sageoftruth
TMF Novice
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2005
- Messages
- 64
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Summary: Alyssa has tickled sporty Sandra to exhaustion, and tickled dramatic Hannah to tears. Brianna is the only one left, and Alyssa has her fun with this one. Brianna insists that her mind is a bastion of logic and rational thought, and Alyssa can't wait to test that out.
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(Part 4)
Hannah jerked forward as far as the restraints would allow. “Nonsense…! When did I ever tickle you this badly…?”
Alyssa put her hands on her hips and stared down at her. “Hannah, if I was in your position right now, I’d be unconscious. Take a moment to think about that. Brianna needs my attention.”
Brianna twitched and turned her head. “No, I really don’t think I do need any attention right now. I learned plenty just by listening.” Her voice still had its singsong intellectual ring to it, but her hips shifted from side to side and her toes scrunched the moment Alyssa gazed upon her. “I…I’m serious. This isn’t necessary. I don’t see what you hope to a…accomplish by tic… well, you know, to my fee-EEEEEEEEEEEEP!” She broke her stern, serious façade with a loud whimper, as Alyssa harmlessly tapped her middle toe with the flat end of her pointer finger. She pulled her feet to the side for a full three seconds before the bungee cords managed to pull them back into a fully outstretched position.
Alyssa laughed while Brianna hung her head, red in the face. “Come on, Bri. That wasn’t even a tickle.”
“But it could’ve been!” she whined back, sounding like someone a quarter of her age. She shook her head and took a few deep breaths, trying to will the color out of her face, before raising her head to look as dignified as possible. “But it could have been,” she repeated in her usual tone. “I can’t be too careful.”
“Why is that? Are your feet really that ticklish?” Alyssa punctuated her question with a light poke to Brianna’s heel with made her gasp and flinch her foot.
“No. I’m just… very protective of my feet. You spend lots of time barefoot yourself while indoors correct? I’m sure your feet have suffered plenty of trauma from stepping on the occasional splinter in the floor or banging your toes on the stairs while climbing them too quickly, right? It’s just a pathological fear. That’s all.”
“This is going to be so much fun,” Alyssa murmured to herself. She stepped back and cleared her throat. “Brianna, you and I met at Clari’s house in 2nd grade. We both wanted to try out her new Sega Genesis. Sadly, she turned out to be such a selfish, controlling brat who thought she was our queen, just because she was the console owner. It was a disappointing evening, but it wasn’t all for nothing. I found you after all.”
Alyssa returned to the front of the futon and affectionately stroked the alabaster roofs of Brianna’s bound feet, watching with concealed excitement as her slender toes reflexively curled with every stroke. “I was such an emotional girl back then. I was practically in tears when Clarli told us to leave. You, however, were perfectly calm, as you always are. Calm… rational… inquisitive…” Brianna looked anything but those things as she lay there trembling under Alyssa’s touch, but Alyssa stuck to her narrative. “You taught me to keep a cool head and to stay rational when I felt my feelings getting the better of me.”
“W…well, I’m always happy to help,” Brianna said, accepting the compliment with a hesitant stammer. “Still, I was simply being myself. Feelings don’t affect me.”
Alyssa titled her head and glanced sidelong at Brianna. “Is that really true though?” As she continued stroking the tops of Brianna’s feet, she curled her fingers downward and let her nails take over. They drew a startled hiss from Brianna’s mouth and her toes curled as she struggled to pull her feet back. “I’ve always wondered if there was a more emotional side to you that you’ve been keeping hidden from me.” She turned her nails on the soles of Brianna’s feet, spidering up and down between the bright red balls of her feet and her slender arches. Her nails had barely made contact before a huge shudder reverberated through Briana’s body and squeaky laughter poured from her lips. “See? Like this. I knew you had it in you somewhere.”
“NOHOHOHO! THAHAHAHAHAT’S… NAHAHAHAHHAA!” was all she could say in response.
“‘No, that’s’ what? You’ll have to speak up,” Alyssa teased. “Seriously, have your feet always been this ticklish?” Brianna could only reply with a frustrated scream. She writhed before the touch of Alyssa’s hands as if they were cattle prods. Alyssa pondered what to do with her. She was just getting started and already Brianna had completely lost control of herself. As her fingers quested over Brianna’s slender size 8s, she wondered what to do next. She could tickle even harder and see how she reacted, or she could slow down and give her friend some hope for mercy.
She slowed her fingers until they were moving in steady but continuous strokes across Brianna’s feet. Even then her fingers had Brianna scrunching her face and giggling as loud as one could possibly giggle, while her toes curled against the endless onslaught. However, her stubborn intellectual pride had not been tickled away yet. “Thihihihihissssssss’s flahahahahawed logic! Hahahahahahaha! Yohohohohohou’re wrong! Hahahahaha!”
“What is? Are you saying that this is not your emotional side? Why not?”
It took Brianna a few attempts before she worked up the will to force it all out in one breath. “THIHIHIHIS’SS NOT AN EMOTION! Hahahahahaha!”
“Oh really?” Her hands came to a stop but she left a finger resting against the ball of each foot. All ten toes were firmly clenched, as was Brianna’s jaw and her knees had begun to shake. Seconds passed in silence before Brianna’s guard began to slacken. Her toes uncurled, a sigh seeped out of her lips, and Alyssa responded by shifting her fingers a centimeter each in random directions. Brianna’s entire body seemed to jump from the sudden stimulation and she released a loud squeak before all her defenses were up again.
Alyssa giggled to herself. She could probably exhaust the poor young lady from anticipation alone. However, that would get old fast. She set her two fingers in motion, tracing slow curving lines around Brianna’s trembling soles much like she’d done with Sandra’s. She heard a sharp intake of breath, and once again Brianna’s body went completely tense.
She was no Sandra. A steady stream of giggles poured from her lips the moment Alyssa’s fingers had begun teasing over the flushed wrinkles of her curled soles. Alyssa couldn’t help but giggle, herself as she watched Brianna struggle, shaking her head and groaning as she repeatedly tried to rein in the exodus of giggles with no success, all just from a single striped fingernail on each foot. This was too easy.
Alyssa let another finger slip out from each of her hands to join the ones gliding along and across Brianna’s arches. Forming two pairs of legs, she walked her fingers along the bases of Brianna’s long toes, allowing each fingernail to slide back an inch more than necessary with every step, which drew gasping shrieks and yelps from Brianna. Alyssa took her time traversing both feet, giving every square inch at least three strokes with each finger before moving on. Brianna’s feet shook as Alyssa walked her fingers down over the bright red balls of her feet. Once her nails had reached the remaining patches of white in the centers of the arches, Brianna half-cried, half-whimpered and jerked the handcuffs against the radiator. Alyssa could easily picture the pleading look she was probably receiving from behind Brianna’s blindfold.
As her fingers continued their work, Alyssa stretched her leg behind her and dipped her foot into her bag of tickling equipment. She smirked slightly as her instep grazed the ostrich feather she’d brought along, but she continued blindly digging until a tiny stiff plastic ball poked her big toe. Guiding her foot along the forest of plastic bristles, she found the hard-wooden handle and scooped it out with her toes. Reaching back, she plucked a wooden hairbrush from the grip of her foot.
Her sensitive bare feet had been on the receiving end of brushes like these countless times in past sleepovers. Now that she was finally the one with the brush in hand, she could think of no better subject to test in on than the blushing pair of feet in front of her.
Disengaging her fingers from Brianna’s soles, Alyssa grabbed her by the toes. Unlike Sandra’s two massive behemoths, Alyssa had no trouble fitting at least eight of Brianna’s long slender toes into her grip, leaving only the pinkies sticking out as she pushed the toes back and stretched both soles taut.
No longer in the throes of hysteria, Brianna was free to catch her breath, but her breaths were so short and quick, Alyssa wondered if she was hyperventilating. “P…please! Don’t do it!” she begged.
“Don’t do what?” Alyssa asked. “You can’t even see what I’m about to do. Maybe I’m about to give you a soothing foot massage. You shouldn’t jump to conclusions. That’s very illogical.”
Brianna’s already flushed face darkened into a heart-shaped tomato. “I’m not an idiot, Alyssa!” she screeched, her voice cracking repeatedly as she spoke. “What kind of massage could you possibly give while holding my feet like this?!”
Alyssa raised the brush and held it inches away from Brianna’s soles. Pressed together as they were, she could easily scrub both of them at once. One sudden jerk of the wrist was all she needed to send her over the edge. “Gee, I dunno, Brianna. I think you’re being far too high-strung right now. You need to relax or you’re going to pass out from exhaustion.”
Brianna cleared her throat. Her normal voice was back, but the edge in her tone had not gone away. “How can I possibly relax when you have me-HEEEEEEEEEEHEHAHAHAHA!” Alyssa set the brush in motion scrubbing across both soles in a rapid up-down motion. Brianna’s head snapped back and she poured everything her lungs had into filling the room with loud raw laughter. The uncomfortable whine from her earlier laughter had given way to a purely mirthful tone as she completely surrendered to her ticklish impulses.
“There, that’s more like it,” Alyssa teased. “Just let yourself go. No need to hold it in.”
“OHOHOHOHO FUCK YOHOHOHOHOHOHOU!” Brianna screamed.
“Cursing at your tormentor? That’s not very logical.”
“EEEEEEAAAHAHHAHAHARGH!”
Droplets of water began seeping over and under the blindfold. Alyssa could not tell if they were tears or sweat. Despite her limited range of motion, her body was in constant movement. Her head bobbed and shook, tossing about her short almond hair, her knees and hips shifted from side to side, and even her muscle-free legs managed to pull her feet back a full centimeter before the bungee cord snapped them forward again.
Alyssa pulled away the brush and Brianna’s frenzied body went completely slack. Her head sank deep into her pillow, scattering her hair in all directions. Her chest rose and fell with each deep breath. The two buds that formerly hid beneath her loose tee shirt had become mounds as her now sweat-stained tee shirt clung to them. Her feet pitched forward, toes hanging limp in the air.
Alyssa gave her plenty of time to catch her breath. Both of them needed it. She did her best to act like nothing was wrong, but she was relieved that her friends could not see her how tightly her knees were pressed together. She had been thankful to Brianna’s giggling for masking her heavy breathing and had been equally thankful that the volume of Brianna’s laughter had drowned out the occasional hint of a moan that escaped her lips unintended.
She checked her watch. 11:42 P.M., nothing serious for a night owl like her, but after such an exciting evening, she could feel her eyelids begin to sag, and she could imagine how exhausted her guests probably were. Despite all that had happened, Sandra lay with her head sunk deep into her pillow and had already begun to snore, while Hannah sighed, muttered something in Spanish, and tried to cover her ears with her arms.
As Alyssa watched them, she contemplated ending it here. She’d accomplished her goal. Her phone had a full recording of all three ladies at their most hysterical. Still, she could not muster the courage or the will to end her fun just yet. Who knew when she might get to do this again? Just then, she recalled something.
“Oh Brianna?” she sang. Brianna’s slack body flinched into a half-curled position upon hearing her name, but she then raised her head just enough to show that she was listening. “Didn’t you mention something earlier about how you were not being emotional as I tickled you?”
Brianna’s mouth hung open, the half-bite in her lips conveying a mixture of confusion and outrage. “…what?” she finally said after ten seconds of open-mouthed silence.
“Come on, you must remember. I was saying something about you showing your emotional side, and-”
“-No! I get that!” Brianna interrupted. “I just… why did you have to wait until now to bring that up!?”
“Ah, so you remember? So, are you saying that this whole time, after all that screaming, and laughter, none of that was you being emotional?”
“Well, naturally,” Brianna answered, slipping back into her Spock-like way of speaking, “My behavior was merely a nervous response. My body acted on its own. Feelings had nothing to do with my behavior.”
Alyssa listened, nodding to herself. “I see. So you’re still positive that emotions don’t affect you?” Brianna nodded in response. Alyssa was certain she saw a hint of a proud grin in that nod. It was time to cast the line. “Care to debate me on that?” She nearly giggled to herself as Brianna’s head perked up. She could hardly blame her. An offer like this had to be a blessing for her after what she’d been through.
Brianna’s breathing shortened into quick breaths, and her reddened toes had curled as upon hearing the word “Debate”. “That sounds reasonable,” she said. Alyssa made a mental note to thank Hannah later for teaching her to read people back in high school.
Alyssa clapped her hands. “Wonderful! How about you start us off, since this is all about your argument.”
Brianna cleared her throat.
“Well, first of all, let me clarify that I’m not saying I don’t feel emotion. Only that my decisions and my emotions are completely separate…”
Alyssa sat on the mini fridge, next to her phone, and did her best to follow her friend’s words. Brianna was only a few sentences in before Alyssa’s eyes began to drift down towards the pair of bound feet rocking from side to side in a contented fashion.
“…Many discussions and even private thought processes have been corrupted because people have allowed their feelings, urges, or biases to influence their trains of thought, before they reached a logical…”
They’d regained their fair complexion, completely at ease, curling and uncurling without any concern as if they were safely hidden away under a chair or atop the bed of a private bedroom. Alyssa watched them, eager to tickle them red again. She grabbed the mini fridge and dragged it closer to the futon.
“…It’s understandable that laughter may be linked to emotion. Sometimes it is. However, when you ti-hihihihickle m…me… thahahahaht isn’t… kkhhh! ALYSSAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Alyssa looked up from the enticing pair of feet she’d been using as a sketchpad for her pointer finger. “Huh? What is it?” she asked, letting her finger continue its work unsupervised. Brianna responded with a mixture of giggles, snickers and the occasional outburst of full-throated laughter when Alyssa’s striped fingernail ventured too close to the toes. “Oh, you mean this? Sorry about that.”
“Dohohohon’t apolahahaha - you know - just stahahahap!”
Alyssa nodded in understanding, but she did not stop. “Sorry, but you just kept going and going. I was getting bored, and your feet were right there. If you can give me the short version of your argument, maybe I won’t need to amuse myself.” Brianna’s giggling continued and she let out a frustrated groan, but she did not respond. Alyssa gave all ten of her fingers a quick flex and then spidered across both feet at once, evoking a loud shriek followed by heavy laughter drawn from the depths of Brianna’s lungs. “You’re booooring meeeeee. Are you going to give me an argument or not?”
Brianna shook her head. “AHAHAHAHAHAHAI’M TRYING! HAHAHAHAHAHA! STAHAHAHAPIT! HAHAHAHAHA!”
Apparently, she’d overestimated Brianna’s ability to communicate in short simple phrases, at least while being tickled senseless. Alyssa shrugged. “Well, you’d better hurry. We can’t debate if you lose your voice, and if that happens, well, I’ll just have to go back to tickling you for fun.”
“AHAHAHA I JAHAHAHAHA! WHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
In a fit of desperation, Brianna tried to say something, anything, but nothing coherent came out. “Come on, Bri. You were the captain of the Debate Club back in High School. What’s taking so long?” Her “encouragement” earned her a frustrated scream from Brianna. This was fun, but she knew it could be even better if she actually gave her friend a fighting chance.
She slowed her fingers down to slow deliberate finger strokes across both feet. The giggling that ensued bordered on laughter and Brianna’s entire body shook from the experience, but she then surprised Alyssa. She sucked in the deepest breath Alyssa had ever seen her take, swelling her flat stomach, and then spat out her argument in one breath.
“IHAVEFEELINGSBUTIDECIDEWITHLOGIC!!!”
Alyssa smiled and nodded her approval. She may have gone overboard with the shortness and simplicity of it, but Alyssa was impressed regardless. She lifted her fingers away from Brianna’s scrunched feet, which had regained their reddish hue. She clapped her hands and gave the roof of Brianna’s left foot a congratulatory pat. “Well done! Now, give me a moment to come up with a decent counter argument.”
Brianna let out a huge sigh, or perhaps a groan. Alyssa could not tell. “JESUS CHRIST…” She breathed in and out, making up for all the torment her lungs had been subjected to.
“Ok, I’m ready.” Alyssa cleared her throat. She opened with a finger stroke across Brianna’s quivering arch earning herself a mortified gasp.
“Brianna, you make an interesting point. Just because you feel emotion does not mean your thoughts are emotional. Still, all we have is your word that you’re always logical.”
Her finger returned to Brianna’s foot and began toying with the undersides of her toes, trying to followed them as they attempted to shift away from her wandering finger. Alyssa continued her argument, uncaring where or not Brianna could hear her over her own laughter.
“It’s your claim, so the burden of proof should fall on you right?”
A blatant lie, but it was worth it to watch Brianna shake her head in outrage. She added another finger as she went on.
“…and yet you offered no examples. You can’t just make claims without evidence.”
She went on and on, using every fallacy she could think of and giving Brianna an endless list of possible rebukes.
“…and so I conclude by saying…”
“Wahahait!” Brianna said. Alyssa paused in her tickling, and her argument. “You win. I concede.”
This time it was Alyssa who was speechless. Brianna had never before let a logical inconsistency go uncorrected. “Oh… ok.” She looked down at Brianna’s feet, fully red once again, and still shaking but with something other than the fear of the next tickle attack. Alyssa lowered her hands to them, but only to remove the string that had bound both big toes together.
She opened the fridge and fished out the key to the handcuffs. She freed Brianna’s wrists, and then Hannah’s and Sandra’s after ensuring that they were still asleep. “Well, goodnight.”
After grabbing her phone, she padded up the carpeted stairs, closed the basement door behind her, tip-toed across the chilly tiled floor, and ran up the main hall stairs to her room.
Her legs felt wobbly and her eyelids heavy, but she could not go to sleep yet. She plugged her phone into her computer, bare feet tapping the rug with excitement as the computer slowly revealed all the content on her phone. She scrolled down and there it was: A picture, not a drawing, of a futon and three beautiful young women tied to it, along with the video icon. She had no intention of making the video public. They were still her friends after all. Still, the fact that his was a real life-image reminded her that she made this happen. After 15 years, she finally got to tickle her friends. The most satisfying picture she’d ever drawn awaited her in the near future.
She dragged the image to her Private folder and shut down the computer. Her body still shook with excitement as she returned to bed, but thanks to physical fatigue, she found herself drifting off in seconds.
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(Part 4)
Hannah jerked forward as far as the restraints would allow. “Nonsense…! When did I ever tickle you this badly…?”
Alyssa put her hands on her hips and stared down at her. “Hannah, if I was in your position right now, I’d be unconscious. Take a moment to think about that. Brianna needs my attention.”
Brianna twitched and turned her head. “No, I really don’t think I do need any attention right now. I learned plenty just by listening.” Her voice still had its singsong intellectual ring to it, but her hips shifted from side to side and her toes scrunched the moment Alyssa gazed upon her. “I…I’m serious. This isn’t necessary. I don’t see what you hope to a…accomplish by tic… well, you know, to my fee-EEEEEEEEEEEEP!” She broke her stern, serious façade with a loud whimper, as Alyssa harmlessly tapped her middle toe with the flat end of her pointer finger. She pulled her feet to the side for a full three seconds before the bungee cords managed to pull them back into a fully outstretched position.
Alyssa laughed while Brianna hung her head, red in the face. “Come on, Bri. That wasn’t even a tickle.”
“But it could’ve been!” she whined back, sounding like someone a quarter of her age. She shook her head and took a few deep breaths, trying to will the color out of her face, before raising her head to look as dignified as possible. “But it could have been,” she repeated in her usual tone. “I can’t be too careful.”
“Why is that? Are your feet really that ticklish?” Alyssa punctuated her question with a light poke to Brianna’s heel with made her gasp and flinch her foot.
“No. I’m just… very protective of my feet. You spend lots of time barefoot yourself while indoors correct? I’m sure your feet have suffered plenty of trauma from stepping on the occasional splinter in the floor or banging your toes on the stairs while climbing them too quickly, right? It’s just a pathological fear. That’s all.”
“This is going to be so much fun,” Alyssa murmured to herself. She stepped back and cleared her throat. “Brianna, you and I met at Clari’s house in 2nd grade. We both wanted to try out her new Sega Genesis. Sadly, she turned out to be such a selfish, controlling brat who thought she was our queen, just because she was the console owner. It was a disappointing evening, but it wasn’t all for nothing. I found you after all.”
Alyssa returned to the front of the futon and affectionately stroked the alabaster roofs of Brianna’s bound feet, watching with concealed excitement as her slender toes reflexively curled with every stroke. “I was such an emotional girl back then. I was practically in tears when Clarli told us to leave. You, however, were perfectly calm, as you always are. Calm… rational… inquisitive…” Brianna looked anything but those things as she lay there trembling under Alyssa’s touch, but Alyssa stuck to her narrative. “You taught me to keep a cool head and to stay rational when I felt my feelings getting the better of me.”
“W…well, I’m always happy to help,” Brianna said, accepting the compliment with a hesitant stammer. “Still, I was simply being myself. Feelings don’t affect me.”
Alyssa titled her head and glanced sidelong at Brianna. “Is that really true though?” As she continued stroking the tops of Brianna’s feet, she curled her fingers downward and let her nails take over. They drew a startled hiss from Brianna’s mouth and her toes curled as she struggled to pull her feet back. “I’ve always wondered if there was a more emotional side to you that you’ve been keeping hidden from me.” She turned her nails on the soles of Brianna’s feet, spidering up and down between the bright red balls of her feet and her slender arches. Her nails had barely made contact before a huge shudder reverberated through Briana’s body and squeaky laughter poured from her lips. “See? Like this. I knew you had it in you somewhere.”
“NOHOHOHO! THAHAHAHAHAT’S… NAHAHAHAHHAA!” was all she could say in response.
“‘No, that’s’ what? You’ll have to speak up,” Alyssa teased. “Seriously, have your feet always been this ticklish?” Brianna could only reply with a frustrated scream. She writhed before the touch of Alyssa’s hands as if they were cattle prods. Alyssa pondered what to do with her. She was just getting started and already Brianna had completely lost control of herself. As her fingers quested over Brianna’s slender size 8s, she wondered what to do next. She could tickle even harder and see how she reacted, or she could slow down and give her friend some hope for mercy.
She slowed her fingers until they were moving in steady but continuous strokes across Brianna’s feet. Even then her fingers had Brianna scrunching her face and giggling as loud as one could possibly giggle, while her toes curled against the endless onslaught. However, her stubborn intellectual pride had not been tickled away yet. “Thihihihihissssssss’s flahahahahawed logic! Hahahahahahaha! Yohohohohohou’re wrong! Hahahahaha!”
“What is? Are you saying that this is not your emotional side? Why not?”
It took Brianna a few attempts before she worked up the will to force it all out in one breath. “THIHIHIHIS’SS NOT AN EMOTION! Hahahahahaha!”
“Oh really?” Her hands came to a stop but she left a finger resting against the ball of each foot. All ten toes were firmly clenched, as was Brianna’s jaw and her knees had begun to shake. Seconds passed in silence before Brianna’s guard began to slacken. Her toes uncurled, a sigh seeped out of her lips, and Alyssa responded by shifting her fingers a centimeter each in random directions. Brianna’s entire body seemed to jump from the sudden stimulation and she released a loud squeak before all her defenses were up again.
Alyssa giggled to herself. She could probably exhaust the poor young lady from anticipation alone. However, that would get old fast. She set her two fingers in motion, tracing slow curving lines around Brianna’s trembling soles much like she’d done with Sandra’s. She heard a sharp intake of breath, and once again Brianna’s body went completely tense.
She was no Sandra. A steady stream of giggles poured from her lips the moment Alyssa’s fingers had begun teasing over the flushed wrinkles of her curled soles. Alyssa couldn’t help but giggle, herself as she watched Brianna struggle, shaking her head and groaning as she repeatedly tried to rein in the exodus of giggles with no success, all just from a single striped fingernail on each foot. This was too easy.
Alyssa let another finger slip out from each of her hands to join the ones gliding along and across Brianna’s arches. Forming two pairs of legs, she walked her fingers along the bases of Brianna’s long toes, allowing each fingernail to slide back an inch more than necessary with every step, which drew gasping shrieks and yelps from Brianna. Alyssa took her time traversing both feet, giving every square inch at least three strokes with each finger before moving on. Brianna’s feet shook as Alyssa walked her fingers down over the bright red balls of her feet. Once her nails had reached the remaining patches of white in the centers of the arches, Brianna half-cried, half-whimpered and jerked the handcuffs against the radiator. Alyssa could easily picture the pleading look she was probably receiving from behind Brianna’s blindfold.
As her fingers continued their work, Alyssa stretched her leg behind her and dipped her foot into her bag of tickling equipment. She smirked slightly as her instep grazed the ostrich feather she’d brought along, but she continued blindly digging until a tiny stiff plastic ball poked her big toe. Guiding her foot along the forest of plastic bristles, she found the hard-wooden handle and scooped it out with her toes. Reaching back, she plucked a wooden hairbrush from the grip of her foot.
Her sensitive bare feet had been on the receiving end of brushes like these countless times in past sleepovers. Now that she was finally the one with the brush in hand, she could think of no better subject to test in on than the blushing pair of feet in front of her.
Disengaging her fingers from Brianna’s soles, Alyssa grabbed her by the toes. Unlike Sandra’s two massive behemoths, Alyssa had no trouble fitting at least eight of Brianna’s long slender toes into her grip, leaving only the pinkies sticking out as she pushed the toes back and stretched both soles taut.
No longer in the throes of hysteria, Brianna was free to catch her breath, but her breaths were so short and quick, Alyssa wondered if she was hyperventilating. “P…please! Don’t do it!” she begged.
“Don’t do what?” Alyssa asked. “You can’t even see what I’m about to do. Maybe I’m about to give you a soothing foot massage. You shouldn’t jump to conclusions. That’s very illogical.”
Brianna’s already flushed face darkened into a heart-shaped tomato. “I’m not an idiot, Alyssa!” she screeched, her voice cracking repeatedly as she spoke. “What kind of massage could you possibly give while holding my feet like this?!”
Alyssa raised the brush and held it inches away from Brianna’s soles. Pressed together as they were, she could easily scrub both of them at once. One sudden jerk of the wrist was all she needed to send her over the edge. “Gee, I dunno, Brianna. I think you’re being far too high-strung right now. You need to relax or you’re going to pass out from exhaustion.”
Brianna cleared her throat. Her normal voice was back, but the edge in her tone had not gone away. “How can I possibly relax when you have me-HEEEEEEEEEEHEHAHAHAHA!” Alyssa set the brush in motion scrubbing across both soles in a rapid up-down motion. Brianna’s head snapped back and she poured everything her lungs had into filling the room with loud raw laughter. The uncomfortable whine from her earlier laughter had given way to a purely mirthful tone as she completely surrendered to her ticklish impulses.
“There, that’s more like it,” Alyssa teased. “Just let yourself go. No need to hold it in.”
“OHOHOHOHO FUCK YOHOHOHOHOHOHOU!” Brianna screamed.
“Cursing at your tormentor? That’s not very logical.”
“EEEEEEAAAHAHHAHAHARGH!”
Droplets of water began seeping over and under the blindfold. Alyssa could not tell if they were tears or sweat. Despite her limited range of motion, her body was in constant movement. Her head bobbed and shook, tossing about her short almond hair, her knees and hips shifted from side to side, and even her muscle-free legs managed to pull her feet back a full centimeter before the bungee cord snapped them forward again.
Alyssa pulled away the brush and Brianna’s frenzied body went completely slack. Her head sank deep into her pillow, scattering her hair in all directions. Her chest rose and fell with each deep breath. The two buds that formerly hid beneath her loose tee shirt had become mounds as her now sweat-stained tee shirt clung to them. Her feet pitched forward, toes hanging limp in the air.
Alyssa gave her plenty of time to catch her breath. Both of them needed it. She did her best to act like nothing was wrong, but she was relieved that her friends could not see her how tightly her knees were pressed together. She had been thankful to Brianna’s giggling for masking her heavy breathing and had been equally thankful that the volume of Brianna’s laughter had drowned out the occasional hint of a moan that escaped her lips unintended.
She checked her watch. 11:42 P.M., nothing serious for a night owl like her, but after such an exciting evening, she could feel her eyelids begin to sag, and she could imagine how exhausted her guests probably were. Despite all that had happened, Sandra lay with her head sunk deep into her pillow and had already begun to snore, while Hannah sighed, muttered something in Spanish, and tried to cover her ears with her arms.
As Alyssa watched them, she contemplated ending it here. She’d accomplished her goal. Her phone had a full recording of all three ladies at their most hysterical. Still, she could not muster the courage or the will to end her fun just yet. Who knew when she might get to do this again? Just then, she recalled something.
“Oh Brianna?” she sang. Brianna’s slack body flinched into a half-curled position upon hearing her name, but she then raised her head just enough to show that she was listening. “Didn’t you mention something earlier about how you were not being emotional as I tickled you?”
Brianna’s mouth hung open, the half-bite in her lips conveying a mixture of confusion and outrage. “…what?” she finally said after ten seconds of open-mouthed silence.
“Come on, you must remember. I was saying something about you showing your emotional side, and-”
“-No! I get that!” Brianna interrupted. “I just… why did you have to wait until now to bring that up!?”
“Ah, so you remember? So, are you saying that this whole time, after all that screaming, and laughter, none of that was you being emotional?”
“Well, naturally,” Brianna answered, slipping back into her Spock-like way of speaking, “My behavior was merely a nervous response. My body acted on its own. Feelings had nothing to do with my behavior.”
Alyssa listened, nodding to herself. “I see. So you’re still positive that emotions don’t affect you?” Brianna nodded in response. Alyssa was certain she saw a hint of a proud grin in that nod. It was time to cast the line. “Care to debate me on that?” She nearly giggled to herself as Brianna’s head perked up. She could hardly blame her. An offer like this had to be a blessing for her after what she’d been through.
Brianna’s breathing shortened into quick breaths, and her reddened toes had curled as upon hearing the word “Debate”. “That sounds reasonable,” she said. Alyssa made a mental note to thank Hannah later for teaching her to read people back in high school.
Alyssa clapped her hands. “Wonderful! How about you start us off, since this is all about your argument.”
Brianna cleared her throat.
“Well, first of all, let me clarify that I’m not saying I don’t feel emotion. Only that my decisions and my emotions are completely separate…”
Alyssa sat on the mini fridge, next to her phone, and did her best to follow her friend’s words. Brianna was only a few sentences in before Alyssa’s eyes began to drift down towards the pair of bound feet rocking from side to side in a contented fashion.
“…Many discussions and even private thought processes have been corrupted because people have allowed their feelings, urges, or biases to influence their trains of thought, before they reached a logical…”
They’d regained their fair complexion, completely at ease, curling and uncurling without any concern as if they were safely hidden away under a chair or atop the bed of a private bedroom. Alyssa watched them, eager to tickle them red again. She grabbed the mini fridge and dragged it closer to the futon.
“…It’s understandable that laughter may be linked to emotion. Sometimes it is. However, when you ti-hihihihickle m…me… thahahahaht isn’t… kkhhh! ALYSSAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Alyssa looked up from the enticing pair of feet she’d been using as a sketchpad for her pointer finger. “Huh? What is it?” she asked, letting her finger continue its work unsupervised. Brianna responded with a mixture of giggles, snickers and the occasional outburst of full-throated laughter when Alyssa’s striped fingernail ventured too close to the toes. “Oh, you mean this? Sorry about that.”
“Dohohohon’t apolahahaha - you know - just stahahahap!”
Alyssa nodded in understanding, but she did not stop. “Sorry, but you just kept going and going. I was getting bored, and your feet were right there. If you can give me the short version of your argument, maybe I won’t need to amuse myself.” Brianna’s giggling continued and she let out a frustrated groan, but she did not respond. Alyssa gave all ten of her fingers a quick flex and then spidered across both feet at once, evoking a loud shriek followed by heavy laughter drawn from the depths of Brianna’s lungs. “You’re booooring meeeeee. Are you going to give me an argument or not?”
Brianna shook her head. “AHAHAHAHAHAHAI’M TRYING! HAHAHAHAHAHA! STAHAHAHAPIT! HAHAHAHAHA!”
Apparently, she’d overestimated Brianna’s ability to communicate in short simple phrases, at least while being tickled senseless. Alyssa shrugged. “Well, you’d better hurry. We can’t debate if you lose your voice, and if that happens, well, I’ll just have to go back to tickling you for fun.”
“AHAHAHA I JAHAHAHAHA! WHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
In a fit of desperation, Brianna tried to say something, anything, but nothing coherent came out. “Come on, Bri. You were the captain of the Debate Club back in High School. What’s taking so long?” Her “encouragement” earned her a frustrated scream from Brianna. This was fun, but she knew it could be even better if she actually gave her friend a fighting chance.
She slowed her fingers down to slow deliberate finger strokes across both feet. The giggling that ensued bordered on laughter and Brianna’s entire body shook from the experience, but she then surprised Alyssa. She sucked in the deepest breath Alyssa had ever seen her take, swelling her flat stomach, and then spat out her argument in one breath.
“IHAVEFEELINGSBUTIDECIDEWITHLOGIC!!!”
Alyssa smiled and nodded her approval. She may have gone overboard with the shortness and simplicity of it, but Alyssa was impressed regardless. She lifted her fingers away from Brianna’s scrunched feet, which had regained their reddish hue. She clapped her hands and gave the roof of Brianna’s left foot a congratulatory pat. “Well done! Now, give me a moment to come up with a decent counter argument.”
Brianna let out a huge sigh, or perhaps a groan. Alyssa could not tell. “JESUS CHRIST…” She breathed in and out, making up for all the torment her lungs had been subjected to.
“Ok, I’m ready.” Alyssa cleared her throat. She opened with a finger stroke across Brianna’s quivering arch earning herself a mortified gasp.
“Brianna, you make an interesting point. Just because you feel emotion does not mean your thoughts are emotional. Still, all we have is your word that you’re always logical.”
Her finger returned to Brianna’s foot and began toying with the undersides of her toes, trying to followed them as they attempted to shift away from her wandering finger. Alyssa continued her argument, uncaring where or not Brianna could hear her over her own laughter.
“It’s your claim, so the burden of proof should fall on you right?”
A blatant lie, but it was worth it to watch Brianna shake her head in outrage. She added another finger as she went on.
“…and yet you offered no examples. You can’t just make claims without evidence.”
She went on and on, using every fallacy she could think of and giving Brianna an endless list of possible rebukes.
“…and so I conclude by saying…”
“Wahahait!” Brianna said. Alyssa paused in her tickling, and her argument. “You win. I concede.”
This time it was Alyssa who was speechless. Brianna had never before let a logical inconsistency go uncorrected. “Oh… ok.” She looked down at Brianna’s feet, fully red once again, and still shaking but with something other than the fear of the next tickle attack. Alyssa lowered her hands to them, but only to remove the string that had bound both big toes together.
She opened the fridge and fished out the key to the handcuffs. She freed Brianna’s wrists, and then Hannah’s and Sandra’s after ensuring that they were still asleep. “Well, goodnight.”
After grabbing her phone, she padded up the carpeted stairs, closed the basement door behind her, tip-toed across the chilly tiled floor, and ran up the main hall stairs to her room.
Her legs felt wobbly and her eyelids heavy, but she could not go to sleep yet. She plugged her phone into her computer, bare feet tapping the rug with excitement as the computer slowly revealed all the content on her phone. She scrolled down and there it was: A picture, not a drawing, of a futon and three beautiful young women tied to it, along with the video icon. She had no intention of making the video public. They were still her friends after all. Still, the fact that his was a real life-image reminded her that she made this happen. After 15 years, she finally got to tickle her friends. The most satisfying picture she’d ever drawn awaited her in the near future.
She dragged the image to her Private folder and shut down the computer. Her body still shook with excitement as she returned to bed, but thanks to physical fatigue, she found herself drifting off in seconds.
