laughter_n_love
TMF Regular
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2001
- Messages
- 293
- Points
- 0
"What do we have here?" Detective Natalie Jacobs asked, peering over a fresh cup of coffee. Officer Dupree stood like a sentinel, towering and imposing, behind a haggard but not unattractive woman seated on the far side of her desk. In a striking contrast to Dupree's crisp and professional appearance, the woman look weary and unkempt, like a good meal and hot shower was all she needed to shine. Jacobs gave the woman a thorough once-over before taking her chair; wrinkled, mismatched clothing that suggested she got dressed in a hurry or in the dark; tangled hair in desperate need of conditioner and a brush; a slouching posture that showed a lack of respect for the authority figures in front of whom she was seated. The woman fidgeted repeatedly, as if a host of invisible ants she had long since learned to endure were crawling all over her body. Instead of acknowledging that the Detective had taken her seat across the desk from her, the woman continued to look down at her own hands cupped together on her lap. Jacobs disliked and distrusted her at once. She had a way of labeling people quickly, and in her mind, this woman had already earned the title "Basket Case".
Dupree's voice was deep and even. "This is Molly Richards, Detective. We think she might be able to help with the South Side break-ins." Jacobs' eyes narrowed further.
The south side of the city was the suburbs, the promised land for those who worked in the city but dreamed of a life that included grass and trees and a house of their own. It was full of quiet streets and quality neighborhoods, baseball fields and bicycle trails. Kids were as safe walking to their under-crowded schools as they were chasing the ice cream truck, and families washed their cars and mowed their lawns during the day before enjoying bar-b-ques in their back yards at night. It was the kind of place where everyone wanted to live; a place where people could settle down and raise a family in safety and comfort.
At least that is what it used to be. Fourteen break-ins over the last month had a way of changing the public's perception.
Jacobs had been assigned to the South Side case from the beginning, and so far had almost nothing to show for it. She was no closer to uncovering the perpetrators now than when she started. These guys were good...too good. Flawless jobs, no witnesses, and hardly any evidence. Just one cleaned out house after another. Jacobs couldn't remember another case that had revealed so little after so much time. Criminals always slipped up. They always made one mistake or another that led to their apprehension. But not this time, not yet anyway. This case had her stumped, and she was fresh out of leads. She'd heard rumors that she was going to be pulled off the case. She'd heard mutterings in the department about her lack of progress. It was enough to have her on the edge of a breakdown. That she also happened to live on the south side, in close proximity to a number of the break-ins, was a fact that only made her current pill even more bitter to swallow.
"Help, eh?" Jacobs focused on the woman. "How can you help? Do you have some information for us? Do you know something about the perps?" The Detective felt her eyes boring into the woman, who hadn't yet acknowledged she was being talked to. Jacobs was desperate for information, any information. But what could this silent space cadet possibly have to offer?
Dupree looked uncomfortable. "Ahhh...you see, Detective...Miss Richards...ahh..."
"What is it Dupree? Spit it out."
"I see things," the woman finally answered, startling Jacobs by suddenly looking her straight in the eye.
Jacobs quickly regained her composure. She'd been a cop too long to get too rattled. "Huh? What do you mean, you see things? Speak up Missy!"
The woman lapsed back into silence, much to Officer Dupree's regret. He shifted on his feet before reluctantly answering. "Miss Richards has helped us in the past, Detective. It was because of her that we caught the Maloney kidnapper."
A light went off in Jacob's head. "This is the psychic?"
"Seer," the woman said vacantly, staring at her lap.
Dupree waited a moment to see if Miss Richards would explain further, until it was obvious that she had said all she intended. "Detective, Miss Richards claims to be able to see things that haven't happened yet. In a sense, she can predict the future."
"Is that right?" Jacobs said, not attempting to hide the doubt in her voice. "How does she do that?" She looked at the woman. "Huh, how do you do that?"
Dupree answered, knowing the woman would not respond. "She's never explained it to us, Detective, and we really don't know how she does it." He placed on Jacobs' desk the object he had been holding all along: a cell phone in a plastic bag marked 'EVIDENCE'. "She'll need this though."
Jacobs' eyes grew wide. "What do you mean she'll need this?! Why have you checked this out of the lockup?!" The cell phone represented the hardest piece of evidence collected from all of the crime scenes. Jacobs been able to learn nothing from it; the service had been shut off by the time they'd recovered it, and since it had been purchased with a stolen credit card, they hadn't been able to trace the phone number back to a real name. There hadn't been any useful information stored in the phone's address book or call history either. The Detective had had the service restored, but no incoming calls had been made to it. It was a dead end, like all the other leads in this case, but it was still the closest link they had to the perpetrators; that it was left at one of the crime scenes was the first and only mistake the criminals had made, and if they could make one mistake, they could make more. Jacobs did not like her best clue being checked out without her authorization.
Officer Dupree sensed her rising anger. "I can explain, Detective. You see, Miss Richards is able to see the future through contact with an object. In the Maloney case, she was able to see where the kidnappers were taking the boy while she was holding his baseball glove."
"I don't understand," Jacobs said, shaking her head.
"I don't really either. I can't explain it better than that. Somehow, someway, Miss Richards is able to visualize what hasn't happened yet by learning it from objects. We think its sort of like reading fingerprints. When we come into contact with something, we leave behind a 'fingerprint'--"
"No," the woman muttered almost imperceptibly.
"--of ourselves, a 'fingerprint' of what hasn't happened to us yet. At least, that's the best we've come up with to explain it."
Jacobs continued to shake her head. "That doesn't make any sense. A glove that the kid wasn't carrying told her where he'd be next?" Dupree shrugged his huge shoulders helplessly. "And you think this phone will tell her where our perps are?"
Dupree's confidence seemed a bit weakened. "Yes, Detective, that was the idea," he said quietly.
If Jacobs wasn't so desperate for clues, she'd have told Officer Dupree to show this woman the door and stop wasting her time. But the fact of the matter was she had nothing else to follow up on, so there was no reason not to test this theory. No reason, except reason itself.
"Okay, Dupree, give her the phone. Let's see what the magic lady can do." She stressed the sarcasm in her voice, lest she reveal that she was hopeful in the slightest. She leaned back in her chair and put her feet on her desk. "This should be good."
Officer Dupree opened the baggie and dropped the phone into Miss Richard's hands. The woman immediately began to clutch it and squeeze in with a fervor.
Detective Jacobs was actually a bit amused by the display, until the woman began to speak. Her voice was low, toneless, and her eyes were closed in concentration.
"Red...confusion...anger...lights...many lights...big wheel...flowers..." She paused.
Jacobs and Dupree exchanged glances. Neither had a clue what any of it meant.
The woman began again. "Oak...dark...too dark...gum...piggy..." Another pause.
Jacobs realized she had been holding her breath, actually hoping that this nut job might tell her something. "That's what you get for hoping," she thought ruefully. Exhaling deeply, she sat up and turned sternly to Dupree. "I think we've heard enough, don't you?"
"Give her a chance, Detective. She might give us something useful." Jacobs rolled her eyes and returned to her reclining position.
The woman was still forcefully kneading the phone, as if she were squeezing the visions out of it. "Bushes...angels...not real..." More squeezing. "Chipped...claws...foggy..." A small smile appeared on the woman's face. "Dancing...pretty...red...red dress..." The smile quickly disappeared from the woman's face. It was replaced by a look of scared intensity. "Danger!...wet...naked...gun!...Where's my gun?!" The woman was shouting now, loud enough that some of the other cops stopped what they were doing to look over. "Struggling!...Kicking!...masks...owwww! owwww! You're hurting me!"
Jacobs and Dupree exchanged a concerned look. At what point should they stop this? Was this dangerous for her?
"Rope...hurts!...Don't scream!...Kick!...No! No no no!...Fuck!"
Dupree actually blushed. Jacobs found herself leaning forward, not wanting to miss a word.
"I'll kill you Fuckers!...No!...Don't!...Oh no..." The expression on the woman's face was one of terror and defeat.
"Struggle!...shit!...Don't cry....assholes...get away...get away!"
Dupree shifted uncomfortably. Jacobs was enraptured. She wanted to help, but didn't who to help, or what to do.
"What?...oh no...No...not that...don't...please...please!" The woman began to laugh. She squirmed in her seat as if she was under the attack of wiggling fingers. "God no!...stop!...I can't breathe!...no not there..." More laughter, hard, forced laughter. "I can't take it...stop!...Fuckers!..." The woman was nearly thrashing in her seat, and Officer Dupree had to steady her shoulders to keep from falling to floor altogether. "Stahahaahaap! Please!" She was cackling and wailing now, and there wasn't a cop in the precinct that wasn't looking over at the spectacle. "Noooooo!!! Not my feeee--" Without warning, the woman threw the phone from herself onto the desktop. Just like that, the show ended.
In less than a second, the woman went from tortured victim writhing in the chair to her old, subdued self, showing no sign of recalling the scene just concluded. Once again she sat stoic and silent in the seat, slouching down and staring at her lap. Jacobs stared at her incredulously.
Dupree was the first to recover from the shock. "I'm sorry, Detective. She spoke with a lot more clarity about the Maloney boy."
"It's okay," Jacobs said, not wanting to show that she was a bit shaken by the ordeal. "Why don't you take Miss Richards home, and make sure she is okay."
Officer Dupree helped the woman to her feet, as she seemed reluctant to stand on her own. As they turned to go, the woman suddenly turned and flashed a look of panic into the eyes Detective Jacobs. The two exchanged a look of desperation and fear for a moment, a look that cried out for help, and then as quickly as it came, the light flickered out in the woman's eyes and she returned to looking at nothing.
"Dupree!" Jacobs called. "Keep a close eye on her. I'm worried about her." The large officer nodded in understanding and led the woman away.
Jacobs had no time to ponder the event. Immediately the other detectives of the department showed up at her desk and began to razz her about the crazy woman. The joked that she should try voodoo next, or maybe call the Ghostbusters. Jacobs forgot her concern over what the woman's vision might mean as she defended herself against the good natured ribbing of her peers, "The Boys" as she called them. It was tough to be a woman detective, tougher still when the case you were working on had you stumped. It was the first good laugh she'd had in awhile. Then the phone began to ring, and soon Jacobs had all but forgotten about the sightings of the seer.
*******
Jacobs looked at her watch and muttered a curse under her breath. She hated working longer than her hours dictated she should be on the job. It wasn't that she had plans or anything to rush home to, it was more a case of not wanting to appear to have nothing better to do than work. She wanted to appear professional, an equal to "The Boys", but it wouldn't do to be thought of as a workaholic. It was one thing to maintain the hard outward shell she wore while at work, it was altogether another thing to forget she was still a young woman underneath.
She gathered her belongings off her desk quickly and began stuffing them in her purse. Keys, sunglasses, cell phone, pager. Her purse. She hated carrying one, but what choice did she have? She wasn't about to cram her pockets like men did, but she hated the air of femininity it gave her at work. It was only coming and going that she had to suffer the shame of this silly little bag over her shoulder, so she usually raced in and out as fast as possible to avoid contemptuous eyes. Tonight was no exception.
It was dark already as she started for home. It didn't matter. There was no one waiting for her anyway. She pulled out the clips holding her hair tightly off her neck and let it down for the first time today. A sigh of relief escaped her throat. It was little pleasures like that that fueled her fire. She was looking forward to unwinding in a hot bath tonight, and then get back to her book with a glass of wine. She'd feel soft and feminine without guilt again soon enough.
She stopped her car at a red light. Before she forgot, she wanted to remind herself to catch up with Dupree again about the basket case. Her method of reminding herself was to leave voice messages for herself either at home or work. She lost sticky notes, but she was good about checking her messages.
She fumbled around in her purse and pulled out her cell phone. Switching it on, she hit the speed dial for work. The phone beeped an error, not recognizing her speed dial setting. She looked at it curiously. "That's odd," she thought. She tried it again and the error was repeated. Jacobs felt her anger rising. "Relax, kiddo...you are off duty now." She dialed the number by hand and left herself a message to get with Dupree.
Her car exited the downtown area and entered the south side. The ride immediately became more relaxing as traffic lights were left behind and trees began popping up on both sides of the road. As she passed the middle school, she was delighted to see that a carnival was taking place in the parking lot. A myriad of lights and sounds filled her senses, and she could not help but slow down as she passed. Some day, she hoped to have children of her own to take to events such as these. The thought warmed her heart. But who was she kidding...right now she wished it was she who was at the carnival, on a date with a romantic soul, one who bought her cotton candy like a child, one who won her silly prizes in games of chance, one who held her close and told her it would be all right when she screamed in delight at the top of the Ferris Wheel...
She grinned. It was so easy to get lost in girly thoughts when she wasn't on the job. So easy, and so wonderful. "Someday my Prince will find me," she thought. She felt better than she had all day, and switched on the radio. One of her favorite songs, "Can't find my love" by Jude Flowers, came pouring out of the speakers. Natalie sang along. She turned onto her street, Oak Street.
She was still singing softly to herself as she pulled into her driveway. The song died on her lips as her police officer training took over. Something was not right. It was the outside lights. They were off. She had them on timers so they would come on when she arrived home (and so her suburban neighbors didn't think her house was deserted), but tonight they were off. She parked the car and moved cautiously up to the house. There was nothing amiss and nothing to be heard. "Maybe they burned out, or maybe we had a power failure." She wasn't entirely satisfied, but there was no point in getting worked up over coming home to a dark house. It did make finding her house keys a bit harder though.
She rummaged through her purse in the dark. "Stupid purse," she thought. "I can never find anything." She found the same stale gum three times before locating her house keys. They should have been easier to find, since they were attached to a key ring in the shape of a pig. A joke gift from her sister, who teased her by referring to all cops as "pigs". Thinking of her sister made her smile. "I should call her soon," she thought.
A moment later, she was in the house, and the darkness of the kitchen was dispelled with the flick of a switch. She tossed her keys and her mail on the counter like she always did. "Anything good?" she asked out loud to herself as she checked the mail. A copy of Time with George W. and Laura Bush on the cover, the latest Victoria's Secret catalog, and a few bills. She glanced briefly at Time before opting to leave through the lingerie catalog. Two thoughts entered her mind. "What is with all the wings?" and "Nobody really looks this good." She knew that she had a good body, a body sculpted by years of strenous exercise, and she knew that she could pull off some of the outfits in the VS catalog better than most women, but without the advantages of airbrushing and makeup artists hiding her every flaw, she couldn't hold a candle to these models. "So fake," she said out loud. "You're not real."
She hurried up the stairs and began to draw herself a bath. As she did every time she came in the bathroom, the sight of her tub both excited and saddened her. The tub was ancient, a relic from a different time, and it was slowly falling apart and chipped all over. But it was enormous, one of those stand alone tubs that weighed a ton and had the claw feet at the bottom, and she simply loved taking baths in it. It would be a shame if she had to ever despose if it; she knew she'd never find another one like it.
She hurriedly undressed in her room and returned to find the bathroom full of steam, the way she liked it. As she slid into the tub, she could not suppress a groan of delight. The heat of the water soothed and warmed her tired muscles, and she felt all the cares of the day slipping away. "This is just what I needed," she thought. She closed her eyes and enjoyed.
Her mind began to wander as she relaxed. She was thinking of the policeman's ball next month, and if Officer Dupree would invite her. She doubted he would. She was too hard on him, but that was only so that he wouldn't see how much she liked him. He wouldn't ask her, but maybe she would go alone and bump into him there. He would see her wearing her favorite red dress, the one that she knew turned heads, and he would notice how pretty she could be when she wanted to be, and he would ask her to dance. She wanted to dance with him, to be swept up in his arms, to be gawked at and admired by the rest of the department as she danced in her sexy red dress. She wanted to...
Natalie suddenly sat upright, overcome by fear. The woman, the crazy woman. The things she had said...she had seen everything Natalie had seen since leaving work. The future she had predicted...had been Natalie's future. The lights of the carnival, the dark house, the pictures of the angels, the dancing in the red dress. She had seen all that, all that and more. She had seen...horrible things...
The cell phone. That's why the speed dial hadn't worked. It wasn't her phone...it was the crime scene phone! The woman had tried to warn her, and she hadn't listened.
Natalie realized in a heartbeat that she was not safe, that she was not alone in this house. Fighting a terror that threatened to paralyze her, she sprang from the tub. "Think!" her brain screamed. She was accutely aware of how wet she was, of how naked she was. She wasn't thinking like a police detective, but like a horror movie victim. "Do something!" her brain cried.
"My gun," she thought. "Where is my fucking gun?!" In a flash she bolted for the bedroom, where she knew her piece lay. In a moment she would be Detective Jacobs again, armed and ready for danger.
She was too late.
The figures hiding in the shadows emerged before she could grab the gun, and a fierce struggle ensued. There were two of them, men dressed all in black and wearing black masks, both possessing strength superior to Natalie's own. She tried to defend herself with her martial arts police training, but it was no use. She managed to land a few kicks, but in the end they overpowered her rather quickly.
She fought like a wildcat as they threw her on her own bed. One of them produced a length of rope which he began to wrap around her wrists while the other held her in place. "Owwww! Owwww! You are hurting me!" she cried, even as she knew it was useless. The rope was cruelly and tightly wound around her slender wrists, digging into her flesh and causing her to cry out in pain. She used the pain as motivation to increase her struggling, but it made no difference. They forced her arms over her head and began tying the rope off to the headboard. Natalie opened her mouth to scream, but in that split second, the image of her department bursting into the room and coming to her rescue popped in her head. They would find her like this; bound, naked, overpowered, a victim in her own home. The image horrified her. They couldn't see her like this, not after she'd worked so hard to create her tough image, not after she'd beaten the odds and been promoted to Detective. The respect she'd earned would be lost in an instant. The scream that might have been her only chance for salvation died on her lips. The rope binding her wrists was tied off to the headboard.
The men relaxed a bit, and Natalie took advantage of their mistake. She twisted herself around and delivered a kick to the temple of one of the men. The blow scored, and he fell to the floor momentarily. The other pounced on her and pressed his weight down on her. She bucked and struggled as much as her svelte figure could against his larger mass, but could not dislodge him. The fallen man regained his feet, and produced a second length of rope. He started for her ankles. "No!" she cried, kicking and bucking for all she was worth. The men worked efficiently together until they successfully had her ankles tied together, more tightly and cruelly than her wrists. They were pulling her down, down towards the footboard, and she winced in pain as her arms were stretched over her head to their limits. "No no no!" she thought, feeling her ankles being slipped through the bars of the footboard and tied securely there. She was stretched from one end of the bed to the other, tied to both frames, unable to lower her arms or draw up her knees. She was helpless. "Fuck!" she cried.
The fight was not yet dead in her. She squirmed and struggled like a madwoman while the men looked on. They were ready for action, ready to pounce on her if she showed any signs of escaping, but soon she had tired herself out. There was no give in their bonds, no escape for Natalie. She remained tied as tightly as they had left her. The fight was over, and she had lost.
Rage flared in her eyes. "I'll kill you fuckers!" she spat.
The men exchanged a silent glance. One of them bent over a black bag and returned holding a ball gag.
"No!" she screamed. "Don't!"
The man fell upon her again. Again Natalie fought valiantly, but she felt them forcing her mouth open. She felt the huge ball being forced between her jaws. "Oh no!" she thought. Straps were secured around her head. Natalie was silenced.
She thrashed her head, but the ball gag was not going anywhere. "Shit!" she thought. The urge to cry welled up inside her. "No," she thought. "Don't cry. Don't give these fuckers the satisfaction of seeing you cry."
She focused her emotions away from despair and back to anger. Her eyes blazed at them. Her look told them what they could do with themselves.
The men noticed. One of them leered over her closely, and then made a point to slowly eye her naked body up and down. She fought the urge to blush, but the shame she felt was overwhelming. How often had she longed for a man to notice the fullness of her breasts, or the flatness of her stomach, or slimness of her waist? How many times had she wanted men to appreciate the lines and curves of her toned body, even while she was doing her best to hide them under the professional attire of the workplace? She had wanted a man to see how womanly she was, how she was the epitome of what men said they wanted and desired, but not like this. This was humiliating. This man did not look at her in awe and reverence, but instead like a piece of meat to be feasted upon. He did not look at her in admiration any more than the lion admires the gracefulness of the antelope before tearing out it's throat and making the kill. She squirmed in embarrassment, not realizing that her movements only made her more enticing in his inspection.
The man leering over her reached out and twisted her nipple. Natalie groaned under the ball gag. "Asshole!" she cried, though it came out muffled and incomprehensible. The man grabbed her chin roughly and forced her to look into his masked face. The cloth mask was complete, and no features could be discerned through its black fabric. He leaned in closer to her face. "Get away! Get away!" her mind screamed. He was too close, too close. For the first time, Natalie felt true panic. The man licked her face through his mask. She writhed in disgust, fighting to pull her face away from this unwanted touch. She sensed he was smiling under the mask.
The second man tapped him on the shoulder, and the two stood and faced each other. "They weren't expecting me here. They don't know what to do," she thought. The men did not speak, but instead spoke in hand gestures. The one who had not violated her pulled out a wicked looking knife. Natalie's eyes grew wide in fear. "They are going to kill me," she thought.
The second man shook his head, and made a hand gesture that Natalie thought she understood. "What?" she thought. The man had wiggled his fingers in a tickling motion. The first man nodded and put away his deadly blade. "Oh no!" Natalie thought. They meant to tickle her. "No...not that!" The men pulled off their leather gloves and took positions on both sides of her bed. She began to thrash uselessly. "Don't! Please! Please!" her panicked brain screamed. Twenty fingers reached for her.
The men wasted no time with taunting or teasing. The fingers of each dug cruelly and rapidly into her ribs and waist on either side. Natalie exploded with muffled laughter. Her wet, naked body lurched off the mattress of it's own volition, and the bed frame creaked in protest as she nearly pulled it apart. The men exchanged a satisfied glance. She was more ticklish than they had expected. In fact, she was more ticklish than any human had a right to be. By accident, the men had discovered Natalie's Achilles Heel. Had they chosen to torture her in some painful way, she might have been able to withstand it. But this was inhuman. This was unbearable. The men continued their attack.
Natalie's brain protested in vain to no one but herself. Her lungs and mouth were too busy screeching in laughter to form words around the ball gag. "God no!" The men danced their fingers across the entirety of her torso, from her stomach to her breasts to her ribs to her underarms. "Stop!" They found that she bucked beautifully when they squeezed her ribs forcefully. "I can't breathe!" They discovered that her hip bones were even more sensitive than the rest of her, and by squeezing them, she flopped around like a fish out of water. "No! Not there!" The men were getting better in their attack, having discovered the most ticklish of her many ticklish spots and focusing their attentions there. "I can't take it!" Fingers felt like they were attacking everywhere at once. There was no relief and no respite. Natalie could do nothing but squirm and be tickled. It was torture like she had never experienced before. "Stop!" she managed to scream through the gag.
The men did stop. They were watching her closely. She struggled to regain the air she so desperately needed. Her body felt like it was full of pins and needles. Her chest rose and fell rapidly like a piston. Her wrists and ankles hurt something fierce, and she felt sore all over. But, in spite of all the pain and discomfort, more than anything else, Natalie was pissed.
"Fuckers!" she screamed through the gag.
The men fell to her again. They were like machines, devoid of emotion, oblivious to her state of anxiety. She was immediately back in the throes of tortured laughter, bouncing and squirming for relief that was not to be found. "Stop! Please!" her brain cried silently in protest. Fingers flew over her sensitive skin and dug in forbidden places. She felt her lungs burning again.
One of the men, the one who licked her earlier, focused his tickling attention on her hardened nipples. Again, Natalie felt that shame of violation, and a self loathing that her body would respond in such a way to this unwanted attention. The other man had dicovered her thighs and knees, and was squeezing them almost painfully. Her body spasmed uncontrollably, and the pitch of her frenzied laughter grew behind the gag. She felt the hands on her legs sliding down towards her ankles.
Natalie knew what was coming next, and it was what she feared the most. "Nooooo!" her brain wailed. "Not my feeeee--"
The electric sensation of fingertips tickling the soles of her feet rocketed into her skull and cut off all rational thought. All else was forgotten. The embarrassment of her coworkers finding her like this....the shame of the man eyeing her body...the stiffness of her nipples responding to his touch...none of it mattered. There was only the unholy feeling of fingertips on her feet, of fingernails flickering across her most sensitive flesh. This was the sensation that she could not take. This was the torture that would break her body and her will. A scream of agony rose from her throat, but was cut off almost at once by insane laughter, the laughter of a crazy woman.
The man at her feet had no trouble tickling her soles. With her ankles pulled through the footboard and bound so effectively, there was nothing preventing him from having his way with her slender and creamy foot bottoms. Her feet flailed like they were on fire, but that did little to keep him from his appointed task. His hands danced over her feet and dug between her toes. His fingertips seemed to multiply and be everywhere at once. His fingernails struck like the stings of a swarm of angry bees. No inch of her soft, vulnerable feet was spared. No mercy was shown to her soles.
Natalie was a drooling, weeping mess. Her body convulsed like she were undergoing electric shock treatment, and her brain refused to function. She was not a person, but instead an object which knew only how to spasm and laugh, spasm and laugh. All the nerve endings of her body seemed to be concentrated in her feet, and all of them were being bombarded with stimulation at once. Her nervous system overloaded with the ticklish pulses that began at her soles, raced up through her spinal cord, and slammed home in her brain, again and again. Like any good circuit, the system was equiped with breakers in the case of too much current flowing through the wires. Should that happen, the system had no choice but to shut down.
With a final ticklish scream, Natalie lurched once in her bonds and passed out.
*******
Natalie awoke with a start. She sat upright with a look of terror in her eyes. Officer Dupree bolted to her side and put a comforting arm around her.
"It's okay. It's okay. It's all over, Detective."
"Wha...What happened? Where am I?" She trembled in spite of herself.
"You are in Cook Hospital, just for observation. You are okay, except for these," he said, and held her arm up so she could see the marks on her wrist from where the ropes had dug in.
"Wha...how did I get here?" The sight of the marks on her wrist let her know at once that she had not been dreaming, but that the experience had been real. Dupree sensed her fright and held her a little tighter. She did not mind.
"I brought you here, Detective."
"You? How?"
Officer Dupree cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. "Well...ahh...you see...after I dropped off the seer, Miss Richards, I started thinking about the things she said. None of it made any sense. I came back to the station to discuss them with you, but you had already left. I noticed that the evidence bag hadn't been checked back into the lockup, but the cell phone was nowhere to be found. That got me worried. I remembered that Miss Richards had said 'oak', and that you lived on Oak Street, and I felt it might mean something. I called your residence but there was no answer, so I drove over there myself..."
"And?"
"And...and when I saw your car in the driveway but got no answer at your door, I drew my gun and broke in." He paused. "They were already gone, Detective. They...they took quite a bit. You'll have to fill out a report." She nodded. "I'm sorry, Detective, but I found you...you know...and...and I rushed you right here." Dupree blushed deeply and looked away.
She found herself smiling. "Thank you. Thank you for coming to my rescue."
Dupree allowed himself a small smile in return. "Any time, Detective."
She looked up at him. "Will you do me a favor?"
"Of course."
"Will you call me Natalie, please?"
His smile widened. "As you wish, Natalie. And you'll call me Roger?"
"Yes, Roger, I will." They exchange a warm smile that lasted a long moment.
He gave her a squeeze of her shoulders. "I'd better let you rest. You've been through a lot." He rose to go.
"Roger?"
"Yes?"
"Do you dance?"
Roger smiled. "Yes, Natalie, I do."
The End
Dupree's voice was deep and even. "This is Molly Richards, Detective. We think she might be able to help with the South Side break-ins." Jacobs' eyes narrowed further.
The south side of the city was the suburbs, the promised land for those who worked in the city but dreamed of a life that included grass and trees and a house of their own. It was full of quiet streets and quality neighborhoods, baseball fields and bicycle trails. Kids were as safe walking to their under-crowded schools as they were chasing the ice cream truck, and families washed their cars and mowed their lawns during the day before enjoying bar-b-ques in their back yards at night. It was the kind of place where everyone wanted to live; a place where people could settle down and raise a family in safety and comfort.
At least that is what it used to be. Fourteen break-ins over the last month had a way of changing the public's perception.
Jacobs had been assigned to the South Side case from the beginning, and so far had almost nothing to show for it. She was no closer to uncovering the perpetrators now than when she started. These guys were good...too good. Flawless jobs, no witnesses, and hardly any evidence. Just one cleaned out house after another. Jacobs couldn't remember another case that had revealed so little after so much time. Criminals always slipped up. They always made one mistake or another that led to their apprehension. But not this time, not yet anyway. This case had her stumped, and she was fresh out of leads. She'd heard rumors that she was going to be pulled off the case. She'd heard mutterings in the department about her lack of progress. It was enough to have her on the edge of a breakdown. That she also happened to live on the south side, in close proximity to a number of the break-ins, was a fact that only made her current pill even more bitter to swallow.
"Help, eh?" Jacobs focused on the woman. "How can you help? Do you have some information for us? Do you know something about the perps?" The Detective felt her eyes boring into the woman, who hadn't yet acknowledged she was being talked to. Jacobs was desperate for information, any information. But what could this silent space cadet possibly have to offer?
Dupree looked uncomfortable. "Ahhh...you see, Detective...Miss Richards...ahh..."
"What is it Dupree? Spit it out."
"I see things," the woman finally answered, startling Jacobs by suddenly looking her straight in the eye.
Jacobs quickly regained her composure. She'd been a cop too long to get too rattled. "Huh? What do you mean, you see things? Speak up Missy!"
The woman lapsed back into silence, much to Officer Dupree's regret. He shifted on his feet before reluctantly answering. "Miss Richards has helped us in the past, Detective. It was because of her that we caught the Maloney kidnapper."
A light went off in Jacob's head. "This is the psychic?"
"Seer," the woman said vacantly, staring at her lap.
Dupree waited a moment to see if Miss Richards would explain further, until it was obvious that she had said all she intended. "Detective, Miss Richards claims to be able to see things that haven't happened yet. In a sense, she can predict the future."
"Is that right?" Jacobs said, not attempting to hide the doubt in her voice. "How does she do that?" She looked at the woman. "Huh, how do you do that?"
Dupree answered, knowing the woman would not respond. "She's never explained it to us, Detective, and we really don't know how she does it." He placed on Jacobs' desk the object he had been holding all along: a cell phone in a plastic bag marked 'EVIDENCE'. "She'll need this though."
Jacobs' eyes grew wide. "What do you mean she'll need this?! Why have you checked this out of the lockup?!" The cell phone represented the hardest piece of evidence collected from all of the crime scenes. Jacobs been able to learn nothing from it; the service had been shut off by the time they'd recovered it, and since it had been purchased with a stolen credit card, they hadn't been able to trace the phone number back to a real name. There hadn't been any useful information stored in the phone's address book or call history either. The Detective had had the service restored, but no incoming calls had been made to it. It was a dead end, like all the other leads in this case, but it was still the closest link they had to the perpetrators; that it was left at one of the crime scenes was the first and only mistake the criminals had made, and if they could make one mistake, they could make more. Jacobs did not like her best clue being checked out without her authorization.
Officer Dupree sensed her rising anger. "I can explain, Detective. You see, Miss Richards is able to see the future through contact with an object. In the Maloney case, she was able to see where the kidnappers were taking the boy while she was holding his baseball glove."
"I don't understand," Jacobs said, shaking her head.
"I don't really either. I can't explain it better than that. Somehow, someway, Miss Richards is able to visualize what hasn't happened yet by learning it from objects. We think its sort of like reading fingerprints. When we come into contact with something, we leave behind a 'fingerprint'--"
"No," the woman muttered almost imperceptibly.
"--of ourselves, a 'fingerprint' of what hasn't happened to us yet. At least, that's the best we've come up with to explain it."
Jacobs continued to shake her head. "That doesn't make any sense. A glove that the kid wasn't carrying told her where he'd be next?" Dupree shrugged his huge shoulders helplessly. "And you think this phone will tell her where our perps are?"
Dupree's confidence seemed a bit weakened. "Yes, Detective, that was the idea," he said quietly.
If Jacobs wasn't so desperate for clues, she'd have told Officer Dupree to show this woman the door and stop wasting her time. But the fact of the matter was she had nothing else to follow up on, so there was no reason not to test this theory. No reason, except reason itself.
"Okay, Dupree, give her the phone. Let's see what the magic lady can do." She stressed the sarcasm in her voice, lest she reveal that she was hopeful in the slightest. She leaned back in her chair and put her feet on her desk. "This should be good."
Officer Dupree opened the baggie and dropped the phone into Miss Richard's hands. The woman immediately began to clutch it and squeeze in with a fervor.
Detective Jacobs was actually a bit amused by the display, until the woman began to speak. Her voice was low, toneless, and her eyes were closed in concentration.
"Red...confusion...anger...lights...many lights...big wheel...flowers..." She paused.
Jacobs and Dupree exchanged glances. Neither had a clue what any of it meant.
The woman began again. "Oak...dark...too dark...gum...piggy..." Another pause.
Jacobs realized she had been holding her breath, actually hoping that this nut job might tell her something. "That's what you get for hoping," she thought ruefully. Exhaling deeply, she sat up and turned sternly to Dupree. "I think we've heard enough, don't you?"
"Give her a chance, Detective. She might give us something useful." Jacobs rolled her eyes and returned to her reclining position.
The woman was still forcefully kneading the phone, as if she were squeezing the visions out of it. "Bushes...angels...not real..." More squeezing. "Chipped...claws...foggy..." A small smile appeared on the woman's face. "Dancing...pretty...red...red dress..." The smile quickly disappeared from the woman's face. It was replaced by a look of scared intensity. "Danger!...wet...naked...gun!...Where's my gun?!" The woman was shouting now, loud enough that some of the other cops stopped what they were doing to look over. "Struggling!...Kicking!...masks...owwww! owwww! You're hurting me!"
Jacobs and Dupree exchanged a concerned look. At what point should they stop this? Was this dangerous for her?
"Rope...hurts!...Don't scream!...Kick!...No! No no no!...Fuck!"
Dupree actually blushed. Jacobs found herself leaning forward, not wanting to miss a word.
"I'll kill you Fuckers!...No!...Don't!...Oh no..." The expression on the woman's face was one of terror and defeat.
"Struggle!...shit!...Don't cry....assholes...get away...get away!"
Dupree shifted uncomfortably. Jacobs was enraptured. She wanted to help, but didn't who to help, or what to do.
"What?...oh no...No...not that...don't...please...please!" The woman began to laugh. She squirmed in her seat as if she was under the attack of wiggling fingers. "God no!...stop!...I can't breathe!...no not there..." More laughter, hard, forced laughter. "I can't take it...stop!...Fuckers!..." The woman was nearly thrashing in her seat, and Officer Dupree had to steady her shoulders to keep from falling to floor altogether. "Stahahaahaap! Please!" She was cackling and wailing now, and there wasn't a cop in the precinct that wasn't looking over at the spectacle. "Noooooo!!! Not my feeee--" Without warning, the woman threw the phone from herself onto the desktop. Just like that, the show ended.
In less than a second, the woman went from tortured victim writhing in the chair to her old, subdued self, showing no sign of recalling the scene just concluded. Once again she sat stoic and silent in the seat, slouching down and staring at her lap. Jacobs stared at her incredulously.
Dupree was the first to recover from the shock. "I'm sorry, Detective. She spoke with a lot more clarity about the Maloney boy."
"It's okay," Jacobs said, not wanting to show that she was a bit shaken by the ordeal. "Why don't you take Miss Richards home, and make sure she is okay."
Officer Dupree helped the woman to her feet, as she seemed reluctant to stand on her own. As they turned to go, the woman suddenly turned and flashed a look of panic into the eyes Detective Jacobs. The two exchanged a look of desperation and fear for a moment, a look that cried out for help, and then as quickly as it came, the light flickered out in the woman's eyes and she returned to looking at nothing.
"Dupree!" Jacobs called. "Keep a close eye on her. I'm worried about her." The large officer nodded in understanding and led the woman away.
Jacobs had no time to ponder the event. Immediately the other detectives of the department showed up at her desk and began to razz her about the crazy woman. The joked that she should try voodoo next, or maybe call the Ghostbusters. Jacobs forgot her concern over what the woman's vision might mean as she defended herself against the good natured ribbing of her peers, "The Boys" as she called them. It was tough to be a woman detective, tougher still when the case you were working on had you stumped. It was the first good laugh she'd had in awhile. Then the phone began to ring, and soon Jacobs had all but forgotten about the sightings of the seer.
*******
Jacobs looked at her watch and muttered a curse under her breath. She hated working longer than her hours dictated she should be on the job. It wasn't that she had plans or anything to rush home to, it was more a case of not wanting to appear to have nothing better to do than work. She wanted to appear professional, an equal to "The Boys", but it wouldn't do to be thought of as a workaholic. It was one thing to maintain the hard outward shell she wore while at work, it was altogether another thing to forget she was still a young woman underneath.
She gathered her belongings off her desk quickly and began stuffing them in her purse. Keys, sunglasses, cell phone, pager. Her purse. She hated carrying one, but what choice did she have? She wasn't about to cram her pockets like men did, but she hated the air of femininity it gave her at work. It was only coming and going that she had to suffer the shame of this silly little bag over her shoulder, so she usually raced in and out as fast as possible to avoid contemptuous eyes. Tonight was no exception.
It was dark already as she started for home. It didn't matter. There was no one waiting for her anyway. She pulled out the clips holding her hair tightly off her neck and let it down for the first time today. A sigh of relief escaped her throat. It was little pleasures like that that fueled her fire. She was looking forward to unwinding in a hot bath tonight, and then get back to her book with a glass of wine. She'd feel soft and feminine without guilt again soon enough.
She stopped her car at a red light. Before she forgot, she wanted to remind herself to catch up with Dupree again about the basket case. Her method of reminding herself was to leave voice messages for herself either at home or work. She lost sticky notes, but she was good about checking her messages.
She fumbled around in her purse and pulled out her cell phone. Switching it on, she hit the speed dial for work. The phone beeped an error, not recognizing her speed dial setting. She looked at it curiously. "That's odd," she thought. She tried it again and the error was repeated. Jacobs felt her anger rising. "Relax, kiddo...you are off duty now." She dialed the number by hand and left herself a message to get with Dupree.
Her car exited the downtown area and entered the south side. The ride immediately became more relaxing as traffic lights were left behind and trees began popping up on both sides of the road. As she passed the middle school, she was delighted to see that a carnival was taking place in the parking lot. A myriad of lights and sounds filled her senses, and she could not help but slow down as she passed. Some day, she hoped to have children of her own to take to events such as these. The thought warmed her heart. But who was she kidding...right now she wished it was she who was at the carnival, on a date with a romantic soul, one who bought her cotton candy like a child, one who won her silly prizes in games of chance, one who held her close and told her it would be all right when she screamed in delight at the top of the Ferris Wheel...
She grinned. It was so easy to get lost in girly thoughts when she wasn't on the job. So easy, and so wonderful. "Someday my Prince will find me," she thought. She felt better than she had all day, and switched on the radio. One of her favorite songs, "Can't find my love" by Jude Flowers, came pouring out of the speakers. Natalie sang along. She turned onto her street, Oak Street.
She was still singing softly to herself as she pulled into her driveway. The song died on her lips as her police officer training took over. Something was not right. It was the outside lights. They were off. She had them on timers so they would come on when she arrived home (and so her suburban neighbors didn't think her house was deserted), but tonight they were off. She parked the car and moved cautiously up to the house. There was nothing amiss and nothing to be heard. "Maybe they burned out, or maybe we had a power failure." She wasn't entirely satisfied, but there was no point in getting worked up over coming home to a dark house. It did make finding her house keys a bit harder though.
She rummaged through her purse in the dark. "Stupid purse," she thought. "I can never find anything." She found the same stale gum three times before locating her house keys. They should have been easier to find, since they were attached to a key ring in the shape of a pig. A joke gift from her sister, who teased her by referring to all cops as "pigs". Thinking of her sister made her smile. "I should call her soon," she thought.
A moment later, she was in the house, and the darkness of the kitchen was dispelled with the flick of a switch. She tossed her keys and her mail on the counter like she always did. "Anything good?" she asked out loud to herself as she checked the mail. A copy of Time with George W. and Laura Bush on the cover, the latest Victoria's Secret catalog, and a few bills. She glanced briefly at Time before opting to leave through the lingerie catalog. Two thoughts entered her mind. "What is with all the wings?" and "Nobody really looks this good." She knew that she had a good body, a body sculpted by years of strenous exercise, and she knew that she could pull off some of the outfits in the VS catalog better than most women, but without the advantages of airbrushing and makeup artists hiding her every flaw, she couldn't hold a candle to these models. "So fake," she said out loud. "You're not real."
She hurried up the stairs and began to draw herself a bath. As she did every time she came in the bathroom, the sight of her tub both excited and saddened her. The tub was ancient, a relic from a different time, and it was slowly falling apart and chipped all over. But it was enormous, one of those stand alone tubs that weighed a ton and had the claw feet at the bottom, and she simply loved taking baths in it. It would be a shame if she had to ever despose if it; she knew she'd never find another one like it.
She hurriedly undressed in her room and returned to find the bathroom full of steam, the way she liked it. As she slid into the tub, she could not suppress a groan of delight. The heat of the water soothed and warmed her tired muscles, and she felt all the cares of the day slipping away. "This is just what I needed," she thought. She closed her eyes and enjoyed.
Her mind began to wander as she relaxed. She was thinking of the policeman's ball next month, and if Officer Dupree would invite her. She doubted he would. She was too hard on him, but that was only so that he wouldn't see how much she liked him. He wouldn't ask her, but maybe she would go alone and bump into him there. He would see her wearing her favorite red dress, the one that she knew turned heads, and he would notice how pretty she could be when she wanted to be, and he would ask her to dance. She wanted to dance with him, to be swept up in his arms, to be gawked at and admired by the rest of the department as she danced in her sexy red dress. She wanted to...
Natalie suddenly sat upright, overcome by fear. The woman, the crazy woman. The things she had said...she had seen everything Natalie had seen since leaving work. The future she had predicted...had been Natalie's future. The lights of the carnival, the dark house, the pictures of the angels, the dancing in the red dress. She had seen all that, all that and more. She had seen...horrible things...
The cell phone. That's why the speed dial hadn't worked. It wasn't her phone...it was the crime scene phone! The woman had tried to warn her, and she hadn't listened.
Natalie realized in a heartbeat that she was not safe, that she was not alone in this house. Fighting a terror that threatened to paralyze her, she sprang from the tub. "Think!" her brain screamed. She was accutely aware of how wet she was, of how naked she was. She wasn't thinking like a police detective, but like a horror movie victim. "Do something!" her brain cried.
"My gun," she thought. "Where is my fucking gun?!" In a flash she bolted for the bedroom, where she knew her piece lay. In a moment she would be Detective Jacobs again, armed and ready for danger.
She was too late.
The figures hiding in the shadows emerged before she could grab the gun, and a fierce struggle ensued. There were two of them, men dressed all in black and wearing black masks, both possessing strength superior to Natalie's own. She tried to defend herself with her martial arts police training, but it was no use. She managed to land a few kicks, but in the end they overpowered her rather quickly.
She fought like a wildcat as they threw her on her own bed. One of them produced a length of rope which he began to wrap around her wrists while the other held her in place. "Owwww! Owwww! You are hurting me!" she cried, even as she knew it was useless. The rope was cruelly and tightly wound around her slender wrists, digging into her flesh and causing her to cry out in pain. She used the pain as motivation to increase her struggling, but it made no difference. They forced her arms over her head and began tying the rope off to the headboard. Natalie opened her mouth to scream, but in that split second, the image of her department bursting into the room and coming to her rescue popped in her head. They would find her like this; bound, naked, overpowered, a victim in her own home. The image horrified her. They couldn't see her like this, not after she'd worked so hard to create her tough image, not after she'd beaten the odds and been promoted to Detective. The respect she'd earned would be lost in an instant. The scream that might have been her only chance for salvation died on her lips. The rope binding her wrists was tied off to the headboard.
The men relaxed a bit, and Natalie took advantage of their mistake. She twisted herself around and delivered a kick to the temple of one of the men. The blow scored, and he fell to the floor momentarily. The other pounced on her and pressed his weight down on her. She bucked and struggled as much as her svelte figure could against his larger mass, but could not dislodge him. The fallen man regained his feet, and produced a second length of rope. He started for her ankles. "No!" she cried, kicking and bucking for all she was worth. The men worked efficiently together until they successfully had her ankles tied together, more tightly and cruelly than her wrists. They were pulling her down, down towards the footboard, and she winced in pain as her arms were stretched over her head to their limits. "No no no!" she thought, feeling her ankles being slipped through the bars of the footboard and tied securely there. She was stretched from one end of the bed to the other, tied to both frames, unable to lower her arms or draw up her knees. She was helpless. "Fuck!" she cried.
The fight was not yet dead in her. She squirmed and struggled like a madwoman while the men looked on. They were ready for action, ready to pounce on her if she showed any signs of escaping, but soon she had tired herself out. There was no give in their bonds, no escape for Natalie. She remained tied as tightly as they had left her. The fight was over, and she had lost.
Rage flared in her eyes. "I'll kill you fuckers!" she spat.
The men exchanged a silent glance. One of them bent over a black bag and returned holding a ball gag.
"No!" she screamed. "Don't!"
The man fell upon her again. Again Natalie fought valiantly, but she felt them forcing her mouth open. She felt the huge ball being forced between her jaws. "Oh no!" she thought. Straps were secured around her head. Natalie was silenced.
She thrashed her head, but the ball gag was not going anywhere. "Shit!" she thought. The urge to cry welled up inside her. "No," she thought. "Don't cry. Don't give these fuckers the satisfaction of seeing you cry."
She focused her emotions away from despair and back to anger. Her eyes blazed at them. Her look told them what they could do with themselves.
The men noticed. One of them leered over her closely, and then made a point to slowly eye her naked body up and down. She fought the urge to blush, but the shame she felt was overwhelming. How often had she longed for a man to notice the fullness of her breasts, or the flatness of her stomach, or slimness of her waist? How many times had she wanted men to appreciate the lines and curves of her toned body, even while she was doing her best to hide them under the professional attire of the workplace? She had wanted a man to see how womanly she was, how she was the epitome of what men said they wanted and desired, but not like this. This was humiliating. This man did not look at her in awe and reverence, but instead like a piece of meat to be feasted upon. He did not look at her in admiration any more than the lion admires the gracefulness of the antelope before tearing out it's throat and making the kill. She squirmed in embarrassment, not realizing that her movements only made her more enticing in his inspection.
The man leering over her reached out and twisted her nipple. Natalie groaned under the ball gag. "Asshole!" she cried, though it came out muffled and incomprehensible. The man grabbed her chin roughly and forced her to look into his masked face. The cloth mask was complete, and no features could be discerned through its black fabric. He leaned in closer to her face. "Get away! Get away!" her mind screamed. He was too close, too close. For the first time, Natalie felt true panic. The man licked her face through his mask. She writhed in disgust, fighting to pull her face away from this unwanted touch. She sensed he was smiling under the mask.
The second man tapped him on the shoulder, and the two stood and faced each other. "They weren't expecting me here. They don't know what to do," she thought. The men did not speak, but instead spoke in hand gestures. The one who had not violated her pulled out a wicked looking knife. Natalie's eyes grew wide in fear. "They are going to kill me," she thought.
The second man shook his head, and made a hand gesture that Natalie thought she understood. "What?" she thought. The man had wiggled his fingers in a tickling motion. The first man nodded and put away his deadly blade. "Oh no!" Natalie thought. They meant to tickle her. "No...not that!" The men pulled off their leather gloves and took positions on both sides of her bed. She began to thrash uselessly. "Don't! Please! Please!" her panicked brain screamed. Twenty fingers reached for her.
The men wasted no time with taunting or teasing. The fingers of each dug cruelly and rapidly into her ribs and waist on either side. Natalie exploded with muffled laughter. Her wet, naked body lurched off the mattress of it's own volition, and the bed frame creaked in protest as she nearly pulled it apart. The men exchanged a satisfied glance. She was more ticklish than they had expected. In fact, she was more ticklish than any human had a right to be. By accident, the men had discovered Natalie's Achilles Heel. Had they chosen to torture her in some painful way, she might have been able to withstand it. But this was inhuman. This was unbearable. The men continued their attack.
Natalie's brain protested in vain to no one but herself. Her lungs and mouth were too busy screeching in laughter to form words around the ball gag. "God no!" The men danced their fingers across the entirety of her torso, from her stomach to her breasts to her ribs to her underarms. "Stop!" They found that she bucked beautifully when they squeezed her ribs forcefully. "I can't breathe!" They discovered that her hip bones were even more sensitive than the rest of her, and by squeezing them, she flopped around like a fish out of water. "No! Not there!" The men were getting better in their attack, having discovered the most ticklish of her many ticklish spots and focusing their attentions there. "I can't take it!" Fingers felt like they were attacking everywhere at once. There was no relief and no respite. Natalie could do nothing but squirm and be tickled. It was torture like she had never experienced before. "Stop!" she managed to scream through the gag.
The men did stop. They were watching her closely. She struggled to regain the air she so desperately needed. Her body felt like it was full of pins and needles. Her chest rose and fell rapidly like a piston. Her wrists and ankles hurt something fierce, and she felt sore all over. But, in spite of all the pain and discomfort, more than anything else, Natalie was pissed.
"Fuckers!" she screamed through the gag.
The men fell to her again. They were like machines, devoid of emotion, oblivious to her state of anxiety. She was immediately back in the throes of tortured laughter, bouncing and squirming for relief that was not to be found. "Stop! Please!" her brain cried silently in protest. Fingers flew over her sensitive skin and dug in forbidden places. She felt her lungs burning again.
One of the men, the one who licked her earlier, focused his tickling attention on her hardened nipples. Again, Natalie felt that shame of violation, and a self loathing that her body would respond in such a way to this unwanted attention. The other man had dicovered her thighs and knees, and was squeezing them almost painfully. Her body spasmed uncontrollably, and the pitch of her frenzied laughter grew behind the gag. She felt the hands on her legs sliding down towards her ankles.
Natalie knew what was coming next, and it was what she feared the most. "Nooooo!" her brain wailed. "Not my feeeee--"
The electric sensation of fingertips tickling the soles of her feet rocketed into her skull and cut off all rational thought. All else was forgotten. The embarrassment of her coworkers finding her like this....the shame of the man eyeing her body...the stiffness of her nipples responding to his touch...none of it mattered. There was only the unholy feeling of fingertips on her feet, of fingernails flickering across her most sensitive flesh. This was the sensation that she could not take. This was the torture that would break her body and her will. A scream of agony rose from her throat, but was cut off almost at once by insane laughter, the laughter of a crazy woman.
The man at her feet had no trouble tickling her soles. With her ankles pulled through the footboard and bound so effectively, there was nothing preventing him from having his way with her slender and creamy foot bottoms. Her feet flailed like they were on fire, but that did little to keep him from his appointed task. His hands danced over her feet and dug between her toes. His fingertips seemed to multiply and be everywhere at once. His fingernails struck like the stings of a swarm of angry bees. No inch of her soft, vulnerable feet was spared. No mercy was shown to her soles.
Natalie was a drooling, weeping mess. Her body convulsed like she were undergoing electric shock treatment, and her brain refused to function. She was not a person, but instead an object which knew only how to spasm and laugh, spasm and laugh. All the nerve endings of her body seemed to be concentrated in her feet, and all of them were being bombarded with stimulation at once. Her nervous system overloaded with the ticklish pulses that began at her soles, raced up through her spinal cord, and slammed home in her brain, again and again. Like any good circuit, the system was equiped with breakers in the case of too much current flowing through the wires. Should that happen, the system had no choice but to shut down.
With a final ticklish scream, Natalie lurched once in her bonds and passed out.
*******
Natalie awoke with a start. She sat upright with a look of terror in her eyes. Officer Dupree bolted to her side and put a comforting arm around her.
"It's okay. It's okay. It's all over, Detective."
"Wha...What happened? Where am I?" She trembled in spite of herself.
"You are in Cook Hospital, just for observation. You are okay, except for these," he said, and held her arm up so she could see the marks on her wrist from where the ropes had dug in.
"Wha...how did I get here?" The sight of the marks on her wrist let her know at once that she had not been dreaming, but that the experience had been real. Dupree sensed her fright and held her a little tighter. She did not mind.
"I brought you here, Detective."
"You? How?"
Officer Dupree cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. "Well...ahh...you see...after I dropped off the seer, Miss Richards, I started thinking about the things she said. None of it made any sense. I came back to the station to discuss them with you, but you had already left. I noticed that the evidence bag hadn't been checked back into the lockup, but the cell phone was nowhere to be found. That got me worried. I remembered that Miss Richards had said 'oak', and that you lived on Oak Street, and I felt it might mean something. I called your residence but there was no answer, so I drove over there myself..."
"And?"
"And...and when I saw your car in the driveway but got no answer at your door, I drew my gun and broke in." He paused. "They were already gone, Detective. They...they took quite a bit. You'll have to fill out a report." She nodded. "I'm sorry, Detective, but I found you...you know...and...and I rushed you right here." Dupree blushed deeply and looked away.
She found herself smiling. "Thank you. Thank you for coming to my rescue."
Dupree allowed himself a small smile in return. "Any time, Detective."
She looked up at him. "Will you do me a favor?"
"Of course."
"Will you call me Natalie, please?"
His smile widened. "As you wish, Natalie. And you'll call me Roger?"
"Yes, Roger, I will." They exchange a warm smile that lasted a long moment.
He gave her a squeeze of her shoulders. "I'd better let you rest. You've been through a lot." He rose to go.
"Roger?"
"Yes?"
"Do you dance?"
Roger smiled. "Yes, Natalie, I do."
The End
. GREAT story, as usual, laughter and love! Thanks.
