midrifftickler
TMF Expert
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2017
- Messages
- 398
- Points
- 18
Here is the first part of Chapter 12 of Dawn's Story.
This is the start of the final section of the story. It takes place around two and a half years after Chapter 11. I am currently planning for this section to be three chapters, but that could still change.
I hope you enjoy the story! Please let me know what you think, and thank you for reading!
Chapter Beginnings
Chapter 1: Perilous Paradise
Chapter 2: The Evil Box
Chapter 3: On the Run
Chapter 4: A New Paradise
Chapter 5: Tummy Testing
Chapter 6: Hidden Citizen
Chapter 7: Tummy Training
Chapter 8: Sessions and Reflections
Chapter 9: Full Citizen
Chapter 10: The Mistress
Chapter 11: Royals and Revelations
Chapter 12: The Rarest Reunion
Chapter 13: Novice Mistress
Chapter 14: Taking Control
Chapter 15: Mistress Dawn
Previous Chapter
Chapter 11: Royals and Revelations, Part 9
Dawn smiled and took a deep breath in as fresh ticklish laughter entered her ears. Sure enough, it was 10:30 am, and her Saturday morning jog was going as scheduled. She had just turned a corner around the Tickle Cartel Art Museum, and the Art of Laughs recreation area was now in her view. Looking at the crowd of people gathered to use the stocks, racks, and other bondage setups, Dawn recalled some of the many times she had been locked up and laughing. Sometimes, she would walk over here and look around for a tickler waiting for a ticklee, but usually, she just talked to one of the supervisors and got herself stretched out on a rack.
Having jogged for a while, the professional switch slowed down to a walk and took a good look at the recreation area. She stopped at a water fountain to get some refreshment before smiling once again and continuing to walk. The laughter of tickle slaves and other ticklees added to her refreshment, and she decided that she was going to keep walking until she was clear of the tickling area.
As she neared the three-quarters mark, Dawn heard a deep voice call out, “Dawn!” and she stopped in her tracks.
‘That voice,’ she considered, her smile turning into a frown, ‘it sounds so familiar. But was it really… no, there’s no way… it sounded too-’
“Dawn!” the voice called again, more urgently.
‘That sounds like a man, and one that I think I know,’ Dawn gulped.
She turned towards the sound, and his face killed all the doubt and nervousness in her mind. “Con!” she exclaimed, running towards her former neighbor, Connor Kester, with glee on her face and outstretched arms. He called her name again, the widest possible smile on his face, and she repeated his as she sprinted over. She was nearly there when she stopped in her tracks again. Connor was locked in one of the tickling chairs, with his feet in stocks, and he only had shorts on. “Con!” she gasped. “What’s going on? Why are you in there?”
“I was tickling him,” a woman standing beside Connor calmly declared.
Dawn glanced back and forth between the two, stammering, “But, Con, but, Con, but, Con, but- he’s not ticklish.” After making the claim, the former tickle slave mentally sprinted through all her attempts to tickle Connor back before the Tickle Cartel, not finding any successes.
“Yes, he is,” the woman stated. “Go ahead, tickle him and see.”
“Con?” Dawn’s eyes questioned whether he was alright with this.
“Go ahead,” the woman proclaimed. Connor stayed silent, but his eyes lowered and raised in what appeared to be a discreet form of consent.
“Okay,” Dawn walked to her bound friend and hesitantly pinched his bare sides, the only tickle technique appropriate for him. No reaction. She turned back to the other woman. “He’s not ticklish, see?”
“Try somewhere higher, and put some more effort into it,” the woman commanded. “He’s ticklish.”
“Okay,” Dawn took a nervous look back at Connor. Once her hands were off his sides, he offered her a happy smile, but no words. Something definitely was not right, but she could not worry about that right now. The woman beside him wanted to prove that he was ticklish, and if Dawn did not find somewhere to tickle, she was sure that the woman would. Dawn did not want anyone else touching Connor. Not after she had just found him. She had to find where he was ticklish to keep this woman away. Going with the general advice to tickle above the stomach, she picked out a trio of tickle targets: his neck, armpits, and ribs. She decided that the ribs were too close to his belly, and his neck was too close to his face for a tickle. “Con, are you really ticklish?” she tentatively asked as she reached for his armpits.
He tensed, and his smile disappeared, as her fingers touched the skin under his arms. Maybe… she wiggled her nails, and the corners of his mouth began to twitch. She kept it up, stroking her nails on the bare skin. He took a sharp breath, but the experienced Tummy Paradise tickler in Dawn heard the squeak leave his mouth. Was he really ticklish? And if so, had he been ticklish all those years ago, too? She dug in a little bit and repeated the motion.
“DAHAHAWN!” he laughed.
“You’re ticklish, Con,” Dawn stepped back in amazement. She turned to the woman. “He’s ticklish.”
“Yes, he is, and you’re real,” she answered.
“I told you she was real,” Connor defiantly spoke up. The woman gave him a snide look, and Dawn’s efforts to keep her from touching him failed in an instant. “NOHOHOHO IHIHIM SOHOHORRY!” Her nails expertly danced in his armpits before stopping at the apology.
“Wait, who are you?” Dawn inquired after seeing her reaction to him speaking up.
“Connor?” the woman prompted him with another armpit poke.
“Dawn, this is Mistress Felicity,” Connor shyly declared.
“Mistress? That means that you’re…”
“He’s my tickle slave,” the newly named Felicity confirmed.
“Con?” Dawn wondered. “How?”
“Connor, hold off on answering. Now that we’ve found Dawn, I think it would be better for us all to speak in private,” Felicity proclaimed. “Dawn, would you like to join us for lunch? I’m sure you have more questions for Connor, he has questions for you, and I have questions for the both of you. I can let Connor out anytime you’re ready, and I’d be happy to buy.”
Dawn was not going to let this opportunity pass her up, but she did not yet trust this supposed Mistress Felicity. If she was willing and able to enslave Connor, she might want Dawn as a tickle slave, too. She would surely want to know how Dawn got to the Tickle Cartel, and that would mean revealing her enslavement. If she did not believe that Dawn was freed, taking Dawn as her tickle slave would be fitting. She had no problem uniting Dawn and Connor through lunch, apparently, and the professional switch was sure she would have no issues reuniting them permanently as tickle slaves. In an instant, Dawn decided that she wanted some insurance before giving her old neighbor and his mistress her full story.
“I’d love to come, but I’d like to change first,” she made up an excuse. “My home’s just a few minutes away, and I know the area pretty well. I can meet you anywhere around here.”
“Of course,” Felicity allowed. “Do you know Ribble Burgers?” Dawn nodded. “Would 11:00 work for you?”
“Yes, I’ll meet you there,” Dawn confirmed before turning to Connor. “Con, it’s really nice to see you again.”
“It’s hard to believe it,” he admitted, the wide smile back on his face, “but I’m so glad that you’re here.”
“Same, I’ll hurry to the restaurant,” she promised. Felicity gave her a casual goodbye, and Dawn began jogging back to her recently purchased house. When she was near the end of the Art of Laughs recreation area, she looked back to see that Connor was already getting released from the tickling chair.
Upon reaching her single-story home, just a few miles away from her old condo, Dawn’s mind went into a panic. ‘What do I need to grab to make sure that she doesn’t try and enslave me? Paperwork, yes. The paperwork from Queen Mistress Heather. It says that my escape was legal and that I can’t be enslaved except if she orders it. I need that. Do I need anything else? Right, clothes. I told her I was coming back to change; I’d better do that.’
After putting on a clean outfit, which, like most of her clothes, showed off her ticklish tummy, Dawn made her way to Ribble Burgers. Felicity and Connor were already there, and somewhat surprisingly, the tickle slave was fully clothed again. “Hi,” she waved, and Connor anxiously waved back, looking like he wanted to run over to her. Instead, he waited with his mistress until Dawn got there. The professional switch took the initiative and gave her old neighbor a hug. “It’s been far too long.”
He returned the hug after a moment. “I know, Dawn; I’m just glad we finally found you,” he stated. “I was sure you’d be in the Tickle Cartel, but we’ve been looking for years.”
“Perhaps it’s best if we speak about this inside,” Felicity’s dominant voice cut through the hug. Connor disengaged, followed by Dawn. The authoritative woman led the two friends inside, and they got a booth. When the slave owner gave her an open-handed invitation to seat herself, the former tickle slave picked the right side of the booth, and the mistress sat opposite her. With an affirmative nod from Felicity, Connor joined Dawn. The server came and took their orders, and once they had their icy drinks, Felicity addressed Dawn, “I suppose that you want to know why Connor is here. Connor, tell her.”
“I’m sure you remember your trip to Hawaii,” he brought up the site of Dawn’s original kidnapping, and she nodded in sorrow. “Well, when your family got back, they were devastated. I think they cut the trip short after you disappeared. They stayed silent at first, but eventually, they told my family, then the neighborhood, then all your friends and their families. At that point, it was pretty clear that they didn’t have any more leads and that you weren’t coming back. Everyone was horrified when they told us what the police told them about you and the others being taken. Once I learned what happened, I was determined to find out who took you and try to bring you back. Your parents mentioned that the people who took all of you tickled you, so I started researching until I found Tickle Island. It didn’t necessarily look like they’d kidnap people, but I thought they might have an idea of where you’d gone. I was just about to hop on a plane and come over when I noticed how much money it would take just to get here. So I got a summer job and started saving up. Since my parents had already committed so much money to it, I did go to college, and I worked there, too. I would have come to the island instead, but I didn’t want anyone knowing where I was going in case it didn’t pan out.”
Connor looked somewhat guilty about going to college, and Dawn figured it was because it cost him time where he could have been trying to rescue her. However, she was happy that he had not dropped his entire life for her sake, and she just smiled and rubbed his shoulder, silently imploring him to go on.
“Well, once I started school again, I realized that I might have jumped the gun on deciding that I needed to go to Tickle Island. I started researching again in my spare time to see if there was anywhere else that could give me information aside from Tickle Island, but I never found out anything. Eventually, I looked into every nook and cranny I could find about the island, so that when I did go, I would know where I could find information.
“After my sophomore year of college, I gathered up my money and took a plane near here, then took a boat to the island itself. It ended up being a lot cheaper than a direct flight, and it was also more easily hidden, for all I know. I kept cash with me and planned to ask or bribe information out of people until I found you, and then I was going to get us plane tickets for home. I was even ready to get a job here and work to make sure we had enough money to leave. However, the Tickle Cartel did not take well to me asking around Tickle Island about you, and they set up a trap that I fell right into. They tickle tortured me until I gave up all the information that I had about your capture and who I’d talked to. Then they made me a tickle slave. They told me that I was in training for about a year and a half, and then Mistress Felicity bought me. She’s owned me ever since.”
“I’m so sorry, Con,” Dawn offered a comforting hug. “Thank you for coming and trying to rescue me, and I’m sorry that they made you a tickle slave.”
“It’s alright; at least I was right about where they took you, wasn’t I?” He certainly appeared content after seeing her.
“Yes, you were,” Dawn confirmed. “But I only spent a few days as a tickle slave. I escaped when the ship holding me arrived at the Tickle Cartel, and I’ve been free ever since.”
“You escaped?” Felicity questioned.
“Yes,” Dawn pulled the paper out of her pocket. “The people who took me… they treated me horribly, worse than normal tickle slaves. Things I’d prefer not to get into, especially in public. The people in charge eventually saw this, and they retroactively… legalized, I guess… my escape.” She placed the paper on the table.
The mistress scanned the paper, and once her eyes found the area where the date of Dawn’s escape was, she stopped. “You have indeed been free since about the time Connor said you went missing. Interesting. How did you get out?”
“I… forced my way out,” Dawn responded hesitantly. “There were two Transporters assigned to me, but only one came down to get me. I took her down, and she called for her partner. I was desperate, and so one at a time wasn’t that much of a problem.”
“Okay,” Felicity allowed. “Connor, I know you have more to say.”
“I guess you escaping was why they couldn’t find you when I asked,” the singular male got rid of the shock on his face when he began talking again. “After they made me a tickle slave and got me to the training academy, the slave trainers admitted that it sounded like they’d taken you. I tried to get information about where you’d ended up, and they assured me that they were looking. They even came back to my cell several times to get details about you to add to their search. They promised that if they did find you, they’d see if your mistress would buy me, too, or sell you to whoever bought me. But no one ever found you; they didn’t even tell me that you’d for sure been taken.”
“That, or they may not have wanted to give you hope by admitting that I escaped,” Dawn decided not to reveal her file’s restrictions. “In any case, I’m glad that you saw me and called me over. I still can’t believe that I’m seeing you after so long.”
“Yeah,” Connor agreed. “It feels like we’ve been looking forever. Right, Mistress?”
“Indeed,” Felicity calmly affirmed. “Connor was rather insistent that he continue looking for you after I bought him. After quite a bit of begging, I gave in and told him that I’d do it, as long as I could tie him and tickle him constantly until either I saw you or we hit the three-hour mark. Surprisingly, he agreed to those terms without negotiation, and after one try, I ended up relaxing it. We have been going to different locations around the Tickle Cartel every couple of months, but I was never sure how real you were until I saw you today.”
“Well, thank you for allowing the search, and thank you so much for spotting and stopping me,” Dawn responded. “If you don’t mind me asking, though, how did you know what I looked like? I know I’ve changed since I last saw Con.”
“Your picture was still close enough for reference, and once I pointed you out, he knew it was you,” the mistress nodded to Connor. He pulled a small photo out of his pocket. “I have one of those, too.”
Dawn’s jaw dropped when she looked at the photo. It was the same picture of her and Connor, smiling widely, after their graduation, that she had sketched all those years ago. Not only had he kept it, but the happy memory was also apparently the central reference in his search for her. She could not wait to show him her now nearly finished rendering of the photo in his hand.
“I remember that picture,” the former tickle slave gave her friend another embrace. “I can’t believe you still have it.”
“I’ll make sure you get a copy,” Felicity promised. “In fact, you can take mine whenever we separate; Connor did not want to risk the original getting damaged once the training academy made a copy for their searches. It’s still back in his room at my house.”
“I can’t wait,” Dawn smiled as she stared at the photo.
“In the meantime,” the mistress abruptly switched topics, “I’d be interested in hearing what you’ve done in the years since your escape.”
“Well, I got a job at Tummy Paradise in Tickle Island, and I’ve been working there ever since,” Dawn revealed.
“I think I went there before I got caught by the Tickle Cartel,” Connor proclaimed, turning to Dawn and restricting the conversation to the two friends. “They advertised all sorts of ticklish tummies, and I knew how ticklish yours was, and hopefully still is.” Dawn blushed, but she did not reply. “I’m pretty sure I asked about you, and maybe I showed the picture, but they didn’t give me anything to work with.”
“They might not give out any information unless you schedule a session.”
“I actually asked if you worked there and were available for a session. They claimed they didn’t recognize you.”
“Maybe they thought your request was too specific. I’ll talk to my boss and see if she knew about that.” Realizing that the boss in such a large company normally would not be aware of a singular employee, Dawn quickly made up an excuse for why Lily would know. “I’m pretty sure most of my sessions went through her to get approved around that time. She seemed to take a special interest in me for quite a bit after I got hired, probably because I stayed shy after being a tickle slave.”
“I guess that could have happened. So, what else have you been up to?”
“Well, I took up art again to keep from being bored. Turns out it’s a nice way to relax after a long day of laughs.”
“Cool. You didn’t do a ton of that back home, though, did you?”
“No, not very much. But I visited the big museum near us, and I loved it. I decided to see if I was still any good, and after a while, it ended up working out.”
“Hmm, I’ll have to see if we can go there someday.” He looked hopefully to his mistress.
“Perhaps,” she reentered the conversation with an allowance. “Dawn, you said that you’re a switch at Tummy Paradise?”
“Yes,” Dawn proudly affirmed.
She turned back to Connor. “Do it.”
Next Chapter
Chapter 12: The Rarest Reunion, Part 2
This is the start of the final section of the story. It takes place around two and a half years after Chapter 11. I am currently planning for this section to be three chapters, but that could still change.
I hope you enjoy the story! Please let me know what you think, and thank you for reading!
Chapter Beginnings
Chapter 1: Perilous Paradise
Chapter 2: The Evil Box
Chapter 3: On the Run
Chapter 4: A New Paradise
Chapter 5: Tummy Testing
Chapter 6: Hidden Citizen
Chapter 7: Tummy Training
Chapter 8: Sessions and Reflections
Chapter 9: Full Citizen
Chapter 10: The Mistress
Chapter 11: Royals and Revelations
Chapter 12: The Rarest Reunion
Chapter 13: Novice Mistress
Chapter 14: Taking Control
Chapter 15: Mistress Dawn
Previous Chapter
Chapter 11: Royals and Revelations, Part 9
Dawn smiled and took a deep breath in as fresh ticklish laughter entered her ears. Sure enough, it was 10:30 am, and her Saturday morning jog was going as scheduled. She had just turned a corner around the Tickle Cartel Art Museum, and the Art of Laughs recreation area was now in her view. Looking at the crowd of people gathered to use the stocks, racks, and other bondage setups, Dawn recalled some of the many times she had been locked up and laughing. Sometimes, she would walk over here and look around for a tickler waiting for a ticklee, but usually, she just talked to one of the supervisors and got herself stretched out on a rack.
Having jogged for a while, the professional switch slowed down to a walk and took a good look at the recreation area. She stopped at a water fountain to get some refreshment before smiling once again and continuing to walk. The laughter of tickle slaves and other ticklees added to her refreshment, and she decided that she was going to keep walking until she was clear of the tickling area.
As she neared the three-quarters mark, Dawn heard a deep voice call out, “Dawn!” and she stopped in her tracks.
‘That voice,’ she considered, her smile turning into a frown, ‘it sounds so familiar. But was it really… no, there’s no way… it sounded too-’
“Dawn!” the voice called again, more urgently.
‘That sounds like a man, and one that I think I know,’ Dawn gulped.
She turned towards the sound, and his face killed all the doubt and nervousness in her mind. “Con!” she exclaimed, running towards her former neighbor, Connor Kester, with glee on her face and outstretched arms. He called her name again, the widest possible smile on his face, and she repeated his as she sprinted over. She was nearly there when she stopped in her tracks again. Connor was locked in one of the tickling chairs, with his feet in stocks, and he only had shorts on. “Con!” she gasped. “What’s going on? Why are you in there?”
“I was tickling him,” a woman standing beside Connor calmly declared.
Dawn glanced back and forth between the two, stammering, “But, Con, but, Con, but, Con, but- he’s not ticklish.” After making the claim, the former tickle slave mentally sprinted through all her attempts to tickle Connor back before the Tickle Cartel, not finding any successes.
“Yes, he is,” the woman stated. “Go ahead, tickle him and see.”
“Con?” Dawn’s eyes questioned whether he was alright with this.
“Go ahead,” the woman proclaimed. Connor stayed silent, but his eyes lowered and raised in what appeared to be a discreet form of consent.
“Okay,” Dawn walked to her bound friend and hesitantly pinched his bare sides, the only tickle technique appropriate for him. No reaction. She turned back to the other woman. “He’s not ticklish, see?”
“Try somewhere higher, and put some more effort into it,” the woman commanded. “He’s ticklish.”
“Okay,” Dawn took a nervous look back at Connor. Once her hands were off his sides, he offered her a happy smile, but no words. Something definitely was not right, but she could not worry about that right now. The woman beside him wanted to prove that he was ticklish, and if Dawn did not find somewhere to tickle, she was sure that the woman would. Dawn did not want anyone else touching Connor. Not after she had just found him. She had to find where he was ticklish to keep this woman away. Going with the general advice to tickle above the stomach, she picked out a trio of tickle targets: his neck, armpits, and ribs. She decided that the ribs were too close to his belly, and his neck was too close to his face for a tickle. “Con, are you really ticklish?” she tentatively asked as she reached for his armpits.
He tensed, and his smile disappeared, as her fingers touched the skin under his arms. Maybe… she wiggled her nails, and the corners of his mouth began to twitch. She kept it up, stroking her nails on the bare skin. He took a sharp breath, but the experienced Tummy Paradise tickler in Dawn heard the squeak leave his mouth. Was he really ticklish? And if so, had he been ticklish all those years ago, too? She dug in a little bit and repeated the motion.
“DAHAHAWN!” he laughed.
“You’re ticklish, Con,” Dawn stepped back in amazement. She turned to the woman. “He’s ticklish.”
“Yes, he is, and you’re real,” she answered.
“I told you she was real,” Connor defiantly spoke up. The woman gave him a snide look, and Dawn’s efforts to keep her from touching him failed in an instant. “NOHOHOHO IHIHIM SOHOHORRY!” Her nails expertly danced in his armpits before stopping at the apology.
“Wait, who are you?” Dawn inquired after seeing her reaction to him speaking up.
“Connor?” the woman prompted him with another armpit poke.
“Dawn, this is Mistress Felicity,” Connor shyly declared.
“Mistress? That means that you’re…”
“He’s my tickle slave,” the newly named Felicity confirmed.
“Con?” Dawn wondered. “How?”
“Connor, hold off on answering. Now that we’ve found Dawn, I think it would be better for us all to speak in private,” Felicity proclaimed. “Dawn, would you like to join us for lunch? I’m sure you have more questions for Connor, he has questions for you, and I have questions for the both of you. I can let Connor out anytime you’re ready, and I’d be happy to buy.”
Dawn was not going to let this opportunity pass her up, but she did not yet trust this supposed Mistress Felicity. If she was willing and able to enslave Connor, she might want Dawn as a tickle slave, too. She would surely want to know how Dawn got to the Tickle Cartel, and that would mean revealing her enslavement. If she did not believe that Dawn was freed, taking Dawn as her tickle slave would be fitting. She had no problem uniting Dawn and Connor through lunch, apparently, and the professional switch was sure she would have no issues reuniting them permanently as tickle slaves. In an instant, Dawn decided that she wanted some insurance before giving her old neighbor and his mistress her full story.
“I’d love to come, but I’d like to change first,” she made up an excuse. “My home’s just a few minutes away, and I know the area pretty well. I can meet you anywhere around here.”
“Of course,” Felicity allowed. “Do you know Ribble Burgers?” Dawn nodded. “Would 11:00 work for you?”
“Yes, I’ll meet you there,” Dawn confirmed before turning to Connor. “Con, it’s really nice to see you again.”
“It’s hard to believe it,” he admitted, the wide smile back on his face, “but I’m so glad that you’re here.”
“Same, I’ll hurry to the restaurant,” she promised. Felicity gave her a casual goodbye, and Dawn began jogging back to her recently purchased house. When she was near the end of the Art of Laughs recreation area, she looked back to see that Connor was already getting released from the tickling chair.
Upon reaching her single-story home, just a few miles away from her old condo, Dawn’s mind went into a panic. ‘What do I need to grab to make sure that she doesn’t try and enslave me? Paperwork, yes. The paperwork from Queen Mistress Heather. It says that my escape was legal and that I can’t be enslaved except if she orders it. I need that. Do I need anything else? Right, clothes. I told her I was coming back to change; I’d better do that.’
After putting on a clean outfit, which, like most of her clothes, showed off her ticklish tummy, Dawn made her way to Ribble Burgers. Felicity and Connor were already there, and somewhat surprisingly, the tickle slave was fully clothed again. “Hi,” she waved, and Connor anxiously waved back, looking like he wanted to run over to her. Instead, he waited with his mistress until Dawn got there. The professional switch took the initiative and gave her old neighbor a hug. “It’s been far too long.”
He returned the hug after a moment. “I know, Dawn; I’m just glad we finally found you,” he stated. “I was sure you’d be in the Tickle Cartel, but we’ve been looking for years.”
“Perhaps it’s best if we speak about this inside,” Felicity’s dominant voice cut through the hug. Connor disengaged, followed by Dawn. The authoritative woman led the two friends inside, and they got a booth. When the slave owner gave her an open-handed invitation to seat herself, the former tickle slave picked the right side of the booth, and the mistress sat opposite her. With an affirmative nod from Felicity, Connor joined Dawn. The server came and took their orders, and once they had their icy drinks, Felicity addressed Dawn, “I suppose that you want to know why Connor is here. Connor, tell her.”
“I’m sure you remember your trip to Hawaii,” he brought up the site of Dawn’s original kidnapping, and she nodded in sorrow. “Well, when your family got back, they were devastated. I think they cut the trip short after you disappeared. They stayed silent at first, but eventually, they told my family, then the neighborhood, then all your friends and their families. At that point, it was pretty clear that they didn’t have any more leads and that you weren’t coming back. Everyone was horrified when they told us what the police told them about you and the others being taken. Once I learned what happened, I was determined to find out who took you and try to bring you back. Your parents mentioned that the people who took all of you tickled you, so I started researching until I found Tickle Island. It didn’t necessarily look like they’d kidnap people, but I thought they might have an idea of where you’d gone. I was just about to hop on a plane and come over when I noticed how much money it would take just to get here. So I got a summer job and started saving up. Since my parents had already committed so much money to it, I did go to college, and I worked there, too. I would have come to the island instead, but I didn’t want anyone knowing where I was going in case it didn’t pan out.”
Connor looked somewhat guilty about going to college, and Dawn figured it was because it cost him time where he could have been trying to rescue her. However, she was happy that he had not dropped his entire life for her sake, and she just smiled and rubbed his shoulder, silently imploring him to go on.
“Well, once I started school again, I realized that I might have jumped the gun on deciding that I needed to go to Tickle Island. I started researching again in my spare time to see if there was anywhere else that could give me information aside from Tickle Island, but I never found out anything. Eventually, I looked into every nook and cranny I could find about the island, so that when I did go, I would know where I could find information.
“After my sophomore year of college, I gathered up my money and took a plane near here, then took a boat to the island itself. It ended up being a lot cheaper than a direct flight, and it was also more easily hidden, for all I know. I kept cash with me and planned to ask or bribe information out of people until I found you, and then I was going to get us plane tickets for home. I was even ready to get a job here and work to make sure we had enough money to leave. However, the Tickle Cartel did not take well to me asking around Tickle Island about you, and they set up a trap that I fell right into. They tickle tortured me until I gave up all the information that I had about your capture and who I’d talked to. Then they made me a tickle slave. They told me that I was in training for about a year and a half, and then Mistress Felicity bought me. She’s owned me ever since.”
“I’m so sorry, Con,” Dawn offered a comforting hug. “Thank you for coming and trying to rescue me, and I’m sorry that they made you a tickle slave.”
“It’s alright; at least I was right about where they took you, wasn’t I?” He certainly appeared content after seeing her.
“Yes, you were,” Dawn confirmed. “But I only spent a few days as a tickle slave. I escaped when the ship holding me arrived at the Tickle Cartel, and I’ve been free ever since.”
“You escaped?” Felicity questioned.
“Yes,” Dawn pulled the paper out of her pocket. “The people who took me… they treated me horribly, worse than normal tickle slaves. Things I’d prefer not to get into, especially in public. The people in charge eventually saw this, and they retroactively… legalized, I guess… my escape.” She placed the paper on the table.
The mistress scanned the paper, and once her eyes found the area where the date of Dawn’s escape was, she stopped. “You have indeed been free since about the time Connor said you went missing. Interesting. How did you get out?”
“I… forced my way out,” Dawn responded hesitantly. “There were two Transporters assigned to me, but only one came down to get me. I took her down, and she called for her partner. I was desperate, and so one at a time wasn’t that much of a problem.”
“Okay,” Felicity allowed. “Connor, I know you have more to say.”
“I guess you escaping was why they couldn’t find you when I asked,” the singular male got rid of the shock on his face when he began talking again. “After they made me a tickle slave and got me to the training academy, the slave trainers admitted that it sounded like they’d taken you. I tried to get information about where you’d ended up, and they assured me that they were looking. They even came back to my cell several times to get details about you to add to their search. They promised that if they did find you, they’d see if your mistress would buy me, too, or sell you to whoever bought me. But no one ever found you; they didn’t even tell me that you’d for sure been taken.”
“That, or they may not have wanted to give you hope by admitting that I escaped,” Dawn decided not to reveal her file’s restrictions. “In any case, I’m glad that you saw me and called me over. I still can’t believe that I’m seeing you after so long.”
“Yeah,” Connor agreed. “It feels like we’ve been looking forever. Right, Mistress?”
“Indeed,” Felicity calmly affirmed. “Connor was rather insistent that he continue looking for you after I bought him. After quite a bit of begging, I gave in and told him that I’d do it, as long as I could tie him and tickle him constantly until either I saw you or we hit the three-hour mark. Surprisingly, he agreed to those terms without negotiation, and after one try, I ended up relaxing it. We have been going to different locations around the Tickle Cartel every couple of months, but I was never sure how real you were until I saw you today.”
“Well, thank you for allowing the search, and thank you so much for spotting and stopping me,” Dawn responded. “If you don’t mind me asking, though, how did you know what I looked like? I know I’ve changed since I last saw Con.”
“Your picture was still close enough for reference, and once I pointed you out, he knew it was you,” the mistress nodded to Connor. He pulled a small photo out of his pocket. “I have one of those, too.”
Dawn’s jaw dropped when she looked at the photo. It was the same picture of her and Connor, smiling widely, after their graduation, that she had sketched all those years ago. Not only had he kept it, but the happy memory was also apparently the central reference in his search for her. She could not wait to show him her now nearly finished rendering of the photo in his hand.
“I remember that picture,” the former tickle slave gave her friend another embrace. “I can’t believe you still have it.”
“I’ll make sure you get a copy,” Felicity promised. “In fact, you can take mine whenever we separate; Connor did not want to risk the original getting damaged once the training academy made a copy for their searches. It’s still back in his room at my house.”
“I can’t wait,” Dawn smiled as she stared at the photo.
“In the meantime,” the mistress abruptly switched topics, “I’d be interested in hearing what you’ve done in the years since your escape.”
“Well, I got a job at Tummy Paradise in Tickle Island, and I’ve been working there ever since,” Dawn revealed.
“I think I went there before I got caught by the Tickle Cartel,” Connor proclaimed, turning to Dawn and restricting the conversation to the two friends. “They advertised all sorts of ticklish tummies, and I knew how ticklish yours was, and hopefully still is.” Dawn blushed, but she did not reply. “I’m pretty sure I asked about you, and maybe I showed the picture, but they didn’t give me anything to work with.”
“They might not give out any information unless you schedule a session.”
“I actually asked if you worked there and were available for a session. They claimed they didn’t recognize you.”
“Maybe they thought your request was too specific. I’ll talk to my boss and see if she knew about that.” Realizing that the boss in such a large company normally would not be aware of a singular employee, Dawn quickly made up an excuse for why Lily would know. “I’m pretty sure most of my sessions went through her to get approved around that time. She seemed to take a special interest in me for quite a bit after I got hired, probably because I stayed shy after being a tickle slave.”
“I guess that could have happened. So, what else have you been up to?”
“Well, I took up art again to keep from being bored. Turns out it’s a nice way to relax after a long day of laughs.”
“Cool. You didn’t do a ton of that back home, though, did you?”
“No, not very much. But I visited the big museum near us, and I loved it. I decided to see if I was still any good, and after a while, it ended up working out.”
“Hmm, I’ll have to see if we can go there someday.” He looked hopefully to his mistress.
“Perhaps,” she reentered the conversation with an allowance. “Dawn, you said that you’re a switch at Tummy Paradise?”
“Yes,” Dawn proudly affirmed.
She turned back to Connor. “Do it.”
Next Chapter
Chapter 12: The Rarest Reunion, Part 2
Last edited:
