Here's the third of the current Dr. Smith quartet. If you want to see the previous episodes, here's the original trilogy:
http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?97720-A-Philosophic-Tickle-(m-f-teacher-student)
http://www.ticklingforum.com/showth...-Ticke-Secunda-Pars-(m-f-f-f-student-teacher)
http://www.ticklingforum.com/showth...Tickle-Tertia-Pars-(m-f-ff-f-teacher-student)
And here are parts one and two of this quartet:
http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?313714-Philosophic-Tickle-Cursus-Ruber-Prima-Pars-(m-f)
http://www.ticklingforum.com/showth...sophic-Tickle-Cursus-Ruber-Secunda-Pars-(m-f)
But I think this story can stand alone if you want to start here. Either way, leave a comment!
KI
Philosophic Tickles: Cursus Ruber, Tertia Pars
by
Kid Indy
When the working people of a small town depart for suburbs and cities and work, the elderly stick around. The once-thriving town of Oakland City, Indiana had shuttered much of its main street when the coal miners' unions lost their long war with Washington, but there were still elderly people to take care of and government money for doing so, and Dr. Smith soon discovered the normal lunch-hour haunt of the area's Assisted Living and Nursing Home staff. Denny's had all the trappings of a corporate breakfast-shop chain, but the food was inexpensive, and the management let staff come in with their sack lunches, so long as most of the people at the table ordered some food.
Smith made himself a regular at the diner for a few days running, making sure to walk in a few minutes after the big group from the home so that he would have to sit at a small table nearby. He had his favorite--a young African American woman--picked out, and after a few days of chatter about the patients and their complaints, he finally heard a key turning.
"I know she would love it, but those dance classes are expensive!"
"Yeah, and then there's the costumes!"
"I know I should get back to school and get my nursing degree, but by the time I do that, she's going to be too old to start this up."
A waitress refilled someone's Diet Coke. "You just need to hit the lottery, honey." The table of women in their scrubs nodded their heads. Another chimed in: “Or find a man with some money!” The laughs that went around the table told Smith just how rare those must have been in a town like this. After a few more minutes of conversation, the group started to pay their tabs and disperse. Smith noted that, for the third consecutive day, his favorite paid only for a drink and carried a reusable lunch bag out of the restaurant.
Smith made his way to the small public library across the street from the nursing home where she worked, and he settled in with a book and started reading.
At 4:15, right on schedule, in came the nursing home darling and her daughter. Smith guessed that she must be about five years old (the daughter, not the mother). The little girl once again zipped to the kids’ books about dancing and started to pull them. Smith could see the mother’s sadness as the inevitable questions started: can she take dance classes in Evansville? Why not? Why don’t we have the money?
After the exchange abated, the little girl settled in at a small table, looking at her dancing books, and the mother wandered over to the magazine rack. Smith made his way next to her and stood, looking at news magazines and noting that she was more interested in parenting selections.
“I couldn’t help but overhear your daughter’s interest in dance. Are there any studios in Evansville?”
She looked at him with momentary suspicion but then availed herself of the sympathetic ear. “There’s places we could get to, but they’re expensive. Her dad left when she was born, and he stopped sending child support. We just don’t have the money.”
“I’m new in town, but I do know that there are organizations that help fund kids in the arts.”
“I don’t want to take out any loans.”
“No loans--it’s completely funded.”
“Is there a website or something?”
“Those organizations are out there, yes, but this one doesn’t advertise very much--but I could meet you and let you see what they have to offer.”
She eyed him suspiciously.
“I’m sorry--I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Dr. Smith, and I’m one of the directors of the Midwest Youth Arts Foundation.” He extended his hand.
Her look softened, and she shook the hand. “I’m Sierra. Hey, could you meet me at the Denny’s here in town after I drop Diamond off with my mom? Maybe around 7:30 tomorrow morning?”
Smith grinned. “Yes, I think I know the place.”
* * * * * * *
Sierra glared, but she had not yet entered her car. “You said you were with a youth foundation! You lied!”
“Do you want your daughter to have this opportunity? To have this in her life so she does better in school?”
She set her face against him again, but still she did not get in her car. “I’m not some kind of-- Some kind of--”
“Nobody’s asking you to be some kind of anything.” Smith reached into his pocket and produced a stack of bills. “I can set your daughter up for a year of dance classes in Evansville this week, and I can help you get an independent-student scholarship at Oakland City University to get your degree. And I’m not asking for anything more than what I’ll pay you for.”
Smith had learned what it looked like for a young woman to see a dream in her mind’s eye, and Sierra was dreaming as she leaned on her car door. “Does it have to be tickling?”
“Tickling only. Nothing illegal, nothing immoral. Just laugh for me, and you and your daughter can have what you want.”
She looked at the ground. “Do you have to tickle my feet?”
“Oh, I don’t have to, but I want to. I’ll tell you what: come back here after your shift ends tonight, and we can discuss terms.” Before she could enter her car, he had walked over to his and started driving towards the Diplomat Motel. He grinned from ear to ear as he glanced in his rear-view mirror: she still hadn’t gotten in her car.
* * * * * * *
He parked two blocks away from the house she rented not long after the sun went down. The first time he got close to her house he could feel eyes watching him from a nearby house, so he kept walking until he got to a small neighborhood diner. He went inside and waited, then emerged and walked back towards her place. He could see a flat-screen TV glowing in the house that had been watching before, and he knew he was unseen. He walked around to a back door and knocked.
The door’s curtains pulled to one side, then the doorknob turned. He was in.
He looked around and saw a place that was tidy even if not fancy. Sierra disappeared around the corner, and he heard her call back to him, “Let me change again. I didn’t know whether you were coming or not, so I was getting ready to sit and watch TV.”
“Someone was watching me come down the street,” he answered, “I wanted to make sure nobody saw me come in, as you requested.”
A minute or two passed, and she emerged in her newly-bought red silk nightgown, a piece that barely covered her bottom (as he requested) and whose material fluttered in the house’s low light as she made her way into the living room.
“You like what you see?”
“Oh yes, I like what I see. Do you want to do this in here, in your bedroom, or somewhere else?”
“Let me see the money.”
Dutifully he reached into his pocket, showed her that he had ten, twenty-dollar bills, and put them back in his pocket. “I’ll have another stack like this every time I come over. Six visits should cover class fees for a year plus her costumes.”
She looked out her front window and backed up towards the hallway. “Let’s do this in the back room.”
She led him to a small bedroom, and he could tell by the “Princess's Room” sign that they passed on the way where the daughter slept. Two days before they had arranged that Diamond would stay with her grandparents in Evansville for the night so that he could come over and that they would find times and places after that.
Her bed was made--that was a good sign--with an inexpensive but nice-looking comforter. Her feet were already bare, and he took his own shoes off out of courtesy for her bed. “How would you like to start, lying down or sitting up?”
“Why do you care?”
“I want you to enjoy this too--it’s better for both of us that way.”
She glared at him again. “I’m not doing this because I enjoy it. I’m doing it so that you help me with Diamond’s dance classes and my college classes.”
He stepped closer to her, and she stood up straight to him. He tried to respond in a calming tone. “And your daughter is going to love you for it. But this is your night, not hers. So do you want to start on your back, lying on your belly, or sitting up?”
She walked past him, and the brush of the silk through the air was already exciting him. She sat down on the edge of the bed. He grinned and sat beside her. She hugged herself, her elbows pressed tightly against her sides. “Oh, Sierra, you don’t even know how much fun this is going to be for me.” He reached down and cradled her calf in his hand and guided her right leg across his lap. Her left leg remained down, and she managed to stretch and keep the ball of her left foot on the carpeted floor. He hooked his left arm under her knee and grasped her lower calf with his hand, and he turned his neck back to her just before his right hand started to stroke her right sole.
Her voice rose in a muffled squeal as she tried to keep her mouth closed. That was with just one finger, moving slowly. He added two more fingers and sped up, and she screamed at the tickling. Her arms shot forward in alarm and tried to reach across his body, around his left shoulder to grab at his hand. Bent nearly in half, she got both of her hands around his right forearm. Smith let her foot drop to the ground, and her upper body, anchored by her own grip, leaned across his legs. When her hands released his arm to gain her balance, as fast as he could move he grabbed her silk-covered waist with both hands and squeezed greedily, and she planted her feet on the ground, pushing her bottom off the mattress’s edge. Smith shifted his grip to maneuver her backwards, towards the center of the bed, and the two tumbled together onto the soft landing pad. With Sierra on her back, Smith spread his left hand into a giant claw and landed his palm lightly on her tummy, five fingers now kneading and tickling. Her knees came up, and her hands again reached for his forearm, but she had no leverage, and he managed to get his knees down on the mattress to increase his own. His right hand, once his legs were underneath him, was free, and it found the back of her knee as she kicked at the air. As he secured a grip there, every squeeze told him that he had found a young woman as ticklish as any he had ever met--her legs continued to flail, and his tickling squeezes brought her to a steady, beautiful laugh that he could rev up with every new squeeze. One hand left her tummy and squeezed a hip--more treasure! Both hands leapt to grab her sides at the bottom of her ribs--another eruption!
Whatever strength her arms might have had--and her body did have an athleticism that made all of this even more satisfying--departed from her as he found ticklish spot after ticklish spot, and when his large left hand caught both of her wrists and pulled upwards, she did not have the power to resist as his right hand found its way to her underarm and discovered skin as ticklish as anything else he had explored. He released her wrists, and predictably her right hand tried to cross her body to restrain his tickling fingers. With her other underarm exposed, Smith immediately had both of his hands in her underarms, and her feet kicked at the summer air as he tortured her and drank in her laughter and her squeals. He dwelled there for some time, and he could feel her kicks get less energetic as his well-practiced hands continued to make her laugh.
When he could feel a genuine loss of power to fight back, he pulled his hands out of her underarms and watched her arms cross over her chest. For several minutes Sierra had been laughing loudly as the older man tormented her most sensitive skin, and she panted as he leaned in close to her ear and began to whisper. “So many ticklish spots! This is going to be a great hour, Sierra!” She was still panting, but Smith could hear her pull in a gasp as his hands settled on her silky hips and begin slowly to trace where the nightgown covered her panty line. She seemed instinctively to know that he was going to let her rest from the violent laughter that his fast and relentless tickling would continue to extract but only if she lay still for this slower, more sensuous exploration of her ticklish hips.
This time, instead of her loud and irresistible laughter, Smith heard low moans as one hand’s index finger slowly, knowingly traced a line from her hip bone to underneath her navel and up to the other hip. One of her hands instinctively reached down to meet it, but Smith’s other hand intercepted it and guided her wrist gently so that her arm extended and bent upwards, a graceful repose along the pillow that he had moved under her head. With that arm posed on the mattress, Smith’s hand moved upwards and began to circle her navel as the other hand started to trace a line down her upper arm, through her underarm, and down her silky side. Sierra cooed as her ticklish skin, super-charged by minutes of physical tickling play, jumped at the deliberate touches of the master tickler.
He had not broken his promise in the parking lot--neither hand had touched her breasts or even touched her panties, much less reached within--yet these slow, ticklish tracings were accelerating something in her body, something that the young man who gave her Diamond had never stirred. Her moaning got louder, and Smith’s own body, though aging, was fully awake. He had no intention of taking off his clothes, but he had to marshal all of his restraint not to ruin his clothes as he tickled her. When one hand started to trace soft lines along her inner thigh, her knees clamped together, and Smith’s face, a moment before in a sort of reverie, suddenly bent into a devil’s grin. His hand that had been working with one finger, leaving phantom trails along her upper body, hardened into a claw and seized her side, and almost instantly she fell to full-bodied laughter again. Her knees kicked up once more, and his hand still resting on her thigh began to knead with frenzied speed. Her body, rested for several minutes for the slow tickling, sprang into motion as he tickled her well-shaped leg, and her hips began to buck and twist and try to get away from his terrible hand.
Smith had hoped that her bottom would come off the mattress, and on one of its hops his hands moved in swift concert to grab her at her hips and turn her over onto her tummy. Now her hands could not get to his, and as one diabolical hand slid between her thighs, the other grabbed a glutton’s portion of her side, and Sierra’s fists pounded the mattress as he worked her terribly ticklish inner thigh with terribly gentle yet firm squeezing. The hand tickling her side kept her from getting her arms involved, and she screamed at his new attack, giving way soon from screams to the laughter that Smith had already come to crave.
His hands moved away from her body and planted on the mattress on either side of her body. She seemed to realize what was happening and attempted to move away, but with a quick vaulting motion his knees were on either side of her bottom, and each of his hands grabbed on of her wrists, which themselves had planted on the mattress to attempt to push up and out of her prone predicament. He pulled them up above her head again, then spidered them down the undersides of her arms, setting off another ticklish squeal. Now she had no chance of moving his body weight off of her, her muscles weakened and his body much bigger. His hands were feasting under her arms, and she had nowhere to go but crazy.
His hands stopped. She could still feel his fingertips resting against her skin under her arms, but they were not moving. He leaned down, still sitting astride her, and spoke softly, but not at a whisper, into her ear: “I want to take my time on those feet now.”
* * * * * * *
Sierra giggled and tried not to kick. The glare of a car’s windshield outside shone in her face, and she hoped this would end soon. The salon worker, a Vietnamese woman who spent the whole time chattering in her own language to her family working with other customers, kept a firm grip as she made her way through the pedicure. Sierra’s skin, getting softer with each treatment, were sensitive even when she didn’t intentionally make them so, and she bit her lower lip trying to keep from screaming as yet another instrument of torture prepared her toes.
She had been to salons, of course, but never this kind of nail shop, and certainly she had never received the royal treatment she was getting today--when she walked in, the young lady at the front desk recognized her from a photograph that Smith had left, and he had prepaid for what her tormentor would only call “this special treatment.” She had no point of comparison, but her fear of course was that Smith did know about such things and was getting her feet so sensitive that she wouldn’t be able to take it.
Her leg kicked involuntarily as another ticklish shock shot up her leg, and the Vietnamese lady working on her laughed. She broke into heavily-accented English. “I would tell you not to let anyone tickle these feet, but I don’t think you’d be getting the special treatment if someone didn’t want to do that!”
Sierra gave the girl a horrified look. She knew this was for the sake of tickling! As the preparation went on, she reached over to the counter and picked up the brochure for the Jazz, Modern and Ballet Studio of Southern Indiana. Her eyes squinted as she resisted the urge to squeal again, but she kept her eyes focused on the pictures of young girls dancing into their dreams.
“That’s Diamond.”
Yes, she thought, as she clenched her teeth and fought off another ticklish pass, that’s Diamond.
* * * * * * *
“I felt how hard you kicked when I started out on that foot, and now it’s time to take those feet slowly.”
“Please, I don’t think I can take it!”
“Alright, then, back to what we were doing!” His fingers didn’t change position; they just jumped into motion, and Sierra screamed her way into a tortured laugh. As she felt her power to pull her elbows to her sides subside, his hands left her underarms, pushed himself off the mattress, and attacked her lower ribs as his legs landed lower, still straddling her legs. Now his hands were on silk instead of skin, but their rapid travels turned the silk into one giant electrically-charged surface, and the nightgown amplified his tickling touch. He worked her sides until she was gasping with laughter, and when she thought she was going to faint, his hands planted on the mattress again, and with a vaulting motion he jumped off of her body and onto the mattress next to her. His hands shot forward, each grabbing at one of her hips. With her body suddenly free but entirely exhausted, her knees came up underneath her and shot her hips and bottom straight up towards the ceiling. Smith’s hands squeezed at her hips, and she promptly fell over sideways, her knees now coming up nearly to her chest as she rolled up into a fetal position. Only one of Smith’s hands was working on her hip now, but the other quickly found a place back up on her ribs. With his two hungry claws working her side, Sierra had no strength to flail about; she could only roll into her ball and laugh as he tickled her body beyond what she could ever remember being tickled. Then only one hand remained, and its work was terrible enough that Sierra’s eyes stayed closed as she laughed and squealed.
Then she felt something on her wrist.
It felt something like putting on a winter coat, but it only extended from her wrist down to part of her forearm. Her eyes shot open as both of Smith’s hands went to the fur-lined cuff. She tried to pull away, but it was too late: a latch clicked, and her hand was in the cuff. She felt it pull against her muscles, and she resisted in vain as he connected a metal cuff to one of the metal tubes of her headboard. Where he had been hiding these cuffs she did not know, but he had another in his hand, and she frantically reached over to try to disengage the one holding her left wrist.
Smith was faster, and he soon overpowered her right arm, then secured it to the headboard. Sierra now could not bring her arms to her sides, and she looked with terror as Smith took two long scarves out of the bag at the side of the bed and set them on the bed beside her.
“Now let’s think about those feet, shall we?”
She started kicking her legs in the air, knowing somehow that the gesture was futile but terrified nonetheless of the tickling that was to come. But Smith was in no hurry: his hands did not go to the scarves but to Sierra’s side, tracing tickling fingers all around the smooth silk and replacing her frightened pleading with more laughter. What before was utter torture was now all she wanted: as long as she was tickling her sides, and then her tummy, and then her waist again, he wasn’t on her feet. She let herself go and laughed with abandon, vainly hoping to distract him from her feet.
But that was not going to last forever.
When he picked up the first scarf, she had become so tired from laughing that she could not even kick at him as he swiftly wrapped her calf and ankle, then secured the ends of the scarf to the footboard. Her fourth limb tried to pull away from his grasp, but she had nothing left for resistance. As he took his place at the corner of the bed, a look of triumph told Sierra that everything was building up to this moment.
He grasped the big toe of her left foot with a thumb and forefinger and pulled it up, towards the ceiling. She could feel her pedicure-softened skin stretch in the apartment’s cool air. This was not like before, when she could get to his arms and fight back. The moment stretched out agonizingly, and she pulled in vain at her wrist-cuffs.
“This is going to be exquisite.”
For Sierra, it was not: as he started tracing lines across her sole, it was torture: every part of her body wanted to kick out, to escape, to flee from those terrible fingertips, but there was nowhere to go, and as she gave a thought to refusing to laugh, just to maintain some dignity in the moment, she heard herself laughing, and the absurdity of it overtook her resistance immediately. Her shoulders pressed backwards and her hips upwards, and she squealed as her midsection started laughing, then her lungs, then her mouth. His hands traveled deliberate paths, not hurrying to get past any part of her sole but dwelling, swirling, stroking every inch. The ball of her foot and the bases of her toes made the world shrink to just that bed, to her and Smith, and then to just the skin between her toes that his strong fingers already loved. Then he would move back to her sole, rubbing and scratching ever so lightly, and her whole body was just the bottom of her foot. And when he danced along the border of her heel, she could almost imagine the electricity running from that skin up to her laughing belly and pushing air out of her lungs, pulling the cool air into her mouth.
She started to hear the music of her own laughter, and she began to imagine promising him things. What she would do for him if he’d only stop. What she’d give him if he’d only do what every other boy wanted to do after he tickled her a little, what would no doubt give her another child in the house. But she did not promise, and she did not dream. She only laughed, knowing in a way that only the sole of that foot could know that this was not a prelude to sex; this was something very different, something that had only begun.
When he stopped on that foot, she could suddenly feel the sweat that had been building up all over her body. She panted for air, and she could see the devil in his eyes as he grinned and moved to the other foot.
She still did not promise. She could only make out one syllable.
“Please.”
He licked his lips.
“Please!”
He pulled back the big toe of her other foot.
“Please!”
Her other sole exploded into tickling sensations, and her hips bucked in vain as he started doing the work that his hands found to do. She wasn’t even trying not to laugh now, but she wasn’t willingly laughing either; she simply found herself flying, her legs doing mini-kicks and her torso twisting as far as her shoulders and hips would let her and laughing. She laughed at everything that the world had to offer, and she laughed at every new spark that his fingers drew from her feet. His skin was warm on hers, and she giggled and squealed and moaned as the tickling stretched farther than any encounter with any man had ever stretched for her. He tickled every part of the bottom of her foot, from the edge of her heel to her toes, and although she could feel her abdominal muscles tiring from the laughing, those hands seemed to find new reserves of her energy with every pass. He tickled, and she laughed, adn sometimes it felt like he tickled more because she was laughing, and the room spun, but there was no room, only her feet and her legs and her hips and his hands.
Several seconds passed before she realized that he had stopped tickling. He sat on the bed next to her and grinned even more as he watched her catch her breath.
“We’re almost done, Sierra, but I have to return to my favorite spot. Did you read Homer in high school?”
She nodded, fearing what he might do if she disagreed.
“When Homer compliments a young lady, he calls her silken-waisted. At least that’s what my translation says.”
She nodded again, confused but somehow knowing just where this was heading.
He put one hand on her side, and she could feel his fingertips through her nightgown. “And look! It seems that tonight you’re my silk-waisted beauty. Shall we enjoy your silk waist for a bit before we call it a night?”
She did not have time to answer; he was already squeezing and rubbing with both hands, and her waist, already electrified by all the foot-tickling, was wrapped in an invisible belt of ticklish magic. She bucked and jumped and squealed, but most of all she laughed into the warm night.
* * * * * * *
When she emerged out of her shower and into her kitchen, she smelled coffee, but not the Folger’s that she normally bought. Stepping onto the tile floor, she saw that he had brought his own gourmet coffee, and he had brewed a pot. He sat at the table and gestured to the coffee pot on the counter.
“Would you like to join me for a cup? The caffeine will help you calm down a bit, believe it or not.”
She looked at the professor from the South, and she shook her head and laughed. He was old, and pudgy besides, but he had just touched her, without finishing himself off and slinking off into the night, for a solid hour, and now he was sticking around to drink coffee. She poured a cup and sat down at the kitchen table with him. He might wear her out doing this nine more times, but she didn’t mind sitting here at the table with him.
She looked down and saw that he had already arranged the papers for her application to nursing school.
http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?97720-A-Philosophic-Tickle-(m-f-teacher-student)
http://www.ticklingforum.com/showth...-Ticke-Secunda-Pars-(m-f-f-f-student-teacher)
http://www.ticklingforum.com/showth...Tickle-Tertia-Pars-(m-f-ff-f-teacher-student)
And here are parts one and two of this quartet:
http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?313714-Philosophic-Tickle-Cursus-Ruber-Prima-Pars-(m-f)
http://www.ticklingforum.com/showth...sophic-Tickle-Cursus-Ruber-Secunda-Pars-(m-f)
But I think this story can stand alone if you want to start here. Either way, leave a comment!
KI
Philosophic Tickles: Cursus Ruber, Tertia Pars
by
Kid Indy
When the working people of a small town depart for suburbs and cities and work, the elderly stick around. The once-thriving town of Oakland City, Indiana had shuttered much of its main street when the coal miners' unions lost their long war with Washington, but there were still elderly people to take care of and government money for doing so, and Dr. Smith soon discovered the normal lunch-hour haunt of the area's Assisted Living and Nursing Home staff. Denny's had all the trappings of a corporate breakfast-shop chain, but the food was inexpensive, and the management let staff come in with their sack lunches, so long as most of the people at the table ordered some food.
Smith made himself a regular at the diner for a few days running, making sure to walk in a few minutes after the big group from the home so that he would have to sit at a small table nearby. He had his favorite--a young African American woman--picked out, and after a few days of chatter about the patients and their complaints, he finally heard a key turning.
"I know she would love it, but those dance classes are expensive!"
"Yeah, and then there's the costumes!"
"I know I should get back to school and get my nursing degree, but by the time I do that, she's going to be too old to start this up."
A waitress refilled someone's Diet Coke. "You just need to hit the lottery, honey." The table of women in their scrubs nodded their heads. Another chimed in: “Or find a man with some money!” The laughs that went around the table told Smith just how rare those must have been in a town like this. After a few more minutes of conversation, the group started to pay their tabs and disperse. Smith noted that, for the third consecutive day, his favorite paid only for a drink and carried a reusable lunch bag out of the restaurant.
Smith made his way to the small public library across the street from the nursing home where she worked, and he settled in with a book and started reading.
At 4:15, right on schedule, in came the nursing home darling and her daughter. Smith guessed that she must be about five years old (the daughter, not the mother). The little girl once again zipped to the kids’ books about dancing and started to pull them. Smith could see the mother’s sadness as the inevitable questions started: can she take dance classes in Evansville? Why not? Why don’t we have the money?
After the exchange abated, the little girl settled in at a small table, looking at her dancing books, and the mother wandered over to the magazine rack. Smith made his way next to her and stood, looking at news magazines and noting that she was more interested in parenting selections.
“I couldn’t help but overhear your daughter’s interest in dance. Are there any studios in Evansville?”
She looked at him with momentary suspicion but then availed herself of the sympathetic ear. “There’s places we could get to, but they’re expensive. Her dad left when she was born, and he stopped sending child support. We just don’t have the money.”
“I’m new in town, but I do know that there are organizations that help fund kids in the arts.”
“I don’t want to take out any loans.”
“No loans--it’s completely funded.”
“Is there a website or something?”
“Those organizations are out there, yes, but this one doesn’t advertise very much--but I could meet you and let you see what they have to offer.”
She eyed him suspiciously.
“I’m sorry--I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Dr. Smith, and I’m one of the directors of the Midwest Youth Arts Foundation.” He extended his hand.
Her look softened, and she shook the hand. “I’m Sierra. Hey, could you meet me at the Denny’s here in town after I drop Diamond off with my mom? Maybe around 7:30 tomorrow morning?”
Smith grinned. “Yes, I think I know the place.”
* * * * * * *
Sierra glared, but she had not yet entered her car. “You said you were with a youth foundation! You lied!”
“Do you want your daughter to have this opportunity? To have this in her life so she does better in school?”
She set her face against him again, but still she did not get in her car. “I’m not some kind of-- Some kind of--”
“Nobody’s asking you to be some kind of anything.” Smith reached into his pocket and produced a stack of bills. “I can set your daughter up for a year of dance classes in Evansville this week, and I can help you get an independent-student scholarship at Oakland City University to get your degree. And I’m not asking for anything more than what I’ll pay you for.”
Smith had learned what it looked like for a young woman to see a dream in her mind’s eye, and Sierra was dreaming as she leaned on her car door. “Does it have to be tickling?”
“Tickling only. Nothing illegal, nothing immoral. Just laugh for me, and you and your daughter can have what you want.”
She looked at the ground. “Do you have to tickle my feet?”
“Oh, I don’t have to, but I want to. I’ll tell you what: come back here after your shift ends tonight, and we can discuss terms.” Before she could enter her car, he had walked over to his and started driving towards the Diplomat Motel. He grinned from ear to ear as he glanced in his rear-view mirror: she still hadn’t gotten in her car.
* * * * * * *
He parked two blocks away from the house she rented not long after the sun went down. The first time he got close to her house he could feel eyes watching him from a nearby house, so he kept walking until he got to a small neighborhood diner. He went inside and waited, then emerged and walked back towards her place. He could see a flat-screen TV glowing in the house that had been watching before, and he knew he was unseen. He walked around to a back door and knocked.
The door’s curtains pulled to one side, then the doorknob turned. He was in.
He looked around and saw a place that was tidy even if not fancy. Sierra disappeared around the corner, and he heard her call back to him, “Let me change again. I didn’t know whether you were coming or not, so I was getting ready to sit and watch TV.”
“Someone was watching me come down the street,” he answered, “I wanted to make sure nobody saw me come in, as you requested.”
A minute or two passed, and she emerged in her newly-bought red silk nightgown, a piece that barely covered her bottom (as he requested) and whose material fluttered in the house’s low light as she made her way into the living room.
“You like what you see?”
“Oh yes, I like what I see. Do you want to do this in here, in your bedroom, or somewhere else?”
“Let me see the money.”
Dutifully he reached into his pocket, showed her that he had ten, twenty-dollar bills, and put them back in his pocket. “I’ll have another stack like this every time I come over. Six visits should cover class fees for a year plus her costumes.”
She looked out her front window and backed up towards the hallway. “Let’s do this in the back room.”
She led him to a small bedroom, and he could tell by the “Princess's Room” sign that they passed on the way where the daughter slept. Two days before they had arranged that Diamond would stay with her grandparents in Evansville for the night so that he could come over and that they would find times and places after that.
Her bed was made--that was a good sign--with an inexpensive but nice-looking comforter. Her feet were already bare, and he took his own shoes off out of courtesy for her bed. “How would you like to start, lying down or sitting up?”
“Why do you care?”
“I want you to enjoy this too--it’s better for both of us that way.”
She glared at him again. “I’m not doing this because I enjoy it. I’m doing it so that you help me with Diamond’s dance classes and my college classes.”
He stepped closer to her, and she stood up straight to him. He tried to respond in a calming tone. “And your daughter is going to love you for it. But this is your night, not hers. So do you want to start on your back, lying on your belly, or sitting up?”
She walked past him, and the brush of the silk through the air was already exciting him. She sat down on the edge of the bed. He grinned and sat beside her. She hugged herself, her elbows pressed tightly against her sides. “Oh, Sierra, you don’t even know how much fun this is going to be for me.” He reached down and cradled her calf in his hand and guided her right leg across his lap. Her left leg remained down, and she managed to stretch and keep the ball of her left foot on the carpeted floor. He hooked his left arm under her knee and grasped her lower calf with his hand, and he turned his neck back to her just before his right hand started to stroke her right sole.
Her voice rose in a muffled squeal as she tried to keep her mouth closed. That was with just one finger, moving slowly. He added two more fingers and sped up, and she screamed at the tickling. Her arms shot forward in alarm and tried to reach across his body, around his left shoulder to grab at his hand. Bent nearly in half, she got both of her hands around his right forearm. Smith let her foot drop to the ground, and her upper body, anchored by her own grip, leaned across his legs. When her hands released his arm to gain her balance, as fast as he could move he grabbed her silk-covered waist with both hands and squeezed greedily, and she planted her feet on the ground, pushing her bottom off the mattress’s edge. Smith shifted his grip to maneuver her backwards, towards the center of the bed, and the two tumbled together onto the soft landing pad. With Sierra on her back, Smith spread his left hand into a giant claw and landed his palm lightly on her tummy, five fingers now kneading and tickling. Her knees came up, and her hands again reached for his forearm, but she had no leverage, and he managed to get his knees down on the mattress to increase his own. His right hand, once his legs were underneath him, was free, and it found the back of her knee as she kicked at the air. As he secured a grip there, every squeeze told him that he had found a young woman as ticklish as any he had ever met--her legs continued to flail, and his tickling squeezes brought her to a steady, beautiful laugh that he could rev up with every new squeeze. One hand left her tummy and squeezed a hip--more treasure! Both hands leapt to grab her sides at the bottom of her ribs--another eruption!
Whatever strength her arms might have had--and her body did have an athleticism that made all of this even more satisfying--departed from her as he found ticklish spot after ticklish spot, and when his large left hand caught both of her wrists and pulled upwards, she did not have the power to resist as his right hand found its way to her underarm and discovered skin as ticklish as anything else he had explored. He released her wrists, and predictably her right hand tried to cross her body to restrain his tickling fingers. With her other underarm exposed, Smith immediately had both of his hands in her underarms, and her feet kicked at the summer air as he tortured her and drank in her laughter and her squeals. He dwelled there for some time, and he could feel her kicks get less energetic as his well-practiced hands continued to make her laugh.
When he could feel a genuine loss of power to fight back, he pulled his hands out of her underarms and watched her arms cross over her chest. For several minutes Sierra had been laughing loudly as the older man tormented her most sensitive skin, and she panted as he leaned in close to her ear and began to whisper. “So many ticklish spots! This is going to be a great hour, Sierra!” She was still panting, but Smith could hear her pull in a gasp as his hands settled on her silky hips and begin slowly to trace where the nightgown covered her panty line. She seemed instinctively to know that he was going to let her rest from the violent laughter that his fast and relentless tickling would continue to extract but only if she lay still for this slower, more sensuous exploration of her ticklish hips.
This time, instead of her loud and irresistible laughter, Smith heard low moans as one hand’s index finger slowly, knowingly traced a line from her hip bone to underneath her navel and up to the other hip. One of her hands instinctively reached down to meet it, but Smith’s other hand intercepted it and guided her wrist gently so that her arm extended and bent upwards, a graceful repose along the pillow that he had moved under her head. With that arm posed on the mattress, Smith’s hand moved upwards and began to circle her navel as the other hand started to trace a line down her upper arm, through her underarm, and down her silky side. Sierra cooed as her ticklish skin, super-charged by minutes of physical tickling play, jumped at the deliberate touches of the master tickler.
He had not broken his promise in the parking lot--neither hand had touched her breasts or even touched her panties, much less reached within--yet these slow, ticklish tracings were accelerating something in her body, something that the young man who gave her Diamond had never stirred. Her moaning got louder, and Smith’s own body, though aging, was fully awake. He had no intention of taking off his clothes, but he had to marshal all of his restraint not to ruin his clothes as he tickled her. When one hand started to trace soft lines along her inner thigh, her knees clamped together, and Smith’s face, a moment before in a sort of reverie, suddenly bent into a devil’s grin. His hand that had been working with one finger, leaving phantom trails along her upper body, hardened into a claw and seized her side, and almost instantly she fell to full-bodied laughter again. Her knees kicked up once more, and his hand still resting on her thigh began to knead with frenzied speed. Her body, rested for several minutes for the slow tickling, sprang into motion as he tickled her well-shaped leg, and her hips began to buck and twist and try to get away from his terrible hand.
Smith had hoped that her bottom would come off the mattress, and on one of its hops his hands moved in swift concert to grab her at her hips and turn her over onto her tummy. Now her hands could not get to his, and as one diabolical hand slid between her thighs, the other grabbed a glutton’s portion of her side, and Sierra’s fists pounded the mattress as he worked her terribly ticklish inner thigh with terribly gentle yet firm squeezing. The hand tickling her side kept her from getting her arms involved, and she screamed at his new attack, giving way soon from screams to the laughter that Smith had already come to crave.
His hands moved away from her body and planted on the mattress on either side of her body. She seemed to realize what was happening and attempted to move away, but with a quick vaulting motion his knees were on either side of her bottom, and each of his hands grabbed on of her wrists, which themselves had planted on the mattress to attempt to push up and out of her prone predicament. He pulled them up above her head again, then spidered them down the undersides of her arms, setting off another ticklish squeal. Now she had no chance of moving his body weight off of her, her muscles weakened and his body much bigger. His hands were feasting under her arms, and she had nowhere to go but crazy.
His hands stopped. She could still feel his fingertips resting against her skin under her arms, but they were not moving. He leaned down, still sitting astride her, and spoke softly, but not at a whisper, into her ear: “I want to take my time on those feet now.”
* * * * * * *
Sierra giggled and tried not to kick. The glare of a car’s windshield outside shone in her face, and she hoped this would end soon. The salon worker, a Vietnamese woman who spent the whole time chattering in her own language to her family working with other customers, kept a firm grip as she made her way through the pedicure. Sierra’s skin, getting softer with each treatment, were sensitive even when she didn’t intentionally make them so, and she bit her lower lip trying to keep from screaming as yet another instrument of torture prepared her toes.
She had been to salons, of course, but never this kind of nail shop, and certainly she had never received the royal treatment she was getting today--when she walked in, the young lady at the front desk recognized her from a photograph that Smith had left, and he had prepaid for what her tormentor would only call “this special treatment.” She had no point of comparison, but her fear of course was that Smith did know about such things and was getting her feet so sensitive that she wouldn’t be able to take it.
Her leg kicked involuntarily as another ticklish shock shot up her leg, and the Vietnamese lady working on her laughed. She broke into heavily-accented English. “I would tell you not to let anyone tickle these feet, but I don’t think you’d be getting the special treatment if someone didn’t want to do that!”
Sierra gave the girl a horrified look. She knew this was for the sake of tickling! As the preparation went on, she reached over to the counter and picked up the brochure for the Jazz, Modern and Ballet Studio of Southern Indiana. Her eyes squinted as she resisted the urge to squeal again, but she kept her eyes focused on the pictures of young girls dancing into their dreams.
“That’s Diamond.”
Yes, she thought, as she clenched her teeth and fought off another ticklish pass, that’s Diamond.
* * * * * * *
“I felt how hard you kicked when I started out on that foot, and now it’s time to take those feet slowly.”
“Please, I don’t think I can take it!”
“Alright, then, back to what we were doing!” His fingers didn’t change position; they just jumped into motion, and Sierra screamed her way into a tortured laugh. As she felt her power to pull her elbows to her sides subside, his hands left her underarms, pushed himself off the mattress, and attacked her lower ribs as his legs landed lower, still straddling her legs. Now his hands were on silk instead of skin, but their rapid travels turned the silk into one giant electrically-charged surface, and the nightgown amplified his tickling touch. He worked her sides until she was gasping with laughter, and when she thought she was going to faint, his hands planted on the mattress again, and with a vaulting motion he jumped off of her body and onto the mattress next to her. His hands shot forward, each grabbing at one of her hips. With her body suddenly free but entirely exhausted, her knees came up underneath her and shot her hips and bottom straight up towards the ceiling. Smith’s hands squeezed at her hips, and she promptly fell over sideways, her knees now coming up nearly to her chest as she rolled up into a fetal position. Only one of Smith’s hands was working on her hip now, but the other quickly found a place back up on her ribs. With his two hungry claws working her side, Sierra had no strength to flail about; she could only roll into her ball and laugh as he tickled her body beyond what she could ever remember being tickled. Then only one hand remained, and its work was terrible enough that Sierra’s eyes stayed closed as she laughed and squealed.
Then she felt something on her wrist.
It felt something like putting on a winter coat, but it only extended from her wrist down to part of her forearm. Her eyes shot open as both of Smith’s hands went to the fur-lined cuff. She tried to pull away, but it was too late: a latch clicked, and her hand was in the cuff. She felt it pull against her muscles, and she resisted in vain as he connected a metal cuff to one of the metal tubes of her headboard. Where he had been hiding these cuffs she did not know, but he had another in his hand, and she frantically reached over to try to disengage the one holding her left wrist.
Smith was faster, and he soon overpowered her right arm, then secured it to the headboard. Sierra now could not bring her arms to her sides, and she looked with terror as Smith took two long scarves out of the bag at the side of the bed and set them on the bed beside her.
“Now let’s think about those feet, shall we?”
She started kicking her legs in the air, knowing somehow that the gesture was futile but terrified nonetheless of the tickling that was to come. But Smith was in no hurry: his hands did not go to the scarves but to Sierra’s side, tracing tickling fingers all around the smooth silk and replacing her frightened pleading with more laughter. What before was utter torture was now all she wanted: as long as she was tickling her sides, and then her tummy, and then her waist again, he wasn’t on her feet. She let herself go and laughed with abandon, vainly hoping to distract him from her feet.
But that was not going to last forever.
When he picked up the first scarf, she had become so tired from laughing that she could not even kick at him as he swiftly wrapped her calf and ankle, then secured the ends of the scarf to the footboard. Her fourth limb tried to pull away from his grasp, but she had nothing left for resistance. As he took his place at the corner of the bed, a look of triumph told Sierra that everything was building up to this moment.
He grasped the big toe of her left foot with a thumb and forefinger and pulled it up, towards the ceiling. She could feel her pedicure-softened skin stretch in the apartment’s cool air. This was not like before, when she could get to his arms and fight back. The moment stretched out agonizingly, and she pulled in vain at her wrist-cuffs.
“This is going to be exquisite.”
For Sierra, it was not: as he started tracing lines across her sole, it was torture: every part of her body wanted to kick out, to escape, to flee from those terrible fingertips, but there was nowhere to go, and as she gave a thought to refusing to laugh, just to maintain some dignity in the moment, she heard herself laughing, and the absurdity of it overtook her resistance immediately. Her shoulders pressed backwards and her hips upwards, and she squealed as her midsection started laughing, then her lungs, then her mouth. His hands traveled deliberate paths, not hurrying to get past any part of her sole but dwelling, swirling, stroking every inch. The ball of her foot and the bases of her toes made the world shrink to just that bed, to her and Smith, and then to just the skin between her toes that his strong fingers already loved. Then he would move back to her sole, rubbing and scratching ever so lightly, and her whole body was just the bottom of her foot. And when he danced along the border of her heel, she could almost imagine the electricity running from that skin up to her laughing belly and pushing air out of her lungs, pulling the cool air into her mouth.
She started to hear the music of her own laughter, and she began to imagine promising him things. What she would do for him if he’d only stop. What she’d give him if he’d only do what every other boy wanted to do after he tickled her a little, what would no doubt give her another child in the house. But she did not promise, and she did not dream. She only laughed, knowing in a way that only the sole of that foot could know that this was not a prelude to sex; this was something very different, something that had only begun.
When he stopped on that foot, she could suddenly feel the sweat that had been building up all over her body. She panted for air, and she could see the devil in his eyes as he grinned and moved to the other foot.
She still did not promise. She could only make out one syllable.
“Please.”
He licked his lips.
“Please!”
He pulled back the big toe of her other foot.
“Please!”
Her other sole exploded into tickling sensations, and her hips bucked in vain as he started doing the work that his hands found to do. She wasn’t even trying not to laugh now, but she wasn’t willingly laughing either; she simply found herself flying, her legs doing mini-kicks and her torso twisting as far as her shoulders and hips would let her and laughing. She laughed at everything that the world had to offer, and she laughed at every new spark that his fingers drew from her feet. His skin was warm on hers, and she giggled and squealed and moaned as the tickling stretched farther than any encounter with any man had ever stretched for her. He tickled every part of the bottom of her foot, from the edge of her heel to her toes, and although she could feel her abdominal muscles tiring from the laughing, those hands seemed to find new reserves of her energy with every pass. He tickled, and she laughed, adn sometimes it felt like he tickled more because she was laughing, and the room spun, but there was no room, only her feet and her legs and her hips and his hands.
Several seconds passed before she realized that he had stopped tickling. He sat on the bed next to her and grinned even more as he watched her catch her breath.
“We’re almost done, Sierra, but I have to return to my favorite spot. Did you read Homer in high school?”
She nodded, fearing what he might do if she disagreed.
“When Homer compliments a young lady, he calls her silken-waisted. At least that’s what my translation says.”
She nodded again, confused but somehow knowing just where this was heading.
He put one hand on her side, and she could feel his fingertips through her nightgown. “And look! It seems that tonight you’re my silk-waisted beauty. Shall we enjoy your silk waist for a bit before we call it a night?”
She did not have time to answer; he was already squeezing and rubbing with both hands, and her waist, already electrified by all the foot-tickling, was wrapped in an invisible belt of ticklish magic. She bucked and jumped and squealed, but most of all she laughed into the warm night.
* * * * * * *
When she emerged out of her shower and into her kitchen, she smelled coffee, but not the Folger’s that she normally bought. Stepping onto the tile floor, she saw that he had brought his own gourmet coffee, and he had brewed a pot. He sat at the table and gestured to the coffee pot on the counter.
“Would you like to join me for a cup? The caffeine will help you calm down a bit, believe it or not.”
She looked at the professor from the South, and she shook her head and laughed. He was old, and pudgy besides, but he had just touched her, without finishing himself off and slinking off into the night, for a solid hour, and now he was sticking around to drink coffee. She poured a cup and sat down at the kitchen table with him. He might wear her out doing this nine more times, but she didn’t mind sitting here at the table with him.
She looked down and saw that he had already arranged the papers for her application to nursing school.
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