TheGerbilSystem
TMF Poster
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Hey guys! This story was a commission for fellow TMF user loverofmusic, who is a gentleman and a scholar and overall solid dude. It is also a sequel to "Selena Gomez Tickle Tortured by Aliens", which you can find here. That's enough intro, I suppose. Enjoy!
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“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!”
That particular ear-piercing scream came from Selena Gomez. It was one of many she had unleashed over these past few weeks, while she been held captive on this alien ship. The reason, of course, was the daily dose of tickle torture she’d been taking from her captors: Pavel, Dmitri, Katya, and Z-9. In fact, tickling was the only thing she could remember about her time on the ship. Whenever the aliens had finished having their fun – or whenever she blacked out, whichever came first – they would inject her with an agent that induced a temporary state of unconsciousness. Then they would clean her up, pump her full of nutrients (via IV), and let her rest and recover until they were ready to tickle her again, at which point she would find herself in her usual position; restrained by energy bonds to a metal table, arms high above her head, legs spread wide, covered only by a bra and panties.
Her current tickle session was the worst she had faced since her initial tickle test right after she’d been kidnapped. It was so bad, Selena thought the aliens had somehow upped the capabilities of the sensitivity enhancer on her wrist. Turns out they had just gotten much, much better at tickling, thanks to all the practice they had been getting on her.
“OKAHAHAAHAAHY! ENOUGH! ENOUGH” she screamed, as Dmitri wiggled his gloved fingers all over her rib cage.
“I wouldn’t say that,” said Pavel, who was running an electric toothbrush around her belly button. “It’s been, what, forty-five minutes? You can probably go another twenty before you faint.”
“SHUT HAHAHAAHAHAHA UHAHAHAP!”
“What was that? You want to go another thirty instead?” He used his free hand to start squeezing her left oblique.
“AHAHAHAHA I’M SORRHAHAAHYYY!”
“Pavel,” said Katya, who was working feathers in both of Selena’s underarms. “Maybe it is time for a rest. She’s been limp for awhile now.”
Pavel considered the request for a minute, continuing with the tickling the entire time. When his toothbrush dipped inside Selena’s belly button, she screamed so loud that he instinctively dropped the brush to cover his ears.
“Okay, yes. A break isn’t the worst idea right now. Z-9, Katya, Dmitri, please prepare the Knockout Juice.” All of them nodded and headed out of the room. Meanwhile, Pavel continued to tickle Selena, using only his gloved hand to lightly tease her stomach.
“You know, we really lucked out with you,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over Selena’s laughter. “We thought it would take years to find the most ticklish person on your planet. Years of breaking into homes, running tests, wearing ridiculous outfits to Outback Steakhouse so we could get a steak without a side of invasive personal questions. Instead, we found you a mere month into our journey! Truly, we have been blessed by the Gods.”
“HAHAHAHAHAAHA WHAAHAHAHAT ARE YOU TAHAHAHAKING ABOUT?”
“Well, the thing is, when we went to Outback just looking like ourselves, we would-,”
“NOT ABOUT THAHAHAHT YOU HAHAHAAHAAHA GOOF! I’M NOT THE MOST TICKLISH PERSON ON MY PLAHAHAHAHANET!”
“Uh-huh. Sure you’re not.” To punish her for lying, Pavel started using both hands to tickle her ribs at a pretty ferocious pace.
“AAAAAAAAAH! NOHOHOHOH I’M SERIOUS! THERE’S ONE MORE HAHAHAHA!”
“That’s a ridiculous claim. Our computer projections indicated that no one could possibly react as explosively to tickling as you have.”
“PLEASE HAHAHAHA I’M BEGGING YOU HAHAHAAHA JUST GIVE ME A CHAHAHAHANCE TO EXPLAIN!”
Pavel took his hands off her ribs, but kept them poised a few inches from her skin. “You have ten seconds. If I don’t like what I hear, I’ll call everyone else back in here and we’ll tickle you until you scream so much your vocal cords stop working.”
Selena, understandably, spoke quickly. “It’s my friend Taylor. I know it sounds impossible but she’s even more ticklish than I am. One time we were taking a picture together and she started losing it just because I put my hand on her side without even tickling.”
“Go on.”
“Um, okay. This other time we were at the beach and I was rubbing sunblock on her and she spent the whole time laughing into her towel because it tickled so much.” Selena hoped that he wouldn’t ask for any more examples. Fact was, she didn’t have any more, because she was worried that if she ever intentionally tickled Taylor, she literally wouldn’t be able to take it. Not that she hadn’t been tempted before. More than once, she had thought about how much fun it would be to have Taylor’s tight bare stomach under her fingertips, mercilessly tickling it until Taylor begged for mercy. But that was only a pipe dream; as much fun as that would be, she didn’t think she had it in her to put her friend through that kind of torture.
“Her name’s Taylor, you say?” asked Pavel.
“Yes. Taylor Swift.”
“Can you show us where she lives?”
Selena considered the implications of Pavel’s question. “Why do you want to know?”
Pavel rolled his eyes. “So we can ask her to join our book club. Why do you think we want to know where she lives.”
“So you’re going to do to her what you’re doing to me?”
“Not necessarily. First we need to test her to see if she’s really as ticklish as you say she is. Then we’ll make a decision on how to treat her going forward.”
“Um, okay. Well, like I said, she’s my friend, so I don’t really think I’m going to sell her out like that.”
Pavel grinned. “Would you like to hear something interesting about this ship?”
“Not real-,”
“Excellent! I knew you would. The funny thing about this ship is, humans don’t age on it! It’s all a matter of alien technology far behind your doofus peanut brain, so I won’t explain it in detail. But basically, as long as you remain on this ship, your body composition will remain completely stable. You will forever be the same age and physical state you were the night that we brought you on.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that, hypothetically, if you don’t tell us where Taylor Swift is, we can keep you here and tickle torture you every day, for, I don’t know . . . the rest of eternity?”
Selena actually gasped. The very thought of was so horrifying that she couldn’t bring herself to recognize it as a legitimate possibility.
“Or,” Pavel continued, “you can tell us where she is, we can run a test on her, and then, if she’s as ticklish as you say she is, we can let you off the ship.”
“And just why would I believe that?”
“Because why would I need you if we had someone that’s even more ticklish? It’s like I said, you’re an Xbox. Why would you need an Xbox once you have an Xbox 360?”
Pavel’s answer just gave Selena more questions. For example, how and why he knew about video game systems. Still, it at least sort of made sense to her. More importantly, there was no way she was going to let go of a chance to get off this dumb ship. If that meant Taylor had to endure an eternity of tickle torture instead of her, then so be it.
“Okay,” said Selena. “Her address is-,”
#
When Taylor Swift woke up on the alien’s ship, she was even more confused than Selena had been. After all, the aliens hadn’t taken Selena from her bedroom before they’d performed their preliminary Ticklishness Screening; she had known something was strange was happening before she’d officially been kidnapped. But the aliens had skipped the screening with Taylor, figuring that Selena’s recommendation was enough. Suffice to say, when she found herself strapped to Selena’s old table, wearing only her underwear (and, technically, the sensitivity enhancer), she was very confused.
Suddenly, Selena walked into the room, wearing, for the first time in a while, something besides her underwear and a bracelet: a big smile. Yes, Taylor was her friend, didn’t want her to suffer, etc, etc. All of that was on the backburner right now. Bottom line, Selena finally wasn’t going to be the one getting tickled. Her happiness was impossible to contain.
“Heeeey Taylor,” she said, strolling up to the table.
“Selena? What the hell is going on? Is this some kind of Halloween prank?”
“Um . . . yeah! You could think of it that way!”
“Okay, well, it’s not funny anymore. And what the hell kind of rope did you use? I can’t move my arms or legs an inch.”
“It’s not rope, silly! It’s energy bonds!”
“Good one. You tied me down with energy bonds in my underwear. You got me. You win. Now let me go, please.”
“Well, um . . . I can’t really do that. I’m not in charge of this operation. The aliens are.”
“Excuse me?”
And Selena told her about what had happened to her, and how she had sold Taylor out to escape eternal tickle torture, and how they were floating somewhere in the middle of space, and all the other relevant details. Like Selena, Taylor refused to believe it at first, and then absolutely freaked the fuck out when offered proof. Only when Taylor had started to accept her fate did Selena fill her in on what the aliens had in store for her.
“Now,” she said, “it’s your turn to get tickled! They’re going to test you and find out that you’re even more ticklish than me!”
Taylor, of course, was sweating bullets when Selena told her about the plan, but she tried to stay cool. Her only chance, she thought, was to try to bluff her way out of it. True, there had been a couple times where Selena had touched her and it had tickled like crazy. But she also thought she’d done an okay job of hiding her reactions.
“Um, okay. Not to burst your bubble, but I’m not actually ticklish at all. I don’t know why you thought I was. Were you confusing me with someone else?”
“Oh, you’re not?” asked Selena. “Then I guess this won’t bother you at all!” She slowly lowered her hands to just above Taylor’s stomach and started wiggling her fingers. “Kitchy kitchy koo!”
“EEEEEEEEEP!” Taylor screamed, even though Selena wasn’t actually touching her. “CUT IT OUT CUT IT OUT CUT IT OUT!”
Selena laughed. “Look at you! You can’t even take someone pretending to tickle you. You’re screwed.” She put her middle and index fingers on Taylor’s stomach and started walking them all over. As sensitive as Taylor was, it would’ve tickled her even without the enhancer. With it, it felt like the worst tickling she’d ever taken.
“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA GET THEM OHAHAHAFF!”
“Are you gonna cut the act now?” Selena asked. “Because I already know how ticklish you are. And how embarrassed you are that just a couple little touches turns you into a helpless little girl. And soon,” she said, gesturing to the door, where Katya, Dmitri, Z-9, and Pavel were walking in. “So will they!”
Pavel joined Selena next to Taylor while the other aliens went to the adjacent “tickle tool” table to begin preparing for the testing. “Good day, Taylor. Are you ready for testing to begin?”
Taylor didn’t say anything. She couldn’t even make eye contact with him, she was so afraid of what was going to happen to her.
“I’m going to take that as a yes. Although a little bit more enthusiasm wouldn’t be unwelcome. In any event, let me explain how today’s testing will proceed.” He walked over to the table where the other aliens were gathered. “As Selena explained to you, we’ll be testing to see if you’re more ticklish than she is. This will require using a slightly different methodology than we used on her.”
“Wait, no fair. She gets tickled less than I do?” asked Selena.
“It’s the most efficient way to compare your sensitivity,” said Pavel. “The tools will be the same. Feathers, then hands, then the brushes, the feather duster, and then the, uh . . . the crawly-things we still haven’t named yet. The only difference will be that she’ll only have to face one tickler at a time. If she’s as ticklish as you say she is, then it should still feel more torturous than anything you face.”
Taylor kept silent throughout Pavel’s description, but inside, she was melting. All she could think about was how ticklish Selena’s two fingers just pressing on her stomach had felt. That had barely been more than a poke; what was actual tickling going to feel like?
Selena shrugged. “Okay. Still better her than me. Can I watch the testing?”
“Are you kidding? We’re not letting you out of our sight. You have to watch.” Pavel pulled up a chair for her a few feet from the table Taylor was strapped to, which Selena promptly sat in. “Katya, are you ready to begin?”
“Ready?” she said, walking towards Taylor, holding a long feather in each hand.
“All right. Testing will proceed in 3, 2, 1. GO!”
“WAIT!” shrieked Taylor. “STOP! STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP!”
Pavel held up his hand for Katya to hold off, and then looked at Taylor. “Wow, you can talk! How exciting!”
“Oh, what, you want me to come in here all chatty when you’re planning to tickle me to death? Listen, I can’t take it. Selena’s right. I’m way too ticklish. Is there anything I can say that will make you let me go?”
Pavel mulled the offer over. Anything is a very broad universe, after all.
“No,” he said, finally. “I think it’s very important that we see the results of this testing. Katya, please proceed.”
“NOHOHOHOHOHO!” Taylor screamed as Katya started twirling the feathers above her stomach. “DOHOHOHOHON’T!”
Katya couldn’t hold back a smile. “I haven’t even started yet! Are you really that ticklish?”
“YES YOU DUMB BITCH, WHY DO YOU THINK I’VE BEEN AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!”
Katya, not exactly thrilled about the name-calling, had started dragging the quill end of one feather along Taylor’s stomach, tracing them along the tendons near her abs. Taylor started spazzing out as soon as the quill hit her skin, even moreso than Selena had. The big difference in their reactions was how much they moved. Selena, while ridiculously ticklish, had kept (relatively) still during her testing, thinking it useless to fight against the bonds. Taylor, on the other hand, flopped around almost like she was seizing. Thrashing her arms, her legs, arching her back; anything to escape the touch of Katya’s feather. Not that any of it worked, of course.
“EEEEEEEEEEEE!” she shrieked as Katya took the plume of the other feather and ran it over her ribs. “PLEAEHEHEEHEHEEESE! STOP!”
“What do you think?” Katya asked Pavel.
“The preliminary results seem about the same,” he replied.
“No way!” said Selena. “She’s way more ticklish. Use the feathery part on her tummy.”
Katya obliged, going from tracing the abs with the quill to softly feathering it with the plume. To her surprise, it worked. Taylor reacted like another five ticklers had joined in.
“AAAAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAH! STAHAHAAHAHAP! IT’S WORSE THAN BEFOHOHOHOHHRE!”
“Told you!” said Selena. “Taylor’s tummy is just way too sensitive to deal with something as soft as that feather. Isn’t it, Taylor?”
“SHUHUHUHUHT YOUR MOUTH YOU’RE MAKING IT HAHAAHAHAHA!” Taylor’s sentence was cut off by Katya moving the feather that was on her rib to her underarm. She hadn’t expected Katya to change positions then, and it made all the more tickly when the quill dipped inside her hollow.
“The underarms seem a little worse than they were with Selena,” noted Dmitri.
“Give it some time to stabilize. I think it just surprised her,” said Pavel.
Katya continued tickling in the same spots for about another minute, and then slipped the second feather into Taylor’s free underarm. If the aliens had blood, her scream would have curdled it.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAH! HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAHA!!”
“Um, nevermind. I think that’s a hot spot too.”
“Her ribs are worse,” said Selena. “You’re not concentrating on that enough. You need to put the feathery part on both of her ribs and go crazy.”
“Pavel?” asked Katya.
“Sure, go for it. She was right before.”
Katya quickly transitioned the feathers to each side of Taylor’s ribs. Sure enough, Taylor started screaming even louder than before.
“STAHAHAHAP LISTENING TO HER! IT’S HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA.” And then she lapsed into silent laughter before she could complete her thought.
“Okay, that’s about enough of that,” said Pavel, strapping on his gloves. “Let’s go to hands.”
If Taylor had heard him say that, then she no doubt would have unleashed another screaming fit. Like Selena, fingers worked much better on her than feathers. But she was too busy catching her breath that she didn’t notice when Pavel walked up beside her and started squeezing her sides.
“AAAAAAAAAAAA! GET OUTHAHAHAAHAT OF THERE! AHAHAHAAHAAHA!”
Once again, Taylor’s whole body was jiggling as she jerked against her restraints. She was even moving her hips from side-to-side, just to buy herself a second or two away from the tickling. Seeing her up close, Pavel had to admit that Selena had never seemed that desperate when she was the one getting tickled. Still, he thought he could get even better results with a bit of extra guidance.
“Okay, Selena. What would you do here?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. Is there another fucking Selena here? Where would you tickle here next?”
“Hmmm.” Selena thought it over. “I would stay on her sides, but dig in harder. You’re going way too light on her right now.”
“STOP FUCKING GIVING THEM HAHAHAHAAH HELP!” screamed Taylor. But it was too late. Pavel had gone from light squeezes to more intense ones, and she was feeling it. Selena was right again. The ticklishness of Taylor’s sides began when you just lightly touched them, and went up and up the more pressure you applied.
“HAHAAHAHAHAAHA NOT THEHEHEEHRE! ANYWHERE ELSE. NO MOHOHOHOHRE!”
“Where to next?” Pavel asked Selena. “I think we have a pretty good reading on her sides for now.”
“Count her ribs like you did to me. She hates it even more than I do.”
“SELEHEHEEHEENA! WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR AAAAAAAAH!” Pavel put his hands on the top of her ribcage and slowly pressed into her skin. As he repeated the procedure all the way down to the bottom, Taylor’s wails became even more urgent.
“NOHOHOHOHHO! PLEEAHAHASE! THAHAHAHAT’S REHEHEHEHEHEALY BAHAHAHAHAHAD!” she shrieked, once again arching her back to elude the tickling. The constant movement was starting to annoy Pavel. While it still wasn’t having much effect, it prevented him from getting quite as good a grip on her as he would’ve liked.
“Z-9? Can you please come over and here and restrain our subject?”
Before Taylor even had time to process what was happening, Z-9 was wrapping her hips up in some sort of a bear hug, which made it impossible for her to arch, and gave Pavel a nice, stable surface for tickling. Which naturally made the whole thing even more unbearable for Taylor, to the point that she couldn’t even beg for him to stop. It was just a series of desperate screams.
“AAAAH! AAAH! AAAAAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAH!” she wailed, as Pavel finally counted the last rib.
“You know, Selena didn’t start panicking like this until we put the crawly-things on her,” said Pavel. “Wait, guys, is that a good name? Crawly things?”
“Awful name. Rip it up,” said Z-9.
“Oh fuck off, Z. What do you even know about branding?” Pavel turned his attention back to Taylor, who was still a laughing mess. “Anyway, it looks like your sides are more ticklish than hers. Your ribs are definitely more ticklish than hers. And I bet your stomach is more ticklish than hers, too.” Without any further warning, he started spider-tickling all over stomach which led to the loudest scream yet.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!”
After that scream, Taylor’s laughter for the next few minutes was mostly silent. She so sapped of energy that she couldn’t do more than sit back and take the punishment. Selena continued to guide Pavel the whole way, telling him where to tickle, how hard to do it, and what kind of motion he should be using.
“Try walking your fingers around her belly button,” she said. “I did it before and she almost lost her mind.”
“Like this?” Pavel asked, repeating what Selena had done earlier with remarkable precision. Taylor threw her head back in agony. She had been crying for awhile now; her eyes were so full of tears that they looked like they were made of glass.
“Exactly,” said Selena, with another wide smile.
After a couple minutes of finger-walking, Pavel decided to end with another round of spider-tickling. As he wiggled his fingers on the top of her stomach, Taylor was finally able to croak out a few words.
“Please!” she said. “You’re going to kill me! It’s driving me insahahahahane!” Her speech wasn’t as loud and desperate as it had been before, but in a way, that made Pavel even more worried. She sounded like someone trying to make sure that she got her last words out.
“Okay. Time for the next round.”
Taylor’s face looked like she had bit into an entire orchard of lemons. “What do you mean, next round?”
“Next round. We have at least three more rounds of testing before we’re finished.”
“THREE ROUNDS?” Taylor shrieked. The hopelessness of her situation had temporarily given her voice back.
“Yes. Unless, of course, you would like to concede that you’re more ticklish than Selena is.”
Boy, was Taylor ever tempted to do that. If all they were doing was testing, then maybe admitting that would get them to stop. But somehow, she got the idea that would only make things worse. Plus, the way Selena was sitting there, watching her get tortured, with that stupid smirk on her face . . . well, she just couldn’t let her win that easy.
“No way!” Taylor fired back. “Selena’s much more ticklish than I am. I bet she couldn’t take half of what I’ve been through.”
“Um, actually, I went through all five rounds, and that was with two ticklers at a time.”
“Yeah? Well, if I’d been there to point out all your ticklish spots, you wouldn’t have made it more than five seconds.” Taylor glared at Selena. “I know how to make you scream. And I’m going to do it once I get out of here.”
“Okay, this is pathetic,” said Pavel. “This is like watching two dwarves argue over who’s taller. You’re both, like, off-the-charts ticklish. Literally. Like, we made charts, and you guys don’t fit on them.”
“But she’s still more, right?” asked Selena.
“I dunno. Katya’s been doing most of the tracking,” said Pavel.
That was Katya’s cue. “It’s close. We’ve had to adjust for the absence of a tickler as well as Selena’s inside knowledge. For now, it looks Taylor’s a little more ticklish. But it’s close.”
“Okay then. Enough talking. Let’s get Round 3 going. Dmitri!”
Dmitri nodded and walked up to the table, holding a paintbrush in one hand and a toothbrush in the other. Before he could get going, Selena yelled out some advice to him.
“Dmitri! Don’t use the brush end of both of them. She’ll be more ticklish if she has to deal with two different kinds of ticking at the same time.”
Dmitri followed instructions without any hesitiation, using the dull end of the paintbrush to draw all over her stomach, and using the toothbrush to scrub all over her ribs and underarms.
“HAHAHAHAA! YOU CAHAHAHAN’T DO THIS! IT’S CHEHEHEEHEETING!” Taylor screamed.
“No it’s not,” said Katya. “It’s one tickler testing out two different instruments. That’s perfectly within the rules.”
“IT FEELS LIKE TWHOOHOHOO!” And indeed, it did. The sensation she felt from the dull end of the paintbrush was completely different than that coming from the soft bristles of the toothbrush. Yet somehow, they seemed to be equally effective. If Taylor had been in the right state of mind to make comparisons, she might’ve compared it to being tickled by a girl and a guy at the same time. Of course, her brain wasn’t functioning nearly well enough to do that at the moment. She couldn’t think, could barely verbalize words; all she could really do was laugh.
“HAHAHAHAHA QUIT IT!” Dmitri ignored her and started scrubbing her ribs with the toothbrush even harder. “FOR REHEEHEEHEAL! DO SOMETHING ELSE!”
“Get her tummy with the toothbrush,” cheered Selena. “I told you guys, she can’t take soft tickling on there. Can you Taylor?”
“I’M GOING TO HAHAHAHAHA KILL HAHAAHAHAAH YOU,” screamed Taylor as Dmitri scrubbed the toothbrush over the middle of her abs and dipped the paintbrush into her left underarm.
“You’ll kill me? Please. All I have to do is poke you in the stomach and you’ll be curled up in a ball on the floor.” Taylor, being in her current state, could not think of a clever retort, and even if she could, she was laughing too much to deliver it.
“HAHAHAHAAHAHAHA NOHOHOHOHOHOHO! NO MORE ON THE STOMACH! HAHAHAHAHA! GO BACK TO THE RIBS!”
Dmitri ignored her, instead bringing the paintbrush back to the stomach, concentrating all the tickling in one place.
“PLEEHEEHEASE ANYWHERE BUT THERE! IT’S TOOHOOHOO MUCH! YOU’RE HAHAHAHA KILLING HAHAHAHA ME!”
Pavel raised a hand to signal Dmitri to stop. “Okay. That round’s over. Z, you ready to do your thing?”
Z grabbed the feather duster. “You know it!”
“Great. You can just go wild on her while we talk about the final round.”
Z stomped his foot. “Why does none of my testing ever count?”
“Because you’re bad at your job and none of us like you. We actually spend a lot of time planning ways to kill you and making it look like an accident.”
“Wait, really?”
“No. You’re not worth that much effort. Now please go ahead and do your part so her sensitivity level stays consistent for the final round.”
Z gave Pavel a dirty look, but nonetheless picked up the duster and started rubbing it all over Taylor’s stomach. The other three aliens could hear her screams as they walked out of the room to prepare the final round. Selena followed them out, even though they hadn’t really invited her.
“What’s the score look like?” Dmitri asked.
Katya scanned her charts. “Too close to call. If Taylor can win this round, I think she wins the whole thing.”
“Meaning she’s more ticklish?”
“Less.”
“What does she have to do to win the round?” asked Selena.
“Basically, she just has to last a few seconds longer than you did.”
“And how long did I last?”
“About twenty.”
Selena ran through the math in her head, and she didn’t like what she came up with. Taylor, ticklish as she was, had an iron will. And twenty-five, thirty-seconds wasn’t very long. If they went to the final round like this, Taylor had a legitimate chance of winning. Clearly, Selena needed to shake things up a bit.
“How many crawly-things do you use?”
“Crawly-things! I knew it would catch on!” exclaimed Pavel.
“Shut up. You’re the only person in this galaxy who thinks it’s a good name,” said Katya. She turned to Selena. “About 300.”
“So it’s basically the equivalent of 300 people tickling you, then.”
“Something like that.”
“Okay. So it would be an easier test if she had to last five minutes with just one person tickling her, right?”
“In theory.”
“Then can you let me do the final round instead of the bugs?”
All three aliens looked at her skeptically. Clearly, this would involve a little more convincing.
“Seriously. I need to prove that she’s more ticklish than me. If she loses an easier test, than we’ll know for sure.”
Now the aliens were all looking at each other. “Okay, give us a second,” said Pavel. They walked to the end of the hallway and huddled up. After what seemed to Selena like years, they walked back over to her.
“Okay. You’re on,” Pavel told her.
“Yay!” exclaimed Selena. Then she practically ran back down to the testing room, the aliens struggling to keep up with her. When they got there, Taylor was laughing hysterically as Z-9 ran the feather duster over her feet. After about a minute break, Selena stepped up to the table, all eyes on her.
“Hi Tay. Are you ready for the final round?”
Taylor’s eyes grew to the size of small apples. “It’s not you. It can’t be you. The aliens are running the testing.”
“Oh yes. It is me. You have to last five minutes of me tickling you without blacking out. And I’m coming for all. Your worst. Spots.” Then she shot her hands into Taylor’s underarms and started scribbling them all around.
“AHAHAHAHAAHAAA NOHOHOHOHHOHOH! SELEHEEHEENA! STAHAHAHAHP!”
“Aw, what’s wrong, Tay? Is that ticklish? Can the big pop star not handle some tickles under her arms?”
“STAHAHAHP TAHAHAHAHAKING HAHAHAHAHA!”
“Wow. You are so ticklish under there. I could get anything I wanted from you with just a few seconds of tickling your armpits. And somehow, that’s not even your most ticklish spot!” Selena suddenly went down to her ribs, counting them just like Pavel had before.
“NOOOOO! AAAAAAAAAH! NOT THE RIBS! NOT THE RIBS!”
“Yes the ribs! I’m going to tickle tickle tickle them until you black out!”
“AHAHAHAA PLEASE DOHOHOHON’T!” And once again, silent laughter. It was about now that Taylor realized that she probably wasn’t going to make it. It’s not that Selena was some amazing tickler –although she was very good – as much as it was the taunting. Taylor just so happened to be the kind of person who gets infinitely more ticklish when someone teases them about it. And Selena, as it happened, was very much enjoying teasing Taylor about her ticklishness.
“Okay. Enough playing around. Now I’m coming for your real most ticklish spot,” Selena said. And that’s when she moved down to Taylor’s stomach. Just like she had always fantasized about it, that stomach was all hers to tickle until Taylor begged her to stop; and even beyond that.
“AAAAAAAAAHHH HAHAHAHAAHA NOHOHHOOHOHOHO!” Taylor shrieked, for the final time as Selena wiggled her fingers all over her stomach. Then her laughter went silent again, and Selena knew it was really time to move in for the kill.
“No? That’s a no? You can’t take any more tickling on your tummy?”
Taylor frantically nodded yes.
“And that’s because you’re so ticklish there, right?”
Another nod.
“Even more ticklish than I am, right?”
Taylor shook her head.
“Wrong answer, bitch!” Selena blew about seven or eight raspberries into Taylor’s stomach, in rapid succession. That was another secret she knew; that Taylor (like her) had been raspberried a lot when she was little, and that made it even more ticklish for her.
But Taylor couldn’t scream any more. She could only sit there and laugh silently as Selena gave her the worst torture she could ever feel. Even she was surprised she was still conscious after Selena finished blowing into her stomach.
“Let’s try this again,” said Selena, moving back to spider-tickles. “You can’t take any more tummy tickles because you’re more ticklish there than I am, right?”
Taylor nodded this time. Screw pride. Her brain felt like it was about to leak out her ears.
“In fact, you’re more ticklish than me everywhere, aren’t you?”
Taylor nodded again, shaking up and down like a bobblehead, her entire body shivering from all the tickling.
“Nodding’s not good enough. I need you to say it,”
"I can’t," Taylor mouthed through her laughter.
“Try harder!” Selena yelled, snaking a hand up to her ribcage.
And this was Taylor’s breaking point. “OKAY OKAY I’M MORE TICKLISH THAN YOU ARE!”
Just as soon as the words were out of her mouth, her body gave out, and her head hit against the table. Just as Selena had promised, she hadn’t been able to last fivc minutes, or even very close to it.
“Damn,” said Pavel, leading the rest of the aliens up to her. “Looks like you found the one person on earth that’s more ticklish than you.”
Selena clapped her hands. “So that means I get to go home now, right?”
The aliens didn’t answer. They just smiled in a way that was much scarier than just saying “no.”
“But you d-don’t n-need me anymore,” said Selena, taking a step back. “You have someone more ticklish now.”
“That’s true,” said Pavel. “But we’d really like to expand our research going forward. And we’ll need more than one subject for that.”
Pavel’s thumb went to her forehead, and she immediately blacked out. He then nodded to Z-9, who carried her out of the room to prepare for the next day. A day that would repeat itself for the rest of eternity. A day where both she and Taylor Swift got tickle tortured until they thought they would lose their minds.
////////////////////////////////////
“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!”
That particular ear-piercing scream came from Selena Gomez. It was one of many she had unleashed over these past few weeks, while she been held captive on this alien ship. The reason, of course, was the daily dose of tickle torture she’d been taking from her captors: Pavel, Dmitri, Katya, and Z-9. In fact, tickling was the only thing she could remember about her time on the ship. Whenever the aliens had finished having their fun – or whenever she blacked out, whichever came first – they would inject her with an agent that induced a temporary state of unconsciousness. Then they would clean her up, pump her full of nutrients (via IV), and let her rest and recover until they were ready to tickle her again, at which point she would find herself in her usual position; restrained by energy bonds to a metal table, arms high above her head, legs spread wide, covered only by a bra and panties.
Her current tickle session was the worst she had faced since her initial tickle test right after she’d been kidnapped. It was so bad, Selena thought the aliens had somehow upped the capabilities of the sensitivity enhancer on her wrist. Turns out they had just gotten much, much better at tickling, thanks to all the practice they had been getting on her.
“OKAHAHAAHAAHY! ENOUGH! ENOUGH” she screamed, as Dmitri wiggled his gloved fingers all over her rib cage.
“I wouldn’t say that,” said Pavel, who was running an electric toothbrush around her belly button. “It’s been, what, forty-five minutes? You can probably go another twenty before you faint.”
“SHUT HAHAHAAHAHAHA UHAHAHAP!”
“What was that? You want to go another thirty instead?” He used his free hand to start squeezing her left oblique.
“AHAHAHAHA I’M SORRHAHAAHYYY!”
“Pavel,” said Katya, who was working feathers in both of Selena’s underarms. “Maybe it is time for a rest. She’s been limp for awhile now.”
Pavel considered the request for a minute, continuing with the tickling the entire time. When his toothbrush dipped inside Selena’s belly button, she screamed so loud that he instinctively dropped the brush to cover his ears.
“Okay, yes. A break isn’t the worst idea right now. Z-9, Katya, Dmitri, please prepare the Knockout Juice.” All of them nodded and headed out of the room. Meanwhile, Pavel continued to tickle Selena, using only his gloved hand to lightly tease her stomach.
“You know, we really lucked out with you,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over Selena’s laughter. “We thought it would take years to find the most ticklish person on your planet. Years of breaking into homes, running tests, wearing ridiculous outfits to Outback Steakhouse so we could get a steak without a side of invasive personal questions. Instead, we found you a mere month into our journey! Truly, we have been blessed by the Gods.”
“HAHAHAHAHAAHA WHAAHAHAHAT ARE YOU TAHAHAHAKING ABOUT?”
“Well, the thing is, when we went to Outback just looking like ourselves, we would-,”
“NOT ABOUT THAHAHAHT YOU HAHAHAAHAAHA GOOF! I’M NOT THE MOST TICKLISH PERSON ON MY PLAHAHAHAHANET!”
“Uh-huh. Sure you’re not.” To punish her for lying, Pavel started using both hands to tickle her ribs at a pretty ferocious pace.
“AAAAAAAAAH! NOHOHOHOH I’M SERIOUS! THERE’S ONE MORE HAHAHAHA!”
“That’s a ridiculous claim. Our computer projections indicated that no one could possibly react as explosively to tickling as you have.”
“PLEASE HAHAHAHA I’M BEGGING YOU HAHAHAAHA JUST GIVE ME A CHAHAHAHANCE TO EXPLAIN!”
Pavel took his hands off her ribs, but kept them poised a few inches from her skin. “You have ten seconds. If I don’t like what I hear, I’ll call everyone else back in here and we’ll tickle you until you scream so much your vocal cords stop working.”
Selena, understandably, spoke quickly. “It’s my friend Taylor. I know it sounds impossible but she’s even more ticklish than I am. One time we were taking a picture together and she started losing it just because I put my hand on her side without even tickling.”
“Go on.”
“Um, okay. This other time we were at the beach and I was rubbing sunblock on her and she spent the whole time laughing into her towel because it tickled so much.” Selena hoped that he wouldn’t ask for any more examples. Fact was, she didn’t have any more, because she was worried that if she ever intentionally tickled Taylor, she literally wouldn’t be able to take it. Not that she hadn’t been tempted before. More than once, she had thought about how much fun it would be to have Taylor’s tight bare stomach under her fingertips, mercilessly tickling it until Taylor begged for mercy. But that was only a pipe dream; as much fun as that would be, she didn’t think she had it in her to put her friend through that kind of torture.
“Her name’s Taylor, you say?” asked Pavel.
“Yes. Taylor Swift.”
“Can you show us where she lives?”
Selena considered the implications of Pavel’s question. “Why do you want to know?”
Pavel rolled his eyes. “So we can ask her to join our book club. Why do you think we want to know where she lives.”
“So you’re going to do to her what you’re doing to me?”
“Not necessarily. First we need to test her to see if she’s really as ticklish as you say she is. Then we’ll make a decision on how to treat her going forward.”
“Um, okay. Well, like I said, she’s my friend, so I don’t really think I’m going to sell her out like that.”
Pavel grinned. “Would you like to hear something interesting about this ship?”
“Not real-,”
“Excellent! I knew you would. The funny thing about this ship is, humans don’t age on it! It’s all a matter of alien technology far behind your doofus peanut brain, so I won’t explain it in detail. But basically, as long as you remain on this ship, your body composition will remain completely stable. You will forever be the same age and physical state you were the night that we brought you on.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that, hypothetically, if you don’t tell us where Taylor Swift is, we can keep you here and tickle torture you every day, for, I don’t know . . . the rest of eternity?”
Selena actually gasped. The very thought of was so horrifying that she couldn’t bring herself to recognize it as a legitimate possibility.
“Or,” Pavel continued, “you can tell us where she is, we can run a test on her, and then, if she’s as ticklish as you say she is, we can let you off the ship.”
“And just why would I believe that?”
“Because why would I need you if we had someone that’s even more ticklish? It’s like I said, you’re an Xbox. Why would you need an Xbox once you have an Xbox 360?”
Pavel’s answer just gave Selena more questions. For example, how and why he knew about video game systems. Still, it at least sort of made sense to her. More importantly, there was no way she was going to let go of a chance to get off this dumb ship. If that meant Taylor had to endure an eternity of tickle torture instead of her, then so be it.
“Okay,” said Selena. “Her address is-,”
#
When Taylor Swift woke up on the alien’s ship, she was even more confused than Selena had been. After all, the aliens hadn’t taken Selena from her bedroom before they’d performed their preliminary Ticklishness Screening; she had known something was strange was happening before she’d officially been kidnapped. But the aliens had skipped the screening with Taylor, figuring that Selena’s recommendation was enough. Suffice to say, when she found herself strapped to Selena’s old table, wearing only her underwear (and, technically, the sensitivity enhancer), she was very confused.
Suddenly, Selena walked into the room, wearing, for the first time in a while, something besides her underwear and a bracelet: a big smile. Yes, Taylor was her friend, didn’t want her to suffer, etc, etc. All of that was on the backburner right now. Bottom line, Selena finally wasn’t going to be the one getting tickled. Her happiness was impossible to contain.
“Heeeey Taylor,” she said, strolling up to the table.
“Selena? What the hell is going on? Is this some kind of Halloween prank?”
“Um . . . yeah! You could think of it that way!”
“Okay, well, it’s not funny anymore. And what the hell kind of rope did you use? I can’t move my arms or legs an inch.”
“It’s not rope, silly! It’s energy bonds!”
“Good one. You tied me down with energy bonds in my underwear. You got me. You win. Now let me go, please.”
“Well, um . . . I can’t really do that. I’m not in charge of this operation. The aliens are.”
“Excuse me?”
And Selena told her about what had happened to her, and how she had sold Taylor out to escape eternal tickle torture, and how they were floating somewhere in the middle of space, and all the other relevant details. Like Selena, Taylor refused to believe it at first, and then absolutely freaked the fuck out when offered proof. Only when Taylor had started to accept her fate did Selena fill her in on what the aliens had in store for her.
“Now,” she said, “it’s your turn to get tickled! They’re going to test you and find out that you’re even more ticklish than me!”
Taylor, of course, was sweating bullets when Selena told her about the plan, but she tried to stay cool. Her only chance, she thought, was to try to bluff her way out of it. True, there had been a couple times where Selena had touched her and it had tickled like crazy. But she also thought she’d done an okay job of hiding her reactions.
“Um, okay. Not to burst your bubble, but I’m not actually ticklish at all. I don’t know why you thought I was. Were you confusing me with someone else?”
“Oh, you’re not?” asked Selena. “Then I guess this won’t bother you at all!” She slowly lowered her hands to just above Taylor’s stomach and started wiggling her fingers. “Kitchy kitchy koo!”
“EEEEEEEEEP!” Taylor screamed, even though Selena wasn’t actually touching her. “CUT IT OUT CUT IT OUT CUT IT OUT!”
Selena laughed. “Look at you! You can’t even take someone pretending to tickle you. You’re screwed.” She put her middle and index fingers on Taylor’s stomach and started walking them all over. As sensitive as Taylor was, it would’ve tickled her even without the enhancer. With it, it felt like the worst tickling she’d ever taken.
“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA GET THEM OHAHAHAFF!”
“Are you gonna cut the act now?” Selena asked. “Because I already know how ticklish you are. And how embarrassed you are that just a couple little touches turns you into a helpless little girl. And soon,” she said, gesturing to the door, where Katya, Dmitri, Z-9, and Pavel were walking in. “So will they!”
Pavel joined Selena next to Taylor while the other aliens went to the adjacent “tickle tool” table to begin preparing for the testing. “Good day, Taylor. Are you ready for testing to begin?”
Taylor didn’t say anything. She couldn’t even make eye contact with him, she was so afraid of what was going to happen to her.
“I’m going to take that as a yes. Although a little bit more enthusiasm wouldn’t be unwelcome. In any event, let me explain how today’s testing will proceed.” He walked over to the table where the other aliens were gathered. “As Selena explained to you, we’ll be testing to see if you’re more ticklish than she is. This will require using a slightly different methodology than we used on her.”
“Wait, no fair. She gets tickled less than I do?” asked Selena.
“It’s the most efficient way to compare your sensitivity,” said Pavel. “The tools will be the same. Feathers, then hands, then the brushes, the feather duster, and then the, uh . . . the crawly-things we still haven’t named yet. The only difference will be that she’ll only have to face one tickler at a time. If she’s as ticklish as you say she is, then it should still feel more torturous than anything you face.”
Taylor kept silent throughout Pavel’s description, but inside, she was melting. All she could think about was how ticklish Selena’s two fingers just pressing on her stomach had felt. That had barely been more than a poke; what was actual tickling going to feel like?
Selena shrugged. “Okay. Still better her than me. Can I watch the testing?”
“Are you kidding? We’re not letting you out of our sight. You have to watch.” Pavel pulled up a chair for her a few feet from the table Taylor was strapped to, which Selena promptly sat in. “Katya, are you ready to begin?”
“Ready?” she said, walking towards Taylor, holding a long feather in each hand.
“All right. Testing will proceed in 3, 2, 1. GO!”
“WAIT!” shrieked Taylor. “STOP! STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP!”
Pavel held up his hand for Katya to hold off, and then looked at Taylor. “Wow, you can talk! How exciting!”
“Oh, what, you want me to come in here all chatty when you’re planning to tickle me to death? Listen, I can’t take it. Selena’s right. I’m way too ticklish. Is there anything I can say that will make you let me go?”
Pavel mulled the offer over. Anything is a very broad universe, after all.
“No,” he said, finally. “I think it’s very important that we see the results of this testing. Katya, please proceed.”
“NOHOHOHOHOHO!” Taylor screamed as Katya started twirling the feathers above her stomach. “DOHOHOHOHON’T!”
Katya couldn’t hold back a smile. “I haven’t even started yet! Are you really that ticklish?”
“YES YOU DUMB BITCH, WHY DO YOU THINK I’VE BEEN AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!”
Katya, not exactly thrilled about the name-calling, had started dragging the quill end of one feather along Taylor’s stomach, tracing them along the tendons near her abs. Taylor started spazzing out as soon as the quill hit her skin, even moreso than Selena had. The big difference in their reactions was how much they moved. Selena, while ridiculously ticklish, had kept (relatively) still during her testing, thinking it useless to fight against the bonds. Taylor, on the other hand, flopped around almost like she was seizing. Thrashing her arms, her legs, arching her back; anything to escape the touch of Katya’s feather. Not that any of it worked, of course.
“EEEEEEEEEEEE!” she shrieked as Katya took the plume of the other feather and ran it over her ribs. “PLEAEHEHEEHEHEEESE! STOP!”
“What do you think?” Katya asked Pavel.
“The preliminary results seem about the same,” he replied.
“No way!” said Selena. “She’s way more ticklish. Use the feathery part on her tummy.”
Katya obliged, going from tracing the abs with the quill to softly feathering it with the plume. To her surprise, it worked. Taylor reacted like another five ticklers had joined in.
“AAAAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAH! STAHAHAAHAHAP! IT’S WORSE THAN BEFOHOHOHOHHRE!”
“Told you!” said Selena. “Taylor’s tummy is just way too sensitive to deal with something as soft as that feather. Isn’t it, Taylor?”
“SHUHUHUHUHT YOUR MOUTH YOU’RE MAKING IT HAHAAHAHAHA!” Taylor’s sentence was cut off by Katya moving the feather that was on her rib to her underarm. She hadn’t expected Katya to change positions then, and it made all the more tickly when the quill dipped inside her hollow.
“The underarms seem a little worse than they were with Selena,” noted Dmitri.
“Give it some time to stabilize. I think it just surprised her,” said Pavel.
Katya continued tickling in the same spots for about another minute, and then slipped the second feather into Taylor’s free underarm. If the aliens had blood, her scream would have curdled it.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAH! HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAHA!!”
“Um, nevermind. I think that’s a hot spot too.”
“Her ribs are worse,” said Selena. “You’re not concentrating on that enough. You need to put the feathery part on both of her ribs and go crazy.”
“Pavel?” asked Katya.
“Sure, go for it. She was right before.”
Katya quickly transitioned the feathers to each side of Taylor’s ribs. Sure enough, Taylor started screaming even louder than before.
“STAHAHAHAP LISTENING TO HER! IT’S HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA.” And then she lapsed into silent laughter before she could complete her thought.
“Okay, that’s about enough of that,” said Pavel, strapping on his gloves. “Let’s go to hands.”
If Taylor had heard him say that, then she no doubt would have unleashed another screaming fit. Like Selena, fingers worked much better on her than feathers. But she was too busy catching her breath that she didn’t notice when Pavel walked up beside her and started squeezing her sides.
“AAAAAAAAAAAA! GET OUTHAHAHAAHAT OF THERE! AHAHAHAAHAAHA!”
Once again, Taylor’s whole body was jiggling as she jerked against her restraints. She was even moving her hips from side-to-side, just to buy herself a second or two away from the tickling. Seeing her up close, Pavel had to admit that Selena had never seemed that desperate when she was the one getting tickled. Still, he thought he could get even better results with a bit of extra guidance.
“Okay, Selena. What would you do here?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. Is there another fucking Selena here? Where would you tickle here next?”
“Hmmm.” Selena thought it over. “I would stay on her sides, but dig in harder. You’re going way too light on her right now.”
“STOP FUCKING GIVING THEM HAHAHAHAAH HELP!” screamed Taylor. But it was too late. Pavel had gone from light squeezes to more intense ones, and she was feeling it. Selena was right again. The ticklishness of Taylor’s sides began when you just lightly touched them, and went up and up the more pressure you applied.
“HAHAAHAHAHAAHA NOT THEHEHEEHRE! ANYWHERE ELSE. NO MOHOHOHOHRE!”
“Where to next?” Pavel asked Selena. “I think we have a pretty good reading on her sides for now.”
“Count her ribs like you did to me. She hates it even more than I do.”
“SELEHEHEEHEENA! WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR AAAAAAAAH!” Pavel put his hands on the top of her ribcage and slowly pressed into her skin. As he repeated the procedure all the way down to the bottom, Taylor’s wails became even more urgent.
“NOHOHOHOHHO! PLEEAHAHASE! THAHAHAHAT’S REHEHEHEHEHEALY BAHAHAHAHAHAD!” she shrieked, once again arching her back to elude the tickling. The constant movement was starting to annoy Pavel. While it still wasn’t having much effect, it prevented him from getting quite as good a grip on her as he would’ve liked.
“Z-9? Can you please come over and here and restrain our subject?”
Before Taylor even had time to process what was happening, Z-9 was wrapping her hips up in some sort of a bear hug, which made it impossible for her to arch, and gave Pavel a nice, stable surface for tickling. Which naturally made the whole thing even more unbearable for Taylor, to the point that she couldn’t even beg for him to stop. It was just a series of desperate screams.
“AAAAH! AAAH! AAAAAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAH!” she wailed, as Pavel finally counted the last rib.
“You know, Selena didn’t start panicking like this until we put the crawly-things on her,” said Pavel. “Wait, guys, is that a good name? Crawly things?”
“Awful name. Rip it up,” said Z-9.
“Oh fuck off, Z. What do you even know about branding?” Pavel turned his attention back to Taylor, who was still a laughing mess. “Anyway, it looks like your sides are more ticklish than hers. Your ribs are definitely more ticklish than hers. And I bet your stomach is more ticklish than hers, too.” Without any further warning, he started spider-tickling all over stomach which led to the loudest scream yet.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!”
After that scream, Taylor’s laughter for the next few minutes was mostly silent. She so sapped of energy that she couldn’t do more than sit back and take the punishment. Selena continued to guide Pavel the whole way, telling him where to tickle, how hard to do it, and what kind of motion he should be using.
“Try walking your fingers around her belly button,” she said. “I did it before and she almost lost her mind.”
“Like this?” Pavel asked, repeating what Selena had done earlier with remarkable precision. Taylor threw her head back in agony. She had been crying for awhile now; her eyes were so full of tears that they looked like they were made of glass.
“Exactly,” said Selena, with another wide smile.
After a couple minutes of finger-walking, Pavel decided to end with another round of spider-tickling. As he wiggled his fingers on the top of her stomach, Taylor was finally able to croak out a few words.
“Please!” she said. “You’re going to kill me! It’s driving me insahahahahane!” Her speech wasn’t as loud and desperate as it had been before, but in a way, that made Pavel even more worried. She sounded like someone trying to make sure that she got her last words out.
“Okay. Time for the next round.”
Taylor’s face looked like she had bit into an entire orchard of lemons. “What do you mean, next round?”
“Next round. We have at least three more rounds of testing before we’re finished.”
“THREE ROUNDS?” Taylor shrieked. The hopelessness of her situation had temporarily given her voice back.
“Yes. Unless, of course, you would like to concede that you’re more ticklish than Selena is.”
Boy, was Taylor ever tempted to do that. If all they were doing was testing, then maybe admitting that would get them to stop. But somehow, she got the idea that would only make things worse. Plus, the way Selena was sitting there, watching her get tortured, with that stupid smirk on her face . . . well, she just couldn’t let her win that easy.
“No way!” Taylor fired back. “Selena’s much more ticklish than I am. I bet she couldn’t take half of what I’ve been through.”
“Um, actually, I went through all five rounds, and that was with two ticklers at a time.”
“Yeah? Well, if I’d been there to point out all your ticklish spots, you wouldn’t have made it more than five seconds.” Taylor glared at Selena. “I know how to make you scream. And I’m going to do it once I get out of here.”
“Okay, this is pathetic,” said Pavel. “This is like watching two dwarves argue over who’s taller. You’re both, like, off-the-charts ticklish. Literally. Like, we made charts, and you guys don’t fit on them.”
“But she’s still more, right?” asked Selena.
“I dunno. Katya’s been doing most of the tracking,” said Pavel.
That was Katya’s cue. “It’s close. We’ve had to adjust for the absence of a tickler as well as Selena’s inside knowledge. For now, it looks Taylor’s a little more ticklish. But it’s close.”
“Okay then. Enough talking. Let’s get Round 3 going. Dmitri!”
Dmitri nodded and walked up to the table, holding a paintbrush in one hand and a toothbrush in the other. Before he could get going, Selena yelled out some advice to him.
“Dmitri! Don’t use the brush end of both of them. She’ll be more ticklish if she has to deal with two different kinds of ticking at the same time.”
Dmitri followed instructions without any hesitiation, using the dull end of the paintbrush to draw all over her stomach, and using the toothbrush to scrub all over her ribs and underarms.
“HAHAHAHAA! YOU CAHAHAHAN’T DO THIS! IT’S CHEHEHEEHEETING!” Taylor screamed.
“No it’s not,” said Katya. “It’s one tickler testing out two different instruments. That’s perfectly within the rules.”
“IT FEELS LIKE TWHOOHOHOO!” And indeed, it did. The sensation she felt from the dull end of the paintbrush was completely different than that coming from the soft bristles of the toothbrush. Yet somehow, they seemed to be equally effective. If Taylor had been in the right state of mind to make comparisons, she might’ve compared it to being tickled by a girl and a guy at the same time. Of course, her brain wasn’t functioning nearly well enough to do that at the moment. She couldn’t think, could barely verbalize words; all she could really do was laugh.
“HAHAHAHAHA QUIT IT!” Dmitri ignored her and started scrubbing her ribs with the toothbrush even harder. “FOR REHEEHEEHEAL! DO SOMETHING ELSE!”
“Get her tummy with the toothbrush,” cheered Selena. “I told you guys, she can’t take soft tickling on there. Can you Taylor?”
“I’M GOING TO HAHAHAHAHA KILL HAHAAHAHAAH YOU,” screamed Taylor as Dmitri scrubbed the toothbrush over the middle of her abs and dipped the paintbrush into her left underarm.
“You’ll kill me? Please. All I have to do is poke you in the stomach and you’ll be curled up in a ball on the floor.” Taylor, being in her current state, could not think of a clever retort, and even if she could, she was laughing too much to deliver it.
“HAHAHAHAAHAHAHA NOHOHOHOHOHOHO! NO MORE ON THE STOMACH! HAHAHAHAHA! GO BACK TO THE RIBS!”
Dmitri ignored her, instead bringing the paintbrush back to the stomach, concentrating all the tickling in one place.
“PLEEHEEHEASE ANYWHERE BUT THERE! IT’S TOOHOOHOO MUCH! YOU’RE HAHAHAHA KILLING HAHAHAHA ME!”
Pavel raised a hand to signal Dmitri to stop. “Okay. That round’s over. Z, you ready to do your thing?”
Z grabbed the feather duster. “You know it!”
“Great. You can just go wild on her while we talk about the final round.”
Z stomped his foot. “Why does none of my testing ever count?”
“Because you’re bad at your job and none of us like you. We actually spend a lot of time planning ways to kill you and making it look like an accident.”
“Wait, really?”
“No. You’re not worth that much effort. Now please go ahead and do your part so her sensitivity level stays consistent for the final round.”
Z gave Pavel a dirty look, but nonetheless picked up the duster and started rubbing it all over Taylor’s stomach. The other three aliens could hear her screams as they walked out of the room to prepare the final round. Selena followed them out, even though they hadn’t really invited her.
“What’s the score look like?” Dmitri asked.
Katya scanned her charts. “Too close to call. If Taylor can win this round, I think she wins the whole thing.”
“Meaning she’s more ticklish?”
“Less.”
“What does she have to do to win the round?” asked Selena.
“Basically, she just has to last a few seconds longer than you did.”
“And how long did I last?”
“About twenty.”
Selena ran through the math in her head, and she didn’t like what she came up with. Taylor, ticklish as she was, had an iron will. And twenty-five, thirty-seconds wasn’t very long. If they went to the final round like this, Taylor had a legitimate chance of winning. Clearly, Selena needed to shake things up a bit.
“How many crawly-things do you use?”
“Crawly-things! I knew it would catch on!” exclaimed Pavel.
“Shut up. You’re the only person in this galaxy who thinks it’s a good name,” said Katya. She turned to Selena. “About 300.”
“So it’s basically the equivalent of 300 people tickling you, then.”
“Something like that.”
“Okay. So it would be an easier test if she had to last five minutes with just one person tickling her, right?”
“In theory.”
“Then can you let me do the final round instead of the bugs?”
All three aliens looked at her skeptically. Clearly, this would involve a little more convincing.
“Seriously. I need to prove that she’s more ticklish than me. If she loses an easier test, than we’ll know for sure.”
Now the aliens were all looking at each other. “Okay, give us a second,” said Pavel. They walked to the end of the hallway and huddled up. After what seemed to Selena like years, they walked back over to her.
“Okay. You’re on,” Pavel told her.
“Yay!” exclaimed Selena. Then she practically ran back down to the testing room, the aliens struggling to keep up with her. When they got there, Taylor was laughing hysterically as Z-9 ran the feather duster over her feet. After about a minute break, Selena stepped up to the table, all eyes on her.
“Hi Tay. Are you ready for the final round?”
Taylor’s eyes grew to the size of small apples. “It’s not you. It can’t be you. The aliens are running the testing.”
“Oh yes. It is me. You have to last five minutes of me tickling you without blacking out. And I’m coming for all. Your worst. Spots.” Then she shot her hands into Taylor’s underarms and started scribbling them all around.
“AHAHAHAHAAHAAA NOHOHOHOHHOHOH! SELEHEEHEENA! STAHAHAHAHP!”
“Aw, what’s wrong, Tay? Is that ticklish? Can the big pop star not handle some tickles under her arms?”
“STAHAHAHP TAHAHAHAHAKING HAHAHAHAHA!”
“Wow. You are so ticklish under there. I could get anything I wanted from you with just a few seconds of tickling your armpits. And somehow, that’s not even your most ticklish spot!” Selena suddenly went down to her ribs, counting them just like Pavel had before.
“NOOOOO! AAAAAAAAAH! NOT THE RIBS! NOT THE RIBS!”
“Yes the ribs! I’m going to tickle tickle tickle them until you black out!”
“AHAHAHAA PLEASE DOHOHOHON’T!” And once again, silent laughter. It was about now that Taylor realized that she probably wasn’t going to make it. It’s not that Selena was some amazing tickler –although she was very good – as much as it was the taunting. Taylor just so happened to be the kind of person who gets infinitely more ticklish when someone teases them about it. And Selena, as it happened, was very much enjoying teasing Taylor about her ticklishness.
“Okay. Enough playing around. Now I’m coming for your real most ticklish spot,” Selena said. And that’s when she moved down to Taylor’s stomach. Just like she had always fantasized about it, that stomach was all hers to tickle until Taylor begged her to stop; and even beyond that.
“AAAAAAAAAHHH HAHAHAHAAHA NOHOHHOOHOHOHO!” Taylor shrieked, for the final time as Selena wiggled her fingers all over her stomach. Then her laughter went silent again, and Selena knew it was really time to move in for the kill.
“No? That’s a no? You can’t take any more tickling on your tummy?”
Taylor frantically nodded yes.
“And that’s because you’re so ticklish there, right?”
Another nod.
“Even more ticklish than I am, right?”
Taylor shook her head.
“Wrong answer, bitch!” Selena blew about seven or eight raspberries into Taylor’s stomach, in rapid succession. That was another secret she knew; that Taylor (like her) had been raspberried a lot when she was little, and that made it even more ticklish for her.
But Taylor couldn’t scream any more. She could only sit there and laugh silently as Selena gave her the worst torture she could ever feel. Even she was surprised she was still conscious after Selena finished blowing into her stomach.
“Let’s try this again,” said Selena, moving back to spider-tickles. “You can’t take any more tummy tickles because you’re more ticklish there than I am, right?”
Taylor nodded this time. Screw pride. Her brain felt like it was about to leak out her ears.
“In fact, you’re more ticklish than me everywhere, aren’t you?”
Taylor nodded again, shaking up and down like a bobblehead, her entire body shivering from all the tickling.
“Nodding’s not good enough. I need you to say it,”
"I can’t," Taylor mouthed through her laughter.
“Try harder!” Selena yelled, snaking a hand up to her ribcage.
And this was Taylor’s breaking point. “OKAY OKAY I’M MORE TICKLISH THAN YOU ARE!”
Just as soon as the words were out of her mouth, her body gave out, and her head hit against the table. Just as Selena had promised, she hadn’t been able to last fivc minutes, or even very close to it.
“Damn,” said Pavel, leading the rest of the aliens up to her. “Looks like you found the one person on earth that’s more ticklish than you.”
Selena clapped her hands. “So that means I get to go home now, right?”
The aliens didn’t answer. They just smiled in a way that was much scarier than just saying “no.”
“But you d-don’t n-need me anymore,” said Selena, taking a step back. “You have someone more ticklish now.”
“That’s true,” said Pavel. “But we’d really like to expand our research going forward. And we’ll need more than one subject for that.”
Pavel’s thumb went to her forehead, and she immediately blacked out. He then nodded to Z-9, who carried her out of the room to prepare for the next day. A day that would repeat itself for the rest of eternity. A day where both she and Taylor Swift got tickle tortured until they thought they would lose their minds.
