YouNeverKnow175
TMF Master
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2002
- Messages
- 810
- Points
- 18
As she opened the passenger door and stepped out of her mother’s air conditioned car, she could almost feel the heat of the steamy asphalt of the parking lot through her Adidas sneakers. As they walked toward the doctor’s office on this humid, June day, Mallory had the urge to kick off her shoes then and there and walk barefoot—though she opted not to, knowing her mother would be appalled at her lack of sophistication. She had the same thought again that she’d had many times already since she’d bought the shoes a few months earlier and started wearing them without socks: I’m not sure if looking cool in these is worth the cost of the discomfort. She loved the way the white, low-cut, stylish shoes showed off her ankles when she wore them without socks, but she hated how sweaty her feet got inside them and how the inside material just didn’t feel hospitable to bare feet. But she was eighteen, and therefore style won out.
She wore jean shorts and a white tanktop and as she strode into the building, she drew glances from men and women alike, much to her mother’s chagrin. Her mother almost said something, but then decided she didn’t want to acknowledge out loud that the torch had been passed and her daughter was now the undeniable young beauty that she once was. Mallory was slim, tall—5’9”—with light brown, straight hair to her shoulders, and brown eyes. Her long legs seemed to attract the most glances of all—though it may have been those slick white sneakers on her size nine feet.
It was the summer before starting college and Mallory was going for her annual physical. She hated going to the doctor—for many reasons—and was annoyed that her mom still insisted on coming in with her, even though she was now officially an adult. As they sat in the waiting room, Mallory fidgeted nervously, placing the toe of one shoe on the heel of another and pushing, so that her heel almost slid out of the sneaker and then slid back in. Her feet were so hot and she wished she was wearing shoes she could slip off.
Her name was called and the two of them stepped inside to the office, where a nurse took Mally’s blood pressure and measured her height and weight. A few minutes later, Dr. Larimer entered the room. Mallory had been seeing her for years, and Dr. Larimer was amazed and excited to learn that time had flown by so fast that Mallory was now heading off to college. The doctor was in her mid-forties, with wavy brown hair to her shoulders, standing 5’7”, wearing black slacks, black flats, and a blue and white striped blouse.
After some chit chat with Mallory and her mom, followed by some questions about her general health and habits, Dr. Larimer said she was ready to begin the physical exam, and asked Mallory to get undressed. The doctor stepped out of the room momentarily to give her privacy to do so, though her mother remained with her.
It felt great to kick her shoes off, as Mallory repeated the action she’d done in the waiting room except this time carried it out, sliding her hot, soft feet out of each shoe. She wiggled her naked, unpainted toes to help cool them down and to enjoy how free they felt. Mallory’s toes were relatively long, her second toe reaching just shy of her big toe, which was big, and beautiful. In fact, all of her toes were quite beautiful.
Mallory took off her shorts and tank top, self-consciously sitting on the table in her bra and underwear, waiting for the doctor to return, hoping her mother wouldn’t comment on her appearance. There was a quick knock at the door, and the doctor stepped back into the room.
After some quick checks of the eyes, nose, ears and mouth, the doctor said, “I’m going to listen to your breathing now,” and placed her stethoscope on Mallory’s back first. Mallory tensed up. This was one of the parts she disliked. The stethoscope was always so cold, and the way the doctor slid it from spot to spot always tickled. The cold metal sliding around on her back wasn’t too bad, but it gave Mallory chills. But when Dr. Larimer placed the stethoscope just below her breasts, Mallory flinched and quietly gasped. As the doctor slid the stethoscope to another spot slightly lower, Mallory flinched noticeably. When the doctor picked it up and placed it on her side, Mallory jerked her whole torso abruptly. She blushed, but chose not to make eye contact with the doctor. She knew it was going to be acknowledged at some point, but she would delay it as long as possible. She just felt so embarrassed about it.
But when Dr. Larimer asked Mallory to lie down on her back, she knew the part she hated most was coming. She had tried not to think about it in the days leading up to the appointment, and when she did she told herself it probably wouldn’t be as bad. She had to outgrow her ticklishness at some point, and it seemed totally reasonable to expect that this would start to happen now that she was eighteen. Hey, she told herself, maybe it’ll barely tickle at all.
Just hearing the words made Mallory shiver. “I’m going to feel around different spots in your abdominal area now. Just let me know if you feel any pain or discomfort.”
Well of course I’m going to feel discomfort! Mallory wanted to say. Instead she held her breath and closed her eyes as Dr. Larimer placed her hands on her flat tummy. The initial contact made Mally flinch and her abdomen automatically retract. Then, for a second, as Dr. Larimer pressed firmly, it felt fine, and Mallory was relieved. I’m finally growing out of it, she thought.
But as Dr. Larimer’s hands slid upward across her skin, Mallory gasped and flinched again, and she experienced the familiar sensation of trying to control her laughter but knowing it would be a losing battle. A few years prior, she had devised a few strategies for moments like this—ways to “make herself less ticklish” by trying to relax and control her breathing. Unfortunately, these methods proved pretty much ineffective.
Mallory tried again anyway, breathing loudly and slowly, as Dr. Larimer slid to a new spot and began pressing. The tickling was making Mallory more and more tense and she felt the laughter bubbling up. She bit her lip. But it was too much. The first series of “Ha-ha-ha’s” slipped out in bursts of air that Mallory had tried so hard to hold in. But once the doctor’s hands slid downward, closer to her waistline, there was no holding back. Mallory couldn’t help it any longer, and burst into heavy laughter.
Her mother, squirming in her seat with some seemingly odd mixture of delight and embarrassment said, “She’s stilllll ticklish….” Now that she was losing control, Mallory found herself squirming with each touch of the doctor’s hand in a new spot. Her laughter slowed down momentarily, then picked up again. The spots along her waistline, where Dr. Larimer was now headed, were going to be unbearable, she could tell.
“I remember now,” said Dr. Larimer.
“She always has been quite a ticklish one,” Mallory’s mom said.
Mallory felt herself blushing as she squirmed and wriggled all over the exam table, laughing, hearing the two older women commenting on her ticklishness. She couldn’t believe she was still this ticklish. Only little kids should squirm and laugh like this at the doctor’s—I’m eighteen! She even started kicking a little because she didn’t know what else to do—it tickled so much.
“We’re almost done, Mallory, you’re doing great,” the doctor said compassionately, clearly starting to feel bad for the helpless, writhing girl underneath her fingertips.
Mallory nodded and managed to get out the word, “Okay…” through her laughter. Why am I so ticklish??? she thought to herself, feeling incredibly vulnerable and exposed as the doctor’s touches seemed to grow even more unendurable as her hands moved away from Mallory’s waistline but closer to her sides. Mallory wasn’t sure which was worse.
She hated that her mother was witnessing all of this, too. It was bad enough to have to endure it, and to have the doctor see how girlishly ticklish she was. But she had to have her mother watching and commenting on it, too—and she was sure to bring it up again and again over the next few weeks. She could hear it now: “Mally, you were just so ticklish at the doctor’s! I can’t believe you’re still that ticklish! She would have to hope and pray that her mother didn’t mention it in front of the rest of the family—which would surely serve as a reminder of their ability to torture her mercilessly—but she almost certainly would.
Finally, the doctor pulled her hands away from Mallory’s belly. Mallory’s laughter died down and she sighed with relief. It was over. For another year. She had once again survived her annual unbearable stomach tickle torture.
“Okay, Mallory, you can sit up now,” said Dr. Larimer. “I’m just going to do a few quick reflex tests.” Mallory felt her body relax more. She sat up and let the doctor bang the reflex hammer on her knees as her legs dangled off the edge of the exam table.
“This next one is called the Babinski test,” Dr. Larimer said. “We may not have done this one before. I usually don’t do it with kids, but since you’re an adult now, seems like a good time to start.” She crouched down so she was level with Mallory’s bare, less-hot-but-still-very-soft, feet. In her hand she had a pointy metal tool. Mallory stared down at her nervously.
“Oh, Mally, this one might be a little haarrrdd for you…” her mom said in a singsongy voice, half sounding like she was genuinely warning her and half like she was teasing.
Mally instinctively pulled her foot away as Dr. Larimer moved her hand toward it.
“Great reflex,” the doctor said jokingly, “but you have to wait until I actually touch your foot.”
Mallory cautiously put her foot back, clearly willing herself to do it.
Dr. Larimer placed the tool on Mallory’s heel. It took all of Mallory’s might not to jerk away again.
“You seem nervous,” Dr. Larimer said, removing the tool from Mallory’s foot and looking up at her. “It’s true, it will probably tickle a little. But don’t worry, it’s very quick. What I’m going to do is run this little point tip up the sole of your foot to just beneath your toes. It’s —”
Mallory shivered, visibly.
The doctor gave her a look, then continued. “It’s a reflex test. A positive response is when your toes curl like this.” She placed her hand on Mallory’s toes and pulled so they spread laterally. Mallory yelped and pulled her foot away.
“Oh!” the doctor exclaimed with surprise. “I forget just how ticklish you are! I’m sorry! Well, this will only take a minute.”
She placed the tip of the tool back on Mally’s heel. Mally cringed in fear and anticipation. The three seconds it took for the pointy tip to travel across her sole from her heel to her toes was three seconds too long and Mallory shrieked and burst into laughter, pulling her foot away.
Dr. Larimer smiled. “Other foot…” she said and repeated the test. “Ohh!!” Mally exclaimed, as if somehow she were surprised at how much it tickled, then broke into a giggle.
“She keeps telling me she’d like to come with me for a pedicure sometime,” her mother said to the doctor. “And I keep telling her, ‘Mally, you’re way too ticklish for a pedicure! You’ll be kicking and screaming the whole time!”
Mallory turned bright red.
“It’s true,” said Dr. Larimer. “Pretty feet do come at a cost.”
Then she looked down at Mallory’s feet. “But yours are already so pretty, Mallory, and soft—you don’t need a pedicure yet.” She ran her palm along Mallory’s left sole as if to illustrate her point. Mally’s foot flexed upward uncontrollably and she tried to stifle her giggles. “You’ll have plenty of time to get them later on when you’re closer to my and your mother’s age!”
Mallory wanted to say, “Hopefully I’ll be a little less ticklish by then…” but she couldn’t bring herself to say The Word out loud.
“Well, Mallory, you can get dressed now. We’re all finished,” Dr. Larimer said with a smile.
Mallory sighed. “Okay, thank you very much.” She got dressed, forced her feet back into her tied shoes, and walked out the door with her mom. As they got back into the car, of course, the comments began.
“Still just as ticklish as always…” her mom said in the same teasy, singsongy voice she had used in the doctor’s office.
“Yup…” Mallory said, annoyed. “I wish I wasn’t, but I am…”
“I think you laughed even more this year than last year!”
Mallory turned red and looked out the window.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you kick like that at the doctor’s, either! Maybe you’re getting even more ticklish! Is that possible??”
“Um…I really, really hope not…”
“Well gosh, for your sake I do too! It seems like it’s hard enough for you to endure being touched at all right now! Massages aren’t much better!”
Mallory felt so shy. Talking about how ticklish she was made her feel incredibly vulnerable. She wanted to disappear. But she also didn’t want to show her mom just how uncomfortable it made her. The last thing she needed was for anyone to really know just how ticklish she was.
“Yup…” Mally said, trying to seem disinterested but not distraught.
“But really, Mally, you know, I know you want to try a pedicure but I really don’t think you’d be able to take it. Your feet are so ticklish, and they scrub the bottoms of your feet with a pumice stone, really vigorously. I think you’d go out of your mind!”
The image made Mally cringe. She almost felt a tickling sensation on her feet inside of her shoes, and she wiggled her toes to try to get read of it.
“Besides,” her mom continued, “Dr. Larimer is right. Your feet are so soft, and naturally pretty. You don’t need much help with that! You can paint your own toes or I’ll do it for you!”
Mallory had painted her toes before, but no one had ever done it for her. She imagined her mom, holding each toe while painting them, and she shivered yet again. She would never willingly put her feet in her mother’s lap like that. It would be a death wish.
“Maybe…” Mallory said in a non-committal tone, still looking out the window.
“It would be fun! Or you could let your sister do it! But you getting a pedicure—I mean, gosh, Mally, honestly, you’d be laughing the entire time. You’d never even be able to hold your feet still for them. Really, I mean, Mally, I know how ticklish you are.”
Mally couldn’t take it anymore. “MOM can we talk about something else?”
“Well you don’t need to get uppity about it! I’m just trying to tell you this for your own good. You keep talking about wanting to do this, and seeing you laughing your head off at the doctor reminded me to make sure you understand what you’d be getting yourself into.”
“I don’t ‘keep talking about’ pedicures! I’ve mentioned it, like, once. Maybe twice. I just thought it would be fun. But obviously it wouldn’t be.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed about being so ticklish, Mally!” her mom said, sensing her daughter’s disposition. “A lot of people are ticklish.”
Literally every time she heard that word it sent shivers throughout her entire body. A lifetime of being tickled mercilessly had made the simple sound of the word torture in and of itself.
“I’m sure they are, Mom…” Mallory said, squirming in her seat.
“I mean…maybe not that many people are quite as ticklish as you, but still…”
Hearing the word, especially in reference to herself, was almost like being tickled. Mallory literally—without realizing it—leaned as far over toward the door as she could, as if her mother were lightly running her fingers up and down her side and she had nowhere to go.
“So did you play tennis this morning?” Mallory asked, desperately trying to change the subject.
“You really don’t like talking about being ticklish, do you??” Her voice resonated with intrigue.
“Um, not really!”
“Poor thing. Who would’ve thought you’d still be just as ticklish as you were when you were a little girl, now, at your age? I can see why you’d feel a little embarrassed about it, gosh!”
Even though the air conditioning was on, Mally found herself sweating. Again, she could feel the sweat between her toes inside her shoes and she wanted to kick them off, though she didn’t dare do it with her mom’s long, red fingernails inches away.
They pulled up to the house. Mallory practically leapt out of the car and ran into the house. She kicked off her shoes—the shoe brushing against her foot as it slid off tickled like crazy—and she ran up to her bedroom and shut and locked the door. She put on headphones, turned on Radiohead, and tried to think about anything else other than
just
how
insanely
embarrassingly
girlishly
helplessly
ticklish she was.
** *
This story is based on true incidents. I like to honor true stories to their form, and there’s enough artistic license in here to post it in the fiction section, but the reality is that it’s somewhere in between.
If anyone else is as big a fan as I am as some of the themes in this story or others I’ve written, I’m always interested in hearing from you…feel free to send me a message.
She wore jean shorts and a white tanktop and as she strode into the building, she drew glances from men and women alike, much to her mother’s chagrin. Her mother almost said something, but then decided she didn’t want to acknowledge out loud that the torch had been passed and her daughter was now the undeniable young beauty that she once was. Mallory was slim, tall—5’9”—with light brown, straight hair to her shoulders, and brown eyes. Her long legs seemed to attract the most glances of all—though it may have been those slick white sneakers on her size nine feet.
It was the summer before starting college and Mallory was going for her annual physical. She hated going to the doctor—for many reasons—and was annoyed that her mom still insisted on coming in with her, even though she was now officially an adult. As they sat in the waiting room, Mallory fidgeted nervously, placing the toe of one shoe on the heel of another and pushing, so that her heel almost slid out of the sneaker and then slid back in. Her feet were so hot and she wished she was wearing shoes she could slip off.
Her name was called and the two of them stepped inside to the office, where a nurse took Mally’s blood pressure and measured her height and weight. A few minutes later, Dr. Larimer entered the room. Mallory had been seeing her for years, and Dr. Larimer was amazed and excited to learn that time had flown by so fast that Mallory was now heading off to college. The doctor was in her mid-forties, with wavy brown hair to her shoulders, standing 5’7”, wearing black slacks, black flats, and a blue and white striped blouse.
After some chit chat with Mallory and her mom, followed by some questions about her general health and habits, Dr. Larimer said she was ready to begin the physical exam, and asked Mallory to get undressed. The doctor stepped out of the room momentarily to give her privacy to do so, though her mother remained with her.
It felt great to kick her shoes off, as Mallory repeated the action she’d done in the waiting room except this time carried it out, sliding her hot, soft feet out of each shoe. She wiggled her naked, unpainted toes to help cool them down and to enjoy how free they felt. Mallory’s toes were relatively long, her second toe reaching just shy of her big toe, which was big, and beautiful. In fact, all of her toes were quite beautiful.
Mallory took off her shorts and tank top, self-consciously sitting on the table in her bra and underwear, waiting for the doctor to return, hoping her mother wouldn’t comment on her appearance. There was a quick knock at the door, and the doctor stepped back into the room.
After some quick checks of the eyes, nose, ears and mouth, the doctor said, “I’m going to listen to your breathing now,” and placed her stethoscope on Mallory’s back first. Mallory tensed up. This was one of the parts she disliked. The stethoscope was always so cold, and the way the doctor slid it from spot to spot always tickled. The cold metal sliding around on her back wasn’t too bad, but it gave Mallory chills. But when Dr. Larimer placed the stethoscope just below her breasts, Mallory flinched and quietly gasped. As the doctor slid the stethoscope to another spot slightly lower, Mallory flinched noticeably. When the doctor picked it up and placed it on her side, Mallory jerked her whole torso abruptly. She blushed, but chose not to make eye contact with the doctor. She knew it was going to be acknowledged at some point, but she would delay it as long as possible. She just felt so embarrassed about it.
But when Dr. Larimer asked Mallory to lie down on her back, she knew the part she hated most was coming. She had tried not to think about it in the days leading up to the appointment, and when she did she told herself it probably wouldn’t be as bad. She had to outgrow her ticklishness at some point, and it seemed totally reasonable to expect that this would start to happen now that she was eighteen. Hey, she told herself, maybe it’ll barely tickle at all.
Just hearing the words made Mallory shiver. “I’m going to feel around different spots in your abdominal area now. Just let me know if you feel any pain or discomfort.”
Well of course I’m going to feel discomfort! Mallory wanted to say. Instead she held her breath and closed her eyes as Dr. Larimer placed her hands on her flat tummy. The initial contact made Mally flinch and her abdomen automatically retract. Then, for a second, as Dr. Larimer pressed firmly, it felt fine, and Mallory was relieved. I’m finally growing out of it, she thought.
But as Dr. Larimer’s hands slid upward across her skin, Mallory gasped and flinched again, and she experienced the familiar sensation of trying to control her laughter but knowing it would be a losing battle. A few years prior, she had devised a few strategies for moments like this—ways to “make herself less ticklish” by trying to relax and control her breathing. Unfortunately, these methods proved pretty much ineffective.
Mallory tried again anyway, breathing loudly and slowly, as Dr. Larimer slid to a new spot and began pressing. The tickling was making Mallory more and more tense and she felt the laughter bubbling up. She bit her lip. But it was too much. The first series of “Ha-ha-ha’s” slipped out in bursts of air that Mallory had tried so hard to hold in. But once the doctor’s hands slid downward, closer to her waistline, there was no holding back. Mallory couldn’t help it any longer, and burst into heavy laughter.
Her mother, squirming in her seat with some seemingly odd mixture of delight and embarrassment said, “She’s stilllll ticklish….” Now that she was losing control, Mallory found herself squirming with each touch of the doctor’s hand in a new spot. Her laughter slowed down momentarily, then picked up again. The spots along her waistline, where Dr. Larimer was now headed, were going to be unbearable, she could tell.
“I remember now,” said Dr. Larimer.
“She always has been quite a ticklish one,” Mallory’s mom said.
Mallory felt herself blushing as she squirmed and wriggled all over the exam table, laughing, hearing the two older women commenting on her ticklishness. She couldn’t believe she was still this ticklish. Only little kids should squirm and laugh like this at the doctor’s—I’m eighteen! She even started kicking a little because she didn’t know what else to do—it tickled so much.
“We’re almost done, Mallory, you’re doing great,” the doctor said compassionately, clearly starting to feel bad for the helpless, writhing girl underneath her fingertips.
Mallory nodded and managed to get out the word, “Okay…” through her laughter. Why am I so ticklish??? she thought to herself, feeling incredibly vulnerable and exposed as the doctor’s touches seemed to grow even more unendurable as her hands moved away from Mallory’s waistline but closer to her sides. Mallory wasn’t sure which was worse.
She hated that her mother was witnessing all of this, too. It was bad enough to have to endure it, and to have the doctor see how girlishly ticklish she was. But she had to have her mother watching and commenting on it, too—and she was sure to bring it up again and again over the next few weeks. She could hear it now: “Mally, you were just so ticklish at the doctor’s! I can’t believe you’re still that ticklish! She would have to hope and pray that her mother didn’t mention it in front of the rest of the family—which would surely serve as a reminder of their ability to torture her mercilessly—but she almost certainly would.
Finally, the doctor pulled her hands away from Mallory’s belly. Mallory’s laughter died down and she sighed with relief. It was over. For another year. She had once again survived her annual unbearable stomach tickle torture.
“Okay, Mallory, you can sit up now,” said Dr. Larimer. “I’m just going to do a few quick reflex tests.” Mallory felt her body relax more. She sat up and let the doctor bang the reflex hammer on her knees as her legs dangled off the edge of the exam table.
“This next one is called the Babinski test,” Dr. Larimer said. “We may not have done this one before. I usually don’t do it with kids, but since you’re an adult now, seems like a good time to start.” She crouched down so she was level with Mallory’s bare, less-hot-but-still-very-soft, feet. In her hand she had a pointy metal tool. Mallory stared down at her nervously.
“Oh, Mally, this one might be a little haarrrdd for you…” her mom said in a singsongy voice, half sounding like she was genuinely warning her and half like she was teasing.
Mally instinctively pulled her foot away as Dr. Larimer moved her hand toward it.
“Great reflex,” the doctor said jokingly, “but you have to wait until I actually touch your foot.”
Mallory cautiously put her foot back, clearly willing herself to do it.
Dr. Larimer placed the tool on Mallory’s heel. It took all of Mallory’s might not to jerk away again.
“You seem nervous,” Dr. Larimer said, removing the tool from Mallory’s foot and looking up at her. “It’s true, it will probably tickle a little. But don’t worry, it’s very quick. What I’m going to do is run this little point tip up the sole of your foot to just beneath your toes. It’s —”
Mallory shivered, visibly.
The doctor gave her a look, then continued. “It’s a reflex test. A positive response is when your toes curl like this.” She placed her hand on Mallory’s toes and pulled so they spread laterally. Mallory yelped and pulled her foot away.
“Oh!” the doctor exclaimed with surprise. “I forget just how ticklish you are! I’m sorry! Well, this will only take a minute.”
She placed the tip of the tool back on Mally’s heel. Mally cringed in fear and anticipation. The three seconds it took for the pointy tip to travel across her sole from her heel to her toes was three seconds too long and Mallory shrieked and burst into laughter, pulling her foot away.
Dr. Larimer smiled. “Other foot…” she said and repeated the test. “Ohh!!” Mally exclaimed, as if somehow she were surprised at how much it tickled, then broke into a giggle.
“She keeps telling me she’d like to come with me for a pedicure sometime,” her mother said to the doctor. “And I keep telling her, ‘Mally, you’re way too ticklish for a pedicure! You’ll be kicking and screaming the whole time!”
Mallory turned bright red.
“It’s true,” said Dr. Larimer. “Pretty feet do come at a cost.”
Then she looked down at Mallory’s feet. “But yours are already so pretty, Mallory, and soft—you don’t need a pedicure yet.” She ran her palm along Mallory’s left sole as if to illustrate her point. Mally’s foot flexed upward uncontrollably and she tried to stifle her giggles. “You’ll have plenty of time to get them later on when you’re closer to my and your mother’s age!”
Mallory wanted to say, “Hopefully I’ll be a little less ticklish by then…” but she couldn’t bring herself to say The Word out loud.
“Well, Mallory, you can get dressed now. We’re all finished,” Dr. Larimer said with a smile.
Mallory sighed. “Okay, thank you very much.” She got dressed, forced her feet back into her tied shoes, and walked out the door with her mom. As they got back into the car, of course, the comments began.
“Still just as ticklish as always…” her mom said in the same teasy, singsongy voice she had used in the doctor’s office.
“Yup…” Mallory said, annoyed. “I wish I wasn’t, but I am…”
“I think you laughed even more this year than last year!”
Mallory turned red and looked out the window.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you kick like that at the doctor’s, either! Maybe you’re getting even more ticklish! Is that possible??”
“Um…I really, really hope not…”
“Well gosh, for your sake I do too! It seems like it’s hard enough for you to endure being touched at all right now! Massages aren’t much better!”
Mallory felt so shy. Talking about how ticklish she was made her feel incredibly vulnerable. She wanted to disappear. But she also didn’t want to show her mom just how uncomfortable it made her. The last thing she needed was for anyone to really know just how ticklish she was.
“Yup…” Mally said, trying to seem disinterested but not distraught.
“But really, Mally, you know, I know you want to try a pedicure but I really don’t think you’d be able to take it. Your feet are so ticklish, and they scrub the bottoms of your feet with a pumice stone, really vigorously. I think you’d go out of your mind!”
The image made Mally cringe. She almost felt a tickling sensation on her feet inside of her shoes, and she wiggled her toes to try to get read of it.
“Besides,” her mom continued, “Dr. Larimer is right. Your feet are so soft, and naturally pretty. You don’t need much help with that! You can paint your own toes or I’ll do it for you!”
Mallory had painted her toes before, but no one had ever done it for her. She imagined her mom, holding each toe while painting them, and she shivered yet again. She would never willingly put her feet in her mother’s lap like that. It would be a death wish.
“Maybe…” Mallory said in a non-committal tone, still looking out the window.
“It would be fun! Or you could let your sister do it! But you getting a pedicure—I mean, gosh, Mally, honestly, you’d be laughing the entire time. You’d never even be able to hold your feet still for them. Really, I mean, Mally, I know how ticklish you are.”
Mally couldn’t take it anymore. “MOM can we talk about something else?”
“Well you don’t need to get uppity about it! I’m just trying to tell you this for your own good. You keep talking about wanting to do this, and seeing you laughing your head off at the doctor reminded me to make sure you understand what you’d be getting yourself into.”
“I don’t ‘keep talking about’ pedicures! I’ve mentioned it, like, once. Maybe twice. I just thought it would be fun. But obviously it wouldn’t be.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed about being so ticklish, Mally!” her mom said, sensing her daughter’s disposition. “A lot of people are ticklish.”
Literally every time she heard that word it sent shivers throughout her entire body. A lifetime of being tickled mercilessly had made the simple sound of the word torture in and of itself.
“I’m sure they are, Mom…” Mallory said, squirming in her seat.
“I mean…maybe not that many people are quite as ticklish as you, but still…”
Hearing the word, especially in reference to herself, was almost like being tickled. Mallory literally—without realizing it—leaned as far over toward the door as she could, as if her mother were lightly running her fingers up and down her side and she had nowhere to go.
“So did you play tennis this morning?” Mallory asked, desperately trying to change the subject.
“You really don’t like talking about being ticklish, do you??” Her voice resonated with intrigue.
“Um, not really!”
“Poor thing. Who would’ve thought you’d still be just as ticklish as you were when you were a little girl, now, at your age? I can see why you’d feel a little embarrassed about it, gosh!”
Even though the air conditioning was on, Mally found herself sweating. Again, she could feel the sweat between her toes inside her shoes and she wanted to kick them off, though she didn’t dare do it with her mom’s long, red fingernails inches away.
They pulled up to the house. Mallory practically leapt out of the car and ran into the house. She kicked off her shoes—the shoe brushing against her foot as it slid off tickled like crazy—and she ran up to her bedroom and shut and locked the door. She put on headphones, turned on Radiohead, and tried to think about anything else other than
just
how
insanely
embarrassingly
girlishly
helplessly
ticklish she was.
** *
This story is based on true incidents. I like to honor true stories to their form, and there’s enough artistic license in here to post it in the fiction section, but the reality is that it’s somewhere in between.
If anyone else is as big a fan as I am as some of the themes in this story or others I’ve written, I’m always interested in hearing from you…feel free to send me a message.
