Strelnikov
4th Level Red Feather
- Joined
- May 7, 2001
- Messages
- 1,820
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By Strelnikov
Copyright 2004 by the author
Dramatis Personae (in order of appearance)
Amanda Mason
Amanda is a little cutie, just turned 18 years old, a petite girl with a trim and shapely figure. She stands an inch or so over five feet tall in her bare feet. She has curly dark brown hair, brown eyes, dark brows and long, dark lashes. She’s new to Tieson City, and will start at Tieson City High School as a Senior in the fall. She’s impossible not to like, but she has this one odd quirk...
Sara Rosen
Sara is 18 years old. She’s built like Dolly Parton, a small girl with a slender waist and amazing upper body development. Sara has long dark brown hair, beautiful green eyes, a deep tan, and a fit, toned body. Her ticklishness is her greatest weakness. She’s an enthusiastic tickler, on the principle that it’s more blessed to give than to receive.
Candice Wade
A little beauty, 18 years old, with crystal blue eyes and ash blonde hair, and a very trim and shapely body. An extrovert and sensualist, she loves to be tickled and get in ticklish situations, but if the tickling goes too far, she's out of control. Her lust to be tickled has grown and grown over the past year, and now she'll do anything to get tickled. She's lived with her parents and sister on Tickle Street since she was five. Sara Rosen is her closest friend.
********************
Rachel was already gone when Amanda’s alarm went off. Her red-headed roomie waited tables at the Tieson City Cafe across Main Street from their over-the-store apartment – she was working breakfast today. Amanda had never been a morning person – better her than me, she thought.
Amanda was a little cutie, a petite girl with curly dark brown hair, brown eyes, dark brows, long dark lashes, and a trim and shapely figure. She stood an inch or so over five feet tall in her bare feet. She was just 18 yrs old, and new to Tieson City. She had lived many places since she had walked away from her last foster home two years ago, with just the clothes she was wearing and whatever money she could find in the house.
Amanda’s life had changed a few months back, when she had been caught up in an adventure. She had met her roomie then, and four local girls: Ashley Curtis, Angie Fontana, Kelly McGuire and Stephanie Miklajcyk. They were all fast friends now – Ashley had encouraged Amanda and Rachel to settle here. Amanda had gotten her high school records and talked with the local authorities – with some tutoring, she figured she could test out of everything but the Senior level courses. She planned to start at Tieson City High School in the fall.
But in the meantime, Amanda needed a job. Would in the fall too – she and Rachel were self-supporting. She had been riding a bicycle out Johnson’s Ferry Road to her food court job at the Mall – money was tight, they didn’t have a car. Twice, she had just missed getting strained through the radiator of a Peterbilt. She started a new job today that would be much better in that respect – it was at Rosen’s Rexall Drugs, just two doors down Main Street.
Amanda showered and dressed in a white t-shirt and capri’s with a blue floral print. She stepped into her sandals at the door, locked up, and descended the stairs to the alley. A minivan pulled up and parked behind the drugstore just as she got there – Amanda’s boss and co-workers, she was right on time.
Ruth Rosen was a small woman in her mid-40’s, with green eyes and a few strands of gray showing in her dark hair. She wore a pharmacist’s smock – she and her husband owned the place.
Sara Rosen was 18, just graduated from high school. She had her mother’s green eyes and dark hair, worn long in a pony tail. But unlike her mother, some quirk of Sara’s genetics had combined to give her a figure like Dolly Parton – a small girl with an hourglass waist and amazing upper body development. She wore denim capri’s, sandals, and a white collared knit shirt with Rosen’s Rx over the left breast. She wore a ball cap too, to satisfy the Health Department while working the soda fountain/lunch counter.
Amanda’s other co-worker was Candice Wade. Candice was Sara’s neighbor, high school classmate and best friend. She was a little beauty with shoulder-length ash blonde hair, crystal blue eyes and delicate china-doll features. She was dressed like Sara.
“Hi, Amanda,” Mrs. Rosen said. “Sara, find her a shirt and a cap. She can change in the stock room. Nobody here but us girls anyway – we won’t open for another hour.”
“OK, Mom. Amanda, you look like a Small... Here ya go.”
Amanda already knew how to work a register and a lunch counter – Candice and Sara said they would coach her through sundae-building at the soda fountain later. In the meantime, Amanda was put to work dusting shelves.
She worked her way over to the toy section. Like most such places, Rosen’s had a collection of sad, dusty stuffed animals. They could stand freshening up, Amanda thought, but heroic measures were called for. She checked her watch – she had time, 20 minutes until they opened. She got two big trash bags, gathered the toys up in one bag and carried them out to the alley.
Outside, Amanda smacked the toys together two by two, creating an amazing cloud of dust. The cleaned toys went into the other bag. She checked her watch as she carried them back inside – she still had 10 minutes.
The others were finished by then, sitting at one of the marble-topped tables near the soda fountain with cups of coffee. Candice had kicked off her sandals – her bare feet were propped up on another of the bent-wire straight chairs.
Playfully, Amanda reached down and tickled Candice’s feet. Candice giggled, but didn’t pull them away. Instead, she set her coffee cup down and looked up at Amanda. Sara and her mother exchanged meaningful looks.
“Is that it?” Candice asked with a raised eyebrow.
Amanda’s friend Ashley was Candice and Sara’s neighbor – she had told Amanda about Candice and her “hobby”. What the hell – why not?
“Nope,” Amanda said, and gestured toward the chair. Candice put her feet down. Amanda sat, and Candice obligingly put her feet in Amanda’s lap. Amanda trapped her ankles in a simple leg lock. Sara tossed Candice a big teddy bear – the little blonde got a good grip on it and winked at Amanda.
Amanda started slow, tracing a fingernail along the tips of Candice’s toes and producing a stream of girlish giggles. She held the toes back and stroked two fingernails across under all ten, away from her, and the giggles were continuous. She gently spider-walked her nails back toward herself on the stretched-out sole, and was rewarded by a burst of laughter – the exact center of Candice’s sole was especially ticklish, it seemed. Then across the balls of both feet – another wave of laughter – and finished under the little toe. She made a Peace sign and traced two wavy lines down Candice’s arch – more giggles – and drew circles on the heel. Then the other heel, and then tiny nail flicks up the arch to the sole again. Another Peace sign, and she finished on the balls of both feet, scratching lightly just behind the big toes.
“Haha! You can– hehe! –do better– haha-hehe! –than tha– tha– hahaha!” Candice said through her giggles.
“Just getting started,” Amanda said, and dug in. Candice threw her head back and laughed like a madwoman.
Amanda scrabbled her nails down Candice’s left foot, sole to heel, then back up the right foot to the sole. Candice laughed her head off as Amanda drew fast, looping figure-eight’s around the balls of both feet. The loops got smaller, tighter, covering every square inch of ticklish flesh. Then bigger loops again – twice on each figure-eight, she hit the sweet spots and gave them a few extra nail flicks. Candice laughed at the top of her lungs.
Running out of time – Amanda concentrated on the center of Candice’s left sole, fingernails flying. Candice laughed and laughed as the tickling fingernails flicked across the balls of her feet – she was turning pink, tears of laughter streaming down her cheeks. Then the center of the right sole, and Candice’s laughter went off the scale.
“Time!” Mrs. Rosen called out. Amanda stopped tickling – she looked up and noticed that Sara had restocked the other toys on the shelf. Candice took long, shaky breaths, trying to get her heart rate and breathing normal again.
“Wooo!” Candice said. “That really, really tickled!”
Amanda grinned. “It was supposed to. C’mon, let’s get to work.”
Ashley had told Amanda that the Rosens had the reputation of being good employers – they never had to advertise for help. By lunch time, Amanda had decided that it was true – she liked this job. In the lull after the lunch hour rush, she loaded the dishwasher and mopped the lunch counter and tables. She was just sweeping up crumbs when Candice started laughing again.
Amanda finished her sweeping in a few minutes and took the broom and dustpan back into the stock room. Sara’s dad was a pack rat. The stock room collected oddments – defective nylons, dusty flash cubes, a broken yardstick, unsold magazines, bent shelves, wooden crates that were too good to throw away, fossilized cans of paint left over from the last store renovation. Candice was sitting on a wobbly chair, hands tied behind her back with old nylons. Sara sat on an overturned crate, with Candice’s ankles trapped in a leg lock, tickling her friend’s feet with both hands. Sara had Candice in the zone – the little blonde was laughing harder now, red faced, howling with forced mirth.
Mrs. Rosen was at her computer behind the pharmacy counter. She looked up and smiled as Amanda approached. “How are you doing so far?” she asked.
“I like it here. But...” Amanda waved a hand toward the stock room, where Candice kept on laughing. “Candice might as well have been wearing a “tickle me” sign this morning. Is this... usual?”
“Yup. They’ve been playing like that since they were little girls. It bugs my husband, but I don’t mind so long as there’s no customers in the store.” Mrs. Rosen paused, then went on in a wistful tone, “My sister and I used to tickle each other. It was fun – I miss it sometimes.”
Amanda went back out front and closed down the soda fountain. The laughter continued for another five minutes, then stopped – break time was over.
Customers came in, a few at a time, all afternoon. Mrs. Rosen had the girls rearranging the store in their free moments. They had just gotten a new product line – paperweights, figurines and similar trinkets. Amanda got a chance to know her co-workers a little better while they worked. They seemed nice enough.
Sara had a new pair of sandals, not completely broken in yet. She kicked them off around 2:00, complaining that her feet hurt. A little later, kneeling side by side to empty a low shelf, Amanda reached over and tickled Sara’s upturned sole. Sara squeaked and jumped.
“Quit!” Sara said.
Hmmm, thought Amanda. She’s ticklish too...
Mr. Rosen came in to help his wife later on – he had been out negotiating with suppliers, the people who sold him the other drugstore stuff like hair goop, housewares, over-the-counter medicines and so forth. Business picked up again at 4:30 and stayed busy until 6:00, commuters picking up prescriptions on their way home.
Sara’s dad locked the front door at 6:30. “Mom’s coming home with me, Sara,” he said. “Be sure to lock up when you leave. Don’t bother putting the doodads out. We’ll do that tomorrow morning.”
“OK, Daddy. We won’t be long – we got most of the shelves rearranged this afternoon.”
They were just finishing 20 minutes later when Sara dropped a bottle of vitamin pills. Naturally, it rolled under a shelf and to the exact center between the two back-to-back shelves.
“Shit!” Sara flopped down on her tummy and reached under. Her fingertips grazed the bottle, but she couldn’t quite reach it.
“Don’t get up,” Amanda said. “I’ll get the yardstick out of the stock room for you.”
Candice was in the bathroom. Amanda saw her opportunity, and the Devil bit her on the butt. She kicked off her sandals and emptied her pockets onto the top of the chest freezer. Perfect! Moving silently on bare feet, she leaned hard against the bathroom door and pushed pennies into the crack. The pennies maintained the pressure – the latch was jammed against the door frame, extra friction making the door knob almost impossible to turn. Candice was “pennied in” – that should hold her for a few minutes!
Amanda left her sandals and slipped back out front, sneaking up on Sara. She stepped over the prone girl and sat on her facing aft.
“Hey!” Sara said. “What are you...”
Amanda grabbed Sara’s ankles, pulled, and wrapped a leg around Sara’s shins in the figure-four leg lock. Her new friend had been walking around barefoot for the past few hours – Sara’s feet were a little dirty, she noticed.
“OH NOOO!” Sara yelled, squirming and bucking. “Not that! Hehe! HAHAHA-HAHAHA-HAHAHAHA!” she laughed as Amanda flicked her nails on the ticklish heels.
“Your feet are dirty – I’m gonna tickle ‘em clean!” Amanda said, and did her best to do just that.
Sara laughed wildly as Amanda’s nails scratched her heels. Amanda covered Sara’s arches with tiny nail flicks, forcing stream after stream of ticklish laughter. The soles were next – Sara’s toes twitched and curled as she laughed and laughed. Then holding the toes back, Amanda tickled side to side under all ten toes, and Sara laughed like a madwoman.
Amanda tickled down onto the stretched out soles, and found the sweet spots – the balls of Sara’s feet. Amanda tickled left-right-and-repeat, fingernails flying, and Sara’s laughter went off the scale. She wasn’t struggling any more – all she could do was lay there and laugh her head off.
Hands grabbed Amanda’s sides from behind, lobster clawing. Amanda burst into laughter, flopped on her side and rolled into a ball to escape the tickling. That freed Sara – she got up on her knees and joined in, tickling Amanda’s knees and thighs. The two of them wrestled Amanda face down. Candice had come prepared – she produced a pair of old nylons from a pocket, and the two friends hogtied Amanda.
“The pennies were a nice touch,” Candice said. “But my sister told me all about that trick when she was a college Freshman. Shake the door enough, and the pennies all drop out. Are you OK, Sara?”
“Yah.” She took a deep breath. “But now... It’s payback time!”
“Well, you got me,” Amanda said. “What now?”
Sara shifted Amanda into the middle of the aisle and rolled her onto her side. “Guess,” she said.
Amanda laughed helplessly as Sara’s hands roamed her ribs and sides. Sara got on each rib, rubbing the skin against the bones, then in the ticklish spaces in between. She reached under Amanda’s shirt and lobster-clawed her sides, then tickled her tummy, watching the fit abs twitch and jerk as Amanda laughed with wild abandon. Candice joined in, rib-tickling, and Amanda laughed at the top of her lungs. They kept it up, sides and ribs and tummy, until Amanda thought she would go crazy. Mercifully, she zoned out, lost in ticklish delirium.
The girls gave Amanda a breather – she laid there gasping. Amanda had personal space issues, a legacy of her years in foster homes. This was horrible! And it tickled so much!
They started in on her tummy again, four-handed, and again she howled with forced mirth. She bucked and squirmed, trying desperately to escape the tickling, laughing like mad. The two ticklers never slowed down – they just divided their effort, Candice rib-tickling again while Sara’s hands roamed Amanda’s fit abs. Amanda made a supreme effort, and managed to roll onto her tummy – anything to escape the tummy tickles!
Candice and Sara sat back on their heels while Amanda gasped for air. She was sweaty, red-faced, cheeks streaked with tears of laughter.
“Have we got your attention?” Sara asked sweetly.
“Oh ghod!”
“Let’s tickle her feet,” Candice said. “You go first – I’ve got an idea.”
“Suits,” Sara said, and kneeled behind Amanda, a knee on either side of the younger girl’s to prevent a rollover. “Tickle tickle!”
Amanda and Rachel had given each other home pedicures the evening before, a weekly ritual left over from their adventure together. It was giggly good fun, and left their feet baby soft and extra-sensitive. Amanda arched her back and laughed at the top of her lungs.
Sara made a claw of her right hand and raked it down Amanda’s right foot, drawing four parallel wavy lines, applying just enough pressure to tickle maddeningly. Sara spider-walked her nails back to the sole, and Amanda lost it, bucking and squirming, her helpless laughter filling the air and egging Sara on. Sara had found the sweet spot – the exact center of Amanda’s sole, along the crease.
Amanda’s left foot got the same treatment. She was in the zone now, laughing helplessly, unable to move or even form a coherent thought. Sara held her toes back and tickled the stretched out soles, paying careful attention to the sweet spots, wild helpless laughter pouring from her victim. It went on for what seemed like forever.
The tickling stopped. Amanda giggled weakly as the sensation faded, then took long deep breaths, regaining her strength. Foot tickling didn’t bother her like upperbody – space issues again. It drove her crazy while it was happening, of course, but afterward... Now, if she could just keep them from tickling her tummy again! She hadn’t expected that!
“You need... to do... better... than that,” Amanda gasped out. “Two feet... two of you...”
“She’s got spirit,” Sara said. “I like that.”
“But no sense. Let’s double team her,” Candice said. “Foot notes.”
Every drugstore has a pile of ballpoint pens – drug company salesmen give the things out like penny candy. The girls kneeled facing each other across Amanda’s thighs, her upturned feet between them. Candice clicked the pen open, held Amanda’s toes back and wrote “I will not tickle Sara any more” on the soft skin under the toes. Sara used her nails to tickle the exact same spot on the other foot. Once again, Amanda’s sweet ticklish laughter filled the room.
Candice dotted the “i” with a tiny daisy, producing another burst of laughter, then passed the pen across. Sara wrote the same line, then went over the letters again to darken them. Candice paced her, tickling the other foot with her well-manicured nails. Amanda howled with forced mirth.
And so it went – one girl writing, the other using her nails, while Amanda laughed with wild abandon. The breaks as the pen changed hands gave her many short breathers, but also kept her from zoning out. She laughed and laughed, red faced, helpless to resist the fiendish and well-techniqued tickling.
The girls finished on Amanda’s heels, then added calligraphic flourishes to the letters in Amanda’s sweet spots. Amanda wasn’t struggling any more – she was incapable of coordinated movement. But her musical tickle laugh was completely unrestrained and as sweet as ever.
The tickling stopped again. “Learned your lesson yet?” Sara asked.
“Is that... all... you’ve got?”
“Slow learner,” Sara said, and got to work, flicking the tips of her nails in the sweet spots. Amanda laughed her head off, red faced, tears of laughter streaming down her cheeks.
“Wait, Sara! Quit!” Candice said. “I think she’s like me! She’s enjoying this!”
Sara quit. “Took... you... long enough... to figure... that out,” Amanda said, breathing hard and blinking away tears.
Sara was exasperated. “Why didn’t you just ask us to tickle you?”
Amanda had her breath back again. “More fun this way,” she said, grinning.
The girls cut Amanda loose. She sat up, drew up her legs and winced – her abs were pretty sore from laughing.
“I’ve been on my own for two years now,” Amanda said. “Longer than that, really, because the foster homes I was in... Well, never mind. I had some lean times, but I got lucky. Do you know, there’s guys who paid good money just to tickle my feet? That’s easy money, all inside work, no heavy lifting, and I found out I enjoyed it as much as they did. It’s safe enough, so long as someone else is with you who can call the cops if necessary.”
“What about upperbody tickling?” Sara asked.
Amanda frowned. “That’s a problem – I have personal space issues.” A pause, and a thoughtful look. “But thinking back on the way you tickled me today, it wasn’t so bad. In fact, I think I could get to like it, at least a little. We’ll have to try it again some time.”
“We don’t have anything else planned for tonight,” Candice said. “Let’s grab something to eat and then play some more.”
“We could go to my place and order a pizza,” Amanda offered. “Rachel should be home by now. We can gang up on her and tickle her while we’re waiting.” She grinned impishly. “Of course, then she’ll want to get even... She’ll tickle me silly for the next few days. You too, Candice, if you like. It’ll be fun – she’s very good.”
“Don’t you ever get enough?” Sara asked.
“Nope,” Amanda replied cheerfully. “No more than Candice does.”
“Looks like we’ve found a kindred soul, girlfriend,” Candice said.
“Or is that sole?” Amanda joked, and tickled Sara’s foot. Sara squeaked and pulled it away.
Candice laughed. “Whatever. Welcome, sister – this looks like it’s gonna turn into a beautiful friendship.”
And so it did – but that’s another story.
***THE END***
Copyright 2004 by the author
Dramatis Personae (in order of appearance)
Amanda Mason
Amanda is a little cutie, just turned 18 years old, a petite girl with a trim and shapely figure. She stands an inch or so over five feet tall in her bare feet. She has curly dark brown hair, brown eyes, dark brows and long, dark lashes. She’s new to Tieson City, and will start at Tieson City High School as a Senior in the fall. She’s impossible not to like, but she has this one odd quirk...
Sara Rosen
Sara is 18 years old. She’s built like Dolly Parton, a small girl with a slender waist and amazing upper body development. Sara has long dark brown hair, beautiful green eyes, a deep tan, and a fit, toned body. Her ticklishness is her greatest weakness. She’s an enthusiastic tickler, on the principle that it’s more blessed to give than to receive.
Candice Wade
A little beauty, 18 years old, with crystal blue eyes and ash blonde hair, and a very trim and shapely body. An extrovert and sensualist, she loves to be tickled and get in ticklish situations, but if the tickling goes too far, she's out of control. Her lust to be tickled has grown and grown over the past year, and now she'll do anything to get tickled. She's lived with her parents and sister on Tickle Street since she was five. Sara Rosen is her closest friend.
********************
Rachel was already gone when Amanda’s alarm went off. Her red-headed roomie waited tables at the Tieson City Cafe across Main Street from their over-the-store apartment – she was working breakfast today. Amanda had never been a morning person – better her than me, she thought.
Amanda was a little cutie, a petite girl with curly dark brown hair, brown eyes, dark brows, long dark lashes, and a trim and shapely figure. She stood an inch or so over five feet tall in her bare feet. She was just 18 yrs old, and new to Tieson City. She had lived many places since she had walked away from her last foster home two years ago, with just the clothes she was wearing and whatever money she could find in the house.
Amanda’s life had changed a few months back, when she had been caught up in an adventure. She had met her roomie then, and four local girls: Ashley Curtis, Angie Fontana, Kelly McGuire and Stephanie Miklajcyk. They were all fast friends now – Ashley had encouraged Amanda and Rachel to settle here. Amanda had gotten her high school records and talked with the local authorities – with some tutoring, she figured she could test out of everything but the Senior level courses. She planned to start at Tieson City High School in the fall.
But in the meantime, Amanda needed a job. Would in the fall too – she and Rachel were self-supporting. She had been riding a bicycle out Johnson’s Ferry Road to her food court job at the Mall – money was tight, they didn’t have a car. Twice, she had just missed getting strained through the radiator of a Peterbilt. She started a new job today that would be much better in that respect – it was at Rosen’s Rexall Drugs, just two doors down Main Street.
Amanda showered and dressed in a white t-shirt and capri’s with a blue floral print. She stepped into her sandals at the door, locked up, and descended the stairs to the alley. A minivan pulled up and parked behind the drugstore just as she got there – Amanda’s boss and co-workers, she was right on time.
Ruth Rosen was a small woman in her mid-40’s, with green eyes and a few strands of gray showing in her dark hair. She wore a pharmacist’s smock – she and her husband owned the place.
Sara Rosen was 18, just graduated from high school. She had her mother’s green eyes and dark hair, worn long in a pony tail. But unlike her mother, some quirk of Sara’s genetics had combined to give her a figure like Dolly Parton – a small girl with an hourglass waist and amazing upper body development. She wore denim capri’s, sandals, and a white collared knit shirt with Rosen’s Rx over the left breast. She wore a ball cap too, to satisfy the Health Department while working the soda fountain/lunch counter.
Amanda’s other co-worker was Candice Wade. Candice was Sara’s neighbor, high school classmate and best friend. She was a little beauty with shoulder-length ash blonde hair, crystal blue eyes and delicate china-doll features. She was dressed like Sara.
“Hi, Amanda,” Mrs. Rosen said. “Sara, find her a shirt and a cap. She can change in the stock room. Nobody here but us girls anyway – we won’t open for another hour.”
“OK, Mom. Amanda, you look like a Small... Here ya go.”
Amanda already knew how to work a register and a lunch counter – Candice and Sara said they would coach her through sundae-building at the soda fountain later. In the meantime, Amanda was put to work dusting shelves.
She worked her way over to the toy section. Like most such places, Rosen’s had a collection of sad, dusty stuffed animals. They could stand freshening up, Amanda thought, but heroic measures were called for. She checked her watch – she had time, 20 minutes until they opened. She got two big trash bags, gathered the toys up in one bag and carried them out to the alley.
Outside, Amanda smacked the toys together two by two, creating an amazing cloud of dust. The cleaned toys went into the other bag. She checked her watch as she carried them back inside – she still had 10 minutes.
The others were finished by then, sitting at one of the marble-topped tables near the soda fountain with cups of coffee. Candice had kicked off her sandals – her bare feet were propped up on another of the bent-wire straight chairs.
Playfully, Amanda reached down and tickled Candice’s feet. Candice giggled, but didn’t pull them away. Instead, she set her coffee cup down and looked up at Amanda. Sara and her mother exchanged meaningful looks.
“Is that it?” Candice asked with a raised eyebrow.
Amanda’s friend Ashley was Candice and Sara’s neighbor – she had told Amanda about Candice and her “hobby”. What the hell – why not?
“Nope,” Amanda said, and gestured toward the chair. Candice put her feet down. Amanda sat, and Candice obligingly put her feet in Amanda’s lap. Amanda trapped her ankles in a simple leg lock. Sara tossed Candice a big teddy bear – the little blonde got a good grip on it and winked at Amanda.
Amanda started slow, tracing a fingernail along the tips of Candice’s toes and producing a stream of girlish giggles. She held the toes back and stroked two fingernails across under all ten, away from her, and the giggles were continuous. She gently spider-walked her nails back toward herself on the stretched-out sole, and was rewarded by a burst of laughter – the exact center of Candice’s sole was especially ticklish, it seemed. Then across the balls of both feet – another wave of laughter – and finished under the little toe. She made a Peace sign and traced two wavy lines down Candice’s arch – more giggles – and drew circles on the heel. Then the other heel, and then tiny nail flicks up the arch to the sole again. Another Peace sign, and she finished on the balls of both feet, scratching lightly just behind the big toes.
“Haha! You can– hehe! –do better– haha-hehe! –than tha– tha– hahaha!” Candice said through her giggles.
“Just getting started,” Amanda said, and dug in. Candice threw her head back and laughed like a madwoman.
Amanda scrabbled her nails down Candice’s left foot, sole to heel, then back up the right foot to the sole. Candice laughed her head off as Amanda drew fast, looping figure-eight’s around the balls of both feet. The loops got smaller, tighter, covering every square inch of ticklish flesh. Then bigger loops again – twice on each figure-eight, she hit the sweet spots and gave them a few extra nail flicks. Candice laughed at the top of her lungs.
Running out of time – Amanda concentrated on the center of Candice’s left sole, fingernails flying. Candice laughed and laughed as the tickling fingernails flicked across the balls of her feet – she was turning pink, tears of laughter streaming down her cheeks. Then the center of the right sole, and Candice’s laughter went off the scale.
“Time!” Mrs. Rosen called out. Amanda stopped tickling – she looked up and noticed that Sara had restocked the other toys on the shelf. Candice took long, shaky breaths, trying to get her heart rate and breathing normal again.
“Wooo!” Candice said. “That really, really tickled!”
Amanda grinned. “It was supposed to. C’mon, let’s get to work.”
Ashley had told Amanda that the Rosens had the reputation of being good employers – they never had to advertise for help. By lunch time, Amanda had decided that it was true – she liked this job. In the lull after the lunch hour rush, she loaded the dishwasher and mopped the lunch counter and tables. She was just sweeping up crumbs when Candice started laughing again.
Amanda finished her sweeping in a few minutes and took the broom and dustpan back into the stock room. Sara’s dad was a pack rat. The stock room collected oddments – defective nylons, dusty flash cubes, a broken yardstick, unsold magazines, bent shelves, wooden crates that were too good to throw away, fossilized cans of paint left over from the last store renovation. Candice was sitting on a wobbly chair, hands tied behind her back with old nylons. Sara sat on an overturned crate, with Candice’s ankles trapped in a leg lock, tickling her friend’s feet with both hands. Sara had Candice in the zone – the little blonde was laughing harder now, red faced, howling with forced mirth.
Mrs. Rosen was at her computer behind the pharmacy counter. She looked up and smiled as Amanda approached. “How are you doing so far?” she asked.
“I like it here. But...” Amanda waved a hand toward the stock room, where Candice kept on laughing. “Candice might as well have been wearing a “tickle me” sign this morning. Is this... usual?”
“Yup. They’ve been playing like that since they were little girls. It bugs my husband, but I don’t mind so long as there’s no customers in the store.” Mrs. Rosen paused, then went on in a wistful tone, “My sister and I used to tickle each other. It was fun – I miss it sometimes.”
Amanda went back out front and closed down the soda fountain. The laughter continued for another five minutes, then stopped – break time was over.
Customers came in, a few at a time, all afternoon. Mrs. Rosen had the girls rearranging the store in their free moments. They had just gotten a new product line – paperweights, figurines and similar trinkets. Amanda got a chance to know her co-workers a little better while they worked. They seemed nice enough.
Sara had a new pair of sandals, not completely broken in yet. She kicked them off around 2:00, complaining that her feet hurt. A little later, kneeling side by side to empty a low shelf, Amanda reached over and tickled Sara’s upturned sole. Sara squeaked and jumped.
“Quit!” Sara said.
Hmmm, thought Amanda. She’s ticklish too...
Mr. Rosen came in to help his wife later on – he had been out negotiating with suppliers, the people who sold him the other drugstore stuff like hair goop, housewares, over-the-counter medicines and so forth. Business picked up again at 4:30 and stayed busy until 6:00, commuters picking up prescriptions on their way home.
Sara’s dad locked the front door at 6:30. “Mom’s coming home with me, Sara,” he said. “Be sure to lock up when you leave. Don’t bother putting the doodads out. We’ll do that tomorrow morning.”
“OK, Daddy. We won’t be long – we got most of the shelves rearranged this afternoon.”
They were just finishing 20 minutes later when Sara dropped a bottle of vitamin pills. Naturally, it rolled under a shelf and to the exact center between the two back-to-back shelves.
“Shit!” Sara flopped down on her tummy and reached under. Her fingertips grazed the bottle, but she couldn’t quite reach it.
“Don’t get up,” Amanda said. “I’ll get the yardstick out of the stock room for you.”
Candice was in the bathroom. Amanda saw her opportunity, and the Devil bit her on the butt. She kicked off her sandals and emptied her pockets onto the top of the chest freezer. Perfect! Moving silently on bare feet, she leaned hard against the bathroom door and pushed pennies into the crack. The pennies maintained the pressure – the latch was jammed against the door frame, extra friction making the door knob almost impossible to turn. Candice was “pennied in” – that should hold her for a few minutes!
Amanda left her sandals and slipped back out front, sneaking up on Sara. She stepped over the prone girl and sat on her facing aft.
“Hey!” Sara said. “What are you...”
Amanda grabbed Sara’s ankles, pulled, and wrapped a leg around Sara’s shins in the figure-four leg lock. Her new friend had been walking around barefoot for the past few hours – Sara’s feet were a little dirty, she noticed.
“OH NOOO!” Sara yelled, squirming and bucking. “Not that! Hehe! HAHAHA-HAHAHA-HAHAHAHA!” she laughed as Amanda flicked her nails on the ticklish heels.
“Your feet are dirty – I’m gonna tickle ‘em clean!” Amanda said, and did her best to do just that.
Sara laughed wildly as Amanda’s nails scratched her heels. Amanda covered Sara’s arches with tiny nail flicks, forcing stream after stream of ticklish laughter. The soles were next – Sara’s toes twitched and curled as she laughed and laughed. Then holding the toes back, Amanda tickled side to side under all ten toes, and Sara laughed like a madwoman.
Amanda tickled down onto the stretched out soles, and found the sweet spots – the balls of Sara’s feet. Amanda tickled left-right-and-repeat, fingernails flying, and Sara’s laughter went off the scale. She wasn’t struggling any more – all she could do was lay there and laugh her head off.
Hands grabbed Amanda’s sides from behind, lobster clawing. Amanda burst into laughter, flopped on her side and rolled into a ball to escape the tickling. That freed Sara – she got up on her knees and joined in, tickling Amanda’s knees and thighs. The two of them wrestled Amanda face down. Candice had come prepared – she produced a pair of old nylons from a pocket, and the two friends hogtied Amanda.
“The pennies were a nice touch,” Candice said. “But my sister told me all about that trick when she was a college Freshman. Shake the door enough, and the pennies all drop out. Are you OK, Sara?”
“Yah.” She took a deep breath. “But now... It’s payback time!”
“Well, you got me,” Amanda said. “What now?”
Sara shifted Amanda into the middle of the aisle and rolled her onto her side. “Guess,” she said.
Amanda laughed helplessly as Sara’s hands roamed her ribs and sides. Sara got on each rib, rubbing the skin against the bones, then in the ticklish spaces in between. She reached under Amanda’s shirt and lobster-clawed her sides, then tickled her tummy, watching the fit abs twitch and jerk as Amanda laughed with wild abandon. Candice joined in, rib-tickling, and Amanda laughed at the top of her lungs. They kept it up, sides and ribs and tummy, until Amanda thought she would go crazy. Mercifully, she zoned out, lost in ticklish delirium.
The girls gave Amanda a breather – she laid there gasping. Amanda had personal space issues, a legacy of her years in foster homes. This was horrible! And it tickled so much!
They started in on her tummy again, four-handed, and again she howled with forced mirth. She bucked and squirmed, trying desperately to escape the tickling, laughing like mad. The two ticklers never slowed down – they just divided their effort, Candice rib-tickling again while Sara’s hands roamed Amanda’s fit abs. Amanda made a supreme effort, and managed to roll onto her tummy – anything to escape the tummy tickles!
Candice and Sara sat back on their heels while Amanda gasped for air. She was sweaty, red-faced, cheeks streaked with tears of laughter.
“Have we got your attention?” Sara asked sweetly.
“Oh ghod!”
“Let’s tickle her feet,” Candice said. “You go first – I’ve got an idea.”
“Suits,” Sara said, and kneeled behind Amanda, a knee on either side of the younger girl’s to prevent a rollover. “Tickle tickle!”
Amanda and Rachel had given each other home pedicures the evening before, a weekly ritual left over from their adventure together. It was giggly good fun, and left their feet baby soft and extra-sensitive. Amanda arched her back and laughed at the top of her lungs.
Sara made a claw of her right hand and raked it down Amanda’s right foot, drawing four parallel wavy lines, applying just enough pressure to tickle maddeningly. Sara spider-walked her nails back to the sole, and Amanda lost it, bucking and squirming, her helpless laughter filling the air and egging Sara on. Sara had found the sweet spot – the exact center of Amanda’s sole, along the crease.
Amanda’s left foot got the same treatment. She was in the zone now, laughing helplessly, unable to move or even form a coherent thought. Sara held her toes back and tickled the stretched out soles, paying careful attention to the sweet spots, wild helpless laughter pouring from her victim. It went on for what seemed like forever.
The tickling stopped. Amanda giggled weakly as the sensation faded, then took long deep breaths, regaining her strength. Foot tickling didn’t bother her like upperbody – space issues again. It drove her crazy while it was happening, of course, but afterward... Now, if she could just keep them from tickling her tummy again! She hadn’t expected that!
“You need... to do... better... than that,” Amanda gasped out. “Two feet... two of you...”
“She’s got spirit,” Sara said. “I like that.”
“But no sense. Let’s double team her,” Candice said. “Foot notes.”
Every drugstore has a pile of ballpoint pens – drug company salesmen give the things out like penny candy. The girls kneeled facing each other across Amanda’s thighs, her upturned feet between them. Candice clicked the pen open, held Amanda’s toes back and wrote “I will not tickle Sara any more” on the soft skin under the toes. Sara used her nails to tickle the exact same spot on the other foot. Once again, Amanda’s sweet ticklish laughter filled the room.
Candice dotted the “i” with a tiny daisy, producing another burst of laughter, then passed the pen across. Sara wrote the same line, then went over the letters again to darken them. Candice paced her, tickling the other foot with her well-manicured nails. Amanda howled with forced mirth.
And so it went – one girl writing, the other using her nails, while Amanda laughed with wild abandon. The breaks as the pen changed hands gave her many short breathers, but also kept her from zoning out. She laughed and laughed, red faced, helpless to resist the fiendish and well-techniqued tickling.
The girls finished on Amanda’s heels, then added calligraphic flourishes to the letters in Amanda’s sweet spots. Amanda wasn’t struggling any more – she was incapable of coordinated movement. But her musical tickle laugh was completely unrestrained and as sweet as ever.
The tickling stopped again. “Learned your lesson yet?” Sara asked.
“Is that... all... you’ve got?”
“Slow learner,” Sara said, and got to work, flicking the tips of her nails in the sweet spots. Amanda laughed her head off, red faced, tears of laughter streaming down her cheeks.
“Wait, Sara! Quit!” Candice said. “I think she’s like me! She’s enjoying this!”
Sara quit. “Took... you... long enough... to figure... that out,” Amanda said, breathing hard and blinking away tears.
Sara was exasperated. “Why didn’t you just ask us to tickle you?”
Amanda had her breath back again. “More fun this way,” she said, grinning.
The girls cut Amanda loose. She sat up, drew up her legs and winced – her abs were pretty sore from laughing.
“I’ve been on my own for two years now,” Amanda said. “Longer than that, really, because the foster homes I was in... Well, never mind. I had some lean times, but I got lucky. Do you know, there’s guys who paid good money just to tickle my feet? That’s easy money, all inside work, no heavy lifting, and I found out I enjoyed it as much as they did. It’s safe enough, so long as someone else is with you who can call the cops if necessary.”
“What about upperbody tickling?” Sara asked.
Amanda frowned. “That’s a problem – I have personal space issues.” A pause, and a thoughtful look. “But thinking back on the way you tickled me today, it wasn’t so bad. In fact, I think I could get to like it, at least a little. We’ll have to try it again some time.”
“We don’t have anything else planned for tonight,” Candice said. “Let’s grab something to eat and then play some more.”
“We could go to my place and order a pizza,” Amanda offered. “Rachel should be home by now. We can gang up on her and tickle her while we’re waiting.” She grinned impishly. “Of course, then she’ll want to get even... She’ll tickle me silly for the next few days. You too, Candice, if you like. It’ll be fun – she’s very good.”
“Don’t you ever get enough?” Sara asked.
“Nope,” Amanda replied cheerfully. “No more than Candice does.”
“Looks like we’ve found a kindred soul, girlfriend,” Candice said.
“Or is that sole?” Amanda joked, and tickled Sara’s foot. Sara squeaked and pulled it away.
Candice laughed. “Whatever. Welcome, sister – this looks like it’s gonna turn into a beautiful friendship.”
And so it did – but that’s another story.
***THE END***
