Strelnikov
4th Level Red Feather
- Joined
- May 7, 2001
- Messages
- 1,820
- Points
- 0
by Strelnikov
Copyright 2005 by the author
It would be a white Christmas this year – a slow-moving cold front was passing through, displacing the unseasonably warmer air of the last few days. The snow had been heavy for a while, covering the bare trees and slushy ground with a fresh white blanket, but it had eased off to flurries by nightfall. Good thing it did, thought Professor Hannah Davis – a New England snowstorm makes for foul traveling weather.
This was Christmas Eve, so Hannah had no classes today – Commonwealth University was shut down for the Christmas-New Year holidays. She had a fire going in the fireplace, and the CU station playing softly on the radio, NPR’s “Some Things Considered” news and commentary program. There was a Christmas tree in the garage of Hannah’s Craftsman-style bungalow, but she hadn’t done any decorating – just a few Christmas cards on the fireplace mantel.
Hannah was a stubbornly single, casually bohemian academic in her mid-thirties. She was quite tall, lean but sturdy, with thick auburn hair falling to her shoulder blades. Her dark-rimmed eyeglasses reinforced the serious set of her face, with its cool, gray eyes, sharp nose, high cheekbones, and a hint of olive in her complexion. She wore comfy old corduroy slacks, a turtleneck top, a loose cardigan sweater, and gray wool socks with suede Birkenstock slides.
The old mantel clock chimed 5 PM. Hannah looked out the window, through the gently falling flakes. A pointless exercise – she hadn’t really expected to see anyone. Her home was at the end of a winding driveway, looking down from the valley slope over the quaint New England town. The road didn’t see much traffic at the best of times. Now, everybody with a home to go to was already there. But the mail box flag was down – the post had run today. Hannah draped a coat over her shoulders and went out to check.
About what she expected – a handful of flyers for after-Christmas sales, two credit card offers, some bills, one late Christmas card. It was a big one, 6” x 8” or so. Hannah was momentarily puzzled by the unfamiliar name and return address before memory kicked in. An old friend from her undergrad days, Lisa Curtis – Lisa MacDonald now – had gotten married at the end of summer, and Hannah hadn’t yet gotten used to her friend’s new name after so many years.
The previous day had been comparatively warm, above freezing at any rate. The new snow concealed a thinly frozen puddle near the mail box. Hannah found it on her way back by stepping in it.
Shit! Hannah dropped the mail on the desk in her study and went to her bedroom. She propped the wet shoes up near the bathroom heat vent, tossed her wet socks into the laundry hamper and padded barefoot back into the bedroom. She surveyed the contents of her sock drawer. Somewhere in here was an old pair of red-and-green Christmas socks – garish things, the sort a kid might buy, getting thin on the bottom but still serviceable.
They were near the bottom, naturally. Hannah felt something hard as she pulled them out. She paused briefly, laid the socks on top of the dresser and extracted her other find. Christmas Eve was a time for memories, and this featured in a particularly vivid one.
It was an automatic pistol wrapped in an old dish towel, small enough to fit in the oversize pocket of her cardigan. A Mauser HSc with Nazi military markings – an officer’s pistol. Hannah pulled the magazine and racked the slide to clear the piece – empty as she had expected, but it paid to be sure.
Guns were integral to the culture in her native South Georgia, but this was the only one she had ever owned. Her father’s old lessons came back. Acquire target – the door knob would do. Aim, take a breath, let some out and hold the rest, sight picture, squeeze...
Click!
Hannah replaced the magazine and returned the gun to its wrapping. So far as she knew, the little pistol hadn’t been fired since World War II. She supposed she should get rid of it – had no use for it, and no permit for it either. But it went back into the sock drawer. It had come in handy once, and might again.
Back in the study, Hannah opened Lisa’s card. The card was typical holiday schlock. There was no holiday letter – Lisa and Hannah kept in touch by email like everybody else. Instead, Lisa had put two 5 x 7 photos inside.
The first was a wedding photo, taken at a park, botanical garden or some such. Lisa was radiant, tall and lovely in a blue dress – it exactly matched the color of her eyes, and showed off her great figure and shapely legs to good advantage. Her silky light-brown hair was shoulder length, ruffled slightly by the breeze. Beside her in a blue suit was her new husband, Tom MacDonald, a stocky, fit-looking man maybe 10 yrs older than Lisa, with strands of gray showing in his red hair and bushy mustache. They were flanked by their attendants, two teen girls in floral-print summer dresses. One was Tom’s daughter Emily, a petite girl with a mane of fiery red hair, who looked all of about 15 yrs old. The other was Lisa’s 19 yr old daugher Ashley, a blonde younger copy of her mother.
Lisa looks happy, thought Hannah. She deserves some happiness. Single mother at 16. Raising a daughter while studying for an engineering degree, and working two low-paying jobs to pay for it all. A disastrous and mercifully brief marriage in her 20’s. A dead-end relationship with a commitment-phobic perpetual adolescent – one of the better results of Lisa’s move to Tieson City had been leaving him behind. Now, at age 35, it looked like things were finally going right for Lisa. She said in her latest email that she was expecting. Lisa had always wanted another child – she and Tom hadn’t wasted any time.
Hannah felt a twinge of regret. She had lived with a fellow grad student in her early 20’s. They had talked of marriage. But he was an engineer like Lisa, so his career path was different – academic positions were resume-enhancers, but industry paid lots better and had fewer funding hassles. He had taken a job with Bell Labs just as her career was taking off. They had parted on friendly terms, and still stayed in touch.
Her rise afterward had been meteoric – Assistant Professor of History at CU by age 27, Associate Professor at 32, a resume-enhancing stint as Acting Dean of Students earlier this year that put her in line for a full professorship. Her latest book was going to be published by one of the big New York houses instead of the usual 2,000-copy run on the University Press. But there was no special person in her life right now, hadn’t been since her last lover had taken a position at a California university at the start of the fall semester. It’s good to be independent – Hannah wouldn’t have it any other way – but sometimes it was lonely.
The second picture was a portrait of Ashley, taken the day she graduated from the U. S. Coast Guard boot camp in Cape May, New Jersey. Ashley had been a beautiful child. Hannah had last seen her a few years before – on the threshold of womanhood, she had been exceptional. Tall, drop-dead gorgeous, with crystal blue eyes, flawless fair skin, long silky blonde hair, a beautiful face, hourglass figure and long, shapely legs.
The portrait showed a young woman whose hair was cut short for convenience and practicality. She wore Coast Guard dress blues, with an American flag as backdrop. She was serious, unsmiling, because she was just starting off on a serious enterprise. She looked slightly ill-at-ease in the not-yet-familiar uniform, but the pride and confidence her training had instilled in her shone forth like a beacon. Hannah had seen many other portraits like this, different faces and different uniforms but all the same, all the way back to tintypes from the Civil War.
Ashley had always been adaptable, ever since she was a little girl – she had had to be. Hannah wondered what the girl thought of it all – a stepfather, a stepsister, and another sibling in the oven. Maybe that was why she enlisted in the Coast Guard? No, her mother said she’d been talking about that since last spring.
Hannah laid the pictures aside. She found the photo album on a high book shelf, the old one with pictures from her student days. She leafed through, pausing occasionally. The earliest ones featured Hannah and her sophomore year apartment house neighbors, Robbie Lee and Tina Montanez. They had all spent far too much time partying...
***
There was one parking space left beside the apartment building when Liz Davis drove up – the other two were full. It had been a two-day drive from her family home in a small South Georgia town. At least she had good traveling weather – the past few days were perfect, warm and sunny, though cooler here than it had been in Georgia. The fall term started in a week – she had come here early to get settled in before classes started. But now, all she wanted was a shower and a cool drink.
Hannah Elizabeth Davis was a sophomore History major at Commonwealth University. She was tall and slender, with thick auburn hair falling to her shoulder blades. She was dressed for traveling in a comfy old t-shirt, khaki cargo shorts and sandals. Her features were a little too strong for conventional beauty – sharp nose, high cheekbones, cool gray eyes behind dark-rimmed glasses, and a hint of olive in her complexion. There’s a curious tradition in the rural South: name a baby after some ancient relative, then give the kid a middle name they can actually use, and that everybody calls them by. Her kin would call her Lizzie to her dying day.
Liz was small-town gentry – her father was President of the Merchants and Planters Bank, as his father and grandfather had been before him. High school hadn’t challenged her, giving her plenty of free time for mischief. Going away to college had removed the need for circumspection – she turned into a wild-child, majoring in Partying.
She had learned as a freshman to conceal her Southern accent when dealing with the faculty. They were aggressively outspoken liberals for the most part, with the typical prejudices of their class. They regarded working and rural people, and Southerners generally, with condescension that verged on contempt.
The Southern accent came out among her peers, but not her native dialect – this one was all hoop skirts and magnolias. She was willful and a little self-centered, bright enough to get through her studies without much effort. Her grades weren’t exactly stellar, but grades didn’t matter much anyway. So long as she didn’t flunk out, Daddy would keep on writing the checks.
Her apartment building had been built 90 yrs before as a garage for a tall old mansion not far from the campus. The main house had long since been converted to offices – a real estate firm lived there now. The garage had been chopped up into efficiency apartments, one for each of its three bays. A covered deck in front completed the conversion – it was modern, just a few years old. Her apartment was between the two others – she already had the keys, picked up from the property manager a few minutes before.
Liz heard music as she walked around to the front of the building – a guitar, played by a better-than-average amateur. Must be on the porch, she thought. She circled around to check it out.
The guitar player was a big dark-haired guy her own age or thereabouts, built like an Olympic wrestler, wearing shorts, sneakers and a wife-beater shirt. He was paying attention to his music, not his surroundings.
“Hi there! I’m your new neighbor, Liz Davis,” Liz called out. “You sound pretty good,” she added.
He grinned hugely and shifted to “Dixie”. “Robert E. Lee, ma’am,” he said in a dreadful imitation-Southern accent. “At your service. But you-all can call me Robbie.”
He laid the guitar aside and stood to greet her – he was at least a head taller. “That really is my name,” he said in standard Middle American. “Heard your accent, and couldn’t help myself. I live there,” he added, indicating the apartment to the left of hers.
Robbie pretty obviously wasn’t one of the Virginia Lees. Liz discovered that he was descended from a 19th Century Chinese railroad worker who had stayed on in California as a farmer. He was well-off too – his ancestor started with a 40-acre farm, and over the past 120 yrs the family had parlayed it into huge land holdings and a successful agribusiness. His dad wore cowboy hats and boots, and liked to say he was a rancher, but the elder Lee’s daily routine differed little from that of any other corporate CEO.
Robbie helped Liz with her gear. It didn’t take long – the apartment came furnished. The place wasn’t large – a closet, a bathroom, a galley kitchen with two tall stools and a counter that did double duty as a table, and one other room that held everything else. There wasn’t much – a bed, a desk, a small free-standing bookshelf, two armchairs, a lamp and table, another table for her TV and stereo.
“Want something cold?” Robbie asked when they were finished.
“Rain check,” Liz answered. “Right now I need a shower. You gonna be around later?”
“I’ll be here,” he said. “Come back outside when you’re finished.”
Amazing how much better a little hot water can make you feel, Liz thought as she dried her hair. Robbie was still on the porch, picking out a tune – it was one she didn’t know. She dressed in another t-shirt and jeans shorts – she didn’t bother with her sandals.
Robbie stopped playing. “Hi again,” he said. “Have a seat. Feeling better?”
“Lots. Thinking about dinner.” She sat and kicked back, feet up on the railing. “Why don’t we– ”
“Thought I heard voices,” a female voice said. “You must be our new neighbor. I’m– ”
“Ernestina Lucia Montanez Loyo,” Robbie interrupted. “Call her Tina. Tina, this is Liz Davis.”
“Good to meet you, Liz,” Tina said. “You just get in?” She had a trace of a Mexican accent, with an overlay of an expensive New England finishing school. She was a little older, early 20’s from the look of her. She was petite and slender, Aztec-looking, with a long, straight black ponytail and dark eyes. Like Liz, she was barefoot, wearing shorts and t-shirt.
“Hour or so ago,” Liz said. “Is he always like this?”
“He just moved in too,” Tina said. “But so it would appear.” She sat on Liz’s other side and propped her feet up on the railing too. “And there’s another thing– ”
“Hey, Tina,” Robbie interrupted again, eyeing Tina’s bare feet. “How about a foot rub?”
“Not on your life!” Tina said, laughing, and put both feet flat on the floor. “Do I look like some barefoot campesina from Oaxaca, just fell off the hay truck?” She giggled and wiggled her toes. “Well, I guess I do, a little. But– ”
“You wound me, querida!” he said. “You know I’d follow you anywhere.” He accompanied himself on his guitar as he sang a bit of a Mexican folk song:
Y si Ernestina se fuera con otro,
la seguiría por tierra y por mar–
si por mar en un buque de guerra,
si por tierra en un tren militar...
It sounded like something a mariachi band might perform, but apparently it held another meaning too. “Nice try,” Tina said. “But no adelitas in my family, I’m afraid. My great-grandfather joined the Revolution, but most of ‘em were on the other side.” She gave them a sly look. “Lucky for me – he saved the estancia. If he hadn’t, I might be picking tomatoes for this big gringo right now.”
“Play hell with your manicure,” Liz observed. “Cut into your party time too.”
“Well, if you don’t like that one, how about this?” Robbie said, playing the Chiquita Banana tune. From someone else, it might have come across as racist, but there was no harm in Robbie – just good-natured kidding, and plenty of it. Liz decided she liked him a lot.
“That’s two for her. How about another song for me, darlin’?” Liz said in her best Scarlett O’Hara voice.
“Comin’ at ya!” he said cheerfully, and launched into another. It was a simple tune with a repetitive beat, written for snare drum and bugle rather than guitar. It sounded vaguely familiar, something from an old movie maybe...
“Robbie– ” Tina said warningly – apparently she knew it too.
He stopped and laid the guitar in the open case by his side. “You gotta admit it’s appropriate,” he said.
“Why? What is it?” Liz asked.
“El Degüello,” Tina said. “You gringos call it “No Quarter” or “Take No Prisoners” in English.”
“Right the first time,” Robbie said. “The Mexican Army played it at the Alamo.”
“But why– “ Liz started, perplexed.
Robbie was pretty fast for a big guy. He was up out of his chair in a flash. She was sprawled back in her chair, both ankles trapped in one big hand, feet up and gravity working against her, before she knew what had happened.
“Because I’m gonna tickle you to death!” he said gleefully, and flicked his nails across her heels.
“OH SHIT! Hehe! Sta– haha! –ap!” Liz begged and giggled. “NOOOO! HAHA! HAHA-HAHAHA-HAHA! HAHAHAHAHA!”
“Nope – it’s time for some Lizzie-music,” he said. Ticklish laughter poured out of Liz as he switched to a guitar-chording motion, covering both arches with unbearable tickling. He made a Peace sign and scratched in both arches, just behind the soles – then tiny circles in the same spots, and Liz laughed her head off.
Liz’s soles got it next, both at once – her toes twitched and curled as she laughed like mad. The rough guitar calluses tickled like mischief, and he still had the thumb pick too – he used it to tickle the exact center of the right sole, along the crease. The other foot got the same treatment – Liz laughed helplessly, red-faced and sweaty, tears running down her cheeks. He drew figure-eight’s around the balls of her feet, tickling horribly, then scratched at the base of the big toes. Liz bucked and squirmed, laughing at the top of her lungs, as the tickling filled her universe.
Then the guitar-chording motion again, nail tips in both arches. Liz laughed and laughed as he tickled down to her heels, then drew tickling shapes with his pick. He spider-walked his nails up the arches, then another Peace sign – both sole creases got it at once, and Liz’s laughter went off the scale. That finished it – she laughed herself breathless.
Robbie turned loose and cracked his knuckles. “Hey Liz, did that tickle?” he asked, grinning.
“Did it tickle!” she said indignantly. “Did it tickle!”
“You don’t seem too sure,” he said, mock-serious, and reached for her ankles again. “Maybe I’ll refresh your memory...”
Liz scrambled to her feet and backed away. “NO! You just about tickled me to death!”
“He does that,” Tina said. “Got me good the day he moved in.”
Liz shuffled her feet to get the tickle off. “You should’ve warned me,” she said accusingly.
“Didn’t get a chance,” the other girl said. “Better this way anyway – you learned for yourself. And to add insult to injury, there’s no getting even – he’s not the least bit ticklish.”
“You’ve got a great tickle laugh,” Robbie said. “As good as Tina’s. Feel OK?”
“I’ve felt worse,” she allowed. “Woo! That tickled so much!” Oddly enough, Liz discovered that she didn’t really mind the tickling. It had actually been kinda fun, but damned if she would admit it. It was just too weird.
Over the next few days, Liz decided she liked living here. Her neighbors were party types like herself, fun to be around. It was their privileged backgrounds that allowed it – there were no consequences for failure. Tina had already changed her major three times, and Robbie – well, the “Gentleman’s C” had been invented for guys like him.
More students were drifting in – Liz and Tina went to the first frat party of the season. Liz woke up just before noon the next day with a raging hangover. Partied a little too hearty last night, she thought as she made her way to the bathroom. She had no idea how she had gotten home, and the underwear she had worn last night were nowhere to be found. Her face in the mirror was haggard, eyes bloodshot, hair a mess. Her mouth tasted like the inside of an old leather boot.
Brushing her teeth helped. Ten minutes in the shower, and she felt almost human. She was tempted to take an eye-opener, but decided against it. That would have been pretty hard-core – she was a little disturbed that she had even considered it. Two aspirins, some toast and a pot of coffee completed the transformation. Her powers of recuperation were above average – she was only 19, after all. And besides, she had plenty of practice.
She heard Robbie’s guitar outside. The last few days had been perfect Indian Summer weather, warm and sunny. She swapped her robe for t-shirt and shorts, stepped into her sandals and headed outside.
Liz found her neighbors on the porch. Tina was in a bikini and shades, a folded blanket under her arm. Robbie was sitting in one of the chairs, picking out a tune. She had learned by now that she could gauge his mood by the music he played. This one was jaunty and playful – “My Love, She’s But a Lassie Yet”.
“Hi, y’all,” Liz said. “Want some company?”
“Hi, Liz!” Robbie said, and shifted to “Drunken Sailor”.
Liz laughed. “You never let up, do you?” she said. She found another chair and sat.
“Not hardly,” he said, and stopped playing, the guitar resting in his lap.
“You got in kinda late,” he said. “Woke me up right around sunrise.”
“Tina and I went to a party at I Phelta Thigh,” Liz said. She kicked off her sandals and propped her feet up on the porch railing. “That’s where we started anyway – not sure where we ended up, except I woke up here.”
“I brought you home,” Tina said. “You were hammered, knee-walkin’ drunk.”
“Probably ought to ease off a little if that’s the case,” Robbie said. “That’s a good way to get hurt.” He grinned to take the sting out of the criticism. “Not that I haven’t done the same myself, a time or two.”
“I know, Robbie,” Liz said ruefully. “You’d think I’d learn.”
“Get your swim suit,” Tina said. “It’s a nice day, won’t be too many more like it.” She stepped off the porch and spread the blanket on a patch of weedy grass. “Let’s take advantage, and maybe cook some of the booze out of you.”
That suited Liz. She changed and joined Tina on the blanket. Both of them were tanned – they didn’t bother with sun block, just a little baby oil so the sun wouldn’t dry their skin.
Liz didn’t hear Robbie’s guitar after a while – he must have gone off somewhere. She rolled onto her tummy. “Time to turn the spit,” she said.
“Me too,” Tina said. “Want some more oil?”
Tina applied the oil, then Liz returned the favor, working down from shoulders to ankles. A mischievous notion struck her – she continued downward, oiling the bottom of the right foot.
“Hey!” Tina said. “What’s that for?”
“I’ve gotten burned there,” Liz said. “Hurts like mischief.”
“I sure wouldn’t let Robbie do that,” Tina said. “He’d tickle the shit out of me.” A pause. “Hey, you’re not gonna– ”
Liz pasted an angelic expression on her face. “Moi? Wouldn’t dream of it!”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, eh? Well, I’ll take you at your word – just this once!”
Liz finished with the right foot, taking care not to tickle, then moved on to the left. But instead of turning loose, she kept her hold and swung her leg across Tina like mounting a horse. She ended up facing aft, the trapped foot still in her grasp.
“Hey!” Tina protested – she knew what was coming. “You said you wouldn’t dream of tickling me!”
“Didn’t say I wouldn’t do it, though,” Liz replied, and dug in. Tina squirmed like a worm and laughed at the top of her lungs. The oil made it hard to hold on, but at the same time it provided lubricant and made the tickling much worse.
Liz spread Tina’s little toe apart from its neighbor and tickled in between, and Tina laughed like mad. Liz tickled her way across, scratching between each pair of toes, getting a burst of ticklish laughter each time. She held Tina’s toes back and tickled under them, and Tina’s laughter went off the scale. Aha! The sweet spot! Let’s see if there’s another...
Liz moved on, tickling the stretched out sole. She paid special attention to the ball of the foot and the crease in the middle – Tina howled with forced mirth, the tickling sensation crowding out all coherent thought. She tickled down Tina’s arch, flicking with her nail tips, enjoying Tina’s helpless laughter. She switched to drawing figure-eight’s on the heel as ticklish laughter poured out in a solid stream. It was all good – Tina was helpless, unresisting, all she could do was lay there and laugh.
But toe tickles were best, Liz decided. She worked her way up the arch and onto the sole, using Robbie’s guitar-chording motion, covering the sensitive skin with unbearable tickling. She saved the best for last – tickling the soft skin under Tina’s toes, fast as she could. Tina laughed her head off at the top of her lungs. Liz kept it up and tickled Tina’s breath away.
Liz released the foot, dismounted and sat back on her heels. She was grinning ear to ear. She decided that she liked to tickle – it was great fun, making Tina laugh like that. And unlike Robbie, Tina would have no trouble getting even with Liz. That would be fun too.
Tina rolled onto her back and laid there gasping, tears running down her cheeks. “You are so gonna get it!” she threatened good-naturedly.
“Have to catch me first!” Liz said. Tina sat up fast and grabbed Liz’s arm. “OK, ya got me,” Liz said, and flopped down on her tummy. “Well, what are you waiting for? Tickle my soles – it drives me crazy!”
And that set the tone for the friendship. The two girls shared a secret now – both loved to tickle, and while they were a little less enthusiastic about being tickled, that was fun too if that’s how things worked out. In those pre-internet times, both were delighted to find someone who shared their odd hobby. They jokingly called themselves the Vellication Irregulars.
They took to teasing Robbie, hoping to be tickled, and he seldom disappointed them. Liz especially – he played her like he did his guitar. They were becoming more than friends. She began to wonder when – if – they would take the next step.
Liz took a day trip with him, a fall color tour of the surrounding area. Robbie had a shiner when he came to pick her up – she asked him about it.
“Tina gave me this yesterday when I was tickling her,” Robbie said. “Didn’t mean to, just couldn’t control the reaction.”
“Ow!” Liz said. “Better wear shades to cover it up if we’re going out.”
Liz and Robbie spent the afternoon driving in the countryside. The day was cool but clear, jeans-and-jacket weather – the fall foliage was at its peak of color. They stopped at a farmer’s roadside stand for home-made cider, bought bread and cheese at a country store, and had a late picnic near a little waterfall beside the road.
They came back to his place around nightfall. Liz was still full of energy – better burn some off, she thought. She pulled off her shoes and socks. “Time for some more Lizzie-music,” she said.
He grinned and took off his shades. “Had the same thought myself.”
Oops! Wouldn’t do to black his other eye. “Maybe you better tie me up,” she said. “Safer for both of us. Think you could do a hogtie, cowboy?”
They finally settled on neckties – strong, wide enough not to chafe, held a firm knot but would be easy to untie. She flopped on the bed on her tummy. He tied her hands behind her back, looped the ends through her belt to anchor them. He tied her ankles together with another, then used a third to complete the hogtie.
Liz strained and squirmed. “A little kinky, but not bad,” she said. “Not too tight, doesen’t chafe, but I can’t move at all.”
He cracked his knuckles. “Good, ‘cause I’m gonna tickle you ‘til you don’t know your own name.”
“Promises, promises!” Liz scoffed. “C’mon, tickle the shit out of me!”
“Let’s try something a little different,” he said. He put a CD in the player – nothing but the latest electronics for him. “I’ve always wanted to try this.”
Liz twisted around. “A sing-along?” she asked. “Music to tickle by?”
“Yup,” he said, working thumb picks onto his fingers. “Dueling Banjos.” He started the music. “Enjoy it – I know I will.”
The tune was a medley of old bluegrass music, a duet for banjo and guitar, from the movie “Deliverance”. Liz had been just a little girl when the movie came out. But she remembered the tune – it had gotten so much radio air play that it had inspired a parody called “Dueling Tubas”.
The guitar led off, a scale progression. The banjo responded in kind. They bounced it back and forth, three or four times. Robbie tickled left-handed along with the guitar, right-handed with the banjo, drawing tickling shapes with a single fingernail each. Liz giggled like a little girl.
The guitar switched to a bit of “Old Joe Clark”. The banjo picked it up, faster. Both repeated twice. Robbie flicked the picks on the bottoms of Liz’s feet – the giggles were continuous.
The guitar played Yankee Doodle went to town... and the banjo answered with ...riding on a pony... Liz’s giggles were full blown laughter now as Robbie flicked and scratched her sensitive soles.
“Old Joe Clark” again twice, faster still, and Liz laughed with wild abandon.
Yankee Doodle went to town – riding on a pony and then the musicians were were pickin’ and grinnin’, playing “Old Joe Clark” together, the banjo carrying the melody and guitar the harmony. Robbie scratched Liz’s heel with all four nails together, following the guitar chords, covered her other foot with tiny pick-flicks to the banjo. Liz laughed her head off, squirming like a worm and trying desperately to pull her feet away.
A riff, both musicians playing as fast as they could, and then they were playing “Yankee Doodle” together with Robbie following along. They embellished the tune – Liz laughed and laughed, helplessly, tears running down her cheeks.
Another riff, then the banjo ran away with the tune and the guitar dropped out. Robbie and the banjo finished with “Ida Red”, fingers flying, and Liz laughed at the top of her lungs. The guitar and left hand joined in for one final chord, and tickled Liz into gasping, red-faced silent laughter.
“Doin’ OK, Liz?” Robbie asked. “Want to do it again?”
“That... wasn’t... so bad...” Liz gasped out. She took a long deep breath. “Music took my mind off it.”
“Then let’s try it a capella,” he said.
“You mean like the town in Mexico?” Liz asked, grinning.
“That’s Acapulco,” Robbie said. “That earned you an extra 5 minutes.” He dug in, tickling fast as he could. Liz arched her back and laughed like a madwoman.
It was more like 20 minutes by the time he finished, with a few breathers to catch her breath. Liz was a mess by then, sweaty and rumpled, cheeks streaked with tears. Her ribs and abs hurt from laughing, her throat was dry, her lungs felt like she had run a race. Her feet still tingled from the tickling.
And she was aroused. She hadn’t expected that.
He untied her, brought her a drink and picked up his guitar. She didn’t know the tune.
“What’s that?” she asked.
He colored. “An old song,” he said. “Off an LP my folks had from the 60’s.”
“Does it have words?”
He sang softly, not meeting her eyes.
Come to my bedside, my darlin’,
Come over here and close the door.
Won't you lay your body soft and close beside me,
And drop your petticoat upon the floor?
Liz stood up and stepped out of her jeans and panties. She shucked her sweat shirt – she wasn’t wearing a bra.
“Yes,” she said.
So matters stood at Thanksgiving, when Liz’s world turned upside down.
***
The clock chimed 6 PM, shaking Hannah out of her reverie. Outside, the snow was still falling, silvery flakes reflecting the outside lights. It’s a wonder I didn’t flunk out, she thought. Lisa had a lot to do with that.
The radio program changed on the hour, Christmas music in place of the jazz program that usually ran at this time. The Golden Rule was at work – he who has the gold, makes the rule. The alumni donor who had financed the new Media Center had dictated that Christmas music would be played from 6 PM Christmas Eve until midnight on Christmas as one of the conditions of the gift.
Most of the station’s student staff and faculty advisors were violently opposed. They were virulent multiculturalists, and understood that to mean that respect was due all cultures except the Middle American culture most of them came from. The Administration had put the screws to them – hard. It had been the cause of one of those parochial controversies that create a huge stir on campus but are ignored in the real world outside.
The results were amusing. The program led off with “Christmas in the Trenches” – the program director was too immature and clueless to understand how appropriate that was in this time of war. The Scots preacher who had written “Away In A Manger” had appropriated the tune from a traditional Scots air – that variant followed, “Flow Gently Sweet Afton” played on bagpipes. Hannah decided she liked it better than the standard version. The next two were seasonal-secular, “Let It Snow” and “Jingle Bells”. She figured they would slip in “Dredel, Dredel, Dredel” sometime tonight, and maybe “Death to the Great Satan” to mollify the Muslims. But for now, honor temporarily satisfied, they segued into an old standard, “White Christmas”.
Hannah listened to the song to its conclusion. Bing Crosby’s smooth, rich baritone had been only part of his long-standing appeal. The man had had a genius for picking music that spoke to the heart and soul of Middle America, and this tune was perhaps the prime example.
Afterward, Hannah continued through the old pictures. Robbie and Tina were there, but there were different people too. A snapshot of an old lady on a porch swing, with a mop of silver curls and a cheerful expression. One of 6 yr old Ashley, in an angel costume for Halloween. Another taken on a Cape Cod beach, of two grinning girls in bikinis, Hannah and Lisa at age 20 or so. Hannah sighed. It seemed like a lifetime ago...
***
Liz Davis paused inside the door of the video rental store – her glasses had fogged over immediately. She wore a ski parka over a collared blue silk blouse, and fashionably-faded jeans with boots that had a 3” heel. She took off her glasses and looked around, squinting a little.
The store looked empty. The after-school crowd had come and gone, the commuters were still at work. There wasn’t even a counter clerk.
The Reagan Administration had deregulated the Savings & Loan industry, sending thousands of gray-flannel mortgage bankers out to swim with the sharks. Predictably, the whole industry had imploded, and American taxpayers would be paying for the government bailout for a generation. The country was still feeling the effects. Merchants and Planters Bank had circled the drain for a while – it had finally been engulfed and devoured by Wachovia. And the new owners had no use for the old management – the hammer fell just before Thanksgiving.
Liz hadn’t realized what a pounding the family assets had taken until her Thanksgiving trip home. Instead of local gentry, her father was now just another working stiff out of a job. Her parents had assured her that their remaining savings would carry them through until Daddy found work. They hadn’t asked her to leave school – yet.
Liz had spent a day or so wallowing in self pity. Her grandmother, a formidable Southern matriarch who ruled her extended family with an iron hand, had jerked a knot in her tail. Nana had grown up in a dog-trot shack during the Depression. She had never gone beyond high school – few women of her generation did, especially in rural Georgia. But even that took determination. There was one public high school in her county, not far from the court house. She had to pay for her books and supplies, and farm kids were on their own for transportation. Nana had lived in a boarding house in town during the school year, and clerked at the dry-goods store after school to pay for books, room and board.
“You finished feeling sorry for yourself, Lizzie?” the old woman had asked. “Better get it out of your system, because it’s an indulgence you can’t afford.”
“But Nana, we’re poor now!” Liz whined.
“Y’all are still a lot better off than my family was while I was growing up,” her grandmother said. “But let’s say for sake of argument that y’all are poor. It’s not necessarily a permanent condition if you work at it. Seems to me you’ve got a decision to make about the course of your life.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you can go two ways,” the old lady said. “You can get serious about your schooling and make something of yourself. Or you can marry your young man – he’s got money enough to support you in the style you prefer. In my day, getting pregnant would’ve clinched it, but not any more – you’ll have to work for that too if you go that route. In either case, you’ll have to stay in school.”
“But I am in– ”
“No you’re not. You’re at school, wasting your time and your father’s money. A serious situation calls for a serious response – get off your butt and get a job, the way I did. That will buy you the time you’ll need to make up your mind. And you’ll take your schooling serious if you’re paying for it yourself.”
And so here she was, a new-minted member of the working class reporting for her first day of work. “Hello!” she called out. “Anybody here?”
A girl about Liz’s age came out of the back room. “Hi, can I help you?” she asked. She was tall, drop-dead gorgeous, with crystal blue eyes, flawless fair skin and long silky light brown hair. She wore an unbuttoned red smock over a collarless long-sleeve jersey, a knee-length jeans skirt and clogs without socks. The outfit displayed her hourglass figure and long, shapely legs to full advantage.
“I’m Liz– I’m Hannah Davis. I’ll be working here starting today.” If I’m changing my image, might as well use a name to match, she thought. With mild surprise, she realized that her native accent was back again, the accent of the educated small-town Southerner.
“I’m Lisa Curtis,” the brunette said. “They told me we were gonna get a new girl.” Clothing still provides cues to social status if you know what to look for – this girl’s clothes came from Wal-Mart. The accent was local. A townie then.
“That’s me,” Liz – no, Hannah – said.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” Lisa asked.
Hannah laughed. “We say that to people back home.” The girl looked familiar somehow, she thought. “Do I know you?”
“You’re a student, right? Probably on campus – I’m an Engineering major. Or at the Trough,” Lisa said, naming the justifiably maligned student cafeteria.
“I’ve got a place off-campus this year,” Hannah said. “I try to stay away from the Trough. Freshman year was enough.”
“I work there,” Lisa said. “Breakfast and lunch, 5 days a week. Eat there too – any leftovers at closing time are free. That helps a lot.”
Like nearly all students, Hannah thought of herself as poor. Still, she recognized that it was a temporary condition, and in any case her parents were there to fall back on if things got really tight.
Lisa, Hannah discovered, was a genuine member of the working poor. She was a little older than Hannah, a single mom with a 5 yr old daughter, working her way through school. She got some scholarship money that paid for her courses, but it wouldn’t stretch quite far enough to cover all of the books – engineering texts are expensive. CU’s Medical School ran a free clinic for students, but Lisa’s daughter wasn’t covered, and Lisa was on her own for living expenses. It was a constant juggling act, one missed paycheck or one big doctor bill away from disaster. Her education would give her a ticket out of poverty if she could finish it – otherwise, this would be the shape of the rest of her life.
The commuters started trickling in after an hour or so. Hannah worked the register under supervision for a while, then soloed when the trickle turned into a flood. The job wasn’t difficult, it just required that she pay attention. With just one exception – her feet hurt! She hadn’t thought about the disadvantages of high heels in a stand-up job, and now she was paying for it.
There was a lull around supper time. Hannah gratefully pulled her boots off – she decided to finish her shift in her socks. Lisa took her shoes off too, and spent a moment or two massaging her toes.
“You must be a Yankee,” Hannah observed. “Bare feet in December – brrr!”
“New Hampshire, born and raised,” Lisa agreed. “No clean socks this morning,” she explained. “Anyway, most of ‘em are so full of holes, I might as well go barefoot. Maybe I’ll get some more after Christmas if there’s any money left over.” She took a textbook out of her backpack under the counter. “Did you bring anything to study? That’s what I do when things are slow like this.” She grinned. “Not a bad deal, getting paid to do my homework.”
Hannah hadn’t thought of that. She seldom did much studying anyway. That’s gonna change too, she resolved.
The place got busy again just before closing. They locked up afterward and went out the back. This was a small town – Lisa lived within walking distance, and a good thing too, because she couldn’t afford a car.
“Bye, Hannah!” Lisa said. “See you tomorrow afternoon.”
“Keep it real,” Hannah said. She drove home in a thoughtful mood. Her family had serious financial problems, but nothing like what Lisa faced on a daily basis. How could the girl manage to stay so cheerful and upbeat?
Hannah went inside and gratefully pulled her boots off again. Ought to sell the car, she thought while she was putting her pajamas on. That would carry her through to the end of the school year.
She was brushing her teeth when she heard a knock at the door. “Wait a sec!” she called out, rinsed her mouth and shuffled to the door in pajamas, robe and slippers.
“Hi, Liz!” Tina said. “Oops! I was gonna see if you wanted to play, but I see you’re getting ready for bed. Early for you, isn’t it?” she continued. “You sick?”
“No, just a little tired, Tina,” Hannah said. “But I’m not really sleepy yet – come on in.”
Tina came indoors and kicked off her clogs. She wasn’t wearing socks, and Hannah saw the end of a thrift-store necktie – bondage material – hanging out of her coat pocket. Three guesses what kind of play she had in mind, and the first two don’t count. She sat in one of the armchairs. “So where were you tonight?” she asked. “Surely not the library! Not my Liz!”
“Working,” Hannah said. She kicked off her slippers and sat cross-legged on the other armchair. “Started today at the video store on Mill Street.”
“That’s gonna cut into your party time,” Tina said. “Why? It’s not like you need the money, any more than I do.”
“Actually, I do,” Hannah said glumly. “Daddy’s out of a job – Merry fucking Christmas! Probably ought to find a cheaper place to live, too.”
“Well, that explains the long face,” Tina said. “That really sucks, Liz. Any way I can help?”
“Thanks, but no.”
Tina grinned. “Typical Georgia Cracker – poor but proud,” he said. “Well, at least I can make you laugh...”
“Not now, Tina,” Hannah said. “I’m not in the mood.” She was just a little annoyed at the “cracker” comment. How would Tina like it if Hannah called her “wetback”?
The toilet chose that moment to start hissing – water leaking by a worn tank flapper. Hannah got up to wiggle the handle, then headed back toward her seat.
Tina grabbed Hannah’s robe lapels from behind and pulled outward, back and down. The robe bunched up around Hannah’s elbows, pinning her arms to her sides. Tina held on, ran Hannah forward onto the bed, heaved her legs up and scrambled after. She sat on the struggling girl, pulled a necktie from her coat pocket and tied Hannah’s hands behind her back. Tina tied the free ends to the robe tie to provide an anchor, then swapped ends and tied Hannah’s ankles together with another tie. She completed the hogtie with a third necktie and kneeled next to Hannah’s upturned feet.
“Go ahead – laugh a little,” Tina said, and flicked her well-manicured nails on Hannah’s heels.
“OH NOOO! ” Hannah begged. “Tinaa– haha! Sta– haha! –ap! HAHAHA! HAHAHA-HAHA-HAHAHA!”
“Nope – it’s time for your singing lesson,” Tina said, and got down to business. Hannah laughed her head off, squirming like a worm and struggling against her bonds as Tina’s nails flicked her sensitive soles.
“You’re squirming too much,” Tina said. She shifted a knee on either side of Hannah’s to prevent a rollover, then switched to Robbie’s guitar-chording motion, tickling like crazy. She flicked her nails in Hannah’s arches, not making much contact but driving Hannah wild. She drew counter-rotating circles on Hannah’s heels, and Hannah laughed with wild abandon.
Tina knew every ticklish spot, and tickled every one. She drew overlapping circles up both arches – Hannah laughed helplessly, red-faced and sweaty, hair in tangles, tears running down her cheeks. Tina held the toes back and tickled side to side, then drew fast, looping figure-eight’s around the balls of Hannah’s feet. The loops got smaller, faster, covering the sensitive skin with unbearable tickling. She made a Peace sign and scratched both soles, along the creases, and into the arches behind. Hannah was helpless now, laughing like a maniac, the tickling had sucked away her strength.
Tina released the toes and tickled the soles two handed – Hannah’s toes twitched and curled as she laughed and laughed. She was in the zone now, laughing at the top of her lungs, helpless to resist or even form a coherent thought. Tina held the toes back again and tickled side to side on the stretched out soles, then scratched at the base of the big toes. Then more figure-eight’s, giving the sole creases a few extra nail flicks on each pass, and Hannah’s laughter went off the charts. It was more than she could bear – she laughed herself breathless.
Tina started working the knots loose. “Told you I could make you laugh,” she said. “Feel any better?”
Hannah took stock of herself. “Some,” she said. “Woo! You outdid yourself this time.”
“Always glad to help a friend,” Tina said virtuously. She really was a good friend, good sense of humor, fun to be around – Hannah couldn’t get mad at the girl. And it wasn’t like this was the first time, either. But still...
“I really need to get some sleep, Tina,” she said firmly. “We can get together some other time.” Or not – unlike Tina, Hannah now had better things to do than party.
“Well... OK, Liz, I guess I’m outa here,” she said. She knew that something had changed, though she wasn’t quite sure what. “See ya around.”
Copyright 2005 by the author
It would be a white Christmas this year – a slow-moving cold front was passing through, displacing the unseasonably warmer air of the last few days. The snow had been heavy for a while, covering the bare trees and slushy ground with a fresh white blanket, but it had eased off to flurries by nightfall. Good thing it did, thought Professor Hannah Davis – a New England snowstorm makes for foul traveling weather.
This was Christmas Eve, so Hannah had no classes today – Commonwealth University was shut down for the Christmas-New Year holidays. She had a fire going in the fireplace, and the CU station playing softly on the radio, NPR’s “Some Things Considered” news and commentary program. There was a Christmas tree in the garage of Hannah’s Craftsman-style bungalow, but she hadn’t done any decorating – just a few Christmas cards on the fireplace mantel.
Hannah was a stubbornly single, casually bohemian academic in her mid-thirties. She was quite tall, lean but sturdy, with thick auburn hair falling to her shoulder blades. Her dark-rimmed eyeglasses reinforced the serious set of her face, with its cool, gray eyes, sharp nose, high cheekbones, and a hint of olive in her complexion. She wore comfy old corduroy slacks, a turtleneck top, a loose cardigan sweater, and gray wool socks with suede Birkenstock slides.
The old mantel clock chimed 5 PM. Hannah looked out the window, through the gently falling flakes. A pointless exercise – she hadn’t really expected to see anyone. Her home was at the end of a winding driveway, looking down from the valley slope over the quaint New England town. The road didn’t see much traffic at the best of times. Now, everybody with a home to go to was already there. But the mail box flag was down – the post had run today. Hannah draped a coat over her shoulders and went out to check.
About what she expected – a handful of flyers for after-Christmas sales, two credit card offers, some bills, one late Christmas card. It was a big one, 6” x 8” or so. Hannah was momentarily puzzled by the unfamiliar name and return address before memory kicked in. An old friend from her undergrad days, Lisa Curtis – Lisa MacDonald now – had gotten married at the end of summer, and Hannah hadn’t yet gotten used to her friend’s new name after so many years.
The previous day had been comparatively warm, above freezing at any rate. The new snow concealed a thinly frozen puddle near the mail box. Hannah found it on her way back by stepping in it.
Shit! Hannah dropped the mail on the desk in her study and went to her bedroom. She propped the wet shoes up near the bathroom heat vent, tossed her wet socks into the laundry hamper and padded barefoot back into the bedroom. She surveyed the contents of her sock drawer. Somewhere in here was an old pair of red-and-green Christmas socks – garish things, the sort a kid might buy, getting thin on the bottom but still serviceable.
They were near the bottom, naturally. Hannah felt something hard as she pulled them out. She paused briefly, laid the socks on top of the dresser and extracted her other find. Christmas Eve was a time for memories, and this featured in a particularly vivid one.
It was an automatic pistol wrapped in an old dish towel, small enough to fit in the oversize pocket of her cardigan. A Mauser HSc with Nazi military markings – an officer’s pistol. Hannah pulled the magazine and racked the slide to clear the piece – empty as she had expected, but it paid to be sure.
Guns were integral to the culture in her native South Georgia, but this was the only one she had ever owned. Her father’s old lessons came back. Acquire target – the door knob would do. Aim, take a breath, let some out and hold the rest, sight picture, squeeze...
Click!
Hannah replaced the magazine and returned the gun to its wrapping. So far as she knew, the little pistol hadn’t been fired since World War II. She supposed she should get rid of it – had no use for it, and no permit for it either. But it went back into the sock drawer. It had come in handy once, and might again.
Back in the study, Hannah opened Lisa’s card. The card was typical holiday schlock. There was no holiday letter – Lisa and Hannah kept in touch by email like everybody else. Instead, Lisa had put two 5 x 7 photos inside.
The first was a wedding photo, taken at a park, botanical garden or some such. Lisa was radiant, tall and lovely in a blue dress – it exactly matched the color of her eyes, and showed off her great figure and shapely legs to good advantage. Her silky light-brown hair was shoulder length, ruffled slightly by the breeze. Beside her in a blue suit was her new husband, Tom MacDonald, a stocky, fit-looking man maybe 10 yrs older than Lisa, with strands of gray showing in his red hair and bushy mustache. They were flanked by their attendants, two teen girls in floral-print summer dresses. One was Tom’s daughter Emily, a petite girl with a mane of fiery red hair, who looked all of about 15 yrs old. The other was Lisa’s 19 yr old daugher Ashley, a blonde younger copy of her mother.
Lisa looks happy, thought Hannah. She deserves some happiness. Single mother at 16. Raising a daughter while studying for an engineering degree, and working two low-paying jobs to pay for it all. A disastrous and mercifully brief marriage in her 20’s. A dead-end relationship with a commitment-phobic perpetual adolescent – one of the better results of Lisa’s move to Tieson City had been leaving him behind. Now, at age 35, it looked like things were finally going right for Lisa. She said in her latest email that she was expecting. Lisa had always wanted another child – she and Tom hadn’t wasted any time.
Hannah felt a twinge of regret. She had lived with a fellow grad student in her early 20’s. They had talked of marriage. But he was an engineer like Lisa, so his career path was different – academic positions were resume-enhancers, but industry paid lots better and had fewer funding hassles. He had taken a job with Bell Labs just as her career was taking off. They had parted on friendly terms, and still stayed in touch.
Her rise afterward had been meteoric – Assistant Professor of History at CU by age 27, Associate Professor at 32, a resume-enhancing stint as Acting Dean of Students earlier this year that put her in line for a full professorship. Her latest book was going to be published by one of the big New York houses instead of the usual 2,000-copy run on the University Press. But there was no special person in her life right now, hadn’t been since her last lover had taken a position at a California university at the start of the fall semester. It’s good to be independent – Hannah wouldn’t have it any other way – but sometimes it was lonely.
The second picture was a portrait of Ashley, taken the day she graduated from the U. S. Coast Guard boot camp in Cape May, New Jersey. Ashley had been a beautiful child. Hannah had last seen her a few years before – on the threshold of womanhood, she had been exceptional. Tall, drop-dead gorgeous, with crystal blue eyes, flawless fair skin, long silky blonde hair, a beautiful face, hourglass figure and long, shapely legs.
The portrait showed a young woman whose hair was cut short for convenience and practicality. She wore Coast Guard dress blues, with an American flag as backdrop. She was serious, unsmiling, because she was just starting off on a serious enterprise. She looked slightly ill-at-ease in the not-yet-familiar uniform, but the pride and confidence her training had instilled in her shone forth like a beacon. Hannah had seen many other portraits like this, different faces and different uniforms but all the same, all the way back to tintypes from the Civil War.
Ashley had always been adaptable, ever since she was a little girl – she had had to be. Hannah wondered what the girl thought of it all – a stepfather, a stepsister, and another sibling in the oven. Maybe that was why she enlisted in the Coast Guard? No, her mother said she’d been talking about that since last spring.
Hannah laid the pictures aside. She found the photo album on a high book shelf, the old one with pictures from her student days. She leafed through, pausing occasionally. The earliest ones featured Hannah and her sophomore year apartment house neighbors, Robbie Lee and Tina Montanez. They had all spent far too much time partying...
***
There was one parking space left beside the apartment building when Liz Davis drove up – the other two were full. It had been a two-day drive from her family home in a small South Georgia town. At least she had good traveling weather – the past few days were perfect, warm and sunny, though cooler here than it had been in Georgia. The fall term started in a week – she had come here early to get settled in before classes started. But now, all she wanted was a shower and a cool drink.
Hannah Elizabeth Davis was a sophomore History major at Commonwealth University. She was tall and slender, with thick auburn hair falling to her shoulder blades. She was dressed for traveling in a comfy old t-shirt, khaki cargo shorts and sandals. Her features were a little too strong for conventional beauty – sharp nose, high cheekbones, cool gray eyes behind dark-rimmed glasses, and a hint of olive in her complexion. There’s a curious tradition in the rural South: name a baby after some ancient relative, then give the kid a middle name they can actually use, and that everybody calls them by. Her kin would call her Lizzie to her dying day.
Liz was small-town gentry – her father was President of the Merchants and Planters Bank, as his father and grandfather had been before him. High school hadn’t challenged her, giving her plenty of free time for mischief. Going away to college had removed the need for circumspection – she turned into a wild-child, majoring in Partying.
She had learned as a freshman to conceal her Southern accent when dealing with the faculty. They were aggressively outspoken liberals for the most part, with the typical prejudices of their class. They regarded working and rural people, and Southerners generally, with condescension that verged on contempt.
The Southern accent came out among her peers, but not her native dialect – this one was all hoop skirts and magnolias. She was willful and a little self-centered, bright enough to get through her studies without much effort. Her grades weren’t exactly stellar, but grades didn’t matter much anyway. So long as she didn’t flunk out, Daddy would keep on writing the checks.
Her apartment building had been built 90 yrs before as a garage for a tall old mansion not far from the campus. The main house had long since been converted to offices – a real estate firm lived there now. The garage had been chopped up into efficiency apartments, one for each of its three bays. A covered deck in front completed the conversion – it was modern, just a few years old. Her apartment was between the two others – she already had the keys, picked up from the property manager a few minutes before.
Liz heard music as she walked around to the front of the building – a guitar, played by a better-than-average amateur. Must be on the porch, she thought. She circled around to check it out.
The guitar player was a big dark-haired guy her own age or thereabouts, built like an Olympic wrestler, wearing shorts, sneakers and a wife-beater shirt. He was paying attention to his music, not his surroundings.
“Hi there! I’m your new neighbor, Liz Davis,” Liz called out. “You sound pretty good,” she added.
He grinned hugely and shifted to “Dixie”. “Robert E. Lee, ma’am,” he said in a dreadful imitation-Southern accent. “At your service. But you-all can call me Robbie.”
He laid the guitar aside and stood to greet her – he was at least a head taller. “That really is my name,” he said in standard Middle American. “Heard your accent, and couldn’t help myself. I live there,” he added, indicating the apartment to the left of hers.
Robbie pretty obviously wasn’t one of the Virginia Lees. Liz discovered that he was descended from a 19th Century Chinese railroad worker who had stayed on in California as a farmer. He was well-off too – his ancestor started with a 40-acre farm, and over the past 120 yrs the family had parlayed it into huge land holdings and a successful agribusiness. His dad wore cowboy hats and boots, and liked to say he was a rancher, but the elder Lee’s daily routine differed little from that of any other corporate CEO.
Robbie helped Liz with her gear. It didn’t take long – the apartment came furnished. The place wasn’t large – a closet, a bathroom, a galley kitchen with two tall stools and a counter that did double duty as a table, and one other room that held everything else. There wasn’t much – a bed, a desk, a small free-standing bookshelf, two armchairs, a lamp and table, another table for her TV and stereo.
“Want something cold?” Robbie asked when they were finished.
“Rain check,” Liz answered. “Right now I need a shower. You gonna be around later?”
“I’ll be here,” he said. “Come back outside when you’re finished.”
Amazing how much better a little hot water can make you feel, Liz thought as she dried her hair. Robbie was still on the porch, picking out a tune – it was one she didn’t know. She dressed in another t-shirt and jeans shorts – she didn’t bother with her sandals.
Robbie stopped playing. “Hi again,” he said. “Have a seat. Feeling better?”
“Lots. Thinking about dinner.” She sat and kicked back, feet up on the railing. “Why don’t we– ”
“Thought I heard voices,” a female voice said. “You must be our new neighbor. I’m– ”
“Ernestina Lucia Montanez Loyo,” Robbie interrupted. “Call her Tina. Tina, this is Liz Davis.”
“Good to meet you, Liz,” Tina said. “You just get in?” She had a trace of a Mexican accent, with an overlay of an expensive New England finishing school. She was a little older, early 20’s from the look of her. She was petite and slender, Aztec-looking, with a long, straight black ponytail and dark eyes. Like Liz, she was barefoot, wearing shorts and t-shirt.
“Hour or so ago,” Liz said. “Is he always like this?”
“He just moved in too,” Tina said. “But so it would appear.” She sat on Liz’s other side and propped her feet up on the railing too. “And there’s another thing– ”
“Hey, Tina,” Robbie interrupted again, eyeing Tina’s bare feet. “How about a foot rub?”
“Not on your life!” Tina said, laughing, and put both feet flat on the floor. “Do I look like some barefoot campesina from Oaxaca, just fell off the hay truck?” She giggled and wiggled her toes. “Well, I guess I do, a little. But– ”
“You wound me, querida!” he said. “You know I’d follow you anywhere.” He accompanied himself on his guitar as he sang a bit of a Mexican folk song:
Y si Ernestina se fuera con otro,
la seguiría por tierra y por mar–
si por mar en un buque de guerra,
si por tierra en un tren militar...
It sounded like something a mariachi band might perform, but apparently it held another meaning too. “Nice try,” Tina said. “But no adelitas in my family, I’m afraid. My great-grandfather joined the Revolution, but most of ‘em were on the other side.” She gave them a sly look. “Lucky for me – he saved the estancia. If he hadn’t, I might be picking tomatoes for this big gringo right now.”
“Play hell with your manicure,” Liz observed. “Cut into your party time too.”
“Well, if you don’t like that one, how about this?” Robbie said, playing the Chiquita Banana tune. From someone else, it might have come across as racist, but there was no harm in Robbie – just good-natured kidding, and plenty of it. Liz decided she liked him a lot.
“That’s two for her. How about another song for me, darlin’?” Liz said in her best Scarlett O’Hara voice.
“Comin’ at ya!” he said cheerfully, and launched into another. It was a simple tune with a repetitive beat, written for snare drum and bugle rather than guitar. It sounded vaguely familiar, something from an old movie maybe...
“Robbie– ” Tina said warningly – apparently she knew it too.
He stopped and laid the guitar in the open case by his side. “You gotta admit it’s appropriate,” he said.
“Why? What is it?” Liz asked.
“El Degüello,” Tina said. “You gringos call it “No Quarter” or “Take No Prisoners” in English.”
“Right the first time,” Robbie said. “The Mexican Army played it at the Alamo.”
“But why– “ Liz started, perplexed.
Robbie was pretty fast for a big guy. He was up out of his chair in a flash. She was sprawled back in her chair, both ankles trapped in one big hand, feet up and gravity working against her, before she knew what had happened.
“Because I’m gonna tickle you to death!” he said gleefully, and flicked his nails across her heels.
“OH SHIT! Hehe! Sta– haha! –ap!” Liz begged and giggled. “NOOOO! HAHA! HAHA-HAHAHA-HAHA! HAHAHAHAHA!”
“Nope – it’s time for some Lizzie-music,” he said. Ticklish laughter poured out of Liz as he switched to a guitar-chording motion, covering both arches with unbearable tickling. He made a Peace sign and scratched in both arches, just behind the soles – then tiny circles in the same spots, and Liz laughed her head off.
Liz’s soles got it next, both at once – her toes twitched and curled as she laughed like mad. The rough guitar calluses tickled like mischief, and he still had the thumb pick too – he used it to tickle the exact center of the right sole, along the crease. The other foot got the same treatment – Liz laughed helplessly, red-faced and sweaty, tears running down her cheeks. He drew figure-eight’s around the balls of her feet, tickling horribly, then scratched at the base of the big toes. Liz bucked and squirmed, laughing at the top of her lungs, as the tickling filled her universe.
Then the guitar-chording motion again, nail tips in both arches. Liz laughed and laughed as he tickled down to her heels, then drew tickling shapes with his pick. He spider-walked his nails up the arches, then another Peace sign – both sole creases got it at once, and Liz’s laughter went off the scale. That finished it – she laughed herself breathless.
Robbie turned loose and cracked his knuckles. “Hey Liz, did that tickle?” he asked, grinning.
“Did it tickle!” she said indignantly. “Did it tickle!”
“You don’t seem too sure,” he said, mock-serious, and reached for her ankles again. “Maybe I’ll refresh your memory...”
Liz scrambled to her feet and backed away. “NO! You just about tickled me to death!”
“He does that,” Tina said. “Got me good the day he moved in.”
Liz shuffled her feet to get the tickle off. “You should’ve warned me,” she said accusingly.
“Didn’t get a chance,” the other girl said. “Better this way anyway – you learned for yourself. And to add insult to injury, there’s no getting even – he’s not the least bit ticklish.”
“You’ve got a great tickle laugh,” Robbie said. “As good as Tina’s. Feel OK?”
“I’ve felt worse,” she allowed. “Woo! That tickled so much!” Oddly enough, Liz discovered that she didn’t really mind the tickling. It had actually been kinda fun, but damned if she would admit it. It was just too weird.
Over the next few days, Liz decided she liked living here. Her neighbors were party types like herself, fun to be around. It was their privileged backgrounds that allowed it – there were no consequences for failure. Tina had already changed her major three times, and Robbie – well, the “Gentleman’s C” had been invented for guys like him.
More students were drifting in – Liz and Tina went to the first frat party of the season. Liz woke up just before noon the next day with a raging hangover. Partied a little too hearty last night, she thought as she made her way to the bathroom. She had no idea how she had gotten home, and the underwear she had worn last night were nowhere to be found. Her face in the mirror was haggard, eyes bloodshot, hair a mess. Her mouth tasted like the inside of an old leather boot.
Brushing her teeth helped. Ten minutes in the shower, and she felt almost human. She was tempted to take an eye-opener, but decided against it. That would have been pretty hard-core – she was a little disturbed that she had even considered it. Two aspirins, some toast and a pot of coffee completed the transformation. Her powers of recuperation were above average – she was only 19, after all. And besides, she had plenty of practice.
She heard Robbie’s guitar outside. The last few days had been perfect Indian Summer weather, warm and sunny. She swapped her robe for t-shirt and shorts, stepped into her sandals and headed outside.
Liz found her neighbors on the porch. Tina was in a bikini and shades, a folded blanket under her arm. Robbie was sitting in one of the chairs, picking out a tune. She had learned by now that she could gauge his mood by the music he played. This one was jaunty and playful – “My Love, She’s But a Lassie Yet”.
“Hi, y’all,” Liz said. “Want some company?”
“Hi, Liz!” Robbie said, and shifted to “Drunken Sailor”.
Liz laughed. “You never let up, do you?” she said. She found another chair and sat.
“Not hardly,” he said, and stopped playing, the guitar resting in his lap.
“You got in kinda late,” he said. “Woke me up right around sunrise.”
“Tina and I went to a party at I Phelta Thigh,” Liz said. She kicked off her sandals and propped her feet up on the porch railing. “That’s where we started anyway – not sure where we ended up, except I woke up here.”
“I brought you home,” Tina said. “You were hammered, knee-walkin’ drunk.”
“Probably ought to ease off a little if that’s the case,” Robbie said. “That’s a good way to get hurt.” He grinned to take the sting out of the criticism. “Not that I haven’t done the same myself, a time or two.”
“I know, Robbie,” Liz said ruefully. “You’d think I’d learn.”
“Get your swim suit,” Tina said. “It’s a nice day, won’t be too many more like it.” She stepped off the porch and spread the blanket on a patch of weedy grass. “Let’s take advantage, and maybe cook some of the booze out of you.”
That suited Liz. She changed and joined Tina on the blanket. Both of them were tanned – they didn’t bother with sun block, just a little baby oil so the sun wouldn’t dry their skin.
Liz didn’t hear Robbie’s guitar after a while – he must have gone off somewhere. She rolled onto her tummy. “Time to turn the spit,” she said.
“Me too,” Tina said. “Want some more oil?”
Tina applied the oil, then Liz returned the favor, working down from shoulders to ankles. A mischievous notion struck her – she continued downward, oiling the bottom of the right foot.
“Hey!” Tina said. “What’s that for?”
“I’ve gotten burned there,” Liz said. “Hurts like mischief.”
“I sure wouldn’t let Robbie do that,” Tina said. “He’d tickle the shit out of me.” A pause. “Hey, you’re not gonna– ”
Liz pasted an angelic expression on her face. “Moi? Wouldn’t dream of it!”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, eh? Well, I’ll take you at your word – just this once!”
Liz finished with the right foot, taking care not to tickle, then moved on to the left. But instead of turning loose, she kept her hold and swung her leg across Tina like mounting a horse. She ended up facing aft, the trapped foot still in her grasp.
“Hey!” Tina protested – she knew what was coming. “You said you wouldn’t dream of tickling me!”
“Didn’t say I wouldn’t do it, though,” Liz replied, and dug in. Tina squirmed like a worm and laughed at the top of her lungs. The oil made it hard to hold on, but at the same time it provided lubricant and made the tickling much worse.
Liz spread Tina’s little toe apart from its neighbor and tickled in between, and Tina laughed like mad. Liz tickled her way across, scratching between each pair of toes, getting a burst of ticklish laughter each time. She held Tina’s toes back and tickled under them, and Tina’s laughter went off the scale. Aha! The sweet spot! Let’s see if there’s another...
Liz moved on, tickling the stretched out sole. She paid special attention to the ball of the foot and the crease in the middle – Tina howled with forced mirth, the tickling sensation crowding out all coherent thought. She tickled down Tina’s arch, flicking with her nail tips, enjoying Tina’s helpless laughter. She switched to drawing figure-eight’s on the heel as ticklish laughter poured out in a solid stream. It was all good – Tina was helpless, unresisting, all she could do was lay there and laugh.
But toe tickles were best, Liz decided. She worked her way up the arch and onto the sole, using Robbie’s guitar-chording motion, covering the sensitive skin with unbearable tickling. She saved the best for last – tickling the soft skin under Tina’s toes, fast as she could. Tina laughed her head off at the top of her lungs. Liz kept it up and tickled Tina’s breath away.
Liz released the foot, dismounted and sat back on her heels. She was grinning ear to ear. She decided that she liked to tickle – it was great fun, making Tina laugh like that. And unlike Robbie, Tina would have no trouble getting even with Liz. That would be fun too.
Tina rolled onto her back and laid there gasping, tears running down her cheeks. “You are so gonna get it!” she threatened good-naturedly.
“Have to catch me first!” Liz said. Tina sat up fast and grabbed Liz’s arm. “OK, ya got me,” Liz said, and flopped down on her tummy. “Well, what are you waiting for? Tickle my soles – it drives me crazy!”
And that set the tone for the friendship. The two girls shared a secret now – both loved to tickle, and while they were a little less enthusiastic about being tickled, that was fun too if that’s how things worked out. In those pre-internet times, both were delighted to find someone who shared their odd hobby. They jokingly called themselves the Vellication Irregulars.
They took to teasing Robbie, hoping to be tickled, and he seldom disappointed them. Liz especially – he played her like he did his guitar. They were becoming more than friends. She began to wonder when – if – they would take the next step.
Liz took a day trip with him, a fall color tour of the surrounding area. Robbie had a shiner when he came to pick her up – she asked him about it.
“Tina gave me this yesterday when I was tickling her,” Robbie said. “Didn’t mean to, just couldn’t control the reaction.”
“Ow!” Liz said. “Better wear shades to cover it up if we’re going out.”
Liz and Robbie spent the afternoon driving in the countryside. The day was cool but clear, jeans-and-jacket weather – the fall foliage was at its peak of color. They stopped at a farmer’s roadside stand for home-made cider, bought bread and cheese at a country store, and had a late picnic near a little waterfall beside the road.
They came back to his place around nightfall. Liz was still full of energy – better burn some off, she thought. She pulled off her shoes and socks. “Time for some more Lizzie-music,” she said.
He grinned and took off his shades. “Had the same thought myself.”
Oops! Wouldn’t do to black his other eye. “Maybe you better tie me up,” she said. “Safer for both of us. Think you could do a hogtie, cowboy?”
They finally settled on neckties – strong, wide enough not to chafe, held a firm knot but would be easy to untie. She flopped on the bed on her tummy. He tied her hands behind her back, looped the ends through her belt to anchor them. He tied her ankles together with another, then used a third to complete the hogtie.
Liz strained and squirmed. “A little kinky, but not bad,” she said. “Not too tight, doesen’t chafe, but I can’t move at all.”
He cracked his knuckles. “Good, ‘cause I’m gonna tickle you ‘til you don’t know your own name.”
“Promises, promises!” Liz scoffed. “C’mon, tickle the shit out of me!”
“Let’s try something a little different,” he said. He put a CD in the player – nothing but the latest electronics for him. “I’ve always wanted to try this.”
Liz twisted around. “A sing-along?” she asked. “Music to tickle by?”
“Yup,” he said, working thumb picks onto his fingers. “Dueling Banjos.” He started the music. “Enjoy it – I know I will.”
The tune was a medley of old bluegrass music, a duet for banjo and guitar, from the movie “Deliverance”. Liz had been just a little girl when the movie came out. But she remembered the tune – it had gotten so much radio air play that it had inspired a parody called “Dueling Tubas”.
The guitar led off, a scale progression. The banjo responded in kind. They bounced it back and forth, three or four times. Robbie tickled left-handed along with the guitar, right-handed with the banjo, drawing tickling shapes with a single fingernail each. Liz giggled like a little girl.
The guitar switched to a bit of “Old Joe Clark”. The banjo picked it up, faster. Both repeated twice. Robbie flicked the picks on the bottoms of Liz’s feet – the giggles were continuous.
The guitar played Yankee Doodle went to town... and the banjo answered with ...riding on a pony... Liz’s giggles were full blown laughter now as Robbie flicked and scratched her sensitive soles.
“Old Joe Clark” again twice, faster still, and Liz laughed with wild abandon.
Yankee Doodle went to town – riding on a pony and then the musicians were were pickin’ and grinnin’, playing “Old Joe Clark” together, the banjo carrying the melody and guitar the harmony. Robbie scratched Liz’s heel with all four nails together, following the guitar chords, covered her other foot with tiny pick-flicks to the banjo. Liz laughed her head off, squirming like a worm and trying desperately to pull her feet away.
A riff, both musicians playing as fast as they could, and then they were playing “Yankee Doodle” together with Robbie following along. They embellished the tune – Liz laughed and laughed, helplessly, tears running down her cheeks.
Another riff, then the banjo ran away with the tune and the guitar dropped out. Robbie and the banjo finished with “Ida Red”, fingers flying, and Liz laughed at the top of her lungs. The guitar and left hand joined in for one final chord, and tickled Liz into gasping, red-faced silent laughter.
“Doin’ OK, Liz?” Robbie asked. “Want to do it again?”
“That... wasn’t... so bad...” Liz gasped out. She took a long deep breath. “Music took my mind off it.”
“Then let’s try it a capella,” he said.
“You mean like the town in Mexico?” Liz asked, grinning.
“That’s Acapulco,” Robbie said. “That earned you an extra 5 minutes.” He dug in, tickling fast as he could. Liz arched her back and laughed like a madwoman.
It was more like 20 minutes by the time he finished, with a few breathers to catch her breath. Liz was a mess by then, sweaty and rumpled, cheeks streaked with tears. Her ribs and abs hurt from laughing, her throat was dry, her lungs felt like she had run a race. Her feet still tingled from the tickling.
And she was aroused. She hadn’t expected that.
He untied her, brought her a drink and picked up his guitar. She didn’t know the tune.
“What’s that?” she asked.
He colored. “An old song,” he said. “Off an LP my folks had from the 60’s.”
“Does it have words?”
He sang softly, not meeting her eyes.
Come to my bedside, my darlin’,
Come over here and close the door.
Won't you lay your body soft and close beside me,
And drop your petticoat upon the floor?
Liz stood up and stepped out of her jeans and panties. She shucked her sweat shirt – she wasn’t wearing a bra.
“Yes,” she said.
So matters stood at Thanksgiving, when Liz’s world turned upside down.
***
The clock chimed 6 PM, shaking Hannah out of her reverie. Outside, the snow was still falling, silvery flakes reflecting the outside lights. It’s a wonder I didn’t flunk out, she thought. Lisa had a lot to do with that.
The radio program changed on the hour, Christmas music in place of the jazz program that usually ran at this time. The Golden Rule was at work – he who has the gold, makes the rule. The alumni donor who had financed the new Media Center had dictated that Christmas music would be played from 6 PM Christmas Eve until midnight on Christmas as one of the conditions of the gift.
Most of the station’s student staff and faculty advisors were violently opposed. They were virulent multiculturalists, and understood that to mean that respect was due all cultures except the Middle American culture most of them came from. The Administration had put the screws to them – hard. It had been the cause of one of those parochial controversies that create a huge stir on campus but are ignored in the real world outside.
The results were amusing. The program led off with “Christmas in the Trenches” – the program director was too immature and clueless to understand how appropriate that was in this time of war. The Scots preacher who had written “Away In A Manger” had appropriated the tune from a traditional Scots air – that variant followed, “Flow Gently Sweet Afton” played on bagpipes. Hannah decided she liked it better than the standard version. The next two were seasonal-secular, “Let It Snow” and “Jingle Bells”. She figured they would slip in “Dredel, Dredel, Dredel” sometime tonight, and maybe “Death to the Great Satan” to mollify the Muslims. But for now, honor temporarily satisfied, they segued into an old standard, “White Christmas”.
Hannah listened to the song to its conclusion. Bing Crosby’s smooth, rich baritone had been only part of his long-standing appeal. The man had had a genius for picking music that spoke to the heart and soul of Middle America, and this tune was perhaps the prime example.
Afterward, Hannah continued through the old pictures. Robbie and Tina were there, but there were different people too. A snapshot of an old lady on a porch swing, with a mop of silver curls and a cheerful expression. One of 6 yr old Ashley, in an angel costume for Halloween. Another taken on a Cape Cod beach, of two grinning girls in bikinis, Hannah and Lisa at age 20 or so. Hannah sighed. It seemed like a lifetime ago...
***
Liz Davis paused inside the door of the video rental store – her glasses had fogged over immediately. She wore a ski parka over a collared blue silk blouse, and fashionably-faded jeans with boots that had a 3” heel. She took off her glasses and looked around, squinting a little.
The store looked empty. The after-school crowd had come and gone, the commuters were still at work. There wasn’t even a counter clerk.
The Reagan Administration had deregulated the Savings & Loan industry, sending thousands of gray-flannel mortgage bankers out to swim with the sharks. Predictably, the whole industry had imploded, and American taxpayers would be paying for the government bailout for a generation. The country was still feeling the effects. Merchants and Planters Bank had circled the drain for a while – it had finally been engulfed and devoured by Wachovia. And the new owners had no use for the old management – the hammer fell just before Thanksgiving.
Liz hadn’t realized what a pounding the family assets had taken until her Thanksgiving trip home. Instead of local gentry, her father was now just another working stiff out of a job. Her parents had assured her that their remaining savings would carry them through until Daddy found work. They hadn’t asked her to leave school – yet.
Liz had spent a day or so wallowing in self pity. Her grandmother, a formidable Southern matriarch who ruled her extended family with an iron hand, had jerked a knot in her tail. Nana had grown up in a dog-trot shack during the Depression. She had never gone beyond high school – few women of her generation did, especially in rural Georgia. But even that took determination. There was one public high school in her county, not far from the court house. She had to pay for her books and supplies, and farm kids were on their own for transportation. Nana had lived in a boarding house in town during the school year, and clerked at the dry-goods store after school to pay for books, room and board.
“You finished feeling sorry for yourself, Lizzie?” the old woman had asked. “Better get it out of your system, because it’s an indulgence you can’t afford.”
“But Nana, we’re poor now!” Liz whined.
“Y’all are still a lot better off than my family was while I was growing up,” her grandmother said. “But let’s say for sake of argument that y’all are poor. It’s not necessarily a permanent condition if you work at it. Seems to me you’ve got a decision to make about the course of your life.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you can go two ways,” the old lady said. “You can get serious about your schooling and make something of yourself. Or you can marry your young man – he’s got money enough to support you in the style you prefer. In my day, getting pregnant would’ve clinched it, but not any more – you’ll have to work for that too if you go that route. In either case, you’ll have to stay in school.”
“But I am in– ”
“No you’re not. You’re at school, wasting your time and your father’s money. A serious situation calls for a serious response – get off your butt and get a job, the way I did. That will buy you the time you’ll need to make up your mind. And you’ll take your schooling serious if you’re paying for it yourself.”
And so here she was, a new-minted member of the working class reporting for her first day of work. “Hello!” she called out. “Anybody here?”
A girl about Liz’s age came out of the back room. “Hi, can I help you?” she asked. She was tall, drop-dead gorgeous, with crystal blue eyes, flawless fair skin and long silky light brown hair. She wore an unbuttoned red smock over a collarless long-sleeve jersey, a knee-length jeans skirt and clogs without socks. The outfit displayed her hourglass figure and long, shapely legs to full advantage.
“I’m Liz– I’m Hannah Davis. I’ll be working here starting today.” If I’m changing my image, might as well use a name to match, she thought. With mild surprise, she realized that her native accent was back again, the accent of the educated small-town Southerner.
“I’m Lisa Curtis,” the brunette said. “They told me we were gonna get a new girl.” Clothing still provides cues to social status if you know what to look for – this girl’s clothes came from Wal-Mart. The accent was local. A townie then.
“That’s me,” Liz – no, Hannah – said.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” Lisa asked.
Hannah laughed. “We say that to people back home.” The girl looked familiar somehow, she thought. “Do I know you?”
“You’re a student, right? Probably on campus – I’m an Engineering major. Or at the Trough,” Lisa said, naming the justifiably maligned student cafeteria.
“I’ve got a place off-campus this year,” Hannah said. “I try to stay away from the Trough. Freshman year was enough.”
“I work there,” Lisa said. “Breakfast and lunch, 5 days a week. Eat there too – any leftovers at closing time are free. That helps a lot.”
Like nearly all students, Hannah thought of herself as poor. Still, she recognized that it was a temporary condition, and in any case her parents were there to fall back on if things got really tight.
Lisa, Hannah discovered, was a genuine member of the working poor. She was a little older than Hannah, a single mom with a 5 yr old daughter, working her way through school. She got some scholarship money that paid for her courses, but it wouldn’t stretch quite far enough to cover all of the books – engineering texts are expensive. CU’s Medical School ran a free clinic for students, but Lisa’s daughter wasn’t covered, and Lisa was on her own for living expenses. It was a constant juggling act, one missed paycheck or one big doctor bill away from disaster. Her education would give her a ticket out of poverty if she could finish it – otherwise, this would be the shape of the rest of her life.
The commuters started trickling in after an hour or so. Hannah worked the register under supervision for a while, then soloed when the trickle turned into a flood. The job wasn’t difficult, it just required that she pay attention. With just one exception – her feet hurt! She hadn’t thought about the disadvantages of high heels in a stand-up job, and now she was paying for it.
There was a lull around supper time. Hannah gratefully pulled her boots off – she decided to finish her shift in her socks. Lisa took her shoes off too, and spent a moment or two massaging her toes.
“You must be a Yankee,” Hannah observed. “Bare feet in December – brrr!”
“New Hampshire, born and raised,” Lisa agreed. “No clean socks this morning,” she explained. “Anyway, most of ‘em are so full of holes, I might as well go barefoot. Maybe I’ll get some more after Christmas if there’s any money left over.” She took a textbook out of her backpack under the counter. “Did you bring anything to study? That’s what I do when things are slow like this.” She grinned. “Not a bad deal, getting paid to do my homework.”
Hannah hadn’t thought of that. She seldom did much studying anyway. That’s gonna change too, she resolved.
The place got busy again just before closing. They locked up afterward and went out the back. This was a small town – Lisa lived within walking distance, and a good thing too, because she couldn’t afford a car.
“Bye, Hannah!” Lisa said. “See you tomorrow afternoon.”
“Keep it real,” Hannah said. She drove home in a thoughtful mood. Her family had serious financial problems, but nothing like what Lisa faced on a daily basis. How could the girl manage to stay so cheerful and upbeat?
Hannah went inside and gratefully pulled her boots off again. Ought to sell the car, she thought while she was putting her pajamas on. That would carry her through to the end of the school year.
She was brushing her teeth when she heard a knock at the door. “Wait a sec!” she called out, rinsed her mouth and shuffled to the door in pajamas, robe and slippers.
“Hi, Liz!” Tina said. “Oops! I was gonna see if you wanted to play, but I see you’re getting ready for bed. Early for you, isn’t it?” she continued. “You sick?”
“No, just a little tired, Tina,” Hannah said. “But I’m not really sleepy yet – come on in.”
Tina came indoors and kicked off her clogs. She wasn’t wearing socks, and Hannah saw the end of a thrift-store necktie – bondage material – hanging out of her coat pocket. Three guesses what kind of play she had in mind, and the first two don’t count. She sat in one of the armchairs. “So where were you tonight?” she asked. “Surely not the library! Not my Liz!”
“Working,” Hannah said. She kicked off her slippers and sat cross-legged on the other armchair. “Started today at the video store on Mill Street.”
“That’s gonna cut into your party time,” Tina said. “Why? It’s not like you need the money, any more than I do.”
“Actually, I do,” Hannah said glumly. “Daddy’s out of a job – Merry fucking Christmas! Probably ought to find a cheaper place to live, too.”
“Well, that explains the long face,” Tina said. “That really sucks, Liz. Any way I can help?”
“Thanks, but no.”
Tina grinned. “Typical Georgia Cracker – poor but proud,” he said. “Well, at least I can make you laugh...”
“Not now, Tina,” Hannah said. “I’m not in the mood.” She was just a little annoyed at the “cracker” comment. How would Tina like it if Hannah called her “wetback”?
The toilet chose that moment to start hissing – water leaking by a worn tank flapper. Hannah got up to wiggle the handle, then headed back toward her seat.
Tina grabbed Hannah’s robe lapels from behind and pulled outward, back and down. The robe bunched up around Hannah’s elbows, pinning her arms to her sides. Tina held on, ran Hannah forward onto the bed, heaved her legs up and scrambled after. She sat on the struggling girl, pulled a necktie from her coat pocket and tied Hannah’s hands behind her back. Tina tied the free ends to the robe tie to provide an anchor, then swapped ends and tied Hannah’s ankles together with another tie. She completed the hogtie with a third necktie and kneeled next to Hannah’s upturned feet.
“Go ahead – laugh a little,” Tina said, and flicked her well-manicured nails on Hannah’s heels.
“OH NOOO! ” Hannah begged. “Tinaa– haha! Sta– haha! –ap! HAHAHA! HAHAHA-HAHA-HAHAHA!”
“Nope – it’s time for your singing lesson,” Tina said, and got down to business. Hannah laughed her head off, squirming like a worm and struggling against her bonds as Tina’s nails flicked her sensitive soles.
“You’re squirming too much,” Tina said. She shifted a knee on either side of Hannah’s to prevent a rollover, then switched to Robbie’s guitar-chording motion, tickling like crazy. She flicked her nails in Hannah’s arches, not making much contact but driving Hannah wild. She drew counter-rotating circles on Hannah’s heels, and Hannah laughed with wild abandon.
Tina knew every ticklish spot, and tickled every one. She drew overlapping circles up both arches – Hannah laughed helplessly, red-faced and sweaty, hair in tangles, tears running down her cheeks. Tina held the toes back and tickled side to side, then drew fast, looping figure-eight’s around the balls of Hannah’s feet. The loops got smaller, faster, covering the sensitive skin with unbearable tickling. She made a Peace sign and scratched both soles, along the creases, and into the arches behind. Hannah was helpless now, laughing like a maniac, the tickling had sucked away her strength.
Tina released the toes and tickled the soles two handed – Hannah’s toes twitched and curled as she laughed and laughed. She was in the zone now, laughing at the top of her lungs, helpless to resist or even form a coherent thought. Tina held the toes back again and tickled side to side on the stretched out soles, then scratched at the base of the big toes. Then more figure-eight’s, giving the sole creases a few extra nail flicks on each pass, and Hannah’s laughter went off the charts. It was more than she could bear – she laughed herself breathless.
Tina started working the knots loose. “Told you I could make you laugh,” she said. “Feel any better?”
Hannah took stock of herself. “Some,” she said. “Woo! You outdid yourself this time.”
“Always glad to help a friend,” Tina said virtuously. She really was a good friend, good sense of humor, fun to be around – Hannah couldn’t get mad at the girl. And it wasn’t like this was the first time, either. But still...
“I really need to get some sleep, Tina,” she said firmly. “We can get together some other time.” Or not – unlike Tina, Hannah now had better things to do than party.
“Well... OK, Liz, I guess I’m outa here,” she said. She knew that something had changed, though she wasn’t quite sure what. “See ya around.”
Last edited: