On Ticklish Tides, Part 3 and 4

It would help if you read Part 1 and 2, but the story is fairly self-contained. Basically, female pirates in the golden age of piracy.

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On Ticklish Tides, Part 3

“No, no, no! You aren’t doing it right!” Amel Guillard cried, shaking her head and sending her head of fluffy blonde curls flying.

“We’re sorry, mistress!” The two servants toiling away in front of her were young, cowed things, and they bent their heads in apology. “It’s just, it’s just we’ve never done this before! We were never trained in something like this!”

“Oh, come now, how difficult is it to do?” Amel scoffed. “It’s not that different from washing dishes or dusting statues, no? Do better!”

She shook her head as the two servants burbled and stuttered out some pathetic response. “Go and get my hairbrushes. And pray that you do a better job this time, or before you’re sacked, I’ll show you what true tickle torture is like.”

As the two handmaids scurried off like jackrabbits, almost slipping on the sleek, patterned rug as they fled the room, Amel let loose a big, disappointed sigh and slumped back on the plush pillows of her bedroom. It was a shame that her chateau had no true dungeon, as she would have preferred to conduct such activities somewhere more thematically suitable, but at least her bed was comfortable. Her bare ankles were tied to the ornate silver bedposts at the front corners of her four-poster bed while her wrists were shackled to the ones at the back corners near her head. The tight bondage was a start, but it didn’t help that the rest of everything was proving to be so disappointing.

She had been gagged on that fateful day, with the rough, coarse cloth only being removed from her mouth when the diabolical pirates pressed her for information on where she had hidden her jewels, but of course, that would not do today, not when her hapless help so clearly needed her direction in order to do an even halfway competent job of tickling her. It seemed that the only way they could do their job was with Amel holding their hands the entire time, which rather defeated the point of a torturous torment where she was not in control of what was happening.

Amel had done so much to try to recreate that moment, recreate that experience from half a year ago. Captured by a group of nefarious pirates and tormented for information, oh, even the thought of it alone, the memory of all those dizzying sensations, and wild shouts filled her with an excited, bubbly glee. She still remembered all the key characters of that episode clearly: the big black beauty who had bellowed commands, a dye-stained woman with a roguish smile, and the diminutive little oriental who had hovered in the background judging it all.

But it just wasn’t the same! Her useless servants just couldn’t do it, despite the fact Amel had provided them with thorough, meticulous instructions on how and where they ought to tickle her to ensure maximum ticklish insanity. Yet they had found a way to muck it up regardless!

The French noblewoman stared down at the feathers the servants had been wafting around her soles so ineffectually. Their rough fingers had been little better, despite the fact that Amel had stepped up her regular pedicures and foot treatments even since that fateful encounter to ensure her feet were as sensitive as could be. She really couldn’t work out why this wasn’t working. She had even tried to be extra cruel to her servants recently to give them further incentive to tickle her with more gusto, but they just seemed to lack the genome for any kind of skill in this matter, disappointingly enough.

There had been a memorable evening when she had discovered a speck of dust under one of her long dining tables, so the next morning, she had woken up extra early, even earlier than the servants (a bit of whisky had proven to be an excellent pick-me-up) and paid a visit to them as they slept in their quarters. Assisted by a few butlers and footmen who were all too happy to help in what they described as a ‘most funny prank, your ladyship’, Amel showed her comely employees the proper technique for cleaning. She smeared their bare soles with water, drowned them with soap, rubbed them till they were nice and sudsy, and then washed them with brushes, sponges, and cloth.

The two comely young girls had wailed and squealed in a most amusing manner, but despite this, they demonstrated no more aptitude when it was time for Amel’s own tickling, even when her ladyship tried to replicate the sole scrubbing scene as faithfully as possible. They either scrubbed far too gently, as if they were afraid they would damage the noble woman’s skin and be flayed for assault, or they were far too vigorous in their style so that it felt more like an irritating rubbing, grating feeling as opposing to the tingling tickly sensations Amel was so hellbent on finding. It was just oh so frustrating!

It seemed there was only one true avenue to salvation, Amel thought, as her servants returned with hairbrushes in their hands. With their porcelain handles and fine horse hair heads, they were formidable tools... but only in the right hands. Amel had managed to make her two servants wet themselves with them, multiple times, yet the girls were incapable of using them to bring to anything close to hysteria. It was so infuriating that you couldn’t tickle yourself. Perhaps they would be better today, but the Frenchwoman was not optimistic. What else could she do but hope?

A thought occurred to her that passively waiting, wishing for better things might not be the only path. As the hairbrushes nibbled at her feet, Amel felt the hint of a breathy giggle bubbling in the back of her throat—an encouraging start, but it might be all she would get. Maybe she should seek out this pirate crew once more.

Amel was sure she could work something out, if she brought the right persuasive tools to the table. It was time to make a call to her old friends at the East India Company…

O-O-O

The former Oriental Princess, Li, hadn’t been tickled in a while, and she had almost forgotten how bad it was. Of course, memories of sensations had a habit of flowing back in a flash: the agony of a feather snaking through your toes, the mind-numbing screech that escaped your lips as sharp nails ran up and down your armpits again and again, or the shiver that passed when a lone finger traced wide, lazy circles around your bare stomach.

And she had a feeling that they would be reliving her memories momentarily. She strode into Captain Ruby’s quarters with her bodyguard, Shiro, at her back. The Japanese warrior stood tall and straight as a longbow, dressed in loose robes of grey with her samurai blade at her hip. Li remembered how differently she had been when she first came aboard this ship, the innocuous Mistress Ambivalence. Back then, she had been dressed in rags and in fear, so afraid of what fate might await her on the perilous seas with this heartless crew. But now, she was captain of her own ship, dressed like the finest corsair, with rings on her fingers, a bandana in her short dark hair, a white and black cloak streaming from her shoulders, and a pistol at her hip.

However, that didn’t mean you weren’t accountable for your blunders.

“They’ll understand it was just a mistake, won’t they?” Shiro asked in a low voice, tight with worry. The samurai’s first experience with tickle torture had been aboard this vessel, and it had not been a pleasant one, especially not with those highly sensitive feet of hers.

“They’ll understand, but we’ll still be punished,” Li muttering, scuffing her high leather boots on the floorboards of the Lady Ambivalence as she walked. “If you slit the wrong person’s throat, that person is still dead.”

“That’s a bit over dramatic, isn’t it? We stole a shipment of firs instead of furs. Anyone could’ve done that.”

“True enough, but I’m a captain, and the crew can’t really be paid in firs. They gotta see that everyone who mucks up has to take responsibility.”

“I suppose,” Shiro muttered, fingering her blade. “I guess I’ll be looking forward to when it’s the other captains who screw up.”

Li chuckled lightly. “Some things are only a matter of time. No one’s perfect.” The pair of stalwart companions stopped talking as they arrived at the cabin. They nodded at the two guards at the door and stepped inside.

“Li,” purred Captain Ruby. Her red hair shone like beat copper from the bright sunlight of the afternoon. “Pleasure to see you, as always, though regrettable that the news isn’t better.”

“Indeed,” said Captain Kyra, who was one of the co-captains of this oddly egalitarian and democratic ship. While Ruby had greeted Li with a warm smile, Kyra’s reception was colder, but that was no real surprise from the dark-haired woman nicknamed the Captain of Commerce for both her pragmatic eye for figures and her frosty, haughty attitude to others.

“Are you ready to submit yourself to our judgment?” Kyra asked. Her words were impartial and solemn enough, but Li detected a malevolence beneath the cool, calm veneer put on by the other captain.

“Ready as I ever will be, I suppose,” Li said with a shrug.

“Apologies, darling,” Ruby said, sounding genuine. “You know how it is. The only way the crew doesn’t lose heart if they see that everyone is punished for their failures, from deckhand to decorated captain.”

Li allowed herself to be disrobed and strapped to the table that would be used for the ritualistic tickle torture she would have to undergo very soon. Her dark leather underclothes were all that remained as her supple black boots, white button-up shirt, dark cloak, and pantaloons were gently pulled aside by the bodyguards of the other two captains. Li recognized some of them and exchanged a friendly bit of banter: talking took her mind of what was to come, she found, and she would rather natter on and make some small talk as opposed to stew in a sullen and sombre silence.

Shiro, as Li’s second, shared the same fate, though she was taking it less well. She was grumbling and muttering under her breath, and from the way she was frowning, her boyish face wrinkling up in frustration, it was clear she was not too fond of the pirate’s policy. It made sense, Li thought, feeling sympathetic to her companion’s plight. The erstwhile samurai had executed all her duties, namely, guard her liege. What had she done wrong to deserve such punishment?

Nonetheless, the willowy, toned warrior woman allowed herself to be strapped down beside Li. Ever since Li had cut her hair shorter, it was curious to observe how the two women now bore a close resemblance, though the Chinese princess was a head and a half shorter than her defender. Li’s skin was always paler and softer, where Shiro’s had their fair share of faded scars. Shiro also kept her chest heavily bandaged not because of any wound, but because of her embarrassment over her bosom, Li knew.

The table where they were bound was round, with nooks in the tough old wood so ropes could be put in place. Brown hempen rope were wrapped around the two girls’ ankles and wrists and then pulled taut, so both scantily-clad women had their limbs spread.

As the two captains prepared and placed several trays full of foreboding implements of ticklish agony, the bodyguards threw wide all the windows of the room. The point of this was for the screams, wails, and shrieks of forced laughter to be heard throughout the vessel, so it would be no good if only those inside this room heard it. Li also understand implicitly that it might be better for morale if she were to exaggerate her reactions just a little, or at the very least, try not to hold back her laughter. In any case, Li rather doubted it would be an issue for her, with her own abundant and exceptional sensitivity all over her lithe, petite body. She wouldn’t need to even think about things like ‘faking it’ once it started. If she was still as receptive to the tinkling tickles as she recalled, she would be squealing and giggling like a madwoman within seconds of the torment beginning.

Ruby and Kyra were about to begin, the former choosing a thin-tipped paintbrush while the latter picked up a hairbrush, when they heard a knock on the door. The intruder was immediately admitted, for it was none other than the third co-captain of the Mistress Ambivalence. The third head of that particular tri-pronged monster was none other than Christina Patten, who had been an envoy’s daughter and Li’s companion in Guangzhou, once upon a time.

When they had first been abducted, Christina had taken it even worse than Li, but the western girl had shown some resiliency and bounced back. She had made friends quickly, and as a result of her savvy communication skills, education, and easy-going demeanour, she had been a natural choice for captaincy after she had paid a few ticklish dues.

It was wonderful to see her old friend again. It seemed being a captain agreed with her. Under a wide-brimmed feathered cap, her long blonde hair was pulled back in a short ponytail that only just passed the nape of her neck. Her fair skin had tanned prettily in the sun, and her bright blue eyes were lively and cheery. She wore similar garb to Li. Well, that wasn’t quite accurate… the garb that Li had been wearing up to her bondage and stripping of clothing, that is. The one exception was that Christina’s cloak was the same sky-blue hue as her eyes.

“Li!” Christina said in warm voice, her face curling into a smile that was utterly without malice. She leaned forward and moved her arms as if she wanted to embrace Li, but suddenly realised how difficult the logistics of such a gesture would be when her friend was bound horizontally to a wooden table.

“Hi,” Li said. “I’d love to give you a hug, but I’m a bit tied up right now.”

“I understand,” Christina said, giggling. “Duty calls, eh?” She addressed the other captains, straightening a bit as if a little self-conscious about how informal her behaviour had just been. “Apologies for my tardiness.”

“Not a problem,” Ruby said, chuckling. “Just be sure to make up for lost time.”

Kyra nodded and said nothing. Instead, she began applying the hairbrush to the bottom of Li’s left foot.

Li gnashed her teeth together as wild laughter began spluttering through almost instantly. Those bristles! Oh, she had forgotten quite how bad they were. Each of those bristles were like a tiny, scratchy finger, and there were hundreds and hundreds of those blasted things swiping away at her heel and the base of her arch where Kyra was scrubbing away. That alone was enough to get her gusting with boisterous laughter, and there were still two other eager ticklers who had yet to begin…

“Someone’s eager, eh?” Christina said, strolling up to Li’s upper body. “Can hardly blame her… not every day you get to tickle a captain! Say, I wonder, are you still as ticklish up here? You were super sensitive there as a kid.”

Childhood memories of being pinned down and tickled came rushing back to Li as Christina placed her long, slender fingers along those taut, stretched-out armpits and began slowly sliding them up and down. The contrast between the light, almost gentle teasing strokes was a grim contrast to the whirlwind of brushing that Kyra was inflicting on her poor feet made it even more overwhelming.

And right in the middle was Ruby and her deftly-wielded paintbrush, which she whisked around Li’s quivering midsection. She traced circles around the navel and drew waves up and down the rib cage. Li had always been thin, and her active lifestyle had given her a set of quite strong abdominal muscles, though they served her little use now, as they were nothing but another fun target for that teasing brush.

“Awwww, still as cute as ever,” Christina whispered in Li’s ear as her fingers spidered across the very centres of those armpits. “Is this still a fun spot for you?” Her hands wandered over to Li’s collarbones, and Li’s frantic head-twisting and squeals proved that Christina’s assertion had most definitely been accurate.

“I dohohon’t rememhehehember being tihihicklish thehehere!” While at first, Li had been a mess of nervous sensitivity, she had really found she could embrace the responsiveness of tickling. She let every impulse flow through her, unrestrained and unfiltered, and that included what she said as well.

“And she’s playing along so nicely, isn’t she?” Ruby said as her paintbrush swabbed the insides of Li’s belly button in maddeningly slow circles. “Listen to her go! They must be able to hear her from leagues away!”

“Let’s see how long she can keep up this volume,” Kyra said in what sounded like a vow to herself or a personal challenge. She suddenly switched feet, and she used one hand to pin the left foot in place while the other hand worked the stiff-bristles of the hairbrush over the ball of the foot and the toes in quick, circular motions that brought forth fresh squeaks and shrieks from the Chinese captain.

After a while, Li began aware of Shiro’s laughter alongside hers, mixing together to form some kind of disturbed symphony. Perhaps Shiro had been laughing the entire time, but Li hadn’t been able to notice it over the sounds and sensations of her extreme ticklish torment. Or maybe the captains had simply forgotten about her over the fun they were having tickling the heck out of Li. The bodyguards were the ones doing the tickling there, but before long, they all swapped targets to keep things fresh and unpredictable for the two trapped girls.

And so the captains gravitated to the samurai girl with grins on their faces. Soon, Shiro kept finding herself torn in two different directions. She was lost in ambivalence. She knew she should laugh and laugh and laugh. Her body wanted her to laugh, and Li had explained that they had to laugh loud and long so the crew knew they were being punished for their misdeeds. But it was just so embarrassing! Her cheeks blazed red at the thought of all these hands on her, all these eyes looking at her. They would see the scars, see the bandages, see how girly she was. It was humiliating to be turned into a child by these light, tinkling touches. It was one thing to be vanquished in battle, but a totally different creature to be bested by something as juvenile as this!

Her sinewy-strong muscles strained her bonds so hard that the wood began to creak. “Ease up, their girl,” Ruby said, putting aside her paintbrush so she could skitter all ten fingers into Shiro’s stretched-out armpits, which proved effective in crippling the samurai’s girls attempts to tense up her biceps for strength. Shiro’s muscles turned as weak and wobbly as pudding under this ticklish onslaught.

The Japanese warrior liked to think that had it just been the mischievous red-painted nails of Captain Ruby launching an onslaught on her underarms, she would have been able to handle it, but that was simply impossible when there were two others always having their way with her most sensitive spots, with the most devilish tools in hand.

Captain Kyra had procured a bundle of soft, short feathers, and she was sweeping it around Shiro’s toned and strong midsection with a malevolent gusto. To be brought to such wild giggles by something so soft made Shiro feel absurdly weak, and the shame of humiliation and embarrassment in turn spiked up her sensitivity, which led to the cycle repeating itself. Those feathers twirled on her stomach and sides to make her jolt and hop up and down on the wooden table, which seemed to be all her excess energy was good for in her current state. Kyra chuckled when she guided those feathers to Shiro’s inner thighs and knees, where the samurai was distressed to learn (based on the way her legs kicked so fiercely and the fresh splutters that came bubbling up through her throat) she harboured a delicate spot or five.

And of course, her feet had no hope of being spared. Captain Christina took charge of them, and although she might have a gentler touch than the other two, that was little consolation considering how Shiro’s feet were far more sensitive than the rest of her. One finger on each foot was enough to get her squealing and squeaking, especially when Shiro’s attention was scattered trying to keep track of all the other ticklish places under attack on her trapped and exposed pale body. The fingers poked along the arches, circled the heels, and snuck around the toes as Shiro’s entire body quivered as she roared with boyish laughter.

“You and Li could have a competition to see who has more ticklish feet,” Christina said with a snicker, which did not help Shiro feeling self-conscious about the whole situation.

Li heard this, however, and she shouted back through raucous laughter that surely it wasn’t even that close and that her princess feet were far superior, which earned a good chuckle from everyone present.

And then, just like it had begun, it was over. One hour finished. What a shame that after a short break to relieve and refresh themselves they would have a few more shifts to go…

O-O-O

“Oh, was it really that bad?”

“Shiro sure made it sound that way.”

“Honestly, you’d think she’d never been tickled in her life.” Both women laughed.

Hana and Sapphire sat in the almost-empty dining hall of the Mistress Ambivalence. It was the cusp of dawn, so there were few of the vessel’s sailors awake and eating their morning grub. Hana sat on her wooden stool with her elbows propped on the round table. The fisherman’s daughter was ever at home on the seas, and her tanned, healthy complexion and wide smile attested to that. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she wore a sleeveless cloth jerkin, brown pantaloons, and leather sandals on her feet. Her dark eyes were large and sharp, and despite the dagger at her waist, she looked like she didn’t have enough malice in her to stomp a rat.

The woman opposite her looked like she could have starred as a top courtesan in any country in the world. Sapphire’s long brown hair streamed past her shoulders, and she had a sly smile on her face as if she constantly had a witty remark right on the tip of her tongue. Her azure robes were far too elegant to be practical on a ship, but they fit snugly and accentuated the curves of her body. On her blue-enamelled fingers were many jewelled bands and rings. Even her posture suggested a sort of stylish and dignified licentiousness. Her long, shapely legs were crossed, with one slender foot dangling in the air.

“How is our favourite samurai, then?” Sapphire asked. “I expect a woman that deadly with a blade to know how to use her fingers.”

Hana flushed as pink as a peach. “We, well, we do some stuff. Mainly cuddling, I guess.”

“Cuddling!” Sapphire chuckled, a wistful look appearing in her bright blue eyes as if it had been a long time since she had wasted breath on such an endeavour. “That’s adorable, really.”

“But,” Hana began to say and sighed. “She’s still awkward about it sometimes. We, well, she isn’t always that keen for us to spend the night together in the same bed. She always says ‘what will the crew think?’”

Sapphire arched a thin eyebrow. “I can’t remember the last time I worried about trifles like that. Let them think and say what they want. As long as you’re with the one you love, then who cares?”

“I’m with you on that one,” Hana said, frowning, “but she’s always concerned about her ‘face’, you know what I mean? Like how people see her? She’s so obsessed with being this big tough bodyguard type, and she doesn’t know that she can turn that off every now and then. You don’t have to be that person every moment of every day!”

“Are you sure that’s what really bothers her? Or is that just another part of the façade she’s showing everyone?”

Shiro chewed on that as she chewed on a heel of hard bread. “I don’t know. Maybe she still feels awkward about the whole thing. You know, struggling to be intimate because of the whole ‘secret gender’ thing.

“I see… have you considered helping her embrace that other side of her? Her…” Sapphire coughed. “Vulnerable, sensitive side?”

“But how can I do that?” Shiro envisioned tying the strong, powerful lover of hers down to her bed and tickling her silly while they kissed.

“Hmmm, is she… the aggressor?” Sapphire asked. “Or are you?”

Hana’s cheeks were blazing red now, so much that she almost looked as if she had drunk a bit too much ale. “What do you mean?”

“Darling, you know exactly what I mean.”

“Well…” Hana paused for a moment, fiddling with her thumbs. She muttered her answer under her breath, not looking at her confidant at all. “Her, usually.”

Sapphire gave a little titter and smiled, looking as if she were sorely considering asking Hana to repeat what she had just said to embarrass the adorably blushing girl further. She decided against this, however. “Well, then perhaps the solution is simple. Our dear warrior is used to being aggressive on the ship and in battle, so maybe you could show her what it’s like to be on the defensive?”

“Are you, uh, suggesting, that uh…”

“Pounce on her. Provide an opportunity to coax that side out of her.”

“I see… Any ideas?”

“Oh, you know wicked ideas are my specialty, considering your dearest has quite a combative personality, I think goading her into a little may be a wise course.”

“Goading her?”

“Parroting my words back at me isn’t very sexy, dear.” Sapphire wiggled her long fingers in the air and winked. “Tempt her, tease her, and start a little fight with her. Once you start cuddling, tickle her and when she tries to get away, wrestle her to the bed and keep tickling those tough girl feet of hers till she gives in and giggles like the ticklish little girl she is.”

“I’ll… see what I can do,” Hana said, her cheeks still burning a bright red.

“I look forward to tales of your adventures,” Sapphire said with a hearty laugh.

“So, what else is new onboard?”

“I forgot how much you loved gossip,” Sapphire said with a titter and poked Hana in the ribs.

“Well, I am a fisherman’s daughter,” Hana said with a shrug, blushing slightly. “I wouldn’t see folk often, and the first thing I would also do is ask about what news they had.”

“You remember that Japanese lady?”

“Aika? The sister of that lord Shiro used to protect? Of course.”

“Probably. I’m more familiar with her sensitive sides and that particular spot on her second toe than how to pronounce her name, truth be told.”

“I remember Li letting us all have a play with her,” Hana said, smiling in remembrance. It had brought her such a lewd sense of satisfaction to torment one of her betters. She had often seen the noble lady Aika walking around the streets with her escorts as each of the shopkeepers bowed their heads to give the lord’s sister the utmost of respect. The fact that such a mighty, powerful woman could be made to quiver and splutter under her fingertips made it feel like even conception of the social hierarchy had been flipped around. Perhaps that was what it really meant to be a pirate? You were no longer bound and chained by the restricting rules of society. Though of course, it was possible you could end up bound and chained in some dungeon or in a set of stocks somewhere at some point.

“We kept her for a few weeks—shame you weren’t there, our dear mad alchemist tested some kind of itching powder concoction on those pale, pampered feet of hers.”

Hana grinned at the thought. “That sounds like the kind of thing Clem would do. How did the lady take it?”

“Not well,” Sapphire said in voice of feigned sympathy, “she was begging us to scratch her feet within a few minutes. We asked if she was sure, since she had told us to stop tickling, and we gave her an hour to think about it. Cleaning her feet later with brushes was fun though.”

“Can’t believe I missed that! I’m glad we’ll be sailing together for the next while so I don’t miss any more of these hijinks. Is she still aboard?”

“Nah, we took pity on her after then and marooned her on a deserted island. That’s what you get for messing with us.”

“I’m sure Natasha will be pleased to her that,” Hana said. Natasha, a powerfully-built Russian who was Li’s second-in-command, had been captured by Aika and been thoroughly interrogated in the woman’s dungeons.

“Yeah, we’re glad to have her back,” Sapphire said, draining her mug. “She’s a rather drôle fellow to get drunk and play cards with.”

“Cards sure sound like fun! Can I join?”

“Sure, but if you lose and you can’t pay up, you know what’ll happen, right?” Sapphire jerked a thumb over her should to the table where misbehaving shipmates were punished for their misdemeanours with copious amounts of everyone’s favourite method of torture.

“No risk, no reward.” It was considered an odd day when there weren’t a few of the girls aboard the Mistress Ambivalence providing a bit of entertainment for the rest of the crew during meals. Hana knew that from experience. She had once messed up her duties and accidentally cooked some trout poorly which left a dozen of them suffering from quite serious indigestion. She had learned to be far more diligent about her dish preparation in future thanks to a dozen members of the crew tormenting her highly-sensitive torso all at once. Her tummy still fluttered at the memory of ten hands all clawing and scampering across her stomach at once till her pale skin was reddened from their fierce fingernails.

“That’s the spirit,” Sapphire said, clapping Hana on the back so hard she accidentally spat out her drink. “Let’s do it this Friday—an all-day affair. Clear your schedule!”

Hana wiped her lips and found herself grinning. A day of drink, cards, and laughter with her friends both old and new. What was not to love about that?

O-O-O

Within minutes of walking around the bustling streets of Tam Ky, Li could feel her clothing beginning to cling to her with perspiration. The coastal Vietnamese town had looking so appealing from afar with its cloudless skies, bright blue waters, and beaches of white sand, but its humidity was brutal.

The town was one they had visited before, so Li only had a small retinue with her. Travelling by foot, they trod on the faint trail that served as a road into the town, their feet kicking up dust and soil as curious peasants glanced at the strange group. At Li’s right was Shiro, was with her, of course, stern and sweating in her white robes and bamboo armour. At her left was their resident tinkerer, Tink. The wily blonde inventor spoke a smattering of French, which would serve them will in this colony where the Frenchmen held such sway. A pair of tanned, dark-haired women who had grown up nearby filled out their group, and they were both named Nguyen, which struck Li as being terribly confusing, but she remained tremendously grateful for having speakers of the local dialect to easy communication. The last member of their group was a mule that was loaded with items to trade, such as spices, dyes, silks, and silver, and it brought up their rear.

As they glimpsed the town glinting in the distance, one of the Nguyens called out to group of horsed farmers going away from the city, and they exchanged a quick word to each other in their rasping Vietnamese tongue. Li could see right away that something seemed amiss. The hard lines of the farmer’s face were tight and taut in either anger or anxiety, and he was constantly looking back as if he feared something might be coming after him.

“What happened?” Li asked the crewmate. This Nguyen was the taller of the two, with shoulder-length ink-black hair. She might have been comely if not for wine-coloured birthmark on her chin and down her neck.

“Trouble,” she answered. “He said there are imperialists in town, lording over the people.”

“Imperialists?”

“The French,” said the other Nguyen, scowling. This woman was a short, squat woman with chestnut-hair that looked as if it had been cut with a dagger. “It sounded like they were doing some kind of customs checking. If they find any contraband on us, we’re likely to hang.”

“We don’t have anything like that, do we, Tink?”

Tink shrugged. “Laws in this world have a habit of shifting like the winds of the sea. We have tobacco leaves and opium seeds with us, and they will either be the most desirable items or illegal.”

“Best we hide them in the secret pouch for now,” Li said, gesturing to hidden compartment in the mule’s saddle bags where sensitive items could be stashed. “See what kind of reception we receive.”

Before long, the town loomed before them. The buildings were a combination of wooden and brick houses, with some of them propped up on stilts among the rocky, craggy landscape. Sharpened stakes funnelled visitors into a gate where half a dozen guards stood with a combination of sabres in grubby scabbards, rusted helmets, muskets, and pistols.

“Halt,” said one of the guards in French. “We must inspect your goods. Do you understand?” He spoke the first sentence in English and the final in Vietnamese. The middle-aged, lanky, black-bearded man had the high, haughty bearing of a captain.

“We have nothing to hide,” Tink said in a slow voice, stuttering a little over the words. She had replied in French — Li had decided that using the dialect of the European conquerors of this region might make a better impression.

The guards gave their items a thorough examination, though they did not discover the secret pouch where the drugs had been smuggled. But what was stranger was how the captain of guards seemed to be examining their faces. At first, Li had assumed he was merely lecherous, but he kept pulling out a scrap of parchment and examining it. Li glanced over at it and saw it was a scribbled picture that looked distressingly like… her.

“Your goods seem satisfactory,” the captain asked. “But I would like to escort you to see the governor.”

“For what?” Tink asked in an anxious voice that was strained with attempted politeness.

“The governor has told us to keep an eye out for a woman meeting her description.” He waved a callused hand in Li’s direction. “He has inquiries. Come.”

“I’d really rather not,” Li said.

The guards all stared at her. The ones that were sitting stood up and gathered around her, fingering their weapons. Other townsfolk were starting to edge away, muttering, as if they could sense the hostility and danger.

“He insists,” the captain said. “Let’s not let this get unpleasant. We have no intention of hurting women.”

“Then let us go,” Shiro said with a growl, putting her hand on her Japanese blade.

“It’s not a fight we can win, Shiro,” Li murmured, putting a hand on her stalwart’s shoulder. There were six guards in front of them, with a handful more within spitting distance. And Shiro was the only true fighter among their crew that was present. “Let’s just see what this all about. We can cut ourselves free if we have to.”

They weren’t quite marched at gunpoint, but the captain kept a firm hand on Li’s shoulder during the entire trip as they were steered to the large maison at the centre of the town. Unlike the humble thatch huts and plain wooden houses, this house was painted a bright chalk-white, with a well-kept garden and silver gates outside it.

The governor did not look quite like what Li had imagined. Instead of the walking stick, hunting hat, and fine tweed jacket she had expected of the noble country squire, this man had the haggard look of a henpecked husband. His skin was pink and blotchy, he had drooping jowls behind a grey and white moustache and beard, and they found him kneeling in front of the garden, frowning over a bed of flowers.

“Governor Guillard,” the captain said, beckoning Li forward. “The woman you told us to keep an eye out for tried to enter the town to sell goods.”

To Li’s surprise, the governor seemed to be barely give her a cursory glance. “I’ll take your word for it, captain,” he said, immediately returning his gaze to the soil he was sifting through with a small metal spade. “Send her to the dungeons.”

“Wait, what?” Li exclaimed. “I’ve done nothing wrong!”

Shiro struggled to move to protect her lady and had they not disarmed her earlier, it would surely have come to blood. But instead, the captain wrenched her back, his padded leather vest cushioning her blows till a blow to her stomach knocked the breath out of her.

“You’re not under arrest,” the governor said without turning around. He seemed utterly unafraid of the ire in Li’s voice. “My niece wants to see you. She’s dallying down there with some prisoners.”

“Your niece? How does she know me?”

“Aren’t you one of her bridge buddies?” The governor shrugged and reached for a metal watering can. “Talk to her, it’s naught to do with me. Send her on her way, captain.”

Once more, Li found herself pushed and shoved till she reached the basement latch of the house’s dungeons, though it was more a magnanimous basement. Only she and the captain entered this time, but that was good. Although he had his hand on a pistol holstered on his hip the whole time, she could tell by his casual gait and indifferent manner that he saw her as no threat. If things grew dire, she had a feeling that she could escape by using the advantage of surprise to its fullest.

Laughter echoed through the room, and Li could feel the captain bristling behind her. The laughter had a wild, haphazard quality to it that made it seem familiar, but not because Li recognised the person laughing. The spluttering laughter was breathy, feminine, and high-pitched, but what drew Li’s attention was the forced quality of it. It was not the laughter of someone genuinely happy, nor the polite laughter of someone trying to chuckle at an unfunny quip, but the laughter of someone in the powerful throes of a firm bout of tickling.

A few more steps, and Li’s suspicions were confirmed. Tied taut to a wooden horizontal rack was a blonde woman clad only in a beige sleeveless dress, with buckled shoes, stockings, and a jacket lying discarded on an adjacent table. Li’s eyes darted to the one doing a tickling. It was a dark-skinned and dark-haired Vietnamese girl, who had the callused fingers and worn apron of a scullery maid. She took a step back and raised her hands up in the air at the sight of the two newcomers.

The laughing woman strapped down to the rack recovered enough to look up. “Ah, captain,” she said in a relaxed French drawl, as if the two of them had met happenstance down at the marketplace. “Reconsidered my offer to join me tonight?”

“I bring a guest to you,” the captain said in stiff voice, ignoring the sultry look in the French woman’s big eyes. “The oriental woman.”

“Ah, I see!” The woman stood up. Li realised she hadn’t been restrained at all, which meant she must have been in that rack voluntarily? And was this the governor’s niece? The servant in the room surely wasn’t. This whole thing was incredibly confusing. She reached out a damp hand and shook Li’s with a vigorous shake that made the Asian woman almost feel as if she were standing on a stormy deck because of the way she was being yanked back and forth.

“Have, have we met?” Li asked. “You look somewhat familiar.”

“You’ve threatened me before,” the governor’s niece said with a titter. “Does that help?”

“Not really,” Li said, a shiver tingling down her spine. She took a step back and thought about fleeing from this woman she must have wronged somewhere, someplace, but she bumped straight into the firmly-built captain.

“Allow me to refresh your memory.” The French woman pointed and Li was shoved and pushed down into the rack, with her shirt, jacket, and boots being summarily stripped off by the captain and the scullery maid who must have been in the governor’s employ. “My name is Amel Guillard, cherie, and you gave me the tickling of my life a few months ago.”

“I’m sorry!” Li wailed. What else was there to say?

“I’m not,” said Amel in a low husky vice. “You opened my eyes that day, showed me a new world. But right now, I want your knowledge.”

“Wha-what? I’ll never betray my comrades.”

“Oh, you’re terribly slow, my dear. I want to know how you did it. Teach me the art of tickle torture.”

“What? What’s wrong with that servant of yours?”

“She has vim, but you cannot mistake that for expertise,” Amel said, shaking her head. “Explain to me the secrets of your craft. Until then, we will entertain ourselves with working things out for ourselves. Won’t we, Phuong?” The French woman started pressing a set of sharp and shiny fingernails into Li’s left flank to make her snort and squeal. Li surged to the right just in time for the scullery maid to dart her rough fingers in from the other side.

“Stahahahap! Plehehehease!”

“Let’s keep going till she feels chatty enough to divulge a few tricks of the trade,” Amel declared over Li’s shrieking giggles. “Oooh, her armpits seem so sensitive! Let’s see what fun spots we can uncover in there…”

On Ticklish Tides, Part 4

O-O-O

Several hours later, when Shiro, Christina, Sapphire, as well as the other Captains of the Mistress Ambivalence, had pooled their resources together to create an army to storm the governor’s house and save their captured companion, what they found in that basement was perhaps the last thing they could have expected.

The foreboding wooden rack lay empty. The entire basement was devoid of anyone. On the floor above it, in the governor’s ostentatious-designed sitting room with its vases of fresh flowers, snug armchairs, and well-bred servants, a veteran of her art and an eager pupil discussed their passion.

Both women sat on a snug white settee with a floral pattern embroidered onto the clean white cloth.

“Oh, I see your point,” Amel said with a giggle. It was no surprise that she was laughing when her slender, pink right foot was in Li’s lap. But what was curious about the scene was that Li’s tiny foot was within her grasp too, as the two women sat opposite each other, teasing one another’s foot as they bantered. “The one finger approach has more merits than I would have thought possible.”

“Everyone always digs in right away,” Li explained, her face twitching a little as the French woman used a sharp fingernail to trace a line down her arch. “But one finger, pressed in firmly, can, ahahaha! Well, it can prove most effective, especially as a contrasting move.” Li looked up and, for the first time, noticed the retinue of armed fighters that had burst in. “Ah, my valiant friends have arrived to spring me loose.”

“Do you, erm, need rescuing?” Natasha, the big burly Russian woman asked. She waved her sword up and down, as if she were unsure if she should sheath it or not.

“I hope so, or you’ve scared us all for nothing,” Shiro muttered.

“I think I’m okay,” Li said. “We’ve worked out an accord. You see, when it comes to such a practical discipline such as teaching, there is only so much the flapping of one’s gums can accomplish. You learn much more quickly by adopting a more hands-on learning approach.

“Indeed. And I’m so glad it only took half an hour of scrubbing these dainty things with brushes before you realised how helping me would be such a boon.” Amel gave them all a beaming smile. “Would your crew like to stay for dinner? I’ll summon my servants to cook us up something.”

In reactions to Amel’s words, Christina, who had been closest to the group at the front, gasped as her stomach suddenly made a large grumble, which set everyone to chuckling.

“I think that’s a yes,” Li said amidst the sound of weapons being holstered or put away. “Dinner would be lovely. It’s good that my friends have come. Perhaps they can help with the training.”

“Training?” Shiro asked. “Who do I suddenly have a bad feeling about this?”

Li and Amel exchanged a grinning look.

That evening, they all enjoyed a scrumptious dinner of roast boar with mushrooms, onions, and apple sauce washed down with prodigious quantities of fine red wine from the vineyards of Paris. Shiro and Hana shared a moonlit walk in the gardens, Kyra discussed the ins and outs of business and merchanting with the captain of the gate, Ruby and the governor had an impassioned discussion on horticulture, and Li and Amel swapped sordid and scandalous tales of adventure.

“You’re the noble we had interrogated back then?” Li exclaimed.

Amel nodded with an air of pride. “I resisted for what must have been hours despite how unbearable ticklish my feet were under your expert fingers… oh, it was horrible! But I loved it all the same.”

“I’m pretty sure you gave up in a few minutes. Definitely not more than half an hour.”

“Foul slander! I shall prove it to you later, if you doubt me.”

Li laughed. “Deal.”

After their filling feast, some of the crew decided to head back to the ship, most of them decided to stay at the local inn, for there was not enough space in the guest house for so many. Li and Amel returned to the basement and to the rack, where Hana and Shiro served as experimental test subjects for the torment. The two servants Amel intended to train looked close to nodding off, based on their slumped shoulders and half-closed eyelids, but threats to sack them did wonders for their attention span.

Together, Amel and Li tickled the reluctant volunteers till their laughter merged together to form a delicate euphony, with Shiro’s boyish cackles softening and adding definition to Hana’s squeaks and yips. Amel demonstrated the one finger ability on the arches of Shiro’s feet, swiping up and down them with the regularity of a pendulum to coax a steady stream of stuttering laughter from the samurai girl, while Li showed how the technique was equal viable on the upper body with a slow teasing finger poking and stroking Hana’s stomach.

The two servants watched with enraptured eyes as they scribbling down notation of all the words of laughter-inducing wisdom that came from Li’s lesson. At the end of the night, the servants went to bed tired but knowledgeable, and Li accepted Amel’s challenge. It turned out that knowing all the tricks Li intended to use did not make her any less receptive to them. Amel fell asleep in the rack with a bright grin on her face, drunk on laughter and wine. Shiro and Hana loped into the spare bedroom, sharing furtive looks. Li looked out at the bright moon, smiling. Everyone was happy, at least for this night.

O-O-O

“Have you ever been in a room like this?” Hana asked, with her big brown eyes wide as she took in the guest room that Governor Guillard had so kindly offered them for the evening. Well, it had been Amel’s idea, in truth, but Hana admired the old man for being so easygoing and accepting of his niece’s eccentricities.

Compared to the cramped confines aboard the various ships and boats Hana had spent her life on, this place felt like a palace, though she was sure this was probably in reality one of the smaller and humbler rooms in the mansion. Regardless, the room was magnificent to the humble fisherman’s daughter, though it was ultimately the pleasurable company that mattered most. Candles that smelled of honey lit the room, casting shifting shadows across oil-paintings that lined the ivy-green walls, vases of freshly picked daffodils and sunflowers, and a wooden closet and table with scrollwork etched into it.

What drew Hana’s eye the most was the bed, of course. In her village home, Hana’s bed had been lumpy and consisting mainly of a pallet made of straw, but this was something else entirely. The linen were clean and sweet-smelling, embroidered with flowing golden vines, and the bed itself made Hana feel as if she were lying on a cloud. She picked up the shield-sized sack at the head of the bed and examined it, cooing in delight when it turned out to be stuffed with feathers. She was sorely tempted to try to smuggle one home, though she knew that would be a dire breach of hospitality. The best part about the sleeping arrangements were that two of these wide sacks were able to be placed side-by-side in the feather bed with no problem, so there was no lack of space for whatever… intentions they might have this evening.

And after a lifetime of sharing beds with family or crewmates, the prospect of being alone with her beloved in a room of their own was something special indeed. Privacy was a gift to be cherished indeed, especially when her partner was something so shy and preoccupied with how others saw her, despite everything that had happened together.

Despite the privacy offered to them on this magical night, Hana still sensed a reservation in her dearest. Shiro stood by the windowsill. The room had glass-paned window that overlooked a patch of pumpkins, which glowed a faint silver in the moonlight. Hana walked over, wobbling a bit as she did. She had never drunk so much alcohol before, and the sweet wines she had enjoyed this evening definitely felt stronger than the watered-down ale served aboard Captain Li’s ship.

“You were such a messy eater,” Hana said, bending down and examining Shiro’s arm. “You got some wine on your sleeve.” Hana’s nimble hands found Shiro’s strong ones, and together they watched the starry sky for a few precious moments.

“I guess I drank too much,” Shiro muttered.

“Nothing wrong with a bit of red every now and then,” Hana said, and she pulled at the hem of Shiro’s robe and brought her down so their lips met. They kissed for a long time. Hana could still taste the remnants of wine, cloves, and sinfully sweet cakes that had been served for dessert.

“You taste sweet,” Shiro murmured. Her face was very red, Hana did not fail to notice, and she had the feeling it was equal parts due to liquor and lust.

“I’ll help you get out of these dirty clothes,” Hana said with a smile, and helped the samurai fighter shrug out of her stained robes. The kimono top come off and puddled to the floor, and not for the first time, Hana marveled at the body that was hidden beneath. Tight bandages wound across her chest and arms, some due to fresh cuts across her shoulder and arms, while the others were out of modesty and shame for the ample bosom that the warrior did not want to flaunt. The stiff, clean white bandages stopped around the ribs to expose the pale skin of her hard stomach, where Hana noted strong abdominal muscles as well as a few faint white scars which glowed in the moonlight.

Hana used her palms to gently rub and caress the exposed skin. Shiro felt so warm, and Hana again wondered how much of an aphrodisiac effect the wine might have on her beloved this evening. A potent one, she dearly hoped, mentally clapping her fingers together in glee.

It seemed Shiro was having the same reaction. She shivered and quivered under Hana’s teasing fingers as they slide up and down her shaking sides or spidered across her tummy. Her arms, which had been wrapped around Hana’s neck, flew down to ward away the questing hands.

“What’s wrong, samurai?” Hana said, shifting back and forth to try to slip past Shiro’s defensive movements without breaking contact with that sensitive torso. “You seem extra ticklish tonight…”

“I-I’m nohohot!” Shiro said, sticking out her lower lip.

Hana laughed and gave her a quick peek on the lips. As their tongues met, the fisherman’s daughter let her hands creep down to Shiro’s hips to ambush her with a series of rapid squeezes. Shiro immediately shrieked with laughter, and Hana could taste the laughter bubbling in her mouth as they broke apart.

“Come on, you can take it, can’t you, tough girl?” Hana took Shiro’s elbows and pushed her arms back to where they were—wrapped around Hana’s neck. “Keep those arms there… unless it’s too much for you or something.” She giggled at the pouting look that appeared on Shiro’s face.

Oh, this was going so well, Hana thought as she slowly trickled her small fingers up and down from sides to underarms. With the way Shiro’s arms were sticking out for this embrace, it granted such deliciously easy access to those receptive armpits. She knew Sapphire would be so proud of her—the appeals to Shiro’s pride and strength had been the perfect approach. Now, the only thing left to do was tease her till she let the giggles and her feminine side free…

“Awww, your face is so cute! Are you trying to keep in your giggles?” Hana asked, kissing Shiro along the neck and collarbones. She was shorter than the warrior woman, so that gave her a good angle to do this, as well as the ticklish teasing of that lean, taut upper body, of course. “If you laugh, I get to punish you.”

“I wohon’t,” Shiro said through gritted teeth. Just seeing the look of steely, grim determination on her face while her cheeks were so red and flushed made Hana fall in love with all over again.

“You sure?” Hana stretched out the final word and chuckled to herself. She could feel the samurai’s powerful muscles clenching and shaking as Shiro fought to keep her arms in place. “Because I don’t know how much more these ticklish armpits can take.”

Suddenly, she dug her fingers in and wiggled them like worms. In an instant, Shiro was squealing with high-pitched laughter as she flopped back to avoid the fingers. She staggered away, unsteady from the tickles and the wine, and Hana pounced on her. Hana’s quick fingers made a beeline for Shiro’s stomach, and scurried away at them as she pushed the larger girl down onto the bed.

“Nohohoh, gehehehet off!” Shiro said, squeaking under Hana’s nails, especially when one crept into her navel.

“As you wish,” Hana said with an obliging smile on her face, and the scrawny girl got up. Shiro twisted till she was on her stomach, panting heavily.

Eyeing Shiro’s socked feet, Hana spied an opportunity that was far too fun to pass up. The scrawny girl hopped across Shiro’s calves to pin them down on the soft, velvety bed and set to gliding her fingernails across those trapped feet. Shiro had been wearing them all day, having only just kicked off her geta sandals moments ago when the teasing ticklish tribulations had begun, and Hana could feel how damp the way through the thick cotton of those high white socks.

Hana remembered something Li had once said about how feet that had been trapped in boots all day were always exceptionally receptive when laid bare, and she hoped dearly that this would prove true as well. Based on the way Shiro was roaring and slapping her hand on the feather mattress so hard that plumes were starting to shoot and float around the room, her sensitivity had most certainly been amplified from the moist confines of those thick socks.

“Tough girl sure has some sensitive feet tonight, huh?” Hana observed with a shrill giggle as Shiro made her feel as if an earthquake was going on because of how much she was squirming beneath her.

After a while, she eased up her frenetic scratching till her nails were only lightly teasing the arches. Hana was not ungrateful for the wondering setting that had been bequeathed to her this evening, and it would be a poor way to repair the Guillard’s hospitality by destroying the divine bed and keeping everyone up all night with their nocturnal activities.

Shiro soon got her laughter under control under this light assault, and she stopped trying to buck Hana off, though the fisherman’s daughter knew that if Shiro had truly wanted to, her legs were probably strong enough to push the lighter girl away without too much difficulty. Hana began mixing those light touches with firm fingers along the slopes and curves of those socked soles, really rubbing in with her thumbs to give her dear Shiro a soothing massage. By this point, the samurai was cooing and so placid that she almost seemed asleep, if not for the occasionally giggly gasp or moan.

It was while Shiro was in this relaxed, sedentary state of being that Hana decided to unleash her mischievous side. She kept up the massage with one hand while slowly peeling off the sock with the other till both feet were ripe for tickling. Shiro’s long, slender feet were warm and a little damp from being in the socks all day, and when Hana danced her fingernails across them, her hypothesis about enhanced sensitivity was instantly validated.

Shiro arched her back as she exploded with shouting laughter that she muffled with her mouth after a few moments. She clenched her free hand and pounded it on the bed again and again. Shiro’s legs were starting to strain and shake so much that Hana knew this wouldn’t be able to go on for much longer, especially with the way she was raking her nails up and down those pale white feet. She hooked on arm around the ankles and kept tickling away even as Shiro howled and screamed.

A few moments later, they were both in a heap on the rough wooden floor, laughing and gasping as the residual mirth spread across both of them. On that dusty floor, they kissed again and for a long time before, in a quiet voice, Shiro suggested they make good use of the bed offered to them.

They cuddled on the bed, with Hana embracing Shiro from behind. Hana tittered and said, "Who knew that you could be such a cute girl?"

"Shut up, fisherman girl,” said the endearingly flustered girl. She reached back and goosed Hana’s sides to make her squeak. “Did you mean it?”

“What?”

“That I’m… cute.”

“You bet I did,” Hana said, kissing Shiro on the ear. “The cutest little samurai I know.”

O-O-O

Epilogue:

A few months later after her rendezvous with the bold pirates of the Mistress Ambivalence, Amel Guillard woke up to quite a surprise. The surprise wasn’t a handsome stranger in her bed, or her favourite breakfast of treacle tarts, freshly-squeezed orange juice, and jam toast awaiting her on a tray beside her, but something far more… riveting.

She groggily smacked her lips together as her eyes fluttered open. She blinked and saw the golden sky peeking through the ornate curtains of her room, but as she made to get up and take a breath of fresh air, she found she was unable to move very much.

Well, well, well, Amel thought. She always liked it when her servants showed a little initiative. And this was just the kind of jolly jape that were a delight to receive and made her mornings a little extra special.

The coverlets around her legs had been thrown back, and she could observe that her bare ankles (she slept without socks or stockings in the stifling heat of Vietnam, naturally) seemed to be trapped in what appeared to be some kind of stock-like contraption, which in turn was secured to the bed with the help of some kind of harness. There were three holes in them, with her cross ankles being fitted in the middle one. The size of her feet didn’t quite match up to the holes, but the inside of the stocks seemed to be reinforced with some soft wooly material to make up for the size discrepancy. They must have enlisted the help of some clever local craftsmen to create this complex and diabolical contraption. She could not have been prouder of her darling servants.

They had recently taken to inducing a few ‘surprises’ of a similar nature into her life, and she had adored them for it. Just the other day, when an important dignitary had come calling at the chateau to have dinner with the governor and his beautiful niece, one of them had crept under the magnificent dining table with a feather in hand to skillfully tease Amel’s legs, thighs, and stocking-clad feet during the entire proceedings. It had been positively maddening to keep her laughter contained when she so badly wanted to shriek as she felt a feather pester her toes or swipe under her knee. They were starting to show some real aptitude in their craft after Li’s thorough instructions…

And this morning, it looked like they were planning on further refining said skills. Mai was the older of the pair, a thin Vietnamese girl with tanned skin and a little black ponytail who had been hired for her aptitude in French and English. She held a feather in her small fingers. Perhaps it had been her who had snuck under the table that night, now that Amel thought about it.

Manon was a relation of the head butler of the house, and she was a Parisian-born girl who had proven quite popular with the boys of the local town. Not as popular as Amel, herself, of course, but there was a lot of raw beauty in Manon’s curly auburn hair, heart-shaped face, and cool grey eyes. She had been rather timid when she first came, but Li’s training seemed to have awaken a rambunctiousness in her that couldn’t quite be quelled. In her hands she was playing with a silken white ribbon that Amel recognised as the one she usually wore in her hair.

“Good morning, mistress,” Mai said with a reverent bow of her head that was a stark juxtaposition from the cheeky smiles pasted across their young faces. “We hope you are most rested.”

“And we hope to give you a wonderful good morning,” Manon said, flexing her fingers as the two servants’ eyes darted from the tools in their nimble hands to the stocked feet in front of them.

“Oh, go on, thehehehehen!” Amel hadn’t even finished her sentence when the two servants dug into her feet with a cheery gusto.

Amel had just finished giving her toes a fresh coat of red nail polish the night before, and her foot treatments meant they were as soft as they had ever been—in perfect condition to be besieged by all manner of devilish ticklish tools. Mai took the right foot with the feather while Manon claimed the left, with both of them cooing and giggling all the while.

It didn’t take long for the French noblewoman to start giggling as well. She knew well the taste of feathers on her soles, having frequently requested it from her servants precisely because she knew how much they muddled and melted her mind with those endless bristles and their light, soft touches. She clutched her head in her hands and slumped back against the pillows with healthy chortles bursting from her lips as the feather sawed and stroked up her high arch and down again as if tracing one of the faint lines that went across her sole.

“I see you still have a soft spot for feathers,” Mai said with a wide smile across her face. “I should tease you with them during meals more often—when it doesn’t interfere with my duties, of course!”

“Gohohohohod!” Amel replied, grinning back.

The ribbon was a new sensation for Amel, and the smooth, cool, slippery material sent shivering sensations tingling up her spine (but in a good way) as the object slowly wound its way through her toes till it was through all of them at once.

“You’ll love this, mistress,” Manon said, and began slowly sliding the ribbon back and forth. Just that little tug was enough for that scrap of fabric to titillate and tantalise the highly sensitive skin along the undersides of her toes. And there was more. As the Amel’s feet reflexively strained in their bondage, the ribbon would shift up and down so it would brush against the webbing, the tips of her toes, and along the base as well depending on where the ribbon moved to, so it wasn’t just right to left movement but up and down as well!

"Ohohohoh, I cohohhould just kiss the bohohoth of you fohohor thihis!" Amel said as quick squeals and squeaks were brought out of her from the ribbon going back and forth around her toes and the persistent feathering of her arch.

“What was that?” Manon asked, with a coy smile on her face that suggested she knew exactly what Amel had said.

“Yes, please repeat your words, mistress,” Mai said, after exchanging a knowing look with Manon. “You know how much your word means to us.”

At first, Amel had been rather embarrassed by her outburst, but she soon found herself feeling very compliant after the feather took to a sustained adventure around her toes, twirling and spinning in the gaps between them.

At which point, naturally, the minxes stepped up their foot torment even more to prevent Amel from answering coherently. Every time Amel came close to finishing her embarrassing confession, they would tickle even harder.

“Bahahahahah, I-want-to-kiss-you-for this! Nohohohow gihihive meheeeheeee a breheheak!” Finally, Amel managed to get the words out, rushing out the entire sentence in almost one rushed syllable. She was breathless by then, with her blonde curls a mess across her damp forehead. Amel’s hands clutched her bedsheets or quivered in helplessness as the tinkling teasing continued, trying her best to resist the temptation to reach down and slap their hands away, which would most certainly be cheating. The tickling was proving to be a rather intense start to her morning indeed.

“I think that’s our cue to start really digging in,” Manon said after hearing Amel’s hysterical words. It seemed they had truly been emboldened by Li’s training and in more ways than one. “Mistress Amel is finished with her warm-up.”

“Oh, I agree,” Mai said, and the two servants shared an insolent look. They put down their tools and before Amel could even think about breathing a sigh of relief and get to the important business of using the washroom or getting breakfast into her belly, both servants lit into her feet with the full force of twenty fierce fingernails.

Mai was all guile and surreptitious attacks. She would scratch and spider her nails along the ankles and heels for a few moments till Amel let her guard down and her painted toes would relax and uncurl before suddenly pouncing on those plump digits with a sudden guerrilla attack at this unprotected, unsuspecting location. Her favourite thing to do was this sort of malevolent misdirection—she would skitter her nails up and down on the sides of the foot for a while, then unleash a series of super quick slicing scratches along the arch.

Manon’s attitude to tickling was much more aggressive, but no less effective for it. She scraped and wiggled her nails all over the sole in wide circular motions as if she were scrubbing a pesky stain off a piece of crockery. These quick shifting motions tended to cloister around the heel of the foot and the ball, where the natural contours of the sole made it easier to skate around. Every now and then, she would alter her attack with long raking lines, pressing in with her nails as if she were examining a fabric with her fingers to really get deep into the sensitive nooks and crevices of Amel’s sole.

Those two girls had really come into their own ever since Li’s instruction. Though, Amel could still think of ways for them both to improve. Manon would jab too hard every now and then, so her nails were poking the skin more than tantalising in in a way that was conducive to ticklish laughter. Mai’s stratagems of ambushing spots were also less effective when she was double-teaming a victim, because of how all of Amel’s nerves were already on full alarm because of the other attacked. Had it been just her tickling alone, like the way it had been during her under the table the shenanigans a few nights ago, the stop-and-start strike attacks would have been even more successful because of the anticipation and trepidation factor.

But she supposed that their methodology was imperfect was for the best. While it would be inspiring for them to have reached the pinnacle of their craft so quickly, it would be much more satisfying to see them continuously grow and nurture their techniques over time.

“Nohohoho, stahahahap! Stahahap, stahahap, stahahahap!” Amel began to wail after this had gone on for about half an hour. She was still playing along, because if she truly wished to, she could easily have reached down and warded the hands away from her oh-so-ticklish feet, for her hands were unrestrained. But that would have so spoiled this mirthful encounter. Yet there was no denying she was reaching the limit of her nigh-inexhaustible endurance.

They seemed to recognise the frantic pitch to her voice and slowly eased the tickling to a soothing massage. After that, her two servants freed her feet and then sidled up to her on either side of the bed.

“Is mistress okay? Mai asked in a tentative voice. “I hope we have not exceeded your commands.”

“Oh, of course not,” Amel said, panting and rubbing her sweat-streaked face. “I couldn’t be prouder of you, my dear demonic ticklers.”

Mai and Manon took that as their cue to continue. They lightly brushed her sides and stomach as Amel lay back in a state of pure, unaltered bliss.

Oh, how good it would be to start every morning in this heavenly way…