Shem the Penman
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From the journal of Torturer-Postulant Virochan, of the torture halls of Lord Mahadevan:
I have been given an important subject to treat on my own. It is a great honor and I am thankful to Senior Torturer Caraka for giving her to me, though I am not certain why. Surely there are others who deserve it more than I. But it would be unwise of me to protest, so I only accepted it and vowed to do as well as I could.
The subject is female, a foreigner from the north. Her name above was Lady Soyang. She is quite beautiful, with the ivory skin they have in the north and hair that reaches nearly to her waist, and even after being imprisoned she still maintains a noble’s dignity. I record these details not out of any personal interest in her (for that would be improper), but so those versed in the Book of Ways will understand the reasons for the sentence Caraka passed on her. Once sentence has been passed, none of those details are relevant any longer: she is only a subject.
When she was brought before him, Caraka studied the Book for a very long time, turning its pages one by one, frowning and muttering. Finally, he looked up and pronounced the sentence: “By tickling.”
As Caraka spoke, I looked at the subject where she sat in her cage of iron, and I saw a tremor go through her body. Foreign though she was, she spoke and understood Gatti like one of us, and she knew what her fate was. And the thought disturbed her. Silently I praised the gods for my luck -- I have never done a tickling, though I am of course familiar with the techniques, and if the subject was that affected by the mere word, she should prove extremely responsive.
As the sentence was to begin immediately, I had the porters take her to the Yellow Room and prepare her according to my directions. The Yellow Room is, of course, often oppressively warm, which is most suitable for a tickling. To further increase her sensitivity, I had had the porters strip her and oil her thoroughly before stretching her out, facedown, on a workbench and blindfolding her with a yellow cloth.
As I entered the room, she announced her name and station and immediately promised me great wealth if I would free her. Ignoring the offer, as is only proper, I commenced my investigation of the subject’s capabilities and limits. Beginning with her ribs, I found her soft oiled skin very sensitive to my touch. She giggled the moment I touched her, and it took only slight pressure to turn that into a full-throated stream of laughter. Despite her fear, I knew, she enjoyed it at first -- there is something pleasant in being able to laugh so unreservedly, which is why many ladies keep servants to tickle them. But there is a point where real desperation begins, and I was gratified to hear it in her voice after I had tickled her ribcage for only a short time. While she had been half-whispering, half-squealing “stop” whenever she could draw a breath, now she screeched it louder, trying to force it out even as she laughed.
I took that as my signal to increase the torture, and moved my touch up to her armpits. They, too, were extremely ticklish, and her hair snapped like a banner in the air as she struggled against the ties that secured her, her mouth stretched with laughter. In fact, I quickly found that the entire area from her ribs to her armpits, including the sides of her tender breasts, was highly responsive, offering a wide, ticklish area for my fingers to wander on. The subject was pleading for mercy at this point, and this too was ignored.
I admit at this point that I had a certain breakdown in professional discipline. Despite what I said above, it was difficult for me to forget the subject’s beauty, especially when I could feel her slick, writhing bare body under my hands. I have caused pain and watched it being caused in dozens and dozens of other treatments, but this was something different. In short, I was beginning to enjoy what I was doing. A torturer is supposed to remain dispassionate, to deal out torture with an even hand to all alike, as the Book of Ways prescribes. I found myself teasing the subject with small tickles up and down her sides, here and there, one side and the other. This no doubt was torture in its own way -- the subject continued to beg to be released. But I had to admit to myself that I was not intending it as torture -- I was tickling her this way to be playful, enjoying the sudden jerks of her body as each little touch was felt, and the tumble of panting giggles that burst from her at every quick tickle.
I was frustrated by my error, especially with so much at stake. If she realized I was merely treating this as a game, my work could be ruined before it ever started. I would have to correct myself immediately, both to remind myself of what I was here to do and to put the fear necessary into her. Sliding my hands down her sides, I began to tickle the curves of her hipbones through their slight padding of flesh, driving her back into her frenzy of laughter. “This is just a beginning,” I told her as coldly as I could. “Your sentence will continue for many days yet....” She screamd inarticulate protests through her hysteria as I tickled and tickled and tried not to notice what a pleasant task it was.
Finally, I drew back from her. She was heaving with each breath, and the yellow cloth that covered her eyes was soaked, darkened to saffron. Her body shimmered with sweat and oil, thick droplets rolling down her flanks. (I should not write this. I must forget she is beautiful.) The tracks of tears were clearly cut on her face. This might be a suitable way to leave her after a first treatment -- I knew her ticklish spots by now, and she knew to fear tickling even more. But I was determined to make up for my earlier failure of discipline, and mindful of the importance of this subject. So taking up one of the torches, I held it near her bare feet, which hung over the end of the workbench, tied back by the toes. She struggled weakly and whimpered as she felt the heat, pleading with me not to burn her. I did not respond, for while I had no intention of hurting her, I also did not want to reassure her. I held the torch and watched as the soles of her feet slowly became pinker under the influence of the heat. Her toenails, I noted, still bore traces of the gilt that had decorated them above.
Once her soles had become a rich pink -- which did not take long, for she was already flushed from her exertions -- I set the torch aside. She slumped down again, breathing heavily. I allowed her only a second’s respite before raking my nails in firm and precise lines down her hot, slippery soles. Her scream echoed loudly on the tiled walls of the Yellow Room, and as I continued tickling her, she squirmed in her bonds with more desperate energy than I had ever seen from anyone undergoing any other kind of sentence. It was obvious her feet were extremely ticklish, and the preparation with heat and oil -- as well as the severe tickling she had undergone elsewhere -- had raised that to an unbearable level. At this point, she could not bear to have her feet touched, let alone tickled -- let alone tickled as thoroughly and relentlessly as I was doing.
Her screaming laughter cut off abruptly as if struck by an axe as her voice failed. As if to compensate, her squirming became wilder, her body banging against the workbench as she twisted in ways I hadn’t thought possible. None of those struggles were communicated to her firmly tied feet, though. They quivered but remained immobile as I tickled the curves of her arches, dug into the softened skin of the balls of her feet, and tickled the pads of her small, delicate, bound toes. She seemed to find this last one particularly maddening, to judge by the shrieks of laughter that drew from her, so I lingered there a long time, tracing all around the tiny rounded surfaces. I tickled each toe and caressed her soles until she no longer laughed but made a low moaning, no longer struggled but instead trembled spasmodically. At this point, I judged she had had enough and, calling for the porters to clean up, I left the room to make my report to Caraka and then update this record. It has been several hours now, but I can still feel her skin on my fingertips. It is a disturbing sensation. I will be glad when this sentence is over.
----
After a day’s time to allow the subject to recover and contemplate the fate in store for her, I made preparations for a second treatment, arranging for the supplies necessary. As I approached the Yellow Room again, I felt an unwelcome sense of anticipation, and tried to stifle it, slowing my strides to a more dignified pace. Then a sound came to me, and after a moment I realized what I was hearing.
“No ... NO ... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
I sped up again, but not for pleasurable reasons. When I burst into the Yellow Room, I saw what I had feared. The subject had, as per my orders, been seated on a padded bench, her ankles firmly locked and bound in stocks of dark wood. A dull-faced porter stood by holding the chains around the necks of two small, shaggy goats, which were eagerly swiping their tongues over the subject’s taut soles, producing the mad laughter I had heard.
I was furious. The porter had overstepped himself by beginning the torture without me, and by doing so he had made my work more difficult. The essence of torture is fear, and the subject should have been brought to identify her suffering with one particular person -- me -- so as to increase her fear when I came to her. However, it would not have done to castigate the porter in view of the subject, so I only sent him out of the room while she laughed behind us. When the door closed, I turned back to her and, still irritated, grabbed the fallen chains and hauled the bleating beasts away from her.
I had no thought but to try and undo the error the porter had committed, but I realized my blunder as her laughter trailed off. She looked up at me with damp eyes. “Are you now merciful?”
“Not at all,” I said harshly to cover my confusion. “There are proper ways to do things.” Hooking the goats’ chains to the wall, I picked up the bowl and brush that lay nearby and approached her again.
“You are very serious for such a young man,” the subject commented with what might almost have been a smile, and that confused me even further. Rather than respond, I began to paint her soles thoroughly with the salty, sticky stuff in the bowl. Each stroke of the brush brought a wavering giggle from her, which was a welcome distraction, and I devoted myself to making sure that no tiny patch of her feet remained uncoated.
“Please -- “ she gasped, “tell me -- heeheeheehee! -- why am I being -- heeheeheeheeheehee! -- tortured?”
I started to respond, but stopped myself just in time. I was not supposed to hold converse with subjects, and if she did not know it was not my place to tell her. Instead, I set aside my tools and released the goats. They went eagerly to her soles as she let out a tiny scream of anticipation.
She was laughing loud again in the space of seconds as the rough tongues scratched her soles and wriggled among her toes endlessly. The goats, with no understanding of human laughter or the words with which she begged them, tormented her without a pause. I had decided on this approach after seeing how ticklish her feet were, and was pleased to see how well it was working, despite the porter’s interference. She writhed on the bench, near collapse, beating her tiny hands on the stocks, stretching in a futile effort to push the goats’ heads away from her feet.
After a suitable space of time had passed, I decided to put the next part of my plan into action. Moving around behind the bench, I took one of her wrists in my hand (pulse hammering crazily against my fingers) and raised it to one of the posts next to the bench, where a leather cuff hung. She let out an inarticulate scream of protest, but was too weak from laughter to stop me as I fastened her arm up there. Her other arm was similarly raised, and after dripping some more salt on her soles to make sure the goats continued uninterrupted, I knelt down behind her and ran my fingers down her bare flanks, touching the skin as lightly as I could. She must have been expecting it, but still her convulsion nearly hurled her off the bench as her laughter climbed rapidly into the inaudible regions.
I had hoped that the contrast of the rough, almost painful tickling the goats were giving her feet and the soft, light touch I was using on the rest of her body would torment her even worse than a ruthless full-body tickling would. It seemed to work well -- she was beseiged by two different but equally unbearable sensations. Pink tongues rasped her pink soles, while I traced in and out of her armpits, down her sides, drawing spiderwebs across the trembling softness of her tummy, caressing the straining, delicate curve of her back. Goosebumps rose on her silken skin where I touched, and her shrill giggle sounded again and again amidst deeper shouts of laughter. She wriggled as if she were in the midst of a seizure, panting and heaving, but in my fascinated state it seemed I was somehow in the same rhythm as her, able to anticipate each frantic movement of her body so that my fingertips never left her skin, never stopped tickling.
The goats continued their licking, their tongues covering each small foot with tickles at a single swipe, and I could tell without even looking when a goat’s tongue had crossed her sole because of the jolt that would shudder through her body, communicating itself through my fingers. When one of the goats was licking rapidly, trying to get at some bit of the salty stuff that was trapped in the crevice between her toes, her body shook with thunderous laughter so loud it should have been impossible to come from such a tiny woman. I marveled at the extreme sensitivity of her feet, remembering well how eagerly they had responded to my own tickling. Rarely did we find such delicate bodies down here in the halls, and I praised the Book of Ways for its wisdom -- with the subject so exquisitely ticklish, it would have been a shame to torture her any other way.
Abruptly, her head lolled back and her laughter stopped entirely as her body went slack. I was startled for a moment, then leaped up, dragging the goats away from her. Quickly I undid the cuffs, supporting her in my arms so she did not dash her head against the floor, and looked down into her pale, still face, fearing I had hurt her. If I had, Lord Mahadevan would be furious.
Her eyelids rose slowly, the great dark eyes blurred by exhaustion. Gradually, they focused on me. Her lips moved, trying to form words, and eventually a small voice, hoarse from screaming, emerged. “What ... what is your name?”
“Virochan,” I said, knowing it was a mistake to do so.
“Ahhh....” Her eyes closed again. I carefully laid her back on the bench and left the Yellow Room quickly, calling for a porter.
------
Caraka has directed me to apply the Torture of the Laughing Nightmare, which is a combination of tickling and the torture of sleeplessness. It had been reported that Soyang slept poorly, disturbed by the noises of the torture halls, which was ideal. She will be bound on a comfortable bed in the quietest room in the halls, and allowed to doze -- but each time she fell asleep, I would tickle her savagely, jolting her out of sleep and into hysterics. It was a long vigil for me, and Caraka suggested I might ask another torturer to work in shifts with me, but I declined. I led him to believe that I was determined to do this job properly all by myself, but in truth my reason was nothing so subtle. I fear I have become possessive of Soyang. I have tried to drive the emotion from me, but it will not go. All I can do now is try to end her sentence as quickly as possible so she leaves the halls and troubles me no further.
The room was dimly lit; we were near the surface, and faint moonlight leaked in through the windows near the ceiling. Soyang’s body, splayed on the soft red covers of the bed, gleamed like marble. Her ears were stopped, and a blindfold covered her eyes. Though she did not know it, she was given a drug in her evening meal to increase her weariness. I sat and listened to her breathing, trying to judge whether she had fallen asleep.
There -- it was slowing, her body relaxing and settling into the bed. I stole forward quickly, waited for a heartbeat or two, and then attacked. I had chosen her soles as the most convenient target, and she was blasted out of sleep with an earsplitting scream, body arching against the bonds of red silk that held her. She had had no chance to resist the tickling, but was plunged immediately into the depths of hysterical laughter as I tickled quickly but steadily along the very centers of her arches, which I knew by now were a highly tender spot. Her entire body strained away from my fingers as they played on the bottoms of her feet, but she was well tied and got no respite. I tickled her feet steadily for five minutes, until she was sobbing for breath between her screams of laughter, and then paused.
When she had regained her breath, she turned her blinded eyes to the end of the bed. “Virochan? Is that you?”
I cursed the impulse that had made me give her my name. If it had been another who had come to torture her, and he told Caraka that I had made my name known, the least I could expect was expulsion from the halls. I returned to my seat.
“Are you there?” she asked plaintively. “Please!” Her feet wriggled in her bonds as if expecting another tickle any second; I should have been pleased at the sight of her nervous anticipation, but I was still disgusted with myself. “Virochan?”
After a few more questions, and a great deal of nervous wiggling, Soyang settled down again. The room was silent once more. I watched the contours of her body and tried not to think too much. She was asleep again a few minutes later -- which was my cue to begin the torture again, burying my fingertips in the soft skin of her ribcage, tickling my way up from the curve of her back to just beneath her small, quivering breasts. Uncontrollable, gasping laughter poured out of her as she bounced on the bed like a runaway horse, held down only by the silk wrapped around her wrists and ankles and by the action of my fingers on her helpless sides, which drove her this way and that in a futile search for relief. “Wait -- HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! -- tell me -- “ she yelped as I tickled, but I would not slow to allow her to speak, so she gave herself up to the laughter.
When i finally stopped, leaving her weak and panting, she struggled to control her breath, then spoke. “I just want to ask you something....” she said. I shook my head, though she could not see it. I was done answering questions for her. “Please? Just say something....”
I was wishing she would be quiet, and wondering if I should gag her, but after that she said no more. After a longer while, she was still once more. I approached her carefully, looking down at her and reaching for her belly -- and then stopped myself. Something was wrong. The muscles in her belly jumped and shivered before I even touched her, and the rest of her body had tensed as well. I could not see her eyes, but I could see that she was squeezing them shut tightly. She had been feigning sleep.
I touched her soft belly then, and she sucked in her breath, but continued to pretend to be asleep. My fingers wandered, exploring, and as she began to shake with stifled giggles I wondered what to do. I could disregard it and torture her breathless again, but her behavior was too strange for me to simply ignore. Her giggling got louder as I tickled just beneath her navel, and I concentrated there, watching her twist as the ticklish sensations took possession of her body again.
Finally, I reached up and unplugged one of her ears, knowing I should not be doing this but unable to stop myself. “You weren’t asleep. Why did you pretend to be?”
“I’ll tell you if you tell me something,” she replied.
“Why should I tell you anything?” I drew a finger up one bare sole, down the other, and she squealed with laughter.
“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease!” I did not pause the soft tickling on her feet. “Hahahahahahahahaha! I’ll tell! Just promise -- hahahahahahaha!”
“Well?”
“I -- I -- “ Soyang squirmed. I tweaked her toes to encourage her. “I wanted you to tickle me...”
I stopped cold, not quite believing what I heard. “You enjoy your torture?”
“No -- yes -- oh, I don’t know! It is torture ... I can hardly stand it ... but ... “ Soyang considered her words. “No one has ever touched me so carefully ... or brought such sensations to me ... I hate it, yet I want more ... “
My thoughts were whirling. I would have to tell this to Caraka. But if I did ... he would assign another sentence to her, and it would not be tickling. I knew well the many dark, painful things that could be done to the beautiful body laid out before me. What would I do?
“May I ask my question now?” Soyang asked hesitantly.
“What is it?”
“Why am I being tortured?”
“Because ... “ I stopped, then plunged on. I had violated enough of the laws of the Book of Ways already. “Lord Mahadevan covets the wealth of your family, and he believes that by torture you will be urged to ask a ransom of them.”
She laughed -- not a ticklish laugh, but a natural one. “He is a fool, then.”
“What do you mean?”
“My family is impoverished. All the wealth I have is my title and what I brought with my attendants -- and he has seized that already. You may torture me all you like ... I have nothing more to give.”
We said little more after that. I tickled her several more times for the benefit of anyone passing in the hall, hearing now the squeals of joy that were mixed in with her cries of ticklish agony. But I was too distracted to take much enjoyment from it. Before dawn, I left her sleeping and went to find Caraka to report the results of the torture, embellishing them carefully. I did not tell him what had passed between us.
--
Caraka was angry to hear that Soyang had not yet agreed to the ransom. Of course, I did not say that she could never do so, for if Lord Mahadevan knew that, he would likely have her strangled or sold as a slave. Only the laws of the Book kept Caraka from replacing me, but Soyang was my subject and would remain so until I was forced to admit defeat.
But while Caraka could not take Soyang from me, he could and did force me to accept assistance. As it was my subject, Accepted Torturer Birewar deferred to me despite the difference in our ranks, but he clearly thought I had failed due to my inexperience, and hoped to have Soyang for his subject when I stepped aside. He was a large, hard-handed man with a permanent mulish look on his features. He thought tickling was worthless as a torture, no matter what the Book prescribed, and I had no doubt he would be eager to inflict harder tortures on Soyang if he had the chance.
I knew that I would have to do this torture as mercilessly as possible so Birewar would report to Caraka that I was not shirking the job, so I prepared carefully. When we came to the Yellow Room again, I found my orders had been followed. Soyang lay on the workbench where I had first tickled her. From her waist to her ankles, she was tightly wrapped around and around with black silk, immobilizing her legs, and her feet and toes were bound with twists of the same stuff. Her belly was bare, the contrast between its paleness and the deep black silk startling, and then the silk wrappings began just above it again, pinning her arms to her sides, crisscrossing between her breasts. Even her head was wrapped in silk, leaving only her great dark eyes exposed. She glanced from me to Birewar and back in alarm.
With heavy courtesy, Birewar gestured to her bound form. “Will you begin?”
I was unwilling to touch her in his presence, but I had no choice. Once my fingers touched her smooth soles and the first trembling giggle hung in the air, though, instinct took over. Her feet twitched the tiny amount the silk bonds allowed, and her legs shifted helplessly inside the tight black silk, but she had been wrapped well and could barely move even as I tickled the stretched surfaces of her feet. The silk wrapping covering her mouth fluttered as she laughed harder and harder.
Birewar lumbered further along the workbench and began prodding Soyang’s ribs through the silk. The thin cloth was no protection at all, and her hands flailed helplessly and a convulsion of laughter racked her body with each poke. “Pretty enough,” he grunted. “And ticklish. I’ll show you how to break her down....”
I darted an unfriendly look at him and continued my own work. Soyang was laughing at the top of her lungs now, helpless under our hands, shuddering but completely constrained by the strong silk. I parted her toes to work my fingers between them, remembering how much it had tickled her when I first touched her there. The toes wriggled and curled in my grasp, but were not strong enough to resist, and I easily tugged them away from each other so I could tickle the tiny curves of webbing between each pair. This sent her into absolute paroxysms, her laughter rattling on the walls, her body curving in wild squirms. Grasping her foot firmly, I began to tickle her toes themselves, from the nails all the way around to the undersides, keeping her at the peak of her madness.
Meanwhile, Birewar was tickling Soyang’s belly with all the delicacy of a cook kneading dough. It still tickled her, if the way her midriff gyrated under his touch was any indication, but I still winced to see how roughly he handled her. His fingers left trails of red marks across her skin as he tickled. Torture by tickling is never intended to cause pain or injury, but I hesitated to correct Birewar, mindful of his rank even though it was my subject he was abusing. I tried to ignore him and focus on Soyang’s toes, and then on the rest of her feet from the balls to her heels, tickling as quickly and precisely as he was working crudely. I knew well by now how best to handle her, devoting special care to her arches, which as always were highly responsive to caressing fingers. The black silk bindings stretched and flexed as Soyang reflexively fought like a madwoman to pull her feet away from my attentions, to no avail, and I almost began to enjoy the simple sensual pleasures of the tickling again.
Between the two of us, we soon had Soyang sobbing with uncontrollable laughter, gasping pleas for mercy. We kept up the torture for longer than I thought we would be able to. Only when she was nearly choking with the effort to breathe, and too drained of strength to do more than twitch even when I ticked her toes, did I call a halt.
“What, now?” Birewar asked. He had left her belly crisscrossed with the marks of his fingers and had gone back to tickling her ribs, digging hard into them through the silk. “It’s only just started!”
“I know,” I said in irritation. Soyang let out a moaning cackle as he continued to tickle her ribs. “But if she faints we’ll have to waste time reviving her. Lord Mahadevan wants her ... “
“No wonder you’ve been so long with her, if you mean to take it so lightly.” Birewar snorted in contempt and looked down at Soyang, pressing hard into her ribs. “It’s time for the real torture to begin.”
“She is my subject,” I said sharply, approaching him and seizing his arm. In truth, I was less angered by his disrespect by how brutally he was treating Soyang. My pulse pounded, and my vision blurred with red.
Birewar finally stopped, his small eyes peering at me. “So that’s it! You’ve gone soft on her! If Caraka knows of this, you’ll be gone and she’ll -- “
I hit him. He was larger and stronger than I am, but I struck first and had the advantage of rage. When I finally came back to myself, I was aching on my chest and face where he had landed blows, but he was crumpled in a heap in the corner. I did not bother to check on him. Dead or alive, either way my life in the halls was over.
I untied Soyang from the workbench and scooped her up. She weighed almost nothing as I bore her through the halls. Fortunately, the silk wrappings concealed her, and the sight of bodies being carried was not an unusual one down there, so no one questioend me. And there were ways to travel within the halls that few above knew -- including ways to leave them.
As I write this, we have taken refuge for the day in a herder’s hut as far from Lord Mahadevan’s palace as we could get. We will move on again when night falls. Soyang has said little, recovering from her ordeal -- and, I think, trying to adjust to what has happened to her. I have not quite yet come to terms with our new situation, either. I do not know if there is any place in this world for a man whose sole skill is creating pain, but I also know I have changed beyond what I once was. All I can do, I think, is wait and see what I -- and Soyang -- become now that we have our freedom.
I have been given an important subject to treat on my own. It is a great honor and I am thankful to Senior Torturer Caraka for giving her to me, though I am not certain why. Surely there are others who deserve it more than I. But it would be unwise of me to protest, so I only accepted it and vowed to do as well as I could.
The subject is female, a foreigner from the north. Her name above was Lady Soyang. She is quite beautiful, with the ivory skin they have in the north and hair that reaches nearly to her waist, and even after being imprisoned she still maintains a noble’s dignity. I record these details not out of any personal interest in her (for that would be improper), but so those versed in the Book of Ways will understand the reasons for the sentence Caraka passed on her. Once sentence has been passed, none of those details are relevant any longer: she is only a subject.
When she was brought before him, Caraka studied the Book for a very long time, turning its pages one by one, frowning and muttering. Finally, he looked up and pronounced the sentence: “By tickling.”
As Caraka spoke, I looked at the subject where she sat in her cage of iron, and I saw a tremor go through her body. Foreign though she was, she spoke and understood Gatti like one of us, and she knew what her fate was. And the thought disturbed her. Silently I praised the gods for my luck -- I have never done a tickling, though I am of course familiar with the techniques, and if the subject was that affected by the mere word, she should prove extremely responsive.
As the sentence was to begin immediately, I had the porters take her to the Yellow Room and prepare her according to my directions. The Yellow Room is, of course, often oppressively warm, which is most suitable for a tickling. To further increase her sensitivity, I had had the porters strip her and oil her thoroughly before stretching her out, facedown, on a workbench and blindfolding her with a yellow cloth.
As I entered the room, she announced her name and station and immediately promised me great wealth if I would free her. Ignoring the offer, as is only proper, I commenced my investigation of the subject’s capabilities and limits. Beginning with her ribs, I found her soft oiled skin very sensitive to my touch. She giggled the moment I touched her, and it took only slight pressure to turn that into a full-throated stream of laughter. Despite her fear, I knew, she enjoyed it at first -- there is something pleasant in being able to laugh so unreservedly, which is why many ladies keep servants to tickle them. But there is a point where real desperation begins, and I was gratified to hear it in her voice after I had tickled her ribcage for only a short time. While she had been half-whispering, half-squealing “stop” whenever she could draw a breath, now she screeched it louder, trying to force it out even as she laughed.
I took that as my signal to increase the torture, and moved my touch up to her armpits. They, too, were extremely ticklish, and her hair snapped like a banner in the air as she struggled against the ties that secured her, her mouth stretched with laughter. In fact, I quickly found that the entire area from her ribs to her armpits, including the sides of her tender breasts, was highly responsive, offering a wide, ticklish area for my fingers to wander on. The subject was pleading for mercy at this point, and this too was ignored.
I admit at this point that I had a certain breakdown in professional discipline. Despite what I said above, it was difficult for me to forget the subject’s beauty, especially when I could feel her slick, writhing bare body under my hands. I have caused pain and watched it being caused in dozens and dozens of other treatments, but this was something different. In short, I was beginning to enjoy what I was doing. A torturer is supposed to remain dispassionate, to deal out torture with an even hand to all alike, as the Book of Ways prescribes. I found myself teasing the subject with small tickles up and down her sides, here and there, one side and the other. This no doubt was torture in its own way -- the subject continued to beg to be released. But I had to admit to myself that I was not intending it as torture -- I was tickling her this way to be playful, enjoying the sudden jerks of her body as each little touch was felt, and the tumble of panting giggles that burst from her at every quick tickle.
I was frustrated by my error, especially with so much at stake. If she realized I was merely treating this as a game, my work could be ruined before it ever started. I would have to correct myself immediately, both to remind myself of what I was here to do and to put the fear necessary into her. Sliding my hands down her sides, I began to tickle the curves of her hipbones through their slight padding of flesh, driving her back into her frenzy of laughter. “This is just a beginning,” I told her as coldly as I could. “Your sentence will continue for many days yet....” She screamd inarticulate protests through her hysteria as I tickled and tickled and tried not to notice what a pleasant task it was.
Finally, I drew back from her. She was heaving with each breath, and the yellow cloth that covered her eyes was soaked, darkened to saffron. Her body shimmered with sweat and oil, thick droplets rolling down her flanks. (I should not write this. I must forget she is beautiful.) The tracks of tears were clearly cut on her face. This might be a suitable way to leave her after a first treatment -- I knew her ticklish spots by now, and she knew to fear tickling even more. But I was determined to make up for my earlier failure of discipline, and mindful of the importance of this subject. So taking up one of the torches, I held it near her bare feet, which hung over the end of the workbench, tied back by the toes. She struggled weakly and whimpered as she felt the heat, pleading with me not to burn her. I did not respond, for while I had no intention of hurting her, I also did not want to reassure her. I held the torch and watched as the soles of her feet slowly became pinker under the influence of the heat. Her toenails, I noted, still bore traces of the gilt that had decorated them above.
Once her soles had become a rich pink -- which did not take long, for she was already flushed from her exertions -- I set the torch aside. She slumped down again, breathing heavily. I allowed her only a second’s respite before raking my nails in firm and precise lines down her hot, slippery soles. Her scream echoed loudly on the tiled walls of the Yellow Room, and as I continued tickling her, she squirmed in her bonds with more desperate energy than I had ever seen from anyone undergoing any other kind of sentence. It was obvious her feet were extremely ticklish, and the preparation with heat and oil -- as well as the severe tickling she had undergone elsewhere -- had raised that to an unbearable level. At this point, she could not bear to have her feet touched, let alone tickled -- let alone tickled as thoroughly and relentlessly as I was doing.
Her screaming laughter cut off abruptly as if struck by an axe as her voice failed. As if to compensate, her squirming became wilder, her body banging against the workbench as she twisted in ways I hadn’t thought possible. None of those struggles were communicated to her firmly tied feet, though. They quivered but remained immobile as I tickled the curves of her arches, dug into the softened skin of the balls of her feet, and tickled the pads of her small, delicate, bound toes. She seemed to find this last one particularly maddening, to judge by the shrieks of laughter that drew from her, so I lingered there a long time, tracing all around the tiny rounded surfaces. I tickled each toe and caressed her soles until she no longer laughed but made a low moaning, no longer struggled but instead trembled spasmodically. At this point, I judged she had had enough and, calling for the porters to clean up, I left the room to make my report to Caraka and then update this record. It has been several hours now, but I can still feel her skin on my fingertips. It is a disturbing sensation. I will be glad when this sentence is over.
----
After a day’s time to allow the subject to recover and contemplate the fate in store for her, I made preparations for a second treatment, arranging for the supplies necessary. As I approached the Yellow Room again, I felt an unwelcome sense of anticipation, and tried to stifle it, slowing my strides to a more dignified pace. Then a sound came to me, and after a moment I realized what I was hearing.
“No ... NO ... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
I sped up again, but not for pleasurable reasons. When I burst into the Yellow Room, I saw what I had feared. The subject had, as per my orders, been seated on a padded bench, her ankles firmly locked and bound in stocks of dark wood. A dull-faced porter stood by holding the chains around the necks of two small, shaggy goats, which were eagerly swiping their tongues over the subject’s taut soles, producing the mad laughter I had heard.
I was furious. The porter had overstepped himself by beginning the torture without me, and by doing so he had made my work more difficult. The essence of torture is fear, and the subject should have been brought to identify her suffering with one particular person -- me -- so as to increase her fear when I came to her. However, it would not have done to castigate the porter in view of the subject, so I only sent him out of the room while she laughed behind us. When the door closed, I turned back to her and, still irritated, grabbed the fallen chains and hauled the bleating beasts away from her.
I had no thought but to try and undo the error the porter had committed, but I realized my blunder as her laughter trailed off. She looked up at me with damp eyes. “Are you now merciful?”
“Not at all,” I said harshly to cover my confusion. “There are proper ways to do things.” Hooking the goats’ chains to the wall, I picked up the bowl and brush that lay nearby and approached her again.
“You are very serious for such a young man,” the subject commented with what might almost have been a smile, and that confused me even further. Rather than respond, I began to paint her soles thoroughly with the salty, sticky stuff in the bowl. Each stroke of the brush brought a wavering giggle from her, which was a welcome distraction, and I devoted myself to making sure that no tiny patch of her feet remained uncoated.
“Please -- “ she gasped, “tell me -- heeheeheehee! -- why am I being -- heeheeheeheeheehee! -- tortured?”
I started to respond, but stopped myself just in time. I was not supposed to hold converse with subjects, and if she did not know it was not my place to tell her. Instead, I set aside my tools and released the goats. They went eagerly to her soles as she let out a tiny scream of anticipation.
She was laughing loud again in the space of seconds as the rough tongues scratched her soles and wriggled among her toes endlessly. The goats, with no understanding of human laughter or the words with which she begged them, tormented her without a pause. I had decided on this approach after seeing how ticklish her feet were, and was pleased to see how well it was working, despite the porter’s interference. She writhed on the bench, near collapse, beating her tiny hands on the stocks, stretching in a futile effort to push the goats’ heads away from her feet.
After a suitable space of time had passed, I decided to put the next part of my plan into action. Moving around behind the bench, I took one of her wrists in my hand (pulse hammering crazily against my fingers) and raised it to one of the posts next to the bench, where a leather cuff hung. She let out an inarticulate scream of protest, but was too weak from laughter to stop me as I fastened her arm up there. Her other arm was similarly raised, and after dripping some more salt on her soles to make sure the goats continued uninterrupted, I knelt down behind her and ran my fingers down her bare flanks, touching the skin as lightly as I could. She must have been expecting it, but still her convulsion nearly hurled her off the bench as her laughter climbed rapidly into the inaudible regions.
I had hoped that the contrast of the rough, almost painful tickling the goats were giving her feet and the soft, light touch I was using on the rest of her body would torment her even worse than a ruthless full-body tickling would. It seemed to work well -- she was beseiged by two different but equally unbearable sensations. Pink tongues rasped her pink soles, while I traced in and out of her armpits, down her sides, drawing spiderwebs across the trembling softness of her tummy, caressing the straining, delicate curve of her back. Goosebumps rose on her silken skin where I touched, and her shrill giggle sounded again and again amidst deeper shouts of laughter. She wriggled as if she were in the midst of a seizure, panting and heaving, but in my fascinated state it seemed I was somehow in the same rhythm as her, able to anticipate each frantic movement of her body so that my fingertips never left her skin, never stopped tickling.
The goats continued their licking, their tongues covering each small foot with tickles at a single swipe, and I could tell without even looking when a goat’s tongue had crossed her sole because of the jolt that would shudder through her body, communicating itself through my fingers. When one of the goats was licking rapidly, trying to get at some bit of the salty stuff that was trapped in the crevice between her toes, her body shook with thunderous laughter so loud it should have been impossible to come from such a tiny woman. I marveled at the extreme sensitivity of her feet, remembering well how eagerly they had responded to my own tickling. Rarely did we find such delicate bodies down here in the halls, and I praised the Book of Ways for its wisdom -- with the subject so exquisitely ticklish, it would have been a shame to torture her any other way.
Abruptly, her head lolled back and her laughter stopped entirely as her body went slack. I was startled for a moment, then leaped up, dragging the goats away from her. Quickly I undid the cuffs, supporting her in my arms so she did not dash her head against the floor, and looked down into her pale, still face, fearing I had hurt her. If I had, Lord Mahadevan would be furious.
Her eyelids rose slowly, the great dark eyes blurred by exhaustion. Gradually, they focused on me. Her lips moved, trying to form words, and eventually a small voice, hoarse from screaming, emerged. “What ... what is your name?”
“Virochan,” I said, knowing it was a mistake to do so.
“Ahhh....” Her eyes closed again. I carefully laid her back on the bench and left the Yellow Room quickly, calling for a porter.
------
Caraka has directed me to apply the Torture of the Laughing Nightmare, which is a combination of tickling and the torture of sleeplessness. It had been reported that Soyang slept poorly, disturbed by the noises of the torture halls, which was ideal. She will be bound on a comfortable bed in the quietest room in the halls, and allowed to doze -- but each time she fell asleep, I would tickle her savagely, jolting her out of sleep and into hysterics. It was a long vigil for me, and Caraka suggested I might ask another torturer to work in shifts with me, but I declined. I led him to believe that I was determined to do this job properly all by myself, but in truth my reason was nothing so subtle. I fear I have become possessive of Soyang. I have tried to drive the emotion from me, but it will not go. All I can do now is try to end her sentence as quickly as possible so she leaves the halls and troubles me no further.
The room was dimly lit; we were near the surface, and faint moonlight leaked in through the windows near the ceiling. Soyang’s body, splayed on the soft red covers of the bed, gleamed like marble. Her ears were stopped, and a blindfold covered her eyes. Though she did not know it, she was given a drug in her evening meal to increase her weariness. I sat and listened to her breathing, trying to judge whether she had fallen asleep.
There -- it was slowing, her body relaxing and settling into the bed. I stole forward quickly, waited for a heartbeat or two, and then attacked. I had chosen her soles as the most convenient target, and she was blasted out of sleep with an earsplitting scream, body arching against the bonds of red silk that held her. She had had no chance to resist the tickling, but was plunged immediately into the depths of hysterical laughter as I tickled quickly but steadily along the very centers of her arches, which I knew by now were a highly tender spot. Her entire body strained away from my fingers as they played on the bottoms of her feet, but she was well tied and got no respite. I tickled her feet steadily for five minutes, until she was sobbing for breath between her screams of laughter, and then paused.
When she had regained her breath, she turned her blinded eyes to the end of the bed. “Virochan? Is that you?”
I cursed the impulse that had made me give her my name. If it had been another who had come to torture her, and he told Caraka that I had made my name known, the least I could expect was expulsion from the halls. I returned to my seat.
“Are you there?” she asked plaintively. “Please!” Her feet wriggled in her bonds as if expecting another tickle any second; I should have been pleased at the sight of her nervous anticipation, but I was still disgusted with myself. “Virochan?”
After a few more questions, and a great deal of nervous wiggling, Soyang settled down again. The room was silent once more. I watched the contours of her body and tried not to think too much. She was asleep again a few minutes later -- which was my cue to begin the torture again, burying my fingertips in the soft skin of her ribcage, tickling my way up from the curve of her back to just beneath her small, quivering breasts. Uncontrollable, gasping laughter poured out of her as she bounced on the bed like a runaway horse, held down only by the silk wrapped around her wrists and ankles and by the action of my fingers on her helpless sides, which drove her this way and that in a futile search for relief. “Wait -- HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! -- tell me -- “ she yelped as I tickled, but I would not slow to allow her to speak, so she gave herself up to the laughter.
When i finally stopped, leaving her weak and panting, she struggled to control her breath, then spoke. “I just want to ask you something....” she said. I shook my head, though she could not see it. I was done answering questions for her. “Please? Just say something....”
I was wishing she would be quiet, and wondering if I should gag her, but after that she said no more. After a longer while, she was still once more. I approached her carefully, looking down at her and reaching for her belly -- and then stopped myself. Something was wrong. The muscles in her belly jumped and shivered before I even touched her, and the rest of her body had tensed as well. I could not see her eyes, but I could see that she was squeezing them shut tightly. She had been feigning sleep.
I touched her soft belly then, and she sucked in her breath, but continued to pretend to be asleep. My fingers wandered, exploring, and as she began to shake with stifled giggles I wondered what to do. I could disregard it and torture her breathless again, but her behavior was too strange for me to simply ignore. Her giggling got louder as I tickled just beneath her navel, and I concentrated there, watching her twist as the ticklish sensations took possession of her body again.
Finally, I reached up and unplugged one of her ears, knowing I should not be doing this but unable to stop myself. “You weren’t asleep. Why did you pretend to be?”
“I’ll tell you if you tell me something,” she replied.
“Why should I tell you anything?” I drew a finger up one bare sole, down the other, and she squealed with laughter.
“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease!” I did not pause the soft tickling on her feet. “Hahahahahahahahaha! I’ll tell! Just promise -- hahahahahahaha!”
“Well?”
“I -- I -- “ Soyang squirmed. I tweaked her toes to encourage her. “I wanted you to tickle me...”
I stopped cold, not quite believing what I heard. “You enjoy your torture?”
“No -- yes -- oh, I don’t know! It is torture ... I can hardly stand it ... but ... “ Soyang considered her words. “No one has ever touched me so carefully ... or brought such sensations to me ... I hate it, yet I want more ... “
My thoughts were whirling. I would have to tell this to Caraka. But if I did ... he would assign another sentence to her, and it would not be tickling. I knew well the many dark, painful things that could be done to the beautiful body laid out before me. What would I do?
“May I ask my question now?” Soyang asked hesitantly.
“What is it?”
“Why am I being tortured?”
“Because ... “ I stopped, then plunged on. I had violated enough of the laws of the Book of Ways already. “Lord Mahadevan covets the wealth of your family, and he believes that by torture you will be urged to ask a ransom of them.”
She laughed -- not a ticklish laugh, but a natural one. “He is a fool, then.”
“What do you mean?”
“My family is impoverished. All the wealth I have is my title and what I brought with my attendants -- and he has seized that already. You may torture me all you like ... I have nothing more to give.”
We said little more after that. I tickled her several more times for the benefit of anyone passing in the hall, hearing now the squeals of joy that were mixed in with her cries of ticklish agony. But I was too distracted to take much enjoyment from it. Before dawn, I left her sleeping and went to find Caraka to report the results of the torture, embellishing them carefully. I did not tell him what had passed between us.
--
Caraka was angry to hear that Soyang had not yet agreed to the ransom. Of course, I did not say that she could never do so, for if Lord Mahadevan knew that, he would likely have her strangled or sold as a slave. Only the laws of the Book kept Caraka from replacing me, but Soyang was my subject and would remain so until I was forced to admit defeat.
But while Caraka could not take Soyang from me, he could and did force me to accept assistance. As it was my subject, Accepted Torturer Birewar deferred to me despite the difference in our ranks, but he clearly thought I had failed due to my inexperience, and hoped to have Soyang for his subject when I stepped aside. He was a large, hard-handed man with a permanent mulish look on his features. He thought tickling was worthless as a torture, no matter what the Book prescribed, and I had no doubt he would be eager to inflict harder tortures on Soyang if he had the chance.
I knew that I would have to do this torture as mercilessly as possible so Birewar would report to Caraka that I was not shirking the job, so I prepared carefully. When we came to the Yellow Room again, I found my orders had been followed. Soyang lay on the workbench where I had first tickled her. From her waist to her ankles, she was tightly wrapped around and around with black silk, immobilizing her legs, and her feet and toes were bound with twists of the same stuff. Her belly was bare, the contrast between its paleness and the deep black silk startling, and then the silk wrappings began just above it again, pinning her arms to her sides, crisscrossing between her breasts. Even her head was wrapped in silk, leaving only her great dark eyes exposed. She glanced from me to Birewar and back in alarm.
With heavy courtesy, Birewar gestured to her bound form. “Will you begin?”
I was unwilling to touch her in his presence, but I had no choice. Once my fingers touched her smooth soles and the first trembling giggle hung in the air, though, instinct took over. Her feet twitched the tiny amount the silk bonds allowed, and her legs shifted helplessly inside the tight black silk, but she had been wrapped well and could barely move even as I tickled the stretched surfaces of her feet. The silk wrapping covering her mouth fluttered as she laughed harder and harder.
Birewar lumbered further along the workbench and began prodding Soyang’s ribs through the silk. The thin cloth was no protection at all, and her hands flailed helplessly and a convulsion of laughter racked her body with each poke. “Pretty enough,” he grunted. “And ticklish. I’ll show you how to break her down....”
I darted an unfriendly look at him and continued my own work. Soyang was laughing at the top of her lungs now, helpless under our hands, shuddering but completely constrained by the strong silk. I parted her toes to work my fingers between them, remembering how much it had tickled her when I first touched her there. The toes wriggled and curled in my grasp, but were not strong enough to resist, and I easily tugged them away from each other so I could tickle the tiny curves of webbing between each pair. This sent her into absolute paroxysms, her laughter rattling on the walls, her body curving in wild squirms. Grasping her foot firmly, I began to tickle her toes themselves, from the nails all the way around to the undersides, keeping her at the peak of her madness.
Meanwhile, Birewar was tickling Soyang’s belly with all the delicacy of a cook kneading dough. It still tickled her, if the way her midriff gyrated under his touch was any indication, but I still winced to see how roughly he handled her. His fingers left trails of red marks across her skin as he tickled. Torture by tickling is never intended to cause pain or injury, but I hesitated to correct Birewar, mindful of his rank even though it was my subject he was abusing. I tried to ignore him and focus on Soyang’s toes, and then on the rest of her feet from the balls to her heels, tickling as quickly and precisely as he was working crudely. I knew well by now how best to handle her, devoting special care to her arches, which as always were highly responsive to caressing fingers. The black silk bindings stretched and flexed as Soyang reflexively fought like a madwoman to pull her feet away from my attentions, to no avail, and I almost began to enjoy the simple sensual pleasures of the tickling again.
Between the two of us, we soon had Soyang sobbing with uncontrollable laughter, gasping pleas for mercy. We kept up the torture for longer than I thought we would be able to. Only when she was nearly choking with the effort to breathe, and too drained of strength to do more than twitch even when I ticked her toes, did I call a halt.
“What, now?” Birewar asked. He had left her belly crisscrossed with the marks of his fingers and had gone back to tickling her ribs, digging hard into them through the silk. “It’s only just started!”
“I know,” I said in irritation. Soyang let out a moaning cackle as he continued to tickle her ribs. “But if she faints we’ll have to waste time reviving her. Lord Mahadevan wants her ... “
“No wonder you’ve been so long with her, if you mean to take it so lightly.” Birewar snorted in contempt and looked down at Soyang, pressing hard into her ribs. “It’s time for the real torture to begin.”
“She is my subject,” I said sharply, approaching him and seizing his arm. In truth, I was less angered by his disrespect by how brutally he was treating Soyang. My pulse pounded, and my vision blurred with red.
Birewar finally stopped, his small eyes peering at me. “So that’s it! You’ve gone soft on her! If Caraka knows of this, you’ll be gone and she’ll -- “
I hit him. He was larger and stronger than I am, but I struck first and had the advantage of rage. When I finally came back to myself, I was aching on my chest and face where he had landed blows, but he was crumpled in a heap in the corner. I did not bother to check on him. Dead or alive, either way my life in the halls was over.
I untied Soyang from the workbench and scooped her up. She weighed almost nothing as I bore her through the halls. Fortunately, the silk wrappings concealed her, and the sight of bodies being carried was not an unusual one down there, so no one questioend me. And there were ways to travel within the halls that few above knew -- including ways to leave them.
As I write this, we have taken refuge for the day in a herder’s hut as far from Lord Mahadevan’s palace as we could get. We will move on again when night falls. Soyang has said little, recovering from her ordeal -- and, I think, trying to adjust to what has happened to her. I have not quite yet come to terms with our new situation, either. I do not know if there is any place in this world for a man whose sole skill is creating pain, but I also know I have changed beyond what I once was. All I can do, I think, is wait and see what I -- and Soyang -- become now that we have our freedom.
