(originally posted in three parts, here is the complete saga below. As Kid Indy wrote atop the first two installments: "...this happens in an alternative universe...." )
The Price of Power
by
Kid Indy
DECEMBER 2019: AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE
She was amazed at how quickly the slot-machine chatter disappeared as she left the casino floor and entered the conference center’s hallway. She moved quickly in her little black dress that she had worn to so many political functions over the last several months (she had three identical dresses that always traveled with her) made her way back from placing a phone call, and the change of atmosphere from the sidewalk to the gaming floor to the quiet hallway was disconcerting. When she emerged into a fourth environment, a crowded meet-and-greet, she had to shake her head to get back into the game, and her curly brown hair made a few heads turn. She still couldn’t decide whether she had been a lucky one or an unlucky one, landing a spot on the inner circle straight out of Yale, but here she was, and her eyes scanned the room for her boss and--if things fell right--the first woman president of the United States.
The bright red jacket and the matching lipstick were not hard to spot in the room full of gray suits, and the young woman made her way across the room and pressed a folded piece of paper into her hand. She took a moment away from her conversation to look at it before looking Wendy in the eye and saying quietly, “Thank you.”
Another voice chimed in. “Tulsi, you have to introduce me to this one.” Wendy’s eyes turned--she hadn’t even looked to see the candidate’s conversation partner--and saw a man who seemed to be in his fifties, gray suit--of course--and red tie.
Tulsi Gabbard flashed her campaign-trail smile and gestured to her. “August, this is my director of social-media outreach Wendy Fleming.” Her hand turned to the man. “Wendy, this is August Butler, a representative of the Apollo Group.”
Wendy tried not to let her face show her reaction as she reached out to shake his hand. The Apollo Group was an investment firm, one of the up-and-coming powers in Pacific Rim trading, and she knew that their help could well be one of the pieces that needed to fall into place to give the world President Tulsi Gabbard. Her mind was already establishing the Super-PAC into which their money would go and imagining the work that the ensuing advertising campaign would do when she realized that she hadn’t released his hand. She dropped it and began to apologize. “I’m so sorry, Sir!”
The man laughed, and she heard in it a good natured amusement. “Not to worry, Wendy. I know campaigning can wear even experienced operators like Tulsi here out. I can’t imagine you’re far removed from Princeton at this point.”
Wendy’s back stiffened in mock indignation, and she flashed a flirting smile. “Yale, thank you!”
Butler laughed again and turned to the candidate. “Well, Tulsi, you’re moving up in the world if you can afford Yale talent!”
“Wendy has been the absolute best these last several months. Without her we’d be dead in the water among the 18 to 24 demographic. As it stands, we’re contending with Bernie and Warren!”
“That really is impressive. Well, Wendy, if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk with President Gabbard for a few more minutes.”
Wendy smiled at him again. “Of course! Enjoy your evening, Sir.”
“Call me Gus. And thank you.”
Wendy disengaged and started to move through the room again, making small talk and keeping her ears open for more opportunities. Tulsi had been right--her work had closed the gap with the big names, save for Biden--but it was still good to hear her name dropped in the presence of power like that. Here eyes were up, her ears open, her mind racing as she continued to work the party.
A small handful of failed conversations later, Wendy felt a hand on her elbow, and she turned to see the Congresswoman. “Congresswoman! I’m sorry I didn’t see you!”
Gabbard’s eyes scanned the room before she spoke. “I need to talk with you outside for a moment.”
Wendy nodded silently and followed the Congresswoman. In her mind the evening started playing back in bits and pieces--what had she said that had gotten her in trouble? Would this be her last evening on the Gabbard campaign? What was going on? They made their way to a side hallway, and Gabbard turned to face her, once again scanning.
“Look, I respect you Wendy, and I respect that you have a strong sense of what’s right.”
What was this? Was she about to send her away?
“So what I’m going to ask you right now I want you to say yes or no based on what you think is right.”
Now things were definitely getting weird.
“August Butler has invited the two of us to his suite. He asked for you specifically.”
Ah. This was what was up. “Ms. Gabbard, I--”
“I would never demand this of you, Wendy, but he’s got his finger on the button that creates the biggest Super-PAC in the race, and that means national TV dominance. We could really win this thing.”
Wendy set her jaw. “You’re right that I know what’s wrong. This is wrong.” The Congresswoman’s eyes fell. “But I know that we’re never going to win this war if nobody steps up to be a soldier.” Gabbard’s dark eyes locked with Wendy’s. “If we want him out of the White House, that means somebody is going to have to make some sacrifices. Show me the way.”
They got in the elevator, and Gabbard produced a key that would take them beyond what the array of buttons would, up to the high-rollers’ suites. Wendy breathed deeply: she had been on bad one-night stands before. This would be just one more of those. The big difference would be that this bad one-night stand might unseat the most terrible man in the world. The door started to open, and she put on the most game face that she could find.
The Congresswoman led the way down the hall to the door of the suite. She knocked, and several intense seconds passed before the door opened. August Butler, hardly one to notice in a crowded room, welcomed them in and leered at Wendy.
“Let’s sit down and talk, shall we?” He gestured for Gabbard to sit on a chair in front of the television, then for Wendy to sit on a couch. “Can I get either of you something to drink?” When they both declined, he shrugged and poured himself a small bit of rum. He took a seat next to Wendy and sipped. “As you know, ladies, Apollo Group is very interested in the Congresswoman’s approach to foreign policy. If we can convince our investors that the USA is getting out of the business of foreign invasions and occupations, some opportunities open up for us that can’t get started as long as there’s a real chance of a missile strike responding to a bad Tweet.”
Both women laughed at his jokes--they knew they had to laugh at his jokes--and listened to him talk for a spell longer. But before long Wendy, who had never been in this kind of situation, got nervous and blurted out an impolite question: “Are you going to send her away before we do what we do?”
Gabbard’s brow furrowed at her, but Butler laughed out loud. “And what do you think we’re going to do, Wendy?”
“I’m young, Mr. Butler, but I know what this is. You’re the one who can flip the switch, so I’m your bonus for getting behind our campaign.”
Butler set his glass down. “And you have reservations about that.”
Wendy was already in trouble, she knew, so she decided to go all out. “I’m on this campaign to get a man like you out of the White House. I’m working for the Congresswoman so that America can keep taking men like you out of power and fighting for women’s dignity, not so that you can treat us as commodities!”
Another laugh from Butler. Gabbard looked horrified. “That’s good, Miss--” He gestured to her.
“Fleming.”
“Miss Fleming. And I know that day is coming. So here’s the thing: I want to enjoy this while I can. Some day, when you’re a Senator, you might have the firepower to take me down. But tonight your employer needs the access to power that I have and you don’t. So your day is coming, but tonight is mine.”
Tulsi Gabbard leaned forward to do damage control. “Mr. Butler, I do apologize for Wendy. We’ve been out campaigning for weeks without a break, and--”
“No, Congresswoman, I wouldn’t want Wendy to talk to me any other way. It’s going to make this even more fun.” Wendy had turned to glare at Gabbard, so she did not see his hands extend to grab her sides and squeeze. She jumped up off the couch, nearly tripping on her high heels, letting out a squeal as she did. August Butler howled in laughter at her surprise. Wendy wheeled on him.
“If we’re going to do this, send the Congresswoman away, and let’s get it over with. I’m not here to play games!”
Butler leaned back into the couch and smirked. “No, the Congresswoman is going to stay and watch, and you’re going to sit down on the couch with me.”
Wendy’s chest heaved in frustration as she looked back and forth between Butler and Gabbard. Somehow she hadn’t anticipated just how humiliating this would be. She sat down on the couch again. “Are we going to do this on the couch, then?”
Butler never stopped smiling. “I want you to turn and face the Congresswoman and put your hands on your knees.” She did, and she was very aware that as her bare shoulders moved forward, the hotel suite’s cool air was moving across the skin of her underarms. “Now I want you to tell her why it’s so important that she become president.”
Wendy stayed leaning forward but shut her eyes anxiously. “I’m not going to do that.”
“How important is this Super-PAC, Wendy? Tell Tulsi Gabbard why you're voting for her!”
She opened her eyes and stared laser beams into Tulsi Gabbard’s face. “I want you to be our first woman President, Congresswoman. I want America to--” Her dream for the country burst into a tickled scream as Butler’s hands reached under her arms and began to tickle. Her elbows snapped back to her sides, but his fingers already had their positions, and she writhed on the couch as he wiggled them into her ticklish skin. With her arms bent she couldn’t push off the couch, and she fell back into his body as he pressed and prodded her. As one leg kicked out her high-heel shoe flew across the suite’s living room, and her black-nylon-clad foot could now feel the room’s cool air. When he felt her body weight shift backwards, Butler pulled his hands out of her armpits and grabbed her right forearm with his left hand and pulled it across the front of her body. With her torso turned to the left, his right hand reached under her right arm again, and when she twisted violently to the right, responding to his ravenous hand, his left hand moved quickly to grab her hip and squeeze. She was now lying back on him, twisting and giggling and flailing in vain to keep his fingers from finding every ticklish place on her upper body and failing over and over again as he explored and tortured and tickled.
He wrapped his large arm around her waist and, pushing himself off the floor, pushed her down onto her back on the couch. Her hands came up to bat at him, but he pushed them away and brought his left hand down on her dress-covered belly in a claw. When the fingers found her abdomen, her knees shot up as they tickled. Her hands grasped in vain at his forearm, and his right hand somehow found its way under her arm again, making her attempts to control the abdominal claw even more vain.
Wendy had lost sight of Tulsi Gabbard; all that her senses had the capacity to process was the unstoppable ticklish onslaught that the older man was bringing to every part of her body above the waist, and every new spot that he found seemed to tickle more than the last. She could not stop giggling even to beg, much less to protest, and somehow this was much worse than what she thought she was coming up to his suite to do. In her ticklish throes, she had a moment of clarity, an insight into what made this so terrible: certainly she was no strangers to men’s hands, and certainly Yale boys had given her a poke or a squeeze that made her giggle, but those were just brief stops on the way to taking clothes off, then to coitus, then to sleep, nine times out of ten. This man, these hands--they did not seem to be on their way anywhere. All he wanted was to keep tickling, and to push the intensity of the tickling. The touching never stopped, never relented to unsnap a bra or lift a shirt or unbutton her jeans. The attack just kept pounding, and her body--though she never had occasion to know this before--just stayed ticklish even as each minute of tickling joined to the next. Plenty of sex-crazed college boys had tickled her, but this was a tickling-crazed man, and she had no way to anticipate what would come after the tickling or whether it would ever stop.
When the hands did depart her body, Butler stood up and left Wendy panting on the couch. He turned to the Congresswoman. “You see, Candidate Gabbard, this is the nature of national politics. If you assume you know what the most important voters want, you’ll miss the target every time.”
Wendy propped herself up on one elbow as she caught her breath and watched Butler edging closer to her boss.
“And once you know that, the only question is whether you’ll sacrifice one constituency for another. You see, every bloc can vote. But only some of them can put you over the top.”
Tulsi Gabbard shook off the shock that the spectacle had put her in. “What are you talking about now?”
“Apollo Group can start the wheels turning tomorrow to make this a two-candidate race. You versus Bernie. But I’m going to need you to give the order.”
“Okay. Start the Super-PAC.”
Butler turned to the side so that Wendy could see half of his face twist upward into a grin. “No, that’s the order I give. You need to order Wendy to put her feet in my lap.”
Wendy’s toes curled in terror. Her other shoe had come off in the melee, and she could only imagine what his fingers would feel like on her black nylon hose. Gabbard spoke up. “Come on, Gus, hasn’t she had enough?”
“If she’s had enough, then you’re on your own in Iowa. If you give the order, we can get your message to every television, phone, and video game console in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina starting in the morning.”
Wendy couldn’t take it any more. “Look, just come over here. Have your fun. We need those ads!”
Butler laughed the sadist’s chuckle. “Very noble, Wendy, and that makes this all the sweeter. But no, you can’t make this call.” He turned and faced Gabbard squarely. “This is an executive decision.”
Wendy watched Gabbard’s face tighten in agony, then rest on Wendy. “Go ahead and tickle her feet.”
“No, President Gabbard, you can’t give me orders. I'm your donor. Give her the order.”
Now Gabbard’s pride was on the line, and Wendy could see the rage just under the surface as Tulsi Gabbard said, “Wendy, put your feet in Mr. Butler’s lap.”
Wendy pushed herself up onto her bottom and scooted backwards against the couch’s arm, bending her knees to make room for Butler to sit down. He lowered himself onto the cushion and lifted his arms, and Wendy extended one long leg, then the next onto his lap. “You have no idea how much this is going to tickle, Miss Fleming.”
And within seconds she knew he was right: his fingers began scratching at the edge of her heel, and almost as a reflex her knee bent, drawing her foot out of his lap. She squealed as she jumped at his touch.
“Now Wendy, you don’t want this primary to hinge on a foot out of a lap, do you? Give me both of your feet, and let’s have some fun, alright?”
As she extended her leg again Wendy turned her head towards the Congresswoman, and she could see in her eyes the stirring of rage: she was imagining August Butler behind bars, and Wendy shared that vision. But then visions stopped, and the world became as small as the bottoms of Wendy Fleming’s feet. His hands only wanted one thing, to remake Wendy Fleming into a helpless, giggling play-toy, and with every inch of her skin abuzz with the terrible tickling before, they accomplished their mission within seconds. Her heels were Butler’s first obsession, and he taught her their whole perimeter with scratching and pinching, poking and stroking. Wendy’s head fell back on the couch’s padded arm as she sang out laughing, only to stop her song as new ticklish sensations slashed across her sole, making her scream at the new ticklish electricity before settling back down again into a bubbling giggle. On occasion a finger would slide between her toes, bunching up the hose and at once tickling up there and dragging the tickling material across her heel again.
He tickled and tickled, and Wendy, who only ever knew men to tickle so that they could get to other things, was once again overwhelmed at the sensuous, hilarious torture that he was visiting on her feet. Her hands balled up into fists and pounded the couch on either side of her hips, then lifted to cover her mouth, then grabbed the front of a couch cushion and the top of the couch’s back, squeezing in vain as he tickled her feet. And no matter how much her body wanted to escape, no matter what flight instincts wanted to get her poor feet away from this sadist, she kept her legs extended, that exertion of will making the tickling even worse. Her sense of time evaporated, and her whole existence fell into a flat, timeless tension between the endless tickling and the endless struggle not to pull her legs back.
But that Zen state did not persist: Wendy screamed as one of his hands moved up the couch towards her body, pinching behind her knee and making her legs kick wildly. She knew what it felt like for boys to tickle her there, but in this moment, August Butler had turned her whole body into one continuous field of ticklish nerve endings, and her knees felt like an electric shock had gone through them. His other hand, swift and ravenous, slid between her legs as she kicked, and sheer panic set in as he started squeezing her inner thigh. Her hands shot out to grab his arm, but she had no energy left, and his hand had its way with her thigh, which she believed in that moment must be the most ticklish spot on the most ticklish girl whom a man had ever tickled. She screamed and thrashed and writhed, and he did not slow or stop, and when she found herself alone on the couch, she looked up and saw Butler standing next to Gabbard, who still sat in the chair.
Wendy wondered when he had stopped tickling, when he had left her. She heard him talking to the Congresswoman. “Within 48 hours you should see your poll numbers climb so high that this will be a two-candidate race by New Year’s. The first three primaries should fall like dominoes.”
“That’s good, Mister Butler.”
“I’ll see you two in Iowa.”
FEBRUARY 2020: AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE
After 2016 nobody expected politics as usual, but these were strange results by any standard: Iowa had gone convincingly to Tulsi Gabbard, but Bernie Sanders had taken New Hampshire. Tulsi had come back in Nevada to establish herself as the front runner, but now Joe Biden was polling with overwhelming leads in South Carolina with four days left until the primary. All but five candidates--the ever-optimistic Elizabeth Warren and latecomer Mike Bloomberg were still in--had dropped out.
The news networks and social media were buzzing with chatter about the upcoming Super Tuesday primaries, a fourteen-state battle that stood to narrow the field of real contenders to two or even to establish one of the five as the presumptive candidate.
After a campaign stop near Charleston, Gabbard rode alone in the back seat of a black SUV towards the airport, but they turned off from the route a few miles early, eluding news reporters for the moment and heading for the beach suburb of Sullivan’s Island. She sent texts and read post-primary reports and projections for the next week, distracting herself from what awaited her at her meeting with Apollo Group, her campaign’s chief shadow-donor, and with August Butler, the man at the head of their account. By the time they pulled into the garage of one of the houses, nobody was following, and she knew that the time had come.
Gabbard stepped out of the vehicle and looked across to see her driver also emerging. This was no Secret Service agent or even a private bodyguard but her Director of Social Media Outreach Wendy Fleming. The two women had come alone, knowing that no news photographers could catch them at this sort of meeting.
As the garage door closed and the morning’s light narrowed to a thin band at the floor, a door to the house opened, and August Butler, in slacks and a polo shirt, stepped into the garage. “Good morning, Madam President!”
Gabbard glared. “Don’t make jokes, August. You said dominos. These first four would fall like dominos. But now people are talking about Comeback Joe, not any game of dominos!” Wendy cringed as she pulled a duffel bag out of the passenger seat.
“Not to fear, Tulsi! We have plans for this! Remember that you’re not like these other candidates: we actually have a plan to win the general. Once we remind California and Virginia and Texas of that, you’ll be on your way to that big stage in Milwaukee.” He stepped aside and gestured grandly to the doorway. “But we don’t need to have this conversation in the garage, do we? Come in!”
Gabbard was still doing the talking. “You’re alone here, right?”
“Only the Apollo Group knows that we own this house. We bought it through a shell company, a local tourist outfit. There’s no need to worry.”
Tulsi and then Wendy followed Butler into the house, and they made their way to a living room. Through the front window, between two houses across the way, Wendy could make out a sliver of Charleston Harbor.
Butler pointed down a hallway. “You can change into your gym clothes in any room down that way, Miss Fleming. We’ll wait for you here.” She looked to Gabbard, who nodded, and she withdrew with her bag.
Gabbard wheeled on Butler as soon as they were alone. “You’d better have a plan, Gus, or Biden and Sanders are going to turn this into an old men’s race!”
“Of course we do, Madam President. This is a game we don’t lose.”
“You’re reducing this to a game? We’re staring down a double-digit loss in South Carolina three days before Super Tuesday! Be serious!”
“Politics is the most serious of games, Miss Gabbard. But Wendy is returning, so you’ll find that out soon enough.” Wendy came out of the back room, dressed in form-fitting gym shorts and a loose-fitting cotton top over a sports bra. Butler beamed. “Welcome back, Wendy! I was just telling Candidate Gabbard about a game of sorts you two will be playing today.”
Wendy eyed him. “What game?”
Butler pulled two small envelopes out of his pocket, one marked “Candidate” and the other “Director.” He held one in each hand as Gabbard Fleming stood before him. “The paper in each of these envelopes describes a prize, and one of you will win today, and one of you will lose.”
He handed the envelopes to them and watched as they opened them, each pulling out a piece of paper and a pen. “As you no doubt see, the paper requires you to participate in our little contest. I’ll give you a moment to read and write.”
Wendy sat on one of the room’s couches and looked over her paper:
YOU WILL BE TICKLED FOR A DESIGNATED SPAN OF TIME, A TIME THAT YOU WILL NOT KNOW UNTIL IT ELAPSES OR YOU SURRENDER. IF YOU ENDURE FOR THE ENTIRE SPAN WITHOUT SAYING THE SECRET PHRASE OUT LOUD, AN INVESTMENT FIRM OWNED BY APOLLO GROUP WILL PAY OFF ALL OF YOUR STUDENT LOANS.
IF YOU SAY WHAT YOUR PRIZE IS DURING THE CONTEST, YOU FORFEIT THE PRIZE IMMEDIATELY.
Wendy gasped. Her student loans were Yale-sized, and she really anticipated paying them for years to come. She took the pen and wrote the first phrase that came to mind, an exam answer from a history exam: “Battle of Actium.”
Across the room Gabbard looked at her paper:
WENDY WILL BE TICKLED UNTIL SHE SURRENDERS BY SHOUTING THE SECRET PHRASE OR UNTIL YOU DECIDE THAT THE TICKLING WILL STOP. IF SHE SURRENDERS, YOUR FUNDING FOR THE REMAINDER OF PRIMARY SEASON WILL INCREASE BY A PERCENTAGE THAT YOU DESIGNATE IN THE BOX BELOW. IF YOU END THE TICKLING BEFORE SHE SURRENDERS, YOUR FUNDING FOR THE REMAINDER OF PRIMARY SEASON WILL DECREASE BY THE SAME PERCENTAGE.
IF YOU SAY WHAT YOUR PRIZE IS DURING THE CONTEST, YOU FORFEIT THE PRIZE IMMEDIATELY.
Gabbard’s smile stretched from ear to ear as she wrote “100%” in the box below. Whatever Wendy thought she was winning today, Gabbard was about to seize the opportunity to destroy the old men in every Super Tuesday state. She would watch her tickled until she surrendered without another thought about it.
Butler was watching both women and relishing “Let’s retire to the basement, shall we? We’ll have some privacy there.”
The three descended the stairs in the middle of the house to a TV room with a long sectional couch and a big-screen television. But what caught both of their eyes was a full-sized bed. The frame and mattress looked normal, but in this rec room it seemed entirely out of place. Butler led them to the bed, and Wendy sat down on the bed to take off her shoes and socks, knowing what awaited her here.
Gabbard decided to get in Wendy’s head. “Where are you going to tickle her first today, Gus?”
Butler was the one grinning now. “Why, Madam President, I’m not going to tickle Wendy just now. You are.”
Both women took in a deep breath as they looked at each other.
Wendy protested almost immediately. “You can’t do this! I did not agree to this!”
Butler’s grin would have remained had the rest of him disappeared. “You agreed to be tickled, Miss Fleming. The document did not designate a tickler.” The young woman stammered but ultimately knew that she was not going to win this. “Now Wendy, I will warn you that if you try to fight her off, there are penalties in this game.”
“Penalties?”
“Just be a good girl, and you’ll be fine. Madam President, you will designate how long the tickling goes on by tickling until you quit or until your opponent surrenders. Now get that secret from Agent Wendy!”
Gabbard set her jaw and slid shoes off of her feet without taking her eyes off of her staffer. Wendy, still sitting on the bed, held hands in front of her as the military veteran lowered her weight into a crouch. “Tusli, don’t do this! Please!”
Gabbard, dressed in traveling clothes, did not respond but dove onto the bed, eluding Wendy’s hands and shoulder-rolling past her. She grabbed the edge of the mattress and pulled her hips around, her leg wheeling high over Wendy’s head so that each foot was on one side of her. One shoe hit the ground as Gabbard got belly to back behind her staffer. Wendy tried to move herself away, but Gabbard’s legs grabbed Wendy’s midsection in a scissor hold from behind, and her other shoe came off and tumbled to the floor. Wendy’s hands instinctively tried to pry Gabbard’s legs off of her, but Tusli’s hands were in those armpits in a flash, and Wendy arched her back into her boss as she let out a squeal of surprise and melted into giggles. Gabbard was not as practiced as August Butler seemed to be, but she did have a politician’s attention to people’s reactions, and she remembered that initial assault back in Vegas, how Wendy’s defiance had disintegrated when Butler’s hands went under her arms.
Tulsi tickled until she could feel Wendy’s strength start to wane, and she rolled her staffer onto her side, moved her own leg out of the way, and grasped her side at the hip bone. Wendy flailed in vain, her own arms and legs unable to keep her boss from having her way with any ticklish spot she could find. Tulsi’s hands flashed here and then there, finding their way under Wendy’s arms, then squeezing a hip bone, then a knee, then a ticklish side. Wendy slapped weakly at her hands, but as the Congresswoman’s hands found one opening after another all the beautiful, giggling staffer could manage was to curl up on her side, her elbows pressed in to her sides and her knees almost up to her chin, and try not to shout the code word.
Tulsi could sense that Wendy was no longer going to defend herself, and she did not lose the opportunity: she shot one cruel hand under Wendy’s hip, between body and bed-sheets, and started a chain of staccato squeezes. Wendy’s rump shot off the mattress, and she got onto her elbows and knees to elude the tickling. Tulsi once again showed an athletic flash as she looped an arm under Wendy’s torso and hauled her up off the mattress, sliding one of the Congresswoman’s own legs under her and throwing her other leg over her back. She locked in a scissor-hold around Wendy’s thighs, and Wendy’s arms gave out, leaving her face-down and unable to leverage herself up. Tulsi, both hands free, pushed herself down the mattress away from Wendy’s head and re-established the scissors around Wendy’s calves. Wendy screamed; she knew what was coming, but she couldn’t turn herself over to make it stop. Tulsi squeezed strong legs around Wendy’s calves and sat up, her shoulders towering over Wendy’s squirming feet. With both hands she went to work, and Wendy screamed as Tulsi’s fingers started scratching at her heels.
She couldn’t maintain the scream long, though; all of the tickling that Tulsi had given her had worn down any ability to resist or protest, and soon all she could do was shake her head “no” and laugh wildly as Tulsi’s fingernails skittered across her soles, explored the spaces between her toes, and ignited every ticklish nerve on her feet. She could still see that life without the monthly loan payment in front of her, but it dimmed as Tulsi reduced the universe to the skin that she so masterfully and so mercifully tickled. Wendy’s eyes shut, and she knew that her body was going to betray her before long, that even Cleopatra was not going to save her from shouting out the battle of Actium.
But then things got worse. Gabbard released the scissor-hold and pushed herself back up on the bed. With strong hands she turned Wendy over onto her back, and Wendy felt her knees being pushed outwards, apart from each other. She felt Tusli’s strong legs against the insides of her own, and her knees came up as Tulsi’s calves pushed her own thighs outwards and Tulsi’s feet rested on her sides.
She couldn’t be.
But then the truth struck home: Tulsi’s toes dug into her sides, just below the ribs, and Wendy went through the roof. She couldn’t turn over. She couldn’t get away. Her shoulders tried to roll but couldn’t, and she screamed as Tulsi sat up, still tickling Wendy’s sides with her feet, and reached forward, cross-armed, to tickle Wendy’s exposed inner thighs.
With a burst of strength that only comes from desperation, Wendy reached out and pulled Tulsi’s left foot away from her side, and in the next moment, though she knew that it wouldn’t stop the torture, something made her start scratching at Tulsi’s sole. Tulsi’s grip slacked just for a moment as her boss, until this moment in total control, screamed as the energy that had been building on that bed suddenly got at her skin. She released her scissor-hold and sprang away from Wendy, who collapsed backwards onto the mattress. Wendy, a predator’s instinct suddenly awake, rolled sideways and reached out, her hands finding Gabbard’s side. Gabbard curled up and let out a ticklish squeal as her young campaign worker turned on her.
Both women heard a voice that they had forgotten in their intense encounter. “Now, now, Wendy, you know the rule. You just tickled the Congresswoman. Now you’re going to pay a penalty.”
Wendy did not hear a word of that--this was too much fun turning the tables. She continued to press her advantage and tickling Gabbard, and only when a foam-padded leather cuff wrapped around her wrist and clicked home did she break off the tickling. Butler pulled on the nylon rope trailing from the cuff, and Wendy fell backwards onto her bum. He pulled more, and she dropped onto her back. He snapped a handcuff at the rope’s other ehd onto one of the bed’s posts. Wendy pulled, but the rope held fast.
“Wait a minute! You can’t tie me up!” Butler calmly walked back to the chair where he had been sitting and pulled another cuffs-and-rope out of the bag. Wendy couldn’t remember the bag’s being there, but that was a secondary matter: she wheeled around and tried to kick out at Butler as he got close, but she was no fighter, and he brushed her legs aside and grabbed her wrist. Without much doubt as to the outcome, he had fastened the other padded cuff to her wrist and the other metal cuff to another bed post.
“Madam President, would you please fetch the remaining cuffs from my bag?” Gabbard, still beet-red from the embarrassment of bring tickled in front of this donor, complied immediately, and against Wendy’s attempts to kick away, they fixed her in a spread-eagle, face up, to the bed. Butler leaned in and whispered to her, inches from her face: “Remember, Wendy, you have the secret word to make this stop. But now Madam Congresswoman and I are both going to work on you!”
Gabbard needed no convincing; she walked towards Wendy’s feet with her fingers flexing.
“No, Madam President, I’m going to tickle her feet. And the customer is always right, remember?” Gabbard grinned and nodded. Butler gestured for her to take a place at Wendy’s waist, and Gabbard did. “And I’d be careful who finds out how ticklish you are, Tulsi. I’d hate for an enemy of the state to use that for leverage!” His hands came to rest on Wendy’s immobile soles. “Now Wendy, we’re going to tickle you like you’ve never been tickled before. We know just how ticklish you’ve been before, but even you have no idea how torturous this is going to be when you can’t cover up and can’t get away. You know how this is going to end: you’re going to say your magic word.” He licked his lips, and Wendy cringed. “But don’t give in too quickly, okay? I’ve been looking forward to this part.” He nodded to Gabbard, whose hands waited at the ready. “Take it home, Madam President!”
Wendy squealed as Tulsi’s hands began to squeeze her hips. The earlier tickling had prepped her too well, and she did not get the chance that she had visualized to stare down the candidate; instead her eyes shut, and her hips started writhing this way and that as she started to giggle at the sensations. This really was the worst that she had ever experienced: pull as she might at the ropes, Gabbard’s hands met no opposition as they squeezed at her hips then started wandering, unhindered, up under her cotton top to her sides and across her belly, which the shirt had exposed when her arms stretched over her head. Wendy thrashed and squirmed, but she could not cover up any of her most ticklish spots, and she could already feel the urge growing in her head to say the words that would end her humiliation.
Then Butler started in.
When Wendy thought about that moment in the days to come she was sure that Butler had tickled a hundred women before her: his fingers moved faster than anyone’s hands had ever tickled her, and they found spots on her feet that sent her through the roof at first touch and then spun her around, even though she was tied face-up, and melted her dignity in seconds. Even as her spirit wanted to resist, just to show this powerful man and Wendy’s globally-ambitious boss that she wasn’t so easy to break, she heard herself shout, “Battle of Actium!” maybe a minute after the two started to work her. Butler’s hands stopped immediately, and he did not delay a moment to call off Gabbard, whose frenzy might not have stopped tickling her.
Butler gently released the cuffs’ latches and let Wendy retreat to a side bedroom to change back into her traveling clothes. Wendy’s mind went back into professional mode quickly enough. Two rallies today, one in the afternoon and one at night. Then a meeting with a more conventional fundraiser, then on to the candidates’ debate, then editing video of the debate for online ads. She didn’t know how they were going to stretch their budget to compete with Bloomberg on the air in Texas and California, but on social media they should be strong.
Gabbard was already waiting in the SUV when Wendy emerged. Butler approached her as she made her way across the garage and took her by the arm. He leaned in and whispered: “Look for your budget to increase in the next twelve hours, and target the Facebook demographic in the three big states. Our Super PAC is going to hit Biden so hard he’ll forget which race he’s running in, and with Bernie we can just outnumber him with anyone who’s not a white college grad.”
Wendy looked her tormentor in the eye. “And then what? More tickling?”
“Let’s wrap up this nomination, and then we’ll see. Now that I know what kind of fun I can have with both of you, maybe there won’t be any penalties for fighting back next time!”
Wendy grinned as she climbed into the SUV and turned the key.
AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE, JULY 2020
One by one she had seen them rally to her: first the ancient socialist, then the law professor, then the rivals closer to her own age, then the multi-billionaire, and finally the last holdover from the Obama White House. One by one they had stood and backed her on national TV, here, the morning after the Democratic National Convention, Tulsi Gabbard was one election day from becoming the first woman to be the President of the United States of America, the most powerful woman in human history.
And yet she was in an unmarked vehicle headed out to the suburbs of Milwaukee, her location unknown.
Wendy Fleming, driving the vehicle, was the only one inside the campaign who knew why they were heading away from the public eye mere hours after the world’s attention had fixed on her for a five-month general campaign and then, with any luck, for a four-year administration. Wendy was thinking about the sudden doubling of her social-media budget mere hours after her ticklish morning in South Carolina, how she had obliterated the Boomers in the biggest states and leveraged Sanders and Warren into destroying each other in Massachussetts. Trade journals in the campaign business had claimed her time for interviews, when she had time free, and she had triumphally told them they’d have to wait--there was a campaign to run!
But she knew, and Tulsi knew, that nobody was telling August Butler to wait. The Apollo Group’s attache to their campaign, the political operator with an appetite for ticklish women, was waiting for them at another Apollo-Group-owned safe house on the shore of Lake Michigan, and this time the instructions involved Wendy’s packing a silk nightgown. And with the Apollo Group’s resources at stake, Wendy knew that she was not to say no. She was exhausted from the last evening of the convention, but here she was, just after midnight, driving her boss to the night’s big show, and Wendy knew what August Butler’s hands could do to her.
As Wendy turned the last corner that her GPS guided her to, she could see a garage door opening before she could even see the house number. Butler was waiting for them. She checked over her shoulder for anyone following--no, they were alone--and pulled into the garage. The door was already starting to close behind them, and she turned off the Prius.
Butler was nowhere to be seen, but as Wendy opened her door to step out, she heard a voice over an intercom: “Come in, and take the door on your left to the basement. We have some celebrating to do!”
Wendy looked over her shoulder at Tulsi Gabbard, still wearing her ball gown from the parties after the last evening of the convention and intoxicated by the evening and the prospects of becoming president. “Well, Madam President, let’s do this.”
“Wendy, I have to say it again: we could never have done this without you!”
Wendy looked down at the duffel bag in her hand. “Yeah, I guess it takes a dedicated team, doesn’t it?”
They went inside and down the stairs. On a giant-screen TV CNN analysts were going over the next several months’ likely debates and projecting the variables that might turn the election. August Butler stood and greeted them as they descended.
“Ladies! You’ve done it!”
Tulsi’s smile was a mile wide. “We’ve done it, August! And we’re going to get the rest of it done, too--and when I’m in that Oval Office, we’ll have you to thank!”
Butler held his hand up to signal a halt. “Stop right there, Madam President. As you know, there will be no thanking. We just need you to keep your promises to the voters. Apollo Group backed you because of who you are, not to sway policy.”
“Backed? Why are you talking in the past tense?”
“You’re right, you’re right. We’re still going to be partners all the way to November. And we’ve already got plans for that--we’re going to be in every midwestern Evangelical’s social-media feed playing sad stories of children at the border who need their mommies. We’re going to be hitting every beer-drinking father’s Facebook and making him afraid that Trump is coming specifically for his teenage daughter. But all of that is for the weeks to come. Right now, I’m ready to party! Wendy, there’s a room around the corner. You got my message, right?”
Wendy sighed and nodded. She stepped around the corner dutifully, preparing herself mentally for this maniac’s hands to be on her again. In the side bedroom she hung her suit carefully and folded her hose before she tucked them into her bag. As she slid the red silk nightgown over her body, its smooth fabric rubbed against her skin, and she could already feel the tickling that lay in store for her. In spite of herself, a shudder of delight ran down her back.
As she tucked her bag into the room’s closet to retrieve later, the door opened behind her, and Butler and Gabbard entered. Butler did not even bother to hide his leering as he looked Wendy’s young, lean, ticklish body over from her curly hair to her ticklish heels. He gestured to the bed, and suddenly Wendy realized that there were already fur-lined leather cuffs attached to its posts. They were standing in the room where the tickling was going to happen.
August Butler turned to Tulsi Gabbard. “Alright, Madam President, now it’s time for you to get ready.”
“I’ll be ready to start just as soon as we tie her up, Gus!”
Butler laughed. “No, Madam President, that was for primary-campaign money. This is the general election. The big leagues. I need you to strip down to your underwear and lie down so that we can get you ready to earn some real campaign funding!”
Gabbard’s face dropped into a frown of indignation. Wendy’s eyes lit up at the prospect. Gabbard growled: “There is no way I’m taking my clothes off for you, Butler.”
Butler backed up and put himself between the women and the door to prevent any premature exits. “You will if you want to be president. Just think of the history, Tulsi. As long as this nation persists, you’ll be the first woman to stand as commander in chief. Is that not worth a little tickle here and a little tickle there?” Wendy’s skin tingled as he said that word.
She walked to him and stood tall. “You must be out of your mind! I’ll win this election without you!”
“You and I both know that you won’t. The Bernie Bros resent you for taking away their guy’s last chance, and the DNC establishment isn’t going to get behind an anti-war candidate when they could let you crash and then build up Buttigieg for the next four years. But you don’t have to crash. We have the resources to take the evangelicals and the suburban moms and every demographic you need to win, Tulsi.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorpost. “All you have to do is seize this moment.”
Gabbard’s fists clenched. Wendy held her breath in anticipation. Tulsi’s dark eyes looked square into Wendy’s. “Unzip my dress.”
The social-media manager stepped behind the candidate. Gabbard’s spine stiffened. The rapid rip of a zipper descending was the only sound in the room. Gabbard’s hand shot to her own shoulder to start taking the dress off.
Butler’s hand went up again. “Slowly.” Gabbard’s indignation was palpable as she slowly let one shoulder-strap fall, then the other, then to shimmy out of the gown. Wendy, still shoeless in her own silk nightgown could not help smiling as Gabbard lowered herself onto the bed, and as she heard Butler click each cuff shut, she could remember in her own skin what Butler was about to do to the most powerful woman on the planet. One cuff. Two. Three. Four.
But the surprises were not done. Butler sat on the bed and turned to Wendy. “You do know what she wrote on that paper back in South Carolina, right?”
Wendy, suddenly aware that Butler was looking at her again, felt herself getting ticklish standing on the bedroom’s carpet. “Her secret phrase? What she was going to say if she gave up?”
Butler laughed and stood up. Wendy recoiled, her eyes on his hands. “No, Wendy, she was not going to lose, and if she did give up, she could just stop tickling you. No, the paper was a wager. Tulsi could have bet one percent of her Apollo Group funding or she could have bet all of it on whether or not you gave up.”
“What are you saying?”
“One hundred percent, Wendy. Before she knew that she was going to be tickling you, she bet every penny of her primary campaign funding on the fact that she was going to let me touch you until you surrendered. Nothing was going to make her call me off!”
Wendy’s eyes narrowed, and she leaned to the side to look at her hopeless candidate.
Gabbard’s neck strained forward, and she started to plead: “Wendy, there’s too much at stake to make this personal. With that money we beat Bloomberg! We shut down Biden!”
Wendy suddenly stepped towards Tulsi. “And you were willing to sacrifice me--my body--to satisfy your ambition, right?”
Butler laughed. “That’s right, Wendy! But you found out something about Tulsi Gabbard that morning, didn’t you? Just how much you could turn those tables if you had the chance, right? Just how ticklish she could be if she were the one tied to a bed…”
Wendy did not wait to hear any official instructions. She stepped around Butler and moved straight to Gabbard’s left foot. Gabbard’s defiance immediately turned to panic: “Wendy! No!” But the young social-media director was not going to lose this chance. She grabbed Gabbard’s ankle and began furiously to tickle her silk-sheathed sole. Gabbard screamed and twisted, but she had nowhere to go and no way to get Wendy’s fingers to stop. Wendy’s fingers ran wild over Tulsi’s skin, and Gabbard fell into a desperate laugh, discovering that she had no ability to hold in the giggling if she could not escape the touching. Wendy’s hands released, and she climbed onto the bed on all fours, her bottom in the air in a feline prowl as she approached Tulsi’s navel. Wendy Fleming sat back on her heels, and her hands went to Tulsi’s inner thigh and side. She attacked the sensitive skin here and the smooth hose there, and Gabbard squealed in an undeniable alto as her body writhed from side to side. Wendy was only half-conscious as she tickled Gabbard’s belly and ribs and eventually landed in her underarms, the young staffer’s hands wreaking revenge that she had dreamed of since South Carolina. Gabbard’s body started jumping like a fireworks show. Her eyes clenched shut and face reddened as every ticklish spot Wendy touched brought her laughter into higher pitches, then back down as she continued to work the spot.
Wendy’s hands settled in just below Gabbard’s ribs, squeezing and pinching, and Gabbard was almost out of body as she strained vainly to bring her arms down or her legs up or anything to bear so that she could just cover up that spot, keep her cruel social-media manager’s hands from forcing another laugh from between her lips. Gabbard’s hips bucked up and down with each squeeze, and Wendy drank in every ticklish scream that she let out, knowing that her student loans were not going away but that she would have this revenge anyway. She had seen Tulsi Gabbard tired and impatient and frustrated and--in those two fateful meetings with Butler, as she watched Wendy’s own ticklish torture--maybe even aroused, but this was something different: now Wendy Fleming had power over Tulsi Gabbard, the next president of the United States, and as her hands spidered their way down to her hips, past them to her inner thighs, then to her knees, she knew that there was a reckoning coming when she returned to Tulsi Gabbard’s feet. She had never done this to another woman, but something deep within told her that the feet, when she really focused on them, were going to be worth their weight in gold, something beyond money or prestige.
Wendy licked her lips as she got lower and saw Gabbard’s eyes widen. Now is my time! But tickling can give a girl tunnel vision, and when Butler’s hands dug into Wendy’s sides, she had no idea he had closed the distance behind her. She screamed as his fingers probed and poked and clawed at the silk covering her silk-covered skin. She fell to her side onto the bed, Tulsi’s right foot in front of her face, Butler’s hands squeezing her hips, more ticklish than she ever remembered being in Las Vegas or in Charleston. A paw pinned her shoulder to the mattress, and she could feel Gabbard’s foot against the top of her head, and the other hand turned into an iron claw, grabbing a fistful of her midsection. Wendy’s knees shot up, and her hands grabbed feebly at his strong arm, leaving her underarm open for him to slide a hand into her armpit and make her scream again. The hands withdrew like lightning departing from the strike and came down again, this time grabbing her sides just below the ribs and pulsing with frenzied squeezes. Wendy’s legs circled in a quick bicycle motion, kicking in vain at the air. Butler kept tickling. Ramped up by her own ticklish aggression, she knew that Butler had weaponized her own nervous system against her, and there was nothing she could do but laugh as he tickled her without mercy.
Wendy felt Butler’s fingers come to rest on her belly: four fingers grasped her side, and his thumb rested inches from her navel. She instinctively grabbed is forearm, but she could not budge it. His other hand once again pinned her shoulder.
“Oh, my, that was gratifying.” His eyes went up to Gabbard, and Wendy’s followed. Her terror was written all over her face as she watched her young protege tortured, unable to move to stop the torment and knowing that it could come back on her at any moment. “As you can feel, Wendy, you’re at this moment more ticklish than you’ve ever been. So I want you to listen to me closely.” His grip tightened for just a moment, and Wendy whimpered at the ticklish squeeze. “I’m going to let you tickle Madam President’s feet as much as you need right now to exact your revenge. In fact, you are going to tickle her until she promises to pleasure you with her tongue.”
Tulsi’s mouth opened in horror and disgust. “Butler! Don’t you dare--”
Butler squeezed Wendy’s side harder, and she let out a squeal at the tickling. “If you stop before she begs you to let her do so, I’m coming back over here, and I’m going to tie you to the bed, and I’m going to tickle your feet again while Madam President gets you back for this.” Wendy cringed as she remembered the truly monstrous way that his fingers on her soles betrayed her will and her dignity.
Wendy swallowed. “If she promises, do I have to let her…” Her voice trailed off.
“No, I just want her to make that promise. And I think your feet are ticklish enough that you’ll find the Candidate’s spots easily enough.” With that Butler sat up, releasing Wendy, and walked over to his chair and sat down again. “You may begin immediately.”
Wendy took a big breath in, then exhaled and grabbed Tulsi’s left ankle. Tulsi’s eyes were no longer defiant but desperate. “Wendy, please don’t do this!” But Wendy had too many reasons to do this. Her fear of Butler’s hands immediately joined forces with her wounded dignity as her fingers started to scratch a zig-zag waterfall down the sole, and they did not fail to drive her perceptive ears and hands to find indeed every spot on that foot that most tormented the future president of these United States. Gabbard screamed and laughed, squealed and giggled and begged, and as Wendy felt the power that comes from making such a powerful person beg, a third sensation joined in to reinforce the other two. She tickled that silk-covered foot until Gabbard was incoherent, but there was still no promise, no indecent plea that would give Wendy a reason to stop.
Wendy released the ankle and raised herself off the bed. She gave a hop and a twirl as she made her way to the bed’s other corner. “So what do you think, Tulsi? Do you want to experiment with me?” She gave Gabbard’s sole a ticklish, trailing stroke with her finger, a quick pass from toes to heel, and Gabbard’s face creased into a face that was struggling between pleasure and surrender and horror at what would come next. “Oh, you’re just too ticklish to take much more of this, aren’t you?”
“Please, Wendy!”
“Please what?” She used three fingers to tickle the heel, and Gabbard’s face could not stop the laugh that broke up her begging.
“Please…”
“Oh, I see! You really want to lick me, don’t you? You’ve always liked looking at me, but now you’re just so ticklish that you might just ask out loud, hmm?”
“Wendy, I never…”
“Never had the courage to say what you want when you’re with me? Come on, Tulsi. You know you can have what you want if you only ask!” She plucked Tulsi’s toe and pulled it upwards and backwards. Tulsi’s eyes followed her hand as Wendy prepared to launch another merciless round of tickling.
“Please! Let me do it!”
Wendy scratched at Tulsi’s sole, and she screamed. “Let me do what?”
“Let me pleasure you with my tongue!”
Wendy crossed her ankles and gave a curtsy Butler’s way. “I knew you always wanted that! But that’s not what I want, Tulsi!” And with that she started to tickle Tulsi’s right foot, and Gabbard was beyond torment. Wendy’s hands scratched and rubbed that foot, and as Tulsi’s humiliation added an undeniable savor to the sound of her laughter, Wendy began to tickle her ankle, then her knee, and then move up towards her inner thighs again.
And this time, when Butler grabbed Wendy from behind, Wendy was pretty sure she would have promised any humiliation to make his hands stop. Her body, sore underneath the silk from laughing, nonetheless fell onto the bed between Tulsi’s legs, and Butler hooked her knees to hold her still while he clawed at her midsection. Tulsi gasped to regain her breath as Butler tickled Wendy, and neither woman knew how much time had passed before he stood up, leaving both women catching their breath.
He pointed to Wendy. “Stand up, Wendy, and get ready to tickle her upper body. If you stop, I’m going to abandon her feet and restrain you, and you know you can’t take that right now.” Wendy obeyed instantly, taking her position. “Now, Madam President, Wendy is going to get you laughing until you can’t stop, and then, when you’ve got no will to resist, I’m going to start tickling your feet. I’m not going to stop until your will is broken, and then I’m going to keep tickling!”
“No... no…”
“Wendy, you may begin.” Wendy’s hands dug into Tulsi’s underarms, and she screamed. She had no sense of how much time passed before Butler began to tickle her feet, but it was everything that she imagined, terrified, back in South Carolina as she had watched him turn Wendy into a puddle. Her next memory of that night was watching Butler hand Wendy the key to the cuffs.
“Look for regular support from our Super PACs for the rest of the campaign. You’re going to hand this guy’s butt to him.”
Tulsi, through the haze, managed to feel pride at Wendy’s response. “You’re not going to get any policy favors for this, you know.”
“Nor would we ask for any. Apollo Group has substantial interests in keeping America out of Middle Eastern armed conflict. If another candidate were more likely to serve that purpose, we would have backed that candidate. But the video wouldn’t have been as good!”
Wendy stopped unfastening the cuff as she processed that last sentence. “Video?”
As Wendy started to unfasten again, Butler produced a large-screen phone from his pocket. After a few taps he turned the screen around so that the women could see. Their eyes both went wide as they watched Presidential Candidate Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii tickling a young woman tied to a bed. Butler’s grin was unstoppable. “Of course, tonight’s video, with Tulsi getting hers and promising oral sex, is going to be even better.”
Gabbard was furious. “You’re not going to blackmail any policy out of me with this!”
“Of course we’re not. As I said, you were already disinclined to invade Middle-Eastern countries. And we just need you to be you on that front. But if you ever get the idea that you’re going to turn on Apollo Group, for hash-tag me-too or whatever else, I just want to remind you that men can get away with sex scandals. A woman president who’s into S&M? We wouldn’t want that getting out, would we?”
Butler pocketed the phone and dashed up the stairs with a speed that would have astonished the women, had they been paying attention. With the fourth cuff loosed, Tulsi Gabbard, in her underwear and hose, dashed up the stairs, followed by her young social-media manager in pursuit.
As they reached the top of the stairs, they saw that the giant-screen TV was no longer tuned to the news but displaying a video feed of the room, with a presidential candidate in her underwear and a campaign worker in a nightgown, in big-screen glory. Wendy spotted the camera and started to move towards it, but just as she did, the TV changed, displaying the South Carolina tickling session.
Across the bottom of the screen a chiron crawled: “CAN YOU IMAGINE THE HEADLINES?”
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