Of all the jobs I never want to have to do again, this one stood head and shoulders above the rest. Our IT team had ‘forgotten’ that we had a new director starting work today and as a result hadn’t booked my time to go install his shiny new telephone. This, in and of itself, wasn’t a huge problem. What was a problem was we simply didn’t have a free telephone socket on that side of the building, let alone within reach of an extension cord from his desk. So it was I found myself trying to squirm my way down a crawl space behind a bank of desks to reach the nearest distribution point.
Now in order to understand why this wasn’t exactly a fun job, let me paint a picture of the state of our ‘access routes’. All around our offices there’s a ‘marble’ window ledge about a foot and a half wide. Every so often there’s a pillar connecting floor to ceiling and it’s down these pillars we run the bulk of our network and telephone cable. To get to them requires crawling down the gap between the desks at one edge of the marble and the outside wall, avoiding the mass of existing cables, radiators, heating pipes and other items that can either trap or hurt the unwary engineer. Of course such spaces never get cleaned and it’s not unusual to find discarded sandwiches, fluffy Maltesers, unidentifiable mounds of various sticky substances and the occasional bit of wildlife while shuffling along on hands and knees. Each desk comes down almost to the ground, there’s maybe a foot of clearance available. Enough to slide under to have a look at any potential problems with existing cables, or to store small objects right were we need to go, but not enough to gain proper access to the runs.
Adding to the problems was the fact I’m a pretty chunky guy, broad of shoulder one might say, and there was precious little space between the walls and me. The only plus point is that I’m pretty limber and can wriggle out of most tight spots if I have to and have embarrassed a couple of the younger guys by getting places they can’t. Just to make the job that little bit harder I was having to carry the tools for the job with me hooked to my belt, so a rather large yellow telephone handset / line tester was on my left hip, crimping tool, screwdriver and wire cutters on my right, my mobile phone was clipped on in line with my spine to keep from damaging it and a big reel of simple two wire cable was duck taped to my back. Not exactly an elegant solution, but it worked.
So I get about halfway down the twenty foot run towards the distribution point and have to stop for a minute or two to shuffle some boxes of old promotional materials out of my way from where they’d been ‘temporarily stored’ about two years ago. As I do so I notice that two desks down there’s a pair of feet sticking into the crawlspace, a decidedly lethal looking pair of stiletto heel shoes glinting in the dull light. A quick glance at the numbers written on the ledge above my head and a mental cross-reference to our current seating plan brings a grin to my face as I realise just who those feet belong to. A very, very pretty employee who started working for us about six months ago and who I still can’t manage to say two words to without sounding like a complete idiot. Don’t ask me why that’s the case, I know people who I’d say are better looking (though not by much admittedly) that I don’t have this problem with, in fact I know no-one else I have this problem with, but something about her sends my brain into orbit whenever I saw her.
Making a mental note to warn her not to move her feet as I went past I finished off moving the boxes and got going again. Much to my relief the feet had vanished by the time I drew level with the desk so I didn’t have to work out how to let her know I was coming past without scaring the daylights out of her. I had to work myself up onto my left side to get past a pillar, my arms above my head as I wriggled forward, body facing out towards the office, though the wooden back of the desk hid me from view. That feeling of relief lasted about ten seconds as first one shoe and then the other came flying under the desk.
The first shoe hit toe first in my chest, bouncing off and leaving me a little surprised but unhurt. The second came in heel first with uncanny accuracy, the sharp tip of the stiletto perfectly targeted on my crotch. Options being a tad limited in the enclosed space I settled for taking a large mouthful of my own arm to muffle the yelp and assumed the traditional ‘traumatised testes’ position as best I could, hands shielding the abused area from any more projectiles as I tried to shuffle up past the pillar to get out of the line of fire. Leaning back against the wall, back curled over to let me fit in I waited for the red spots to finish dancing in front of my eyes and the nausea to pass. As the pain started to ebb away I glanced back to see the shoes lying where they’d fallen and a pair of stocking clad feet sticking back under the desk. And a plan started to form in my mind…
Reaching back I peeled the cable reel off my back as quietly as I could and unwound about ten, twelve feet of the stuff. This stuff is really thin and strong, and was useful for exactly two things: telephone cable and a cheap source of cable ties when the proper Ziploc ones ran out. I don’t think it’ll come as a huge surprise to find it was the second option I had in mind now. Working quickly I wrapped the cable in a very loose loop around her ankles, running the ends of the cable up to the metal beam that supported the marble window ledge and looping it over. Right now the cable wasn’t even touching her, but a quick tug on the loose ends above my head and the beam would act as a makeshift pulley, tightening the noose around her ankles and leaving them helpless.
Of course I had a slightly larger problem, for my plan to work I needed her to be a willing participant in her own predicament, at least to begin with. Reaching back I pulled my mobile off my back and tapped out a quick e-mail, probably the simplest e-mail I’d ever written actually as writing anything of note with a mobile phone keypad isn’t exactly a quick process. “Happy Birthday Lass” was the entire message and, a few seconds later I heard the expected muttered “but it’s not my birthday…” from above. Reaching forward I scoped her feet into my lap and gently started to run my fingernails over her soles.
Being unable to see anything above ankle height made it difficult to judge her reaction and for the first few seconds my heart was in my mouth as all the really nasty things that could happen if she complained about this to management went through my mind. Then, to my shock, amazement and sheer delight she actually pushed her feet into my hands, toes curling down slightly before arching back, stretching her soles out and exposing them completely to my wandering fingers. Not wanting to disappoint I focused on the task at hand, switching from my nails to fingertips, alternating light, fleeting tickles with deeper, harder strokes that were more a massage than anything else.
I felt a slight tremor run though her body as she tried to push her feet even closer to me and I shifted slightly, not wanting to let her accidentally slip out of the loose loop of cable still surrounding her ankles. Not wanting her to get used to any particular motion I started trailing my fingers down her soles from the base of her toes all the way to the tip of her heel, then matching the path back up again using the edge of my nails. From above I could hear very gentle, very quiet and rather muffled noises, a soft moan as my fingers ran down, a stifled giggle as they went up. As I alternated tickling and rubbing those gorgeous feet I realised that I didn’t actually need to hear her to know what effect this was having. Every time a groan filtered down to my waiting ears her foot would stretch, toes pointing up as she tried to push forwards into my hands. For every giggle her toes would curl down and her feet would twitch slightly, though there was no immediate effort to pull away.
Encouraged I decided to really chance my luck. Pausing for a moment but leaving a hand on top of her right foot to let her know I hadn’t gone away I pulled my legs up under me and dropped down onto my belly, legs stretched out behind me as I reached out with both hands to her waiting feet. My thumbs started in the centre of her sole and in long, luxurious strokes rubbed away the tensions of the day, hands wrapping around the tops of her feet, flexing and caressing her all over. Caught up in the moment I moved forward and pressed my lips to her nylon covered feet, kissing her through the thin material, my nose acting as another pressure point as it rubbed against her. For the first time I wished I could actually see her reaction as I was performing my ministrations, the occasional hint of a gasped breath above exciting and frustrating me in equal measure.
Her legs had slipped under the lip of the desk slightly and I could just reach the bottom of her calve without allowing her to see my hands. Caressing her there I actually felt her body tense and tremble as my teeth passed over her toes as I took her right foot, nylon and all, into my mouth and started sucking on those delectable toes. A process that was made considerably more difficult by her left foot pressing against my lips, clearly desperate for some attention of its own.
Bringing my hands reluctantly back from her leg I held her left foot firmly in one hand and used the other to start tickling her in earnest. Her feet told the story as well as her face would have in other circumstances, both twitching from the extra stimulation, but neither pulling away from my attentions, the foot in my mouth actually pushing forward slightly and tickling itself against my teeth. As it did so I shifted my weight slightly to accommodate her and ended up lying in a slightly awkward position that sent a renewed burst of pain through my still sore testicles, reminding me what I was doing down here in the first place.
Reaching up I pulled the cable down and, as planned, the noose closed and her feet were suddenly trapped, tied tightly together and held slightly off the ground. The cable wouldn’t let her bring her feet down and she couldn’t move them up thanks to the edge of the desk pressing on her legs. She was helpless and knew it as, for the first time, she actively tried to pull back. But it was far too late for that. Hooking my fingers into the tops of her nylons I yanked down, splitting them from top to bottom and letting my hands roam over her bare soles. No longer was the tickling playful, now I was on the attack and the reaction was instant.
As my fingers dove down onto their targets she started to cover up for the first time, toes scrunching, feet trying to cross over each other for protection. But the cable held them fast and stopped any movement after only a fraction of an inch. Grinning to myself I increased the speed of my ticklish explorations, fingers roaming up and down, diving in between the toes to draw panicked gasps from above, racing down her soles and tracing every line and curve before starting the whole process over again. On and on, at least ten minutes of heavy duty tickling and to my surprise she hadn’t yet laughed out loud. Not that I was complaining, this was far too much fun to wish for it to end. Grabbing the loose end of the cable that held her, I snipped a small length off and, after checking that the end wasn’t pointed or sharp enough to cause damage, slid it into my right hand and brought the bare wire down to her wiggling sole.
She went still, I mean rigid, as the wire touched her and as it travelled over the by now thoroughly explored terrain of her feet I heard a whispered “No…no please enough.” from her, strain clear in her voice as she fought the rising urge to laugh out loud. Of course, it wasn’t enough, I could feel the call for revenge rising through me, and I decided to deliver what I was sure would be the knockout blow. Pulling the remains of her nylon completely clear I bobbed my head and engulfed her naked toes in my warm mouth, tongue worming out to slide in between the first two toes, tasting her and tormenting her all at once.
To my amazement she didn’t break and I started to wonder what more I could do to her without giving the game away. Then it hit me. Working my tongue down I placed it flat against the bottom of her toes, teeth touching the sole just behind my tongue and started a quiet, low pitched hum in the back of my throat. Her foot gave one big jerk upwards; there was a thud as her leg bounced off the underside of the desk and a single ringing bark of laughter from above. I pulled away, moving back down the crawl space as quickly as I could, pausing only to leave a brief note written on a forgotten post-it note inside her shoe. To my surprise nothing happened for a few minutes and I’d reached my original destination and had the cable connected before I saw a hand groping under the desk back down the crawl way. It searched around for a moment, clearly trying to tell if anyone was there, and then seemingly reluctantly pulled the shoes out and away.
I finished off the job, shutting the panel and securing it to the wall again, before starting the long crawl to get out of what was starting to become quite a claustrophobic space. As I passed her desk I was half expecting a hand to grab me and force a confession, but all I saw was a rather familiar post-it note screwed up on the floor. Something made me pocket it as I went by and ten minutes later I emerged exhausted at the far end of the office, the lass in question nowhere in sight. Ducking into the privacy of our server room I unrolled the note and stared in shock at what was written.
On the top half was my own drunken spider handwriting with “Next time, be careful where you throw your shoes.” in red marker. Underneath it, in a script that seemed to flow from one letter to the next was a simple reply.
“Next time, let me see you. 8574-9621. Call me.”
Now in order to understand why this wasn’t exactly a fun job, let me paint a picture of the state of our ‘access routes’. All around our offices there’s a ‘marble’ window ledge about a foot and a half wide. Every so often there’s a pillar connecting floor to ceiling and it’s down these pillars we run the bulk of our network and telephone cable. To get to them requires crawling down the gap between the desks at one edge of the marble and the outside wall, avoiding the mass of existing cables, radiators, heating pipes and other items that can either trap or hurt the unwary engineer. Of course such spaces never get cleaned and it’s not unusual to find discarded sandwiches, fluffy Maltesers, unidentifiable mounds of various sticky substances and the occasional bit of wildlife while shuffling along on hands and knees. Each desk comes down almost to the ground, there’s maybe a foot of clearance available. Enough to slide under to have a look at any potential problems with existing cables, or to store small objects right were we need to go, but not enough to gain proper access to the runs.
Adding to the problems was the fact I’m a pretty chunky guy, broad of shoulder one might say, and there was precious little space between the walls and me. The only plus point is that I’m pretty limber and can wriggle out of most tight spots if I have to and have embarrassed a couple of the younger guys by getting places they can’t. Just to make the job that little bit harder I was having to carry the tools for the job with me hooked to my belt, so a rather large yellow telephone handset / line tester was on my left hip, crimping tool, screwdriver and wire cutters on my right, my mobile phone was clipped on in line with my spine to keep from damaging it and a big reel of simple two wire cable was duck taped to my back. Not exactly an elegant solution, but it worked.
So I get about halfway down the twenty foot run towards the distribution point and have to stop for a minute or two to shuffle some boxes of old promotional materials out of my way from where they’d been ‘temporarily stored’ about two years ago. As I do so I notice that two desks down there’s a pair of feet sticking into the crawlspace, a decidedly lethal looking pair of stiletto heel shoes glinting in the dull light. A quick glance at the numbers written on the ledge above my head and a mental cross-reference to our current seating plan brings a grin to my face as I realise just who those feet belong to. A very, very pretty employee who started working for us about six months ago and who I still can’t manage to say two words to without sounding like a complete idiot. Don’t ask me why that’s the case, I know people who I’d say are better looking (though not by much admittedly) that I don’t have this problem with, in fact I know no-one else I have this problem with, but something about her sends my brain into orbit whenever I saw her.
Making a mental note to warn her not to move her feet as I went past I finished off moving the boxes and got going again. Much to my relief the feet had vanished by the time I drew level with the desk so I didn’t have to work out how to let her know I was coming past without scaring the daylights out of her. I had to work myself up onto my left side to get past a pillar, my arms above my head as I wriggled forward, body facing out towards the office, though the wooden back of the desk hid me from view. That feeling of relief lasted about ten seconds as first one shoe and then the other came flying under the desk.
The first shoe hit toe first in my chest, bouncing off and leaving me a little surprised but unhurt. The second came in heel first with uncanny accuracy, the sharp tip of the stiletto perfectly targeted on my crotch. Options being a tad limited in the enclosed space I settled for taking a large mouthful of my own arm to muffle the yelp and assumed the traditional ‘traumatised testes’ position as best I could, hands shielding the abused area from any more projectiles as I tried to shuffle up past the pillar to get out of the line of fire. Leaning back against the wall, back curled over to let me fit in I waited for the red spots to finish dancing in front of my eyes and the nausea to pass. As the pain started to ebb away I glanced back to see the shoes lying where they’d fallen and a pair of stocking clad feet sticking back under the desk. And a plan started to form in my mind…
Reaching back I peeled the cable reel off my back as quietly as I could and unwound about ten, twelve feet of the stuff. This stuff is really thin and strong, and was useful for exactly two things: telephone cable and a cheap source of cable ties when the proper Ziploc ones ran out. I don’t think it’ll come as a huge surprise to find it was the second option I had in mind now. Working quickly I wrapped the cable in a very loose loop around her ankles, running the ends of the cable up to the metal beam that supported the marble window ledge and looping it over. Right now the cable wasn’t even touching her, but a quick tug on the loose ends above my head and the beam would act as a makeshift pulley, tightening the noose around her ankles and leaving them helpless.
Of course I had a slightly larger problem, for my plan to work I needed her to be a willing participant in her own predicament, at least to begin with. Reaching back I pulled my mobile off my back and tapped out a quick e-mail, probably the simplest e-mail I’d ever written actually as writing anything of note with a mobile phone keypad isn’t exactly a quick process. “Happy Birthday Lass” was the entire message and, a few seconds later I heard the expected muttered “but it’s not my birthday…” from above. Reaching forward I scoped her feet into my lap and gently started to run my fingernails over her soles.
Being unable to see anything above ankle height made it difficult to judge her reaction and for the first few seconds my heart was in my mouth as all the really nasty things that could happen if she complained about this to management went through my mind. Then, to my shock, amazement and sheer delight she actually pushed her feet into my hands, toes curling down slightly before arching back, stretching her soles out and exposing them completely to my wandering fingers. Not wanting to disappoint I focused on the task at hand, switching from my nails to fingertips, alternating light, fleeting tickles with deeper, harder strokes that were more a massage than anything else.
I felt a slight tremor run though her body as she tried to push her feet even closer to me and I shifted slightly, not wanting to let her accidentally slip out of the loose loop of cable still surrounding her ankles. Not wanting her to get used to any particular motion I started trailing my fingers down her soles from the base of her toes all the way to the tip of her heel, then matching the path back up again using the edge of my nails. From above I could hear very gentle, very quiet and rather muffled noises, a soft moan as my fingers ran down, a stifled giggle as they went up. As I alternated tickling and rubbing those gorgeous feet I realised that I didn’t actually need to hear her to know what effect this was having. Every time a groan filtered down to my waiting ears her foot would stretch, toes pointing up as she tried to push forwards into my hands. For every giggle her toes would curl down and her feet would twitch slightly, though there was no immediate effort to pull away.
Encouraged I decided to really chance my luck. Pausing for a moment but leaving a hand on top of her right foot to let her know I hadn’t gone away I pulled my legs up under me and dropped down onto my belly, legs stretched out behind me as I reached out with both hands to her waiting feet. My thumbs started in the centre of her sole and in long, luxurious strokes rubbed away the tensions of the day, hands wrapping around the tops of her feet, flexing and caressing her all over. Caught up in the moment I moved forward and pressed my lips to her nylon covered feet, kissing her through the thin material, my nose acting as another pressure point as it rubbed against her. For the first time I wished I could actually see her reaction as I was performing my ministrations, the occasional hint of a gasped breath above exciting and frustrating me in equal measure.
Her legs had slipped under the lip of the desk slightly and I could just reach the bottom of her calve without allowing her to see my hands. Caressing her there I actually felt her body tense and tremble as my teeth passed over her toes as I took her right foot, nylon and all, into my mouth and started sucking on those delectable toes. A process that was made considerably more difficult by her left foot pressing against my lips, clearly desperate for some attention of its own.
Bringing my hands reluctantly back from her leg I held her left foot firmly in one hand and used the other to start tickling her in earnest. Her feet told the story as well as her face would have in other circumstances, both twitching from the extra stimulation, but neither pulling away from my attentions, the foot in my mouth actually pushing forward slightly and tickling itself against my teeth. As it did so I shifted my weight slightly to accommodate her and ended up lying in a slightly awkward position that sent a renewed burst of pain through my still sore testicles, reminding me what I was doing down here in the first place.
Reaching up I pulled the cable down and, as planned, the noose closed and her feet were suddenly trapped, tied tightly together and held slightly off the ground. The cable wouldn’t let her bring her feet down and she couldn’t move them up thanks to the edge of the desk pressing on her legs. She was helpless and knew it as, for the first time, she actively tried to pull back. But it was far too late for that. Hooking my fingers into the tops of her nylons I yanked down, splitting them from top to bottom and letting my hands roam over her bare soles. No longer was the tickling playful, now I was on the attack and the reaction was instant.
As my fingers dove down onto their targets she started to cover up for the first time, toes scrunching, feet trying to cross over each other for protection. But the cable held them fast and stopped any movement after only a fraction of an inch. Grinning to myself I increased the speed of my ticklish explorations, fingers roaming up and down, diving in between the toes to draw panicked gasps from above, racing down her soles and tracing every line and curve before starting the whole process over again. On and on, at least ten minutes of heavy duty tickling and to my surprise she hadn’t yet laughed out loud. Not that I was complaining, this was far too much fun to wish for it to end. Grabbing the loose end of the cable that held her, I snipped a small length off and, after checking that the end wasn’t pointed or sharp enough to cause damage, slid it into my right hand and brought the bare wire down to her wiggling sole.
She went still, I mean rigid, as the wire touched her and as it travelled over the by now thoroughly explored terrain of her feet I heard a whispered “No…no please enough.” from her, strain clear in her voice as she fought the rising urge to laugh out loud. Of course, it wasn’t enough, I could feel the call for revenge rising through me, and I decided to deliver what I was sure would be the knockout blow. Pulling the remains of her nylon completely clear I bobbed my head and engulfed her naked toes in my warm mouth, tongue worming out to slide in between the first two toes, tasting her and tormenting her all at once.
To my amazement she didn’t break and I started to wonder what more I could do to her without giving the game away. Then it hit me. Working my tongue down I placed it flat against the bottom of her toes, teeth touching the sole just behind my tongue and started a quiet, low pitched hum in the back of my throat. Her foot gave one big jerk upwards; there was a thud as her leg bounced off the underside of the desk and a single ringing bark of laughter from above. I pulled away, moving back down the crawl space as quickly as I could, pausing only to leave a brief note written on a forgotten post-it note inside her shoe. To my surprise nothing happened for a few minutes and I’d reached my original destination and had the cable connected before I saw a hand groping under the desk back down the crawl way. It searched around for a moment, clearly trying to tell if anyone was there, and then seemingly reluctantly pulled the shoes out and away.
I finished off the job, shutting the panel and securing it to the wall again, before starting the long crawl to get out of what was starting to become quite a claustrophobic space. As I passed her desk I was half expecting a hand to grab me and force a confession, but all I saw was a rather familiar post-it note screwed up on the floor. Something made me pocket it as I went by and ten minutes later I emerged exhausted at the far end of the office, the lass in question nowhere in sight. Ducking into the privacy of our server room I unrolled the note and stared in shock at what was written.
On the top half was my own drunken spider handwriting with “Next time, be careful where you throw your shoes.” in red marker. Underneath it, in a script that seemed to flow from one letter to the next was a simple reply.
“Next time, let me see you. 8574-9621. Call me.”
