I'm happy some of you enjoyed my previous tale. I have others to tell, but thought I'd lance the boil of this one first.
I have no excuse for what happened, and even though it's likely, because of my own age, that the woman in question may well have passed by now, that doesn't matter.
The Only Time I’ve Felt Ashamed For Tickling Someone
This happened on a Friday night about four decades ago. I was in my twenties and had struck up a conversation with a pleasantly convivial older woman in a wine bar, mid-forties, dark hair, slight southern drawl. Clothing, jewelry and coiffeur were of that classic simplicity indicative of a fair bit of money. Her nails were French-manicured, the polish neutral, (were her toes similar, I wondered?) her rings were tasteful but expensive looking, and I was happy to observe that the third finger of her left hand was bare. Slim figure, some sort of executive and dressed as if she’d come from working late at the office, she was savouring a chilled glass of Gewürztraminer (she said) to unwind. I was drinking a glass of Bordeaux. But she wasn’t intoxicated and neither was I.
As we were getting along splendidly and both lived in the area, we decided that I should walk her home to continue our conversation in a quieter atmosphere, though it was relatively early and the winebar was still open. We passed a liquor store and with an ostentatious raise of one eyebrow, at which she giggled, I gallantly bought us a bottle of very good cognac. She had a nice giggle. I wanted to hear it again, and soon.
Because she’d been brought in to work on contract as a troubleshooter and apparently had permanent accommodation elsewhere, her company had accommodated her in a beautifully renovated short-term serviced apartment building, a solid edifice built in the early 1900s, high-ceilinged, thick-walled and apparently soundproof. I learned all of this and a few other things while sitting on her sofa, sipping cognac with her as we warmed to one another.
I refilled her glass, and she slipped off her vertiginous heels with a sigh of relief, stretching her legs and pointing her toes, revealing smallish nicely arched feet and (my earlier speculation answered non-verbally but splendidly) blood red nails gleaming delightfully through her tan nylons. And that was a cue for a footrub; I gently gathered her ankles, and we both half-reclined on opposite sides of the sofa’s padded arms, her feet across my thighs. ‘Mustn’t tickle’, she smiled, sipping her cognac, and we spent about half an hour looking into one another’s eyes as I slowly and sensuously massaged her soft, well-pedicured and expensively cared-for feet while gently eliciting an occasional sexy giggle with my nails to judge her responsiveness. Now and again her pelvis would undulate a bit during one of those refined chuckles, and parts of me were becoming pretty responsive as well.
I finally sat up and put an arm around her gently, and she acknowledged that with a brief cuddle before equally gently detaching herself. ‘I’m a bit tipsy’, she smiled, ‘and I’d like to go to bed. Alone, if you don’t mind. But you can sleep here on the sofa if you like.’
Then she rose to her feet, stretched, stood on her toes with a languid sigh, and then padded stocking-footed into her bedroom. She had very nice feet and lightly muscled legs. I wanted her. And as I sat there alone, pondering my next move, I grasped at the straw that she hadn’t closed the bedroom door. Obviously I was meant to follow, I told myself. When I'd not taken up opportunities which were in retrospect offered by other girls in the past, they’d never spoken to me again, or returned my phone calls, and I didn’t want to make the same mistake yet again.
Deciding that I still wasn’t intoxicated, I told myself that this was a good thing, that my judgement was unimpaired. I walked into her bedroom, to find her fully dressed except for her still-in-the-sitting-room shoes, eyes closed, lying on a large double bed on top of the blanket. She wasn’t overwhelmingly attractive, but she was there, which I suppose says all too much about me. I sat next to her, and slowly caressed the calf of her stockinged leg with the palm of my hand. No reaction. I carefully and with deliberation stroked the smooth softness of her sole with my middle three fingers, from the tips of her toes down to her heel via the valley of her arch. Her breath caught for a moment, and she moved her foot. ‘Do you want to kiss me?’ I asked. She said nothing. I wanted to kiss her. ‘Kiss me’, I said again. She half-smiled, shook her head and turned face down, her rejection of me very decisive.
That angered me. I sat for a moment, and then grasped both her ankles, locking them gently but firmly in the crook of my left elbow, toes pointed down. She tried to withdraw them but my left hand was clutching my right biceps and she was thoroughly trapped. My right hand was free, her wriggling feet were clamped together side by side, and so I began.
I went right for her arches- they were high and sensitive. She tried to control her laughter, snorting angrily, but I persevered and after a half minute or so of us tugging back and forth she began to laugh, tremulously and in a high pitch. Maintaining my grip, I increased the speed, a combination of soft shrieking and gasping escaping her lips. Then after a few minutes I lay over her calves, weighing them down with my chest, and used both sets of fingernails gently but rapidly on her upturned soles. The balls of her feet and the pads of her heels had a just-pedicured softness, her sheer nylons eliminated friction, and she began to howl into the pillow, pounding the bed with her hands. Because she was lying on her stomach she couldn’t turn to stop me, and my fingertips slid into the toe stems of both her feet.
‘You can stop this by kissing me’, I assured her in a congenial, reassuring voice, but she said nothing, so I began a simultaneous sideways motion with both sets of fingers in the horizontal channels beneath her wriggling toes. At this point her laughter, previously and gratifyingly absolutely hysterical ceased and went silent, helpless paroxysms racking her body as I continued to tickle her.
I’d been a wrestler in high school, and certain moves were instinctively adaptable. I spun ‘round, turned her on her back, pressed my chest to hers, and raised her arms over her head, while scissoring my legs gently but inextricably around both her knees. Her face was pink by the light of her bedside lamp; she was gasping for breath, and her eyes emanated a sort of wild helpless despair.
My left arm snaked over the middle of her right arm, pinning it, and passed behind the nape of her neck to cup and immobilize her right elbow. Both of her armpits were now at my disposal, albeit protected by her heavy white silk office blouse. My right hand first slid downwards, gently tugging the hem of her top a few inches above the waistband of her skirt to reveal an exercise-honed stomach upon which I drew maddeningly gentle circles, then continued the tickling by tormenting her sides and lower ribcage. She was convulsing loudly and helplessly by now, and began to cry, tears spilling from her eyes and tracking mascara down her face. Her shrieks of laughter reached a further, higher pitch as my fingertips sought the sensitive although still cloth-covered area beneath her left arm. ‘Please stop! I can’t breathe…’, she gasped, before sobbing, ‘Please! Are you going to keep torturing me until I kiss you?’
And I stopped immediately, and let her go, feeling horrible. I sat up; she turned over, burying her face in the pillow. I put a hand on her arm, not knowing what to do or say. Actually there really wasn’t anything I could say. ‘I’m sorry’, I faltered woodenly. ‘I’ll leave now.’ She was still crying pretty hard, shoulders heaving. Any residual excitement I may have been feeling vanished.
I took the half-bottle of cognac that remained, slid it back into its bag and left her apartment, closing the door behind me softly. Although her place was directly across the street from mine I walked home by wandering around the neighborhood because I needed to think.
Some might have continued with her that night to wherever it may have led, but I didn’t have it in me. I suppose the situation could have been a fantasy come true for some, but was actually a pretty nasty experience as far as I was concerned, and of course infinitely worse for her. I still think about it sometimes without taking any pleasure in the memory.
A few weeks later I saw her in the same wine bar, with a fellow this time, a middle-aged, pleasant looking executive type. I nodded at her, she favoured me with an expressionless nod back, I finished the dregs in my glass, arose with the most subtle of bows to her and left. I’ve never seen her since, and I don’t remember her name but decades down the line still wish I could have apologised.
I have no excuse for what happened, and even though it's likely, because of my own age, that the woman in question may well have passed by now, that doesn't matter.
The Only Time I’ve Felt Ashamed For Tickling Someone
This happened on a Friday night about four decades ago. I was in my twenties and had struck up a conversation with a pleasantly convivial older woman in a wine bar, mid-forties, dark hair, slight southern drawl. Clothing, jewelry and coiffeur were of that classic simplicity indicative of a fair bit of money. Her nails were French-manicured, the polish neutral, (were her toes similar, I wondered?) her rings were tasteful but expensive looking, and I was happy to observe that the third finger of her left hand was bare. Slim figure, some sort of executive and dressed as if she’d come from working late at the office, she was savouring a chilled glass of Gewürztraminer (she said) to unwind. I was drinking a glass of Bordeaux. But she wasn’t intoxicated and neither was I.
As we were getting along splendidly and both lived in the area, we decided that I should walk her home to continue our conversation in a quieter atmosphere, though it was relatively early and the winebar was still open. We passed a liquor store and with an ostentatious raise of one eyebrow, at which she giggled, I gallantly bought us a bottle of very good cognac. She had a nice giggle. I wanted to hear it again, and soon.
Because she’d been brought in to work on contract as a troubleshooter and apparently had permanent accommodation elsewhere, her company had accommodated her in a beautifully renovated short-term serviced apartment building, a solid edifice built in the early 1900s, high-ceilinged, thick-walled and apparently soundproof. I learned all of this and a few other things while sitting on her sofa, sipping cognac with her as we warmed to one another.
I refilled her glass, and she slipped off her vertiginous heels with a sigh of relief, stretching her legs and pointing her toes, revealing smallish nicely arched feet and (my earlier speculation answered non-verbally but splendidly) blood red nails gleaming delightfully through her tan nylons. And that was a cue for a footrub; I gently gathered her ankles, and we both half-reclined on opposite sides of the sofa’s padded arms, her feet across my thighs. ‘Mustn’t tickle’, she smiled, sipping her cognac, and we spent about half an hour looking into one another’s eyes as I slowly and sensuously massaged her soft, well-pedicured and expensively cared-for feet while gently eliciting an occasional sexy giggle with my nails to judge her responsiveness. Now and again her pelvis would undulate a bit during one of those refined chuckles, and parts of me were becoming pretty responsive as well.
I finally sat up and put an arm around her gently, and she acknowledged that with a brief cuddle before equally gently detaching herself. ‘I’m a bit tipsy’, she smiled, ‘and I’d like to go to bed. Alone, if you don’t mind. But you can sleep here on the sofa if you like.’
Then she rose to her feet, stretched, stood on her toes with a languid sigh, and then padded stocking-footed into her bedroom. She had very nice feet and lightly muscled legs. I wanted her. And as I sat there alone, pondering my next move, I grasped at the straw that she hadn’t closed the bedroom door. Obviously I was meant to follow, I told myself. When I'd not taken up opportunities which were in retrospect offered by other girls in the past, they’d never spoken to me again, or returned my phone calls, and I didn’t want to make the same mistake yet again.
Deciding that I still wasn’t intoxicated, I told myself that this was a good thing, that my judgement was unimpaired. I walked into her bedroom, to find her fully dressed except for her still-in-the-sitting-room shoes, eyes closed, lying on a large double bed on top of the blanket. She wasn’t overwhelmingly attractive, but she was there, which I suppose says all too much about me. I sat next to her, and slowly caressed the calf of her stockinged leg with the palm of my hand. No reaction. I carefully and with deliberation stroked the smooth softness of her sole with my middle three fingers, from the tips of her toes down to her heel via the valley of her arch. Her breath caught for a moment, and she moved her foot. ‘Do you want to kiss me?’ I asked. She said nothing. I wanted to kiss her. ‘Kiss me’, I said again. She half-smiled, shook her head and turned face down, her rejection of me very decisive.
That angered me. I sat for a moment, and then grasped both her ankles, locking them gently but firmly in the crook of my left elbow, toes pointed down. She tried to withdraw them but my left hand was clutching my right biceps and she was thoroughly trapped. My right hand was free, her wriggling feet were clamped together side by side, and so I began.
I went right for her arches- they were high and sensitive. She tried to control her laughter, snorting angrily, but I persevered and after a half minute or so of us tugging back and forth she began to laugh, tremulously and in a high pitch. Maintaining my grip, I increased the speed, a combination of soft shrieking and gasping escaping her lips. Then after a few minutes I lay over her calves, weighing them down with my chest, and used both sets of fingernails gently but rapidly on her upturned soles. The balls of her feet and the pads of her heels had a just-pedicured softness, her sheer nylons eliminated friction, and she began to howl into the pillow, pounding the bed with her hands. Because she was lying on her stomach she couldn’t turn to stop me, and my fingertips slid into the toe stems of both her feet.
‘You can stop this by kissing me’, I assured her in a congenial, reassuring voice, but she said nothing, so I began a simultaneous sideways motion with both sets of fingers in the horizontal channels beneath her wriggling toes. At this point her laughter, previously and gratifyingly absolutely hysterical ceased and went silent, helpless paroxysms racking her body as I continued to tickle her.
I’d been a wrestler in high school, and certain moves were instinctively adaptable. I spun ‘round, turned her on her back, pressed my chest to hers, and raised her arms over her head, while scissoring my legs gently but inextricably around both her knees. Her face was pink by the light of her bedside lamp; she was gasping for breath, and her eyes emanated a sort of wild helpless despair.
My left arm snaked over the middle of her right arm, pinning it, and passed behind the nape of her neck to cup and immobilize her right elbow. Both of her armpits were now at my disposal, albeit protected by her heavy white silk office blouse. My right hand first slid downwards, gently tugging the hem of her top a few inches above the waistband of her skirt to reveal an exercise-honed stomach upon which I drew maddeningly gentle circles, then continued the tickling by tormenting her sides and lower ribcage. She was convulsing loudly and helplessly by now, and began to cry, tears spilling from her eyes and tracking mascara down her face. Her shrieks of laughter reached a further, higher pitch as my fingertips sought the sensitive although still cloth-covered area beneath her left arm. ‘Please stop! I can’t breathe…’, she gasped, before sobbing, ‘Please! Are you going to keep torturing me until I kiss you?’
And I stopped immediately, and let her go, feeling horrible. I sat up; she turned over, burying her face in the pillow. I put a hand on her arm, not knowing what to do or say. Actually there really wasn’t anything I could say. ‘I’m sorry’, I faltered woodenly. ‘I’ll leave now.’ She was still crying pretty hard, shoulders heaving. Any residual excitement I may have been feeling vanished.
I took the half-bottle of cognac that remained, slid it back into its bag and left her apartment, closing the door behind me softly. Although her place was directly across the street from mine I walked home by wandering around the neighborhood because I needed to think.
Some might have continued with her that night to wherever it may have led, but I didn’t have it in me. I suppose the situation could have been a fantasy come true for some, but was actually a pretty nasty experience as far as I was concerned, and of course infinitely worse for her. I still think about it sometimes without taking any pleasure in the memory.
A few weeks later I saw her in the same wine bar, with a fellow this time, a middle-aged, pleasant looking executive type. I nodded at her, she favoured me with an expressionless nod back, I finished the dregs in my glass, arose with the most subtle of bows to her and left. I’ve never seen her since, and I don’t remember her name but decades down the line still wish I could have apologised.
