The Life and Times of Laurie Craft, Part 1 + 2 + 3

I realised that I haven't uploaded a bunch of my latest stories. I usually upload my stuff on DeviantArt first, so if you want to follow my work, feel free to check my page out. Without further ado:

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The Life and Times of Laurie Craft, Part 1

Laurie Craft didn’t want to look. She didn’t, didn’t, didn’t want to. Yet her eyes couldn’t help wandering over to the shop window where a neon sign read: ‘’Pleasure Emporium.” She kept her head down and shot quick, surreptitious glances at the tools on display by the window. She averted her gaze from all the crazy clamps and chains and focused on a long leather whip that was beside a riding crop.

She pictured herself with the whip in hand, cracking it against some mysterious assailant with black eyes and an evil mind trying to stop her from discovering a historical trove of treasured artefacts. He’d come at her with some curved, cruel-looking dagger in his hand, but she’d be far too fast for him, and she would smack that weapon out of his hands with a fierce snap of her wrist. “Nice try,” she’d say, adjusting her high-crowned, wide-brimmed sable fedora hat underneath her head of blonde curls. “But there’s no stopping Laurie Craft, historian adventurer extraordinaire.”

“You can go in if you want to, you know,” a female voice from behind said to snap her back to reality.

Laurie felt the heat rise in her cheeks. How long had she been staring? Curses, and she’d hoped that her best friend wouldn’t notice. “I don’t want to go on. Come on, let’s go! We’ll be late for class!”

“We’ve still got ten minutes,” Christy said, putting her hands behind her back and walking closer to the BDSM shop. “And who cares if we’re late, really.”

“I care! You know how the lecturer and everyone stares when you go in late. Seriously, I think I’d rather not go to class than be late.”

“Does that mean you’d rather check out that shop instead of going to lecture?” Christy grinned at her. With her short black hair and tall, muscular physique, it was easy to mistake her for an androgynous looking guy, and she seemed to have that same laissez-faire attitude to life than so many guys had. Sometimes, she wished she could have her friend’s aloof, unconcerned-by-all-others attitude, while other times, it drove her bonkers.

While Laurie knew she spent at least half an hour preparing before she left the house, due to choosing outfits, brushing out her hair, and miscellaneous prinking, she would be surprised if Christy spent more than five minutes. She regularly came to school in sports shoes, flip flops, shorts, t-shirts, or hoodies, with colours that seemed entirely random. She seemed to not care at all whether or not the shorts matched her shirt, or her shoes matched the stringy anklet she always wore.

Even today, Christy looked like someone who had just gone out of the house in her pyjamas. Her dark hair was sticking up in the back, her grey shirt had one dots on it that were probably toothpaste, and her black sandals didn’t match the colourful anklet at her right foot. Even her sky-blue toenail polish was chipped. It was probably more flattering to call it a sporty, casual look, but Laurie always through her best friend could look fairly hobo at times. In contrast, Laurie wore a light, flowery summer dress that accentuated her supple frame. She completed the innocent, virginal look with white flats and a pair of soft white cotton socks over tan nylons.

“Can we just go, please?” Laurie asked, shaking her head and taking a step away as her friend went right up to the glass. Oh, why couldn’t they just leave! What if someone saw them? What if the shopkeeper came outside to talk to them? What might people say about them? She didn’t want to think about the foul rumours that might spread as a result of it.

“If you’re really that scared of going in, I can pick something up for you.” Christy grinned and poked her shorter friend in the sides to make Laurie squeak.

Laurie stamped her foot and tried to force the blush from her cheeks. “Don’t you care what others might think of you?! I mean, it’s a place for all those, those kinky weirdos!”

“Really?” Christy scratched her head in an exaggerated fashion. “I guess I’m one of them. I’ve been in here a few times.” She laughed as Laurie’s jaw dropped. “You really shouldn’t look so scandalised, Elle, I’ve seen some of our classmates in here before. So, you want me to get something for you or not?”

“No. Never mind. Let’s just go.” Laurie reached for her friend’s hand and dragged her along.

Christy, who was taller and bulkier than Laurie, chuckled as she let herself be pulled. “Suit yourself.”

By some fortunate miracle, Laurie found herself in the lecture hall right as the professor arrived, so she was spared the ire of annoyed students looking at the latecomers. When a few tardy students skulked in through the back door as the teaching assistant was handing out reading material, Laurie was sure to give them poisonous looks, though most of them didn’t notice her glare. Sighing internally, Laurie turned her to the professor.

“Mind if I sit here?” asked a lanky dark-haired boy, pointing to the chair beside her.

Laurie nodded, her eyes still fixed on Professor Williamson as he leaned over the lecturer’s podium, shuffling through his papers. He adjusted his thick spectacles, cleared his throat, and dabbed at his brow with a spotted handkerchief, the same way he did before every lesson. The gesture always reminded Laurie of her favourite grandfather, and she wondered if that was one of the reasons why she enjoyed Williamson’s lectures so much.

Christy rarely lasted more than twenty minutes before going to social media on her tablet and zoning out (and begging Laurie at the end of lecture to tell her what she had missed), but Laurie found herself nodding and smiling at Williamson’s slow, drawling manner of speaking. His steady, monotone voice was almost as soothing as a lullaby, and as long as she kept herself active by scribbling notes or mentally shaking her head at some of the antics of her fellow students (the couple to the side seemed to be more interested in playing footsie than listening, the hippie girl in the back kept giggling, and she was fairly certain the boy in front was typing some kind of erotica on his laptop) she was immune to the hypnotising power of his voice.

However, today quickly proved to be different when Williamson announced he would be explaining the big assignment that would dictate their grade for the course. That kind of extrinsic motivation always made people sit up and open their eyes wide to focus.

“They say history is about the dead and long gone,” Williamson intoned, “but this project shows how the past and the present are forever inexorably linked. I will ask you all, in pairs or trios, to do research on a local group, society, or company that has been in existence for at least the past two hundred years. Show us how they evolved alongside the changing, amorphous world around us. Show us how they touched and influenced the neighbourhood with their contributions. Now, I’ll give you lot some time to sort yourselves into groups.

Christy immediately slid over to Laurie and grinned at her. The tomboy raised a tanned hand up in expectation of a high-five, which Laurie reciprocated, though a little apprehensively because of how childish she feared it made her seem.

“You guys have room for one more in your group?” It was the black-haired boy from before. His blue eyes were wide and eager, and Laurie thought his smile had that hungry, ingratiating look you sometimes saw on waiters desperate for tips.

“Laurie’s the boss.” Christy slapped her best friend on the shoulder, while the blonde student got a good look of this guy who wanted to join them. Did he look like an earnest worker? Or one of those free-riding jockeys who hoped to get a good grade by mooching off his more hard-working colleagues? She glanced at the dark rings under his eye, the barbed wire tattoo around his right bicep, his black-t-shirt and scruffy jeans, and at the fact he had not brought a notebook or even a notepad to class. The latter, it seemed.

“We’re good, thanks,” Laurie said.

“Oh,” the boy said in a quiet voice, frowning. He scratched the back of his head and shuffled his feet. “Listen, I know this assignment is a big part of the course grade, so you don’t want some rando coming in and mucking things up for you, but I’m a good guy, I swear!” His blue eyes met Laurie’s brown ones. “Let me convince you. Let’s get tea after the lecture, and I’ll tell you guys some ideas I have for this project. “

“Sorry, I don’t think that would be fair for you if we used your ideas,” Laurie said, turning away from him. “You should spend that time working with your new group instead.”

“Okay, cool…” he said in a ghost of a voice, his head a little slumped. He turned and stared at the professor, though it seemed like just a ploy so he wouldn’t have to look at Laurie.

After the lecture, Laurie and Christy made their way to a quaint little coffee shop on the outskirts of campus. It was run by a giggly gaggle of hippies, so the services wasn’t great, but the combination of mellow staff, sweet incense, fruity teas, and the lack of customers meant it was the perfect quiet place to get some work done.

“Thank you,” Laurie said, accepting the steaming mug from the smiling barrister. He was one of those rare hippies that had made it to middle-age and beyond instead of moving onto more traditional pursuits. He was big and burly, with a thick snowy beard, spectacles, and a cap to conceal his bald spot. His large tie-dye shirt might’ve made a passable duvet for the diminutive Laurie.

“Come on, super genius girl, we must have some better ideas than this,” Christy said, spinning a pen around her lithe fingers.

“What’s wrong with writing about a printing company?” Laurie replied.

“It’s deadly, deadly dull. I wish there were, I don’t know, a scandalous nightclub or a brotherhood of secret assassins or something.”

“Those kinds of organisations have a tendency of not lasting very long,” Laurie said, adjusting her horn-rimmed glasses as she went through the preliminary list of ideas they had suggested. Father Theodore’s Pentecostal Church was an easy choice, though the fact the cathedral was so close to the university meant that it was far from unique. Bill the butcher’s shop had been in the family for generations, yet again, there seemed to be a dearth of interesting content worth mentioning unless they really wanted to go through the trends regarding the meat and sinew industry over the years.

“Really? That’s so lame…” Christy said, yawning and stretching her arms up.

“Well, we still gotta pick something,” Laurie said, eyeing her friend as she lifted her arms high in the air. The movement lifted up the hem of her t-shirt to expose a few inches of a tanned torso, enough to get her belly stud glittering in the faint light. The blonde student was dearly tempted to give that tummy a poke in order to get Christy to wake up and focus a bit more on the project a hand, especially since Christy had done the same to her earlier outside that shop, but she resisted.

A jingle of the bell by the main entrance of the coffee shop shook Laurie from her stupor. Four young men and women came skipping in, with broad, beaming smiles on their faces. They seemed like the typical clientele of a bohemian establishment such as this. The men wore their hair long, almost as long as the women, and with their beards, bracelets, and ripped jeans, colourful, flamboyant shirts, they looked like they might have been some kind of band, especially since one of them had a guitar slung over his shoulder. One of them was barefoot, which Laurie found unthinkable. What if it rained? What if the ground was hot or dirty? She couldn’t comprehend why a man would do such a thing, even if there were dubious joys of the comforts of walking around barefoot.

The two women were pretty enough to be the featured singers in a group. The taller one had blonde dreadlocks and a crop top that exposed an immodest amount of flesh, and the shorter one had a red braid and wore a polo shirt with a décolleté that made Laurie blush. Both of them were decked out in beaded bracelets galore, so many on their ankles and wrists that she wondered if carrying so many would make a person tired from all the extra weight.

All four of them wore matching pendants as well, which further reinforced the idea they were in some kind of musical crew. They wore thin, silver necklaces with a grey and white feather.

Nudging, Laurie looked at her friend. “Who are they?”

“Typical hippie clientele?”

Suddenly, a loud squealing snort of laughter drew their attention. The taller blonde girl had fallen to the floor, spluttering and squeaking with reckless giggles. The cause was her shorter friend, who had snuck her fingers onto the woman’s sides and was goosing the freckled flesh, in much the same manner Laurie had been considering doing to her tomboyish companion.

Yet the blonde girl made no attempt to protect herself, even as she stretched out on the floor and was breathless with mirth. She rolled on her stomach and put her hands on her head as more laughter came gusting out of her, but her friend kept it up, straddling her back and prodding and poking her midsection all over. The two males stepped forward, and Laurie thought for a certainty that they would break up whatever quarrel had sparked this tiff, but they joined in! The men crouched down, slipped off the girl’s floral-themed flip flops and starting running their fingers along her bare feet. The anklet-clad feet kicked at the first touch, but for the most part, they stood still and accepted the abuse. There was no mistaking it now, that the blonde girl was not even trying to fight back. The girl under duress giggled and giggled, her long dreadlocks flying everywhere, but never once did she say the word “Stop”.

“What’s going on?” she said, looking around. Christy had glanced once at the group, but only once, before a vibration from her phone drew her attention. The old hippie running the store seemed equally indifferent as he thumbed through a leather-bound book he kept by the counter. And just as quickly as it had begun, it stopped. The two men pulled up the tall girl with the dreadlocks, all four of them hugged it out, and they picked up their drinks. It seemed to have gone on for a long time to Laurie—far too long—but she realised that it must have only been about twenty seconds in truth. She watched the curious foursome depart. The girl who had just been bullied by her three friends was all red-faced ebullience. What was going on?

The hippie storeowner caught Laurie’s gaze and gave her a knowing smile. “You get used to that sort of thing from the Eversmiling Commune.”

“The who?” Laurie said.

“That lot that were in here just now,” the old man said, gesturing over his shoulder.” They can get a little wild sometimes, but they’re good folk. As you’ve just observed, they like having a laugh.”

“I’ve never heard of them.”

“They’re regulars here. They run some kind of charity group out in the boonies. Something about combating depression. I think I’ve got one of their leaflets around here somewhere…” He rummaged around a stack of magazines and faded newspapers till he fished out a green pamphlet and passed it her.

“It says they’ve existed for the past four hundred years!” Laurie exclaimed, showing Christy the ‘About Us’ section. “What do you say we do this for our project?”

“Lame as hell,” Christy said. “I’ve got a way better idea.” She showed Laurie her phone screen, which showed a renfaire event was planned at the local park this weekend. “Why don’t we go there for inspiration instead? There’s gotta be something cooler than a charity about making kids smile, no?”

“I never knew you were into cosplaying,” Laurie said, eyeing her friend. She was tremendously thankful her father had been willing to drive her to the fair grounds of the renfaire, as otherwise, she would have been powerfully self-conscious about her attire. The ankle-length dress of brown wool and white headpiece make her feel some kind of nun or well-dressed peasant, but it was the best costume that could have been obtained at short notice.

“What do you mean ‘cosplaying’? This is called historical authenticity!” In contrast, Christy’s costume looked much more impressive and thought out, though it was the kind of attire that Laurie most definitely would not have dared wear on any kind of public transports. If Laurie looked she spent her days in a medieval convent, Christy looks as if she spent her time in a medieval tavern. She wasn’t exactly a wench, but she was close. Her gown was black velvet that bore the shoulders and a bit of her bosom, she had an amethyst hairnet on, and she smelled of rosewater. It would probably be fair to say that Laurie hadn’t seen her friend put this much effort into her appearance at any point this year.

“Good to know they haven’t called me a witch for my short hair,” Christy said, stroking her dark fringe. “It really wasn’t that common back then to have hair like this in those days.”

“The day is still young,” Laurie said. It wasn’t right to compare yourself to your friends, yet Laurie couldn’t help but feel plain and unappealing compared to her taller, fitter friend today. As she walked into the renfaire grounds, she couldn’t help but notice the charming smiles and doffed caps bestowed on her friend. It was at this point that Laurie felt the hot flush of shame welling up inside her. Her friend looked good today! She had put the effort into her outfit, and she deserved the accolades. Why was she being such a downer just because she felt a little jealous? She mentally slapped herself on the cheeks and resolved to be a bit cheerier. She should be happy for her friend. “But seriously, you look so stunning today that they probably haven’t noticed. I really love your outfit.”

“Aww, thanks! I had it lying around since I used it for a costume party last Christmas.” Christy cleared her throat. “Anyway, you see anything interesting? I see some stalls over there selling food and drink. Let’s get a cup of ale to get our minds working!”

“Try not to get drunk already, Chris,” Laurie said, giggling. Her vision was a little blurry since she had left her glasses behind for socio-historical realism.

Banknotes and credit cards would have been rather jarring in a place like this, so a stall at the entrance had transferred their money into currency that was more apropos for the time. The woman by the tankards took a handful of copper coins from the girls in return for a pair of wooden mugs filled with drinkthat she removed fresh from a flask. Laurie took a delicate sip while Christy made an earnest attempt to chug the whole thing down in one go.

“Wish it was a bit cooler,” Laurie said, smacking her lips. “But quite nice.”

“The fruity flavour is quite nice,” Christy said, trying to suppress a gassy burp and only half-succeeding. “Apples or cherries?”

“Apples,” said the alewife—the chunky woman with a long brown braid who sold the ale. “Well-observed. You comely lasses having a good time?”

“Yeah, it’s great fun. I’ll have another mug” Christy grinned, waving a dismissive hand at Laurie’s pursed lips and concerned look. “Any sights you’d suggest for us?”

“Well,” the alewife said, pouring another glass. “There’s some find handicrafts for sale down that road yonder. We’ve got blacksmiths, woodcarvers, and glassblowers if you’re looking to pick up a little something for your folks back home.”

“There’s potential there,” Laurie said.

Christy shrugged, sticking out her lower lip. Laurie suppressed a sigh.

“Anything a bit more outlandish? Us gals are looking for a bit of excitement of our lives.”

“Mainly her,” Laurie added.

The alewive gave a hearty chuckle. “Well, there’s a melee and a joust this afternoon. Gallant knights and action to be had there. I plan on watching meself.”

Christy turned to Laurie with a wide smile and bright eyes, but alas, Laurie had to quash that desire.

“Not what we’re looking for. Oh, come on, don’t pout! Not like there are many knights around, Chris.”

As the tomboyish girl stuck out her tongue, the alewife stroked her chin. “Can’t say anything springs to mind, I’m afraid. Maybe try your luck down the road. Plenty of entertainers down that way, like dancers, magicians, musicians, jugglers, and singers.”

“We’ll have a look, thanks.” Laurie finished her ale and dragged her best friend away before she could get too intoxicated. They walked on a dirt road, their sandals kicking up dust as they walked along. There was no chance of silence, as every passer-by gave them a warm smile and a “Good morrow to you” or a “God be with ye, girls”. It was the sort of encounter that made Laurie wonder why good manners and open friendliness to all had

“You hear that noise?” Christy asked. “Laughter?”

“Maybe there’s a jester with clever japes? Some kind of tomfoolery?” Past a stall where a puppet show was putting on a mock battle of a tiny knight against a cloth dragon, a small crowd had gathered around what appeared to be a wooden stockade. Inside the stockade was a young woman with red hair, freckles, and a revealing red bodice, and she seemed to be having a most mirthful time indeed as she giggled with laughter.

It seemed that instead of whips, the rack, or hot irons, this large, wooden stockade used tickling as its method of interrogation. Or was it not an interrogation? The young lady’s arms were free, though her ankles were closed inside the padded, snug-fitting holes of the stocks, and her arms were a flurry of constant movement. They slapped at the air, they ran through her long curly hair, they covered the girl’s mouth, they pointed, they clapped, but what they never once did was try to unbolt the latch that kept her ankles in play.

At the young redhead’s feet were a young man and woman, and they were using fingers to scratch and tease the pale, wrinkly feet so exposed in the stockade in front of them.

She recognised the amulet bouncing on the stocked woman’s ample chest—the feather amulet she had seen before in the coffee shop. Why tickling again? She had never given the act much thought, the same way she hadn’t given a lot of deliberation to whistling, winking, or skipping, but it seemed queer that it made its appearance once more. Was this connected to the Eversmiling Commune?

“What’s going on?” Laurie asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Christy said.

At the front of the wooden stockade was a little hourglass, and as the final grains of sand trickled down, one of the amulet-wearing men by the side, a young man in a leather jerkin and silver half-cape pinned in place by a feather brooch, brought his fingers to his mouth to whistle. Immediately, the two ticklers stopped, and everyone began applauding the girl whose feet had been tickled.

“A big hand to our lovely volunteer! The comely wench is feeling mighty giggly now, eh, folks?” the said young man who had whistled. The redhead blushed and nodded her head, bowing to the rain of applause that drifted over her as she climbed out of the stocks, assisted by some of the others. The guy and the girl who had been titillating her feet dropped a few pennies in a straw hat near the stocks that seemed to serve as a kind of informal tip jar. The couple were about the depart when the young man beckoned to them. “Might you two be interested in having a go as well? It’ll put a real smile on your face, we assure you! That’s what the Eversmiling Commune stands for! Bringing happiness, peace, prosperity, and stability to the community!”

“Sounds like they’d be good for this project,” Christy murmured.

“I guess. This stall is a little weird though. Who’d want to get tied up and tickled though?” The sight made Laurie curl her toes and hug herself as she imagined everyone looking and touching at the exposed bottoms of her feet. She felt self-conscious wearing crop tops or tank tops, for goodness’s sake!

But to the blonde student’s surprise, the adventurous girl who had just been doing the tickling was willing to have a go at it. She was black-haired, lithe, and leggy, in a knee-length dress of vermillion. She clasped her hands together and looked nervous as her clogs were pulled off and her bare feet were put in the stockade.

“What queer colours be this!” one of the commune people by the booth said, pointing at the dark nail polish on the girl’s toes. “A sign of corruption, I say!”

“Or maybe witchcraft!” the commune man said to the amused titters of the audience, especially the dark-haired beauty who was blushing prettily. “Any volunteers from the crowd would like to aid us? To drive the corruption from this lady and fill her with joyous purity?”

Christy’s hand shot up, and she tried to force Laurie to raise her hand too, though Laurie’s resistance was steadfast. So, Christy found herself sitting on a stool in front of the black-haired girl’s feet with another woman from the audience beside her.

Laurie watched her friend snicker and laugh as her nimble fingers skittered and spidered all over the black-haired volunteer’s pretty feet (this one was no stranger to pedicures, that was plain) to the clapping, chortling enjoyment of the crowd. The hourglass could not have been for more than a minute or two, and when it ended, the black-haired girl was breathless and beaming. She was definitely smiling, though it was clear she was a little grateful for it to have ended when it did, for Christy had just discovered how ticklish those arches of hers was, and her laughter had taken on a rather frantic quality during those last ten seconds or so.

To Laurie’s surprise, Christy declined the invitation to be in the stocks next, and she came back to Laurie with a wide smile on her face. “That was fun, eh? You should have joined in.”

“Who are these guys?” Laurie asked as the next girl, Christy’s partner, climbed into the stockade next. The short-haired brunette was soon snorting and giggling up a storm as the commune brought out a box of tools to entertain their guests with, namely a pair of wiggling feathers that seemed capable of working all kinds of devious wonders on ticklish feet.

“We’re a bit of everything.” It was the young man with the silver feather brooch. He was tall and fair, with a tidy sandy beard. “I’m Michael, one of the commune members. I’ll be glad to answer your questions. In return for a little favour.”

“What’s the favour?” Christy asked, after the two girls had introduced themselves.

“It’s only fair that you have a go in there later, right?” He jerked a thumb back at where the short-haired girl was laughing her head off as feathers pestered her toes. “Doing the tickling is only half the experience, no?”

“That’s true,” Christy said, giggling. “I guess I’ll take one for the team if you help us out.”

“What exactly is your group?”

“The Eversmiling Commune has worn many hats during its inception. We’ve been missionaries preaching the importance of happiness. We’ve been inquisitors rooting out foulness and negativity. We’ve been adventurers searching for lost artefacts of old. These days, we work mainly as a summer camp of sorts. You know, team building exercises? Relaxing retreats?”

“That’s fascinating,” Christy said, looking directly at Laurie. “Right? You guys have a rich and significant history, that say, a couple of undergrads could focus on for a project.”

“I suppose,” Laurie said.

“We’re happy to assist you with any information you require,” Michael said, smiling. “Just come on down to our commune, and we’ll be glad to show you around.”

“Thanks for that.” Christy smiled back. “I guess I should return that favour to you now, huh?”

His smile grew wider and he burst into laughter. “Alright, then.” He gestured to his Eversmilers manning the booth. “I’ll take this one.”

The soul of chivalry, Michael held Christy’s hand as he led her to the stockade, where the short-haired brunette was just finishing. He kissed her on the top of the hand, sat her down, untied her shoes and from the way his head bent down as he slipped off her sandals, he was seriously contemplating giving Christy’s pink toes a little kiss as well.

Maybe it was from the tickling or just because the guy was cute, but a gleeful, giddy grin had blossomed rather quickly on her best friend’s flushed face. Her reactions overall seemed a bit more extreme than usual, but that was probably became of the hormones, pheromones, and adrenaline that must have been coursing through her BFF’s body. Christy’s laughter normally had a rough, boyish quality to it—a steady guffaw intermingled with copious curses—at least that was what Laurie remembered during the occasional occasions her friend had been tickled on the sides by a boyfriend or gal pal. But as Michael sat down in the stool in front of her bare feet and started stroking up and down them with slow, gentle caressing touches, Christy burst into a steady stream of high-pitched giggles. Laurie found it to be somewhat of an affectation, a bit like when you put on a slightly posher accent or used more highfalutin words when you met your prospective in-laws or someone you wanted direly to impress.

Laurie didn’t watch for very long. It was not unlike watching someone do a painting or blow glass. Maybe, it was initially sort of intriguing, but after the first twenty seconds or so, it was hard for it to retain your attention, as there wasn’t all that much to look at. Her inquisitive mind quickly drifted back to the project at hand. There were quite a few avenues to explore, which was great, as they had five-thousand words to fill in this project that would be worth a meaty chunk of their final course grade.

She had just about sorted out a tentative introduction to the paper when a still somewhat hysterical Christy returned.

“That was educational,” said Christy. She clutched a bit of paper in her hand, which Laurie quirked an eyebrow at.

“You got his number, huh? That’s a bit anachronistic. Those are the devil’s numbers.”

“Oh, hush. I was a good girl!” Christy tittered, slapping her chest. “I found us our research topic.”

“And found a date with a handsome dude at the same time! Oh, Christy.” Laurie’s voice trailed off, but she gave her friend an affectionate pat on the shoulder. “Come on, your throat must be sore from all that giggling. Let’s get some more ale and discuss the project.”

“Any chance we could just do the first one?” Christy grinned, till Laurie poked her in the side.

O-O-O

“You said we would be going somewhere fun,” Christy said, frowning at the slate-grey entrance of the building that loomed overhead.

“What, the museum isn’t fun enough for ya?” Laurie replied.

Her tomboy friend gave a big yawn that was scarcely concealed by a tanned hand. “I should have known nothing good would happen when you told me to meet you at 8:30 AM. Nothing good happens this early.”

“Don’t we have lectures around that time?”

“Stop pretending like you don’t know I’m half-to-ninety-percent-asleep in those. Anyway, what are we doing here? I thought we already decided we were going to research that commune.”

“Well, here’s the thing—we don’t really know much about them. They aren’t exactly shrouded in proverbial mystery, but I’m still not entirely sure what they did. And you know how people love to exaggerate and make themselves sound more important than they are.”

“As the most important girl in the county, I resent that claim.”

“Of course you do. Anyway, let’s look around the Heritage Museum and see if they get mentioned at all. If they’re as renowned and prestigious as that Michael guy made them sound, they must appear somewhere in all the logs here.

“Can’t we do this on the internet?” Christy groaned as she followed Laurie in, her flip flops slapping across the tiled floors. They bought tickets at the counter and pushed past the turnstile. The local museum wasn’t exactly a sensation hotspot, so the place was abandoned and silent aside from a cap-wearing janitor pushing a mop around the floors. The smell of lemony air freshener was strong in the air.

“Didn’t really find much, to be honest. They don’t even have Twitter.”

“I guess they’re old-school.”

“Yeah, well, let’s find exactly how old these guys really are.”

Christy stretched her arms up, gave another big shuddering yawn, and nodded. “Did we have to do this so early in the morning?”

“What are you talking about?” Laurie pursed her lips into an incredulous frown. “I’ve been up since six-thirty planning this out. After this, we hit the library archives. By then, we should have enough information to deduce whether or not this is an avenue of research worth pursuing.”

“You sure know how to plan out an exciting Sunday.”

“Don’t be like that,” Laurie said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a flask to hand to her best friend. “I know you need a little something to perk you up in the wee hours.”

Christy gave a sniff and grinned. “You sure know how to spoil a girl. Is this the ale from the fair?”

“Thought it would put you in the right mindset. Don’t chug it all in one go, alright? That needs to last us the whole morning.”

For the next few hour or two, the two university students perused the contents of the library with a meticulous eye. They were scrolls, letters, paintings, and tapestries on gorgeous albeit somewhat dry display in the museum’s three floors, and the girls had the place to themselves as they combed through all the artefacts that ranged in age from a few decades to several centuries.

The Early Modern English with its thees and thous weren’t always very easy to decipher, but it was better than some of the ancient texts that used Old English which was almost impossible. And to her cautious delight, Laurie did note several times the Eversmilers were mentioned, though some of them were dubious, as the names seemed a little different such as ‘The Grinning Dawn’, ‘The Eternal Smile’, and ‘The Laughing Judges’, but that was to be expected with a group that evolved over time. Close examination of their deeds, such as witch-hunting, doctors, and warriors, seemed to be back up the Eversmiling Commune’s claims.

Christy had better spatial recognition, so Laurie assigned to look at the paintings and portraits for any sign of that distinctive feather amulet that the commune wore. And again, although the feather design seemed to have changed over the years and gone through a variety of fashion trends in terms of size and colour, it was undeniable that the feather made sporadic appearances, some of them even worn by the leaders of this town.

“These guys are everywhere,” Christy murmured.

“Well, not exactly,” Laurie said, shrugging. “But they’re certainly more prominent than I would have imagined.”

“Spreading laughter and cheer throughout history,” Christy said in a voice that was part awe and part amusement.

“Something like that. Say, do you, do you hear something?” Laurie’s ears pricked up at the low murmur of laughter. It was coming from the other room—the room of statues, and the sound of the chuckles sent tingles down her spine. It shouldn’t have. What was all that ominous about laughter? By its nature, it was an expression of joy, good humour, and mirth. But after reading accounts of how the Eversmiling Commune had sharply questioned witches with “the purest method of interrogation that leaveth not a mark” and also organised ordeals by tickling—trials where defendants could only prove their case by enduring and not allowing themselves to laugh.

Laurie’s Mary Janes and Christy’s flip flops slapped on the floor as they followed the sound of the laughter. The museum was empty, wasn’t it? It had been deserted when they got here. Shaking thoughts of ghost stories from her mind, Laurie turned into the next room to see a familiar boy that filled her simultaneously with relief and disappointment.

“Oh, sorry!” Trevor said, putting down his smartphone. His black hair was an unruly tangle, there were circles under his blue eyes, and his cheeks were a little flushed. “Was I being too loud?”

“What’s so funny, Trev?” Christy asked. “Care to share the joke?”

“It’s, uh, a bit personal.” Trevor fiddled with his phone as if unsure if he should pocket it or show it.”

“We can handle it,” Laurie said. “It’s nothing creepy, right?”

“N-not at all!” Trevor showed them their phone. It was the picture of a cat riding a skateboard. The absurdity and anti-climax of the situation made both girls laugh more than they should have. “So, what are you guys doing here? Project going well?”

“Something like that,” Laurie said, scratching her cheek. “You?”

Trevor shrugged and chewed his lip. “I got assigned to a group with one guy who never comes to class and another who seems to spend most his time smoking pot. Guess I’m gonna have to solo this one.”

Laurie looked down as her guilt panged at her. Thankfully, boisterous Christy was quick to swoop in on this deepening awkward silence. “What research are you doing?”

“Nothing specific, to be honest. We don’t even have a topic yet. Just looking for ideas, you know? I guess you guys are doing the same?”

“Nah, we got something already,” Christy said in a cheery voice. “Heard of the Eversmiling Commune?”

“The who?”

Laurie showed them a picture of the amulet the Eversmilers wore, and Trevor nodded and made an aahing sound.

“Oh, the Smilers. They’re sort of like this old boys club, right? Like the Brownies for the rich and affluent.”

“Are they?” Laurie and Christy exchanged a look. “That’s not what we heard.”

“I remember the last mayor was one of them.” Trevor bent over his phone and flicked till he found a picture of the former mayor of the town. The necklace she wore was silver and flecked with jewels, but there was no mistaking the feather design on it.

“You know anything else about these guys?” Laurie asked.

“From what I heard, they’re also some kind of quasi-religious group,” Trevor said, stroking his chin.

“Michael definitely never mentioned that,” Christy said to Laurie. “Are you sure, Trev?”

“Erm.” Trevor scratched the back of his head and took a step back, chewing his lip and starting to flush, though whether it was from the demanding, defensive tone in Christy’s shrill voice or because he didn’t like the uninitiated intimacy of being called Trev, Laurie couldn’t be certain. “Well, I’m not a hundred percent certain, but I went hiking the other day—”

“—you go hiking?” Christy asked, crossing her arms and staring at his pale skin.

“Yeah, it’s nice in the winter when it’s not too hot,” Trevor said, his face crinkling into a concerned frown.

“Chill, girl,” Laurie said, patting her friend on the shoulder. She shouldn’t get so worked up just because that cute Michael guy might not have been entirely honest. “You were saying, Trevor?”

“Well, they’ve got this big cemetery up in the mountains. There was a big gate around the whole place, and it was foggy that day, so I couldn’t really see much of it, but I definitely saw their logo around the entrance.”

“How big was the place?” Laurie asked.

“Pretty large. It was lined with, uh, what do you call it? Sepulchres? There must have been at least a few hundred. There was this big cathedral in the middle where I heard these guys conducting some kind of service.”

“Service?” Christy repeated.

“I guess it was a eulogy or something? The doors were closed, so all I could hear was the murmur of voices and a bit of laughter.”

“That’s a bit weird, isn’t it?” Laurie quirked an eyebrow.

“Well, their life philosophy is to be positive and optimistic about everything,” Christy said. “It makes sense that they’d try to extend that mindset to stuff like death. I remember I went to a funeral once where the priest opened with a joke.”

“So yeah,” Trevor said. “That’s all I know about them. Good luck on your project, I guess.”

“Wait, can you take us to this tomb place?” Laurie asked. Creepy as a foggy cemetery in the middle of the lonely mountains sounded, it did seem like a great place for some research—or at the very minimum, the cemetery with the Eversmilers’ mark would make a great picture to use on the cover page of their assignment to symbolise their legacy.

“Uh, it’s kind of out of the way. And you know, I am a little busy with my own stuff.”

“What if we invited you into our group?” Christy said. It was so typical of Laurie’s energetic and spontaneous friend to make an offer like that without any prior consultation at all, but it wasn’t a terrible suggestion. “You would be helping your team out, right?”

“I guess that would make it okay. You mind sending an email to the prof now to confirm it?” A smile began creping on the corners of the tall boy’s mouth. Laurie could see how he was trying to play it cool, but from that pleased grin and the excitement that slipped into his voice, she knew he was over the moon.

Later that night, Laurie made her preparations for this strange trek she was about to embark on. The blonde girl hated to be so pessimistic about her fellow student, but she made sure to tell her parents very clearly where she was going and with whom, just in case Trevor was just luring them into something outlandish. Going up into the mountains was the kind of way many sad stories about raped and murdered girls went, and it never hurt to be cautious. Therefore, Laurie planned to eschew her usual dress and black mary janes for attire that was a bit more flexible and tough. Tomorrow, she would wear jeans, boots, and a polo shirt along with a masculine backpack instead of her usual handbag. She brought her pepper spray as well and kept it in her back pocket—the strong stuff meant for scaring away bears. There weren’t any bears in these mountains, unless they were of the two-legged kind who masqueraded as humans.

She thought about telling Christy to prepare similar items for such eventualities, but she knew her friend would just shake her head and go ‘Oh, Laurie’ as if such cautiousness were absurd, though in fairness, the tall girl had a decent amount of muscle on her sinewy frame, and her usual attire was sporty and super-practical to begin with.

Still, setting out on some trip into the mountains on the outskirts of town where this supposed cemetery was sent shivers tingling down Laurie’s spine. Despite being tucked in bed with all her clothes and stuff laid out for their excursion, she found sleep impossible to grasp. The sweetness of slumber seemed forever afar as fears swarmed around her. Not just of Trevor, but of what they might find in this tomb. She tried to exorcise all thoughts of ghosts, spectres, and spirits. It was all just superstitious nonsense. Thoughts of such childish notions made her want to scoff with ridiculousness, but there was no denying the tingle in her bones, the chill on her neck, or the frost that caught in her throat as she remembered all the Eversmiler’s inquisitions in history, their peculiar spirituality, nor Michael’s wide, stretched smile. There was something off about these guys, something off-kilter, even if she couldn’t quite determine what it might be. All she had were a dozen different puzzle pieces pointing her in different directions, and she didn’t have half the clues she need to put it all together. Maybe, she’d get them tomorrow.

But tonight, all these doubts and qualms seemed to coalesce into something dark in Laurie’s subconscious. What her conscious, cognisant mind was unable to quantify and ascertain, the deeper, darker recesses of her psyche were all too happy to put to use.

Laurie blinked and coughed, finding herself floating from her bed to a world of mist and smoke. Goosebumps lined her pale bare skin. She tried to brush them, rub some warmth back into them, but her limbs no longer obeyed. It was as if she were in a pool, rolling and sweeping along the waves. And like when you were doing backstroke, your eyes were drawn upwards to the ceiling, but what she saw there was unlike the electric lights or skyline you saw in any pool. Entangled in black clouds, she saw Christy writhing, shouting, and squealing. The thunderclouds formed hands that pinched at her tanned body, stroked at her bare soles, prodded her sides, and snuck under her armpits. Laurie reached out, tried to shout something, but her body remained as uncooperative as ever. The black clouds shifted again till they turned human, turned into a male caressing and coupling with her friend. Laurie would have given anything to avert her eyes from the two naked bodies on the black mattress. She blinked and the man squeezing Christy’s sides as he drove up into her was Trevor, Michael, and then Trevor again. Christy shrieked, laughed, before starting to sigh and moan, with her eyes rolling back in her head in a wanton display of foul pleasure.

And Laurie herself could only quiver when she felt something stirring in the waters around her. Something cool and wet slid across her bare back, tracing down from the nape of her neck down to her tailbone and back again. It was as gentle as a feather, but it hit Laurie as hard as an anvil. Where had her pyjamas gone? She could only whimper and will for her dream to hurry up and end, but you can’t always get what you want. More of these slow, wet fingers brushed against her. Wait, were they tongues? She tried to twist away, tried to curl up, tried to close her eyes, but she was still trapped. Up there, she saw the fornication of her poor best friend. Down here, there was nothing to dwell on but strange straying touches. The fingering tongues had multiplied, and Laurie didn’t want to count how many there appeared to be. There was definitely plenty on her feet, lapping and licking up her arches and pink-painted toenails like some bizarre pet. Those weren’t the worst, however, as that singular honour were the ones around her midsection. Her stomach wanted to spasm and twitch away as one of those blasted things probed her navel while several others swept around her sides. Several seemed to tracing her ribs, going up and down and back again as if they had lost count and needed to start the examination all over again. Several more strayed upwards past her ribs and between her armpits, and those? Those Laurie simply refused to give any attention to whatsoever, not that her traitorous body was playing along with her brain’s command. A few of those odd appendages also wandered around her armpits and inner thighs as well, just to add another torturous spice to this cruel concoction.

When the shuddering torment reached its finale, when Laurie reached some kind of brutal conclusion right when dream Christy reached her climax, it all ended. Laurie was back in her own bed, heart pounding, sheets sweating, and her mind a jumbled mess. She stood up and went to the bathroom, and every slow step was shaky.

Why had she dreamed that? What had it all meant? Had she felt jealousy seeing Trevor with Christy? Had she felt anger of someone stealing her best friend? She ran a hand through her messy blonde hair and groaned. Subconscious, she thought, in future, could you please keep that stuff to yourself?

The Life and Times of Laurie Craft, Part 2

Laurie couldn’t remember the last time she had hiked, though by the time they had trekked for about twenty minutes and she was starting to feel the stubborn dampness around her armpits and the small of her back, she could most certainly recall why she had avoided this particular activity at all costs. The golden sun roasted her pale skin, pests buzzed around, and her knees were creaky and tired from the uphill trek. How could anyone want to do this for fun? What joy was there to be had? Humanity had developed technology, like cars, bike, and escalators precisely so they could avoid this kind of walking.

It didn’t help that she might have had four hours of sleep if she were being very generous. Alongside her, Laurie’s two companions seemed to be faring a little better. Trevor’s wardrobe consisted almost entirely of black, and dark colours were not advised in the sunlight because of how dark clothing absorbed it all instead of reflecting it away the way lighter colours would. But despite him tugging at the collar of his t-shirt and mopping at his face with a small towel, he was smiling and chatting happily to Christy. It appeared both of them followed the local college basketball team. Trevor didn’t seem the type to know much about the nerdy APBRmetrics that Christy sometimes prattled on about, but after listening with half an ear to a few scraps of conversation, he seemed to have the jargon and know what he was talking about.

Although Christy wore her usual short shorts and random t-shirt combo, all the mosquitos in the area seemed to be magnetised towards Laurie, and she soon had plenty of itchy bites along her forearms and her neck. True to her personality, she was as unflappable and unchanged as ever. Her neon sports shoes seemed to skip and glide over the rough terrain, and from her broad smile and jolly tone of voice, she was in the epitome of her element. And she even had the ability to perspire in a way that made her flushed face look even prettier. Conversely, Laurie knew that her cheeks would be red and splotchy by the end of the day without a doubt, and she were especially unlucky, she would probably be sunburnt as well.

For the first half hour or so, a huffing and sweating Laurie hung back and watched the two of them as they bantered and chatted. The two of them were almost the same height, and Laurie had to force herself to look away from the sight of the pair looking so chummy and happy. Jealousy was not a morsel she was trying to wean herself off of, so she tried to focus on the sun, the trees, or her phone, but none of them proved all that enticing—the sun and sky were too bright, the trees hummed with the sound of thousands of unseen vermin, and her phone had lacklustre signal.

After tripping on a half-concealed log, Laurie even managed to nick the palm of her hand on some kind of nettle-y purple plant, which prompted a pained yelp.

“You alright?” Christy called from the front of the group.

“Fine.” The last thing Laurie wanted was to complain and be a big baby over getting a small booboo, though her hand started to throb within a few minutes. Also within a few minutes, the trio began glimpsing the outskirts of the forlorn structure in the wilds that could only be this graveyard that Trevor had mentioned. A thicket of clouds passed overhead to throw shade over them all to grant them a brief respite from the sun, and the wind began to pick up again, blowing the scent of the woods, the flowers, and the faint smell of incense all around them.

True to Trevor’s word, the area was ringed by a high iron fence that was overgrown with moss. But after a bit of walking, they found a thick tree looming over an area of the fence. They took turns shimmying over the tree and clamouring down. Trevor and Christy were up and over with little difficulty—Christy in particular scurrying over quickly and landing with lithe, feline grace. However, Laurie’s wounded hand and lack of upper body strength made hauling herself up the tree to get up the fence took longer than the others, and when she hopped off the tree to land in the burial grounds, she tumbled and ended up slamming her bad hand on a pointy twig when she tried to keep her balance.

Swallowing down profanities, Laurie refused the hands offering to pull her back and got back to her feet. She took a deep breath and pulled out her phone—still no signal, of course, but she took a few pictures of some of the tombstones here, noting the omnipresent symbol of the Eversmilers. Her two companions were doing the same while murmuring and talking with one another, but Laurie shushed them both when she saw the glimmer of figures in the distance, right in the centre of the cemetery where a large slate-grey mausoleum pushed out from the ground like a spire. The three of them huddled together, creeping around tomb stones and stumpy trees for cover as they crept closer to the assembled gathering.

“Are these guys here for a funeral?” Christy whispered.

“Maybe,” Trevor said. “That’s the old mayor over there, right? I mean former. She’s not really old, is she?”

Laurie scratched her head. “She’s not really dressed for mourning, is she?” With her tall figure and distinctive hair, ex-mayor Helena Hawthorne was easy to spot. She stood near the centre of the crowd. For a woman that had to be in nearing her fifties, she had the lush white skin, stark blonde hair, and tall, toned figure of someone twenty years younger. Ever since her tenure had ended five or six odd years ago, she had mostly disappeared from public notice, though there were occasional mentions of her in the papers on account of her charity works or minor events she was hosting. At funereal grounds, you would have expected her to dress in black, but she looked as if she were dressed for some kind of bohemian festival. She wore a strapless, sleeveless brown dress that was accentuated with beads and other artful ornamentations. Combined with the amulet around her neck and her gladiator sandals, the former mayor looked far more relaxed than she ever had in the stern blazers she had ever worn during her time in office.

Helena and several other similarly garbed men and women walked into the mausoleum, and the heavy oak doors closed behind them, so they all disappeared from view. Laurie would have imagined that this might be the time a service would be expected to start, but the noise she heard from the open windows seemed incongruous with that sort of thing. During most funerals, it was common to hear the solemn voice of a minister, the gentle sound of sobbing, or the suppressed snuffles of the bereaved, but the sound that came pattering out of that large building was of whooping, shrieks, and chanting.

The other clues to whatever was going on inside proved no less helpful. Laurie’s eyes stung as smoke wafted over to where the three curious trespassers skulked. Despite the light of the hazy afternoon, there was no mistaking the faint orange glow within the structure. Was there some great big roaring fireplace inside there?

“Did this happen last time?” Laurie asked as the singing, chortling voices grew louder like some strange symphony.

“Definitely not,” Trevor said. “Should we call the cops? Something strange has to be going on in there, right?”

“Good plan, but what are we going to say to them? They ask us for evidence of wrongdoing, and what can we give them?” Christy scratched the back of her head. “I agree that this place smells fishy, but we can’t tell the cops to come just because we think something freaky might be up.”

A woman’s frantic wailing squeal cut through the humid air. Having attended several events where the mayor had given speeches, Laurie recognised that soft, melodious laughter anywhere, though it did sound more strained than it usually did. What was going on inside? It was the soaring, hysterical laugh of a mad scientist.

“Should we take a look inside?” asked Trevor as a droplet of sweat trickled down his cheek.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Laurie said, shaking her head. “Who knows what’s going on in there?”

“That’s exactly why we need to go take a peek,” Christy said, tiptoeing and trying to get a better angle. “It sounds like they’re having some kind of freaky orgy in there, doesn’t it?”

“That didn’t occur to me at all,” Laurie lied, as that thought having popped into her head just now when the mayor’s latest gasping groan cut through their debate. “You’ve got an overactive imagination.”

Christy shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. I say we go in.”

“I’ve got a really terrible feeling about this,” Laurie said. “Let’s just go. We’ve got our pictures of some of the tomb markers here, and that should be enough.”

“Enough? Are you okay not knowing what that is?” Christy jerked a thumb back at the large building where shadowy flames continued to dance. “C’mon, girl, where’s your sense of adventure!”

Laurie chewed on her lower lip and said nothing. It was easier to fantasise about adventures than go out and live them with great peril and danger as your constant companions.

“Shall we vote on it?” Trevor asked.

“Yes, let’s,” Christy said, nodding. “All those in favour?” She raised her hand as Trevor raised his. “Looks like you’ve been outvoted, galpal,” she said to Laurie and gave Trevor a quick high five.

“I still really don’t think we should do this,” Laurie insisted, shaking her head.

“Tell you what—why don’t you stay out here, then? You can be our backup. BRB.” Christy gave her much shorter friend a quick pat and departed. Laurie sniffed as she watched Christy and Trevor skulk near the shadows of that building where all the strange noise was coming from.

Christy’s voice was soft with kindness, but the lingering feeling that Laurie herself was being cowardly was a hard one to shake. Laurie hugged herself. Resolving to make the most of the time, she took a few more pictures with her cameraphone, wandered the dusty site, and tried to see if there were any places where the signal was a little stronger. But the pictures she took were bland and uninspiring, the grim graveyard held no more surprises, and staring at her phone did not miraculously give it stronger connectivity. Laurie sighed and found herself constantly checking her watch—two minutes, five minutes, six minutes, and now ten. Why weren’t they back yet?

Her heart was pounding as she could feel sweat forming on her brow. She wanted to shout at her body for being so absurdly scared and making much ado about probably nothing. Her hand that had been nicked by that plant felt as if it were on fire. She closed her eyes and when she opened them, saw shadowy shades rising from the tombstones. She gasped and took a step back, tripping over a step and landing heavily on her back.

What was going on? Did that plant have some kind of hallucinogenic properties? Or was this all just the result of a fearful hysteria? Figures of ghostly blue rose from the ground, smiling, pointing, and laughing at her. These were not skeletons, but the toned, powerful men and tall, buxom women in the summer of their youth, and they taunted her with their dangling nudity and sculpted figures.

Laurie closed her eyes and tried to block out the noise. It was just an illusion, a rampant imagination, a wild fantasy—these things weren’t real, and they couldn’t hurt her. But then something real, a hard, rough hand was shaking her shoulder. She opened her large blue eyes and gasped.

“Time to go!” It was Christy, and her friend’s face was flushed and beaded with sweat.

A shout from behind reinforced the dire magnitude of Christy’s words. The hippie-esque mourners were filtering out of the cathedral, and they were pointing and yelling in their direction, with some of the younger and more athletic members of their clique turning to chasing after them.

Her mind operating entirely on autopilot, Laurie put her right foot in front of the other and began running along, her frenzied and panicked mind following the bouncing red backpack in front of her that was Christy.

Therefore, it was when that red backpack was snatched by a brown blur, that Laurie’s mind went spinning out of control.

“Let go of me!” Christy shouted as a man in denim and a t-shirt grabbed her by the wrist.

“Chris!” Laurie called while the athletic girl wrenched her arm free and kicked him hard in the shin, but the man laughed when she sprang free.

“Laurie, we can’t stop here,” Trevor said, who was gasping and out of breath. He had skidded to a stop, and Laurie realised she must have as well. The pounding of footsteps showed that the rest of these strange people were trampling towards them as well.

“Go on without me!” Christy shouted when she saw the two of them were lingering. “I’ll lose these weirdos and catch up!” There were two men around her, grinning boys scarcely out of their teens, and they were looming on either side of her. She feinted left and right, catching one of the lads leaning in the wrong direction and broke free of their encirclement.

Seeing her friend’s success snapped Laurie out of her trance. She nodded to Trevor and they broke off into a sprint, with the girl sparing glances at the streaking red backpack that was running a few metres to the side of them.

Laurie and Trevor, despite not being the most fleet of foot, had managed to make good distance from their pursuers, though they still faced a rather pressing problem.

“I see the gates over there!” Trevor pointed.

“Locked gates,” Laurie puffed. “How are we getting through them?”

A shed near the fence beside a waist-high tombstone was the answer. Using them as stepping stones, the two of them were able to leap the fence, though both landed in a ruffled heap of leaves and branches when they reached the other side.

But when they looked around for the third member of their roster, Christy was nowhere to be found. Laurie’s watery eyes scanned the dusky graveyard for their friend, but they could only see a red backpack fallen on the ground. She saw the last of the strange Eversmilers skulk back into the large cathedral.

“They took her,” Trevor mouthed, slapping his forehead. Laurie only saw his lips move, for the revelation had deafened everything. Her best friend in the whole world had been taken by these strange people. And why? She had suspected they might have got a stern talking to for being such nosy busybodies, but this?

“Why? What’s going on?” She grabbed Trevor by the arm and shook him. “Tell me everything you guys saw in there, right now.”

“Not now,” he said, glancing about. “We’re not out of the woods yet, figuratively and literally. I’ll tell you once we get some distance from here.”

“Once my phone works, we’re calling the cops,” Laurie insisted, and he did not object.

The trek back down the woods towards civilisation and the blessed zone of better cell reception seemed to take a lot longer than it had going up. Laurie’s phone was forever in her hand, and she made a dozen calls to law enforcement that were unsuccessful.

“Can you tell me what happened now?” Laurie asked after fifteen or so minutes had elapsed from their hasty flight from the Eversmiler’s burial grounds.

Trevor sighed and scratched the back of his head, running his fingers through his thick black hair. “I don’t know what to make of it. We thought they were singing hymns at first, but it seemed to be some kind of ritual.”

Laurie’s pale eyebrows shot up. “Explain. Elaborate.”

“That ex-mayor, what was her name again?”

“Helena Hawthorne.”

“Yeah, her. She was strapped to the middle of this stone slab in the centre, and she was naked. There were about half a dozen men and women touching her—we were too far to see exactly what was happening, but she seemed to be screaming and giggling in equal measure. The others were in the back watching. Some of them were chanting, but we couldn’t work out the words. It wasn’t any language I recognised.” Trevor shrugged. “It was all mighty confusing.”

She sighed. Laurie had expected many things, but this didn’t seem to be it. “What are we going to tell the cops?”

“That our friend was abducted.”

“Yes, but what else? The stuff about a ritual and chanting…” Laurie sighed again. “It sounds ridiculous. They’re probably going to make us take a Breathalyzer test. And we don’t have much in the way of proof, do we?”

“Christy is gone. That’s proof enough, isn’t it?”

“I hope so.” But the pragmatic, practical side of Laurie doubted it. “Maybe we should try to get her out. Attempt a rescue.”

“What, you mean talk to them?” Trevor’s voice was gentle, but she could sense incredulity just below the surface. “Explain that we didn’t mean to spy on them? They weren’t all that interested in listening to explanations when they saw us.”

“Something like that. Or bust her out.” She knew that’s what Christy would do for her if their situations were reversed. And it would be an adventure, one that Laurie knew she had to undertake.

“I’m not sure about this. Let’s see if we can get the cops to solve this first.”

The police did not prove helpful. The officer that responded to their call was a man of around fifty years, with deep circles around his eyes, heavy jowls, and he crossed his arms as soon as they began recounting what happened. Although, he never said that he wondered if the two of them were on drugs, his tone and huffy scepticism suggested his thinking definitely was in that direction. But the officer promised to fill a report and that he and his partner would both go up to the forest

When the portly officer returned with his partner, a younger woman with an auburn ponytail, the two of them went up to the forest. They returned within an hour, with shrugs and a suggestion that the two of them go home and wait for their friend.

“You’re not going to do anything else?” Laurie shook her head. “Didn’t you go to that creepy place?”

“There’s no need to shout, young lady.” The policewoman’s scowl was poorly concealed. “We went to the burial grounds and spoke to the parish there. They didn’t see your friend, and they had plenty of witnesses to corroborate.”

“Then where is she? You’re saying my friend just disappeared into the ether?”

“Those woods aren’t especially big nor dangerous. There’s no bears or cougars up there. Your friend probably got lost. If she isn’t back by nightfall, we can talk about organising search parties.”

“Damnit, aren’t you the least bit concerned?” Laurie said, waving her arms up in the air.

The policewoman cleared her voice. “The police are concerned for every citizen. But have you considered that your friend might just want to be alone for a while?”

When the police left, Laurie slumped down on a log, feeling as if the heavy weight of a corpse were on her shoulders. Trevor came close, stretched his arm out and then pulled it back a few times as if in tremendous indecision, and then put the tentative hand on her shoulder for an awkward pat.

She tried to reconcile the certitude of what she had seen with Trevor’s account of the bizzaro ritual and the officers’ well-meaning words. If Christy really were fine, surely she wouldn’t still be incommunicado even now! For a certainty, the tomboyish girl wasn’t the most responsible gal, but even she still would have responded to the half-a-dozen texts that Laurie had sent her.

But maybe there was an explanation to this that wasn’t seeped in the sinister. There probably was one that didn’t involve Christy being violently chastised for being a Peeping Tom of sorts, though Laurie was struggling to think of a logical one that didn’t reek of wishful overly positive thinking.

“What’s the plan now?” Trevor asked.

Laurie was about to speak when the spasm of a yawn took over her mouth and engulfed her words. Hopped up on adrenaline, she hadn’t realised how tired she was from the multiple trips up and down the mountain, the fearful fleeing, and the early morning. She checked her watch and saw it was several minutes past four.

“I think I’m gonna have a siesta. When I wake up, hopefully all this,” she waved a hand at the hills and sighed, “will start to make more sense.”

“Alright, cool,” Trevor said, nodding. “With any luck, we’ll hear from her soon. If not, we’ll just call the cops again, right? Search parties and all that.”

“Yeah. I wonder if I should tell her parents so they can kinda brace for the worst.” Christy’s parents probably would be less worried than Laurie. Christy was a fan of the all-nighter, and she had gone out drinking and partying many a time that her parents had almost become used to her occasional escapades. If only what was happening right now was just something like that.

After trudging home and a sharp, cool shower, Laurie collapsed in bed. She was so exhausted she didn’t even bother blow-drying her hair and instead opted for a quick, vigorous towel-drying that wasn’t even close to thorough. In bed, the tribulations of the day hit her like a hammer, and she was more than half-asleep before she even remembered to take her contact lens out.

She didn’t even remember to whisper a prayer for sweet, dreamless sleep, but once her slumber was invaded by foul visions once born of her trepidation and anxiety, she wished she had.

Laurie found herself in the lavish university hall used for competitions and ceremonies, waving and bowing her head as she was introduced as the captain of the university debating team. She looked over at the adoring, cheering crowd and tried not to grin so openly, as it would make her appear cocksure and arrogant to be so not humble.

Right when the first speaker on the other team began to speak, Laurie leaned forward and began listening closely for flaws in the opposition’s reasoning. It was then that she felt a strange sensation on the top of her left foot, and she could not grab back the squeak that slipped out of her mouth. Everyone turned to her.

“Do you wish to make a refutation?” The judge said, gazing down at her with a stern look in his thick spectacles. A light muttering filled the hall.

Laurie felt herself flushing hot and full of embarrassment. She shook her head and glanced down and saw that in the shadowy sanctuary under the table were Christy and Trevor, and they were grinned like minxes. The long, rectangular table had a large, thick white tablecloth with the university’s name embroidered, and it concealed everything from Laurie’s waist down. This meant they were free to do whatever mischief they wanted, and the captain of the uni’s debating team would have to grit her teeth and take it, lest she face public humiliation. Both of them had Laurie’s ankles in iron, unbreakable grips. Laurie opened her mouth to yell at them, but the fact she was on stage with all attention on her stifled her actions. She pleaded with her big blue eyes, but her two friends simply fixed her with a coy smile and slowly pulled off Laurie’s formal high-heeled Mary Janes. The black shoes made a quiet pop as the footwear were removed, and Laurie’s feet only had a pair of white cotton socks to protect them from whatever villainous intentions the impish pair had in mind. Laurie’s feet curled, the bright pink toenail polish glimmering through the thin fabric of her socks as hands clawed towards them.

Gnashing her teeth together, she felt Christy’s rougher, nimble fingers to play on the right socked foot while Trevor’s larger, softer hands started stroking along her left foot.

“Stahap, please!” she pleaded, her whispers being intermingled with stray giggles, but her friends did not plan on being merciful. Christy only used one finger, scratching her slender index finger along the slippery, slick surface of the right socked foot. The finger garnered particularly twitchy reactions from Laurie when it began to explore the ticklish cove to explore around the toes, where poking around the undersides and webbing between each sensitive digit proved positively mind-scrambling.

Trevor used all the fingers of his free hand while the other held her foot still, and his preferred method was large sweeping motions that buffeted up and down all over the left foot. He spidered up and down the sole, brushed along the squirming sides of the sole, and swept up and down the instep and tops too.

Despite this torment, Laurie had no choice but to keep her arms flat on the table. Her hands wrung and fidgeted in bouts of frantic energy from all the stimulation surging upwards from her legs. She took a pen and began spinning and twirling it around, but somehow it kept slipping from her fingers. When it fell to the floor with a clatter, a few more curious stares were shot in her direction, and Laurie had to sit in tense, strained dignity as her indignant feet continued to be teased. Her knuckles were getting whiter and whiter by the moment as she tried to hold onto her composure.

When it was Laurie’s turn to talk, she had hoped her cheeky friends might relent during the opening statement, but it seemed they had the opposite in mind when they whisked off her thin white socks, which had provided a meagre bit of protection from their fingers. Her wiggling toes glittered, and as soon as the microphone was passed to her, Laurie felt her ankles being put into headlocks by Christy and Trevor.

She opened her mouth to talk, but all attempts at expression of ideas were engulfed in a sudden torrent of hysterics. She slumped forward, banging her fists on the table and hiding her face, but she knew that everyone was pointing and chuckling at her giggling fit. It wasn’t fair! Why were they doing this? And why were her bare feet so accursedly ticklish? Christy was snaking her sinuous fingers between Laurie’s pedicured toes, occasionally stopping to go through the wrinkles in the sole when the pink-painted toes clamped shut in protective desperation.

Trevor was using one hand to trace the outside of the foot while the other hand worked on scribbling in her arch, and the two-pronged attack drove Laurie insane in their unpredictability. Laurie squirmed in his seat, but her legs weren’t strong enough to dislodge the pair, so all she could do was laugh as the audience’s titters rained down on her.

When Laurie managed to achieve a semblance of control over the strong foot tickling emanating from down there, there was movement below the desk. The cheeky pair scooted upwards and began attacking her legs and knees, which were both bare beneath the short blue dress she wore. Fingers squeezing her knees, stroking under her kneecap, and even reaching up brush against her milky inner thighs were just far too much. She squeaked and squealed, feeling the ticklish vibrations seemed to flow all over her body.

And then she woke with a pant and a shriek. The humming of her phone, which was vibrating on her bedside table, drew her attention.

“Hi, just want to let you know I’m fine. I’m staying at the Eversmiling campsite by the coast. You don’t you come join me? Much love, Christy,” Laurie read as confusion, relief, and dread took turns spraying across her mind like some wild tide.

O-O-O

“This screams trap,” Trevor said, hunched over the wheel of his car as they barrelled on the rough, rocky road on the way to the Eversmilers commune on the outskirts of town.

“Maybe.” Laurie rubbed the screen of her smartphone with her thumb. “Or maybe we were just overthinking things the whole time, and there’s an innocent explanation to all this.” This morning, Laurie had woken up (after a night of dreamless sleep this time, thankfully) to a series of pictures from Christy. Instead of the hostage photos she feared she might receive, she saw selfies of a grinning Christy in commune clothing, pictures of cats, dogs, and ducks, and snaps of the rising sun. “I really don’t know what to think of all this.”

It was because of this that she had told Trevor to bring his dad’s gun, a little revolver tucked away in the bottom of his black backpack. She had pepper spray in her pocket as well, and it seemed only prudence to be prepared for every eventuality–no one’s ominous last words were they had been too well-prepared, after all. She wasn’t entirely she should be relying upon him so much, but she supposed he had proven his worth. They had escaped from those woods together, after all. If he had been complicit in Christy’s disappearance, he could have easily ensured that she was captured as well, as the lithe, petite girl would have been fairly easily overpowered.

As the commune came into view, a series of farmhouses, tents and campfires scattered beneath a bright blue sky and beside the soft waters and warm sands of a nearby beach, Laurie found her muscles coiling like a snake ready to pounce. On her left, she could see the cords of Trevor’s arms sticking out as his white knuckles tightened on the steering wheel.

If this were a trap, they would probably lure her in with promises of seeing her friend, which was why Laurie was planning on getting the heck out of there if Christy wasn’t there to meet her by the gates as promised.

Yet Christy was there, hopping up and down and waving. Her pupils were dilated and her cheeks were a little red, but Christy didn’t look as if she had been drugged or anything like that. It was a little jarring to see her in the hippy garb that all the other commune members were wearing, complete with feathery necklace pendant, but the look seemed to match her well—The short denim shorts, brown vest, sunglasses, and strappy sandals weren’t that far away from the casual attire she had always favoured. The outfit even accessorised nicely with the stringy blue anklet she always wore. Amidst all that hippie flamboyance, Laurie felt a bit out of place, and she knew Trevor must feel the same. Laurie donned a slightly more sporty version of her usual garb, which meant a grey skirt, white button-up shirt, ankle socks, and trainers. Trevor was clad in all black, which must make them seem bland and dull in this colourful world around them.

Beside Christy, with his arms raised in friendly salute was a tall, sandy-haired man with designer stubble that Laurie recognised from the renaissance fair as Michael, one of the guys who had operated the tickle booth.

When Trevor’s car slowed to a halt and Laurie hopped out, her sneakers clomping on the grassy ground, the girl had scarcely taken a step before she was tackled.

“I’m so glad you could make it!” Christy said, positively squealing with delight as she gripped her friend in a tight hug. “I can’t wait to show you everything.”

“Are you okay?” Laurie whispered in Christy’s ear during their embrace.

“Tell you later,” the tomboy whispered back before they separated. She straightened and spoke in a loud voice. “This is Michael. Remember him?”

Michael stepped beside the two girls, smiling and bowing his head. He was dressed similarly to Christy, down to the same feather amulet. He gave the black-haired boy a cool look. “You must be Trevor. Chris says you’re a cool dude.”

Trevor scratched the back of his head, an abashed smile stretched across his face. He probably had never been called anything like that before. “Did she really?”

“You betcha!” Trevor nodded. “You guys want to know a bit more about us, right? Chris mentioned it. We’ll be happy to give you the grand tour.” As he spoke he gave Christy a little pat on the head, which made Christy giggle in a girlish and smitten-teen way. From the way Christy’s blue-painted toes were pointing towards him, her body was pressing in his direction, and the wide smile on her face, it seemed her infatuation with this guy had only intensified. Laurie just hoped she hadn’t let her feelings get the better of her.

“We’d appreciate being shown around, but we don’t want to too take up much of your valuable time,” Laurie said, forcing her face into a smile of gratitude. What she really wanted was for Michael to leave so Christy would be okay to speak more freely. There were bushels of questions growing in her mind, and she needed answers. She hoped the answers were mundane and simple, but she couldn’t shake the strange chanting she had heard in that tomb, nor the confusing tale she’d heard from Trevor.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be quite so easy to shrug him off. “It’s no problem at all. Be my pleasure to show you guys what we do here.” Michael’s teeth were very white and very straight, but there was something about them that wasn’t quite all that reassuring. Still, there was nothing to do but follow him, especially as Christy slipped her arms through his as they walked.

“As you expect, we try to be as self-sufficient as we can out here. We treat water from the sea and try to grow our own food.” Michael pointed to where several young people were planting and gardening the fields. Many of them looked up at his voice and shouted greetings.

“Protecting the environment is something they’re big on here,” Christy gushed.

“Of course, we know it’s important to have fun,” Michael’s hand snuck down Christy’s side and squeezed, which prompted a squeak from the short-haired girl. “We’re a big fan of music here, and Chris has become very popular because of her lovely singing voice.”

“Michael knows just how to help me hit the high notes,” Christy said, blushing.

Laurie averted her gaze as Michael’s questing fingers snuck across Christy’s toned stomach, which was bare and prominent on account of her vest which left several inches of tanned flesh exposed. There were a group of musicians under a tree near where the farmhands were toiling away, playing a folk song that was half-familiar.

A black-skinned girl with dreadlocks was playing the guitar and singing in a husky voice, her song of life and joy made sweeter by the guy lying opposite her by her ankles. The brown-haired guy was lean and lithe, and as he added his voice to hers, he used a flower to stroke up and down the girl’s bare feet, which were pale and wrinkly. And although the flower flittering across her soles caused her voice to crack at times and for her fingers to miss out on certain strums, the light teasing seemed to be embed her voice with such raw happiness, and the grin on her face was infectious. The pretty girl with the dark skin could have moved her soft-looking feet away from him if she wished, but she looked as if she were having such a great time that the thought had never even occurred to her.

“Is Ms Hawthorne around?” Laurie tried to keep her voice light as she brought up the former mayor, who had been the one involved in the strange ritual back in the forest. “She’s a member of your group, right?”

“Oh, you mean Helena?” If Michael was rattled that she knew about that, he didn’t show any outward indication, for his tone was as genial and laidback as ever. “Her group don’t really come round till evening devotions.”

“Evening devotions?” Laurie gave her best friend a quizzical look, but Christy shrugged and didn’t elaborate.

“I guess it’s a prayer of sorts,” Michael explained. “It’s when we all get together to talk about our faith in the future and about our philosophy. I hope you guys stick around till then.”

“Yeah, we’d like to know a lot more about your organisation for our project,” Laurie said. “Remember the project, Christy? The reason we’re here?”

“Course,” Christy mumbled.

“I’ll be happy to tell you guys during evening devotion. We try to keep our mind off the spiritual till then. Lots to do, you know? And no time like the present and all that.” Spiritual? Laurie quirked an eyebrow at her friends, but Trevor seemed as confused as she was, and Christy didn’t seem to notice her look, probably because Michael had decided to take that moment to nibble her ear.

“Fine. Where to next?” Laurie crossed her arms.

“How about the beach? One of the boons of this location is how close we are to the sea.” Michael gave her feet a quick glance. “You okay with what you’re wearing? We can spare you a few sandals if you like.”

“I think I’m fine.” Laurie wasn’t sure she wanted her bare feet exposed near these people.

“Suit yourself.” It was less than a ten-minute walk before they reached the sun, sand, and blue waters of the coast, by which point Laurie was rather regretting her attire. She could feel how hot her sweaty socks were in her closed-toe shoes, and she was sorely tempted to unbutton her white shirt. She brushed a lock of blonde hair from her brow as the sun blazed from high in the bright sky.

If not for the feather necklaces worn by everyone there that almost resembled uniform, Laurie might have mistaken it for any regular beach during spring break. Beach boys, surfer dudes, and strutting girls in bikinis frolicked everywhere, chilling and chatting under umbrellas, splashing in the water, or tanning themselves in the soothing sun.

“You girls want to play some beach volleyball?”

“I’m not sure I’m really dressed for it,” Laurie said, shaking her head.

“I, uh, wouldn’t mind,” Trevor said. “Volleyball is kinda my favourite sport, actually.” With his tall figure, Laurie supposed that made sense, though it was a bit surprising that the geeky, goth guy seemed to like sports at all.

“Why don’t you guys go on ahead?” Christy said. “I’ll keep my girl company.”

“Alrighty, come on,” Michael said, pulling his thick, sinewy arm around Trevor’s bony shoulder. “Let them have their girl talk. We can have some bro talk of our own.”

From the panicked look in Trevor’s pale blue eyes, he didn’t particularly enjoy the idea of what this ‘bro-talk’ might entail, but Laurie silenced him with a stern look. If Michael was going to give Laurie a chance to talk to her best friend in private, she was going to take it.

“We’ll be over there,” Michael pointed to where a gaggle of barefoot girls was playing beach volleyball, and the two guys went off.

As the two best friends walked away from the guys, Laurie found herself watching a tanned Chinese girl lie on her stomach, tapping away on her smartphone till a handsome young man with a straw hat on sat beside her. He waved at her, grinned, said something, pointed to her stringy blue anklet on her right foot, and with a casual ease, started to drag his tanned fingers across her bare, sandy soles. Her small feet kicked up and down, but for the most part, they stayed in place as they had what by all means appeared to be a very pleasant conversation based on the smiling and chuckling from both sides. The Asian girl with the dyed brown hair’s expression was unreadable behind her dark sunglasses, but from her wide smile and the way she tucked her hair behind her ear while leaning towards him, she did not seem to mind the ticklish attentions whatsoever.

“Alright, what’s going on?” Laurie asked Christy. “Have you been brainwashed or something? It’s like you turned into a hippie overnight.”

“Exactly,” Christy said with an exaggerated conspiratorial wink. “Was it a bit too much, you think?”

“Chris!”

Christy laughed, her musical giggles intermingling with the tinkling titters from the nearby Asian girl. “Alright, here’s the story. I got caught, and they saw the pictures on my phone, so they demanded to know why I’d been snooping around. I made up some story about being fans of theirs and being curious and wanting to join their group. So, I’ve been hamming it up so they don’t get suspicious till I find out everything about them for our project.”

“So, you’re okay?”

“I’m better than okay! I’ve got loads of material.”

“So what exactly was going on in that place in the woods?”

“Some kind of initiation, from what I’ve worked out. I hope to know more during the evening devotions.”

“Haven’t you already been to one? You know, yesterday night?”

“They didn’t have it yesterday.”

“Speaking of yesterday, why didn’t you respond to m messages? We were worried sick.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. My phone was out of batteries, so that’s why I couldn’t contact you guys sooner.”

Laurie pulled her much taller friend into a hug. “I’m just glad everything’s alright you. I was getting seriously concerned. I mean, you were acting a little strange.”

Christy’s smile seemed to waver for a second. “Was I? Just trying to fit into the group a be a good girl.” She gave a laugh that seemed to Laurie’s ears to be a little forced.

Also happening nearby was a scene of more forceful and deeper laughter. A black-haired girl of Latin-American descent with a silver ring around her left nostril, sharp grey nails, and a plethora of tattoos was under an umbrella, where a cute guy with long golden hair and bright blue eyes had been buried in the sand. Rings sparkled on her long fingers as they flew over the cute guy’s bare feet, till her was spluttering and snorting with laughter. But from his sparkling smile, he was rather enjoying the feeling of a pretty woman paying a sensitive spot so much mind. In fact, the was so intent on kneading the most tickles out of him that she didn’t notice a duo sneak up behind her—a muscular guy with a Mohawk and a leggy girl with curly auburn hair.

Turnabout was only fair, it seemed. The striking Latina’s slender feet were folded behind her as she continued her work, though she was interrupted when the young man and lady behind her scribbled across her brown soles. She turned around, gaped, and make a token effort at struggling away, but she was quickly pounced on and tickled to the ground due to hands poking and prodding all over her stomach and armpits.

A few seconds of this was enough to pacify the girl, and she collapsed on the sand, panting as the boy she had tormented was pulled free from the hole. The girl was quickly dumped back into the hole in turn, and once the sand had been firmly packed over her, all three of them started going after her long, flapping feet, scribbling into her brown soles and pinching her grey-painted toes with laughing relish. Her varnished toes were very animated, constantly curling and flexing, as if they were beckoning or waving. Due to all their energetic movements and the light shimmering off the metal toerings on the second toe of each long foot, they quickly became the favourite targets of the three ticklers. They seemed to be having a competition on who could get those slender digits wiggling and twitching most. It was close between the blond boy with his sweet vengeance and the redhead with her orange tapered nails.

The boy with the long blonde hair in particular seemed to enjoy scribbling his fingers all over the Latina’s long soles, with all the ecstasy of victorious revenge. But a few moments later, the blond boy and the muscly one exchanged a meaningful, mischievous look and went after their redheaded companion, with every indication that she would be buried in the sand next, with her flaming toes the next wiggly, giggly targets.

Laurie glanced over to where Trevor and Michael were, and she saw that the volleyball match had been halted on account of all the players and spectators ganging up on a particularly tall, voluptuous blonde, who must have committed some infraction or violation of the game which decreed that she must be punished through copious gargalesis. “What is it with this place and tickling?” Laurie asked, formulating a question that had hovered in her mind for a while.

“Is there a lot of tickling going on? Hadn’t really noticed till you brought it up.”

“Seriously?”

“Remember that time I got my first tattoo? And I suddenly started becoming super conscious of everyone else who had one? I guess it’s like that—you don’t really pay attention till someone points it out. But who cares, anyway? It’s just silly fun, right?”

Laurie frowned, chewing her lip as she wondered if she should mention the strange dreams she’d been having or the bizarre, frenzied laughter from the tomb, or the fact tickling was just too prevalent here for it to possibly be just coincidence.

But before Laurie could voice her thoughts, Christy grinned as if a brilliant idea had struck her. “But if you’re interested in joining in on the tickle fun, I’ll be happy to hook you up!”

And before any denials could be uttered, Christy grabbed her friend by the wrist and was dragging her along till Laurie found herself in front of the Latina buried in the sand.

“Hey, guys, you mind if my friend joins in? She’s new.”

“Hi, new, nice to meet you,” the blonde guy said, before slapping his knee and guffawing at his own joke. Despite the lameness of his remarks, all the others cracked quick smiles, even the black-haired girl trapped in the sand. “You wanna have a go? Perla’s feet are super ticklish.”

“I, uh, well.” Laurie scratched her cheek as she found herself flushing. She looked at Perla, looked at her long grey toes. “Is it okay? You really don’t mind?”

“Fair’s fair.” The Latina girl spoke with a hint of an accent. She tried to shrug, which was a gesture that was hard to get across when most of your body was entombed in grains of light brown sand. “What goes around comes around and all that.

“I see.” Laurie reached her hand out and was about to give an experimental stroke down the girl’s shapely soles, but she pulled away at the last second. “It doesn’t seem right though. Like I’m imposing. I mean, I barely know you!”

“Hmmm,” Christy said, stepping closer. She saw Laurie’s eyebrows knit together, and then her lively brown eyes lit up with understanding. “I know what you mean. It’ll be less awkward if it’s someone you know, huh?” And with a whooping chuckle, she stepped out of her flip flops and began digging the Perla out.

Before the blonde girl could muster up a proper response, the Latina had been extricated from her hole, and Christy had hopped in. “Go on!” she said once the sand had been packed around her. She wiggled and curled her toes, those nimble, agile things with chips of azure polish.

Christy’s soles were warm from the sun and quite soft, softer than Laurie would have imagined her tomboyish friend might possess. The silky feeling of that warm, slightly damp skin against her bare fingers felt like brushing rich, fine fabric, and every touch seemed to invite another. It was also amusing to observe that while the tops were bronzed from the time spent in the sun, the soles were much paler to create an interesting juxtaposition.

After a while, Christy’s feet began to dance away from her probing touches, but that meant the game was afoot, and Laurie had to chase after them. She grabbed the foot, flexed the toes back, and began a series of rapid scratching of her long fingernails against that smooth soles or under and between those trapped toes.

“You know this is kinda fun,” Laurie said, giggling along with her friend.

“It is, isn’t it?” said Michael who had suddenly materialised behind her.

“And you know what happens next, don’t you?” The smile on Christy’s face suddenly seemed sinister.

Laurie stood up and looked around. The Eversmilers were all looking at her, and Trevor was nowhere to be seen.

“Fair is fair. You’ve spread such joy, so it’s time we return the favour.” Michael put a strong hand on her arm. “Any suggestions? Shall we bury her in the sand for a few hours?”

“No! No, no, no!” Christy pulled free, but they were all around her, and she was all alone.



“My friend might enjoy helping us test out the new stockade,” Christy pipped up from the ground, chuckling. “Let’s strap in her for some fun, guys. We’ll make an Eversmiler out of her yet.”

The Life and Times of Laurie Craft, Part 3

“Morning, sleepyhead.”

After several nights of brutal, relentless dreams, this was the first time that the reality waiting for her when she opened her eyes was worse than the hellish landscape she had just fled. Laurie’s eyes slowly fluttered open as she searched through bleary vision for the speaker. She blew a lock of blonde hair from her face and saw the girl who had tormented her so savagely.

Christy was waving down at her like it was just another one of the dozens of sleepovers they’d had at each other’s homes in the past few years. At her side was a bearded, comely young man who had most certainly not been invited to anything like that. Michael grinned down at Laurie, leaned down, and tapped her white trainers.

“Aren’t we nice? We gave you your shoes back.”

They had given Laurie her shoes back, though perhaps it was just to mock her, since she was cognisant of the fact that she would not retain them for long. Laurie also wouldn’t exactly be capable of running anywhere in her current predicament. She was wrapped in thick blankets that was sashed in place with belts. The belts went around her ankles, knees, waist, and shoulders, so no amount of wiggling would help her escape this makeshift cocoon. And to ensure her small, thin feet were helpless, additional binds secured her ankles to the wooden bedposts, so they would have to lie there and take whatever abuse the pair had in mind for them.

Her mouth was icky and dry from sleep. “Go to hell. Let me go!”

“There’s no need for such rudeness,” Michael said, his thin lips twisting into a smirk. “Chris, is your friend always so cranky in the mornings? She was in a much better mood last night.”

Last night had made all the nightmares Laurie had endured about bizarre tickling situations seem like pleasant, childish daydreams. Things had gone fine for Laurie and Trevor when they first arrived at the Eversmilers’ Commune, but during their tour of the premises, they had been split up, ambushed, and taken in separate rooms. There, Laurie had been conscripted to ‘test out’ the new stockade by her treacherous best friend Christy, who had suddenly become a devoted Eversmiler. During what those hippie-esque cultists had called ‘Evening Devotions’, they had stripped her naked and attacked her with feathers and fingers till she was a squealing, shrieking, sweaty mess.

When those maniacs gave her a break, Laurie had been given something to drink, and so desperate and thirsty from the insane workout her throat was being put through, she had quaffed it quickly enough. It wasn’t till the visions started to come and her nether regions started to throb with fresh urgency that she realised her drink must have been spiked with something insidious. The rest of the night had been a hazy, horny blur. She remember her petite feet being tickled by all kinds of things, and the rest of her body had hardly been spared. She had cried and laughed, laughed and cried, and screamed for salvation. She was getting her intel on the Eversmilers, which was why she had come here in the first place, but there was such a thing as too much information, and her own experiences had been overwhelming in their totality, as every sensitive spot on her body was found, probed, and titillated till she forgot what year it was. She had never imagined that her first real orgasm would not be in the arms of some kind, handsome lover, but in a place like this. It had been unthinkable. Yet after the feathers had found her nipples and her swollen, tingling womanhood, it had begun bubbling and fizzing away in her loins till it had ripened and exploded out of her. And they had not stopped at one.

Doubtless, a similar fate awaited her today, if not worse.

“Yeah, she was never a morning gal,” Christy said with the breezy air of a traitor in the clear, her rough voice bringing Laurie out of her ghastly memories. “I guess we should cheer her up.”

“Good suggestion, my dear. Let’s see if we can get her making that adorable squeak like yesterday, shall we?”

Laurie grimaced and chomped down hard on her lower lip as they loomed over her small feet. If this was going to happen, so be it, but she would not make it easy for them.

Her eyes widened when Michael pulled out a pocketknife and began flipping it in the air. But the Eversmilers had more nefarious intentions in mind that using it to prick her. He leaned in and began cutting away at the thin rubber sole of Laurie’s Nike trainers, quickly reducing the expensive footwear to garbage with a few precise slices. Laurie’s black socks were next to go, with Michael tugging at the toe of the sock, then jamming a hole through the material with the tip of his knife before putting down the metal implement so he could rip the socks with his strong hands till the soft, pale sole within was free and vulnerable.

This process took a few minutes, where dread and anticipation coalesced in Laurie’s mind as she realised the gruesome fate that awaited her. As the two smirking demons sat down on stools in front of her bare feet, Laurie suppressed a gulp and tried to pull her ankles away, but the bonds made that impossible. There was naught that could be done but hold out for a rescue as the villainous pair poised and salivated over her small blue toes.

“Let’s give her a little something different to get her going in the morning,” Michael said, licking his lips.

Was he going to…? Laurie shuddered as that handsome young man leaned forward and planted a little kiss on her big toe, following by swiping that warm, slick tongue across the undersides of her lithe, small toes. She whined, cursing herself internally for making such a noise, as his soft lips closed around her smallest toe, his tongue swirling and sucking away. She squeezed her eyes shut so she didn’t have to watch his giddy grin as he nibbled and sucked away.

Because Laurie had closed her eyes, she didn’t see Christy join the fray with a playful scratch down the other foot to elicit a squeak from the bound girl. The tomboy approached the oral tickling technique with less enthusiasm, as she preferred to scribble her dexterous, nimble fingers along the sole while her tongue licked and lapped choice locations. Eschewing most of the tongue sucking that Michael favoured seemed to be more her style. That didn’t mean that was she was doing was any less effective or sensual, of course, on account of the drugs that were still in Laurie’s system and the lascivious effect warm, teasing tongues had on feet as sensitive as the young blonde’s.

After several moments of this, Laurie had to fight her body’s innate reaction to such twisted pleasure, as many a mixed moan or giggle threatened to break free of her mouth. Her hips were wiggling and starting to grind despite her best attempts to withstand it with rigid discipline, but there was no reasoning with the growing dampness between her legs. Dignified propriety was always easier said than done when your highly receptive bare feet weren’t being kissed and licked continuously.

“Your friend has the cutest little feet,” Michael mused, worming his tongue in between the third and fourth pink-painted digit for a tantalising wiggle before opening his mouth and engulfing them both for a sustained suckling. “I could play with these for hours.”

This prompted a light punch on his shoulder from Christy. “Hey! You said my feet were way more adorable.” The brown-haired tomboy was quick to take out her jealousy on her friend’s foot, using her left hand hold the soft foot steady while the other one raked up and down the high arch to induce wild squeals from Laurie.

“Course, babe, of course,” Michael said without looking at Christy. His eyes were closed in ecstatic reverie as he gave each pedicured toe on the foot he was bogarting a kiss and a quick sniff before exploring them with his tongue once more.

Christy grumbled something under her breath and took to punishing Laurie’s poor feet even more. This time, she went at the arch with her long, nimble tongue, trying to trace the lines and wrinkles of the sole from resulted from Laurie’s tightly curled toes. Also to ensure those delicate digits remained curled, her fingers launched a ferocious attack on the tops of the soles. She would target the buttery pads and the webbing between each toes in particular, scratching and stroking all around those areas with her speedy, agile long fingers.

Michael wiped his lips and stood up. “That’s enough of a warm-up, wouldn’t you say? Much as I enjoy a taste of things to come, there’s still a lot to do today. We need to let the Gods have their due.” The duo stood up, with Christy grinning and giving Laurie a little wink before departing.

Laurie panted and slumped back against her pillows as the cool air from a nearby window washed over her damp soles that still tingly and itched from residual sensations. She shook her head and smiled a weary, proud smile. As bad as that had been, she had resisted the urge to beg. Laughter they might rip from her, but she refused to let them break her mind.

The conspirators didn’t leave her alone for long. Christy was back in a few seconds with a bowl of porridge in her hand. It was only when Lauriesaw the chow that she realised how growly her stomach was and how dry her throat still was on account of all the forced mirth. As Michael hovered in the background, smiling down at them, Christy fed Laurie several spoonfuls of the brown gloopy liquid, which was sweetened with honey. Christy knew porridge was Laurie’s favourite breakfast, and the blonde girl wolfed it down quickly. It was only when the bowl was mostly empty that the thought dawned on her—she shouldn’t trust anything these wackos fed her. But she was so hungry, so thirsty, and she could only murmur and blink away the confusion when the room started to spiral and spin around her.

When Laurie blinked, shaking her head finding vision returning to her, she was certain that this must be a dream. There were two otherworldly creatures at the foot of her bed. One was purple skinned with four blinking black eyes, and where a humanoid might have hair, it had slimy tentacles, some that were thin and wormy while others were long and thick as arms. These vestiges were all over the face where a beard or moustache might have been. It seemed queer to think of this thing as a man, but it was certainly closer to male than female.

The creature at ‘his’ side definitely had the curves and contours of a more feminine beast. Though that being said, this woman next to her looked demonic, for lack of better term. Her eyes burned a demonic orange, her skin was a raw, tendon-red, her fingers were long, black-tipped claws, and her teeth were small and sharp. Her hair was short and black as soot, with two silver horns creeping out of her temples.

Was this what Michael had meant by the Gods having their due? Were the Eversmilers really a religious group, spreading their corruptive ideals and sacrificing innocent young maidens?

They walked like humans, grinning and smacking their lips. They stopped at the foot of Laurie’s bed and loomed down, where the blonde university student was still bound up in her bedsheets. They snapped the belts that shackled her to the bedsheets with an easy nonchalance and hoisted her upright, tearing the duvet to shreds with their talons. But before Laurie could even murmur thanks, they shoved her back onto the bed. She yelped, bracing her impact with her elbows as she landed on her chest, but they spread her arms with inhuman strength and bound them in place with silken cords that had seemingly sprouted out of the ether. They did the same with her bare legs, For Laurie had been naked under those bedsheets, and now her entire body was eagle-spread and exposed.

For the first time, Laurie felt the whimpers and begs bubble to the forefront of her mouth, but she yanked them back at the last second. Would this monsters even understand her? Instead, she devoted her energies to tugging hard on her binds, but she only succeeded in causing chaffing.

The octopus-like creature held up a hand, burbling a watery laugh. Laurie saw that the ends of each finger had tiny, snaking tendrils on them, and she only had seconds to prepare for impact before the first brush down her thighs.

She gasped, before letting loose a torrent of giggles as these wiggly appendages flicked and wormed all over the very sensitive flesh of her inner thighs and the backs of her knees. And as if that location wasn’t dangerously erogenous enough, one hand soon started skittering across her bare buttocks. This prompted wild bucking on the bed as Laurie fought to save her butt from such ribald touches, but this only succeeded in informing him that this was the spot to torment. Two hands wiggled all over her ample behind, and it did not take very long as all for this beast to discover that one finger dragging between her pale cheeks drove her to want to scream with insanity. The bristly finger would sweep in just enough to give her aching, protruding womanhood a friendly greeting before darting back out, though it would return again for another tease by the next swipe. Already the throbbing was starting to grow, her body having been primed by all the forced foot worship. Sharp grunting moans escaped Laurie’s dry lips as the realisation hit that it probably wouldn’t take very long for her to be edged into another mind-shattering orgasm, especially along the red-skinned demoness conducting her share of mischief as well.

This fiend had something different in mind. In addition to long, sharp nails, she was armed with a forked tongue as lethal as a living, slithering feather. Laurie had secretly rather enjoyed it when boys kissed her on the neck or gave her hickeys, but she realising with a growing, hellish horror that the nape of her neck was ticklish, a fact that this demon had no qualms with exploited. Each kiss or lick sent shivers shooting down her spine to cause her skin to be riddled with goosebumps, but the horned monster explored with an eager, exploitive mind, using that skilled tongue to tease along Laurie’s ears and chin as well. The demoness’s long silver nails meandered between breasts and armpits. Sometimes, she scribbled deep into those hairless underarms to make the lustful tension come crashing down. Other times, she accelerated the tender neediness surging through the young woman’s body by flying her nails across Laurie’s chest, paying devious attention to her firm nipples by pinching, rolling, and spidering across them. This monster would murmur something in a language unknown, but the words were gentle and musical, as if telling Laurie to just accept what was happening and not to fight it.

When the first shuddering, twitching orgasm hit Laurie with the force of a blow to the gut, she closed her eyes as the sensations washed over her. Her fingers clenched and opened, her toes curled and splayed, and her gaps were hard and heavy. When the intense afterglow of her climax ended, and Laurie found herself back in her body again, the two monsters were nowhere to be found. The bonds seemed to have vanished either. On shaky, weak, still tingly feet, Laurie pushed herself to her feet and put on some clothing. Her shoes and socks were still in tatters, so she would have to do this barefoot.

She pushed open the wooden door of the small cottage where the Eversmilers had placed their ‘guest’, blinking slowly as she took in the bright glare of the morning sun. When she took first step outside, she expected to be apprehended by some gruff guard and strapped down to her bed once more for ‘punishment’. They wouldn’t just let her go, would they? This had to be some kind of sick game, a cruel jape.

But as her pale feet squelched on soft, dewy grass, nothing happened. A light breeze made her messy bedhead hair flutter up and down, and she tried to smooth her curls out with her taming fingers. Her subsequent thoughts were that of escape, but how could she leave when she didn’t even have shoes? She was at least an hour on foot from the city, and without a vehicle, she didn’t have a hope of getting away before they caught her. Swimming wasn’t really an option either, as it wasn’t like she was very athletic. No, the answer would be to find a vehicle. Getting to the cars themselves wouldn’t be a problem, as the Eversmilers didn’t even have a fence around their commune, but keys were a different issue. Ideally, she would try to find Trevor and drive out in the car they had arrived in, but she hadn’t seen him since they had been captured.

Laurie winced as she stepped on small gravel underfoot, looking right and left in search for some hint of where Trevor might be, though she tried to keep her glance surreptitious so as to not draw attention. A couple of Eversmilers were milling around or getting along with their duties, such as chopping down trees for firewood, picking flowers, or chilling and chatting in snug spots, but none of them seemed to spare Laurie a second squint, though one or two of the boys had stared down at her bare feet with smiles on their faces.

After wandering around for a few minutes, Laurie began to see that something was amiss in this cultists’ camp. No one else seemed to react to the bizarre sight, but it seemed that the inhuman creatures that had stalked and tormented Laurie in her bed had been let loose here as well. Not the same ones, but monsters of different colours and forms, and no one seemed to see them but here.

A blonde-haired Asian girl was sitting underneath a tree with her arms behind her head and a faint smile on her face, while a green-skinned demon was wrapped around her, with a long, pointed tongue licking and suckling her right armpit. At her feet, a silver monster with a bird’s fierce head and feathery fingers was fluttering its hands up and down the giggling girl’s soles. Its movements were slow and steady upon those soft-looking arches and rounded balls of the feet, as if designed to tease and tantalise instead of create gargantuan gargalesis.

A pair of grinning demons with copper skin and golden horns were perched over a glasses-wearing young lady with curly brown hair that was strewn to her shoulders. The brunette sat on her stomach on the soft green grass as she poured over a book, with her white, slender legs kicking up and down as she read. She must have been reading something humorous from her smile, or because of that fact that every time those alabaster feet came up, the demon would treat it to a quick lick. And the demons seemed to have claimed one foot each, with the pair almost trying to have a competition to see which foot would receive the most pampered, amorous attention. And when those long feet were moving up and down, the beasts directing their lapping efforts to her shins, knees, and thighs, all of which were exposed by the short hot pants the girl wore. Laurie watched for a few moments with growing trepidation and disgust as she kicked her feet faster and faster, seemingly oblivious to the worship bestowed upon them.

Laurie heard Christy’s boyish laughter in the distance, and without thinking, jogged after it. Did she want revenge? A chance to save her? An opportunity to interrogate her to find out where Trevor was? With each awkward barefoot step that she took, her answers were no closer, but she knew finding Christy was something that had to be done.

Christy’s harsh laughter emanated from a hut not unlike the one that had been Laurie’s prison. Tiptoeing and peeking through a window, Laurie squinted inside, her pale eyes widening at what she saw.

As bad as Laurie’s own amorous experience had been at the inhuman hands of those demons, at least she had need only contend with two of them. Poor Christy had no fewer than four attending to her, and based on the ragged, weakening qualities of her laugh and the sheen of sweat on her naked body, Christy had been at it for quite a while. Christy was one of those sportswomen that never perspired unless it was an extreme workout, so for her to be this red-faced and breathless meant that she must have been pushed and then some.

Laurie could see the toned and corded muscles of the athletic brunette’s biceps flexing as they fought to break free, and it looked like that had her bondage not been so sturdy, she surely would have broken or slipped free. The bed that Christy was on had been designed entirely for kinky purposes, it seemed, as the head and foot of the bed had been modified so that stocks were built into the framework to secure tanned ankles and wiry wrists.

The setup spread Christy’s long, strong legs, and where Laurie had at least kept her most private of locations hidden from these paranormal creatures, Christy was not so fortunate. A copper-headed, hairless humanoid with the elongated limbs and head of a snake straddled Christy’s tanned thighs.

Its tongue was not forked like the other serpent-like thing Laurie had previously seen, but it was long, oh so very long. Laurie watched for a while with shuddering revulsion as the tongue licked along the outside of the folds of her friend’s sopping womanhood. It circled and those inner lips, flying out to land quick swipes around the inner thigh, the butt, and the delicate groove where hip met leg. Most of the time, that devilish dervish of a tongue focused on teasing by stroking on the sides of Christy’s secret spot, or tracing circles around it, but every now and then, it would shift from licking outside to sliding inside, and this always brought groaning, eyes-rolling-back reactions from the bound girl—including a loud grunt when it became too much for her overwhelmed libido to contain any long. The snake-like creature hissed in apparent anger whenever this happened, as if it blamed its compatriots for not leaving the girl in this frenzied state of denial longer.

And unlike Laurie’s hyper-erotic experience that had thankfully ended at one mind-melting ticklish orgasm, it seemed a foregone conclusion that Christy had experienced at least a few. The smell of sweaty sin in the air, the husky laughter, and prominent wetness seemed to suggest that. A quick glance at her friend’s pink womanhood gave Laurie a hot rush of shame, and she looked away from the very evident evidence of lust. It felt like a violation of privacy, even with all that had happened, or maybe her prudishness was just something that could not be dispelled even after one intense night. She didn’t entirely understand it herself, but something like this should be the intimate experience of lovers, not the sensationalist viewing of nosy voyeurs.

Also, as if that tongue weren’t bad enough, Christy had to deal with two tongues of a different kind of beast on her slender, brown soles. These monsters had skin as white as chalk, and the heads of rams. They had the thick, bristly tongues of such bovine animals as well. Christy’s well-structured arches and fleshy balls of the feet, which had made her so nimble and speedy in the fields of basketball and tennis, were key targets of these writhing tongues.

Although the two monsters were too busy with their tongues to talk, Laurie could hear them snorting and grunting from the foot of the bed as if they approached their task with tireless dedication, like two gymrats devoted to hitting the weights as hard as they could. There were no grins or smiles on their faces, but only the stern, earnest look of professionals at work.

In addition to the insistent slurping and lapping, these focused tormentors kept the rest of Christy’s slick, tanned soles very pre-occupied as well. They would also bite and suckle along her long, agile toes, running their rough fingers over whatever part of the sole was available. As a result, when her blue-varnished toes were being nibbled, her arches would have ten fingers scrabbling into each one. When it was her arches turn to take the thrashing of the tongue and teeth, her toes had to endure a fierce wiggling and fingering. Christy’s bare feet were also soaked with saliva from the pair’s attention, which meant that fingers skated across the wet flesh with giddy, devastating ease.

And Laurie knew from her own crushingly extensive personal experience over the past day that having your feet licked, kissed, and sucked could have quite the surprising erogenous effect. She would never have imagined such a thing would be true for the part of the body she had always believed was nothing but functional and practical for moving around, but it was true. It would have felt dangerously nice had one’s inner sanctum not been under attack by a slithering tongue. And when combined that with the fact that Christy had always been a little proud of her long, shapely feet by showing them off in flip flops, getting pedicures, and being on the receiving end of foot massages by her male admirers, it was no surprise that the ecstasy of the lascivious situation had overcome her.

The fourth monster of this gang turned out to be a human, but no less cruel and moral for that. At the head of the bed was Michael, with his smile wide and his face flushed. He used one hand to pat and stroke Christy’s short brown hair, while the other hand wielded a feather that he used to sweep along her collarbones, occasionally reaching lower for a cheeky flick across her breasts. Christy’s expression twisted into an indignant pout every time he strayed down to stroke that feather on her nipples, swiping it back and forth over those small dark buds that looked so firm and sensitive.

Laurie must have been unable to contain her reactions at her seeing her friend’s tantalising torture. Maybe, she slapped a hand on the window she was peeking through, or maybe, she had failed to contain a yelp, but all four beasts turned to the windowsill and pointed at her with accusing fingers. Michael stepped towards her, and he was all smiles and easy malice. “What are you doing out of your cage, my pretty little bird? Shall we strap you down and make you sing again?”

“I’d rather make her sing,” Laurie said, pointing at Christy, who blinked at her with large, wet eyes stained from forced ticklish mirth. “I’m owed a bit of delicious revenge, don’t you think?” Laurie chewed her lower lip as she wanted for his answer, hoping she could count on his lustful desire for some hot girl on girl action to override any caution he might have.

“You know what? I think you do?” Michael guffawed, slapping her flat stomach and stood up. His three minions went with him. “We’ll be outside listening,” he said, turning as he reached the threshold of the room. “Let us know if you need any help.” He walked out with a hand raised in farewell.

Laurie leaned close and looked in her friend’s hazy, dilated brown eyes. “You okay?” She asked in a low whisper and undid the strap to release her wrists.

Christy nodded, sweat trickling down her chin. “Thanks for that. I was worried for a second that you were mad at me for going a bit overboard.”

“I was,” Laurie said, looking away as she opened the stockade around Christy’s ankles. “But then I remembered we were friends, and friends trust each other, even when through testy, turbulent times.”

“But still. I’m sorry. I know I went a bit too far with it sometimes. But the power was kind of intoxicating, you know? And I didn’t want to risk blowing my cover.”

“It’s fine. Friends till the end, right?”

“Amen. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“By the way, I don’t suppose you can explain the demons, can you?”

“What demons?” Christy scratched her head.

“Those things that were in here just now? Those things tickling you?”

“Oh, you mean Michael, Jenny, Alice, and Nate?”

Laurie scratched her head. “They looked like demons to me.”

“There’s a beast in every man, and it stirs when you put a feather in his hand.”

“True enough,” Laurie said, sighing. Discovering the existence of supernatural beings would have made a hell of a research paper, but she supposed it wasn’t meant to be. “That’s a mundane explanation, but I guess it makes sense.”

“Yeah, they spiked your breakfast with some really weird shit. All these weird ticklefests are fuelled by aphrodisiacs and hallucinogens in the water supply.”

“Are they? That explains so much. I guess people like Helena Hawthorne just stick around for the drug-fuelled orgies.”

“Pretty much,” Christy said, fiddling with the Eversmiler amulet around her neck. She ripped it off and let it fall to the ground.

“Anyway, what’s the plan?” Laurie realised that their low, muffled conversation didn’t match the tickle-revenge promised, so she reached a hand out to Christy’s right foot and scratched up and down it in careless patterns, not even bothering to linger on locations that were more susceptible. This prompted an indignant grimace from Christy and some shaky laughter. After Laurie thumbed towards the door where Michael and the others were and gestured to her friend that she ought to exaggerate and ham it up a bit more, the laughter reached acceptable qualities.

“Youhohohoh tehehehelele meeeeheheeeee! You’re the cleehehever one!”

And so Laurie told her the plan that had begun to foment in her mind.

O-O-O

“Michael! Are you there?” Laurie called out the room. It was almost thirty minutes since they had started, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if he had gone ought to search of new entertainment instead of hanging out.

“Yeah. What’s up, babe?” Michael’s voice was quiet and distracted.

“I think I went overboard. She’s gone purple. I think she’s not breathing?”

“What? Shit!” Michael stormed back into the room, with his phone in his hand. He was looking down and trying to stash it in his shorts when he walked straight into an elbow thrown at his face. Christy had been the hard-nosed enforcer in the local university basketball team, and she had been known for opportunistic ‘bows, much to the chagrin of opposing teams. Laurie glanced outside, and she was relieved to see that the other three members of Michael’s group had left, probably bored that they were just out here waiting.

Within moments, the two women had overpowered him and restrained him to the bed, though Laurie would be the first to admit that Christy had done most of the overpowering. Laurie’s main duty had been simply to close the stocks to keep him in place.

“If you’re planning on interrogating me with tickle torture, it’s not going to work.” Michael’s fair, handsome face was twisted into a smug smirk, even as blood dripped out of his nose and down his pink shirt. “I get off on that shit.”

“Get off on this.” Christy stomped hard on his groin to prompt a loud scream from the blonde man.

“I know you know where the Eversmilers keep your hallucinogens,” Laurie said in a low, sweet voice. The two girls had agreed that she would be the good cop to Christy’s bad. “How’s about you tell us?”

Michael walked around the subject for a while, but thanks to Christy’s forceful, heavy persuasion, he provided them with all the answers they required.

Having procured a crude map of sorts from their cooperative hostage, Laurie and Christy made their way to the hut at the very end of the little commune where the third member of their little triumvirate was. There were still a few demons flitting about, but Christy tried not to stare. They were just the result of her drug-addled imagination, yet it didn’t mean the sight of them wasn’t jarring. She tried not to make eye contact with a blue-skinned demon with hair like hydra as it burrowed between the legs of some gasping, giggling redheaded girl by the rosebushes. She slapped the grass, chuckling and moaning in equal parts as webbed fingers and strange face worked some peculiar, sensuous magic on her body.

At the hut, they heard some strange squawking within, which Laurie realised was the sound of Trevor laughing. But there was more than just mirth—he was making sounds that made Laurie turn and look away, wanting to clap her hands over her ears. After giving her friend a knowing pat on the back, Christy went and pounded on the door. The laughter didn’t stop immediately, but kept going for a few seconds longer till Christy slammed her palm on the wooden door a few more times.

“What?” said a short girl with brown braids and a pout face when she popped her head out. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“Michael wants a word with you. He sent us to get you.”

“Is it urgent?”

“Yeah. He’s waiting for you by the beach.”

“Awww. Is it my turn to be buried again? I thought I paid my dues last night.” The girl stuck out her lower lip and sighed. “Do me a favour and keep the cute goth guy occupied, alright?” Her expression brightened, and she burst into a giggling fit as she pushed a feather into Christy’s hand as if remembering a particularly amusing joke. “Super ticklish cock, fyi.”

“Seriously, TMI, girl,” Christy muttered, but the girl had already skipped off.

Once glance inside the room confirmed Laurie’s suspicions, and she yanked her head back, a furious blush spreading across her face. Trevor had been teased and tormented in much the same way, to say the least.

A few minutes later, Trevor came out with his black hair in a wild mess, but he was thankfully clothed. “Thanks for that. This place is really weird, isn’t it?”

“Tell me about it,” Laurie said. “But we’ve got a plan to close down their little operations.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Christy told me that these all crazy ticklefests are fuelled by aphrodisiacs and hallucinogens that they put in all the food and water here.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s why you were making all those noises in there,” Christy added with a grin, glancing in the direction of his crotch.

“Y-yeah, of course!” Trevor exclaimed, a red flush creeping up his long pale neck. “It’s totally just because they dosed me! I wasn’t enjoying it any more than I’m sure you guys were.”

“Anyway, we found out where they store their drugs,” Christy said. “So, our plan is to increase their dosage till they’re too high and horny to do anything. If I know them, and I kinda do, they’ll be too busy tickling and fucking each other to stop us from getting out.”

“Then, we call the cops, and they bust everyone here,” Laurie said, a proud smile spreading across her lips. “And that’s the end of the Eversmilers.”

“But shouldn’t we just escape now, while we still can?” Trevor asked, frowning. “I mean, forgive me for being negative, but what if they catch us?”

“I know it’s a possibility,” Laurie said in a quiet voice. “But if we don’t catch them now, they’ve basically got away it. They’ll deny everything and use those powerful connections of theirs to wiggle out of it. But if we do this right, this place will be pure chaos.” She punched a fist into the palm of her other hand.

“That’s my girl,” Christy said with a hearty chuckle, ruffling Laurie’s hair till the blonde girl nudged her hand way. “She’s full of righteous vengeance and all that jazz.”

“You know it,” Laurie said. “And after this, everything goes back to normal, and we can finally finish our project.”

“We better get commendations for this, seriously,” Trevor said. “We basically stopped a cult single-handedly.”

“Exactly,” Laurie agreed. “Alright, let’s do it, while we still have surprise on our side.”

O-O-O

So, this what it felt like to be a ninja. Laurie had to confess that it looked a lot easier in the films or in the stealth games she had sometimes watched YouTubers stream. All three of them had no footwear aside from flip flops, and the plastic slapping against the ground was the opposite of surreptitious movement. So, the three of them skulked along the side of the path to the main water reservoir. It was nearing dusk, and it only had been about an hour since they had left Michael indisposed in the cottage where Christy had been tickle tortured. But there would bound to be security around the commune’s main water supply, so they crept towards the entrance, slowly and inexorably. Laurie took careful step after careful step, balancing on the balls of her feet and trying to distribute her weight equally to make minimal noise. She watched the ground for things to avoid putting her bare feet on, like bugs or sharp stones, and her heart leapt with every noise, certain that people were about to find them and take them back to their cells to be restrained.

Yet, somehow the three of them make it to the entrance to the kitchens in charge of preparing most of the meals. It was a small house adjacent to a large dining hall where most of the Eversmilers ate, so they had to do this quickly and quietly. Laurie pressed an eye to the door and heard the faint sound of gossipy conversation, water running, knives thunking against chopping boards.

Christy went in first, for she was the fleetest of foot and the most athletic of their group. The dark-haired girl kept her head down and pointed at a shelf of powders and pots in the corner of the large kitchen. That seemed to be where the drugs were added. They watched for a while, saw how one of the cooks popped open one of the jars to splash a tablespoon of the strange green liquid into a pan or added a tablespoon of one of the blue powders to a stew. Once they amped up the dosage, their job would be complete. Only the problem was that the main water tank was right when most of the cooks lingered, as they could fill up from there if they needed water for their various dishes. They would need a distraction.

“I’ll make it,” Laurie said, tapping her chest. “You guys just make sure you spike the water while I’m gone.” This was what adventure, what bravery felt like, she understood that now with a new certainty as her friends nodded, but when she crept towards the powders and pots that housed the powerful aphrodisiacs and hallucinogens, she found herself without a clue of what she ought to do. She had to ignore an optimistic thumbs-up from Christy as her brain whirled and worked in a frantic tizzy.

Maybe, the simplest plan would suffice. On tiptoes, Laurie crept towards the jars, sliding through an open waist-high window near them. When she put a tentative, shaking hand on the nearest jar, Laurie heard a voice close to her.

“Excuse me?”

Laurie’s blood froze, and she turned slowly. It was a brown-skinned girl with a black ponytail and a dirty white apron on.

“If you want to spice up your evening, you have to ask Michael. Too much of that stuff isn’t good for you.” She tsked and extended a hand, but instead of giving it to her and accepting defeat with a meek, downcast head, Laurie dropped to her knees and rolled the glass jar to where her friends were.

“Catch!” Laurie shouted, reaching for another jar and throwing it at the girl’s head. The cultist ducked and the jar missed (Laurie’s aim had been off anyway), but bounced off the low ceiling to cause an explosion of dust that hit them both. Both of them were coughing and spluttering, and the black girl was cussing as Laurie’s sweaty fingers found another jar and lobbed it at the other chefs and potboys that were stirring and coming over to investigate the disturbance. More powder and watery fluid went flying, till Laurie and the Eversmilers were drenched and caked with the stuff like they’d just survived an earthquake.

“Enough!” The black girl grabbed Laurie’s wrists, and the two girls tussled for a moment. Laurie did have the strength to wriggle free. The other girl was had a steely grip, and Laurie’s head was hazy from the powdery substance that was still on her face, t-shirt, legs, and bare feet. It was starting to tingle, too.

“Enough of you more like,” Christy growled and rammed into the girl with a shoulder. The Eversmiler went flying and crashed into the cupboard of jars. “C’mon, Super-Laurie! Let’s get out of here, girl!”

“Y-yeah.” Laurie tried to take a step, but her head was spinning, and she was finding it hard to keep her eyes open. There was the growing tingle of throbbing ticklishness spreading across her chest where the green watery substance had seeped through. Her stomach felt as if hundreds of tiny tongues were lapping across it. Her bare legs and feet had some of the blue powder on them, and the tingled as if thousands of bristly feathers were sliding across them. The sensations, particularly on the insteps of her small feet, were so intense that she would have fallen to the ground had someone large behind her not held her upright.

“I’ve got you,” Trevor murmured. “Don’t worry, we’re all here.”

She closed her eyes and believed him.

O-O-O

When the media heard about a sex-obsessed cult on the edge of town, they sent their best reporters to gather up as much salacious information as they could. When the police received the report of drug abuse, kidnap, and assault taking place within their jurisdiction, they sent some of the finest officers to investigate. Both parties came away pleased and a little disturbed by the strange conspiracy they had uncovered. All in all, several hundred people were arrested and tried, and the newspapers churned out content that lasted weeks as all the sordid details of this strange group known as the Eversmilers came leaking out to a scandalised but intrigued general public.

And it was all thanks to the courageous actions taken by three university students. Christy had enjoyed giving a variety of interviews, using her natural talent for oratory and storytelling to paint vivid pictures of their wild adventures. Laurie and Trevor were more low-key about it and preferred to resist Christy’s attempts to rope them into interviews for newspapers or appearing on morning talk shows, but both of them were glowing with pride when the university presented them with a commendation for their righteous hearts, doubly so when the police presented them with a medal for exhibiting such valour as humble citizens.

For weeks and even months afterwards, whenever Laurie walked the streets of her uni, she found people looking at her in ways they never had before. Instead of roving, lecherous eyes or indifference, she saw heads nodding towards her in admiration, warm, congratulatory smiles, and people murmuring about her accolades as she walked past. The fawning seemed only one step short of being asked for an autograph or to shake their hand, and Laurie was honestly a little relieved when the fanfare died down a little bit, though she found herself feeling flushed and fuzzy inside when a professor singled he rout in class to recount her deeds of heroism.

Christy and Laurie’s friendship had only strengthened since their experience, and they had even included Trevor into their little social circle. And when Trevor asked Laurie out, she was sure to ask Christy if it was okay and wouldn’t violate the ‘girl code’, as she had always suspected Christy might have feelings for him.

“Don’t worry about it,” Christy said, shaking her head. “After my time with that sleaze Michael, I think I’m happy to be single for a while. Besides, it would be unfair to my legion of admirers if I only liked one guy, right?” She threw her head and laughed her husky, hearty laugh.

Laurie had never been the kind of girl to leap into bed with a boy before at least the fifth date, but somehow, it seemed like you could skip all the preliminary steps on ‘getting to know’ and taking tentative steps of trust with Trevor. After all, what hadn’t they seen of each other? What hadn’t they experienced? They’d seen each other naked and in such harrowing conditions, and they had earned the cornerstone of any successful relationship—the ability to rely on one another.

And as their tongues met, and she felt the warmth of his thin, warm body against hers, Laurie cooed and smiled. When one of his gentle caresses reached her stomach for an accidentally tickle, the petite blonde let loose a little squeak.

“Oh, sorry!” Trevor stuck his head up, his blue eyes widening in shocked realisation at what he had done. “Didn’t mean to do that.” He ran his fingers through his messy tangle of dark hair, and his expression was twisted into a sheepish, awkward grin.

But there was no anger in Laurie’s smile, no wrath in her mind. She gave her pink-painted toes a wiggle and sat up. That lone stroke had been like a tinderbox, and she could feel something burning away in her stomach—something raw that stirred her loins. Perhaps, her time with the Eversmilers had awoken something in her, something that she could never quite quench. Laurie wondered if Christy felt the same way, that their adventures had opened up new doorways to sexuality that she hadn’t known to exist prior. Maybe, the same was true for Trevor, but he was just a bit embarrassed about it. The only way to find out would be to explore and push these newfound boundaries of sensuality together.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, chewing on her lower lip as she lifted up her right foot and pressed it against her chin. Her heart was thudding in her chest, and she was a little surprised by her own forwardness. The Laurie of old would never have dared to do this, but once you had fought for your life and freedom, confessing a kink seemed to be such a small, insignificant thing. “I don’t mind if you do it again.”

He stared down at the slender foot that was so close to his mouth. His jaw fell open, his eyes darting from the bare foot to her face. “Y-you don’t?”

“Nah.” She giggled. “In fact, I insist.” She closed her eyes as she felt his warm mouth make the first shy introductions to the sole of her feet. “There, right there! Oh, that spot is so ticklish…”