped back onto the seat -- next to Elise, who had collapsed a second earlier.
Elise woke up to find herself restrained. She was still dressed in her business clothes, minus the jacket, but she lay on an old-fashoned brass-framed bed, wrists and ankles lashed to the framework. The bed was a bit too short for her, so her ankles rested on the footboard itself. Looking over the end of the bed, she saw a bizarre sight: Miss Takado, awake, was in a large overstuffed chair -- upside down. She rested on her neck and shoulders, her wrists fastened to the legs of the chair, her own legs thrown over the back of the chair and secured with rope around the ankles. Standing behind her chair was a Japanese man in jeans and a Metallica T-shirt, smiling at Elise.
"What -- " Elise began dizzily, looking around. It seemed like an ordinary hotel room, except for the cork paneling on the walls and the absence of windows.
"We are in a House of Tickling." Miss Takado's voice was low and despairing. "Mr. Nobeyama has arranged to have us taken here."
"What's going on?"
The Japanese man approached her, holding a clipboard and a pen, which he set on the night table beside her bed. Twisting her neck, Elise could see that the clipboard held a copy of the contract she had spurned earlier. The man went back to his post behind Miss Takado's chair as she said, "He has explained to me that you must sign the contract."
"Or what?"
"Or we will be tickled." Cold chills marched down Elise's spine, though she tried to muster a disdainful look.
"What about you? Why are you here too?"
"I am to be tickled first, since I am your employee and you have a duty to protect me. If" -- Miss Takado swallowed visibly -- "if my torment does not persuade you to relent, then you will be tickled yourself." She paused, and then went on in a quavering tone, "Ms. Brenner, I am very ticklish. I will not be able to endure this. As your employee, I beg you, do not make me undergo this." The man began to take off one of her shoes, and her leg shook.
Elise stared, the horror of the situation coming to her. But she knew what she had to do. There was no way she could let one woman's (_two_ women's, a nasty thought reminded her) feelings get her to do something bad for the company. "This is crazy! I told you, I can't sign that contract. I could lose my job."
The man set the shoe aside. Miss Takado's stockinged foot dangled in the air, toes curling in anticipation. "_Please_, Miss Brenner -- "
"Tell him that," Elise said firmly.
Miss Takado spoke with manifest reluctance, then burst into giggles almost immediately as the man lightly traced a fingertip along the bottom of her small foot. Elise watched in mingled amazement and horror as her companion's heretofore imperturbable demeanor was lost in a matter of seconds. Eyes screwed up, a huge grin stretching her face, Miss Takado wriggled wildly in her inverted position as the tickler's fingernails scratched up and down her sole. When he began to take off her other shoe, Miss Takado's eyes snapped open and she looked up at Elise with naked pleading in her gaze.
"Please," Miss Takado begged, "assent to Mr. Nobeyama's wishes. Don't let this go any further."
"I can't!" Elise was suffering, both sympathetic to Miss Takado's plight and fully conscious that she could be in equally dire straits before long. But another part of her said, _It's just tickling. Can you tell Mr. Preston that you made a bad deal because someone threatened to tickle you? You'll get through it ... and so will she. Anyway, she's just a hired hand -- you don't owe her anything._
The man threw Miss Takado's shoe aside. She addressed him in rapid-fire Japanese, which broke off in a yelp as he started, with delicate thoroughness, to tickle both feet simultaneously. He looked directly at Elise as his hands worked, ignoring the squirming woman in front of him. Elise closed her eyes, but couldn't shut out the sounds of Miss Takado's ticklish agony. "Please, Ms. Brenner!" she wailed. "I cannot -- oh -- hahahahahahaha -- be tickled! I am too -- t -- HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You must stop this, pleasepleaseplease!" She switched to frantic Japanese, similarly broken by peals of laughter. The man's reply was soft but firm, and Miss Takado gave a loud, despairing yell. "Ms. Brenheeheeheeheeheehee! Don't let him -- ohhhhhhh!"
The man paused in his work and said something to her. Miss Takado, gasping for breath, couldn't respond. To prompt her, he circled a fingertip around one arch. She jerked wildly and blurted out, "He says -- heehee! Stop! -- says that if you do not sign now, he will ... he will begin to tease me in other places." The translator's eyes were wide, and her voice quavered. "Please, you must stop him. If he tickles my -- " She broke off, looking up at her tormentor mistrusfully, and received another ticklish prompt for the delay. When she had gotten the subsequent giggling fit under control, she continued, "I am even more ticklish in ... other places. I will go crazy. Ms. Brenner, I have helped you all week -- please, help me now."
Two sets of eyes stared at Elise: the tickler's curious, Miss Takado's frantic and swimming with tears of laughter. Elise bit her lip nervously. The tickler knelt by the side of the chair and pulled Miss Takado's blouse out of her waistband, beginning to unbutton it. The smaller woman shivered as her golden skin was bared: taut belly, wide-open sides, heaving ribcage, tight white bra, sweat-dappled chest. When she was fully exposed, he turned back to Elise, regarding her with a quizzical expression.
Elise took a deep breath. Looked away from Miss Takado's damp gaze. Shook her head. "I'm sorry, I really am, but ... no." The final word was all but drowned out by Miss Takado's scream of laughter. Despite herself, Elise couldn't help looking. The man was still kneeling by the side of the chair, leaning over the arm, so as not to spoil her view of Miss Takado's torment. His fingers kneaded her ribs, digging and releasing in an ever-changing rhythm. Miss Takado's entire body bucked and gyrated as if she were trying to dance to the beat of alien music, and her feet, even with her ankles bound, kicked the air. Her mouth was wide open, her face rapidly darkening as a thin, nearly continuous shriek of laughter poured out of her. Elise stared in horrified fascination, unable to keep herself from imagining the same fingers playing on her own most ticklish spots. The thought brought goosebumps to her skin, and she gave a slight involuntary wriggle. _Come on, tough it out_, she chided herself.
But it was hard to think tough with Miss Takado loudly and violently going to pieces right in front of her. The tickler had finally paused to let her take a breath, lightly running his fingers up and down her sides as if in search of somewhere new to tickle. Her body was rigid with tension, her eyes flicking back and forth. Finally, he took hold of one elbow and pulled it slightly away from her body, opening up her armpit to its widest extent. A look of pure desperation passed across Miss Takado's face as his other hand glided with exquisite slowness down her bare side toward its goal. She threw herself against the bonds with all the strength in her small body, and Elise imagined that she heard the chair creak. Miss Takado screamed in Japanese, and while Elise had no idea whether the words were meant for her or the tickler, their import was clear: not there, please, I can't stand it, no more.
The tickler paused his downward-sweeping fingers just inches from the underarm and looked up at Elise once more. Miss Takado's face was screwed up into a mask, her entire body cringing away from the expected contact. "Get it over with," Elise said wearily. "I'm not going to do it." Though he may not have understood her words, her tone was clear, and he shrugged as if to say _Suit yourself_ before tracing the rest of the way into Miss Takado's armpit, fingers scrabbling.
Miss Takado's reaction was so extreme that he might as well have stuck an exposed wire into the soft hollow. Her eyes snapped open, her body convulsed, and she let out a shriek that quickly climbed into the only-audible-by-dogs range. He slowed his assault, brushing a single fingertip through the hypersensitive zone, and Miss Takado wriggled with an energy that would have done credit to a girl a quarter her age, her breasts jumping and belly heaving as giggles were pumped out of her in a torrent. Elise thought she heard her name mixed in, but couldn't be sure. The tickler let go of Miss Takado's elbow, and she immediately tried to close her arm, but the rope around her wrist kept her from moving in close enough to inhibit the action of that torturing finger. Miss Takado yowled in helpless frustration while he reached slowly, almost ceremoniously, across her body to slip his hand into her other armpit. His fingers barely moved, but their slight yet relentless undulation sent Miss Takado into fresh paroxysms of hysteria. She bounced up and down in the chair, an astonishing feat considering how little leverage her position afforded her, and her head rolled from side to side. Nothing could dislodge the man's fingers from her most sensitive flesh, however, and at last she sagged back in the chair, too exhausted to struggle further. And still he mercilessly caressed her under the arms, forcing the high-pitched, insane laughter from her.
"Stop it!" Elise shouted despite herself. Apparently the man understood that much, for he did stop. Miss Takado's head lolled back, her face dark from the combined effects of gravity and hysteria. Her eyes were closed, and she breathed in great heaving gasps. The man rose from her side and picked up his clipboard, showing it to Elise and addressing her.
"Will ... you sign?" Miss Takado's voice was hoarse.
"I ... " The man sat down on the bed beside her. Elise couldn't keep from flinching. _Tough it out!_ "I won't!"
With a shake of his head, he set the clipboard aside. Slowly he passed his hands up and down the length of Elise's body, hovering inches above her skin, pausing above potentially ticklish spots. He spoke again, and Miss Takado immediately translated: "He will tickle you now unless you sign." She almost sounded pleased at the prospect. "He says he knows your flight back to America does not leave for six hours. If he has to tickle us for that long, he will."
Elise glanced at the clock on the night table -- 11:45. God. She tried to hold her body immobile, keep her best poker face as he glided his hands up and down, watching her closely for some telltale reaction. Though on the outside she was doing her best mannequin imitation, to herself, Elise was babbling _Not the feet, don't let him start with the feet, please, keep him away from there, anywhere but there, please ... _
He reached out and carefully undid one button of her blouse, one just over her navel. With equal care, he passed one hand through the gap created, his palm resting on the warm skin beneath, fingers splayed and tensed slightly, ready to burrow into her soft tummy. "Your last chance," Miss Takado translated for him.
"Tell him to go to hell."
Elise regretted her flash of bravado a second later as his hand contracted, fingers digging in. Though she bit back her giggles, there was no hiding the sudden, involuntary rippling squirm that passed through her body like a sine wave. He shifted the position of his fingers microscopically and dug in again, the forefinger of his other hand corkscrewing into her ribs simultaneously. Elise's body lifted free of the bed for an instant and then bounced back down as she let out a childish squeal of mirth. "He says it seems you are as ticklish as I am," Miss Takado translated as the man spoke further, scrabbling his nails over Elise's ribcage, the thin fabric of her blouse no protection. "Perhaps you are even more so. He will find out." Elise, lost on a sea of laughter, barely heard her, but was certain there was a note of amusement in Miss Takado's normally formal voice. Damn her, she was enjoying this! How could she ... Elise's angry thoughts were broken as the man pushed his hands up under her blouse, digging into the sides of her slender waist just above her hips.
"Eeeeeeeeehahahahaha! Quit that!" Elise's limber body contorted, but there was no escaping the tickling. The man kept her occupied with one hand on her lower belly while he finished undoing her blouse with the other. Her blouse only had buttons halfway down, but with its tails pushed up around her ribs, she might as well have been naked from the waist up for all the cover it afforded. He looked down at her with a smile and patted her bare belly, making her jump, then spoke once more.
"He is enjoying this so much, he intends to tickle you for another hour before he asks you to sign again," Miss Takado translated. The interpreter giggled, definitely amused now. "Too bad for you, Ms. Brenner. You should not have been so stubborn."
"You rotten -- !" Elise tried to sit up, but the restraints pulled her back. "Look," she said to the man, "I'll sign anything you want if you just tickle _her_ under the arms for a while more."
Miss Takado gasped, then angrily spoke to the man. He looked at her, then back down at Elise with his brows furrowed. "I told him that you said he is inept and foolish," Miss Takado said, smiling angelically, "and that you would never sign anything for him even if he tickled you for six _days_."
"She's lyiiiiiiiiiiiHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Elise's furious shout melted into laughter as the man, scowling, burrowed all the fingers on each hand into her ribs, each twitch of the fingers bringing a fresh yell and jump. Miss Takado watched the spectacle with a satisfied smile. The angry tickler was completely merciless, his hands racing around Elise's body, one tickle following so fast on another that she had no time to draw breath. The bedsprings sang under Elise's bouncing, thrashing body, and though her mouth was wide open in a scream, no sound emerged. Finally, after an eternity, he slowed, resting his hands on her waist. Elise, limp as a used noodle, sucked in deep draughts of air, feeling sweat wriggle its way between her breasts and down her stomach. She barely heard the man speak to her.
"He asks you if that was inept," Miss Takado supplied, grinning. Elise didn't dare say anything that the interpreter might twist into another insult. She stared at the tickler through eyes that welled tears, trying to communicate with him by telepathy: _I'll sign! I'll sign! Just stop!_
Apparently he wasn't telepathic -- or didn't care -- because his hands began to slip downward, molding themselves around the curves of her long, slender legs. Elise's eyes went big with horror, and her legs twitched violently.
"I'll sign!" she shouted, forgetting her earlier resolution to say nothing. "I'll sign! Just don't tickle my feet!"
Miss Takado said nothing. The man looked at her curiously, but continued to slide his hands along her legs, digging in his fingers behind her knees.
"Heeheehee -- Miss Takado! Please! Tell him! Don't let him -- !" The hands were on her calves now. "Miss Takado! Reiko! You can't -- please -- I'm sorry I let you get tickled! Just stop him, pleasepleaseplease!" He was unbuckling one of her shoes. Elise's feet twitched frantically. The shoe came off, was set aside ... and Miss Takado spoke.
For an endless, frozen moment, the man looked up the length of her body at Elise, his fingertips inches from her sole. Then he rose, Elise sagging in relief, moved to the head of the bed, and untied her right wrist. He handed her a pen and moved the clipboard within reach, going to untie Miss Takado while Elise struggled to complete the contract properly. She could hear them speaking to one another in Japanese.
When he came back, he picked up the pen and clipboard -- and then, to Elise's shock, took her wrist and tied it back into place again.
"Hey! What's the idea?" she demanded.
Miss Takado, disheveled and half-undressed but free, came to stand beside the man, who smiled down at Elise. In perfect English, he said, "Miss Takado and I agree that you need to learn the obligations an employer has toward an employee. While I have an appointment elsewhere, Miss Takado has agreed to provide instruction. Her contract with you expired at midnight, so there is no conflict of interest. Thank you for an entertaining evening, ladies, and good night, Ms. Brenner." He left the room, leaving a speechless Elise alone with Miss Takado.
Miss Takado grinned down at her, raising one long-nailed hand. "Six hours should afford us plenty of time to drive the lesson home. I believe I shall begin with the feet."
In the hall outside, the man paused to button his jacket. Elise's screams were faintly audible. He smiled and shook his head, walking off down the passageway.
