portablejohn
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I have to say that this is probably going to be read as a really slow story, but hopefully it works as setting and doesn't fall away to tedium. Please let me know your honest opinion about it! Thanks much for reading.
Inspired by a true experience.
---------------
I’d been living with my uncle and his family for the summer, working at my aunt’s small travel firm for a bit of a headstart on paying off my student loans. The work wasn’t exactly exciting, but the people were nice and the place was laidback. Besides, I always had a great time with my uncle after he finished his evening shifts at the local power plant, and my cousin Jessica was fun to be around, too. The three of us would often stay up late into the night, watching DVDs and playing XBOX. All in all, I was having a great summer.
My aunt and I pulled into the driveway one Friday evening after a particularly long, slow day at work. “What time do you figure Uncle Mike’ll be home tonight?” I asked her. He and I had found an inexpensive set of M*A*S*H DVDs and were looking forward to watching them together.
“Probably not until pretty late tonight,” Aunt Cathy replied. “He said one of the other guys at work called in sick, so he’d have to cover for him today.” That was a little disappointing, but there was still plenty of time left in the summer. We’d get those DVDs watched.
As I started up the wooden porch stairs two at a time, I was greeted by the sound of a clicking tongue, following by a purposely loud, feminine voice saying, “Well, well, look what Cathy brought home with her!” I smiled as I looked up to see Jess and her friend Lindsay, the speaker, sitting on the porch swing and looking at me. Lindsay’s adorable smile flashed as she straightened up a bit, putting on a mock sense of exaggerated propriety. “And aren’t we dressed up today?” she teased. “What’s the occasion?”
I looked down at my semiformal work clothes, which certainly weren’t anything special. My gaze rose, as did one of my eyebrows. “It’s called a job, Lindsay. You should try one sometime, I hear they’re popular with all the cool kids these days.”
“Oh, shut up!” she laughed, playfully smacking the arm of Jess, who was nodding in agreement with my jibe. Lindsay, despite being a junior in college, had never held even a part-time position in her entire life. Jess, by contrast, had been pulling 30-hour workweeks for over a year even though she was currently just a sophomore at the same school. “You think you’re so special,” she scowled, using a deep, pseudo-angry tone before once again breaking into a laughing smile.
“How was work today?” Jess asked as she always did, out of genuine interest and not just courtesy.
My aunt answered for me as she stepped through the front door. “Boring,” she said, “but easy.” I shrugged and nodded; that about summed up the whole job. Aunt Cathy continued, “Did you make dinner like I asked you to, Jess?”
“Dinner?” replied my cousin with a puzzled look.
***
Every time Lindsay came to spend the night, the evening tended to follow a fairly regular pattern. Dinner was a haphazard affair, with everyone fending for themselves with leftovers or other miscellaneous goodies. I ended up with a pair of blueberry waffles, while Jess and Linds shared the remnants of last night’s refrigerated lasagna. Aunt Cathy decided to drive something over to Uncle Mike, and said she’d pick up something along the way.
Once the girls and I had finished dinner and taken care of our dishes, we headed down to the den in the basement to use the computer. The three of us loved watching funny videos and animations on the web, and so inevitably we sat down there for hours, clicking on links and waiting for the slow connection, laughing hysterically at some videos and wrinkling our brows in confusion at others. After a while, Aunt Cathy called down the stairs to let us know that she’d be going to bed and we three had better be quiet so as not to wake her up.
I decided that that would be as good a time as any to grab a shower -- I prefer to be clean before going to bed the keep the linens as fresh as possible -- so I excused myself and headed to the guest room I’d been using as my own. It was just down the hall from the den, so I popped in to grab a clean pair of sweatpants and a slightly-too-large t-shirt, then headed up the stairs to the shower.
About twenty minutes later, I was out and down in the den again, which had undergone a sort of mini-transformation in my absence. The futon that usually served as a couch in front of the TV had been unfolded into a sort of twin-size bed, with a sheet and two pillows already laid out on top. Apparently the two girls were planning on sleeping in here, probably because Jess’s room was right below her parents’ room -- not a good place to be if one wanted to chitchat all night. Jess was sitting in the big, comfy armchair, watching some sort of suspense drama. “Linds already went up to the other shower near my mom and dad’s room,” she said, “so I’ll go use the other one now that you’re done.” She handed me the remote and climbed up the stairs.
Having no interest in the particular series playing on the television, I dropped into the armchair and channel-surfed for a few minutes, eventually settling on the Iron Chef. They were just starting the final taste tests when I heard the den door open behind me.
“Wax on, wax off!” Lindsay said in a loud and truly terrible Japanese accent. I chuckled anyway and rolled my eyes, inviting her to have a seat, watch the show, and learn something. “I know how to cook!” she protested as she flopped onto the futon-bed, lying on her stomach and facing the TV. I noticed that after her shower she’d changed into soft-looking pajamas, light blue with little yellow ducks holding umbrellas. Her bare feet kicked back and forth through the air idly. “Don’t you remember my Christmas cookies last year?”
“Cookies?” I asked with feigned incredulity. “Oh, you mean that big tin of crumbs? I’d thought the mice’d gotten to it before I had the chance.”
And so it went for several more minutes, until Jess, too, returned to the den freshly showered and in her PJs. Turning the volume of the TV down a bit, we chatted about various things -- classes, professors, music, movies, memories -- and as always seemed to happen on nights like that, time moved far more quickly than we thought. Eventually I glanced at the VCR clock and was surprised to see a green 1:37 glowing back at me. That might not seem late for most people, but I was fairly tired in spite of the uneventful workday.
Jess had been telling a particularly long tale about a boy in her freshman seminar the year before, and when she turned to ask Lindsay a question, she found her friend to be already peacefully asleep. Yawning, Jess decided she might as well get some sleep too, and I agreed, eager to get some rest. The two of us bade each other good night, and I left for my room. I think I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
***
I opened my eyes to the sound of the front door opening and closing; Uncle Mike must be home from work. My clock said 3:01, so I hadn’t been asleep for long. I was awfully thirsty, though; I had that feeling of having slept with my mouth open. Carefully tiptoeing up the stairs, I got a glass of water for myself and nodded to my uncle, who waved goodnight as he, too, sneaked quietly through the house. Once he disappeared into his and my aunt’s bedroom, closing the door behind him, I set my emptied glass in the kitchen sink and made my way back downstairs.
Passing the open door to the den on the way to my room, I peeked inside briefly. My attention was seized by a thin strip of moonlight that had entered through a high-set basement window slit. It was partly illuminating a smallish foot that poked out from under the bedsheet. Stepping through the doorway, I realized at second glance that there were not one but two bare feet dangling off the edge of the bed, toes pointing toward the floor. I quickly deduced that they belonged to Lindsay, as I could see Jess’s face only ten or so inches away from the feet. The two girls were sleeping in opposite directions, for whatever reason, but it was so like them that I didn’t find it particularly unusual.
Looking at my cousin’s face, I could tell she was asleep; her eyes were open a tiny fraction of a slit, but they always did that when she was deep in sleep. Lindsay, too, appeared to be sound asleep, her breathing rhythmic and slow, face serene. Grinning to myself, I decided to have a little fun.
I knew both Jess and Lindsay to be ticklish, though my cousin was one you had to work at a bit harder to get her to show it. Linds was the type to deny her own weakness, though, to the extent that one day she had responded to my challenge by willingly placing her foot in my hands and brazenly declaring that she would feel nothing I did to it. She’d held out rather admirably, as I recalled – maybe about fifteen seconds, until I started to play with her toes. Then she burst into a squealing giggle and yanked her foot out of my grip. Even then, she exclaimed that she’d only laughed because Jess had made a funny face at here, though she refused any further attempts.
Sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor next to the bed, I looked at the two soles in front of me. Not ticklish, indeed, I thought with a smirk. Though I was pretty sure that being in truly deep sleep would block most of the sensations I would make, that wouldn’t keep me from teasing this cute little pair of feet.
I turned my attention first to that naughty left foot that had previously escaped my grasp. Lightly settling an index finger on the heel, which was pointing toward the ceiling, I deliberately allowed the finger to flutter downward, following the curves of Lindsay’s foot. Her skin was amazingly soft, and freshly clean after the night’s shower. My finger settled in the center of the ball of her foot, and I pushed in and up slightly into the arch. The food didn’t twitch at all, but I’d expected that and was not deterred.
With a scratching motion I increased pressure on the arch, and at the same time brought my other hand to the right foot, where I dragged my fingers lightly against the outside edge of the sole. That hand slowly worked its way around to the top side of the foot, away from me, where the fingers moved like spider legs against the skin. Meanwhile, back on the left foot, the area just before the curl of the toes was being explored by my teasing fingers. Still not a twitch, not a tremble, but that was fine.
It felt as though no time had passed, but a look at the clock revealed a glowing 3:22. Getting a drink couldn’t have taken more than a few minutes… Had I really been teasing these sleeping feet for a quarter of an hour already? Still, with no movement from Lindsay and nothing but steady, warm breath from Jess, I felt smug in my impunity. Why let a good chance go to waste?
Bringing both hands around to the left foot, I used two, then four, then eight fingers along the entire length of the defenseless sole. Scritch-scratching on the heel was complemented by steady wriggling at the toes. Little Lindsay must’ve been quite the sleeper indeed, as I dared to go even so far as to pull open those toes and tickle between them --
-- but this at last brought a reaction, and the warm toes slowly clamped shut on my tickling fingers. I smiled as I lightly tugged my hand away and repeated the entire process, now on the right foot. Swirls decorated the delicate arch, a more forceful touch raked the high instep, and ten flitting fingers titillated the ankle. At last they descended toward those ticklish toes, and with some fingers holding the digits apart, others snaked in to the spaces between.
This time Lindsay’s toes clamped down immediately and her foot gave a sudden upward jerk, sending my heart leaping into my throat as I heard shifting on the bed. Looking around for someplace to hide, I knew I didn’t have time to stand up and get out; I’d surely be caught. The armchair would provide no protection if one of the girls stood up, and then how would I explain hiding by their bed? In a move of what can only be called desperation, I dropped to my stomach and crawled under the bed, praying that neither of them would look underneath.
I heard more shifting above me, and suddenly those two delicate feet appeared inches from my face. Lindsay was sitting on the edge of the bed… so I had woken her up after all!
“Hmm?” I heard Jess mumble.
“Nothing,” Lindsay whispered. This seemed to satisfy my cousin, who fell silent again. Lindsay’s right foot tilted up slightly and her left one slipped beneath it, rubbing the sole (to dull leftover tingling sensations? I wondered). I could see her dark toenail polish, which I knew to be cherry red, reflecting the now-dimming moonlight. With a slight bounce of the bed, Lindsay stood and left the den, taking the stairs to the ground level.
Not even daring to breathe a sigh of relief, I rolled to my side and looked at the VCR clock: 3:40. How did time move so quickly? At any rate, I was ready to get out of that tricky situation… until I heard rustling on the bed again. Jess yawned and smacked her lips loudly. Was she awake as well? I heard the patting of a pillow, like it was too flat and needed to soften up, and I realized that I couldn’t risk leaving now, either. Crawling out from under a bed would be a sure way to elicit a most unwelcome scream. So I steeled myself, and waited.
Within a minute or two, I heard padded footsteps coming down the stairs. Lindsay was back, and she seemed to have put on a pair of socks. Again those cute feet, now clothed in striped material, approached my face. They turned as Lindsay sat down on the bed, then disappeared from view.
“Something wrong?” mumbled Jess. So she HAD been awake!
“My feet were cold,” replied Lindsay. Seemed a strange thing to say with the warm summer air, and her feet having been warm to my touch.
The next block of time felt interminable, especially compared to how it had flown by during my time entranced by Lindsay’s sensitive but motionless feet. I felt an eternity and a half crawl by me as I listened to breathing patterns a shifting. At last, when the clock read 4:30 and everything was still, I dared to emerge from my hiding place. I crawled on my hands and knees toward the door, casting a final look over my shoulder. At least, it was meant to be a final look. But I was amazed to see that Lindsay was lying in exactly the same position as before: prone, with her feet hanging off the bed!
I can say now with certainty that that is the point at which I truly pushed the envelope. I took a long look at Lindsay’s face, which was a cutely pouty sleeping expression. Then, mustering my courage (or was it succumbing to my recklessness?), I once again sat cross-legged at her feet.
The socks she had put on were in a striped pattern; it was hard to tell in the dim light, but they appeared to be rainbow-colored. Adorable. They were relatively long socks, disappearing into the legs of her PJs, and seemed to be made of thin material. I only barely placed my fingertips on the left foot, hardly pressing at all, to feel the fabric. It was very smooth, almost silky, which I hadn’t really expected. I removed my fingers and stared at Lindsay’s stocking feet for a short while.
Collecting my resolve, I raised both hands and put two fingers on top of the heel of each foot. Briefly glancing at Jess, who had turned to sleep facing the other direction, I exhaled slowly and scratched at Lindsay’s heels lightly. To my surprise, the feet twitched suddenly, though not as greatly as when I’d attacked their naked toes. Could Lindsay be more ticklish with socks on? I pondered, doubting greatly. More likely an explanation was that she wasn’t in as deep a sleep cycle as before. Either way, I’d have to be more careful in my designs.
My touch lightened and all ten fingers began to draw interweaving, swirling patterns on those rainbow-patterned soles. The helpless targets wiggled and squirmed under my caressing touch, which was satisfying to the tickling spirit within me but also somehow disappointing to the part of me that enjoyed those feet being helplessly unmoving even under my special ministrations. Still, I knew I could enjoy this experience as well, and grinned slyly as I again moved my hands to the top sides of the girl’s wriggling feet, teasing that too-often-ignored area with fast, light, flickering motions.
Pulling my hands back, I prepared for a final assault on Lindsay’s cute ticklish toes. But as I reached toward them, they curled inward, as though anticipating my intentions. I frowned, not liking this frustration of my grand finale, but I decided for the first time that night to side with caution. Carefully withdrawing from the room, I returned to my own to at last get some decent sleep. The clock read 4:38.
***
The next day being Saturday, I was able to sleep in without care. Waking close to noon, I found that the den had been restored to its pre-sleepover condition. My uncle told me that Jess had gone to take Linds home, and that the two of them would be spending that night at Lindsay’s house, and would I like to watch those M*A*S*H DVDs tonight? Of course I would!
Re-entering my room to get dressed after a light lunch, I noticed on the floor a folded piece of paper that had escaped my attention when I’d awoken. I picked it up and unfolded it, immediately recognizing Lindsay’s distinctively neat handwriting. I nearly choked as I read the first line.
“I know it was you last night.”
The note nearly fell from my hand. What would I do? What COULD I do? Lindsay had undoubtedly already told Jess about what I’d done. Jess might very well freak out and tell her parents, and that would not bode well for me or for my summer job, not well at all…
I opened the letter again and continued to read. My pounding heart only beat faster and I furrowed my brow as I read.
“I don’t know how long you were at it before I woke up around 3:30ish, but I didn’t fall back asleep again until after 5. You have no idea how hard it was to stay quiet that whole time!! I didn’t want to wake up Jess… The socks made it a little more bearable, at least. But yeah, as for the next time? All you have to do is ask. ~Linds
P.S. I’ll see if I can get Jess tonight.”
~fin~
Inspired by a true experience.
---------------
I’d been living with my uncle and his family for the summer, working at my aunt’s small travel firm for a bit of a headstart on paying off my student loans. The work wasn’t exactly exciting, but the people were nice and the place was laidback. Besides, I always had a great time with my uncle after he finished his evening shifts at the local power plant, and my cousin Jessica was fun to be around, too. The three of us would often stay up late into the night, watching DVDs and playing XBOX. All in all, I was having a great summer.
My aunt and I pulled into the driveway one Friday evening after a particularly long, slow day at work. “What time do you figure Uncle Mike’ll be home tonight?” I asked her. He and I had found an inexpensive set of M*A*S*H DVDs and were looking forward to watching them together.
“Probably not until pretty late tonight,” Aunt Cathy replied. “He said one of the other guys at work called in sick, so he’d have to cover for him today.” That was a little disappointing, but there was still plenty of time left in the summer. We’d get those DVDs watched.
As I started up the wooden porch stairs two at a time, I was greeted by the sound of a clicking tongue, following by a purposely loud, feminine voice saying, “Well, well, look what Cathy brought home with her!” I smiled as I looked up to see Jess and her friend Lindsay, the speaker, sitting on the porch swing and looking at me. Lindsay’s adorable smile flashed as she straightened up a bit, putting on a mock sense of exaggerated propriety. “And aren’t we dressed up today?” she teased. “What’s the occasion?”
I looked down at my semiformal work clothes, which certainly weren’t anything special. My gaze rose, as did one of my eyebrows. “It’s called a job, Lindsay. You should try one sometime, I hear they’re popular with all the cool kids these days.”
“Oh, shut up!” she laughed, playfully smacking the arm of Jess, who was nodding in agreement with my jibe. Lindsay, despite being a junior in college, had never held even a part-time position in her entire life. Jess, by contrast, had been pulling 30-hour workweeks for over a year even though she was currently just a sophomore at the same school. “You think you’re so special,” she scowled, using a deep, pseudo-angry tone before once again breaking into a laughing smile.
“How was work today?” Jess asked as she always did, out of genuine interest and not just courtesy.
My aunt answered for me as she stepped through the front door. “Boring,” she said, “but easy.” I shrugged and nodded; that about summed up the whole job. Aunt Cathy continued, “Did you make dinner like I asked you to, Jess?”
“Dinner?” replied my cousin with a puzzled look.
***
Every time Lindsay came to spend the night, the evening tended to follow a fairly regular pattern. Dinner was a haphazard affair, with everyone fending for themselves with leftovers or other miscellaneous goodies. I ended up with a pair of blueberry waffles, while Jess and Linds shared the remnants of last night’s refrigerated lasagna. Aunt Cathy decided to drive something over to Uncle Mike, and said she’d pick up something along the way.
Once the girls and I had finished dinner and taken care of our dishes, we headed down to the den in the basement to use the computer. The three of us loved watching funny videos and animations on the web, and so inevitably we sat down there for hours, clicking on links and waiting for the slow connection, laughing hysterically at some videos and wrinkling our brows in confusion at others. After a while, Aunt Cathy called down the stairs to let us know that she’d be going to bed and we three had better be quiet so as not to wake her up.
I decided that that would be as good a time as any to grab a shower -- I prefer to be clean before going to bed the keep the linens as fresh as possible -- so I excused myself and headed to the guest room I’d been using as my own. It was just down the hall from the den, so I popped in to grab a clean pair of sweatpants and a slightly-too-large t-shirt, then headed up the stairs to the shower.
About twenty minutes later, I was out and down in the den again, which had undergone a sort of mini-transformation in my absence. The futon that usually served as a couch in front of the TV had been unfolded into a sort of twin-size bed, with a sheet and two pillows already laid out on top. Apparently the two girls were planning on sleeping in here, probably because Jess’s room was right below her parents’ room -- not a good place to be if one wanted to chitchat all night. Jess was sitting in the big, comfy armchair, watching some sort of suspense drama. “Linds already went up to the other shower near my mom and dad’s room,” she said, “so I’ll go use the other one now that you’re done.” She handed me the remote and climbed up the stairs.
Having no interest in the particular series playing on the television, I dropped into the armchair and channel-surfed for a few minutes, eventually settling on the Iron Chef. They were just starting the final taste tests when I heard the den door open behind me.
“Wax on, wax off!” Lindsay said in a loud and truly terrible Japanese accent. I chuckled anyway and rolled my eyes, inviting her to have a seat, watch the show, and learn something. “I know how to cook!” she protested as she flopped onto the futon-bed, lying on her stomach and facing the TV. I noticed that after her shower she’d changed into soft-looking pajamas, light blue with little yellow ducks holding umbrellas. Her bare feet kicked back and forth through the air idly. “Don’t you remember my Christmas cookies last year?”
“Cookies?” I asked with feigned incredulity. “Oh, you mean that big tin of crumbs? I’d thought the mice’d gotten to it before I had the chance.”
And so it went for several more minutes, until Jess, too, returned to the den freshly showered and in her PJs. Turning the volume of the TV down a bit, we chatted about various things -- classes, professors, music, movies, memories -- and as always seemed to happen on nights like that, time moved far more quickly than we thought. Eventually I glanced at the VCR clock and was surprised to see a green 1:37 glowing back at me. That might not seem late for most people, but I was fairly tired in spite of the uneventful workday.
Jess had been telling a particularly long tale about a boy in her freshman seminar the year before, and when she turned to ask Lindsay a question, she found her friend to be already peacefully asleep. Yawning, Jess decided she might as well get some sleep too, and I agreed, eager to get some rest. The two of us bade each other good night, and I left for my room. I think I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
***
I opened my eyes to the sound of the front door opening and closing; Uncle Mike must be home from work. My clock said 3:01, so I hadn’t been asleep for long. I was awfully thirsty, though; I had that feeling of having slept with my mouth open. Carefully tiptoeing up the stairs, I got a glass of water for myself and nodded to my uncle, who waved goodnight as he, too, sneaked quietly through the house. Once he disappeared into his and my aunt’s bedroom, closing the door behind him, I set my emptied glass in the kitchen sink and made my way back downstairs.
Passing the open door to the den on the way to my room, I peeked inside briefly. My attention was seized by a thin strip of moonlight that had entered through a high-set basement window slit. It was partly illuminating a smallish foot that poked out from under the bedsheet. Stepping through the doorway, I realized at second glance that there were not one but two bare feet dangling off the edge of the bed, toes pointing toward the floor. I quickly deduced that they belonged to Lindsay, as I could see Jess’s face only ten or so inches away from the feet. The two girls were sleeping in opposite directions, for whatever reason, but it was so like them that I didn’t find it particularly unusual.
Looking at my cousin’s face, I could tell she was asleep; her eyes were open a tiny fraction of a slit, but they always did that when she was deep in sleep. Lindsay, too, appeared to be sound asleep, her breathing rhythmic and slow, face serene. Grinning to myself, I decided to have a little fun.
I knew both Jess and Lindsay to be ticklish, though my cousin was one you had to work at a bit harder to get her to show it. Linds was the type to deny her own weakness, though, to the extent that one day she had responded to my challenge by willingly placing her foot in my hands and brazenly declaring that she would feel nothing I did to it. She’d held out rather admirably, as I recalled – maybe about fifteen seconds, until I started to play with her toes. Then she burst into a squealing giggle and yanked her foot out of my grip. Even then, she exclaimed that she’d only laughed because Jess had made a funny face at here, though she refused any further attempts.
Sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor next to the bed, I looked at the two soles in front of me. Not ticklish, indeed, I thought with a smirk. Though I was pretty sure that being in truly deep sleep would block most of the sensations I would make, that wouldn’t keep me from teasing this cute little pair of feet.
I turned my attention first to that naughty left foot that had previously escaped my grasp. Lightly settling an index finger on the heel, which was pointing toward the ceiling, I deliberately allowed the finger to flutter downward, following the curves of Lindsay’s foot. Her skin was amazingly soft, and freshly clean after the night’s shower. My finger settled in the center of the ball of her foot, and I pushed in and up slightly into the arch. The food didn’t twitch at all, but I’d expected that and was not deterred.
With a scratching motion I increased pressure on the arch, and at the same time brought my other hand to the right foot, where I dragged my fingers lightly against the outside edge of the sole. That hand slowly worked its way around to the top side of the foot, away from me, where the fingers moved like spider legs against the skin. Meanwhile, back on the left foot, the area just before the curl of the toes was being explored by my teasing fingers. Still not a twitch, not a tremble, but that was fine.
It felt as though no time had passed, but a look at the clock revealed a glowing 3:22. Getting a drink couldn’t have taken more than a few minutes… Had I really been teasing these sleeping feet for a quarter of an hour already? Still, with no movement from Lindsay and nothing but steady, warm breath from Jess, I felt smug in my impunity. Why let a good chance go to waste?
Bringing both hands around to the left foot, I used two, then four, then eight fingers along the entire length of the defenseless sole. Scritch-scratching on the heel was complemented by steady wriggling at the toes. Little Lindsay must’ve been quite the sleeper indeed, as I dared to go even so far as to pull open those toes and tickle between them --
-- but this at last brought a reaction, and the warm toes slowly clamped shut on my tickling fingers. I smiled as I lightly tugged my hand away and repeated the entire process, now on the right foot. Swirls decorated the delicate arch, a more forceful touch raked the high instep, and ten flitting fingers titillated the ankle. At last they descended toward those ticklish toes, and with some fingers holding the digits apart, others snaked in to the spaces between.
This time Lindsay’s toes clamped down immediately and her foot gave a sudden upward jerk, sending my heart leaping into my throat as I heard shifting on the bed. Looking around for someplace to hide, I knew I didn’t have time to stand up and get out; I’d surely be caught. The armchair would provide no protection if one of the girls stood up, and then how would I explain hiding by their bed? In a move of what can only be called desperation, I dropped to my stomach and crawled under the bed, praying that neither of them would look underneath.
I heard more shifting above me, and suddenly those two delicate feet appeared inches from my face. Lindsay was sitting on the edge of the bed… so I had woken her up after all!
“Hmm?” I heard Jess mumble.
“Nothing,” Lindsay whispered. This seemed to satisfy my cousin, who fell silent again. Lindsay’s right foot tilted up slightly and her left one slipped beneath it, rubbing the sole (to dull leftover tingling sensations? I wondered). I could see her dark toenail polish, which I knew to be cherry red, reflecting the now-dimming moonlight. With a slight bounce of the bed, Lindsay stood and left the den, taking the stairs to the ground level.
Not even daring to breathe a sigh of relief, I rolled to my side and looked at the VCR clock: 3:40. How did time move so quickly? At any rate, I was ready to get out of that tricky situation… until I heard rustling on the bed again. Jess yawned and smacked her lips loudly. Was she awake as well? I heard the patting of a pillow, like it was too flat and needed to soften up, and I realized that I couldn’t risk leaving now, either. Crawling out from under a bed would be a sure way to elicit a most unwelcome scream. So I steeled myself, and waited.
Within a minute or two, I heard padded footsteps coming down the stairs. Lindsay was back, and she seemed to have put on a pair of socks. Again those cute feet, now clothed in striped material, approached my face. They turned as Lindsay sat down on the bed, then disappeared from view.
“Something wrong?” mumbled Jess. So she HAD been awake!
“My feet were cold,” replied Lindsay. Seemed a strange thing to say with the warm summer air, and her feet having been warm to my touch.
The next block of time felt interminable, especially compared to how it had flown by during my time entranced by Lindsay’s sensitive but motionless feet. I felt an eternity and a half crawl by me as I listened to breathing patterns a shifting. At last, when the clock read 4:30 and everything was still, I dared to emerge from my hiding place. I crawled on my hands and knees toward the door, casting a final look over my shoulder. At least, it was meant to be a final look. But I was amazed to see that Lindsay was lying in exactly the same position as before: prone, with her feet hanging off the bed!
I can say now with certainty that that is the point at which I truly pushed the envelope. I took a long look at Lindsay’s face, which was a cutely pouty sleeping expression. Then, mustering my courage (or was it succumbing to my recklessness?), I once again sat cross-legged at her feet.
The socks she had put on were in a striped pattern; it was hard to tell in the dim light, but they appeared to be rainbow-colored. Adorable. They were relatively long socks, disappearing into the legs of her PJs, and seemed to be made of thin material. I only barely placed my fingertips on the left foot, hardly pressing at all, to feel the fabric. It was very smooth, almost silky, which I hadn’t really expected. I removed my fingers and stared at Lindsay’s stocking feet for a short while.
Collecting my resolve, I raised both hands and put two fingers on top of the heel of each foot. Briefly glancing at Jess, who had turned to sleep facing the other direction, I exhaled slowly and scratched at Lindsay’s heels lightly. To my surprise, the feet twitched suddenly, though not as greatly as when I’d attacked their naked toes. Could Lindsay be more ticklish with socks on? I pondered, doubting greatly. More likely an explanation was that she wasn’t in as deep a sleep cycle as before. Either way, I’d have to be more careful in my designs.
My touch lightened and all ten fingers began to draw interweaving, swirling patterns on those rainbow-patterned soles. The helpless targets wiggled and squirmed under my caressing touch, which was satisfying to the tickling spirit within me but also somehow disappointing to the part of me that enjoyed those feet being helplessly unmoving even under my special ministrations. Still, I knew I could enjoy this experience as well, and grinned slyly as I again moved my hands to the top sides of the girl’s wriggling feet, teasing that too-often-ignored area with fast, light, flickering motions.
Pulling my hands back, I prepared for a final assault on Lindsay’s cute ticklish toes. But as I reached toward them, they curled inward, as though anticipating my intentions. I frowned, not liking this frustration of my grand finale, but I decided for the first time that night to side with caution. Carefully withdrawing from the room, I returned to my own to at last get some decent sleep. The clock read 4:38.
***
The next day being Saturday, I was able to sleep in without care. Waking close to noon, I found that the den had been restored to its pre-sleepover condition. My uncle told me that Jess had gone to take Linds home, and that the two of them would be spending that night at Lindsay’s house, and would I like to watch those M*A*S*H DVDs tonight? Of course I would!
Re-entering my room to get dressed after a light lunch, I noticed on the floor a folded piece of paper that had escaped my attention when I’d awoken. I picked it up and unfolded it, immediately recognizing Lindsay’s distinctively neat handwriting. I nearly choked as I read the first line.
“I know it was you last night.”
The note nearly fell from my hand. What would I do? What COULD I do? Lindsay had undoubtedly already told Jess about what I’d done. Jess might very well freak out and tell her parents, and that would not bode well for me or for my summer job, not well at all…
I opened the letter again and continued to read. My pounding heart only beat faster and I furrowed my brow as I read.
“I don’t know how long you were at it before I woke up around 3:30ish, but I didn’t fall back asleep again until after 5. You have no idea how hard it was to stay quiet that whole time!! I didn’t want to wake up Jess… The socks made it a little more bearable, at least. But yeah, as for the next time? All you have to do is ask. ~Linds
P.S. I’ll see if I can get Jess tonight.”
~fin~
