TeeHeeLawrence
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Stephanie & Simon return in "Tickled to Tears" (M>F, with a bit o' F>M)
***The following M>F (and a wee bit vice versa) tale is copyright 2006 by the author.
***This tale is not meant for readers under 18 years of age. (For Pete’s sake, what are you kids doing out of bed?!? Ooooo! That babysitter will just DIE laughing! But I digress….)
***All the participants in this entry are well over 18 years of age, but reading it, you might have your doubts—they sure don’t act like it!
***This is the long-in-coming (What? Three, four years?) third entry in what was supposed to be a REGULAR series here on the Forum with an emphasis on romantic tickle play. This Stephanie and Simon episode is bit a more darkly flavored than the others, sort of like semi-sweet chocolate is to milk chocolate. (Can you tell that I’m a ticklephile with a sweet tooth?) It’s also--for a series that was SUPPOSED to consist of quick vignettes—a bit long in the pay-off. It’s four (!) times as long as the first entry and nearly twice as long as the second. (‘Hope I don’t try the patience of eager ticklephiles too unduly.)
*** Click here if you’d like to find the first two S&S tales:
Murder Afoot (http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=12581)
Alarm Clock? Hah! (http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=18766)
***OK, enough of this preamble folderol. Bring on the laughter…
What begins as a quiet, romantic evening for Stephanie and Simon becomes an opportunity for his mischief as her best intentions result in her being…
TICKLED TO TEARS
featuring Stephanie and Simon
by Tee Hee Lawrence
A professional couple is jealous of its time together. A newlywed professional couple is even more so.
Though their courtship was a long, leisurely affair—during which they already seemed comfortably married, the fact is that Stephanie and Simon have been officially wed for less than a year. Somehow, the exchange of vows, which they’d been cynically downplaying up to the event, has intensified the couple’s relationship. These rookie spouses are more emotionally bound to one another, feel each other’s pleasure and pain more intently, and their intimacies have become even more passionate.
More precious, too. For their professional duties (she as the rising star of a venerable law firm, he as regional audits manager for a multinational accounting firm) have increasingly thwarted significant time together. After work days—which usually found either, if not both, logging much overtime—they’re both so tired that, intending to play, they simply fall asleep in each other’s arms. Thus, Steph and Simon minutely plan and keenly anticipate romantic weekends, trying as best they can to keep work, friends, and even family at bay. Stealing a getaway, they might make a reservation for a night or two at a luxurious downtown hotel or a secluded country bed-and-breakfast. Or, if they nestle at home, they indulge in playful scenarios that stoke their banked passion.
One recent Saturday, they reenacted their first date at a local diner, not unlike the one in the college town upstate where they first met. Simon picked up Steph in a Rent-A-Wreck Mustang that bore an uncanny resemblance to the rust bucket that he drove as a graduate student. He wore the same nerdy bow tie and suspenders (dug out from a trunk in the attic) that again had Steph giggling, MUCH less circumspectly than that first night. Her dress again had slippery shoulder straps, which he finally felt compelled to “help” her adjust, although MUCH less shyly and after FAR fewer cocktails than the first time. She contrived to lose an earring under the table so that, groping for the fallen, they could again klunk heads and “accidentally” blunder into a passionate kiss below. The flat tire he had to change during a downpour after dinner was UNPLANNED, but the delay—accompanied by much slapstick fumbling with tools and exhausting his modest supply of obscenities--seemed to make the erotic fireworks that followed even more spectacular.
Last Saturday evening, their craving for each other particularly acute, their desire for privacy ascendant, Steph and Simon stayed at home. To the accompaniment of seductive vocals by Barry White and Abbey Lincoln and Karen Akers, they’d lovingly shared in the preparation of a splendid meal. In the kitchen, as they chopped, stirred, and sauteed, each gentle collision of their bodies fed their passion deliciously.
Dinner ready, each had reluctantly yet hastily retired to dress seductively to the nines. Stephanie (30, 5’, 8”, flatteringly figured, with long strawberry-blond bangs, expressive blue-gray eyes, and a warm, full-lipped smile) was delectably clad in an artfully abbreviated, strapless, clinging red silk dress and racy red Manolo Blahniks. (Their sharply pointed toes and stiletto heels made them a pain to actually wear on a night out, but were bearable at home where one could kick them off frequently. She also knew Simon loved it when she wore vertiginous heels.).
Simon (33, 5’, 6”, wiry, muscular, with short, wavy black hair, dark, bedroom eyes, and irresistibly cute dimples beside his mouth and upon his chin) wore a sharp, almost lucent white Italian suit and open-collared black silk shirt, and his slim, pale feet were bare. His heretofore-trim goatee had evolved into a neat curly beard, which she suspected he’d cultivated because he’d noticed her ticklish reaction to it when he kissed her on the lips—and other sensitive places.
Returning to their candlelit dining room, filled with fresh flowers, they broke open a sinfully expensive bottle of wine and exchanged sultry toasts. Seated at table, their hungry mutual looks would have them devour each other as the meal. Instead, they savored blackened swordfish, asparagus vinaigrette, risotto, and fresh strawberries atop lemon sorbet.
All the while, each was enflamed by the other’s nostrils, lips, and tongue, suggestively sniffing, kissing, and licking each morsel across the table: a deliberately relished meal as foreplay. Below the table, their free hands stole sly caresses of knees and thighs. Here, Simon had the upper hand—so to speak—as he had Stephanie’s very touchy bare knees and lower thighs to tease with his frisky fingertips. At one point, when Simon gave the sensitive sides of her knee a quick squeeze, Steph nearly snorted up a mouthful of risotto.
Further down, their playful feet engaged in a constant libido stoking game of footsie. As one Manolo dangled off Stephanie’s toes, Simon’s big toe lightly stroked her exposed silken arch. Her foot jerked as if shocked, the shoe tumbling to the floor. Simon sandwiched her tender bare foot between his, wiggling his long toes underfoot and atop. Steph squealed into her wineglass and shimmied in her seat. Eyes flashing, she slipped out of the other shoe and brought HER frisky toes to the defense of her tickled sole. She wiggled the soft pads of her pearl-like toes ever so lightly across the tops of his bare feet. He shut his eyes, bit his lower lip, and shivered with desire. She then skittered her neat cherry toenails along Simon’s soles and, eyes wide, he burst into giggles.
In response, he snaked HIS toes up the warm smooth skin of Steph’s shapely calves and thighs. Very deliberately, he deftly insinuated his tootsies under her dress and between her legs. Steph’s breath caught and she closed her misty eyes. As his toes tenderly teased between her legs, tiny beads of perspiration formed above her sensuous smile.
As his toes played, steamy Steph imagined Simon’s questing lips lavishing her neck and shoulders and breasts with kisses. She anticipated her giggle-spiced sighs as his soft beard tickles her throat and brushes the tremulous tips of her nipples. Inexorably moving down her body, his tickley kisses would teasingly taste her wriggling tummy, as his gentle fingertips deftly feather her ribs. Chuckling wickedly, he would swirl the tip of his tongue in her innie, so spectacularly sensitive that in response she’d begin to swivel her sublime hips like a manic belly dancer. His warm, wet mouth and his fabulous fingers would meet in sweet synchronicity between her hips at her moist throbbing honey pot. Her clit would tingle as his tongue tickled and teased. When she was precariously balanced on the edge of surrender, he would slide up, and she would feel his hard cock smoothly replace his tongue within. Deliciously dancing in deep delirium, she would finally teeter over into climax and take him with her…
Agog in her chair, she suddenly wrenched out of her reverie and banked her fantasy-fired passion by frenetically frisking his bare ankle with her cherry red fingernails. He yelped and withdrew his toes. “No fair using hands!” he pouted. “All’s fair, silly,” she huskily whispered, narrowing her beautiful misted eyes, “when YOU’RE exceedin’ the speed limit!”
Her concern that their passions not prematurely boil over, however, didn’t keep HER from then pushing his accelerator a little. She deliberately, mercilessly played the toes of one foot--cherry nails flashing--up the inseam of his pants leg right up to the lair of his thrumming cock, noticeably straining the fabric. As his game attempt to mask his excitement crumbled, her frisky toes circled his trapped cock, desperate to breathe free. She thus deftly stroked his straining member, playing him like a sighing wind instrument.
Across the table, Simon, who’d slipped out of his jacket, found his pulse—and imagination—racing. Behind his closed eyes, he beheld a steaming, naked Steph hovering over him as he lay on his back. Her knees would tightly press on either side of his thighs. She’d take hold of his forearms and, with shocking strength for a lady lawyer, force them towards the headboard, which he’d soon compliantly, almost reflexively, grab tight. She’d be ever so delicately feathering his neck and chest with her long strawberry-blond bangs, as her fingertips lightly stroked his tummy and sides, threatening—barely missing—to tickle his underarms. With a salacious grin, she’d bend WAY back, and her fingers would find his vulnerable bare feet. Her flashing nails would tease the tops of his feet and his toes, before sneaking tickles upon his soles and under his scrunching toes. Throughout all this ticklish teasing, his grip on the headboard would tighten as his jolly boy would get harder and longer. By the time she would straighten up, and begin to gently drum her fingertips up and down his inner thighs and across his belly, his penis would be vibrating like a tumescent tuning fork. She playfully danced her fingertips up-and-down the trembling, aspiring shaft. He rose ever so slightly off the bed, when, with a sweet sigh, she moved to mount him…
At table, desperate to contain his furiously stoked passion, the barely seated Simon swept his fingertips along her silken insteps. Steph giggled and stammered, “ H-h-h-h-hey, YOUUU! ‘ Spoil my fun!” She yanked her feet away and, questing with her pointed toes, found and slipped back into her snug Manolos.
“’Had to, sweet!” he panted. “Last…last resort. ‘ Want…oh SO want to take you…take you…upstairs!”
Well, that was IT for dinner! They rose from table and, their craving for each other under admirable if tenuous restraint, they slowly, ritualistically took turns blowing out the many candles in the dining room. The last light snuffed, they tightly embraced, exchanging a breathtaking kiss. When they broke off, Steph grinned and fanned herself. “Whew!” she panted. She moved to the stairs as Simon, his brow dewed and his cheeks flushed, fumbled off his shirt. At the base of the stairs, they stumbled into another kiss.
“Ah…! Oh…! B-bedroom,” he gasped. “More-more comfor-comfortable….”
“O-O-O.K!” she stammered.
Trembling hands joined, eyes locked in rapt mutual concentration, they were just about to ascend the stairs, when…
The phone rang.
Steph, staring into Simon’s eyes, sighed and said, “Let the machine answer it.”
He replied, “Uh-huh,” his eyes not leaving hers as they negotiated the first steps.
After four rings, the machine answered with their message:
“Hi, it’s Steph.”
“Hi, It’s Simon.”
(together) “We can’t come to the phone, so leave us a brief message, and when we come up for air (giggling), we’ll get back to you. ‘ Bye!” (They’d recorded it during one particularly playful evening in the early weeks of their marriage. One anonymous message left in response was an abrupt, “You ethical humanists! Have you no shame?” When Steph was incommunicado in court, Simon would sometimes call home just to hear her musical giggles on the message.)
The machine beeped. A teary woman’s voice poured out of the speaker.
“Steph, are you there? Oh, PLEASE be there. (sob) It’s…Amy. I just got home—and Larry’s gone. REALLY, REALLY gone this time! He’s moved out his stuff. His closet is empty. He’s taken his stupid beanbag chair, all his brainless kung-fu videos, and even his loathsome Mr. Potato Head collection. He’s really done it this time. Moved out—and I—I—I’m so miserable I could…I could….” She broke down, crying.
Steph froze on the stairs and turned toward the phone.
Simon, who had continued two steps above her, squeezed her hand, and intoned, “Steph….” The Sturm und Drang of Amy and Larry had been going on for so long that it had become a running joke amongst their friends. Simon was concerned that his softhearted wife would allow Amy to sabotage their romantic evening.
“Simon, she REALLY sounds like she needs a friend now.”
“What she needs is a therapist. And some Prozac. They BOTH do.”
“Siiii-monnn….”
On the phone, Amy stopped crying long enough to blurt, “Oh-ooohhh, I guess you’re not THERE!” She sobbed and sighed. “I REALLY need to talk to you!” She began sobbing again.
Simon could not meet Steph’s imploring, beautiful blue gray eyes.
He squeezed her hand again and insisted, “They’ve broken up and reconciled a thousand times. She moves out…she comes back. HE moves out…HE comes back. They are personally responsible for keeping The Savini Brothers Moving Company in business.”
Amy wailed, “I guess you’re REALLY not there…!”
Simon snorted, “And she ALWAYS calls at the most inopportune times: 4 in the morning on the days I have early important meetings…during the soup course when we’re entertaining important guests… in the middle of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES…and now, on the one night a week we allow ourselves to pursue new records in the Sex Olympics….”
Steph giggled and rolled her eyes. She poked Simon’s side and said, “YOUUU!”
Amy hiccuped and rasped, “You’re probably out with Simon…having a good time. You’re not alone…miserable…heartbroken…contemplating a vial full of sleeping pills….”
Steph shouted, “OH, NO-NOO!” She tugged at Simon’s hand, pulling him down the stairs. “I’ll just…talk to her! For … a minute!”
She grabbed the handset and shouted into it, “Hello? HELLO? Amy…AMY? It’s me!”
“Steph? Oh, THANK God! Where WERE you?”
“Oh, ahhh…ha-ha,” Steph stammered. “You, ah, uh, you caught me in the loo!” Simon rolled his eyes. He thought, “Not only does she clumsily fib, but in British, yet!”
Amy whimpered, “I--I need to talk. Can--can I come over?”
“N-now? Uh…uh…what time is it?” Steph stalled. “Gee, it’s, uh…it’s… WHOA! It’s, uh, kinda late!” Simon shook his head and silently, broadly mouthed, “No! No! No!”
“I’m right outside.” Amy flashed the headlights on her Taurus, parked in front of their house.
Jumping at the flash, the couple instinctively pressed against the foyer wall in unison. Steph put the handset against her chest. She whispered to Simon, “Look! I’ll make her a quick cup of chamomile tea, hear her out, calm her down, and get her to promise that she’ll go right home and just go right to bed.”
Simon frowned and hissed, “When Larry left the LAST time, she came over at one in the morning and spent the night! And you didn’t bother to wake me and tell me, so, in the morning, I, half asleep, walked naked into MY bathroom to find her taking a bubble bath. She was drinking that heirloom bottle of Scotch a client had given me and was reading from a sodden pile of MY signed, first edition mysteries! She went through TWO entire boxes of Kleenex, most of which ended up clogging the toilet. I had to call a plumber—on a SUNDAY!”
“Well, she cried A LOT that night.” Steph pressed the phone more tightly against her bosom. “And she didn’t know that the bathroom next to the guest room is yours, silly. Plus, I did try to wake you and tell you but you were, as usual, sleeping like Rip Van Simon.”
Amy’s voice rose from Steph’s chest. “Stephanie! Are you still there? Steph?”
Steph brought the phone back up and stammered, “Y-yes, Amy! ‘ Sorry, I had to, uh, switch phones. Ah, the other needed charging.” She covered the receiver and implored Simon with her large, lovely blue gray puppy eyes. “Simon, it’ll only be for a few minutes. She just needs some kind words and a hug.”
Simon pouted. “I…need a hug.” Steph smiled with teary eyes and pulled him to her. She gave his resistant form a prodigious hug, which he finally, with much less truculence than he wanted, reciprocated. He sighed and nodded. “OK, let her in!” She kissed him deeply. (His knees nearly buckled.) She was about to reply to Amy’s repeated, “Steph? You there? Hello?” when he covered the receiver with his hand. “Wait!” he whispered. “Do you want me to, uh, help you console her?”
She gave him a look that indicated she wasn’t buying for one second his newfound solicitude for Amy. “You’ll only slow things down. This is a girl thing. You’re, well, a guy…”
“’Glad you noticed.” He playfully ran a finger down her neck and between her breasts.
She giggled and playfully slapped his hand. “Not NOW, idiot! Stop THAT!” Turning serious, she hissed, “She’s in a bad state! If she sees you, she’s liable to bolt.” Simon’s eyes lit up. Steph put her hands on her hips and barked, “Then, I—no, WE’LL have to go after her!” Simon seemed to stagger and stared mournfully below his belt. Steph giggled in spite of herself and said, “Hehheh! Will you please just go upstairs and pretend that you’re asleep?”
To his still quite energized member below, Simon muttered, “She wants us to pretend we’re asleep, pal. Mm-hmm!”
Twisting her lips to keep from giggling, Steph finally raised the phone and said, “’ Sorry to leave you hangin’, Amy! I just had to, uh, throw something on. Come on in.”
Amy murmured, “You’re SURE I’m not bugging you or Simon!”
“N-no, of course NOT! S-Simon, he’s…he’s already asleep.” Simon folded his hands by his cheek and feigned snoring. Steph gave him a sharp poke in the ribs. He yelped, then slapped a hand to his mouth as Steph shushed him.
Amy gushed, “Oh, thank you, Steph!”
Almost immediately, there were two firm knocks at the front door, indicating that Amy had spoken these last words into her phone right on the threshold.
“SHIT!” Simon nearly shouted. Steph put a hand over his mouth and whispered, “Shhhh! Get upstairs NOW!”
He whispered back, “Look, give me a moment to get the mystery I’ve been reading! It’s in the kitchen! I’ll grab it and go up the back stairs.” He backed up rapidly down the hall and out of sight into the kitchen.
There were three, more tentative knocks, as Amy ventured, “Steph, are you there?”
Steph cocked an ear back and hissed to Simon, “Hurry UP!” In a louder voice, she trilled, “Com-ming!” She kept looking back down the hall as she made her deliberate way to the front door, where she stopped to slip the chafing Manolo off her bare right foot and rub her tender red toes. She replaced the shoe before opening the door. Amy, red-faced, tear-stained and smiling hopefully, practically leaped into the foyer to tightly hug Steph.
Steph staggered and quipped, “Please, dear, I’m a married woman!”
Amy giggled and hugged her again. “You don’t know how happy I am that you’re here!” She gave Steph’s sexy red dress and shoes the once over and marveled, “Wow! When you throw something on….”
“Ooh, err, ahh!” Steph stammered, shyly covering her barely covered breasts. “We’d gone out and gotten back late and, uh, I-I was gonna take a bath while Simon went to bed and….”
Amy released Steph and stared up the stairs. She whispered, “Oh, I hope I didn’t wake Simon up!”
Steph glanced down the corridor, before patting Amy’s back and insisting, “He’s deep in Dreamland, believe me. But, he’d rush RIGHT DOWN if he knew you were here. He LOVES when you visit….”
Stumbling about in the kitchen, Simon initially couldn’t find the book, then spotted it on the windowsill by the breakfast nook beyond the range. The nook (“What the hell IS a nook?” posed his frantic mind.) was a generous curved extension of the finished hardwood range countertop, surrounded by four tall padded stools. A solid wooden base extending to the floor almost completely divided the window side from the range side. As the women exchanged stage whispered greetings out front, he fumbled for the book, but it fell to the floor. Grabbing for it, he kicked it under the nook. Hearing the women approach the kitchen, he cursed and instinctively plunged under the nook, on the window side, hidden from the doorway. “Now it’s a book nook,” he muttered.
As Steph and Amy entered, Simon thought, “This is a FINE position for a young Fortune 500 executive to find himself in!” He gazed desperately at the spiral wrought iron stairs across the kitchen, praying, “Please Lord, don’t let them park themselves here!”
Amy said, “No kidding! That’s SOME outfit!”
“Ah, yeah, heh-heh!” Steph replied. “Well, you know, Simon likes to go to places where you dress up a little and I, uh, I ran Simon around the dance floor so much that when we got back he just collapsed into bed, poor thing.” Her eyes glanced up, as she hoped Simon would remain quiet upstairs.
“YOU don’t look sleepy!” Amy gushed. “That dress! Those shoes! They make you look like an Amazon!”
“Well…hehhehehheh,” giggled Steph.
“Fine,” muttered Simon under the breakfast nook. “She’s Wonder Woman, I’m the Mole Man down here. Will you two PLEASE go to another room? If the folks at the office saw me now….”
Amy swallowed a sob and said, “I wish I had your shape. If I could wear things like that, maybe…maybe Larry wouldn’t…wouldn’t….” She burst into tears.
Steph hugged Amy, crooning, “Hey…hey…it’s OK! And what’s this about your shape? Who worked as a model at the Art Institute last summer and doubled Figure Drawing 101 attendance by term’s end?”
Amy snuffled back her tears and chuckled, blushing. “’Can’t figure out why! I WAS wearing a swimsuit. Well, the bottom, anyway….”
“Uh-huh.” Steph led her friend to the range, offering, “C’m’ere and help me make some tea.” She set a kettle to quickly boil and drew down two NPR mugs from the cupboard. She brought forward a ceramic Buddha jar from the back of the range. She raised its lid at its round belly, revealing a riot of tea bags of many varieties. “Pick yer poison, artbabe. I recommend something…soothing, like chamomile.”
As they chatted by the range, waiting for the whistle, Simon, under the nook, was intently, suggestively, thinking, “Take your frickin’ tea and go sit in the living room. In…the…living…room!”
The kettle whistled. The boiling water was poured. Steph said, “Let’s sit here at the nook.”
“NATURALLY!” thought Simon, “I’m the idiot in a nightmare out of a sitcom. Loo-see, I’m ho-ome! Where’s the laugh track?”
Fortunately, Amy settled herself on a stool on the range side of the nook. If she had chosen this side, he thought, and discovered him lurking under her, she would have fainted dead away or run screaming to her car. Either would derail, he knew, his and Steph’s romantic evening.
Meanwhile, Steph slid onto the stool on his side of the nook. The countertop was broad enough—and she was so focussed on Amy that she didn’t notice him hiding underneath.
He sighed with relief, for he didn’t want to piss Steph off. “Not tonight,” he thought, as he shivered with pent-up desire, for his lovely wife had just crossed her shapely bare legs before his horny eyes. As Steph jiggled her petite left foot, dangling her sexy shoe off her cute wiggling toes, Simon felt his cock again straining against his pants. “This-t-this is TERRIBLE!” he thought. “What if Amy yaks all night and they NEVER move?” He gazed longingly at the gold anklet flashing on his wife’s fetching ankle. “This could KILL me!”
Above, Steph was working intently to listen to Amy, who was baring her soul a mile a minute, having added Red Zinger tea to the latte grande she’d chugged on the way here. Steph’s friend was in her late ‘20s, 5’, 4” and robustly full-figured, with a mop of curly brown hair, large brown eyes, sweet apple cheeks, and a very sensual smile. She looked, as usual, as if she’d dressed in the dark: paint-spattered red flannel shirt, baggy banana basketball shorts, and Nike navy sandals. Amy was an aspiring artist, most often working in painting and collage, but she really made her living moderating art classes at the local Y and senior centers. When classes were scarce and her perpetual hapless credit card debt ballooned, she resorted to work that had helped her pay for college: life modeling for students at the Art Institute in the city.
Despite being the antithesis of reedy celebrity models, Amy, with her eloquent bust and hips, radiated such unconscious sexuality that men were drawn to her like bears to honey. Her life model gigs at the Institute comically demonstrated her unaffected allure. Amy’s boyfriend Larry—a free-lance writer prone to moodiness-- thus displayed wild spikes of jealousy and dramatic departures. His jealousy drove Amy to distraction, and sometimes SHE’d leave in a huff. Simon was right, Steph thought. Larry always came back. Amy always came back. And each time, Amy and Larry’s d’amour fou grew stronger. The trick was to convince Amy to go home and relax ‘til Larry inevitably gave in and returned.
Steph’s foot brushed something warm below her. She thought, “Amy’s legs aren’t THAT long. How could she be playin’ footsie…?” She stole a glance below and froze. Simon’s sheepish eyes were peering up at her. He shrugged. Her eyes widened, but she caught herself before Amy noticed and blurted, “’L-love your curly hair, sweetie. I spend a fortune at a trendy stylist downtown and don’t look half as sexy as you.”
Amy’s hands flew to her copious curls and she smiled through her big teary brown eyes. “I hardly even take a brush to it! Larry l-likes it t-this w-w….” Her face collapsed again into tears.
Steph forced a smile to hide her distraction and chirped, “Aww, Amy! Don’t! I bet he’s on his way back right now, dreaming of burying his silly face in those cute curls.”
Amy sniffed and giggled, “Hehheh! You-you think? She reddened as her stomach loudly growled from the tea on top of all that coffee. “Excuse ME! I’d BETTER make a pit stop!”
As soon as Amy disappeared into the nearby bathroom, Steph leaned over and hissed at Simon, “WHAT do you think you’re playing at? Can’t you see how delicate she is right now?”
“Who’s playing? Look,” he insisted, “I just came here to get THIS.” He motioned with the book. “If you hadn’t been so damn quick, I’da made it upstairs. Besides…” he added, with an eyebrow waggle, “I thought you loved me being at your feet.” He danced five fingertips across the top of her jiggling foot. She gasped and jerked her foot away, losing her Manolo. He helpfully slipped it back on her foot. She immediately poked at his side with its sharp red toe. He barely stifled a yelp and lurched back. She hissed, “You’re not helping matters, Simon. What if she finds you—Careful!”
Amy called as she approached the kitchen from down the hall. “I LOVE those towels in the bathroom! New?”
Steph hurried straightened up to answer, “Uh, ah, yeah. Simon couldn’t resist them. On sale at the Museum Shop.” Her right foot was poised to poke the hidden Simon. “Every bathroom needs towels with Jackson Pollock patterns.” He deftly removed her killer shoe before she could strike.
“Oh, I think they’re GREAT!” Amy sincerely assured her. She added, “Poor Simon! You sure we won’t wake him?”
“Not a chance! He was SO beat, the dear.” She uncrossed her legs and threatened him with the toe of her remaining Manolo. He swiftly slipped that one off, too. She still gave him a playful feint with her pointed bare toes. Simon had to firmly restrain himself from giving them a retaliatory love bite, as they wiggled just beyond his face.
Amy gushed, “Simon’s a real prince. You made a nice catch there, Steph. I wish Larry would be at my feet like your hubby’s at yours.”
Both Stephanie above and Simon below froze. How had Amy discovered their predicament?
Amy conceded, “I’m glad he is asleep, though. I get the feeling I try his patience when
I stop by like this.”
“Don’t be silly!” insisted Steph, gulping down her relief. “Simon’s tickled to death when you visit.” Underneath, she playfully wiggled her bare toes near Simon’s sides. Her big toes made inadvertent contact with his ribs, causing him to hit his head on the underside of hardwood top.
“Oh, this is TOO much,” fumed Simon, as he fended off Steph’s frisky feet. “Bad enough I’m curled up at her feet like a Jewish setter, but my lovely wife is enjoying herself immensely at my expense.” Her toes grazed his ribs again, and his head butted the top again. “Ow!”
Above, to mask the thumps and Simon’s outburst, Steph reached for Amy’s hands and gave them a squeeze as she loudly intoned, “Of course, he KNOWS I’d walk all over him if he wasn’t.”
Trying to push his head away from the counter top, she rested her toes on Simon’s forehead and allowed her bare soles to settle upon his face. He sat, unprotesting, relishing the aroma and the feel of her feet. Unable to resist taking further advantage of her hidden hubby, she at one point even gave his nose a quick tweak with her toes. Her tender soles were warm and moist, having acquired a whiff of leather from her sexy shoes and a tang of sweat due to her earlier excitement and present anxiety. This moist warmth set off traces of Steph’s rich vanilla bath oil lingering between her toes. Simon’s nostrils thrilled at the aromatic mix and his cock followed suit. Trailing his nose deliriously between her silken insteps, he moved his bearded cheeks ever so slightly against her soft, sensitive soles.
This tickled Steph so that she was unable to smother a geyser of giggles or keep from yanking her feet off Simon’s face and nearly toppling the stool.
Amy reached out to pull her friend back, crying, “Steph!”
Stephanie swallowed and giggled, “Hehhehheh! Uh, I, ah, guess I had a bit too much wine with dinner.” She composed herself, thinking, “Simon accidentally tickling me—At least I HOPE it was accidental! —got me tingling again below, and we can’t have THAT, not while Amy’s here and so upset.” Steph was noted in the law firm for her adeptness with reluctant witnesses. She thought that handling Amy like a witness, gently easing her story entirely from her, would calm her enough to get her to go home, rest, and wait for Larry’s inevitable return. She took Amy’s hand and leaned forward, murmuring, “But, please, Amy, enough about Simon and me. Talk to me about the run-up to Larry leaving…this time.”
Amy swallowed a sob and, fiddling with the string of her tea bag, recounted, “It started after I got home late from a meeting with a gallery owner who’d seen my work at a show. I’ll admit he’s good-looking, but he’s a much older man and….”
Under the nook, Steph, having regained her shoes, crossed her lovely bare legs before Simon’s face as he fumed. “Oh, God!” he thought. “Here it comes! The latest saga!” His protestations notwithstanding, Simon actually liked Amy well enough. He thought her smart and funny and, when she wasn’t whining, reasonably attractive. He even, begrudgingly, thought that she was a promising artist, at least as far as he could tell. But her roller coaster of a relationship was making HIM queasy—and monopolizing his wife far too much, especially on this night.
Steph jiggled her right foot mere inches from his face, her shoe slipping off her heel and dangling from her toes. Catching another whiff of their heady aroma, Simon sighed and closed his eyes. He thought, “So near…and yet, so far….” His jolly boy was stirring again. He decided it would be best if he distracted himself. “Let’s see…Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories in my order of preference: “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”…uh, “A Scandal in Bohemia”….”
Above, Amy was sobbing and saying, “…I know he loves me and he knows I love him. Each of us would run into a burning building to save the other. But, we get in these terrible fights for the most stupid of reasons: my leaving too many canvases to dry in the kitchen, his taping too much ESPN, my buying the wrong brand of barbecue sauce, his leaving golf balls in the fruit bowl….”
And on it went, with Steph murmuring, “Uh-huh…. Sure…. I understand…. Yeah, sure…. Uh-huh…. Uh-huh….”
She was grateful that Simon was behaving sensibly below. He must know, she thought, that she was as anxious to send Amy home as he was. Steph shimmied on the stool. She had a burning yearning between her legs, too. Still, she had to let Amy talk herself out, get her calmed down enough so Steph felt comfortable sending her home with the promise that they’d meet for Sunday brunch. Amy was her dearest friend. She couldn’t let Amy down, any more than she would disappoint Simon on the one night they looked keenly forward to ravishing each other at leisure.
“He found some old sketchbooks where I’d done nude studies, and he shouted, ‘These don’t look like me!’ Well, of course they couldn’t have. I’d sketched ‘em long before I met him. He stood there, angrily flipping pages, before he hurled them away and began a big show of packing. I thought he was just acting out….”
As Steph calmly listened to Amy’s monologue, below her foot waggled nervously until her Manolo tumbled off its precarious perch. Simon observed the shoe blankly, making no move to replace it. Her bare foot hypnotized him—the soft, lovely pink-edged foot he longed to massage later in deliberate, delirious foreplay—as she busily wiggled her sweet pea toes. He yearned to stroke them, and brought his fingertips tantalizingly close under them. “But, no!” he reasoned. “’Don’t want to get her kicking again.”
His nose twitched at a hint of vanilla. A trickle of perspiration tickled his spine. Amy droned on. Steph recrossed her legs. Her remaining shoe dangled fetchingly near his nose. He tried massaging some feeling back into his cramped limbs. He thought, “Steph’s getting too comfortable. There must…there simply MUST be SOME way to, ah, ENCOURAGE her to get Amy to go home.”
“I cry when I think how much Larry and I used to laugh together. We’d be lying on the bed, trying to read, and we’d sneak tickles and before long, we’d be holding our sides, screaming with laughter ‘til I’d damn near pee.” Through her tears, Amy sneaked at sly look at Steph. “Do you and Simon do that?”
Steph blushed and gushed, “Of course we do, dear! We’d be a fine couple if he didn’t know my ticklish spots.”
Below, Simon smirked and thought, “Ticklish SPOTS, huh? Steph is wonderfully ticklish almost EVERYWHERE…”--He considered her jiggling foot, its red shoe sliding down to the very tips of her bare toes. -- “…no more so than upon her delectable feetsies.” He puffed warmly upon her ankle.
Stephanie cast a lightning glance downward, adding, “Of course, he knows there’s a time and place for silliness like that. Now, getting back to you and Larry….”
For Simon, desperation had seeded inspiration. He leered at the precarious shoe before lifting it off of Steph’s toes, which wiggled futilely to regain it. He set it behind him and thought, “There’s a sure way to ENCOURAGE Steph to suggest that Amy go home NOW. This IS the time and the place to TICKLE some motivation into this Good Samaritan.”
He gripped her ankle firmly with his left hand, for it wouldn’t do for her to merely wriggle out of his grasp and go with Amy to another room. No, he was going to tease her until he heard her insist to Amy that waiting for Larry at home was best. With supreme delicacy, he began feathering five fingertips upon Steph’s tender sole just below her toes. Her foot jerked, but he held on. When she tried to defend her foot with the other, he gave it a quick tickle, too. She pulled it away.
Barely suppressing a squeal, Steph thought, “Oh, nohohohooo! Dohohon’t TICKLE me, youhoohoo rat! Stop it! I can’t stand THAT and youhoohoo know it!” She prayed that Amy--focused on her tea cup as she continued to relay her story--didn’t notice her twitchy body or her bloodless lips straining to remain shut.
Simon couldn’t restrain a grin as he thought, “She can’t stand this and don’t I KNOW it. Kootchie-kootchie-koo, sweetie! This will teach you to play the saintly patient Good Samaritan. Tickle-tickle-tickle, counselor. Right…here. Under your sweet, tender toes.”
“Oh, youhoohoo…evil…rotten…bastard!” Steph struggled to think the worst things she could call this guy she'd thought she loved. “Not under my toes! I CAN’T let you tickle me there! Not THERE! G-God, but you’ve got s-strong fingers! Hehhehhelp! Nothing can save me now!” The tickle sensations were dancing up her leg and rekindling the fire between her legs. Her hips began to gently move with a life of their own. Giggles were bubbling up her throat and pushing against her locked lips.
Simon knew, by the futile struggle Steph’s toes were wielding, how much his probing fingertips must tickle and how giddy she must feel. Sure, he was enjoying this, but it was for her own good. She’d thank him later, he was sure. He thought, ‘C’mon, Steph. Say the secret words and I’ll stop. TELL AMY TO GO HOME! NOW!”
Stephanie bit down on her lower lip. She couldn’t take much more of this. The giggles began to pass her lips. Her hands rushed to her mouth.
“…and if Larry would only come home—What’s the matter, Steph?”
Expectant, and with admirable discipline, Simon stopped tickling, but did not release his grip on her ankle.
Steph managed to morph her lingering giggles and her relief at Simon’s relenting fingers into a theatrical sneeze. “Oh, ah…ahchoo! ‘ S-orry! G-got a little c-cold!”
“Oh, no!” Amy cried. “Here!” Amy reached under the nook and grabbed the capacious straw shoulder bag she had come with. After she rustled through it for a while, she extracted a tissue and handed it to Steph, who made a show of blowing her nose.
After Amy also pulled an envelope from the mess, she dropped the bag to the floor more on Simon’s side of the divide than hers. He could see that she was the sort who carried an inordinate amount of her possessions with her at all times. Heaped near the top were sunglasses, magazines, vitamin bottles, a bottle of Vitamin Water, a wireless phone, a rolled pair of white socks, and a khaki terrycloth headband. He had no doubt that underneath all that was a change of clothes and a toilet kit. Simon suspected that she hadn’t dropped by for JUST a little while.
He KNEW she hadn’t when she said, hopefully, “Maybe I should STAY, Steph, and help you baby that cold.”
“Uh, we-ell…” Stephanie offered.
Simon reinforced his hold on Steph’s ankle and drummed his fingers atop her foot for emphasis. “No, Steph! N-O!” he silently screamed. It was then that noticed the stylish adornment on the far side of Amy’s headband: a stiff, flame red feather, several inches long, its quill passing twice through the pliable fabric.
“Thank you, Amy,” Simon thought. “You’ve provided me with what should convince Steph to stay strong.”
Above, his unwitting benefactor whimpered, “L-larry left me a note! It’s left me so-o confused. Can I read it to you—or am I boring you? I am, aren’t I?”
“N-no, Amy! No!” Stephanie insisted. “You’ve my full attention!”
“Oh, really?” thought Simon. “Not if I can help it!”
He reached, straining for a few moments, and his free right hand pulled the feather from the band. Just then, Amy, having begun breathless, teary reading of Larry’s bye-bye, kicked her bag with a swinging foot, her Nike sandal tumbling from her toes. Holding the feather just beyond Steph’s jittery toes, Simon was momentarily mesmerized by the sight of Amy’s small fleshy bare foot questing with her pudgy, pink toes for the errant sandal resting just beyond her side of the nook. He could, if he chose, bring the feather sweeping under her unsuspecting sole, proving that the ever present Amy were as ticklish as she’d implied earlier. He stayed his hand, thinking that a tickle now might cause her to pitch backward screaming and break a limb, necessitating a night for him and Steph at the local Emergency Room. “The definitive end to our romantic evening,” he thought, firmly cradling Steph’s heel in his left hand. “Besides, a ticklish bird in hand, etc….” With well-intended (“Steph’ll thank me later.”) malice aforethought AND afoot, Simon begin sweeping the silken tip of the feather up and down the middle of Steph’s soft, exquisitely sensitive sole. Her foot jumped in his hand, but he held firm.
Amy read, “ ‘If you had any REAL feeling for me, you wouldn’t parade yourself before those artsy-fartsy types.’ Jeez, you’d think my heels were round the way he goes on!” (Below, Simon, muttered, “ Yours may be, Amy, but not MY honey’s!” He happily feathered the delicate skin behind Steph’s firm heel.
Steph’s eyes first widened comically and then nearly squeezed shut as she took in the latest tickle torment AND tried to hide its effect on her from the tearful Amy. Steph feared that if she surrendered to giggles now that anguished Amy would assume that Steph didn’t care. Amy would drive away at an unsafe speed, blind with tears, and who knows what might happen…what would be on Steph’s conscience!
Amy continued, “ ‘If I stayed, you wouldn’t respect me enough to love me.’ What does he mean by THAT?”
Steph, trembling and turning pink, smiled desperately and shrugged theatrically.
Simon moved on to carefully feather Steph’s silken instep, before settling the tip in a leisurely tracing of the sweet wrinkled sole just above her heel. Brimming with suppressed laughter, Steph could feel a swelling tingle in her erogenous zones. Simon’s tickling—and her desperate efforts to resist it—were EXCITING her beyond measure. What would Amy think if she interrupted the endless Larry letter with moans of pleasure! “Simon!” she thought as tiny beads dappled her upper lip, “You must stopstopstop! It ticklesticklesTICKLES! I-I can’t CONTROL myself much longer!”
Amy concluded, “ ‘I love you too much to stay. Goodbye, Larry.’ Even piercing me to the heart, he’s a poet, huh?” (Simon, sweeping the feather atop Steph’s toes, muttered, “Yeah, maybe he left to become the new Poet Laureate.”)
Amy grabbed her bag again and somehow produced a solitary Post-it note. She waved it, whining, “The thing is that Larry writes me such sweet poetry. Just last week, he left this for me on the coffee maker. It’s a haiku. Wanna hear it?”
Steph, her blue eyes glistening brightly, bit her lips. She fixed a hopeful, quivering smile on her face and violently nodded her head. She rubbed her thighs together and tried heroically to ignore Simon’s maddening, comprehensive feathering of her helpless bare foot.
Amy recited,
“ ‘Hey, you, ‘fore you brew:
Know that I truly love you
Thru the daily grind.’
She grinned and gushed, “Isn’t that the cutest thing?”
Simon rolled his eyes and took the haiku as a cue to fling away the feather and to flutter his fingertips upon Steph’s soft sole just below her toes.
Steph nearly yanked her foot away this time. Above, she regained the Kleenex, and buried her face in it. Under its cover, she finally released her pent-up laughter. Her whole body shook with her ticklish agony.
Amy clutched at Steph’s right shoulder and marveled, “Aw, Steph, you’re CRYING! That’s SO sweet!”
Steph giggled helplessly into the tissue as Simon continued to dance his fingers along her sole.
Amy chuckled, “Hehhehhey, take it easy! I didn’t mean to upset YOU! I’ll be all right, REALLY I will! Reading this stuff to you was a big help! I’m sure Larry loves me. I’ll go home now and get a good night’s sleep.”
Simon, caught between hearing what he craved and craving more tickling of his hapless wife, stilled his fingers. But he kept them on her sole as he held her ankle fast.
Steph, still tittering into her tissue, dabbed at her tears and ventured, “ Ah! Hehheh! T-that’s great, Amy. Things won’t seem so dark in the morning. I’m sure Larry will call…”
Amy’s lower lip quivered. She sobbed, “…Or-or-or maybe he wohohohohn’t! I’ll be up all night waiting. Maybe I could wait here?” She collapsed into tears.
Simon’s suddenly reconstituted hopes for a romantic evening shattered to earth again.
He found the feather and began sweeping it up-and-down Stephanie’s sole. Steph again burst into laughter, barely masking her hilarity from Amy with the tissue. Amy, blind with tears, cried even more with the reassuring tearful empathy of her best friend. Simon continued to tickle Steph’s foot with the ferocity of one aware that his cause was probably lost.
He dropped the feather and released Steph’s foot when Amy’s cell phone trilled like a demented meadowlark.
Amy snatched up the phone and bleated, “Hello?” Steph leaped up from the stool and hurried to Amy’s (safe) side of the nook.
Amy listened for a moment, then cried, “Larry? Where are you?” After a beat, she squealed, “NO! REALLY? AHHAHAHAHAAAA!”
Steph, still dabbing at her tears (of laughter), barked, “WHAT? WHAT is it?”
“Larry made the movers drive back home. He needs me to help move him back in.
Isn’t that great?” They hugged. Below, Steph furtively rubbed her still tingling left sole against the top of her right foot.
“I’d-I’d better be going. It’s late. Larry’s waiting.” Beaming at her friend, Amy reached down to grab her bag. Simon, ever helpful, reached over to hold up the handles for her blindly questing hand. Shouldering the bag, Amy moved towards the front door. Eyes darting back to the nook to make sure Simon stayed hidden, Steph followed her to the door.
By the open door, Amy hugged her again and, choking back a sob, said, “Thanks for everything, Steph. You’re a GOOD friend. Mwah!” They exchanged kisses on the cheek.
“Hey, it was nothing,” Steph assured her, as she rubbed her left toes on her right calf. “Please get home safe. Call me when you get in the door.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that. Won’t I wake Simon?”
“If he didn’t make an appearance by now,” Stephanie said, with a look towards to the kitchen, “he won’t notice, believe me.” They embraced again, Amy hurried out, and Steph closed the door behind her.
To the sound of Amy’s Taurus revving, Simon peered out from the kitchen and muttered, “Great. Now we gotta wait for her call.”
Steph put her hands on her hips and smirked, “You won’t notice.”
“Why not?” He entered the hall and saw Amy’s headlights leave the driveway and speed away. Steph opened her arms and he stepped towards her, dragging his shirt behind him.
Steph crooned, “Beee-cauuuuuse…”-- She pounced on him and dug her frisky fingers into his naked sides. —“before she makes it home, I’m gonna TICKLE you to death!” Simon howled as he wriggled out of her grasp. However, he tripped on his shirt, and she soon was sitting triumphantly upon his tush and mercilessly tickling and tickling his helpless sides and underarms.
Long, laughing minutes later, when the phone rang, Simon barely registered it through his howling hysteria. Keeping five fingers furiously playing with his ribs, Steph answered the phone.
“Hello?…You made it?…How’s Larry?…He brought you flowers?…Well, he’d better….What’s that?…Who’s laughing? Oh, just some idiot, uh…on the TV…. Simon?” —Steph poked Simon relentlessly under his arm. —“He, uh, finally came down and he’s really TICKLED that you and Larry are together at home again. Aren’t you, Simon?” —She reached back and danced her fingers on the backs of his thighs. He haplessly hooted. She listened to Amy for a moment. —“Oh, ah, brunch tomorrow? Well, you and me might have, ah, a late night, hehheh, so we’ll see…. Yeah, talk to me in the morning. LATE in the morning…. You, too. Good night, Amy.”
As Steph stretched to hang up the phone, Simon was able to roll over and clutch her sides. Steph squealed and grabbed his sides in return.
Yoohoo’ve gohahahat n-nerve,” she giggled, “after whahut youhoo put mehee throughoo tohoonight!”
“Whuhut I-hie put youhoo through?” he babbled. “Amy rehehead Larry’s poetryhee, not mehee!”
Screaming with laughter, heedless of their mature, married state, the two wrestled on the floor. Moments later, they somehow found themselves kissing with abandon, before a breathless Steph broke free.
She shouted “ ‘Race ya!” as she stomped, chuckling, up the stairs, figuring she’d make HER closing arguments in the bedroom.
Simon, after stubbing his toe on the first step, eagerly followed, swearing like the young
Fortune 500 executive he purported to be.
A few minutes later, the phone began ringing. They let the machine answer it.
***Though they may not realize it, the encouragement from stalwart Forum authors Strelnikov, Munchausen, and Isabeau as well as Agencies auteur Oblesklk has been invaluable in urging me to persist in battling my absurdly protracted writer’s block. While I still owe too many too much promised material (especially you, Strel and Ob), if it weren’t for these plume pals, I’d never have posted a new tale at last after a year’s absence. Here’s hoping this scribbler’s small snowball will keep rolling and gathering size and momentum…
***The following M>F (and a wee bit vice versa) tale is copyright 2006 by the author.
***This tale is not meant for readers under 18 years of age. (For Pete’s sake, what are you kids doing out of bed?!? Ooooo! That babysitter will just DIE laughing! But I digress….)
***All the participants in this entry are well over 18 years of age, but reading it, you might have your doubts—they sure don’t act like it!
***This is the long-in-coming (What? Three, four years?) third entry in what was supposed to be a REGULAR series here on the Forum with an emphasis on romantic tickle play. This Stephanie and Simon episode is bit a more darkly flavored than the others, sort of like semi-sweet chocolate is to milk chocolate. (Can you tell that I’m a ticklephile with a sweet tooth?) It’s also--for a series that was SUPPOSED to consist of quick vignettes—a bit long in the pay-off. It’s four (!) times as long as the first entry and nearly twice as long as the second. (‘Hope I don’t try the patience of eager ticklephiles too unduly.)
*** Click here if you’d like to find the first two S&S tales:
Murder Afoot (http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=12581)
Alarm Clock? Hah! (http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=18766)
***OK, enough of this preamble folderol. Bring on the laughter…
What begins as a quiet, romantic evening for Stephanie and Simon becomes an opportunity for his mischief as her best intentions result in her being…
TICKLED TO TEARS
featuring Stephanie and Simon
by Tee Hee Lawrence
A professional couple is jealous of its time together. A newlywed professional couple is even more so.
Though their courtship was a long, leisurely affair—during which they already seemed comfortably married, the fact is that Stephanie and Simon have been officially wed for less than a year. Somehow, the exchange of vows, which they’d been cynically downplaying up to the event, has intensified the couple’s relationship. These rookie spouses are more emotionally bound to one another, feel each other’s pleasure and pain more intently, and their intimacies have become even more passionate.
More precious, too. For their professional duties (she as the rising star of a venerable law firm, he as regional audits manager for a multinational accounting firm) have increasingly thwarted significant time together. After work days—which usually found either, if not both, logging much overtime—they’re both so tired that, intending to play, they simply fall asleep in each other’s arms. Thus, Steph and Simon minutely plan and keenly anticipate romantic weekends, trying as best they can to keep work, friends, and even family at bay. Stealing a getaway, they might make a reservation for a night or two at a luxurious downtown hotel or a secluded country bed-and-breakfast. Or, if they nestle at home, they indulge in playful scenarios that stoke their banked passion.
One recent Saturday, they reenacted their first date at a local diner, not unlike the one in the college town upstate where they first met. Simon picked up Steph in a Rent-A-Wreck Mustang that bore an uncanny resemblance to the rust bucket that he drove as a graduate student. He wore the same nerdy bow tie and suspenders (dug out from a trunk in the attic) that again had Steph giggling, MUCH less circumspectly than that first night. Her dress again had slippery shoulder straps, which he finally felt compelled to “help” her adjust, although MUCH less shyly and after FAR fewer cocktails than the first time. She contrived to lose an earring under the table so that, groping for the fallen, they could again klunk heads and “accidentally” blunder into a passionate kiss below. The flat tire he had to change during a downpour after dinner was UNPLANNED, but the delay—accompanied by much slapstick fumbling with tools and exhausting his modest supply of obscenities--seemed to make the erotic fireworks that followed even more spectacular.
Last Saturday evening, their craving for each other particularly acute, their desire for privacy ascendant, Steph and Simon stayed at home. To the accompaniment of seductive vocals by Barry White and Abbey Lincoln and Karen Akers, they’d lovingly shared in the preparation of a splendid meal. In the kitchen, as they chopped, stirred, and sauteed, each gentle collision of their bodies fed their passion deliciously.
Dinner ready, each had reluctantly yet hastily retired to dress seductively to the nines. Stephanie (30, 5’, 8”, flatteringly figured, with long strawberry-blond bangs, expressive blue-gray eyes, and a warm, full-lipped smile) was delectably clad in an artfully abbreviated, strapless, clinging red silk dress and racy red Manolo Blahniks. (Their sharply pointed toes and stiletto heels made them a pain to actually wear on a night out, but were bearable at home where one could kick them off frequently. She also knew Simon loved it when she wore vertiginous heels.).
Simon (33, 5’, 6”, wiry, muscular, with short, wavy black hair, dark, bedroom eyes, and irresistibly cute dimples beside his mouth and upon his chin) wore a sharp, almost lucent white Italian suit and open-collared black silk shirt, and his slim, pale feet were bare. His heretofore-trim goatee had evolved into a neat curly beard, which she suspected he’d cultivated because he’d noticed her ticklish reaction to it when he kissed her on the lips—and other sensitive places.
Returning to their candlelit dining room, filled with fresh flowers, they broke open a sinfully expensive bottle of wine and exchanged sultry toasts. Seated at table, their hungry mutual looks would have them devour each other as the meal. Instead, they savored blackened swordfish, asparagus vinaigrette, risotto, and fresh strawberries atop lemon sorbet.
All the while, each was enflamed by the other’s nostrils, lips, and tongue, suggestively sniffing, kissing, and licking each morsel across the table: a deliberately relished meal as foreplay. Below the table, their free hands stole sly caresses of knees and thighs. Here, Simon had the upper hand—so to speak—as he had Stephanie’s very touchy bare knees and lower thighs to tease with his frisky fingertips. At one point, when Simon gave the sensitive sides of her knee a quick squeeze, Steph nearly snorted up a mouthful of risotto.
Further down, their playful feet engaged in a constant libido stoking game of footsie. As one Manolo dangled off Stephanie’s toes, Simon’s big toe lightly stroked her exposed silken arch. Her foot jerked as if shocked, the shoe tumbling to the floor. Simon sandwiched her tender bare foot between his, wiggling his long toes underfoot and atop. Steph squealed into her wineglass and shimmied in her seat. Eyes flashing, she slipped out of the other shoe and brought HER frisky toes to the defense of her tickled sole. She wiggled the soft pads of her pearl-like toes ever so lightly across the tops of his bare feet. He shut his eyes, bit his lower lip, and shivered with desire. She then skittered her neat cherry toenails along Simon’s soles and, eyes wide, he burst into giggles.
In response, he snaked HIS toes up the warm smooth skin of Steph’s shapely calves and thighs. Very deliberately, he deftly insinuated his tootsies under her dress and between her legs. Steph’s breath caught and she closed her misty eyes. As his toes tenderly teased between her legs, tiny beads of perspiration formed above her sensuous smile.
As his toes played, steamy Steph imagined Simon’s questing lips lavishing her neck and shoulders and breasts with kisses. She anticipated her giggle-spiced sighs as his soft beard tickles her throat and brushes the tremulous tips of her nipples. Inexorably moving down her body, his tickley kisses would teasingly taste her wriggling tummy, as his gentle fingertips deftly feather her ribs. Chuckling wickedly, he would swirl the tip of his tongue in her innie, so spectacularly sensitive that in response she’d begin to swivel her sublime hips like a manic belly dancer. His warm, wet mouth and his fabulous fingers would meet in sweet synchronicity between her hips at her moist throbbing honey pot. Her clit would tingle as his tongue tickled and teased. When she was precariously balanced on the edge of surrender, he would slide up, and she would feel his hard cock smoothly replace his tongue within. Deliciously dancing in deep delirium, she would finally teeter over into climax and take him with her…
Agog in her chair, she suddenly wrenched out of her reverie and banked her fantasy-fired passion by frenetically frisking his bare ankle with her cherry red fingernails. He yelped and withdrew his toes. “No fair using hands!” he pouted. “All’s fair, silly,” she huskily whispered, narrowing her beautiful misted eyes, “when YOU’RE exceedin’ the speed limit!”
Her concern that their passions not prematurely boil over, however, didn’t keep HER from then pushing his accelerator a little. She deliberately, mercilessly played the toes of one foot--cherry nails flashing--up the inseam of his pants leg right up to the lair of his thrumming cock, noticeably straining the fabric. As his game attempt to mask his excitement crumbled, her frisky toes circled his trapped cock, desperate to breathe free. She thus deftly stroked his straining member, playing him like a sighing wind instrument.
Across the table, Simon, who’d slipped out of his jacket, found his pulse—and imagination—racing. Behind his closed eyes, he beheld a steaming, naked Steph hovering over him as he lay on his back. Her knees would tightly press on either side of his thighs. She’d take hold of his forearms and, with shocking strength for a lady lawyer, force them towards the headboard, which he’d soon compliantly, almost reflexively, grab tight. She’d be ever so delicately feathering his neck and chest with her long strawberry-blond bangs, as her fingertips lightly stroked his tummy and sides, threatening—barely missing—to tickle his underarms. With a salacious grin, she’d bend WAY back, and her fingers would find his vulnerable bare feet. Her flashing nails would tease the tops of his feet and his toes, before sneaking tickles upon his soles and under his scrunching toes. Throughout all this ticklish teasing, his grip on the headboard would tighten as his jolly boy would get harder and longer. By the time she would straighten up, and begin to gently drum her fingertips up and down his inner thighs and across his belly, his penis would be vibrating like a tumescent tuning fork. She playfully danced her fingertips up-and-down the trembling, aspiring shaft. He rose ever so slightly off the bed, when, with a sweet sigh, she moved to mount him…
At table, desperate to contain his furiously stoked passion, the barely seated Simon swept his fingertips along her silken insteps. Steph giggled and stammered, “ H-h-h-h-hey, YOUUU! ‘ Spoil my fun!” She yanked her feet away and, questing with her pointed toes, found and slipped back into her snug Manolos.
“’Had to, sweet!” he panted. “Last…last resort. ‘ Want…oh SO want to take you…take you…upstairs!”
Well, that was IT for dinner! They rose from table and, their craving for each other under admirable if tenuous restraint, they slowly, ritualistically took turns blowing out the many candles in the dining room. The last light snuffed, they tightly embraced, exchanging a breathtaking kiss. When they broke off, Steph grinned and fanned herself. “Whew!” she panted. She moved to the stairs as Simon, his brow dewed and his cheeks flushed, fumbled off his shirt. At the base of the stairs, they stumbled into another kiss.
“Ah…! Oh…! B-bedroom,” he gasped. “More-more comfor-comfortable….”
“O-O-O.K!” she stammered.
Trembling hands joined, eyes locked in rapt mutual concentration, they were just about to ascend the stairs, when…
The phone rang.
Steph, staring into Simon’s eyes, sighed and said, “Let the machine answer it.”
He replied, “Uh-huh,” his eyes not leaving hers as they negotiated the first steps.
After four rings, the machine answered with their message:
“Hi, it’s Steph.”
“Hi, It’s Simon.”
(together) “We can’t come to the phone, so leave us a brief message, and when we come up for air (giggling), we’ll get back to you. ‘ Bye!” (They’d recorded it during one particularly playful evening in the early weeks of their marriage. One anonymous message left in response was an abrupt, “You ethical humanists! Have you no shame?” When Steph was incommunicado in court, Simon would sometimes call home just to hear her musical giggles on the message.)
The machine beeped. A teary woman’s voice poured out of the speaker.
“Steph, are you there? Oh, PLEASE be there. (sob) It’s…Amy. I just got home—and Larry’s gone. REALLY, REALLY gone this time! He’s moved out his stuff. His closet is empty. He’s taken his stupid beanbag chair, all his brainless kung-fu videos, and even his loathsome Mr. Potato Head collection. He’s really done it this time. Moved out—and I—I—I’m so miserable I could…I could….” She broke down, crying.
Steph froze on the stairs and turned toward the phone.
Simon, who had continued two steps above her, squeezed her hand, and intoned, “Steph….” The Sturm und Drang of Amy and Larry had been going on for so long that it had become a running joke amongst their friends. Simon was concerned that his softhearted wife would allow Amy to sabotage their romantic evening.
“Simon, she REALLY sounds like she needs a friend now.”
“What she needs is a therapist. And some Prozac. They BOTH do.”
“Siiii-monnn….”
On the phone, Amy stopped crying long enough to blurt, “Oh-ooohhh, I guess you’re not THERE!” She sobbed and sighed. “I REALLY need to talk to you!” She began sobbing again.
Simon could not meet Steph’s imploring, beautiful blue gray eyes.
He squeezed her hand again and insisted, “They’ve broken up and reconciled a thousand times. She moves out…she comes back. HE moves out…HE comes back. They are personally responsible for keeping The Savini Brothers Moving Company in business.”
Amy wailed, “I guess you’re REALLY not there…!”
Simon snorted, “And she ALWAYS calls at the most inopportune times: 4 in the morning on the days I have early important meetings…during the soup course when we’re entertaining important guests… in the middle of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES…and now, on the one night a week we allow ourselves to pursue new records in the Sex Olympics….”
Steph giggled and rolled her eyes. She poked Simon’s side and said, “YOUUU!”
Amy hiccuped and rasped, “You’re probably out with Simon…having a good time. You’re not alone…miserable…heartbroken…contemplating a vial full of sleeping pills….”
Steph shouted, “OH, NO-NOO!” She tugged at Simon’s hand, pulling him down the stairs. “I’ll just…talk to her! For … a minute!”
She grabbed the handset and shouted into it, “Hello? HELLO? Amy…AMY? It’s me!”
“Steph? Oh, THANK God! Where WERE you?”
“Oh, ahhh…ha-ha,” Steph stammered. “You, ah, uh, you caught me in the loo!” Simon rolled his eyes. He thought, “Not only does she clumsily fib, but in British, yet!”
Amy whimpered, “I--I need to talk. Can--can I come over?”
“N-now? Uh…uh…what time is it?” Steph stalled. “Gee, it’s, uh…it’s… WHOA! It’s, uh, kinda late!” Simon shook his head and silently, broadly mouthed, “No! No! No!”
“I’m right outside.” Amy flashed the headlights on her Taurus, parked in front of their house.
Jumping at the flash, the couple instinctively pressed against the foyer wall in unison. Steph put the handset against her chest. She whispered to Simon, “Look! I’ll make her a quick cup of chamomile tea, hear her out, calm her down, and get her to promise that she’ll go right home and just go right to bed.”
Simon frowned and hissed, “When Larry left the LAST time, she came over at one in the morning and spent the night! And you didn’t bother to wake me and tell me, so, in the morning, I, half asleep, walked naked into MY bathroom to find her taking a bubble bath. She was drinking that heirloom bottle of Scotch a client had given me and was reading from a sodden pile of MY signed, first edition mysteries! She went through TWO entire boxes of Kleenex, most of which ended up clogging the toilet. I had to call a plumber—on a SUNDAY!”
“Well, she cried A LOT that night.” Steph pressed the phone more tightly against her bosom. “And she didn’t know that the bathroom next to the guest room is yours, silly. Plus, I did try to wake you and tell you but you were, as usual, sleeping like Rip Van Simon.”
Amy’s voice rose from Steph’s chest. “Stephanie! Are you still there? Steph?”
Steph brought the phone back up and stammered, “Y-yes, Amy! ‘ Sorry, I had to, uh, switch phones. Ah, the other needed charging.” She covered the receiver and implored Simon with her large, lovely blue gray puppy eyes. “Simon, it’ll only be for a few minutes. She just needs some kind words and a hug.”
Simon pouted. “I…need a hug.” Steph smiled with teary eyes and pulled him to her. She gave his resistant form a prodigious hug, which he finally, with much less truculence than he wanted, reciprocated. He sighed and nodded. “OK, let her in!” She kissed him deeply. (His knees nearly buckled.) She was about to reply to Amy’s repeated, “Steph? You there? Hello?” when he covered the receiver with his hand. “Wait!” he whispered. “Do you want me to, uh, help you console her?”
She gave him a look that indicated she wasn’t buying for one second his newfound solicitude for Amy. “You’ll only slow things down. This is a girl thing. You’re, well, a guy…”
“’Glad you noticed.” He playfully ran a finger down her neck and between her breasts.
She giggled and playfully slapped his hand. “Not NOW, idiot! Stop THAT!” Turning serious, she hissed, “She’s in a bad state! If she sees you, she’s liable to bolt.” Simon’s eyes lit up. Steph put her hands on her hips and barked, “Then, I—no, WE’LL have to go after her!” Simon seemed to stagger and stared mournfully below his belt. Steph giggled in spite of herself and said, “Hehheh! Will you please just go upstairs and pretend that you’re asleep?”
To his still quite energized member below, Simon muttered, “She wants us to pretend we’re asleep, pal. Mm-hmm!”
Twisting her lips to keep from giggling, Steph finally raised the phone and said, “’ Sorry to leave you hangin’, Amy! I just had to, uh, throw something on. Come on in.”
Amy murmured, “You’re SURE I’m not bugging you or Simon!”
“N-no, of course NOT! S-Simon, he’s…he’s already asleep.” Simon folded his hands by his cheek and feigned snoring. Steph gave him a sharp poke in the ribs. He yelped, then slapped a hand to his mouth as Steph shushed him.
Amy gushed, “Oh, thank you, Steph!”
Almost immediately, there were two firm knocks at the front door, indicating that Amy had spoken these last words into her phone right on the threshold.
“SHIT!” Simon nearly shouted. Steph put a hand over his mouth and whispered, “Shhhh! Get upstairs NOW!”
He whispered back, “Look, give me a moment to get the mystery I’ve been reading! It’s in the kitchen! I’ll grab it and go up the back stairs.” He backed up rapidly down the hall and out of sight into the kitchen.
There were three, more tentative knocks, as Amy ventured, “Steph, are you there?”
Steph cocked an ear back and hissed to Simon, “Hurry UP!” In a louder voice, she trilled, “Com-ming!” She kept looking back down the hall as she made her deliberate way to the front door, where she stopped to slip the chafing Manolo off her bare right foot and rub her tender red toes. She replaced the shoe before opening the door. Amy, red-faced, tear-stained and smiling hopefully, practically leaped into the foyer to tightly hug Steph.
Steph staggered and quipped, “Please, dear, I’m a married woman!”
Amy giggled and hugged her again. “You don’t know how happy I am that you’re here!” She gave Steph’s sexy red dress and shoes the once over and marveled, “Wow! When you throw something on….”
“Ooh, err, ahh!” Steph stammered, shyly covering her barely covered breasts. “We’d gone out and gotten back late and, uh, I-I was gonna take a bath while Simon went to bed and….”
Amy released Steph and stared up the stairs. She whispered, “Oh, I hope I didn’t wake Simon up!”
Steph glanced down the corridor, before patting Amy’s back and insisting, “He’s deep in Dreamland, believe me. But, he’d rush RIGHT DOWN if he knew you were here. He LOVES when you visit….”
Stumbling about in the kitchen, Simon initially couldn’t find the book, then spotted it on the windowsill by the breakfast nook beyond the range. The nook (“What the hell IS a nook?” posed his frantic mind.) was a generous curved extension of the finished hardwood range countertop, surrounded by four tall padded stools. A solid wooden base extending to the floor almost completely divided the window side from the range side. As the women exchanged stage whispered greetings out front, he fumbled for the book, but it fell to the floor. Grabbing for it, he kicked it under the nook. Hearing the women approach the kitchen, he cursed and instinctively plunged under the nook, on the window side, hidden from the doorway. “Now it’s a book nook,” he muttered.
As Steph and Amy entered, Simon thought, “This is a FINE position for a young Fortune 500 executive to find himself in!” He gazed desperately at the spiral wrought iron stairs across the kitchen, praying, “Please Lord, don’t let them park themselves here!”
Amy said, “No kidding! That’s SOME outfit!”
“Ah, yeah, heh-heh!” Steph replied. “Well, you know, Simon likes to go to places where you dress up a little and I, uh, I ran Simon around the dance floor so much that when we got back he just collapsed into bed, poor thing.” Her eyes glanced up, as she hoped Simon would remain quiet upstairs.
“YOU don’t look sleepy!” Amy gushed. “That dress! Those shoes! They make you look like an Amazon!”
“Well…hehhehehheh,” giggled Steph.
“Fine,” muttered Simon under the breakfast nook. “She’s Wonder Woman, I’m the Mole Man down here. Will you two PLEASE go to another room? If the folks at the office saw me now….”
Amy swallowed a sob and said, “I wish I had your shape. If I could wear things like that, maybe…maybe Larry wouldn’t…wouldn’t….” She burst into tears.
Steph hugged Amy, crooning, “Hey…hey…it’s OK! And what’s this about your shape? Who worked as a model at the Art Institute last summer and doubled Figure Drawing 101 attendance by term’s end?”
Amy snuffled back her tears and chuckled, blushing. “’Can’t figure out why! I WAS wearing a swimsuit. Well, the bottom, anyway….”
“Uh-huh.” Steph led her friend to the range, offering, “C’m’ere and help me make some tea.” She set a kettle to quickly boil and drew down two NPR mugs from the cupboard. She brought forward a ceramic Buddha jar from the back of the range. She raised its lid at its round belly, revealing a riot of tea bags of many varieties. “Pick yer poison, artbabe. I recommend something…soothing, like chamomile.”
As they chatted by the range, waiting for the whistle, Simon, under the nook, was intently, suggestively, thinking, “Take your frickin’ tea and go sit in the living room. In…the…living…room!”
The kettle whistled. The boiling water was poured. Steph said, “Let’s sit here at the nook.”
“NATURALLY!” thought Simon, “I’m the idiot in a nightmare out of a sitcom. Loo-see, I’m ho-ome! Where’s the laugh track?”
Fortunately, Amy settled herself on a stool on the range side of the nook. If she had chosen this side, he thought, and discovered him lurking under her, she would have fainted dead away or run screaming to her car. Either would derail, he knew, his and Steph’s romantic evening.
Meanwhile, Steph slid onto the stool on his side of the nook. The countertop was broad enough—and she was so focussed on Amy that she didn’t notice him hiding underneath.
He sighed with relief, for he didn’t want to piss Steph off. “Not tonight,” he thought, as he shivered with pent-up desire, for his lovely wife had just crossed her shapely bare legs before his horny eyes. As Steph jiggled her petite left foot, dangling her sexy shoe off her cute wiggling toes, Simon felt his cock again straining against his pants. “This-t-this is TERRIBLE!” he thought. “What if Amy yaks all night and they NEVER move?” He gazed longingly at the gold anklet flashing on his wife’s fetching ankle. “This could KILL me!”
Above, Steph was working intently to listen to Amy, who was baring her soul a mile a minute, having added Red Zinger tea to the latte grande she’d chugged on the way here. Steph’s friend was in her late ‘20s, 5’, 4” and robustly full-figured, with a mop of curly brown hair, large brown eyes, sweet apple cheeks, and a very sensual smile. She looked, as usual, as if she’d dressed in the dark: paint-spattered red flannel shirt, baggy banana basketball shorts, and Nike navy sandals. Amy was an aspiring artist, most often working in painting and collage, but she really made her living moderating art classes at the local Y and senior centers. When classes were scarce and her perpetual hapless credit card debt ballooned, she resorted to work that had helped her pay for college: life modeling for students at the Art Institute in the city.
Despite being the antithesis of reedy celebrity models, Amy, with her eloquent bust and hips, radiated such unconscious sexuality that men were drawn to her like bears to honey. Her life model gigs at the Institute comically demonstrated her unaffected allure. Amy’s boyfriend Larry—a free-lance writer prone to moodiness-- thus displayed wild spikes of jealousy and dramatic departures. His jealousy drove Amy to distraction, and sometimes SHE’d leave in a huff. Simon was right, Steph thought. Larry always came back. Amy always came back. And each time, Amy and Larry’s d’amour fou grew stronger. The trick was to convince Amy to go home and relax ‘til Larry inevitably gave in and returned.
Steph’s foot brushed something warm below her. She thought, “Amy’s legs aren’t THAT long. How could she be playin’ footsie…?” She stole a glance below and froze. Simon’s sheepish eyes were peering up at her. He shrugged. Her eyes widened, but she caught herself before Amy noticed and blurted, “’L-love your curly hair, sweetie. I spend a fortune at a trendy stylist downtown and don’t look half as sexy as you.”
Amy’s hands flew to her copious curls and she smiled through her big teary brown eyes. “I hardly even take a brush to it! Larry l-likes it t-this w-w….” Her face collapsed again into tears.
Steph forced a smile to hide her distraction and chirped, “Aww, Amy! Don’t! I bet he’s on his way back right now, dreaming of burying his silly face in those cute curls.”
Amy sniffed and giggled, “Hehheh! You-you think? She reddened as her stomach loudly growled from the tea on top of all that coffee. “Excuse ME! I’d BETTER make a pit stop!”
As soon as Amy disappeared into the nearby bathroom, Steph leaned over and hissed at Simon, “WHAT do you think you’re playing at? Can’t you see how delicate she is right now?”
“Who’s playing? Look,” he insisted, “I just came here to get THIS.” He motioned with the book. “If you hadn’t been so damn quick, I’da made it upstairs. Besides…” he added, with an eyebrow waggle, “I thought you loved me being at your feet.” He danced five fingertips across the top of her jiggling foot. She gasped and jerked her foot away, losing her Manolo. He helpfully slipped it back on her foot. She immediately poked at his side with its sharp red toe. He barely stifled a yelp and lurched back. She hissed, “You’re not helping matters, Simon. What if she finds you—Careful!”
Amy called as she approached the kitchen from down the hall. “I LOVE those towels in the bathroom! New?”
Steph hurried straightened up to answer, “Uh, ah, yeah. Simon couldn’t resist them. On sale at the Museum Shop.” Her right foot was poised to poke the hidden Simon. “Every bathroom needs towels with Jackson Pollock patterns.” He deftly removed her killer shoe before she could strike.
“Oh, I think they’re GREAT!” Amy sincerely assured her. She added, “Poor Simon! You sure we won’t wake him?”
“Not a chance! He was SO beat, the dear.” She uncrossed her legs and threatened him with the toe of her remaining Manolo. He swiftly slipped that one off, too. She still gave him a playful feint with her pointed bare toes. Simon had to firmly restrain himself from giving them a retaliatory love bite, as they wiggled just beyond his face.
Amy gushed, “Simon’s a real prince. You made a nice catch there, Steph. I wish Larry would be at my feet like your hubby’s at yours.”
Both Stephanie above and Simon below froze. How had Amy discovered their predicament?
Amy conceded, “I’m glad he is asleep, though. I get the feeling I try his patience when
I stop by like this.”
“Don’t be silly!” insisted Steph, gulping down her relief. “Simon’s tickled to death when you visit.” Underneath, she playfully wiggled her bare toes near Simon’s sides. Her big toes made inadvertent contact with his ribs, causing him to hit his head on the underside of hardwood top.
“Oh, this is TOO much,” fumed Simon, as he fended off Steph’s frisky feet. “Bad enough I’m curled up at her feet like a Jewish setter, but my lovely wife is enjoying herself immensely at my expense.” Her toes grazed his ribs again, and his head butted the top again. “Ow!”
Above, to mask the thumps and Simon’s outburst, Steph reached for Amy’s hands and gave them a squeeze as she loudly intoned, “Of course, he KNOWS I’d walk all over him if he wasn’t.”
Trying to push his head away from the counter top, she rested her toes on Simon’s forehead and allowed her bare soles to settle upon his face. He sat, unprotesting, relishing the aroma and the feel of her feet. Unable to resist taking further advantage of her hidden hubby, she at one point even gave his nose a quick tweak with her toes. Her tender soles were warm and moist, having acquired a whiff of leather from her sexy shoes and a tang of sweat due to her earlier excitement and present anxiety. This moist warmth set off traces of Steph’s rich vanilla bath oil lingering between her toes. Simon’s nostrils thrilled at the aromatic mix and his cock followed suit. Trailing his nose deliriously between her silken insteps, he moved his bearded cheeks ever so slightly against her soft, sensitive soles.
This tickled Steph so that she was unable to smother a geyser of giggles or keep from yanking her feet off Simon’s face and nearly toppling the stool.
Amy reached out to pull her friend back, crying, “Steph!”
Stephanie swallowed and giggled, “Hehhehheh! Uh, I, ah, guess I had a bit too much wine with dinner.” She composed herself, thinking, “Simon accidentally tickling me—At least I HOPE it was accidental! —got me tingling again below, and we can’t have THAT, not while Amy’s here and so upset.” Steph was noted in the law firm for her adeptness with reluctant witnesses. She thought that handling Amy like a witness, gently easing her story entirely from her, would calm her enough to get her to go home, rest, and wait for Larry’s inevitable return. She took Amy’s hand and leaned forward, murmuring, “But, please, Amy, enough about Simon and me. Talk to me about the run-up to Larry leaving…this time.”
Amy swallowed a sob and, fiddling with the string of her tea bag, recounted, “It started after I got home late from a meeting with a gallery owner who’d seen my work at a show. I’ll admit he’s good-looking, but he’s a much older man and….”
Under the nook, Steph, having regained her shoes, crossed her lovely bare legs before Simon’s face as he fumed. “Oh, God!” he thought. “Here it comes! The latest saga!” His protestations notwithstanding, Simon actually liked Amy well enough. He thought her smart and funny and, when she wasn’t whining, reasonably attractive. He even, begrudgingly, thought that she was a promising artist, at least as far as he could tell. But her roller coaster of a relationship was making HIM queasy—and monopolizing his wife far too much, especially on this night.
Steph jiggled her right foot mere inches from his face, her shoe slipping off her heel and dangling from her toes. Catching another whiff of their heady aroma, Simon sighed and closed his eyes. He thought, “So near…and yet, so far….” His jolly boy was stirring again. He decided it would be best if he distracted himself. “Let’s see…Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories in my order of preference: “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”…uh, “A Scandal in Bohemia”….”
Above, Amy was sobbing and saying, “…I know he loves me and he knows I love him. Each of us would run into a burning building to save the other. But, we get in these terrible fights for the most stupid of reasons: my leaving too many canvases to dry in the kitchen, his taping too much ESPN, my buying the wrong brand of barbecue sauce, his leaving golf balls in the fruit bowl….”
And on it went, with Steph murmuring, “Uh-huh…. Sure…. I understand…. Yeah, sure…. Uh-huh…. Uh-huh….”
She was grateful that Simon was behaving sensibly below. He must know, she thought, that she was as anxious to send Amy home as he was. Steph shimmied on the stool. She had a burning yearning between her legs, too. Still, she had to let Amy talk herself out, get her calmed down enough so Steph felt comfortable sending her home with the promise that they’d meet for Sunday brunch. Amy was her dearest friend. She couldn’t let Amy down, any more than she would disappoint Simon on the one night they looked keenly forward to ravishing each other at leisure.
“He found some old sketchbooks where I’d done nude studies, and he shouted, ‘These don’t look like me!’ Well, of course they couldn’t have. I’d sketched ‘em long before I met him. He stood there, angrily flipping pages, before he hurled them away and began a big show of packing. I thought he was just acting out….”
As Steph calmly listened to Amy’s monologue, below her foot waggled nervously until her Manolo tumbled off its precarious perch. Simon observed the shoe blankly, making no move to replace it. Her bare foot hypnotized him—the soft, lovely pink-edged foot he longed to massage later in deliberate, delirious foreplay—as she busily wiggled her sweet pea toes. He yearned to stroke them, and brought his fingertips tantalizingly close under them. “But, no!” he reasoned. “’Don’t want to get her kicking again.”
His nose twitched at a hint of vanilla. A trickle of perspiration tickled his spine. Amy droned on. Steph recrossed her legs. Her remaining shoe dangled fetchingly near his nose. He tried massaging some feeling back into his cramped limbs. He thought, “Steph’s getting too comfortable. There must…there simply MUST be SOME way to, ah, ENCOURAGE her to get Amy to go home.”
“I cry when I think how much Larry and I used to laugh together. We’d be lying on the bed, trying to read, and we’d sneak tickles and before long, we’d be holding our sides, screaming with laughter ‘til I’d damn near pee.” Through her tears, Amy sneaked at sly look at Steph. “Do you and Simon do that?”
Steph blushed and gushed, “Of course we do, dear! We’d be a fine couple if he didn’t know my ticklish spots.”
Below, Simon smirked and thought, “Ticklish SPOTS, huh? Steph is wonderfully ticklish almost EVERYWHERE…”--He considered her jiggling foot, its red shoe sliding down to the very tips of her bare toes. -- “…no more so than upon her delectable feetsies.” He puffed warmly upon her ankle.
Stephanie cast a lightning glance downward, adding, “Of course, he knows there’s a time and place for silliness like that. Now, getting back to you and Larry….”
For Simon, desperation had seeded inspiration. He leered at the precarious shoe before lifting it off of Steph’s toes, which wiggled futilely to regain it. He set it behind him and thought, “There’s a sure way to ENCOURAGE Steph to suggest that Amy go home NOW. This IS the time and the place to TICKLE some motivation into this Good Samaritan.”
He gripped her ankle firmly with his left hand, for it wouldn’t do for her to merely wriggle out of his grasp and go with Amy to another room. No, he was going to tease her until he heard her insist to Amy that waiting for Larry at home was best. With supreme delicacy, he began feathering five fingertips upon Steph’s tender sole just below her toes. Her foot jerked, but he held on. When she tried to defend her foot with the other, he gave it a quick tickle, too. She pulled it away.
Barely suppressing a squeal, Steph thought, “Oh, nohohohooo! Dohohon’t TICKLE me, youhoohoo rat! Stop it! I can’t stand THAT and youhoohoo know it!” She prayed that Amy--focused on her tea cup as she continued to relay her story--didn’t notice her twitchy body or her bloodless lips straining to remain shut.
Simon couldn’t restrain a grin as he thought, “She can’t stand this and don’t I KNOW it. Kootchie-kootchie-koo, sweetie! This will teach you to play the saintly patient Good Samaritan. Tickle-tickle-tickle, counselor. Right…here. Under your sweet, tender toes.”
“Oh, youhoohoo…evil…rotten…bastard!” Steph struggled to think the worst things she could call this guy she'd thought she loved. “Not under my toes! I CAN’T let you tickle me there! Not THERE! G-God, but you’ve got s-strong fingers! Hehhehhelp! Nothing can save me now!” The tickle sensations were dancing up her leg and rekindling the fire between her legs. Her hips began to gently move with a life of their own. Giggles were bubbling up her throat and pushing against her locked lips.
Simon knew, by the futile struggle Steph’s toes were wielding, how much his probing fingertips must tickle and how giddy she must feel. Sure, he was enjoying this, but it was for her own good. She’d thank him later, he was sure. He thought, ‘C’mon, Steph. Say the secret words and I’ll stop. TELL AMY TO GO HOME! NOW!”
Stephanie bit down on her lower lip. She couldn’t take much more of this. The giggles began to pass her lips. Her hands rushed to her mouth.
“…and if Larry would only come home—What’s the matter, Steph?”
Expectant, and with admirable discipline, Simon stopped tickling, but did not release his grip on her ankle.
Steph managed to morph her lingering giggles and her relief at Simon’s relenting fingers into a theatrical sneeze. “Oh, ah…ahchoo! ‘ S-orry! G-got a little c-cold!”
“Oh, no!” Amy cried. “Here!” Amy reached under the nook and grabbed the capacious straw shoulder bag she had come with. After she rustled through it for a while, she extracted a tissue and handed it to Steph, who made a show of blowing her nose.
After Amy also pulled an envelope from the mess, she dropped the bag to the floor more on Simon’s side of the divide than hers. He could see that she was the sort who carried an inordinate amount of her possessions with her at all times. Heaped near the top were sunglasses, magazines, vitamin bottles, a bottle of Vitamin Water, a wireless phone, a rolled pair of white socks, and a khaki terrycloth headband. He had no doubt that underneath all that was a change of clothes and a toilet kit. Simon suspected that she hadn’t dropped by for JUST a little while.
He KNEW she hadn’t when she said, hopefully, “Maybe I should STAY, Steph, and help you baby that cold.”
“Uh, we-ell…” Stephanie offered.
Simon reinforced his hold on Steph’s ankle and drummed his fingers atop her foot for emphasis. “No, Steph! N-O!” he silently screamed. It was then that noticed the stylish adornment on the far side of Amy’s headband: a stiff, flame red feather, several inches long, its quill passing twice through the pliable fabric.
“Thank you, Amy,” Simon thought. “You’ve provided me with what should convince Steph to stay strong.”
Above, his unwitting benefactor whimpered, “L-larry left me a note! It’s left me so-o confused. Can I read it to you—or am I boring you? I am, aren’t I?”
“N-no, Amy! No!” Stephanie insisted. “You’ve my full attention!”
“Oh, really?” thought Simon. “Not if I can help it!”
He reached, straining for a few moments, and his free right hand pulled the feather from the band. Just then, Amy, having begun breathless, teary reading of Larry’s bye-bye, kicked her bag with a swinging foot, her Nike sandal tumbling from her toes. Holding the feather just beyond Steph’s jittery toes, Simon was momentarily mesmerized by the sight of Amy’s small fleshy bare foot questing with her pudgy, pink toes for the errant sandal resting just beyond her side of the nook. He could, if he chose, bring the feather sweeping under her unsuspecting sole, proving that the ever present Amy were as ticklish as she’d implied earlier. He stayed his hand, thinking that a tickle now might cause her to pitch backward screaming and break a limb, necessitating a night for him and Steph at the local Emergency Room. “The definitive end to our romantic evening,” he thought, firmly cradling Steph’s heel in his left hand. “Besides, a ticklish bird in hand, etc….” With well-intended (“Steph’ll thank me later.”) malice aforethought AND afoot, Simon begin sweeping the silken tip of the feather up and down the middle of Steph’s soft, exquisitely sensitive sole. Her foot jumped in his hand, but he held firm.
Amy read, “ ‘If you had any REAL feeling for me, you wouldn’t parade yourself before those artsy-fartsy types.’ Jeez, you’d think my heels were round the way he goes on!” (Below, Simon, muttered, “ Yours may be, Amy, but not MY honey’s!” He happily feathered the delicate skin behind Steph’s firm heel.
Steph’s eyes first widened comically and then nearly squeezed shut as she took in the latest tickle torment AND tried to hide its effect on her from the tearful Amy. Steph feared that if she surrendered to giggles now that anguished Amy would assume that Steph didn’t care. Amy would drive away at an unsafe speed, blind with tears, and who knows what might happen…what would be on Steph’s conscience!
Amy continued, “ ‘If I stayed, you wouldn’t respect me enough to love me.’ What does he mean by THAT?”
Steph, trembling and turning pink, smiled desperately and shrugged theatrically.
Simon moved on to carefully feather Steph’s silken instep, before settling the tip in a leisurely tracing of the sweet wrinkled sole just above her heel. Brimming with suppressed laughter, Steph could feel a swelling tingle in her erogenous zones. Simon’s tickling—and her desperate efforts to resist it—were EXCITING her beyond measure. What would Amy think if she interrupted the endless Larry letter with moans of pleasure! “Simon!” she thought as tiny beads dappled her upper lip, “You must stopstopstop! It ticklesticklesTICKLES! I-I can’t CONTROL myself much longer!”
Amy concluded, “ ‘I love you too much to stay. Goodbye, Larry.’ Even piercing me to the heart, he’s a poet, huh?” (Simon, sweeping the feather atop Steph’s toes, muttered, “Yeah, maybe he left to become the new Poet Laureate.”)
Amy grabbed her bag again and somehow produced a solitary Post-it note. She waved it, whining, “The thing is that Larry writes me such sweet poetry. Just last week, he left this for me on the coffee maker. It’s a haiku. Wanna hear it?”
Steph, her blue eyes glistening brightly, bit her lips. She fixed a hopeful, quivering smile on her face and violently nodded her head. She rubbed her thighs together and tried heroically to ignore Simon’s maddening, comprehensive feathering of her helpless bare foot.
Amy recited,
“ ‘Hey, you, ‘fore you brew:
Know that I truly love you
Thru the daily grind.’
She grinned and gushed, “Isn’t that the cutest thing?”
Simon rolled his eyes and took the haiku as a cue to fling away the feather and to flutter his fingertips upon Steph’s soft sole just below her toes.
Steph nearly yanked her foot away this time. Above, she regained the Kleenex, and buried her face in it. Under its cover, she finally released her pent-up laughter. Her whole body shook with her ticklish agony.
Amy clutched at Steph’s right shoulder and marveled, “Aw, Steph, you’re CRYING! That’s SO sweet!”
Steph giggled helplessly into the tissue as Simon continued to dance his fingers along her sole.
Amy chuckled, “Hehhehhey, take it easy! I didn’t mean to upset YOU! I’ll be all right, REALLY I will! Reading this stuff to you was a big help! I’m sure Larry loves me. I’ll go home now and get a good night’s sleep.”
Simon, caught between hearing what he craved and craving more tickling of his hapless wife, stilled his fingers. But he kept them on her sole as he held her ankle fast.
Steph, still tittering into her tissue, dabbed at her tears and ventured, “ Ah! Hehheh! T-that’s great, Amy. Things won’t seem so dark in the morning. I’m sure Larry will call…”
Amy’s lower lip quivered. She sobbed, “…Or-or-or maybe he wohohohohn’t! I’ll be up all night waiting. Maybe I could wait here?” She collapsed into tears.
Simon’s suddenly reconstituted hopes for a romantic evening shattered to earth again.
He found the feather and began sweeping it up-and-down Stephanie’s sole. Steph again burst into laughter, barely masking her hilarity from Amy with the tissue. Amy, blind with tears, cried even more with the reassuring tearful empathy of her best friend. Simon continued to tickle Steph’s foot with the ferocity of one aware that his cause was probably lost.
He dropped the feather and released Steph’s foot when Amy’s cell phone trilled like a demented meadowlark.
Amy snatched up the phone and bleated, “Hello?” Steph leaped up from the stool and hurried to Amy’s (safe) side of the nook.
Amy listened for a moment, then cried, “Larry? Where are you?” After a beat, she squealed, “NO! REALLY? AHHAHAHAHAAAA!”
Steph, still dabbing at her tears (of laughter), barked, “WHAT? WHAT is it?”
“Larry made the movers drive back home. He needs me to help move him back in.
Isn’t that great?” They hugged. Below, Steph furtively rubbed her still tingling left sole against the top of her right foot.
“I’d-I’d better be going. It’s late. Larry’s waiting.” Beaming at her friend, Amy reached down to grab her bag. Simon, ever helpful, reached over to hold up the handles for her blindly questing hand. Shouldering the bag, Amy moved towards the front door. Eyes darting back to the nook to make sure Simon stayed hidden, Steph followed her to the door.
By the open door, Amy hugged her again and, choking back a sob, said, “Thanks for everything, Steph. You’re a GOOD friend. Mwah!” They exchanged kisses on the cheek.
“Hey, it was nothing,” Steph assured her, as she rubbed her left toes on her right calf. “Please get home safe. Call me when you get in the door.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that. Won’t I wake Simon?”
“If he didn’t make an appearance by now,” Stephanie said, with a look towards to the kitchen, “he won’t notice, believe me.” They embraced again, Amy hurried out, and Steph closed the door behind her.
To the sound of Amy’s Taurus revving, Simon peered out from the kitchen and muttered, “Great. Now we gotta wait for her call.”
Steph put her hands on her hips and smirked, “You won’t notice.”
“Why not?” He entered the hall and saw Amy’s headlights leave the driveway and speed away. Steph opened her arms and he stepped towards her, dragging his shirt behind him.
Steph crooned, “Beee-cauuuuuse…”-- She pounced on him and dug her frisky fingers into his naked sides. —“before she makes it home, I’m gonna TICKLE you to death!” Simon howled as he wriggled out of her grasp. However, he tripped on his shirt, and she soon was sitting triumphantly upon his tush and mercilessly tickling and tickling his helpless sides and underarms.
Long, laughing minutes later, when the phone rang, Simon barely registered it through his howling hysteria. Keeping five fingers furiously playing with his ribs, Steph answered the phone.
“Hello?…You made it?…How’s Larry?…He brought you flowers?…Well, he’d better….What’s that?…Who’s laughing? Oh, just some idiot, uh…on the TV…. Simon?” —Steph poked Simon relentlessly under his arm. —“He, uh, finally came down and he’s really TICKLED that you and Larry are together at home again. Aren’t you, Simon?” —She reached back and danced her fingers on the backs of his thighs. He haplessly hooted. She listened to Amy for a moment. —“Oh, ah, brunch tomorrow? Well, you and me might have, ah, a late night, hehheh, so we’ll see…. Yeah, talk to me in the morning. LATE in the morning…. You, too. Good night, Amy.”
As Steph stretched to hang up the phone, Simon was able to roll over and clutch her sides. Steph squealed and grabbed his sides in return.
Yoohoo’ve gohahahat n-nerve,” she giggled, “after whahut youhoo put mehee throughoo tohoonight!”
“Whuhut I-hie put youhoo through?” he babbled. “Amy rehehead Larry’s poetryhee, not mehee!”
Screaming with laughter, heedless of their mature, married state, the two wrestled on the floor. Moments later, they somehow found themselves kissing with abandon, before a breathless Steph broke free.
She shouted “ ‘Race ya!” as she stomped, chuckling, up the stairs, figuring she’d make HER closing arguments in the bedroom.
Simon, after stubbing his toe on the first step, eagerly followed, swearing like the young
Fortune 500 executive he purported to be.
A few minutes later, the phone began ringing. They let the machine answer it.
***Though they may not realize it, the encouragement from stalwart Forum authors Strelnikov, Munchausen, and Isabeau as well as Agencies auteur Oblesklk has been invaluable in urging me to persist in battling my absurdly protracted writer’s block. While I still owe too many too much promised material (especially you, Strel and Ob), if it weren’t for these plume pals, I’d never have posted a new tale at last after a year’s absence. Here’s hoping this scribbler’s small snowball will keep rolling and gathering size and momentum…
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