Alright, gather round my friends, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em and let me tell you a tale….
<wibbly wobbly fade effect>
It was about five years ago, and I’m working as an ops monkey at a firm in London. Basically the job’s a mix of helpdesk support and building maintenance, so we do everything from telling people to reboot their machines to installing and running the network around the building. I came in one morning, along with another worker who we shall call Tim, to find some rather strange news waiting for us. The night shift was supposed to have gone into the data preparation office, removed the old network cables and replace them with new ones. The layout of the place was much the same as that described in the story above, cable runs between the backs of desks next to walls leaving a small crawl space for us lot to try and squeeze down. The problem was the night shift had indeed removed the cables, but seemed to have run out of time and decided to let us put the new ones in first thing in the morning. Why was this a problem? The data prep team was always the first (well, second after IT) team in the building and had a busy day ahead to finish all the paperwork required for payroll.
To cut a long story short we left the boss manning the helpdesk, grabbed boxes of cables, network hubs, anything we thought we might need, piled it onto a cart and set a new record for running the length of the building. What we ended up putting in was possibly the ugliest cable job on record, but it did work and let the team get through the day. Not trusting the night shift guys to finish the job (admittedly a difficult thing to do with a size nine boot jammed up where the sun don’t shine after we’d ‘talked’ to them regarding professional conduct) we stayed late and headed back after five to rip out the bodge job and re-do it properly.
Well, when we got there we found all but one of the team had left as we’d asked. The only one still there was a young, and it must be said, very attractive, red head named Yvonne. She’d always been a bit mischievous, especially around me for some reason (looking back I wish I’d not been such a monumental coward back then and at least asked her out, but hey, live and learn), with her last little prank requiring some fast talking with the MD when she literally jumped into my arms as I left his office. So the thought of revenge was already bubbling in my brain. She was doing all the manual stuff that didn’t need the computers so we were free to go about our business.
While neither me nor Tim was exactly thin (natural born rugby players) we’d gotten pretty good at twisting out way into the oddest damn corners to get at that last empty network socket wedged behind someone’s desk, and we were both damn quick workers, so in less than an hour we’d got everything in and tested and were going about the business of tidying up our handiwork when we saw a pair of feet pop under a desk not five feet away from where we were working. I asked her afterwards, and was told that the computers made enough noise to hide the fact we were moving about so she’d thought we’d finished and left. Anyway, I took one glance and looked at Tim, and I could see the same thought going through his mind as mine. We crawled up to those tempting tootsies and, in one simultaneous move knocked her dangling shoes off and started scratching and scraping for all we were worth.
What it must have been like I can’t imagine, after all she didn’t know there was even anyone else in the room, so what she thought had hold of her I don’t know. The end result though was impressive. Her first reaction was a shriek loud enough to wake the dead, then nothing for a long moment, then hysterical laughter. Her situation wasn’t helped by the fact she was on a wheeled chair, so every time she tried to yank away all that happened was we held her were she was and the chair moved backwards. Three good escape attempts and there was a thud as she hit the floor, still sitting and with her legs straight out in front of her. We gave her one good, quick tug and pulled her far enough under the desk that, with a bit of stretching I could reach out and wrap my hand around the back of her stocking-clad knee while keeping the other hand on her foot. Tim on the other hand used his, well, other hand, to keep her feet as still as possible as we worked her over.
And boy, did we work her over, I don’t think we left an inch of skin untouched or untickled from the tips of her toes to the bottom of her thighs. Well, maybe a little, but we tried out best not to leave anything out. What I remember most about the whole incident actually will probably seem silly, but throughout it all, while she might have laughed like a banshee, not once did she actually ask us to stop. I wonder if she enjoyed it? I guess I’ll never actually have an answer to that but I’d like to think that was the case. Oh, she begged for mercy, she howled, she screamed, she twitched and writhed, but never did she say flat out “Stop”. We tickled her like that, twenty torturous fingers working over her legs and feet at will, for maybe fifteen, twenty minutes, and only stopped when we heard her start to really struggle for breath.
We thought it was over then, but I guess we really were a little young and very stupid, or maybe just inexperienced. As we were making our way out of the cable run, a pair of hands suddenly popped under one of the desks and grabbed my ribs! I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m insanely ticklish and wrenched away from that touch so quick I actually whacked my head and shoulder against a metal radiator. Needless to say I wasn’t hanging about after that and got a move on heading for the exit, but then I heard a yell from behind me as those hands found Tim’s armpit and raked up and down as fast as they possible could. He twisted around and actually ended up heading back the way we’d come.
What followed next was about fifteen minutes of a rather elaborate game of hide and seek. She’d listen to us shuffling our way around, work out where we were heading for and stick something in front of the exit (remember this is a space maybe three feet by three feet for the largest, so blocking them ain’t hard). Then as we turned back those hands would dive back under the desks looking for us. Sometime she’d find us, sometimes she wouldn’t, but one particular incident stands out in my mind.
She managed to grab Tim as he was moving through a particularly narrow bit and had to try and slide through partially on his side, partially on his back. Unfortunately for him he’d gotten caught and now had a hand wrapped around either side of his rib cage poking and prodding through his shirt. My first thought, after “whew, that could have been me” of course, was to help him out, but couldn’t quite figure out how to do it without making myself a target. Looking up I realised there was a join between two desks right by Tim’s head and with a quick turn I backed up to it. I walked my feet up the wall, into the natural ‘chimney’ between the desks and leaving my body weight supported by my shoulders and arm as I twisted my head around to get a good look at what was going on. Her left arm was almost completely inside the cable run to reach Tim’s ribs and that left her armpit just within range. Reaching out I drove my own fingers into that warm hollow, sliding in between the thin cotton of her t-shirt and her silky smooth skin. Nothing fancy, nothing special just out and out tickling, and I felt her jerk back, or try to anyway. Glancing out of the corner of my eye I found her still trying to tickle Tim, who’d instinctively clamped his arms down to protect his own ‘pits and in doing so trapped her arm with his. Until she stopped her own tickle assault he wasn’t about to let go, and she didn’t realise it was me that had a hold of her so thought that, by stopping her tickle, she’d just leave herself open to retaliation.
Her laughter mixed with his and I wish I could have recorded it, as it was a tune far better than anything made by today’s pop stars. I actually felt a shiver pass through me as they seemed to laugh in harmony, a perfect duet of pure fun, albeit a reluctant one under the circumstances. We stayed like that for a minute or two until my shoulders started to protest at carrying the load and I flopped down heavily to the floor. As soon as I did so I pulled back, not wanting to add a third voice to the song, and as I left Yvonne realised what was going on and stilled her hands. Tim released her and she pulled back, still giggling.
We made it out eventually, though we all got tickled pretty thoroughly before it came to an end. There was a rather awkward moment as we all stood face to face, then we all got real big grins and started joking about it. We packed up our network gear, she finished off her paperwork, and we went down the nearest pub where, like true gentleman, we bought her a drink or two to make up for our rather underhanded sneak attach. I actually ended up driving her home afterwards as she’d missed the last bus by about an hour, and ended up getting my first kiss as a thank you (yeah, yeah, I know, first kiss at nineteen, sad and pathetic, but what can I say, I’ve never subscribed to the idea of a relationship with someone I can’t honestly imagine spending the rest of my life with). A damn good night all things considered.
<wibbly wobbly fade effect>
It was about five years ago, and I’m working as an ops monkey at a firm in London. Basically the job’s a mix of helpdesk support and building maintenance, so we do everything from telling people to reboot their machines to installing and running the network around the building. I came in one morning, along with another worker who we shall call Tim, to find some rather strange news waiting for us. The night shift was supposed to have gone into the data preparation office, removed the old network cables and replace them with new ones. The layout of the place was much the same as that described in the story above, cable runs between the backs of desks next to walls leaving a small crawl space for us lot to try and squeeze down. The problem was the night shift had indeed removed the cables, but seemed to have run out of time and decided to let us put the new ones in first thing in the morning. Why was this a problem? The data prep team was always the first (well, second after IT) team in the building and had a busy day ahead to finish all the paperwork required for payroll.
To cut a long story short we left the boss manning the helpdesk, grabbed boxes of cables, network hubs, anything we thought we might need, piled it onto a cart and set a new record for running the length of the building. What we ended up putting in was possibly the ugliest cable job on record, but it did work and let the team get through the day. Not trusting the night shift guys to finish the job (admittedly a difficult thing to do with a size nine boot jammed up where the sun don’t shine after we’d ‘talked’ to them regarding professional conduct) we stayed late and headed back after five to rip out the bodge job and re-do it properly.
Well, when we got there we found all but one of the team had left as we’d asked. The only one still there was a young, and it must be said, very attractive, red head named Yvonne. She’d always been a bit mischievous, especially around me for some reason (looking back I wish I’d not been such a monumental coward back then and at least asked her out, but hey, live and learn), with her last little prank requiring some fast talking with the MD when she literally jumped into my arms as I left his office. So the thought of revenge was already bubbling in my brain. She was doing all the manual stuff that didn’t need the computers so we were free to go about our business.
While neither me nor Tim was exactly thin (natural born rugby players) we’d gotten pretty good at twisting out way into the oddest damn corners to get at that last empty network socket wedged behind someone’s desk, and we were both damn quick workers, so in less than an hour we’d got everything in and tested and were going about the business of tidying up our handiwork when we saw a pair of feet pop under a desk not five feet away from where we were working. I asked her afterwards, and was told that the computers made enough noise to hide the fact we were moving about so she’d thought we’d finished and left. Anyway, I took one glance and looked at Tim, and I could see the same thought going through his mind as mine. We crawled up to those tempting tootsies and, in one simultaneous move knocked her dangling shoes off and started scratching and scraping for all we were worth.
What it must have been like I can’t imagine, after all she didn’t know there was even anyone else in the room, so what she thought had hold of her I don’t know. The end result though was impressive. Her first reaction was a shriek loud enough to wake the dead, then nothing for a long moment, then hysterical laughter. Her situation wasn’t helped by the fact she was on a wheeled chair, so every time she tried to yank away all that happened was we held her were she was and the chair moved backwards. Three good escape attempts and there was a thud as she hit the floor, still sitting and with her legs straight out in front of her. We gave her one good, quick tug and pulled her far enough under the desk that, with a bit of stretching I could reach out and wrap my hand around the back of her stocking-clad knee while keeping the other hand on her foot. Tim on the other hand used his, well, other hand, to keep her feet as still as possible as we worked her over.
And boy, did we work her over, I don’t think we left an inch of skin untouched or untickled from the tips of her toes to the bottom of her thighs. Well, maybe a little, but we tried out best not to leave anything out. What I remember most about the whole incident actually will probably seem silly, but throughout it all, while she might have laughed like a banshee, not once did she actually ask us to stop. I wonder if she enjoyed it? I guess I’ll never actually have an answer to that but I’d like to think that was the case. Oh, she begged for mercy, she howled, she screamed, she twitched and writhed, but never did she say flat out “Stop”. We tickled her like that, twenty torturous fingers working over her legs and feet at will, for maybe fifteen, twenty minutes, and only stopped when we heard her start to really struggle for breath.
We thought it was over then, but I guess we really were a little young and very stupid, or maybe just inexperienced. As we were making our way out of the cable run, a pair of hands suddenly popped under one of the desks and grabbed my ribs! I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m insanely ticklish and wrenched away from that touch so quick I actually whacked my head and shoulder against a metal radiator. Needless to say I wasn’t hanging about after that and got a move on heading for the exit, but then I heard a yell from behind me as those hands found Tim’s armpit and raked up and down as fast as they possible could. He twisted around and actually ended up heading back the way we’d come.
What followed next was about fifteen minutes of a rather elaborate game of hide and seek. She’d listen to us shuffling our way around, work out where we were heading for and stick something in front of the exit (remember this is a space maybe three feet by three feet for the largest, so blocking them ain’t hard). Then as we turned back those hands would dive back under the desks looking for us. Sometime she’d find us, sometimes she wouldn’t, but one particular incident stands out in my mind.
She managed to grab Tim as he was moving through a particularly narrow bit and had to try and slide through partially on his side, partially on his back. Unfortunately for him he’d gotten caught and now had a hand wrapped around either side of his rib cage poking and prodding through his shirt. My first thought, after “whew, that could have been me” of course, was to help him out, but couldn’t quite figure out how to do it without making myself a target. Looking up I realised there was a join between two desks right by Tim’s head and with a quick turn I backed up to it. I walked my feet up the wall, into the natural ‘chimney’ between the desks and leaving my body weight supported by my shoulders and arm as I twisted my head around to get a good look at what was going on. Her left arm was almost completely inside the cable run to reach Tim’s ribs and that left her armpit just within range. Reaching out I drove my own fingers into that warm hollow, sliding in between the thin cotton of her t-shirt and her silky smooth skin. Nothing fancy, nothing special just out and out tickling, and I felt her jerk back, or try to anyway. Glancing out of the corner of my eye I found her still trying to tickle Tim, who’d instinctively clamped his arms down to protect his own ‘pits and in doing so trapped her arm with his. Until she stopped her own tickle assault he wasn’t about to let go, and she didn’t realise it was me that had a hold of her so thought that, by stopping her tickle, she’d just leave herself open to retaliation.
Her laughter mixed with his and I wish I could have recorded it, as it was a tune far better than anything made by today’s pop stars. I actually felt a shiver pass through me as they seemed to laugh in harmony, a perfect duet of pure fun, albeit a reluctant one under the circumstances. We stayed like that for a minute or two until my shoulders started to protest at carrying the load and I flopped down heavily to the floor. As soon as I did so I pulled back, not wanting to add a third voice to the song, and as I left Yvonne realised what was going on and stilled her hands. Tim released her and she pulled back, still giggling.
We made it out eventually, though we all got tickled pretty thoroughly before it came to an end. There was a rather awkward moment as we all stood face to face, then we all got real big grins and started joking about it. We packed up our network gear, she finished off her paperwork, and we went down the nearest pub where, like true gentleman, we bought her a drink or two to make up for our rather underhanded sneak attach. I actually ended up driving her home afterwards as she’d missed the last bus by about an hour, and ended up getting my first kiss as a thank you (yeah, yeah, I know, first kiss at nineteen, sad and pathetic, but what can I say, I’ve never subscribed to the idea of a relationship with someone I can’t honestly imagine spending the rest of my life with). A damn good night all things considered.
