Tickle Street Chapter 38 – “Origins”

by Strelnikov
Copyright 2005 by the author


Dramatis Personae (in order of appearance)

Kathy Brocato Righetti and Karen Brocato Shaw
They’re “mirror twins” – identical, but Kathy is a lefty and Karen is right handed. They’re Boomer moms in their mid-40’s, medium height, with dark brows and lashes and brown eyes. Their wavy dark brown hair has a few streaks of gray by now, and they’ve got a few wrinkles – they’re a little heavier than they were in their youth but still reasonably trim and fit. They married Chuck Righetti and Bill Shaw in a double wedding years ago. Kathy has three daughters – twins Vicky and Veronica (it runs in the family) and Brittany. Karen has just two – Joanna and Jamie.

Brittany Righetti
Kathy’s younger daughter. She’s 18 yrs old, almost 19, and has lived on Tickle Street all her life. She has long dark hair and brown eyes, a beautiful Italian face and features, a great tan, curves in all the right places. She has a bit of an attitude, but it can quickly be destroyed if she's tickled. She's super-ticklish, and her twin older sisters Vicky and Veronica always take advantage of that.

Vicky and Veronica Righetti
Kathy’s older daughters. Like their mom and aunt, they’re mirror twins – Vicky is a lefty and Veronica is right handed. They’re 21 yrs old, medium height, with very trim and fit figures that they maintain by martial arts. They have wavy dark brown hair worn shoulder length, dark brows and lashes, brown eyes. They’re every bit as ticklish as their Little Sis.

Emily MacDonald
Emily is a petite girl with bright green eyes and a glorious mane of fiery red hair. She's somewhat older than the rest of the new graduates from TCHS – she spent a year in rehab after a car wreck. She and her widowed father moved to Tickle Street last summer. Her ticklishness is her greatest weakness, she feels that it makes her too girly and weak.

Ashley Curtis
A.K.A Beauty Queen. Tall and shapely, 19 yrs old, long blonde hair and crystal blue eyes. Her mother started entering her in beauty pageants and contests as soon as she could walk. She lives with her mom, a former beauty queen herself, who always showers Ashley with positive influence on how beautiful she is. Ashley and her mother moved to Tickle Street about a year ago. Ashley has extremely ticklish feet, and her tickle laugh is as lovely as the rest of her.

Anne Kincaid
She’s 19 years old, has a great body, light brown hair, long lashes and dazzling hazel eyes. She lives with her parents, grandfather and two brothers, Josh and Jim. No one talks about why they moved from Mississippi to Tieson City. Anne has a heavenly southern accent and is extremely ticklish. Needless to say, her brothers take full advantage. She once had the typical southern girl innocence… But she got over it long ago.

Melissa Gabreski
Melissa is attractive with great curves, dark hazel eyes, and long dark brown hair with blonde streaks. She’s 20 years old, has lived on Tickle Street her whole life but until recently had few friends outside of her parents and Michael, her younger brother. She's super ticklish, and thinks it’s weird to be so ticklish like she is. She used to be very shy – but the other girls cured that!

Joanna Shaw
Karen’s older daughter. Joanna is a few months younger than her cousin Brittany, and like Brittany has lived on Tickle Street all of her life. Joanna has always been the perfect female athlete. She’s extremely fit and very attractive, with blue eyes, dark brown hair cut in a page bob, and freckled fair skin. She sees her ticklishness as a great weakness, and prefers to do unto others before they can do unto her.

Candice Wade
She’s 19, a little beauty with crystal blue eyes and ash blonde hair, and a very trim and shapely body. Loves to be tickled and get in ticklish situations, but if the tickling goes too far, she's out of control. Lately her lust to be tickled has grown and grown, and now she'll do anything to get tickled. She's lived with her parents and sister on Tickle Street since she was five.

Nicole Wade
Candice’s 21 yr old sister. A little taller than Candice, with bright blonde hair, but the two girls have the same cute shape, delicate features and crystal blue eyes. Nicole is a student at Commonwealth University, home for the summer. She’s smart and serious, always in control – but tickle her and she’s helpless.

Sadistic Siblings…
Josh Kincaid is 21, Jim just turned 18. They’re into football (a religious sacrament in the South), cars, fishing, and tickling Anne and her friends – not necessarily in that order. Michael Gabreski is 18 yrs old, a foot taller and outweighs his sister by 100 lbs – “big sister/little brother” is a family joke. He played high school football. Melissa knows better than to let him get in tickle range of her feet, but sometimes he gets her anyway – and her friends too.


********************


“This block party was a good idea, sis,” Kathy Righetti said. “We’ve had a lot of new neighbors move in over the past year – should’ve done it sooner.”

“Tough to get everybody on the same page,” Karen Shaw replied. “It’s not like when we were kids – all of us have jobs.”

Kathy and Karen were “mirror twins” – identical, but Kathy was a lefty and Karen was right handed. They were in their mid-40’s, medium height, with dark brows and lashes and brown eyes. Their wavy dark brown hair had a few streaks of gray by now, and they had a few wrinkles – they were a little heavier than they had been in their youth but still reasonably trim and fit. They had always been close – college room mates, upstairs/downstairs neighbors in an old Archie Bunker house after marriage, neighbors again after buying new houses on Tickle Street a few years later. They were dressed identically – khaki shorts, horizon-blue collared knit shirts, Birkenstock sandals like the ones they’d had in college.

They couldn’t have asked for better weather – the summer evening was warm and clear and not too humid. The whole street had been blocked off, but the main activity was in the cul-de-sac at the end. Neighbor Tom MacDonald was a cop – he had borrowed the Fire Department’s big trailer-mounted barbecue grill. Beside the grill was a long folding table (also TCFD property) that held cut veggies, dips, bags of chips, and big jugs of iced tea, Coke and Sprite. Next to the table were half a dozen picnic coolers full of potato salad and such, and two big wash tubs full of beer on ice. Most of the men were gathered around the beer, making unsolicited suggestions to the cook – Bill Shaw, Karen’s husband. The women had better sense – they stayed clear, conversing in little groups at a safe distance.

The younger folk kept their distance too, so as to avoid being put to work. The young people were dressed like their elders, in shorts and t-shirts. As often happens in a neighborhood like this, they were all roughly the same age, teens and a few in college. Well, Karen thought, we were all about the same age when we bought these houses from the builder – not too surprising that our kids are too.

A few years back, there had been girls and boys in roughly equal numbers. But now Tickle Street was a target-rich environment for teenage guys – except for the Kincaids, with two boys and a girl, the new families all had daughters.

Bill was using a long pair of tongs, turning over split chickens and slabs of beef short ribs on the grill. He was in cargo shorts, t-shirt, ball cap and an apron. Some would say that he was a typical boring Boomer dad – an engineer, not quite 6 ft tall, with bifocals, an incipient spare tire and thinning brown hair shot through with gray. He had the most beautiful blue eyes Karen had ever seen.

Bill was the one great love of Karen’s life, as was she of his – neither of them could imagine being married to anyone else. Better still, even after nearly a quarter-century of marriage, they still had a mutual case of the hots for each other. Oh, not flaming hot like when they were just starting out together – more like perfect campfire coals now, the kind that are just right for cooking. But those coals will still flame up with a little poking... Karen snickered at the double entendre – I guess I’m a little horny, she thought. Kathy’s marriage to Chuck had the same qualities – both women knew how rare that was, and how fortunate they had been.

Bill had drafted Kathy’s daughter Brittany, a pretty long-haired brunette with brown eyes and a lifeguard tan, to help with the cooking. She put on an apron to protect her jeans shorts and red t-shirt, then poured home-made barbecue sauce out of a clean plastic trash can into a bucket. She got to work, using a wide paint brush to coat the chickens and ribs on the grill.

“Hey Karen!” Bill shouted. “We’re just about out of barbecue sauce! See if you can scare up some more!”

Karen waved to him and turned to her sister. “C’mon, I’ve got some more makings at home.”

“Let’s draft some slave labor to help,” Kathy replied. She looked around, spotted her older daughters – two dark-haired girls wearing jeans shorts, flip-flops and pink t-shirts with Double Trouble printed on them. “Vicky – Veronica – front and center!”

Like their mother and aunt, Vicky and Veronica were mirror twins – Vicky was the lefty of that pair. They were 21 yrs old, medium height, with very trim and fit figures that they maintained by martial arts. They had wavy dark brown hair worn shoulder length, dark brows and lashes, brown eyes. Ignoring hair styles, the high school yearbook photos of the younger pair looked just like the school photos of their mother and aunt. Like Mom in her wedding picture too, thought Karen, and for that matter like Grandma in hers, 90-plus yrs ago. Not for the first time, she had the thought that Grandma Lucia must have had some pretty muscular genes.

The four women headed up the street. Tom MacDonald and Lisa Curtis were on Tom’s front porch, talking with Tom’s red-headed daughter Emily. Both were new neighbors. He was a widower, Lisa was a single mom – they’d started dating a few months back.

Lisa’s daughter Ashley came outside – she was a tall blonde beauty with crystal-blue eyes, but otherwise a normal teen. Emily now... Emily was a strange one. She was very fair-skinned, petite, and looked all of about 15 yrs old with her hair up in little-girl pigtails. But Emily had the presence and self-assurance of someone much older. Unaccountably, Karen sometimes felt she saw someone like Grandma Lucia behind those jade-green eyes. She crossed herself, unconsciously, an echo of her childhood.

Jim and Josh Kincaid were playing two-on-one basketball with Michael Gabreski in Michael’s yard – a fair contest, Michael had been the star athlete of his high school graduating class. Anne Kincaid and Melissa Gabreski, two pretty brunettes, were sitting in lawn chairs, watching. They waved as the women walked past.

The “makings” were a pound of butter, a quarter-pound each of black pepper and garlic powder, a big restaurant-supply jug of soy sauce, and a 5-gallon bucket of ketchup. Vicky and Veronica got the ketchup, Karen and Kathy the other things, and they headed back.

The basketball game was over. Karen saw that Michael and Jim were sitting on the lawn with Cokes. Ashley and her older daughter Joanna – a Celtic-looking younger version of herself, dark-haired, but with freckled fair skin and Bill’s blue eyes – kicked off their flip-flops and sat down to join them. Josh and Melissa had apparently gone off somewhere together. Anne was gone too, probably looking for some mischief to get into – she was a lot like Kathy’s younger daughter Brittany in that respect.

Michael said something that got a laugh from Jim and Joanna. Ashley uncurled one long lovely leg and poked him in the ribs with her big toe. That was a mistake – he grabbed the offending foot and flicked his nails in her arch. Ashley’s feet were off-the-scale ticklish – she burst into helpless laughter, squirming and trying to pull away. He speeded up, tickling fiendishly, and Ashley collapsed onto her back, laughing at the top of her lungs. Her contralto tickle laugh was as lovely as the rest of her.

“Nice to have a hobby,” Kathy said.

Vicky and Veronica shared a meaningful look across the ketchup bucket, but said nothing.

“His technique could use some work,” Karen observed critically. “She almost got loose just now... OK, that’s better.”

“Like Jeff and Frank, back in the old neighborhood,” her twin agreed.

Ashley was a big healthy girl, but Michael was bigger – he had played football in high school. He managed to get both ankles in an arm lock, and redoubled his efforts, covering both of Ashley’s feet with unbearable tickling. She laughed her head off, tears streaming from her closed eyes. She wasn’t struggling any more – the tickling sensation had completely overpowered her.

Jim was starting to get up, grinning at Joanna. Joanna had both feet under her, edging away, getting ready to jump up and run. The tickling scene was starting to draw a crowd – not that it was anything unusual here on Tickle Street, thought Karen. She spotted her younger daughter, 13 yr old Jamie, watching and making mental notes. The little brunette was with her running buddies, blonde Katie Budanov and red-headed Jessica Luke – trouble looking for a place to happen.

There was a scuffle at the back of the crowd, then another stream of ticklish laughter. Anne had taken advantage of the excitement and slipped up behind Emily on silent bare feet. Now Emily was on her tummy, with Anne sitting on her facing aft, trapping Emily’s legs in the figure-four leg lock. The redhead was laughing like mad as Anne tickled her upturned soles with verve and gusto.

“I love tickling redheads!” Anne said gleefully. “Y’all turn such a pretty pink!” She held back Emily’s toes and tickled side to side on the soft skin underneath. Emily bucked and struggled, laughing at the top of her lungs.

Joanna blew past, running flat-out with Jim in hot pursuit. He was losing ground – Joanna was a star athlete too – but he didn’t quit. He’ll probably try to corner her, thought Karen. And if he succeeds, it’s her own fault.

“Base of the big toes, Anne,” Vicky called out.

“And between the big toes and the next ones!” Veronica added. “It drives her wild!”

Anne nodded and switched her tickle target. Sure enough, Emily’s laughter went off the scale. She was red-faced and sweaty, tears of laughter running down her cheeks. Her bright coppery hair had come out of the pigtails – it was in tangles around her head as she laughed and laughed.

“Amateur!” Vicky scoffed to her twin as the four women continued on. “We could do lots better.”

“I’m not so sure,” Veronica said. “We need to practice more.”

“Aw c’mon, we tickled the shit out of Brittany just this morning,” Vicky objected. “That’s got to count for something.”

“We tickle her every Saturday morning,” Veronica said. “Dunno about you, but I went kinda easy on her today.”

Vicky sighed and shifted her grip on the bucket handle. “Yah, me too,” she admitted. “You’re right, we could do with a practice session. Brittany again?”

They set the bucket down next to the folding table. “Nah, once a day is enough,” Veronica said. “Hey Brittany!” she called out. “Come over here and mix up the sauce!”

Karen still could hear distant laughter, Ashley and Emily singing a ticklish duet. Brittany heard it too. “Who’s getting tickled up the street?” she asked.

“Ashley and Emily,” Vicky answered. “Joanna almost got it, but she outran Jim.”

More laughter, closer by. “Sounds like Candice,” Veronica said. “Playing with Sara, or maybe Nicole.”

“You gonna join ‘em?” Brittany asked.

“Nope,” Vicky said.

“We’ve got...” Veronica added.

“...other plans.” the twins finished, in chorus.

This time, it was Karen and Kathy who shared a meaningful look. Reminds me of us, was the common thought.

They put the butter in a saucepan and set it on the grill to melt, then the twins poured the ketchup into the plastic trash can. Karen and Kathy added the soy sauce and condiments, Brittany started mixing with a canoe paddle. She was a little too enthusiastic – has she been into the beer, Karen wondered? – and splashed some on her foot.

“Shit!” Brittany kicked off her sandals. “I just bought these!”

“Don’t let your feet get too dirty, Little Sis,” Vicky said.

Veronica made tickling motions. “Or we’ll have to tickle ‘em clean,” she added.

Brittany blew a raspberry. “You do that all the time anyway. Don’t you two have something better to do?”

“Yup,” they chorused again. “Mom, are we finished here?” Vicky added.

“Yah. Mind if we watch?” Kathy asked.

“Be our guest,” Veronica said. “C’mon, sis. Let’s decide how we’re gonna do it...”

Kathy started to follow along. Karen paused and pinched Bill’s butt – he jumped.

“Watch it!” he said. “Or bonga-bonga, right here on the spot!” It was a reference to a very old joke.

Karen played along. “How dare you, sir!” she said with fake indignation. “I’d rather die!”

“Very well, my pretty,” Bill said, leering wickedly and twirling the end of an imaginary handlebar mustache. “Death by bonga-bonga!”

Kathy rolled her eyes. “Hey, wait up!” she called to her daughters.

The younger twins would give them a good show, Karen knew – they were Jedi masters of tickling. They tickled Brittany silly at least once a week, Joanna nearly as often. All of their other female peers had gotten the tickling treatment too. But mostly, they tickled each other. They knew every ticklish spot – how could they not? – and how to get the best reactions. They had been at it for years. Just like...

“Y’know, I thought Tickle Street was a weird name when we moved here,” Kathy said, interrupting Karen’s thoughts. “Turned out to be appropriate, though, didn’t it? And my girls started it.”

Karen grinned a crooked grin. “Did they really?” she asked. “Seems to me...”

***

Karen Brocato parked the station wagon in the driveway and got out. Her house, like all others in this blue-collar Buffalo suburb, was a modest 1-1/2 story white clapboard Levittown-style. The houses had been built after World War II for returning veterans and their families, set close together on small lots. The harsh winters stunted the trees hereabouts, but some were getting some respectable size by now – Karen remembered when there hadn’t been many big enough to climb.

Her twin Kathy got out of the car. The girls had been born on the tail end of the Baby Boom – now, they would be starting their Senior year at Kenton West High School in two weeks. They were a few days past their 18th birthday, medium height, with very trim and fit figures. Their long, straight dark hair was parted in the middle – it was naturally wavy, and caused them no end of trouble straightening it as fashion demanded. They had dark brows and lashes, brown eyes and summer tans. Both were in blue-and-white cheerleader outfits – they had been on the KWHS cheer squad since their Freshman year.

Kathy broke the silence. “We weren’t as ready as we thought we were,” she said. “Barb and Jill are gonna be hard to beat.”

“Yah, I was running out of gas by the end of the practice,” Karen said. “We need to improve our wind.”

“Jogging?” Kathy asked.

“Maybe,” Karen said. “But it seems a little silly to run when no one’s chasing us.” She dug around in her purse, looking for her house keys. “Let’s get a snack – I’m ravenous.”

They kicked off their shoes inside the door and headed for the kitchen. Fortified, they went back onto the front stoop with tall glasses of iced tea to talk it over – they didn’t bother with their shoes. But before they could start, an older model Road Runner with wide tires and a jacked-up rear end pulled into the driveway next door, its big hemi V-8 engine rumbling. A guy their age got out of the passenger side, then carefully extracted two unstrung recurve bows from inside the car.

“Hey K-Squared, what’s happenin’?” the guy called. Frank Ciesinski lived next door on the other side. He was a paleo-technogeek, a skinny guy whose hair was cut unfashionably short because it was less trouble that way. He wore glasses, a madras-plaid shirt with a pocket full of pens, khaki pants and Hush Puppy desert boots. He was almost as smart as he thought he was.

“Oh, hi, Frank!” Kathy called back. “Why don’t you and Jeff come on over, and let’s talk.”

The driver got out. “Haven’t had a better offer all day,” he said.

Jeff Malloy was completely unlike his buddy – a motor-head with an Elvis haircut, blue work shirt, pegged jeans, chain billfold and motorcycle boots. His heavy-duty belt was buckled on the side, so as not to scratch the paint while working on his car – he had paid practically nothing for it with a blown engine, and had rebuilt it himself. He was a lot smarter than he chose to appear.

By the normal rules of high school society, Frank and Jeff should have had nothing to do with each other or with the girls. But the guys were like brothers to the twins – they had all known each other since before kindergarten. The one thing all of them had in common was archery – the girls would have gone shooting too if they hadn’t had cheer practice. The sport had made a comeback after the movie “Deliverance” came out, but these four had started as Cub and Brownie scouts and kept at it. They sometimes joked about a canoe trip, but that wasn’t likely – the river sometimes caught on fire from the pollution in it, and most of the creeks around here weren’t much better.

“Here’s our problem,” Kathy said. “The cheer squad is gonna elect co-captains at our next practice. We thought we had it wrapped up, but Barb Vogel and Jill Morgan are more competition than we expected.”

“We’re trying to come up with a workout that will build up our wind,” Karen continued. “Running is pretty boring, but... Damn!” She had slopped some tea onto her white sock. She set the glass down, pulled off the wet sock and its mate, then crossed one thigh over the other. “There, that’s better.”

“Indeed it is!” Jeff said, checking out Karen’s bare feet. He reached down and took hold of Karen’s ankle – she didn’t try to pull away. “Got some sock fuzz between your toes though,” he said. “But I can fix that...”

He scratched between her toes, and she let out a wild burst of ticklish laughter. This time, she did pull away. “Quit!” she said. “You know how that drives me crazy!”

“That’s what makes it fun,” Frank said.

“For you,” Karen said sharply. That was one more thing the guys had in common – they tickled! Like that time they had all gone to the beach at Sherkston – the girls hadn’t seen the harm in letting the guys bury them in the sand. Big mistake – Jeff and Frank had covered them up with just their heads and feet showing, then tickled their feet until they were raving. Fortunately, they didn’t make a habit of it, but both girls had learned to keep their feet out of tickle range. It didn’t always work.

But Jeff’s older sister Sue, now home from college, got tickled silly on a regular basis – this past summer, Karen heard poor Sue laughing helplessly at least once a week, sometimes more. She was tall, slender and blue-eyed, with a mane of fiery red hair and a personality that matched the stereotype. Jeff had been tickling her feet ever since he got big enough to get away with it, and so had Frank. It was hard to say which of them was worse – they encouraged each other, it seemed.

“Let it go,” Kathy said. “We still have a problem, and we’re no closer to solving it.”

The look on Frank’s face was as if a big cartoon light bulb had just gone on. “Maybe we are,” he said. “As I see it, you two need a good aerobic workout. But archery calls for upper body strength, so that’s no help. You don’t want to jog, tennis or swimming every day isn’t practical. So there’s just one thing left.”

“What?” the girls asked in chorus.

Jeff got it – he grinned ear to ear. “You can laugh. Like Sue does.”

The girls looked at each other, horrified. “You’re gonna tickle us?” Karen asked.

“Hey, why not?” Frank said. “It meets all of your requirements, and it just so happens that Jeff and me are fully qualified to help.”

“Always glad to help our friends,” Jeff added, looking like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

“You’re crazy!” Kathy said. “Try it, and we’ll...”

It really does make a warped kind of sense, Karen thought. She put a restraining hand on her sister’s arm, and Kathy subsided, muttering.

“OK,” Karen said. “I’ll give it a try. Where d’you want to do it?”

“Lay down on the lawn, on your back,” Jeff said. “That way, gravity helps us.”

“I still think this is crazy!” Kathy protested. “It’s torture!”

Karen laid down. “It hasn’t killed Sue yet – I’ll be OK,” she said.

The guys flipped a coin – Frank won. “Well, all reet!” he said, rubbing his hands together gleefully. He reached down, gathered up her ankles in an arm lock and stood back up. “Ready?” he asked.

Karen steeled herself for the ordeal. “Go ahead,” she replied.

Frank tickled both soles at once. “Hee!” Karen yelped. “HAHA! HAHAHAHA-HAHA! HAHA-HAHAHA!” She tried desperately to pull away, but Frank had no trouble holding on. His recurve bow pulled 62 lbs at 28” draw – he was stronger than he looked.

It tickled horribly! Karen’s toes twitched and curled as his nails flicked and scratched her soles. She laughed wildly as he tickled down to her arches, then side to side just behind the soles. A solid stream of laughter rewarded him as he switched to a motion like chording a guitar, toes to heels and back. Then fingernail flicks again, in her arches just in front of the heels, and Karen went wild, laughing her head off at the top of her lungs.

“Hey! Go easy!” Kathy protested. “You’re killing her!”

“Not hardly,” Jeff said. “We can keep Sue going like this for 10 or 15 minutes, easy. Hey bro!” he called to Frank. “Save some for me!”

“Wait your turn, my friend,” Frank said. “I’m just gettin’ warmed up!” His tickling fingernails flicked her soles, arches, heels, arches again – Karen laughed and laughed, red-faced, tears of laughter running down her cheeks. He quit eventually – Kathy told her later that it had only been 5 minutes, but it had seemed like forever.

“Doin’ OK?” Frank asked her.

“Oh ghod... that tickled... so much... ” Karen gasped out. Oddly enough, she didn’t feel too bad, all things considered. She took long deep breaths, trying to get her breathing and heart rate normal again. But all too soon–

“My turn,” Jeff said, and got Karen’s ankles in an arm lock. He used his car keys to draw fast figure-eight’s around the balls of both feet. Karen arched her back and laughed like a madwoman.

“Arches and heels, bro!” Frank said, grinning.

“Gotcha covered!” Jeff replied. He dropped his keys and used his nails, tickling both arches and onto the heels behind. Karen’s laughter went off the charts. Mercifully, she zoned out – it didn’t seem so bad this time, though she was laughing just as hard if not harder.

Jeff quit after another 5 minutes or so, and a good thing too – the tea had hit bottom, and Karen needed a bathroom bad. She was sweaty and red-faced, thirsty, her ribs and abs hurt, her lungs felt like she had run a race. Her feet still tingled from the tickling.

“Are you OK, sis?” Kathy asked, concern evident in her voice.

“Yah... Just a little... short... of breath...” Karen answered. Surprisingly, that was actually true – otherwise, she felt great. The tickling drove her crazy while it was happening, but now she felt... exhilirated, like being high. And there was something else too, that maybe called for another experiment... Guess there’s something to this after all, she thought.

Jeff helped her up – she was a little shaky. She shuffled her feet on the grass to get the tickle off and went inside.

Karen heard an angry female voice on the way back.

“...bad enough you tickle me,” Sue said angrily. “Now you’re going after Karen and Kathy too? You guys are nuts!”

“Hey, it’s just tickling,” Jeff said. “No harm done.”

“No harm!” Sue said indignantly. “You just about tickled me to death yesterday! Kathy – Karen – whoever you are, why’d you let ‘em tickle your sister like that?” She was in shorts and a halter top, wearing sneakers – she never went barefoot any more, probably to deter tickle attacks, thought Karen. Of course, that meant that her feet stayed soft and extra-ticklish...

“It’s a free country, Sue,” Kathy said, warming to the argument. “How is this your business?”

Karen came back outside. “I’m Karen,” she said. “And he’s right, no harm done.”

“Then you’re nuts too!” Sue said. “But better you than me.”

“It’s not either-or, Sue,” Frank said, moving toward her.

Sue saw what was coming and ran for it. She almost escaped, but Jeff grabbed her a few feet short of their front door. Down she went on her tummy – Jeff sat on her facing aft, grabbed a foot and pulled the sneaker and sock off. Frank sat down cross-legged, grabbed the other foot and did likewise.

“OH SHIT! NOOOO!” Sue yelled, struggling with all her strength.

“On three!” Jeff said. “One, two...”

Frank jumped the gun and tickled a heel.

“Eep!” Sue squealed. “HAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHA-HAHAHA-HAHAHAHA!”

Jeff joined in, holding back his sister’s toes and tickling the stretched out sole. Sue’s laughter went up a notch, her fair skin turning pink from laughing. Then they both got down to business, and ticklish laughter poured out in a solid stream.

A little callus would’ve served her better than the shoes, thought Karen. “Sue should just relax and enjoy it,” she said. Jeez, I can’t believe I really said that, she marveled. Must still be a little high... No, it’s more than that...

Kathy gave her a concerned look. “Are you sure you’re OK, sis? Those guys worked you over pretty good.”

“I’m fine,” Karen answered truthfully. “Want to try it?”

“This is too weird,” Kathy protested. “Anyway, they’re busy,” she said, indicating the guys and their ticklish victim.

“But I’m not,” Karen said. “We’ve got the wagon, so Dad has to pick Mom up on his way home.” She checked her watch. “We’ve got about an hour. C’mon, let’s do it in our room. You’re in for an experience.”

They ran into a snag immediately. They were both equally strong, so the arm lock method didn’t work – Karen couldn’t hold on.

“Maybe you could, like, tie me up?” Kathy said dubiously, sitting next to Karen on the edge of her bed. “Jeez, this is weird!”

Karen had a brainstorm. “Wrestling hold!”

“You mean like that fake wrestling Grandpa watches on Saturday afternoons?” Kathy scoffed. “Kurt von Hess, Gorgeous George and those guys?”

“Trust me – I think there’s one that’ll work,” Karen said. “Flop down on your tummy.”

Karen sat on Kathy facing aft. She grabbed Kathy’s ankles, wrapped a leg around them, tucked the foot under the upraised knee of the other. Her legs formed the shape of the numeral 4 – the “figure-four leg lock.” She had Kathy immobilized, and Kathy’s upturned feet were perfectly positioned for tickling.

“OK, get it over with,” Kathy said.

“Comin’ at ya!”

Karen was enthusiastic but unskilled – Kathy laughed and giggled, but nowhere near the reaction the guys got. Karen paused.

“That’s it?” Kathy asked hopefully.

“Nah, I just need to figure this out,” Karen said. “I need to be more systematic.” Cripes, I’ve been hanging around Frank too long, she thought.

OK, start at the toes. Karen spread her sister’s toes apart, two by two, and tickled between each pair – each time, Kathy let out a burst of laughter. Kathy laughed like mad as Karen held the toes back and tickled side to side on the soft skin underneath. The stretched out soles were next – tickling the exact center of the sole, along the crease, made Kathy laugh especially hard, and in the arch just behind too. Karen released the toes and tickled the soles two handed – Kathy’s toes twitched and curled as she laughed and laughed.

No wonder the guys enjoy tickling Sue, Karen thought – it’s a lot of fun, making Kathy laugh like this. Kinda like playing a musical instrument. She worked her way down both arches, drawing figure-eight’s and other tickling shapes – plenty of laughter, but not as good as the soles. She hit pay dirt at the back of the arches, just in front of the heels – Kathy went crazy, laughing at the top of her lungs, squirming like a worm and trying to buck Karen off. Worked good on me, Karen recalled – shouldn’t be surprised how well it works on her.

Kathy’s heels got it next, counter-rotating circles with two fingernails and a solid stream of helpless laughter. Then whole-hand tickling again, flicking the sweet spots in the arches and onto the heels behind. Kathy’s laughter went off the scale, then stopped abruptly – Karen had tickled her breath away.

Karen stopped tickling and dismounted. Kathy was completely limp, eyes closed, breathing in great long gasps. Her hair was in tangles around her head.

“”What happened just now?” Karen asked her twin.

Kathy tried to roll over and succeeded on the second attempt. “Why’d... you quit?” she asked. She looked up at Karen and smiled blissfully. “Gimme... more... ”

Karen recognized the signs. “You got off on it, didn’t you?” she asked.

Kathy blushed. “Yah,” she said. “Is that what happened to you?”

“No, dammit to hell,” Karen said, frustrated. “I came that close.”

Kathy sat up. “Oh. Too bad.” She took a long deep breath. “Well, where do we go from here?”

Karen thought that one over. Kathy had watched the guys, and now she knew all about it from the inside. Maybe she can help me out. Worth a try anyway...

Karen winked at Kathy and flopped down on her tummy. “Now you tickle me.”

***

It had worked, Karen recalled. Every afternoon for the next week, the guys tickled them both, and the girls tickled each other again after supper. The “aerobic exercise” had given them the edge they needed to become co-captains of the cheer squad. Tickling each other was so much fun that the sisters had kept at it. But they hadn’t encouraged the guys afterward – those two just did it for the aggravation anyway.

Or did they? Karen sometimes wished she had asked them.

Among themselves, men lie about sex all the time – women never do. Karen and Kathy were close even for twins – they privately compared notes in clinical detail, and Bill and Chuck were sometimes delightfully surprised at the results of their collaboration. But after a few unsatisfactory experiments, both women had stopped asking their husbands to tickle them – the guys didn’t understand the attraction, thought it was weird. We Boomers always prided ourselves on being sexually liberated, Karen reflected, but there are limits even so.

At least they had each other. The men tolerated their wives’ “hobby”, sometimes uneasily. It was Karen and Kathy’s guilty secret – in those pre-internet times, they thought they were the only ones with their weird affliction. They never let it become a problem – they had learned circumspection.

“Foot tickling seems to be the program today,” Veronica said, interrupting Karen’s thoughts. “So that’s what we’ll do. I’ll “bottom” first – your technique could use some work.”

“But I like tummy tickling better,” Vicky protested. “I like to see your abs twitch.”

Karen sympathized. She liked upper body tickling too – Kathy was the foot tickler.

“Focus, Vicky,” Kathy said. “Veronica’s right. And anyway– ”

“Our feet are our best tickle spot,” Vicky interrupted. “Yah, Mom, I know. OK, sis, where and how?”

“Back porch. Hogtie,” Veronica answered. We started doing that too, thought Karen – Girl Scouts know how to tie knots.

The women kicked off their sandals inside the door and passed through to the screened-in back porch. Familiar laughter came from next door at the Wade’s house. Karen glanced over, saw that Joanna hadn’t gotten away after all. She was on her back, feet up, gravity working against her. Candice and her sister Nicole, two little blonde beauties, each had hold of a foot. Joanna’s sweet spot was the same as her mother’s, and the Wade girls knew all about it. Joanna laughed with wild abandon as the sisters tickled her feet.

Veronica flopped down on her tummy. Vicky knotted a pair of old pantyhose around Veronica’s waist to provide an firm anchor. She used one leg to tie Veronica’s hands behind her back, the other leg to complete the hogtie. Pantyhose are designed to self destruct after one or two wearings – this was recycling at its best.

Vicky kneeled at her sister’s bound feet and cracked her knuckles. “You’re gonna get it!” she crowed. “I’m gonna make you sing!”

“OK, by the numbers,” Veronica said. “Start at my toes and work your way down to my hee– eee! Hehe! HAHAHA! HAHA-hehe-HAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHA!” as Vicky’s well manicured nails flicked and scratched Veronica’s sensitive soles.

“Hush now,” Vicky said sweetly over the laughter. “All I want to hear from you is laughing!”

Vicky tickled the soles two handed, watching her sister’s toes twitch and curl. She held the toes back and tickled the stretched out soles, side to side and back as wild helpless laughter streamed out. Then two fingernails, drawing figure-eight’s around the balls of Veronica’s feet, and Veronica laughed her head off.

“Her technique isn’t bad,” Karen observed. “Could use some work, but– ”

“ –sufficient to the task at hand,” Kathy completed the thought. “They remind me of us. But I still think they turned this neighborhood on to tickling. We were always– ”

“ –pretty circumspect,” Karen said. “Yah, I know. But...”

***

The tune ended, and the radio switched to a frantic spiel pitching some toy for teenagers that Karen neither needed nor wanted. She mentally tuned the commercial out. At age 28, there wasn’t much she liked on the radio any more – the music of her younger days now played only on the “oldies” programs. She recalled how Mom and Dad had said the same thing, years ago – now, she understood their complaints. She checked herself out in the bathroom mirror – she wore well-worn cutoff shorts and a faded t-shirt, hair cut short for convenience, a little heavier than she had been in her cheerleading days, but otherwise presentable enough.

Karen and Kathy regularly swapped baby-sitting services – this was one such occasion. Karen had been planning this weekend away with her husband for weeks.

“Joanna! Find your flip-flops, sweetie!” Karen called out.

“Don’t want to,” said Joanna with 2 yr old negativity.

Karen found her daughter trying to open the suitcase by the front door. She had dressed the little girl in a sun-dress today, blue with a pattern of yellow-and-white daisies.

“Stop that,” Karen said as she stepped into her sandals. “Better get your flip-flops, I’m not gonna carry you.”

“Don’t want to,” Joanna repeated stubbornly. “Where are we going?”

Maybe a 30 second attention span, Karen thought – she had already told her daughter three times since this morning. “You’re gonna stay with Aunt Kathy, sweetie. Daddy and me are going on a trip together.”

“Can I come?” Joanna asked hopefully.

“No, sweetie, just for grown ups.”

Joanna clouded up. Karen headed the tantrum off, squatted down and hugged her. “It’s only two days, then we’ll be back,” she said. “You’ll have fun with Brittany and Vicky and Veronica.”

Joanna’s mood shifted again – happy this time. “I’m going to Aunt Kathy’s!” she crowed. “Come on, Mommy!” She picked up her most prized posession – a once-white, ratty, one-eyed stuffed puppy named Snowball. Karen grabbed Joanna’s shoes and handed them to her – Joanna put them on without protest this time.

The string of commercials ended and the music started again. This one was an oldie by The Who.

– well, the kids don’t eat,
and the dog can’t sleep,
there’s no escape from the music in the whole damn street!

It was one of those tunes that get stuck in your head. Karen sang along.

– ‘cause she’s playing all night,
And the music’s all right–

“What’s a squeeze box, Mommy?” Joanna asked when the song finished.

Karen turned the radio off. “Remember “Lady and the Tramp”? When they were eating spaghetti?”

Joanna nodded.

“The instrument the man was playing is called a concertina. Some people call it a squeeze box.”

“Oh,” Joanna said, and immediately lost interest.

Karen picked up the suitcase, and mother and daughter headed out. The bag held the necessities for the two-day stay – a favorite story book, a few toys and 6 changes of clothes. Joanna was housebroken – mostly – but she still had accidents sometimes.

Karen hummed the tune as they walked down the street, a sound of contentment like a cat purring. She smiled, remembering when her mother had actually listened to the song and figured it out. Mom had picked up some of Grandma’s Old Country attitudes – she had gone ballistic.

They circled around Kathy’s house to the back yard. Little Brittany was in a jump suit, salt shaker in hand, trying to sneak up on a blue jay. Karen had worked the same scam on Joanna – telling her that you could catch a bird by putting salt on its tail. It would keep the kid harmlessly occupied for 10 or 15 minutes at least.

“Brittany!” Joanna yelled. She flipped up her dress. “Look – new panties!” The jay scolded and flew off.

“Hi, sis!” Kathy called from the back porch steps. “Get Joanna a salt shaker, then pull up a seat.”

Karen and her older daughters all wore shorts and t-shirts – Vicky and Veronica were 4 yrs old, and going through the “let’s be just like Mommy” stage. Kathy had wads of tissue between her toes – she was painting the nails bright red. She had rinsed out two empty bottles with polish remover – the twins sat on either side of her, painting their own toenails with water.

Karen ditched her sandals at the door, got the shaker and came back outside just as Kathy was putting on the final touches. That song was still stuck in her head – she sang it under her breath, not really aware of doing it.

She goes, squeeze me,
Come on and squeeze me,
Come on and tease me like you do, I’m so in love with you–

Kathy came in on the last line.

Mama’s got a squeeze box, Daddy never sleeps at night!

They laughed, both of them.

“Somebody’s horny,” Kathy observed with a mischievous grin. She warbled a line from a Carly Simon tune, giving it plenty of soul.

An-tici-pation, an-tici-pay-ay-tion–

Karen swatted her. “Oh, you! It’s not funny – I’m so horny, I’m about to bust!”

“Lucky you,” Kathy said, and meant it.

“If I don’t take the edge off, I’ll rip Bill’s clothes off him as soon as he gets home,” Karen continued. “And then we’ll never get out of town.”

“I think I can handle that,” Kathy said. “Let’s go inside, we don’t want to freak the neighbors out.”

“Can we come too?” Vicky and Veronica chorused. “Can we?”

“Not now, girls,” Kathy said. “Go play with Brittany and Joanna for a while.”

“They’re no fun,” Vicky protested.

“They’re too little,” Veronica added.

“They’re just babies,” the twins chorused disdainfully.

“Well, OK,” Kathy said. “You can play by yourselves if you want. But stay in the back yard. We’ll be in the family room if you need us.” The room had a big picture window that faced the yard – they could keep an eye on the girls from there.

“You better tie me up,” Karen said when they were alone. “Then we can do it on the couch.”

“No problem,” Kathy replied. “I have just the thing.”

Mom and Dad were Depression survivors – they seldom threw anything away, because money might be tight if they ever needed another. They had kept Dad’s inch-wide shoestring neckties from the 1960’s for years, on the off chance that they might come back into style, and had only recently discarded them. Kathy had salvaged the ties, ostensibly to tie up tomato vines. They were perfect bondage material – strong, wide enough not to chafe, held a secure knot but were easy to untie.

Kathy tied Karen’s hands behind her back with one of the old ties. They sat down, and Karen turned sideways and put her bare feet in Kathy’s lap. Kathy tied Karen’s ankles together, then tied the free ends around her own thigh to provide a secure anchor.

“Any preference?” Kathy asked, flexing her fingers.

“Nope,” Karen answered. “It’s all good.”

“OK, brace yourself.” She traced a fingernail around the outside of Karen’s heel, and was rewarded with a little giggle. “No callus so far,” she said. “Guess I’ll have to keep looking.”

Kathy circled the nail on the ball of Karen’s foot, a light touch that had Karen giggling like a little girl. Then two fingers, lightly tracing zig-zag lines down Karen’s arch – more giggles – and a burst of laughter as Kathy drew figure-eight’s on the heel. Kathy spider-walked her nails back up the arch and sole, then gently flicked the sensitive skin under the toes – the giggles were continuous. Then scratching the exact center of Karen’s sole, along the crease. Another short burst of laughter – that was one of the better tickle spots.

“Hehehe! Sta– haha! –ap te– hehe-haha! –easing! Haha! Tickle me– hehe! sillee– hehehe!” Karen said and giggled – the tension was amost unbearable.

“You got it,” Kathy said, and flicked her nails in Karen’s arch, just in front of the heel.

“HAHAHAHA-HAHAHA!” Karen laughed, bucking and squirming. “HAHA-HAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHA!”

Kathy grinned. “That suit you better?” But Karen was laughing much too hard to answer. She laughed wildly as Kathy drew circles, squares and other tickling shapes on her heels and arches. Kathy made a Peace sign and scratched the balls of both feet, just behind the big toes, and Karen laughed her head off.

Karen laughed at the top of her lungs as Kathy tickled her soles, her toes twitching and curling. Kathy kept it up, tickling side to side across both soles while stream after stream of helpless laughter poured out of Karen. Kathy spider-walked her nails down Karen’s arches, scrabbled her nails on both heels. Then tickling in both arches, just in front of the heels, where it really, really tickled. Her tickling fingernails flew, covering the sweet spots with tiny nail flicks, and Karen’s laughter went off the scale. She was right on the edge, wound up tight. It wouldn’t take much more...

Kathy paused to let Karen catch her breath. Karen almost hyperventilated – she was breathing hard, her crotch was wet, her nipples were so hard that they ached.

Then Kathy made a claw of her right hand and raked her fingernails down Karen’s right foot, toes to heel, drawing four fast parallel zigzag lines and applying just enough pressure to tickle like crazy. Every nerve ending in Karen’s body was super-sensitized by her arousal – her feet were beyond ticklish now. She threw back her head and laughed her head off.

Kathy repeated the whole-foot tickle, alternating between both feet, and Karen laughed like a madwoman. Kathy played Karen like a musical instrument, holding her on the edge, getting great reactions and forcing stream after stream of helpless laughter. Karen collapsed onto her back, completely overcome – she was no longer capable of coordinated movement. All she could do was laugh, and laugh, and laugh some more while the overpowering tension drove out all coherent thought.

Then Kathy tickled the sweet spots again, two handed, flicking and scratching. Karen laughed at the top of her lungs. She laughed herself breathless, and that put her over the edge. Her orgasm was almost painfully intense, left her breathless and limp and drained...

...and warm all over, and she felt wonderful.

Kathy set to work untying the ankle bonds. “Feel better now?” she asked cheerfully.

“Oh ghod yes...” Karen said. “Gimme more...”

“Nope, save some for Bill,” Kathy answered. “Although... we’re not like guys, thank God. There’s always more.” Karen still couldn’t move – Kathy rolled her like a log and untied her wrists.

“What’cha doin’?” Joanna’s little-girl voice asked.

Karen blinked away tears, looked up. Two little dark-haired toddlers stood there, looking gravely at their mothers.

“Playing,” Kathy said, thinking fast.

“Why?” Brittany asked.

“Because it’s fun,” Kathy said.

“Why?” Brittany asked again.

Shut up, I explained, thought Karen. The “why” game could go on forever if they let it.

“Just because,” Kathy said firmly. She looked around, then glanced out the window. “Where are Vicky and Veronica?” she asked.

“They’re playing too,” Brittany said.

“In their room,” Joanna amplified.

“Said to go away,” Brittany added, bottom lip quivering.

“They’re mean!” Joanna said, eyes bright with tears.

“No they aren’t, sweetie,” Karen said. She sat up – her muscles were back under control again. “It’s just... well, they’re twins, like Aunt Kathy and me. That’s something special. But they still love you.”

Karen heard a faint sound from upstairs – giggling? That’s what it sounded like, anyway.

Kathy heard it too. “I’d better check on ‘em,” she said.

Kathy headed upstairs. Karen’s curiosity got the better of her – she followed along. Vicky and Veronica’s room was quiet now. Their door was open just a crack – the two women peeked inside.

Two little barefoot girls, as alike as mirror images, sitting on Vicky’s bed. And then Vicky said...

***

“Now you tickle me,” Vicky said. She flicked her balisong open and cut her sister’s bonds. Veronica laid there gasping, trying to get her breathing and heart rate normal again.

“You’re right,” Kathy admitted. “We started it. They wanted to be just like us.”

“Are they?” Karen asked, though she was pretty sure she knew the answer.

“I’m almost certain of it,” Kathy answered. “I’m not so sure about Brittany. But she never tries all that hard to get away. Either it’s resignation– ”

“–or anticipation,” Karen completed the thought.

“Joanna’s getting there too, sounds like,” Kathy said, waving toward the next-door yard. Joanna was still laughing like a maniac, Candice and Nicole were getting her good!

“Joanna made a late start, but it seems to me she’s coming along,” Karen added. Another double entendre, she thought – I am horny. What I need is a warmup – then watch out, Bill, I’m comin’ at ya!

Veronica rolled onto her back and blotted tears of laughter with the collar of her t-shirt. She sat up, brushed her hair out of her face and stood up in one effortless fluid motion. “OK, sis, assume the position,” she said.

“Wish I could still do that,” Kathy remarked.

“Hey, why not?” Karen said, deliberately misinterpreting the comment.

Kathy looked sharply at Karen. Karen smiled angelically, the picture of innocence – then winked.

Veronica hogtied her sister quickly and competently, with zero waste motion – this wasn’t their first rodeo. She kneeled at Vicky’s feet, then dug in.

“HAHAHA-HAHA! HAHA-HAHA-HAHAHAHA!” Vicky laughed, squirming like a worm. Veronica tickled two-handed, left heel and right sole. Then counter-marching her hands from toes to heels and back – Vicky laughed at the top of her lungs, tears streaming down her cheeks, her face turning red as she laughed and laughed.

Karen checked out the tickle torture with a critical eye. “Veronica’s good– ” she started.

“ –but not as good as I am,” Kathy completed the thought.

Veronica flicked her nails in both arches and onto the heels behind. She covered the sweet spots with unbearable tickling – Vicky’s laughter went off the scale.

Karen checked her watch. “We’ve got a little time before the chicken and ribs are ready,” she said. “How about getting me warmed up for tonight?” she asked with a mischievous grin.

Kathy grinned back. “Poor Bill! You’re gonna kill him, sis – death by bonga-bonga!”

“I wonder if I’m the bong-er or the bong-ee,” Karen said thoughtfully. “Well, either way, I think he can handle it,” she added. “Where d’you keep those old neckties?”


***THE END***


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