munchausen
TMF Expert
- Joined
- Jul 5, 2001
- Messages
- 453
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Here's another chapter of my ongoing tale. If the previous section was all prep and little punch, this one is a swing-from-the-heels roundhouse clout. Hope you enjoy.
The Voyage Out, Part IX: Sorority Sabotage.
Nine a.m. came awfully early for Courtney.
She had been up until almost 3:00 the night before, partying with Ashley, her sorority sisters, and
a few choice guys who showed up at the house. Official rules said that no alcohol was allowed in
the house, but since it was summer and not many girls were around, Ashley and the nine or ten
other girls held a quick “council meeting” and voted to temporarily waive the rule. “We do this
all the time, as long as nobody uptight is around,” Ashley said, with a wink. The sorority house
was huge, with a big, open party area on the ground floor with an extra-high ceiling and the
bedrooms ranged around hotel-style on a the second floor corridor that overlooked the
bacchanal.
Despite the strangeness and uncertainty of her situation, Courtney felt right at home. The music
blasting from the choice stereo consisted of current hits from earth (brought to you via the
Kandaele corporation’s media branch) and other songs in similar styles, the girls were
welcoming and friendly (for the most part, anyway) and the guys were both hot and reasonably
well-behaved, flirting but not getting wasted and acting boorish. By the end of the night (and of
about 3/4 of a bottle of tequila), Courtney felt like she had made real friends of almost all the
girls–a luxury that her wealth and privilege sometimes interfered with back home.
There was one potential source of tension, though. Courtney noticed, as the night wore on and
her inhibitions wore down, that one of the girls kept throwing her dirty looks. The girl, named
Kim Cho, was a tall, sleek, put-together girl with asian features and long, thick, silky black hair,
expensively styled. She had seemed very friendly earlier, but became progressively icy. Courtney
had quietly asked Ashley about it as they freshened their drinks in the relatively quiet kitchen,
and Ashley had grinned deviously and suggested Courtney ask Kim Cho’s boyfriend–the guy
Courtney had been grinding on on the dance-floor for the better part of the evening. Chastened
even through her alcohol haze, Courtney had backed off and danced with other guys for the rest
of the night, but still caught hints of venom in Kim Cho’s glare until everyone finally crashed in
the upstairs bedrooms. Ashley had lent her the spare bed in her own room, and Courtney had
slept like the dead.
She had been awakened by someone tugging on the big toe of the foot that protruded
haphazardly from under her blanket. Blinking blearily awake, she saw Ashley, looking sharp,
fresh, and radiant, smiling brilliantly down at her. “Wake up, sleepyhead,” Ashley crooned in her
southern drawl. “It’s time to go help the elderly.”
Oh, Jesus. Community service day. Courtney had forgotten. “Ughuughak,”she replied thickly,
sitting up and resting her throbbing head in her hands. “I feel like someone has been blasting my
throat with a hair-dryer.”
“Poor sweetie. You’ll need your strength today. Here, drink this,” Ashley said, holding out a
small glass of what looked like orange juice. Courtney took it and downed it, and within seconds
felt her aches fading and energy returning. “Oh, my god,” she said, marvelling. “What is that
stuff?”
“Just a little orange juice, from the St. Angelo region. Does wonders for all manner of
ailments–specifically hangovers.” She whispered the last part conspiratorially, with a dramatic
wink.
Revitalized, Courtney hopped up and began picking out clothes. “What should I wear to this
thing?” she asked, sifting through the variety of outfits that fit into the oddly space-distorting
shopping bags she had brought with her.
“Something loose and comfortable. And just wear your flips–you don’t want to be fooling with
shoes and socks,” Ashley said. A little puzzled by the last remark, Courtney shrugged and laid
out an outfit.
“Help yourself to the shower. As the girls and I say, the massager head has three settings–low,
medium, and ‘who needs a man?’” Ashley called as she walked off down the corridor, her own
flip-flops snapping energetically.
The shower felt wonderful. Courtney was a little startled by the power of the pulse head, then
realized with a smirk that Ashley had indeed left it on the “who needs a man?” setting. No
wonder she was so perky this morning, Courtney thought. For a moment, still feeling the
aftereffects of last evening’s sexual tension, she toyed with the idea of enjoying the feature, but
decided against it. She was in a hurry, and besides, after her last aquatic solo session on the ship
had been spied on by that creepy guy, she was leery of indulging herself in unfamiliar places,
however private they seemed. Courtney scowled–she hoped he was still limping from the kick in
the jewels she had given him. She dialed down the pressure to something less dramatic and felt
the remnants of her hangover wash away.
Half an hour later, a small, intrepid core group of girls had gathered downstairs for the
community service trip. Several of those who had been there the night before had begged off for
various dubious reasons, but five devoted sisters, counting Courtney, were ready to do their duty.
Aside from Ashley, there were Genevieve (Gen), a small, athletic girl with short, dark red hair,
bright green eyes, and a deep tan who had shown off her gymnast’s flexibility the previous
evening with a string of acrobatic keg stands; Cassie, a relatively quiet, strikingly pretty, willowy
dark-haired girl with pale skin and glasses that seemed to magnify her large grey eyes;
and–unfortunately-Kim Cho, whose smile faded into a look of cool disdain when Courtney
appeared in the main room. After a quick, chatty breakfast, during which Courtney caught a few
random, good-humored expressions of dread at the day to come, the group piled into cars and set
out.
Courtney rode with Ashley, who seemed happy and enthusiastic–they put down the top
on her little white convertible and blasted the tunes.
“So,” Courtney shouted over the sugary-pop din, “What exactly are we doing today?
Some of the girls didn’t seem to hyped up about it.”
Ashley, nicely accessorized now with slick mirrored sunglasses, stuck out her tongue.
“They’re such wimps. It’s really not that bad, once you get used to it. Kinda like going to the
dentist.”
“So what is it?”
“We, my dear, are going to help the Sunnygrove retirement community with their utility
bills.”
“How?”
Ashley turned down the music a little. “Okay. I keep forgetting you’re not from here, and
things where you come from don’t work like they do here. Okay, you know how stuff around
here is powered by energy gained from laughter, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, most places, plenty of laughter gets generated by everyday activities and put
through amplifiers that, well, amplify its power. That works fine for most places. The senior
center has a couple of problems, though. First, as people get older–I mean really old, like over
60–the amount of power that their laughter generates trails off pretty dramatically. Second, the
amplifiers at this place are like a thousand years old, and they pretty well suck. So, the center
usually has to rely on bought power crystals, which don’t come cheap. The way we help is that
we go to local businesses and have them lend us industrial-strength amplifiers, as well as some,
uh, energy extraction equipment, and we go to the center and donate our young, healthy, musical
laughter! It’s kind of a neat way of fulfilling our community service requirement to keep
University housing.” She grinned at Courtney.
“Oh. Okay. So, uh, how do we donate it?” Courtney asked, dreading the answer.
“Well, new sister...we’re gonna get tickled silly!”
Courtney’s toes clenched into tight fists in her stylish black flip-flops. No way! What had
she gotten herself into? Part of her wanted to back out, tell Ashley to take her home, or let her
out so that she could walk. But she had made such good friends, here, and didn’t want them to
think that she was a poor sport or a wimp. She imagined, briefly, Kim Cho’s reaction to her
backing out, and winced. Back home, in high school, there had been a blood drive for a sick
student, and everyone in Courtney’s class had donated except for a few kids. She remembered
thinking how selfish they seemed, for all their protests about being afraid of needles. Uh uh. Not
this girl. Besides, how bad could it be if all these girls were volunteering? Maybe they wouldn’t
even get her feet.
“Is it too late to escape?” she said, joking to cover up her real misgivings.
“There is no escape from the Sisterhood!” Ashley said theatrically. “By the way, it’s
really important this year. The sorority that donates the most energy wins a new house
entertainment system from Kandaele electronics. We’re a little short-handed, but I happen to
know that those skanks at Alpha Phi only sent out seven people this week. If we can grin and
bear it a little extra, we can blow them out of the water!” She made a face and cranked the
volume up again.
Sunnygrove was beautiful–a sparkling white sprawling complex with acres of
impeccably manicured lawn, pools, tennis courts, and a surprising number of remarkably spry
senior citizens enjoying the amenities. The girls, already giggly with anticipation of their day,
gathered in the solarium and tried to keep quiet as a stern and matronly woman explained the
process.
“We have five machines for you today, donated by local businesses. They’re all Enertech
3000s–nearly what the professionals use, if you watch sports. As you know, the donation should
take about fifteen to twenty minutes. All safety features are intact, and your heart rate will be
monitored throughout–we don’t want anybody passing out on us,” she said, with what passed on
her for a smile. “I know that most of you have done this before, so I’ll leave you to it–just make
certain the monitor is connected before you get started.” The matron nodded curtly and waved
her arm toward a series of rooms down an adjacent hallway. “We’ve put the machines in
separate rooms, for privacy’s sake. If anyone is new, perhaps Ashley”–she nodded approvingly at
Ashley, her obvious favorite, who smiled back ingratiatingly–“will show her how they work.”
She nodded again, turned on her heel, and left the girls alone.
When she was safely gone, Ashley turned to the rest of the girls and did a fair imitation
of her imperious look. “Perhaps Ashley should show our new arrival how the machines work,”
she said, and snickered. “Come on, Courtney. You can see how it works on the human guinea
pig, so you don’t freak out when we strap you in.” She grabbed Courtney’s hand and led her to
the first room, and the other girls followed, buzzing and chattering.
The machine, all chrome and black, looked a little like a complex Nautilus machine. It
was kind of like a recliner, with a contoured seat tilted back and a small foam cushion at the end
to elevate the feet. Three pairs of “arms” protruded from the machine, two toward the middle,
and one toward the foot end. The top two pairs were equipped with clusters of individually
mobile, semi-soft black rubber “fingers;” the bottom pair had smaller sets of “fingers” and an
ominous looking pair of soft brushes. Courtney’s stomach lurched.
Without hesitation, Ashley kicked off her flip-flops and
climbed barefoot onto the
machine. She sat on it, ankles resting on the ankle-prop, and raised her arms over her head. Her
blonde-highlighted brown hair tumbled playfully over her shoulders, brushing her smooth-
shaven armpits. With much giggling and joking, Gen and Cassie strapped her in–an alarming
number of straps, by Courtney’s estimation, holding her hands in place behind her head, belting
her in under her breasts and at her waist, locking her in at the knees and calves. “It’s really very
comfortable,” Ashley said, winking at Courtney. “These are top of the line. And they have to
hold you in–if they didn’t the whole thing would be much more drawn out, and you might hurt
yourself.”
As Gen fastened the last strap at the ankles, Ashley wiggled her bare toes theatrically,
wrinkling the pink soles of her elevated feet. They looked like parentheses. Gen gave her soles a
playful tickle; Ashley squealed and jumped. “Don’t waste it!” she shouted, mock-scolding.
The final step was a single wire with an electrode at the end, running from the base of the
machine, that Cassie fastened to Ashley’s chest. “That relays necessary information to the
machine. It tells it when to slow down, when to let her rest, when to shift the area of the tickling,
and when she might be getting into a cardiac danger zone,” Cassie explained. “Don’t worry–this
keeps it perfectly safe, and even keeps it from getting too unbearable in any one spot. Ready,
Ashley-Smashley?” She asked.
“Do yer worst,” Ashley snarled, imitating a 40s gangster.
Cassie pressed the start button, and the machine whirred quietly to life. Ashley, however,
was considerably less quiet, as one set of arms raised up and began to probe her underarms
gently with the now-vibrating fingers. She let out a yell, which dissolved into a flood of giggles,
as she squeezed her upper arms together helplessly against the sides of her reddening face. The
little digits probed her well-defined pits for several seconds, wracking her with giggles; then, the
second set of upper arms rose and went to work on her ribs and taut tummy, digging a little more
deeply. Cassie’s laughter deepened, becoming full guffaws, as her belly, ribs, and armpits were
tickled simultaneously. Her face grew crimson, her bucking wild, and Courtney was actually
starting to worry about her when the arms whirred back to leave her alone.
“Rest period,” Gen announced, grinning. “But you know what’s coming next,” she said
wickedly.
“Oh, no,” Ashley gasped, as she breathed deeply. Tiny built-in vents blew cool air onto
her as the machine gauged the decrease in her heart rate.
After about a minute, the machine whirred to life again. “Oh, god, here we go,” Ashley
squeaked. The arms at the foot of the chair moved this time, closing in with mechanical
inevitability on the soles of her cringing bare feet.
Courtney had known that they had a lot in common, and Ashley’s banshee wail and
squealing laughter as the machine began to tickle her foot-bottoms told her that they shared their
worst tickle-spot, as well. The straps creaked and complained as Ashley’s small but athletic body
twisted and writhed in ticklish anguish; she squealed, wailed, and chortled as the whirring
brushes teased her arches with scientifically calibrated precision, then squeaked and giggled as
they retracted and the vibrating fingers lightly probed her frantic toes. The energy meter rose
steadily with Ashley’s mighty response to the sole-stroking stimuli.
Suddenly she wheezed and started to cough, and the foot-tickling arm retracted
immediately, allowing her to catch her breath. “The machine can tell, via the electrode, if you
start having problems–choking, heart racing, whatever, and it stops long enough to let you
recover,” Gen explained, bringing Ashley a little conical paper cup of water from a cooler in the
corner and patting her shoulder. “It also shifts when it senses you’ve had enough in a certain
spot. These aren’t supposed to be torture devices, you know,” she said with a wink.
Ashley, still shivering with giggles, gulped down the water, then made a silly face. “All
right, all right, this ain’t a free show. The rest of you gals have to go take your lumps, too!”
With mock salutes, the other four girls filed out of the room. As she shut the door behind
her, Courtney heard Ashley whoop as the rib-rubbers struck again.
“Okay, I guess we need to get our new girl settled in, then
head into the breach
ourselves,” Cassie said.
Suddenly, Kim Cho spoke up. “I’ll take care of Courtney, you guys. You’ll need someone
to strap you both in, so we’ll help with that, then I’ll buckle up Ms. Frost. By then, Ashley
should be close to done, and she can strap me in.” She seemed bubbly and friendly all of a
sudden, as if last night had never happened–for all her misgivings about trusting her fate to Kim
Cho, Courtney found herself willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
They strapped the other two girls in, lingering for a few moments to watch Cassie
screech as the fingers dug into her tender sides, and Gen explode into squealing laughter as the
brushes introduced themselves to the bottoms of her tiny brown bare feet, then walked down to
the final chamber. Courtney felt a little like a prisoner walking the last mile.
“Okay! Hop on!” Kim Cho chirped as they entered the last room. Hesitantly, Courtney
climbed on, reclined, and rested her ankles on the footrest. In a flash, Kim Cho had her strapped
securely in–she whistled softly as she cinched the straps. After locking in her ankles, Kim Cho
plucked off her flip flops, leaving Courtney helplessly barefoot. Lastly, she affixed the electrode
to Courtney’s chest, making a little kissy noise as she did. Then, for a moment, she ducked out
of the bound Courtney’s line of vision.
“Whatcha doin’, Kim?” Courtney asked nervously.
“Just checking the connections. We’d hate for anything to get in the way of a smooth,
comfortable, and safe session, wouldn’t we?” In another few seconds, Kim stood back up and
pressed the power button.
“Have fun, new sis!” she said, a (wicked?) grin on her face, and left, closing the door
behind her.
Courtney gulped as her machine whirred to life. “Why, God, why am I here right now?”
she said to herself. Every muscle in her body was tense and corded–her fingers and toes clenched
tight. The machine was surprisingly comfortable–it would have been easy to relax in, under
different circumstances. She tried to breathe deeply and stay calm–after all, the electrode
readings would keep things from getting too awful. Ashley seemed almost as ticklish as she was,
and she didn’t complain.
Just her luck–her machine decided to start at the most unbearably ticklish part of her
body. With a quiet whirring of servomodules, the machine’s diabolically designed foot-tickling
arms went to work. The first sensation was of the vibrating “fingers” tracing the bottoms of her
bare feet, one by one, from the base of her toes to her heels. Courtney immediately gave over to
full-throated laughter, feet flexing helplessly. As the fingers began to double and triple up,
focusing on the centers of her arches, she really started to spaz out, fairly shouting with hilarity.
The fingers would bunch up and buzz lightly in the highest parts of the centers of her arches,
then vibrate unbearably, making her wrench and yank fruitlessly against the bonds. This was
horrible!
It only got worse when the “fingers” retracted and the brushes spun to life, replacing the
buzzy tickles with light, feathery, but insistent whisking of her smooth and mightily ticklish
soles. They zipped from flicking the tops of her heels, which caused convulsive yelps and
giggles, to buffing the tips of her tender gumdrop toes, which forced high, nervous titters and
twitches, to zeroing in on those awfully ticklish arches again, bringing sustained, full-out,
resonant peals of laughter.
Tears streamed down Courtney’s cheeks, now; her usually meticulously styled blonde
hair was a mess from her impotent head-tossing. The tickling had long since gone from
moderately unbearable to full-out torture, and the part of her that could still think realized that
something was wrong. Ashley’s machine had changed off tickling areas, given her breaks, even
cooled her off. This one just seemed to get better and better at tickling her feet worse and worse.
The only variations in its attack seemed geared to keep her from getting at all desensitized to
what was happening–just as her tortured feet started to acclimate even a little bit to any given
attack, making her laughter subside from maniacal to merely convulsive, the machine would
change techniques, redoubling her ticklish response. When vibrating fingers between her
helpless toes had her cooing in exhausted laughter rather than screaming energetically, the
fingers would retract and the brushes attack the tight and tender skin at the tops of her heels,
making her shriek anew. The one constant go-to spot, the one that never seemed to acclimate
even the slightest to any kind of tickling, was her high, smooth arches: these were treated to a
buffet of indignities, all of which seemed equally effective means of inducing ungodly howls of
laughter.
The foot-tickling just kept going, kept intensifying, and Courtney thought she would go
out of her mind. She could hear her heart racing in her ears; her laughter was hoarse and
tortured, now, hurting her throat; her abs ached terribly, as if she had done a thousand crunches.
“This fucking thing is broken, and it’s going to kill me,” the section of her brain not
overwhelmed by tickle-impulses said. She started trying to yell for help, but each time she did,
some masterful touch, poke or stroke on her bare soles stole the cry and buried it in agonizing
hilarity. Before long, she had been reduced to silent laughter, heaving, weeping, on the verge of
blacking out–and still the brushes and fingers tickled her helpless, endlessly sensitive bare feet.
Courtney was semi-conscious, still bucking and lurching from the tickling, when Ashley
burst in, flanked by the other girls. “Omigod!! The electrode is unhooked at the machine end!!”
Amy cried, quickly hitting the manual override button and shutting the machine down.
Courtney whimpered a little as her overloaded brain registered the blessed end of her foot-
tickling torture.
“Kim Cho, didn’t you check this thing?! Without the electrode, this thing doesn’t slow
down or alter its technique to allow for rest or recuperation. It just zeroed in on the most
effective spot and attacked it with maximum intensity! For, like, twenty minutes!”
Kim Cho’s face was a mask of naive incomprehension. “Oh, wow, I’m sorry! It sure
looked like everything was okay when I left! You guys know I’ve only done this, like, once
before, right?”
Gen and Cassie helped the semi-conscious Courtney off of the machine and let her lean
on their shoulders as they walked to the door. Ashley grabbed Courtney’s flip-flops and followed
after, worried about her friend.
“Oh, look, guys!” Kim Cho called, some ways behind them. “Courtney topped out the
energy meter! It looks like we win the contest, and I don’t even have to take my turn! Rock on,
new sis!”
Courtney barely registered the comment as the girls walked her back to Ashley’s car.
“Let’s get you back to the house,” Ashley said consolingly, buckling Courtney’s seatbelt. She
looked back over her shoulder. “Kim Cho, you’re such a bitch,” Ashley said, glowering at her
smug sister.
Kim Cho, smiling smugly, raised her eyebrows and made a little gesture of disbelief.
“Moi?” she asked, then, laughing, got in her car and screeched out of the parking lot.
The Voyage Out, Part IX: Sorority Sabotage.
Nine a.m. came awfully early for Courtney.
She had been up until almost 3:00 the night before, partying with Ashley, her sorority sisters, and
a few choice guys who showed up at the house. Official rules said that no alcohol was allowed in
the house, but since it was summer and not many girls were around, Ashley and the nine or ten
other girls held a quick “council meeting” and voted to temporarily waive the rule. “We do this
all the time, as long as nobody uptight is around,” Ashley said, with a wink. The sorority house
was huge, with a big, open party area on the ground floor with an extra-high ceiling and the
bedrooms ranged around hotel-style on a the second floor corridor that overlooked the
bacchanal.
Despite the strangeness and uncertainty of her situation, Courtney felt right at home. The music
blasting from the choice stereo consisted of current hits from earth (brought to you via the
Kandaele corporation’s media branch) and other songs in similar styles, the girls were
welcoming and friendly (for the most part, anyway) and the guys were both hot and reasonably
well-behaved, flirting but not getting wasted and acting boorish. By the end of the night (and of
about 3/4 of a bottle of tequila), Courtney felt like she had made real friends of almost all the
girls–a luxury that her wealth and privilege sometimes interfered with back home.
There was one potential source of tension, though. Courtney noticed, as the night wore on and
her inhibitions wore down, that one of the girls kept throwing her dirty looks. The girl, named
Kim Cho, was a tall, sleek, put-together girl with asian features and long, thick, silky black hair,
expensively styled. She had seemed very friendly earlier, but became progressively icy. Courtney
had quietly asked Ashley about it as they freshened their drinks in the relatively quiet kitchen,
and Ashley had grinned deviously and suggested Courtney ask Kim Cho’s boyfriend–the guy
Courtney had been grinding on on the dance-floor for the better part of the evening. Chastened
even through her alcohol haze, Courtney had backed off and danced with other guys for the rest
of the night, but still caught hints of venom in Kim Cho’s glare until everyone finally crashed in
the upstairs bedrooms. Ashley had lent her the spare bed in her own room, and Courtney had
slept like the dead.
She had been awakened by someone tugging on the big toe of the foot that protruded
haphazardly from under her blanket. Blinking blearily awake, she saw Ashley, looking sharp,
fresh, and radiant, smiling brilliantly down at her. “Wake up, sleepyhead,” Ashley crooned in her
southern drawl. “It’s time to go help the elderly.”
Oh, Jesus. Community service day. Courtney had forgotten. “Ughuughak,”she replied thickly,
sitting up and resting her throbbing head in her hands. “I feel like someone has been blasting my
throat with a hair-dryer.”
“Poor sweetie. You’ll need your strength today. Here, drink this,” Ashley said, holding out a
small glass of what looked like orange juice. Courtney took it and downed it, and within seconds
felt her aches fading and energy returning. “Oh, my god,” she said, marvelling. “What is that
stuff?”
“Just a little orange juice, from the St. Angelo region. Does wonders for all manner of
ailments–specifically hangovers.” She whispered the last part conspiratorially, with a dramatic
wink.
Revitalized, Courtney hopped up and began picking out clothes. “What should I wear to this
thing?” she asked, sifting through the variety of outfits that fit into the oddly space-distorting
shopping bags she had brought with her.
“Something loose and comfortable. And just wear your flips–you don’t want to be fooling with
shoes and socks,” Ashley said. A little puzzled by the last remark, Courtney shrugged and laid
out an outfit.
“Help yourself to the shower. As the girls and I say, the massager head has three settings–low,
medium, and ‘who needs a man?’” Ashley called as she walked off down the corridor, her own
flip-flops snapping energetically.
The shower felt wonderful. Courtney was a little startled by the power of the pulse head, then
realized with a smirk that Ashley had indeed left it on the “who needs a man?” setting. No
wonder she was so perky this morning, Courtney thought. For a moment, still feeling the
aftereffects of last evening’s sexual tension, she toyed with the idea of enjoying the feature, but
decided against it. She was in a hurry, and besides, after her last aquatic solo session on the ship
had been spied on by that creepy guy, she was leery of indulging herself in unfamiliar places,
however private they seemed. Courtney scowled–she hoped he was still limping from the kick in
the jewels she had given him. She dialed down the pressure to something less dramatic and felt
the remnants of her hangover wash away.
Half an hour later, a small, intrepid core group of girls had gathered downstairs for the
community service trip. Several of those who had been there the night before had begged off for
various dubious reasons, but five devoted sisters, counting Courtney, were ready to do their duty.
Aside from Ashley, there were Genevieve (Gen), a small, athletic girl with short, dark red hair,
bright green eyes, and a deep tan who had shown off her gymnast’s flexibility the previous
evening with a string of acrobatic keg stands; Cassie, a relatively quiet, strikingly pretty, willowy
dark-haired girl with pale skin and glasses that seemed to magnify her large grey eyes;
and–unfortunately-Kim Cho, whose smile faded into a look of cool disdain when Courtney
appeared in the main room. After a quick, chatty breakfast, during which Courtney caught a few
random, good-humored expressions of dread at the day to come, the group piled into cars and set
out.
Courtney rode with Ashley, who seemed happy and enthusiastic–they put down the top
on her little white convertible and blasted the tunes.
“So,” Courtney shouted over the sugary-pop din, “What exactly are we doing today?
Some of the girls didn’t seem to hyped up about it.”
Ashley, nicely accessorized now with slick mirrored sunglasses, stuck out her tongue.
“They’re such wimps. It’s really not that bad, once you get used to it. Kinda like going to the
dentist.”
“So what is it?”
“We, my dear, are going to help the Sunnygrove retirement community with their utility
bills.”
“How?”
Ashley turned down the music a little. “Okay. I keep forgetting you’re not from here, and
things where you come from don’t work like they do here. Okay, you know how stuff around
here is powered by energy gained from laughter, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, most places, plenty of laughter gets generated by everyday activities and put
through amplifiers that, well, amplify its power. That works fine for most places. The senior
center has a couple of problems, though. First, as people get older–I mean really old, like over
60–the amount of power that their laughter generates trails off pretty dramatically. Second, the
amplifiers at this place are like a thousand years old, and they pretty well suck. So, the center
usually has to rely on bought power crystals, which don’t come cheap. The way we help is that
we go to local businesses and have them lend us industrial-strength amplifiers, as well as some,
uh, energy extraction equipment, and we go to the center and donate our young, healthy, musical
laughter! It’s kind of a neat way of fulfilling our community service requirement to keep
University housing.” She grinned at Courtney.
“Oh. Okay. So, uh, how do we donate it?” Courtney asked, dreading the answer.
“Well, new sister...we’re gonna get tickled silly!”
Courtney’s toes clenched into tight fists in her stylish black flip-flops. No way! What had
she gotten herself into? Part of her wanted to back out, tell Ashley to take her home, or let her
out so that she could walk. But she had made such good friends, here, and didn’t want them to
think that she was a poor sport or a wimp. She imagined, briefly, Kim Cho’s reaction to her
backing out, and winced. Back home, in high school, there had been a blood drive for a sick
student, and everyone in Courtney’s class had donated except for a few kids. She remembered
thinking how selfish they seemed, for all their protests about being afraid of needles. Uh uh. Not
this girl. Besides, how bad could it be if all these girls were volunteering? Maybe they wouldn’t
even get her feet.
“Is it too late to escape?” she said, joking to cover up her real misgivings.
“There is no escape from the Sisterhood!” Ashley said theatrically. “By the way, it’s
really important this year. The sorority that donates the most energy wins a new house
entertainment system from Kandaele electronics. We’re a little short-handed, but I happen to
know that those skanks at Alpha Phi only sent out seven people this week. If we can grin and
bear it a little extra, we can blow them out of the water!” She made a face and cranked the
volume up again.
Sunnygrove was beautiful–a sparkling white sprawling complex with acres of
impeccably manicured lawn, pools, tennis courts, and a surprising number of remarkably spry
senior citizens enjoying the amenities. The girls, already giggly with anticipation of their day,
gathered in the solarium and tried to keep quiet as a stern and matronly woman explained the
process.
“We have five machines for you today, donated by local businesses. They’re all Enertech
3000s–nearly what the professionals use, if you watch sports. As you know, the donation should
take about fifteen to twenty minutes. All safety features are intact, and your heart rate will be
monitored throughout–we don’t want anybody passing out on us,” she said, with what passed on
her for a smile. “I know that most of you have done this before, so I’ll leave you to it–just make
certain the monitor is connected before you get started.” The matron nodded curtly and waved
her arm toward a series of rooms down an adjacent hallway. “We’ve put the machines in
separate rooms, for privacy’s sake. If anyone is new, perhaps Ashley”–she nodded approvingly at
Ashley, her obvious favorite, who smiled back ingratiatingly–“will show her how they work.”
She nodded again, turned on her heel, and left the girls alone.
When she was safely gone, Ashley turned to the rest of the girls and did a fair imitation
of her imperious look. “Perhaps Ashley should show our new arrival how the machines work,”
she said, and snickered. “Come on, Courtney. You can see how it works on the human guinea
pig, so you don’t freak out when we strap you in.” She grabbed Courtney’s hand and led her to
the first room, and the other girls followed, buzzing and chattering.
The machine, all chrome and black, looked a little like a complex Nautilus machine. It
was kind of like a recliner, with a contoured seat tilted back and a small foam cushion at the end
to elevate the feet. Three pairs of “arms” protruded from the machine, two toward the middle,
and one toward the foot end. The top two pairs were equipped with clusters of individually
mobile, semi-soft black rubber “fingers;” the bottom pair had smaller sets of “fingers” and an
ominous looking pair of soft brushes. Courtney’s stomach lurched.
Without hesitation, Ashley kicked off her flip-flops and
climbed barefoot onto the
machine. She sat on it, ankles resting on the ankle-prop, and raised her arms over her head. Her
blonde-highlighted brown hair tumbled playfully over her shoulders, brushing her smooth-
shaven armpits. With much giggling and joking, Gen and Cassie strapped her in–an alarming
number of straps, by Courtney’s estimation, holding her hands in place behind her head, belting
her in under her breasts and at her waist, locking her in at the knees and calves. “It’s really very
comfortable,” Ashley said, winking at Courtney. “These are top of the line. And they have to
hold you in–if they didn’t the whole thing would be much more drawn out, and you might hurt
yourself.”
As Gen fastened the last strap at the ankles, Ashley wiggled her bare toes theatrically,
wrinkling the pink soles of her elevated feet. They looked like parentheses. Gen gave her soles a
playful tickle; Ashley squealed and jumped. “Don’t waste it!” she shouted, mock-scolding.
The final step was a single wire with an electrode at the end, running from the base of the
machine, that Cassie fastened to Ashley’s chest. “That relays necessary information to the
machine. It tells it when to slow down, when to let her rest, when to shift the area of the tickling,
and when she might be getting into a cardiac danger zone,” Cassie explained. “Don’t worry–this
keeps it perfectly safe, and even keeps it from getting too unbearable in any one spot. Ready,
Ashley-Smashley?” She asked.
“Do yer worst,” Ashley snarled, imitating a 40s gangster.
Cassie pressed the start button, and the machine whirred quietly to life. Ashley, however,
was considerably less quiet, as one set of arms raised up and began to probe her underarms
gently with the now-vibrating fingers. She let out a yell, which dissolved into a flood of giggles,
as she squeezed her upper arms together helplessly against the sides of her reddening face. The
little digits probed her well-defined pits for several seconds, wracking her with giggles; then, the
second set of upper arms rose and went to work on her ribs and taut tummy, digging a little more
deeply. Cassie’s laughter deepened, becoming full guffaws, as her belly, ribs, and armpits were
tickled simultaneously. Her face grew crimson, her bucking wild, and Courtney was actually
starting to worry about her when the arms whirred back to leave her alone.
“Rest period,” Gen announced, grinning. “But you know what’s coming next,” she said
wickedly.
“Oh, no,” Ashley gasped, as she breathed deeply. Tiny built-in vents blew cool air onto
her as the machine gauged the decrease in her heart rate.
After about a minute, the machine whirred to life again. “Oh, god, here we go,” Ashley
squeaked. The arms at the foot of the chair moved this time, closing in with mechanical
inevitability on the soles of her cringing bare feet.
Courtney had known that they had a lot in common, and Ashley’s banshee wail and
squealing laughter as the machine began to tickle her foot-bottoms told her that they shared their
worst tickle-spot, as well. The straps creaked and complained as Ashley’s small but athletic body
twisted and writhed in ticklish anguish; she squealed, wailed, and chortled as the whirring
brushes teased her arches with scientifically calibrated precision, then squeaked and giggled as
they retracted and the vibrating fingers lightly probed her frantic toes. The energy meter rose
steadily with Ashley’s mighty response to the sole-stroking stimuli.
Suddenly she wheezed and started to cough, and the foot-tickling arm retracted
immediately, allowing her to catch her breath. “The machine can tell, via the electrode, if you
start having problems–choking, heart racing, whatever, and it stops long enough to let you
recover,” Gen explained, bringing Ashley a little conical paper cup of water from a cooler in the
corner and patting her shoulder. “It also shifts when it senses you’ve had enough in a certain
spot. These aren’t supposed to be torture devices, you know,” she said with a wink.
Ashley, still shivering with giggles, gulped down the water, then made a silly face. “All
right, all right, this ain’t a free show. The rest of you gals have to go take your lumps, too!”
With mock salutes, the other four girls filed out of the room. As she shut the door behind
her, Courtney heard Ashley whoop as the rib-rubbers struck again.
“Okay, I guess we need to get our new girl settled in, then
head into the breach
ourselves,” Cassie said.
Suddenly, Kim Cho spoke up. “I’ll take care of Courtney, you guys. You’ll need someone
to strap you both in, so we’ll help with that, then I’ll buckle up Ms. Frost. By then, Ashley
should be close to done, and she can strap me in.” She seemed bubbly and friendly all of a
sudden, as if last night had never happened–for all her misgivings about trusting her fate to Kim
Cho, Courtney found herself willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
They strapped the other two girls in, lingering for a few moments to watch Cassie
screech as the fingers dug into her tender sides, and Gen explode into squealing laughter as the
brushes introduced themselves to the bottoms of her tiny brown bare feet, then walked down to
the final chamber. Courtney felt a little like a prisoner walking the last mile.
“Okay! Hop on!” Kim Cho chirped as they entered the last room. Hesitantly, Courtney
climbed on, reclined, and rested her ankles on the footrest. In a flash, Kim Cho had her strapped
securely in–she whistled softly as she cinched the straps. After locking in her ankles, Kim Cho
plucked off her flip flops, leaving Courtney helplessly barefoot. Lastly, she affixed the electrode
to Courtney’s chest, making a little kissy noise as she did. Then, for a moment, she ducked out
of the bound Courtney’s line of vision.
“Whatcha doin’, Kim?” Courtney asked nervously.
“Just checking the connections. We’d hate for anything to get in the way of a smooth,
comfortable, and safe session, wouldn’t we?” In another few seconds, Kim stood back up and
pressed the power button.
“Have fun, new sis!” she said, a (wicked?) grin on her face, and left, closing the door
behind her.
Courtney gulped as her machine whirred to life. “Why, God, why am I here right now?”
she said to herself. Every muscle in her body was tense and corded–her fingers and toes clenched
tight. The machine was surprisingly comfortable–it would have been easy to relax in, under
different circumstances. She tried to breathe deeply and stay calm–after all, the electrode
readings would keep things from getting too awful. Ashley seemed almost as ticklish as she was,
and she didn’t complain.
Just her luck–her machine decided to start at the most unbearably ticklish part of her
body. With a quiet whirring of servomodules, the machine’s diabolically designed foot-tickling
arms went to work. The first sensation was of the vibrating “fingers” tracing the bottoms of her
bare feet, one by one, from the base of her toes to her heels. Courtney immediately gave over to
full-throated laughter, feet flexing helplessly. As the fingers began to double and triple up,
focusing on the centers of her arches, she really started to spaz out, fairly shouting with hilarity.
The fingers would bunch up and buzz lightly in the highest parts of the centers of her arches,
then vibrate unbearably, making her wrench and yank fruitlessly against the bonds. This was
horrible!
It only got worse when the “fingers” retracted and the brushes spun to life, replacing the
buzzy tickles with light, feathery, but insistent whisking of her smooth and mightily ticklish
soles. They zipped from flicking the tops of her heels, which caused convulsive yelps and
giggles, to buffing the tips of her tender gumdrop toes, which forced high, nervous titters and
twitches, to zeroing in on those awfully ticklish arches again, bringing sustained, full-out,
resonant peals of laughter.
Tears streamed down Courtney’s cheeks, now; her usually meticulously styled blonde
hair was a mess from her impotent head-tossing. The tickling had long since gone from
moderately unbearable to full-out torture, and the part of her that could still think realized that
something was wrong. Ashley’s machine had changed off tickling areas, given her breaks, even
cooled her off. This one just seemed to get better and better at tickling her feet worse and worse.
The only variations in its attack seemed geared to keep her from getting at all desensitized to
what was happening–just as her tortured feet started to acclimate even a little bit to any given
attack, making her laughter subside from maniacal to merely convulsive, the machine would
change techniques, redoubling her ticklish response. When vibrating fingers between her
helpless toes had her cooing in exhausted laughter rather than screaming energetically, the
fingers would retract and the brushes attack the tight and tender skin at the tops of her heels,
making her shriek anew. The one constant go-to spot, the one that never seemed to acclimate
even the slightest to any kind of tickling, was her high, smooth arches: these were treated to a
buffet of indignities, all of which seemed equally effective means of inducing ungodly howls of
laughter.
The foot-tickling just kept going, kept intensifying, and Courtney thought she would go
out of her mind. She could hear her heart racing in her ears; her laughter was hoarse and
tortured, now, hurting her throat; her abs ached terribly, as if she had done a thousand crunches.
“This fucking thing is broken, and it’s going to kill me,” the section of her brain not
overwhelmed by tickle-impulses said. She started trying to yell for help, but each time she did,
some masterful touch, poke or stroke on her bare soles stole the cry and buried it in agonizing
hilarity. Before long, she had been reduced to silent laughter, heaving, weeping, on the verge of
blacking out–and still the brushes and fingers tickled her helpless, endlessly sensitive bare feet.
Courtney was semi-conscious, still bucking and lurching from the tickling, when Ashley
burst in, flanked by the other girls. “Omigod!! The electrode is unhooked at the machine end!!”
Amy cried, quickly hitting the manual override button and shutting the machine down.
Courtney whimpered a little as her overloaded brain registered the blessed end of her foot-
tickling torture.
“Kim Cho, didn’t you check this thing?! Without the electrode, this thing doesn’t slow
down or alter its technique to allow for rest or recuperation. It just zeroed in on the most
effective spot and attacked it with maximum intensity! For, like, twenty minutes!”
Kim Cho’s face was a mask of naive incomprehension. “Oh, wow, I’m sorry! It sure
looked like everything was okay when I left! You guys know I’ve only done this, like, once
before, right?”
Gen and Cassie helped the semi-conscious Courtney off of the machine and let her lean
on their shoulders as they walked to the door. Ashley grabbed Courtney’s flip-flops and followed
after, worried about her friend.
“Oh, look, guys!” Kim Cho called, some ways behind them. “Courtney topped out the
energy meter! It looks like we win the contest, and I don’t even have to take my turn! Rock on,
new sis!”
Courtney barely registered the comment as the girls walked her back to Ashley’s car.
“Let’s get you back to the house,” Ashley said consolingly, buckling Courtney’s seatbelt. She
looked back over her shoulder. “Kim Cho, you’re such a bitch,” Ashley said, glowering at her
smug sister.
Kim Cho, smiling smugly, raised her eyebrows and made a little gesture of disbelief.
“Moi?” she asked, then, laughing, got in her car and screeched out of the parking lot.
....i won't finish.
<p>
