YouNeverKnow175
TMF Master
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2002
- Messages
- 810
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“Well,” Mallory said, feeling slightly embarrassed to bring the topic up, but knowing it could help, “there is this relationship issue that doesn’t seem to be going away.”
“Yes?” Dr. Culbek, her therapist replied.
“Well, it’s Drew - my boyfriend - he’s, um, aroused....by tickling,”
“Okay, go on,” Dr. Culbek said. Mallory had been seeing Dr. Culbek for years and they had a strong relationship. Dr. Culbek was a no-nonsense therapist who could see through her patients very well, while all the while being very kind and gentle. She was forty-seven years old with black, shoulder-length hair, brown eyes and olive skin.
“I mean, it’s not a problem inherently - I understand people are into different things. But....well, it’s just.....it’s hard for me.”
“Why is it hard?”
“Well, I was tickled a lot growing up...by my family. They took it really far. And I really grew to associate it with a loss of power and being dominated.” Mallory felt sad recalling these memories. She twirled her shoulder-length, light brown hair nervously and closed her brown eyes briefly to reflect. She sat with her long, slender legs crossed in her chair, nervously shaking her naked foot in her blue Tom’s shoe.
“And how do you feel when you’re tickled now?”
“It kind of all comes back. I feel so helpless.”
“Tickling definitely can make people feel helpless, for sure.”
“But I feel like it’s especially strong with me. Even when I talk about times I’ve been tickled in the past, I feel so vulnerable, I can barely even talk about it.”
“Who tickled you in the past?” Dr. Culbek asked.
“My dad, my brother, my uncle. My mom and sister, too, but not nearly as much as my dad and brother.”
“What would they do?”
“They would hold me down and tickle torture me! I couldn’t get away. I would laugh so hard I could barely breathe. I wanted them to stop so badly but I never knew if they would.”
“Do you consider yourself very ticklish? More ticklish than most people?”
Mallory blushed. “Well, um....I’d say...yes...”
“I ask,” Dr. Culbek explained, “because I’m curious how much of your experience of tickling is physical as opposed to psychological.”
“Well, yes, I mean, I’m very, very ticklish....”
“Do you think you just dislike it because you’re so ticklish? Or do you think it’s this deeper psychological issue?” “Well....I mean....both, I think....”
“I ask because we could really spend some time trying to go deep with the psychological issue over the next several sessions,” Dr. Culbek said, “but I wouldn’t want to waste our time if it’s simpler. I mean, some people are just incredibly ticklish and hate it, end of story.”
“Hmm,” Mallory contemplated.
“We could do a little test to see,” Dr. Culbek said. “I can usually tell these kinds of things fairly easily when I see the patient’s responses.”
Mallory was a bit taken aback. “The patient’s responses?”
“To tickling. I’ve worked with a few patients over the years who had similar concerns. If I experience their reactions to tickling first hand, I can usually tell how much of it is physical versus psychological. There are tell-tale signs.”
“Oh, well....I....”
“If we can spend a few minutes just checking this out now, then we can be sure we’re not unnecessarily wasting our time later.”
Mallory grew more nervous. “What, um....um...what does it entail?”
“I’ll tickle you in a few areas, just to test your response. It will be quick, I promise.”
“Um,” Mallory’s heart was racing. “I don’t know if I can, um, really...handle it.”
“We’ll find that out. And we can know for sure whether your extreme reactions to tickling are simply physical, or if there’s something deeper psychologically going on. Here, lie down,” she gestured to the couch in her office where Mallory had never sat. Mallory nervously did as she was told. She lay down, and kept her shoes on.
“Where are the spots that give you the strongest reactions?” Dr. Culbek asked.
Mallory almost couldn’t speak. She looked at Dr. Culbek’s hands and her long, dark red painted nails. “W - well...um....I don’t know if I....”
“Maybe I’ll just try some of the usual suspect spots,” Dr. Culbek said. “Just lift your t-shirt up a little bit.”
Mallory did so and braced for the worst. She closed her eyes, and felt Dr. Culbek’s nails lightly touching her stomach. She tightened her muscles and fought hard not to react. She bit her lip, and looked to the side, desperately trying to distract herself somehow. Dr. Culbek began to move her fingers more swiftly around Mallory’s exposed belly and then toward her sides. As her hands approached Mallory’s sides, Mallory’s mouth opened wide and she exploded into hard laughter immediately. Dr. Culbek was almost startled by Mallory’s extreme reaction. “Oh!” she exclaimed, then smiled and continued to tickle. She scribbled her nails up and down Mallory’s sides.
“NO!” Mallory yelled, laughing harder. She began to flail her body all over the couch. Her laughter was uncontrollable and quickly grew almost silent. She thrashed and then wriggled off the couch, falling onto the floor.
“Well,” Dr. Culbek said, stopping. “Thirty years old! I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a grown woman react quite so dramatically to being tickled.”
Mallory blushed. “I...I told you...I’m really, really ticklish....”
“It’s helpful for me to see what’s happening when you’re tickled. I think I’m getting a pretty good read on it, but we need to do a little bit more.”
“M- more?” Mallory stammered.
“Just a few more minutes,” Dr. Culbek replied. “Come back up onto the couch and remove your shoes.”
“W - well...I mean....” Mallory said.
“It’s just a sensation in your body, Mallory. You can take it.” Dr. Culbek said firmly.
Mallory kicked off her shoes, revealing her size eight feet. Sometimes she liked to paint her toenails, but today, they were “naked.” It was a sunny spring day, and her feet were warm, soft, and slightly sweaty.
Dr. Culbek reached down and ran one fingernail up Mallory’s left sole. Mallory yelped and pulled her foot away.
“Well, you do have to try to keep them still so I can do this test,” Dr. Culbek said with a mildly scolding tone of voice.
“I don’t know if.....I don’t think I can do that.....”
“Alright, here,” Dr. Culbek lifted Mallory’s feet and sat down underneath them. She placed them back in her lap, and positioned her right arm in a way that held them in place.
“Oh...I really don’t....”
Dr. Culbek began moving her fingernails up and down Mallory’s left sole. Mallory tried hard to pull away immediately but Dr. Culbek held her feet in place. Mallory bit her lip and began breathing heavily, trying with every fiber in her body to keep her composure. She hated the feeling of losing her composure, because then she felt out of control. Once she started laughing, her tickler had her.
However, with a few more seconds of fingernails scraping her sole, Mallory began to laugh. Her laughter quickly grew loud and intense. She fought hard to try to get away, but she also worried she was going to kick and hurt her therapist, so she was limiting her attempts to a certain extent.
As she giggled, she tried to beg her therapist to stop. “Dr. Culbek - hahaha - I’m - I’m -ahhahahaeeeee - I’m just - I’m just so ticklish - please - please - hahahaha - can you please -hahahahahaha!”
Dr. Culbek switched to the other foot, which for about a half-second felt like a welcome change until Mallory realized it tickled even more. Then Dr. Culbek starting doing something she hadn’t done on Mallory’s other foot - tickling her toes.
Mallory’s toes were a “red-zone” area for her. She absolutely, positively could not handle being touched there. Her therapist’s nails dancing along the bottoms of her toes was excruciating. Mallory laughed harder, trying to explain that she really needed Dr. Culbek to stop, but she couldn’t get any words out. Her mind raced, a combination of trying to distract herself and trying to find a way out of the situation. She wondered what would have happened if she had worn shoes that were harder to take off, or shoes with socks - maybe Dr. Culbek wouldn’t have asked her to take them off. She wished she hadn’t brought up the topic at all - she couldn’t believe what was happening. It tickled so much, and she wondered why - or how on earth - she was so ticklish.
Dr. Culbek began taking all five nails and scraping them straight up and down Mallory’s soles. Mallory closed her eyes tight, opened her mouth wide, and shook her upper body violently. She didn’t know what to do, and she felt like she couldn’t take a second more. She was laughing so hard she couldn’t speak. She grabbed a pillow that was next to her on the couch and squeezed it with all her might. Then she pulled it, and it ripped apart, spewing feathers everywhere.
Dr. Culbek paused. She looked straight at Mallory, who was panting and trying to catch her breath. She then picked up one of the feathers. “Don’t worry about the pillow, it’s not your fault. A casualty of the treatment. Last test.”
She placed the feather between Mallory’s big toe and second toe. Mallory’s face was priceless, displaying utter shock. In a certain way, the feather tickled less than Dr. Culbek’s vigorous tickling of her soles, and she was grateful for the relief. But in between her toes were her absolute worst spot, and she had never felt anything quite like this. Quickly her shock turned to giggles.
The giggles were more girly, less desperate. They were higher pitched, more “eee’s” than “aaa’s”. They were faster and more buoyant. Slowly, Dr. Culbek moved to in between the next two toes, and then proceeded as such, through both feet. Every time she removed the feather and Mallory had a second of relief, she couldn’t believe her good fortune. Then every time the feather returned, she thought she was going to lose her mind.
When it finally ended, Dr. Culbek stood up and asked Mallory to return to her chair.
“You know, Mallory,” she said conclusively. “You are very, very, very ticklish. I think that’s just something you’re going to have to cope with in your life. I mean, I’m guessing, from tickling you just now, that a lot of little things that aren’t even supposed to tickle you throughout your day end up causing you distress.”
“Um,” Mallory turned very red. “Yes, that does happen....”
“We can definitely talk about the problems this situation presents with your boyfriend. But I do think this problem is largely physical, and part of it is that you really need to come to terms with being an extraordinarily ticklish person.”
Mallory shivered at the phrase. Inside her shoes, she curled her toes up, as if to protect them from Dr. Culbek’s words.
As she walked out of the office into the warm spring air she was still catching her breath, wondering if there was any way possible to make herself less ticklish.
-- THE END --
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“Yes?” Dr. Culbek, her therapist replied.
“Well, it’s Drew - my boyfriend - he’s, um, aroused....by tickling,”
“Okay, go on,” Dr. Culbek said. Mallory had been seeing Dr. Culbek for years and they had a strong relationship. Dr. Culbek was a no-nonsense therapist who could see through her patients very well, while all the while being very kind and gentle. She was forty-seven years old with black, shoulder-length hair, brown eyes and olive skin.
“I mean, it’s not a problem inherently - I understand people are into different things. But....well, it’s just.....it’s hard for me.”
“Why is it hard?”
“Well, I was tickled a lot growing up...by my family. They took it really far. And I really grew to associate it with a loss of power and being dominated.” Mallory felt sad recalling these memories. She twirled her shoulder-length, light brown hair nervously and closed her brown eyes briefly to reflect. She sat with her long, slender legs crossed in her chair, nervously shaking her naked foot in her blue Tom’s shoe.
“And how do you feel when you’re tickled now?”
“It kind of all comes back. I feel so helpless.”
“Tickling definitely can make people feel helpless, for sure.”
“But I feel like it’s especially strong with me. Even when I talk about times I’ve been tickled in the past, I feel so vulnerable, I can barely even talk about it.”
“Who tickled you in the past?” Dr. Culbek asked.
“My dad, my brother, my uncle. My mom and sister, too, but not nearly as much as my dad and brother.”
“What would they do?”
“They would hold me down and tickle torture me! I couldn’t get away. I would laugh so hard I could barely breathe. I wanted them to stop so badly but I never knew if they would.”
“Do you consider yourself very ticklish? More ticklish than most people?”
Mallory blushed. “Well, um....I’d say...yes...”
“I ask,” Dr. Culbek explained, “because I’m curious how much of your experience of tickling is physical as opposed to psychological.”
“Well, yes, I mean, I’m very, very ticklish....”
“Do you think you just dislike it because you’re so ticklish? Or do you think it’s this deeper psychological issue?” “Well....I mean....both, I think....”
“I ask because we could really spend some time trying to go deep with the psychological issue over the next several sessions,” Dr. Culbek said, “but I wouldn’t want to waste our time if it’s simpler. I mean, some people are just incredibly ticklish and hate it, end of story.”
“Hmm,” Mallory contemplated.
“We could do a little test to see,” Dr. Culbek said. “I can usually tell these kinds of things fairly easily when I see the patient’s responses.”
Mallory was a bit taken aback. “The patient’s responses?”
“To tickling. I’ve worked with a few patients over the years who had similar concerns. If I experience their reactions to tickling first hand, I can usually tell how much of it is physical versus psychological. There are tell-tale signs.”
“Oh, well....I....”
“If we can spend a few minutes just checking this out now, then we can be sure we’re not unnecessarily wasting our time later.”
Mallory grew more nervous. “What, um....um...what does it entail?”
“I’ll tickle you in a few areas, just to test your response. It will be quick, I promise.”
“Um,” Mallory’s heart was racing. “I don’t know if I can, um, really...handle it.”
“We’ll find that out. And we can know for sure whether your extreme reactions to tickling are simply physical, or if there’s something deeper psychologically going on. Here, lie down,” she gestured to the couch in her office where Mallory had never sat. Mallory nervously did as she was told. She lay down, and kept her shoes on.
“Where are the spots that give you the strongest reactions?” Dr. Culbek asked.
Mallory almost couldn’t speak. She looked at Dr. Culbek’s hands and her long, dark red painted nails. “W - well...um....I don’t know if I....”
“Maybe I’ll just try some of the usual suspect spots,” Dr. Culbek said. “Just lift your t-shirt up a little bit.”
Mallory did so and braced for the worst. She closed her eyes, and felt Dr. Culbek’s nails lightly touching her stomach. She tightened her muscles and fought hard not to react. She bit her lip, and looked to the side, desperately trying to distract herself somehow. Dr. Culbek began to move her fingers more swiftly around Mallory’s exposed belly and then toward her sides. As her hands approached Mallory’s sides, Mallory’s mouth opened wide and she exploded into hard laughter immediately. Dr. Culbek was almost startled by Mallory’s extreme reaction. “Oh!” she exclaimed, then smiled and continued to tickle. She scribbled her nails up and down Mallory’s sides.
“NO!” Mallory yelled, laughing harder. She began to flail her body all over the couch. Her laughter was uncontrollable and quickly grew almost silent. She thrashed and then wriggled off the couch, falling onto the floor.
“Well,” Dr. Culbek said, stopping. “Thirty years old! I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a grown woman react quite so dramatically to being tickled.”
Mallory blushed. “I...I told you...I’m really, really ticklish....”
“It’s helpful for me to see what’s happening when you’re tickled. I think I’m getting a pretty good read on it, but we need to do a little bit more.”
“M- more?” Mallory stammered.
“Just a few more minutes,” Dr. Culbek replied. “Come back up onto the couch and remove your shoes.”
“W - well...I mean....” Mallory said.
“It’s just a sensation in your body, Mallory. You can take it.” Dr. Culbek said firmly.
Mallory kicked off her shoes, revealing her size eight feet. Sometimes she liked to paint her toenails, but today, they were “naked.” It was a sunny spring day, and her feet were warm, soft, and slightly sweaty.
Dr. Culbek reached down and ran one fingernail up Mallory’s left sole. Mallory yelped and pulled her foot away.
“Well, you do have to try to keep them still so I can do this test,” Dr. Culbek said with a mildly scolding tone of voice.
“I don’t know if.....I don’t think I can do that.....”
“Alright, here,” Dr. Culbek lifted Mallory’s feet and sat down underneath them. She placed them back in her lap, and positioned her right arm in a way that held them in place.
“Oh...I really don’t....”
Dr. Culbek began moving her fingernails up and down Mallory’s left sole. Mallory tried hard to pull away immediately but Dr. Culbek held her feet in place. Mallory bit her lip and began breathing heavily, trying with every fiber in her body to keep her composure. She hated the feeling of losing her composure, because then she felt out of control. Once she started laughing, her tickler had her.
However, with a few more seconds of fingernails scraping her sole, Mallory began to laugh. Her laughter quickly grew loud and intense. She fought hard to try to get away, but she also worried she was going to kick and hurt her therapist, so she was limiting her attempts to a certain extent.
As she giggled, she tried to beg her therapist to stop. “Dr. Culbek - hahaha - I’m - I’m -ahhahahaeeeee - I’m just - I’m just so ticklish - please - please - hahahaha - can you please -hahahahahaha!”
Dr. Culbek switched to the other foot, which for about a half-second felt like a welcome change until Mallory realized it tickled even more. Then Dr. Culbek starting doing something she hadn’t done on Mallory’s other foot - tickling her toes.
Mallory’s toes were a “red-zone” area for her. She absolutely, positively could not handle being touched there. Her therapist’s nails dancing along the bottoms of her toes was excruciating. Mallory laughed harder, trying to explain that she really needed Dr. Culbek to stop, but she couldn’t get any words out. Her mind raced, a combination of trying to distract herself and trying to find a way out of the situation. She wondered what would have happened if she had worn shoes that were harder to take off, or shoes with socks - maybe Dr. Culbek wouldn’t have asked her to take them off. She wished she hadn’t brought up the topic at all - she couldn’t believe what was happening. It tickled so much, and she wondered why - or how on earth - she was so ticklish.
Dr. Culbek began taking all five nails and scraping them straight up and down Mallory’s soles. Mallory closed her eyes tight, opened her mouth wide, and shook her upper body violently. She didn’t know what to do, and she felt like she couldn’t take a second more. She was laughing so hard she couldn’t speak. She grabbed a pillow that was next to her on the couch and squeezed it with all her might. Then she pulled it, and it ripped apart, spewing feathers everywhere.
Dr. Culbek paused. She looked straight at Mallory, who was panting and trying to catch her breath. She then picked up one of the feathers. “Don’t worry about the pillow, it’s not your fault. A casualty of the treatment. Last test.”
She placed the feather between Mallory’s big toe and second toe. Mallory’s face was priceless, displaying utter shock. In a certain way, the feather tickled less than Dr. Culbek’s vigorous tickling of her soles, and she was grateful for the relief. But in between her toes were her absolute worst spot, and she had never felt anything quite like this. Quickly her shock turned to giggles.
The giggles were more girly, less desperate. They were higher pitched, more “eee’s” than “aaa’s”. They were faster and more buoyant. Slowly, Dr. Culbek moved to in between the next two toes, and then proceeded as such, through both feet. Every time she removed the feather and Mallory had a second of relief, she couldn’t believe her good fortune. Then every time the feather returned, she thought she was going to lose her mind.
When it finally ended, Dr. Culbek stood up and asked Mallory to return to her chair.
“You know, Mallory,” she said conclusively. “You are very, very, very ticklish. I think that’s just something you’re going to have to cope with in your life. I mean, I’m guessing, from tickling you just now, that a lot of little things that aren’t even supposed to tickle you throughout your day end up causing you distress.”
“Um,” Mallory turned very red. “Yes, that does happen....”
“We can definitely talk about the problems this situation presents with your boyfriend. But I do think this problem is largely physical, and part of it is that you really need to come to terms with being an extraordinarily ticklish person.”
Mallory shivered at the phrase. Inside her shoes, she curled her toes up, as if to protect them from Dr. Culbek’s words.
As she walked out of the office into the warm spring air she was still catching her breath, wondering if there was any way possible to make herself less ticklish.
-- THE END --
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