TheGerbilSystem
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Hey gang! So, the below story is something I worked on for another TMF user (who, for the record, is totally awesome and has graciously allowed me to share it with all of you good folks). Hope everyone likes it! It's kind of long, I think, so, you know, just be prepared for that.
Also, just FYI, if you like what you read, I'm for sure open to doing more commission-type deals, so please feel free to contact me if that sounds like something you might be interested in! If you don't like what you read, that's cool too though.
(P.S. - For those who want to get straight into the tickling stuff without knowledge of the backstory, it starts up after the hash)
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Note: the following takes place in the same universe as the recent Suicide Squad movie
“Would anyone care to explain this to me?” asked the Joker, tossing a newspaper onto the table. He was smiling, but somehow didn’t look very happy.
One of his henchmen (wearing a cartoon Batman mask) picked it up and took a second to consider the headline. In bold capital letters, splashed across the front page: CAPED CRUSADER NARROWLY ESCAPES CLOWN’S CLUTCHES. The picture below was grainy, but showed someone who looked an awful lot like Batgirl running away from someone who looked an awful lot like Harley Quinn.
“You know how it is, Boss. Can’t really trust the press these days. Hard for them to sell papers when you can get all your news on the web. It’s actually a-,”
Joker grabbed Batman Mask’s cheeks and squeezed them together so he’d stop talking. “Oh oh oh oh oh oh, you don’t have to lie to me, my dear. I just had a very interesting talk with the nice young reporter who wrote this. Sweet gal. Bit of an Erin Brockovich type. Seemed very honest to me. Of course, everyone seems that way once they lose a few fingers!” Joker laughed so hard he had to lean against Batman Mask for support, and then finally composed himself. “Anyway, she told me all about what happened. But what she couldn’t tell me was why it happened.”
Another henchmen (this one wearing a giant panda head) stopped watching TV in the corner and turned towards Joker. “Harley. That’s why this happened.”
Joker walked towards Panda Head. “Ah! Here is a man who knows something! Do not leave me wanting, friend! Explain just a little bit further.”
“Before you sent us out, you said this was just a simple kidnapping. Grab Batgirl, then hit the bricks. Well, Harley tried to turn it into a robbery, too. That gave her a chance to get away.”
“Did she now!” said Joker, exaggeratedly rubbing his chin, as if deep in thought.
“Yeah. She’s been real cocky lately. Thinks she’s smarter than everyone, thinks she’s tougher than everyone. Just a complete nightmare to work for.”
“Hmm. Well, I guess this is what I get for sending a woman out to do my dirty work!” Joker started laughing again. But when a couple of his henchmen joined in, he whipped a gun out of his jacket and – POW! POW! - shot both of them dead.
“So sad to see sexism in 2016. Honestly, we’re trying to run a progressive organization here.” Joker turned back to Panda Head. “So what you’re saying is that Harely needs to be taken down a peg or two. Is that it?”
“That’s about it.”
“Well, thank you for sharing!” Joker then flipped the Panda Head off and shot him point-blank in the forehead.
“Is this who I share my life with?” he exclaimed. “Misogynists and narcs and-” – he pointed his gun at Batman Mask – “and liars!”
Joker walked up to Batman Mask, who instinctively recoiled. But instead of shooting him, Joker pulled a “Good Job!” sticker out of his pocket – the same kind you’d get for an 100 on a spelling test in grade school – and slapped it across his chest.
“You’ve just received a promotion,” he said. “Please go find Ms. Quinn and get her on the Happy Table. Tell her it’s Joker’s Orders.” He started walking out of the room, but turned back to deliver a final directive. “Oh, and tell her to lose the clothes too. Underwear only. I’m going to need some, uh, exposed skin for what I have planned for her.” Then he turned to leave again, this time for good, cackling all the way.
A few hours later, Harley Quinn was: a) in a dark basement; b) by herself; c) strapped to the “Happy Table” (which was really just a standard-issue rack); d) wearing only a bra and panties; and e) stretched tight, completely immobilized, bound at the wrists, elbows, ankles, and knees so her body made an “X” shape. Still, she wasn’t sweating it too much. she knew the Joker’s reputation – psychopath, sadistic, about as empathetic as a toaster oven – but she also knew he had a soft spot for her. Besides, she was kind of used to his punishments by now. There wasn’t a lot he could throw at her that she hadn’t seen before.
Suddenly, the door to the basement creaked open, and the lights turned on juuuust bright enough that she could see. In walked the Joker, humming some song Harley couldn’t recognize. Despite her situation, she smiled as he made his way up to her.
“Am I done with timeout now, Puddin’?” she asked.
Joker shook his head. “Oh, Harley Harley Harley. You’ve put me in a very tough spot here. Tell me, when I sent you out last night, did you do anything besides try to grab the Bat? Maybe, I don’t know, try to knock-off a couple of Gotham’s finest businesses on your way back?”
Harley giggled. “Maybe.”
“Hmm. Disobeying a direct order. Letting the Bat loose. Well, we certainly can’t have that go unpunished, can we?”
“Okay. You can torture me if you want to. After all, it’s what you trained me for. Who knows, I may even like it!” Harley started laughing at her own joke.
“Yes, I’ve taught you well, haven’t I? Taught you to block out pain,” said the Joker. “You know, these good-guy types, they just lack a certain . . . creativity. Pain is the only way they know how to torture. But for someone who puts a little bit of thought into it – someone like me – there are just so many other ways to get things done!”
“What are you talking about?” asked Harley. She wasn’t smiling anymore.
Joker didn’t respond. Instead, he reached a hand out towards Harley’s exposed underarm and wiggled his fingers just above the skin. Harley instinctively flinched and laughed for a second or two.
“What’s so funny?” asked the Joker.
“Nothing. Nothing’s funny.”
“Nothing’s funny? That’s a shame. But then why were you laughing?”
“I didn’t laugh. Was I laughing? I didn’t hear anyone AHHHHHHHHH!!!”
Harley couldn’t finish her last sentence because Joker had stopped faking and started tickling. He let his fingers dance over her bare underarms for about fifteen seconds while she just about laughed her ass off.
“Ah. Ticklish, are we?” he asked, while she tried desperately to catch her breath.
“Yeah, so what? Isn’t everyone? You really think a little kiddie game is gonna teach me a lesson?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t know about everyone else. I’m not a learned medical scholar like you are, Dr. Quinzel.” Joker laughed. “But it seems to me that you’re particularly sensitive. Maybe the best way to teach you this important lesson about insubordination is-,”
Joker suddenly shot both hands back into Harley’s underarms and spidered them all over the hollows. Once again, Harley absolutely lost it.
“HAHAHAHAHAAHAAHAHA NO! STOP STOP STOP STOP STAHAHAHAHAHAP!”
Of course, Joker didn’t listen. He kept on wiggling his fingers all around while she kept laughing and begging for him to lay off. It was surprising, he thought, how badly she was reacting to the tickling. He had figured on her breaking at some point — otherwise he would’ve gone with a more conventional form of punishment — but slowly, gradually. Not without a fight, at least. As it turns out, she couldn’t even hold back for a few seconds before she was giggling like a little girl.
As for Harley, she was officially starting to get nervous. Over the past few years, she’d changed a lot; toughened up most of the parts that had gone soft living civilian life. Her ticklishness wasn’t one of those places. Joker had been tickling her for less than a minute, and already she wasn’t sure she could hold out much longer. She was praying he didn’t know that.
When Joker sensed that Harley was getting a little too comfortable with his five-finger technique, he decided to change tactics. He started circling a single finger around the edges of each underarm, building anticipation. Even that was enough to make Harley bite her lip to keep her laughter in. Maybe she could hold out, she thought. Fake for a couple minutes like she had adjusted to the tickling, and hope that Joker got bored with it. Not out of the realm of possibility. The little circles he was doing at the moment weren’t too horrible, at least.
Suddenly, Joker took each finger and started wiggling it in the center of her underarm, and any thoughts Harley had about keeping cool were out the window.
“HAHAHAHAHAA NO! NO NO NO NO NO HAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHAA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! NOT THERE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAA!”
“Are you making a request?” asked the Joker. “Because manners are very important to me. I only consider requests when they’re prefaced by the word ‘please’.”
“OKAYAYAAYAYAY HAHAHAAHAHA PLEAHAHAHEASE HAHAHAHAHAAHA!” Tears were starting to form in her eyes.
“My dear, please is an adverb. It’s meaningless by itself. Tell me, why didn’t you include the rest of the sentence?”
Before Harley could get another word out, Joker switched back up to using his whole hand on each underarm. The adjustment had worked: while one finger had been torturous enough for Harley, going from one straight into five made for a particularly special hell.
“AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHA! NO! HAHAHAHAAHAHAHA STOPSTOPSTOP!!! I’M SAHAHAHAHAHAAHARY!!!!! STAHAHAHAHAHAPP!!!!!!
“Oh, I can’t stop now! How can I stop when you’re having such a good time! I don’t think I’d be able to live with myself!”
“I’M NOT HAVING A GOOD TIME!” Harley shrieked. Now the tears were running down her face like a leaky faucet. “LET ME GO LET ME GO LET ME HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” At this point, she lapsed into silent laughter, and only then did the Joker give her a break. Not out of sympathy, of course. He hadn’t done a lot of tickle torture in the past, and was a little worried that she was going to suffocate. Joker wanted to torture her, to reeducate her, to inflict the greatest psychological trauma she’d ever felt in her life, but not to kill her. At least not yet.
During this temporary respite, Harley quickly considered her options. The way she saw it, faking like she wasn’t that ticklish was out the window; he had seen how hysterically she’d reacted to the underarm tickling, and that wasn’t even her worst spot. That gave her two choices going forward: either grin-and-bear-it until Joker decided he was finished, or appeal to the atom-sized soft spot she thought he had for her. The second choice had the highest upside, because if it worked, Joker would end it right there. If it didn’t work, though — if she came clean to the Joker and he decided to keep going — then she’d probably be facing torture even worse than what she’d get if she stayed quiet.
What the hell. She was a risk-taker, right? Choice number two it was.
“Puddin,” she said, her eyes still wet with tears, “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. I’ll make it up to however you want, but you need to stop doing this.”
“I do? Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!” exclaimed the Joker. “I thought that I could do whatever I want, what with you strapped to that rack and whatnot.”
“I’m serious. You can’t. I’m too ticklish to take any more of this,” said Harley. “It’s the worst torture in the world for me. You can pull my teeth out, beat me up, anything you want, and I won’t complain about it at all, as long as it’s not tickling.”
“Beat you up? And mess up that pretty face? I think not,” said the Joker. “What’s interesting to me is that you think I’d let you off the hook that easy. But you know what they say about couples still learning about each other after all these years!” Joker cackled. “No, Harley, you will not get mercy. I am going to tickle you until you are a giggling, helpless, broken lump of clay that I can mold into someone who won’t ignore my orders.” He clapped his hands now. “So the only question now is, where are you most ticklish? Is it the feet?”
With that, Joker bent down and started scribbling his fingers under Harley’s feet. Harley responded by jerking both of them all over the place and wiggling her toes like they’d been possessed by aliens.
“HAHAAHAHAA NOOOOOOO! COME AHAHANAHAHAHAN!!!!! STOP IT! PLEASE STOP!”
Hmm, thought the Joker. A decent reaction, but not quite what he was looking for. Time to move on.
“Maybe it’s the legs, then!” He slid his hands up her calves and started squeezing around her knees and inner thighs. Harley didn’t expect that at all, and actually gasped before she started cracking up again.
“NOHOHOHOHOHOHOH! HAHAHAAHAAA STOP! SAHAHAHAHAHAH SAVE THAT SHIT FOR THE BEDROOM HAHAAHAHA!”
Again, not bad, but Joker still hadn’t found anywhere that made her freak out like her armpits did. Time to move up again.
“How about the stomach?” he asked. Immediately, Harley’s eyes got as big and round as softballs. That’s when Joker knew he had a winner.
“So there’s the spot!” he exclaimed. He put a hand at the bottom of her ribcage, and spider-walked it down her stomach in time with his words. “There’s . . . Harley’s . . . most . . . ticklish . . . spot!” After he said “spot”, he wiggled his fingers in a circle around her belly-button, spanning from the top of her abdomen to her waistline.
“AHHHHHHHH!” Harley screamed. “AHHH!! HAHAHAAHAHA OH MY GAHAHAHAAHD!”
“Oh, I like this!” exclaimed the Joker. “I think I’m done exploring for a while. No, it’s time to set up camp right HERE!”
He poked Harley in the belly-button, eliciting another scream.
“AHHAHA!! NO NO NO NO NO NO!”
“Oh, I’m sorry. No?”
Harley gave him the most pathetic, puppy-dog look she could muster. “No. Please not my stomach. Anywhere but there.”
“Oh, okay. That’s fair. Let me just make sure we’re on the same page. Do you mean THIS stomach?” With that, Joker put both hands on her belly and began his most powerful tickling yet. With his right hand, he squeezed all over her stomach, from next to her belly-button to her love handles (or where her love handles would be if she had them) to her upper abs. With his left hand, he continued to spider-tickle, not only her stomach, but her sides and even her ribs.
“AHAHAHAHAHAAH! NOHOHOHOH!!! STAHAHAHAAHA-,.” Harley couldn’t even finish the whole word, she was laughing so hard. She was starting to cry again, and starting to sweat, too. “NO MORE! I’M BEGGING YOU!”
“Okay! No more!” Joker said. He dropped both hands off of her stomach, reached into his coat, and pulled out a paintbrush and a feather. “After all, who doesn’t like a little variety?”
On that note, he started both brushing and feathering her stomach. Somehow — maybe just the shock of a new sensation on a body already in a state of heightened sensitivity? — both of them were worse than his fingers. Joker used the brush as he’d previously used his left hand, dragging it over every square inch of her exposed stomach. To Harley, it felt like she had hundreds of tiny insects crawling over her at the same time, and it tickled worse than anything she’d ever felt in her life. The feather was horrible too; Joker wielded it with a surprising dexterity. One second he’d be using the plume-side for light tickles on her sides and stomach, and the next second he’d lightly poke her with the dull end (which tickled even more than the plume).
“AAAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!” she screamed, as Joker continued his multi-tool assault. Her body was now spasming wildly, as she had lost all semblance of control over herself. She desperately thrashed against the restraints like a caught marlin, her thighs and chest bouncing along accordingly. It was hopeless, of course: she was strapped in much too tightly to even make the bonds a little bit looser, let alone escape them entirely. At a certain point — not long after Joker had unexpectedly slipped the paintbrush under her arms, which caused the loudest shriek of the night — all her muscles went limp. No more resistance. Even more than before, she was completely in the Joker’s control.
Now that her body had given out on her, Harley was really in bad shape. She highly, highly doubted she could go longer than a couple more minutes without passing out, and passing out was if she was lucky. What had started out as a few tears had turned into a damned tsunami; between the crying and the sweat pouring down her face and into her eyes, she couldn’t see a thing. Her hair was a mess, tangled up and sweaty and starting to stick to her face. All things considered, she needed the tickling to stop NOW, and her hysterical pleas for mercy reflected the desperation of her situation.
“HAHAHAHAAHAHA! STOP! I FUCKING HAHAAHAAHA MEAN IT HAHAAHAHAAHAA! PUDDIN’ I CAN’T TAKE HAHAAHAHA ANYMOHOHHOHOHRE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!!!! PLEASESTOP PLEASESTOP PLEASESTAHAHAHAHAP!!!!!
For the briefest moment, Joker set down the feather and the paintbrush, and leaned over like he was going to undo the restraints on her right arm. Harley nearly squealed with joy when she saw what he was doing; somehow, despite how ridiculously ticklish she was, she had survived her ordeal. Now everything was even, and things would go back to normal and-,
“AHAHAAHAHAAHAHHHAHAH!!!!!!!”
While Harley had been focused on Joker’s left hand undoing her restraints, he had snuck his right hand back onto her stomach, and now he was scribbling his fingers across it like the world was about to end. His left hand quickly joined in. For the first time, Harley had both hands wiggling all over her belly at once, his fingernails finding all of her most sensitive spots like their location was pre-programmed into them. Naturally, she went absolutely ballistic.
“NOOOOOOOOOOO! NOOHOHOHOHOHOH! NO MORE NO MORE NO MORE! HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHA I CAN’T TAAHAHAAKE IT HAHAHAHAHAA!!!!! I’LL DO ANYTHING I’LL DO ANYTHING JUST HAHAHAHAAH STAHAHAHAAP I’M DYING I’M HAHAHAHAHAHAHA-,”
Once again, Harley went back to silent laughter, but this time Joker knew that he wasn’t risking her life by continuing. He just smiled and shook his head as he continued running his fingers all over Harley’s stomach. From his point of view, his time with Harley had been a smashing success. There was no chance she’d disobey him again, not if she knew he would tickle the absolute crap out of her if she did.
For Harley, this moment – him smiling, shaking his head, refusing to stop – was a revelation. For all the time she’d spent with the Joker, she’d always thought that he had a soft-spot for her. Yeah, he’d get mad at her from time to time, punish her a little bit, but he’d never do anything really bad to her. He could be sadistic, but never as sadistic as he was around other people.
Or at least until that night. That night was when Harley saw the Joker the way everyone else did: a monster without any limit to his potential depravity. There was no soft-spot, at least not anymore. He was going to tickle her until he was satisfied she’d learned her lesson, no matter how agonizing, no matter how torturous it was. And, to be blunt, it horrified her. It scared her more than anything in the world, the idea that Joker would just keep tickling her and tickling her and tickling her until she could barely even breathe.
Suddenly, Joker took his right hand off her stomach and reached back into his coat, pulling out a small stuffed cat. “Remember this? You brought it to me at Arkham. Boy, that must feel like a lifetime ago, huh, Dr. Quinzel?” Joker asked, cackling. He used the stuffed animal to tickle her stomach while he brought his left hand up to tickle her underarms.
“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! NOOOOO!!!! NOT THE KITTY NOT THE KITTY IT TICKLES TOO MUCH IT TICKLES TOO MUCH AHAHAHAHAAHAHA-,”
For the last time, silent laughter. Harley continued to laugh and laugh and laugh until finally, she passed out.
Joker, for what it’s worth, didn’t even notice until after it happened; he spent a good couple minutes tickling an unconscious body. Once he figured out that Harley was knocked out, he leisurely checked her pulse. Still beating. Safe in the knowledge he was still alive, he whistled, signaling Batman Mask to walk in.
“She make it?” asked Batman Mask, approaching Harley.
“In a manner of speaking,” said Joker. “Clean her up, would you? Put some clothes on her, make her look pretty. This is not a dignified position for a woman of her stature.”
“Got it, Boss.” Batman Mask started undoing her restraints. “So is that why you call it the Happy Table? Because you use it for tickling?”
“What?” Joker started laughing. “No! What a preposterous idea!”
“Oh, okay. So what is it then?”
“Look at it! What color is the table?”
“Yellow?”
“Right!” exclaimed Joker. “And don’t you think yellow is a happy color?”
Batman Mask thought it over for a second, looking at the table, then Harley’s unconscious body, then back to the table.
“I suppose it is,” he said, slinging Harley up onto his shoulder. “Good point, Boss. Good point.”
Also, just FYI, if you like what you read, I'm for sure open to doing more commission-type deals, so please feel free to contact me if that sounds like something you might be interested in! If you don't like what you read, that's cool too though.
(P.S. - For those who want to get straight into the tickling stuff without knowledge of the backstory, it starts up after the hash)
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Note: the following takes place in the same universe as the recent Suicide Squad movie
“Would anyone care to explain this to me?” asked the Joker, tossing a newspaper onto the table. He was smiling, but somehow didn’t look very happy.
One of his henchmen (wearing a cartoon Batman mask) picked it up and took a second to consider the headline. In bold capital letters, splashed across the front page: CAPED CRUSADER NARROWLY ESCAPES CLOWN’S CLUTCHES. The picture below was grainy, but showed someone who looked an awful lot like Batgirl running away from someone who looked an awful lot like Harley Quinn.
“You know how it is, Boss. Can’t really trust the press these days. Hard for them to sell papers when you can get all your news on the web. It’s actually a-,”
Joker grabbed Batman Mask’s cheeks and squeezed them together so he’d stop talking. “Oh oh oh oh oh oh, you don’t have to lie to me, my dear. I just had a very interesting talk with the nice young reporter who wrote this. Sweet gal. Bit of an Erin Brockovich type. Seemed very honest to me. Of course, everyone seems that way once they lose a few fingers!” Joker laughed so hard he had to lean against Batman Mask for support, and then finally composed himself. “Anyway, she told me all about what happened. But what she couldn’t tell me was why it happened.”
Another henchmen (this one wearing a giant panda head) stopped watching TV in the corner and turned towards Joker. “Harley. That’s why this happened.”
Joker walked towards Panda Head. “Ah! Here is a man who knows something! Do not leave me wanting, friend! Explain just a little bit further.”
“Before you sent us out, you said this was just a simple kidnapping. Grab Batgirl, then hit the bricks. Well, Harley tried to turn it into a robbery, too. That gave her a chance to get away.”
“Did she now!” said Joker, exaggeratedly rubbing his chin, as if deep in thought.
“Yeah. She’s been real cocky lately. Thinks she’s smarter than everyone, thinks she’s tougher than everyone. Just a complete nightmare to work for.”
“Hmm. Well, I guess this is what I get for sending a woman out to do my dirty work!” Joker started laughing again. But when a couple of his henchmen joined in, he whipped a gun out of his jacket and – POW! POW! - shot both of them dead.
“So sad to see sexism in 2016. Honestly, we’re trying to run a progressive organization here.” Joker turned back to Panda Head. “So what you’re saying is that Harely needs to be taken down a peg or two. Is that it?”
“That’s about it.”
“Well, thank you for sharing!” Joker then flipped the Panda Head off and shot him point-blank in the forehead.
“Is this who I share my life with?” he exclaimed. “Misogynists and narcs and-” – he pointed his gun at Batman Mask – “and liars!”
Joker walked up to Batman Mask, who instinctively recoiled. But instead of shooting him, Joker pulled a “Good Job!” sticker out of his pocket – the same kind you’d get for an 100 on a spelling test in grade school – and slapped it across his chest.
“You’ve just received a promotion,” he said. “Please go find Ms. Quinn and get her on the Happy Table. Tell her it’s Joker’s Orders.” He started walking out of the room, but turned back to deliver a final directive. “Oh, and tell her to lose the clothes too. Underwear only. I’m going to need some, uh, exposed skin for what I have planned for her.” Then he turned to leave again, this time for good, cackling all the way.
#
A few hours later, Harley Quinn was: a) in a dark basement; b) by herself; c) strapped to the “Happy Table” (which was really just a standard-issue rack); d) wearing only a bra and panties; and e) stretched tight, completely immobilized, bound at the wrists, elbows, ankles, and knees so her body made an “X” shape. Still, she wasn’t sweating it too much. she knew the Joker’s reputation – psychopath, sadistic, about as empathetic as a toaster oven – but she also knew he had a soft spot for her. Besides, she was kind of used to his punishments by now. There wasn’t a lot he could throw at her that she hadn’t seen before.
Suddenly, the door to the basement creaked open, and the lights turned on juuuust bright enough that she could see. In walked the Joker, humming some song Harley couldn’t recognize. Despite her situation, she smiled as he made his way up to her.
“Am I done with timeout now, Puddin’?” she asked.
Joker shook his head. “Oh, Harley Harley Harley. You’ve put me in a very tough spot here. Tell me, when I sent you out last night, did you do anything besides try to grab the Bat? Maybe, I don’t know, try to knock-off a couple of Gotham’s finest businesses on your way back?”
Harley giggled. “Maybe.”
“Hmm. Disobeying a direct order. Letting the Bat loose. Well, we certainly can’t have that go unpunished, can we?”
“Okay. You can torture me if you want to. After all, it’s what you trained me for. Who knows, I may even like it!” Harley started laughing at her own joke.
“Yes, I’ve taught you well, haven’t I? Taught you to block out pain,” said the Joker. “You know, these good-guy types, they just lack a certain . . . creativity. Pain is the only way they know how to torture. But for someone who puts a little bit of thought into it – someone like me – there are just so many other ways to get things done!”
“What are you talking about?” asked Harley. She wasn’t smiling anymore.
Joker didn’t respond. Instead, he reached a hand out towards Harley’s exposed underarm and wiggled his fingers just above the skin. Harley instinctively flinched and laughed for a second or two.
“What’s so funny?” asked the Joker.
“Nothing. Nothing’s funny.”
“Nothing’s funny? That’s a shame. But then why were you laughing?”
“I didn’t laugh. Was I laughing? I didn’t hear anyone AHHHHHHHHH!!!”
Harley couldn’t finish her last sentence because Joker had stopped faking and started tickling. He let his fingers dance over her bare underarms for about fifteen seconds while she just about laughed her ass off.
“Ah. Ticklish, are we?” he asked, while she tried desperately to catch her breath.
“Yeah, so what? Isn’t everyone? You really think a little kiddie game is gonna teach me a lesson?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t know about everyone else. I’m not a learned medical scholar like you are, Dr. Quinzel.” Joker laughed. “But it seems to me that you’re particularly sensitive. Maybe the best way to teach you this important lesson about insubordination is-,”
Joker suddenly shot both hands back into Harley’s underarms and spidered them all over the hollows. Once again, Harley absolutely lost it.
“HAHAHAHAHAAHAAHAHA NO! STOP STOP STOP STOP STAHAHAHAHAHAP!”
Of course, Joker didn’t listen. He kept on wiggling his fingers all around while she kept laughing and begging for him to lay off. It was surprising, he thought, how badly she was reacting to the tickling. He had figured on her breaking at some point — otherwise he would’ve gone with a more conventional form of punishment — but slowly, gradually. Not without a fight, at least. As it turns out, she couldn’t even hold back for a few seconds before she was giggling like a little girl.
As for Harley, she was officially starting to get nervous. Over the past few years, she’d changed a lot; toughened up most of the parts that had gone soft living civilian life. Her ticklishness wasn’t one of those places. Joker had been tickling her for less than a minute, and already she wasn’t sure she could hold out much longer. She was praying he didn’t know that.
When Joker sensed that Harley was getting a little too comfortable with his five-finger technique, he decided to change tactics. He started circling a single finger around the edges of each underarm, building anticipation. Even that was enough to make Harley bite her lip to keep her laughter in. Maybe she could hold out, she thought. Fake for a couple minutes like she had adjusted to the tickling, and hope that Joker got bored with it. Not out of the realm of possibility. The little circles he was doing at the moment weren’t too horrible, at least.
Suddenly, Joker took each finger and started wiggling it in the center of her underarm, and any thoughts Harley had about keeping cool were out the window.
“HAHAHAHAHAA NO! NO NO NO NO NO HAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHAA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! NOT THERE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAA!”
“Are you making a request?” asked the Joker. “Because manners are very important to me. I only consider requests when they’re prefaced by the word ‘please’.”
“OKAYAYAAYAYAY HAHAHAAHAHA PLEAHAHAHEASE HAHAHAHAHAAHA!” Tears were starting to form in her eyes.
“My dear, please is an adverb. It’s meaningless by itself. Tell me, why didn’t you include the rest of the sentence?”
Before Harley could get another word out, Joker switched back up to using his whole hand on each underarm. The adjustment had worked: while one finger had been torturous enough for Harley, going from one straight into five made for a particularly special hell.
“AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHA! NO! HAHAHAHAAHAHAHA STOPSTOPSTOP!!! I’M SAHAHAHAHAHAAHARY!!!!! STAHAHAHAHAHAPP!!!!!!
“Oh, I can’t stop now! How can I stop when you’re having such a good time! I don’t think I’d be able to live with myself!”
“I’M NOT HAVING A GOOD TIME!” Harley shrieked. Now the tears were running down her face like a leaky faucet. “LET ME GO LET ME GO LET ME HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” At this point, she lapsed into silent laughter, and only then did the Joker give her a break. Not out of sympathy, of course. He hadn’t done a lot of tickle torture in the past, and was a little worried that she was going to suffocate. Joker wanted to torture her, to reeducate her, to inflict the greatest psychological trauma she’d ever felt in her life, but not to kill her. At least not yet.
During this temporary respite, Harley quickly considered her options. The way she saw it, faking like she wasn’t that ticklish was out the window; he had seen how hysterically she’d reacted to the underarm tickling, and that wasn’t even her worst spot. That gave her two choices going forward: either grin-and-bear-it until Joker decided he was finished, or appeal to the atom-sized soft spot she thought he had for her. The second choice had the highest upside, because if it worked, Joker would end it right there. If it didn’t work, though — if she came clean to the Joker and he decided to keep going — then she’d probably be facing torture even worse than what she’d get if she stayed quiet.
What the hell. She was a risk-taker, right? Choice number two it was.
“Puddin,” she said, her eyes still wet with tears, “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. I’ll make it up to however you want, but you need to stop doing this.”
“I do? Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!” exclaimed the Joker. “I thought that I could do whatever I want, what with you strapped to that rack and whatnot.”
“I’m serious. You can’t. I’m too ticklish to take any more of this,” said Harley. “It’s the worst torture in the world for me. You can pull my teeth out, beat me up, anything you want, and I won’t complain about it at all, as long as it’s not tickling.”
“Beat you up? And mess up that pretty face? I think not,” said the Joker. “What’s interesting to me is that you think I’d let you off the hook that easy. But you know what they say about couples still learning about each other after all these years!” Joker cackled. “No, Harley, you will not get mercy. I am going to tickle you until you are a giggling, helpless, broken lump of clay that I can mold into someone who won’t ignore my orders.” He clapped his hands now. “So the only question now is, where are you most ticklish? Is it the feet?”
With that, Joker bent down and started scribbling his fingers under Harley’s feet. Harley responded by jerking both of them all over the place and wiggling her toes like they’d been possessed by aliens.
“HAHAAHAHAA NOOOOOOO! COME AHAHANAHAHAHAN!!!!! STOP IT! PLEASE STOP!”
Hmm, thought the Joker. A decent reaction, but not quite what he was looking for. Time to move on.
“Maybe it’s the legs, then!” He slid his hands up her calves and started squeezing around her knees and inner thighs. Harley didn’t expect that at all, and actually gasped before she started cracking up again.
“NOHOHOHOHOHOHOH! HAHAHAAHAAA STOP! SAHAHAHAHAHAH SAVE THAT SHIT FOR THE BEDROOM HAHAAHAHA!”
Again, not bad, but Joker still hadn’t found anywhere that made her freak out like her armpits did. Time to move up again.
“How about the stomach?” he asked. Immediately, Harley’s eyes got as big and round as softballs. That’s when Joker knew he had a winner.
“So there’s the spot!” he exclaimed. He put a hand at the bottom of her ribcage, and spider-walked it down her stomach in time with his words. “There’s . . . Harley’s . . . most . . . ticklish . . . spot!” After he said “spot”, he wiggled his fingers in a circle around her belly-button, spanning from the top of her abdomen to her waistline.
“AHHHHHHHH!” Harley screamed. “AHHH!! HAHAHAAHAHA OH MY GAHAHAHAAHD!”
“Oh, I like this!” exclaimed the Joker. “I think I’m done exploring for a while. No, it’s time to set up camp right HERE!”
He poked Harley in the belly-button, eliciting another scream.
“AHHAHA!! NO NO NO NO NO NO!”
“Oh, I’m sorry. No?”
Harley gave him the most pathetic, puppy-dog look she could muster. “No. Please not my stomach. Anywhere but there.”
“Oh, okay. That’s fair. Let me just make sure we’re on the same page. Do you mean THIS stomach?” With that, Joker put both hands on her belly and began his most powerful tickling yet. With his right hand, he squeezed all over her stomach, from next to her belly-button to her love handles (or where her love handles would be if she had them) to her upper abs. With his left hand, he continued to spider-tickle, not only her stomach, but her sides and even her ribs.
“AHAHAHAHAHAAH! NOHOHOHOH!!! STAHAHAHAAHA-,.” Harley couldn’t even finish the whole word, she was laughing so hard. She was starting to cry again, and starting to sweat, too. “NO MORE! I’M BEGGING YOU!”
“Okay! No more!” Joker said. He dropped both hands off of her stomach, reached into his coat, and pulled out a paintbrush and a feather. “After all, who doesn’t like a little variety?”
On that note, he started both brushing and feathering her stomach. Somehow — maybe just the shock of a new sensation on a body already in a state of heightened sensitivity? — both of them were worse than his fingers. Joker used the brush as he’d previously used his left hand, dragging it over every square inch of her exposed stomach. To Harley, it felt like she had hundreds of tiny insects crawling over her at the same time, and it tickled worse than anything she’d ever felt in her life. The feather was horrible too; Joker wielded it with a surprising dexterity. One second he’d be using the plume-side for light tickles on her sides and stomach, and the next second he’d lightly poke her with the dull end (which tickled even more than the plume).
“AAAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!” she screamed, as Joker continued his multi-tool assault. Her body was now spasming wildly, as she had lost all semblance of control over herself. She desperately thrashed against the restraints like a caught marlin, her thighs and chest bouncing along accordingly. It was hopeless, of course: she was strapped in much too tightly to even make the bonds a little bit looser, let alone escape them entirely. At a certain point — not long after Joker had unexpectedly slipped the paintbrush under her arms, which caused the loudest shriek of the night — all her muscles went limp. No more resistance. Even more than before, she was completely in the Joker’s control.
Now that her body had given out on her, Harley was really in bad shape. She highly, highly doubted she could go longer than a couple more minutes without passing out, and passing out was if she was lucky. What had started out as a few tears had turned into a damned tsunami; between the crying and the sweat pouring down her face and into her eyes, she couldn’t see a thing. Her hair was a mess, tangled up and sweaty and starting to stick to her face. All things considered, she needed the tickling to stop NOW, and her hysterical pleas for mercy reflected the desperation of her situation.
“HAHAHAHAAHAHA! STOP! I FUCKING HAHAAHAAHA MEAN IT HAHAAHAHAAHAA! PUDDIN’ I CAN’T TAKE HAHAAHAHA ANYMOHOHHOHOHRE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!!!! PLEASESTOP PLEASESTOP PLEASESTAHAHAHAHAP!!!!!
For the briefest moment, Joker set down the feather and the paintbrush, and leaned over like he was going to undo the restraints on her right arm. Harley nearly squealed with joy when she saw what he was doing; somehow, despite how ridiculously ticklish she was, she had survived her ordeal. Now everything was even, and things would go back to normal and-,
“AHAHAAHAHAAHAHHHAHAH!!!!!!!”
While Harley had been focused on Joker’s left hand undoing her restraints, he had snuck his right hand back onto her stomach, and now he was scribbling his fingers across it like the world was about to end. His left hand quickly joined in. For the first time, Harley had both hands wiggling all over her belly at once, his fingernails finding all of her most sensitive spots like their location was pre-programmed into them. Naturally, she went absolutely ballistic.
“NOOOOOOOOOOO! NOOHOHOHOHOHOH! NO MORE NO MORE NO MORE! HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHA I CAN’T TAAHAHAAKE IT HAHAHAHAHAA!!!!! I’LL DO ANYTHING I’LL DO ANYTHING JUST HAHAHAHAAH STAHAHAHAAP I’M DYING I’M HAHAHAHAHAHAHA-,”
Once again, Harley went back to silent laughter, but this time Joker knew that he wasn’t risking her life by continuing. He just smiled and shook his head as he continued running his fingers all over Harley’s stomach. From his point of view, his time with Harley had been a smashing success. There was no chance she’d disobey him again, not if she knew he would tickle the absolute crap out of her if she did.
For Harley, this moment – him smiling, shaking his head, refusing to stop – was a revelation. For all the time she’d spent with the Joker, she’d always thought that he had a soft-spot for her. Yeah, he’d get mad at her from time to time, punish her a little bit, but he’d never do anything really bad to her. He could be sadistic, but never as sadistic as he was around other people.
Or at least until that night. That night was when Harley saw the Joker the way everyone else did: a monster without any limit to his potential depravity. There was no soft-spot, at least not anymore. He was going to tickle her until he was satisfied she’d learned her lesson, no matter how agonizing, no matter how torturous it was. And, to be blunt, it horrified her. It scared her more than anything in the world, the idea that Joker would just keep tickling her and tickling her and tickling her until she could barely even breathe.
Suddenly, Joker took his right hand off her stomach and reached back into his coat, pulling out a small stuffed cat. “Remember this? You brought it to me at Arkham. Boy, that must feel like a lifetime ago, huh, Dr. Quinzel?” Joker asked, cackling. He used the stuffed animal to tickle her stomach while he brought his left hand up to tickle her underarms.
“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! NOOOOO!!!! NOT THE KITTY NOT THE KITTY IT TICKLES TOO MUCH IT TICKLES TOO MUCH AHAHAHAHAAHAHA-,”
For the last time, silent laughter. Harley continued to laugh and laugh and laugh until finally, she passed out.
Joker, for what it’s worth, didn’t even notice until after it happened; he spent a good couple minutes tickling an unconscious body. Once he figured out that Harley was knocked out, he leisurely checked her pulse. Still beating. Safe in the knowledge he was still alive, he whistled, signaling Batman Mask to walk in.
“She make it?” asked Batman Mask, approaching Harley.
“In a manner of speaking,” said Joker. “Clean her up, would you? Put some clothes on her, make her look pretty. This is not a dignified position for a woman of her stature.”
“Got it, Boss.” Batman Mask started undoing her restraints. “So is that why you call it the Happy Table? Because you use it for tickling?”
“What?” Joker started laughing. “No! What a preposterous idea!”
“Oh, okay. So what is it then?”
“Look at it! What color is the table?”
“Yellow?”
“Right!” exclaimed Joker. “And don’t you think yellow is a happy color?”
Batman Mask thought it over for a second, looking at the table, then Harley’s unconscious body, then back to the table.
“I suppose it is,” he said, slinging Harley up onto his shoulder. “Good point, Boss. Good point.”
