(BRIEF AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hello good people of the TMF!
"Plaything off the Peasant Women" comes to its conclusion with Part 5. Our story thus far:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
In Part 5, there are a number of references to events and characters in an earlier story of mine called "Night of the Blondes," but you don't need to be familiar with it to know what's going on here. Thanks to everyone who read "Plaything of the Peasant Women" and left a comment or sent me a note. I can't tell you how much it's appreciated. But anyway, let's wrap this up. Hope you enjoy!
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Plaything of the Peasant Women
Part 5
A day’s journey brought us back home. My little cabin was a big mess. Inside, a layer of dust covered everything; my dwelling needed a thorough scrub down and air-out. Outside, the yard and the small plots of land where I grew my crops were overgrown and shabby. I spent the next few days washing and scrubbing and sweeping. I pulled weeds and cleared brush. Mary and Molly lent a helping hand through all this. At least one of them was always with me — if not both — and their cheerful presence made the work a lot easier. Several of our friends dropped by to welcome me back; they’d often stay for a meal, or just to chat and help us out.
It was such a happy homecoming, the mood so good, that I began to think that maybe I had been overly concerned about my reception, that my circle of friends had already forgiven what I had thought of as a betrayal…
But several nights after my return, I was abruptly woken out of a deep sleep by a small chamber symphony of noises — pattering feet, opening doors, creaking floors, whispered voices. I shot up, heart pounding in alarm. Molly had stayed with me that night, but I could tell she was no longer beside me. Before my eyes could fully adjust and make sense of the vague shapes surrounding me, a cloth bag was pulled over my head. Several pairs of hands gripped me and pulled me from the bed; excited, urgent whispers passed back and forth between my assailants. I even heard a few giggles. I shouted as I felt myself dragged out of my room, trying to put on a bold front, but it was a courage I didn’t feel. I feared the worst — that pursuers from the Temple of Zyriss had tracked me down. Or that the security forces were arresting me for my involvement in the whole Angie affair. At the very least, maybe Feth’s circle were coming to enact retribution for their friend…
Moments later, my fears were assuaged somewhat by a voice I recognized: “Be careful,” it said. “We don’t want to scare him.”
It was Loober, the strawberry blonde who had helped me the night all this had started, and as I listened a little more intently, the whispers and giggles of my assailants became more distinct. They were my friends, the little group I belonged to with Mary, Molly, Loober, and others. My panic ebbed away, only to be replaced by a sharp unease — as friendly and familiar as my captors might be, I was still apparently in a lot of trouble.
I was pushed and pulled out the back door of my cabin into the yard. Through the cloth over my head I made out a vague flickering yellow light, heard the low-level hub-bub of voices and felt the fission of activity. There was more giggling, then a voice that clearly belonged to Mary said “Bring him over here.”
I was hustled across the yard by multiple bodies. They suddenly stopped me, spun me around, and shoved me backwards. I fell, my back landing against some hard surface; I guessed it was the long, rectangular wooden table left out there. Hands under my arms dragged me up on the surface of the table. I struggled to get up, but my captors overwhelmed me. Blindfolded and outnumbered, distracted by ticklish pokes and prods, I felt them stretch my arms above my head, felt them slip loops around my wrists. My legs were stretched out too, cords tightened around my ankles.
Once my captors were done, they backed away. Though they had bound me to the table with ruthless efficiency, I couldn’t help notice there was rather more giggling now. As if in response to my thoughts, another voice — this one belonging to a girl in our circle named Bridget — spoke up in sharp admonishment: “Come on! Quit goofing off!”
“Oh, calm down,” someone responded. “No one’s ‘goofing off’…”
Then I heard Mary’s voice, very distinct. “Ok girls, on the count of three…”
With a collective grunt, the women lifted up the table I was bound across and carried it a few yards. I was jostled around as they propped the table up at a slight angle.
When they whipped the cloth bag off, the scenario revealed itself to be pretty much what I had imagined — my little gang, about a dozen or so, stood around in a loose semi-circle, facing me. They were all there — Molly, Loober, Bridget, Didi, Lisa… the only one I didn’t see was Angie — I remembered Molly telling me that she was hiding out somewhere safe — but I saw her housemate and close friend Paula. The table they had bound me to was propped against a thick tree, leaning back at maybe an 80 degree angle. My arms were stretched over my head, ropes looped around my wrists; my ankles secured similarly at the other end. A few lanterns hung from branches, casting a yellow, flickering light over the yard.
The light wasn’t particularly strong, but it took several seconds for my eyes to fully adjust. Mary stood just a few feet away in the center of the semi-circle, smiling at me, hands on her hips.
“What’s going on here, Mary?” I said. “Is all this necessary?”
“Did we scare you?” she said, her tone friendly.
“If you’re really trying to scare me, you should giggle a lot less.” I tugged at the ropes. “Is this a game or something?”
“No game. You know what this is.”
“Oh, come on, Mary,” I said. “A tribunal? Why? You said yourself that there was ‘no real harm done.’ Those were your exact words.”
“That’s not everything I said. I also said ‘it was nothing we couldn’t handle.’ But you know it’s not just up to me. Rules are rules.”
Our circle of friends indulged in plenty of little tricks or games among ourselves, but we stuck together in the face of outside threats. When it came to defending ourselves from poachers, raiders, another group bent on mischief, the authorities… it was all for one and one for all. Betrayals, lapses, grievances were taken seriously, and all dealt with within the group.
It wasn’t a question of “guilt” or “innocence” — if you found yourself the subject of a tribunal, it was understood that it was because you had wronged the group somehow. Usually, they were held to determine your punishment. And sometimes, there was no punishment at all.
“But Mary, I told you Feth tricked me. I tried to… mmmpphh!”
Mary silenced me with a hearty kiss on the lips. “Quiet, hun,” she said. “You know how we do things. We’ll hear your side of the story.”
I scanned the assembled women, trying to get a read on how this might go. I was somewhat relieved to see the mood seemed almost playful. The chatter was light, a little giggly, and I saw lots of smiles. Here and there, though, I spotted a few faces that might auger trouble. Bridget’s demeanor suggested an impatience with the lack of seriousness among her friends. Didi — who had a bit of a mean streak — looked at me with a rapacious gleam in her eyes and an unambiguous smirk on her lips. Angie’s housemate Paula, a shortish, dark-haired, dark-complexioned woman, appeared worried. Like Angie, she was a nice girl, usually friendly, though she could be a bit quiet in groups. Maybe that was the reason she wasn’t engaged in any of the talk taking place around her.
Mary turned towards the semi-circle of women. The general hub-bub died down as they gave her their full attention.
“Okay, girls,” she said. “We all know why we’re here. Our friend here revealed where we were hiding Angie to not one but two parties: first Feth, and then Jen and Kay. He was under… duress both times, but he put Angie and all of us in a lot of danger. We’re here to decide his punishment, or even if he should be punished at all. I’ll be moderator, if no one has any objections to that. Who wants to speak for him, and ensure he’s… treated well?”
Loober stepped forward. “I will,” she said, coming over to stand next to me.
“That’s nice of you, Loober,” said Mary. “Okay, the floor is yours…”
“We all know what happened,” Loober began. “Our friend here revealed the location of the safe house where we were hiding Angie to Feth and then Jen and Kay. But they inflicted terrible, terrible tortures on him, forcing him to reveal this information so that they could claim the reward the authorities had offered for Angie’s capture. We all know how ticklish he is, and we all know that Angie’s safety — and the safety of all of us — is as dear to him as it is to any of us here. What he endured must have been horrible for him to give that up. After those greedy bimbos had wrung him out and left him, he went to great lengths — putting himself at risk once again — to warn us and make right what he had done. Many of you have been in his position, tormented beyond endurance, maybe forced to betray your friends. He did something bad, yes, but we should show him mercy and kindness.”
Lisa, a short-haired brunette with a creamy complexion, wide hips, and a generous bubble-butt, stepped forward. “Wait a minute,” she said, walking over to me. “I heard the story about Feth, but I want to hear it from him.” She stood just a few inches in front of me. “So, she… ‘painted you’ or something, right?”
“Yes, she tricked me,” I said. “She dosed me with something that made me pass out. When I came to, I was bound to a bed and she… she painted me.”
“Umm-hmm.” Lisa reached behind her and pulled two feathers with fine points out of her waist band. “Now, let’s pretend these are paint brushes…”
“L-lisa… d-don’t…” I stammered, squirming.
“Did she paint you here? Like this?” With a grin, Lisa began to trace the feather tips up and down my underarms. I squeaked and spluttered, twisting in my ropes. “… ahh!… hehehe… s-stopp!… hee-hee-hee…”
“Did she?”
“…hehehehe!… y-yess!… hehehe… stop it!… teeheehee… st-stop!…”
“And what about here? Did she paint you here? Like this?” Lisa traced the feathers down my sides from my arm pits to my hips.
“…Yes!…” I squawked. “… yes!… haahaha!… L-lisa s-stopp!…”
“And what about like this?” She drew the feathers across my stomach and traced a line from hip-to-hip. I bucked furiously. “…aahaahaahaa!… yesss!… haahaahaa!…”
“Now, would you say these feathers I’m using tickle more than the brushes Feth used? Or did the brushes tickle more?”
“… AAA-hahahaha!… th-thu brushesss!… hahahah!…”
“Wow, even more than this? That must have tickled a lot,” Lisa said. “And when Feth had you strapped to this bed, she painted you all over?”
“… hahahaha!… YES! …evvvrryweare!…”
“Did she pay any attention to these spots right here?” Lisa flicked and swirled the tips of the feathers over my nipples. My eyes popped wide, my body bowed, and a high-pitched shriek of laughter burst from my mouth, the first of many. There was a ripple in the crowd at my strong reaction. Even Lisa, whose voice and demeanor was one of casual interest, looked momentarily surprised.
“So… I’m going to guess she used the brushes on your nipples, correct?”
I managed to scream out a “yes” as I writhed and twisted.
“Well, that must have been really bad for you. Is this what broke you? Is this what made you tell Feth where we were hiding? Or was it when she did this…”
She drew the feather tip up the length of my shaft, making me jump and let out a surprised scream. She moved it up and down, up and down while I bucked and shrieked hysterically. I heard laughter from the women watching us, a few cheers.
“… yyieeeheeeheeehee!… leeezzzzaaa staahahappp!…”
“I don’t know for a fact she did this to you, but she did say you painted you all over…”
Loober stepped forward. “Okay Lisa,” she said, barely suppressed laughter in her voice. “We get the picture. Give the poor thing a break.”
Lisa stopped and I cried out in relief. “Well, I have to say that that seems really bad,” Lisa said. “I’m not sure how much of that I could have taken. But why didn’t you just make something up?” A few girls echoed Lisa’s question.
“I tried,” I said, gasping. “I swear. Feth wouldn’t believe me. She knew I knew, and she just kept… tickling me, asking the same questions over and over…”
“You know that question really isn’t fair, girls,” Loober said. “You know how it can be, when you’re just so crazy you can’t even make stuff up anymore.”
I saw a few of them nod in agreement. Lisa shrugged. “Yeah, I guess that’s true,” she said, tucking the feathers back into her waistband. “Okay, I’m good. No more questions from me.” She turned and walked back to rejoin the semi-circle, hips swaying and buns rolling deliciously in her tight jeans.
Buxom Molly was next. “And then what happened?” she asked as she stepped up to me. “How did Jen and Kay get involved?” Using her index fingers, Molly began dotting my torso with ticklish pokes and prods. I jerked back and forth, trying to get away from her fingers, yelping with each poke.
“…YEEEPP!… stop!… M-molly don’t!…”
“How did those nasty bimbos get you?”
“…F-feth tied me to a f-fence… yeeekk!… sh-she l-left me there…”
“And they just came along and found you there, all helpless and naked? What did they do to you to make you tell them about us?”
“… hahaha!… st-stop molleee!… yeeheehee!…”
“Did they shake those big yahbos of theirs in your face?” Molly shimmied her shoulders, making her own big yahbos wobble enticingly under her tight tank top.
“…yes!… hehehe… I mean, n-no… yeeek!… th-they tickled my feee-heee-heeet!… m-molleee staahahahahaap!…”
Molly’s pokes and prods were coming more rapidly. I flopped around as much as my bonds would allow, unable to stop my instinctive reactions to each little ticklish jab. My pleas and protests came out as nothing but a barely coherent string of shrieked words. “… naked… feet… helpless… Feth…”
Loober finally intervened. “Okay, Molly, that’s enough,” she said. “He can’t get his words out. Give him a chance to speak.”
Molly backed off. My chest heaving with deep breaths, I tried to recover. Loober smoothed my disheveled hair and put a soothing hand on my cheek. She blew on the sweat-slicked skin of my neck to cool me down. Someone protested. “Hey! What are you doing there, Loober?” she said. It sounded like Valerie. “Is that allowed, Mary? Giving comfort to the accused?”
“So, tell us what Jen and Kay did to you,” Loober said. I gasped out that after Feth had bound me to a fence and left me there totally naked and helpless, Jen and Kay had come along and tickled my feet and teased me.
Valerie, a slim, svelte woman with long, curly light brown hair, spoke up. “I have a few questions.” She strode up to me. Molly crouched down in front of me and began brushing the bottoms of my feet with her fingertips. “What happened after Feth got away from the hideout and you chased after her? I heard the two of you were caught by the security forces and that they took you to the outpost station.”
Loober tensed up beside me. “We know that part of it, Val,” she said. She gave my arm a quick squeeze — part warning, part encouragement to stay strong. I guessed her friend Bobbi had given her the story of my “escape,” how she had basically let me go. Loober still wanted to keep her friendship with the blonde patrol woman a secret from the others.
“Yeah, but I want to hear it myself.” Valerie started to flicker her fingers in my stretched-out underarms. “What happened there? How did you escape?”
Giggling, I tried to tell her the story, but her incessant tickling — not to mention Molly steadily tracing a fingertip up and down the soles of both my feet — made it almost impossible to get a full sentence out.
“… eehehee… staahpp!… I c-can’t…”
“How did you escape the station?”
“…th-they t-took… hehehe… F-feth… anuther roo-hoo-hoomm… eehehe…”
“They took Feth into another room,” Valerie translated. “And then?”
“…neeheehee… I c-can’t… t-t-tahhllkk… hehehe… make her st-stopp…”
“Alright, Val, if you want him to answer, you need to stop that,” Loober said. “You too, Molly. Let him speak.”
Valerie stopped; Molly didn’t. She switched to fondling and petting my feet. It still tickled, but not so badly that I couldn’t manage to gasp out a shortened version of the story. “… there were only three guards who took us to the outpost,” I said. “No one else was even there. They were all out looking for you and the two patrol women. They strapped me to a chair and then took Feth into another room to interrogate her and left me there. But I guess they were too eager to get to Feth, and didn’t fully secure one of my wrists. I got a hand free. Just as I got out, the third guard came into the room. I overpowered her and shot her with her own stun pistol and then got out.”
“Wow, that careless guard was a… lucky break for you,” Valerie said. She lightly stroked my upper arms and armpits.
“…ahhh… I g-guess so…”
“You didn’t try to rescue Feth? You had the stun pistol. The other two guards didn’t know you had ‘freed yourself’…”
“No. I just wanted to escape, get as far away as possible while they were distracted.”
Loober spoke up: “Why would he put himself at risk for Feth? She brought that trouble on herself. And what started this whole thing was that she wanted to turn Angie in to the authorities for a reward.”
Several other women voiced their agreement.
“I’m not saying he should have,” Valerie said, still caressing me. “I’m just asking. I mean, Feth could have told them things about us.”
“Not anything they didn’t already know at that point,” Loober said.
Mary agreed. “That’s true. And whatever secrets Feth spilled, it was Feth’s circle that bore the brunt of that. The security forces rounded up a few of those girls.”
“The police may not have found us, but they were looking for us,” Valerie said. “We had to hide out for a while, and other country girls took advantage of that.”
“Also true,” Mary conceded.
“But you also captured those two guards,” Loober said. “The ones you lured into the woods away from the safe house. They were blindfolded the whole time you all had your fun with them, so they couldn’t identify you or where you took them, but you could say a big reason we all had to hide out for so long was because of that.”
Mary laughed. “Probably, yeah. You’re really good at this, Loober.”
“Thank you.”
Val addressed me. “And then you ran.”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” I said. “I thought the whole parish was after me — you girls, the security forces, Feth’s friends… I didn’t know where to turn. Anywhere I went would bring trouble, and not just for me.”
“And then you were a prisoner or something in the Temple of Zyriss?” Val said. “I want to hear that story.”
“Yeah,” Lisa said. “I only heard a little of it, but it really rang my bells. I’d like to hear more.”
“Me too!” Didi said. “Make him tell us every little nasty thing they did to him in excruciating detail!”
There was some laughter at this, more shouts of agreement. Mary put her hands up, calling them all to attention. “Hey everybody, let’s focus,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll tell us all about the Temple of Zyriss eventually, but now’s not the time. We’re here to figure out what to do with him.”
“I think we’ve heard enough,” Loober said. “He’s told you his story.”
“We’re getting off track here,” said a girl named Perry. “Like you’ve been saying, Loober, we’ve all been there. And that’s the thing — we have. And we’ve had to face the consequences. Remember when those poachers got Didi, and forced her to tell them where we kept our strawberry harvest? We punished her for revealing that, even though there were three girls working her over. Or when I was captured by those women from Spring Meadow when we had that feud with them, a feud I didn’t even start…”
“Of course,” Loober interjected. “Both of you were treated with kindness. We took into account your circumstances, what you were put through…”
“But we were still punished.”
Mary chimed in. “Oh, it wasn’t that bad, Perry…”
It was Paula, the usually quiet one, who spoke up next: “You’re talking here like ‘everything turned out okay, so maybe what he did was no big deal’,” she said. “But that’s not entirely true. Angie is somewhere safe — we’re all glad about that — but she was my housemate. With her gone, I have to do everything by myself now. Many of you have helped, but you can’t be around all the time. You have your own stuff to take care of. There’s no one to watch my back on a daily basis, either. Now, I’m not saying that’s all his fault, but you can’t really say it ‘turned out okay’ for all of us. And we all had to reclaim our lands, chase the other girls off, avoid the authorities… all that stuff. None of it was easy.”
There was general agreement.
“Okay, girls, we’ve heard the arguments,” Mary said. “What shall we do with him? What would ‘make things right’?”
“How about we play ‘The Naked Prey’?” someone called. “That would be fun.”
There was laughter at this, a chorus of assents, a cry of “too easy,” another of “too harsh.”
“Let’s give him a day in the stocks at the next market,” someone else suggested.
More laughter and amused chatter. An objection: “Nah, I don’t really want to share him with any other girls around here.”
Another objection: “Me neither. I say ‘no’ to the stocks. I think we just keep this in our little circle.”
A few other suggestions were shouted out, some serious, some not so much, all to laughter and excited chatter. Valerie stepped forward. “Hold on, I have an idea, and I’m being serious here,” she said. The crowd quieted down a bit. “Paula is right. We all had to work restoring our lands, putting our little farms and homesteads back together. That time and work is what we lost, and honestly, we’re still recovering. So, he should help all of us regain some of that. That would even things up.”
“Hmmm… so, like, he’d serve a period of indentured servitude?” Mary said.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“I like that idea,” Mary said. “So how about… he serves three days on each of our homesteads, helping us out with whatever we need. For those three days you can… well, use him however you see fit. Within reason, of course. How does that sound? Is that fair? Would that ‘make things even,’ as Paula so sensibly put it?”
There were calls of agreement from the crowd.
“… sounds fair…”
“… works for me…”
Mary asked Loober if she liked the idea. “Seems fair to me,” Loober answered. “If everyone agrees, I won’t object. Some of us could certainly use the help. You have to promise to treat him well, though.”
“Of course,” Mary said, turning back to address the group. “Loober has a good point. While he’s in your… care, you’re expected to treat him well. Not only is it the nice thing to do, but we all know how things tend to… come around, don’t we?”
The women laughed in agreement. Not that they didn’t take what Mary said seriously or that they would ignore these vague guidelines; it was more in recognition that what she said was true.
Mary addressed me. “And what do you think?”
“L-like I have a s-say,” I spluttered. Molly was still toying with my feet.
“Aww, don’t be like that,” Mary chided jokingly. “You’ll be with friends.”
“You just b-basically… (heeheehee) … rescued me from ‘servitude’ with J-jolie and her f-friends… yaaahh!…” Molly slid a hand up my calf to pinch behind my knee.
“Oh, I don’t know if I’d call it a rescue,” Mary laughed. “They were about to let you go anyway. And you got yourself into that trouble, jumping that big red-head. She seemed nice. We’ll be nice, too.”
“… oh-ho-ho-kayyy!…” I managed to say as I laughed. “… if you s-say so… hahaha!… just m-make Molly st-stop…”
But she didn’t call Molly off. Instead, she turned to address the crowd again.
“We’re all agreed? Well, good,” Mary said. “We’ll draw straws later, figure out where he goes first, where he goes second… If everyone agrees, then it’s all settled.”
“Now what?” someone asked. “What do we do with him right now?”
“I was thinking about that, too,” Mary said. “Whatever happened during all that trouble, I think we can all agree that we’re very happy to have our friend back with us…”
“… oh yes…absolutely…”
“So why don’t we show him how happy we are, and give him a proper welcome home?”
With excited giggles and laughter they all closed in on me. Loober gave me a big kiss on the lips, then leaned in to brush my ear with her lips. “Welcome home,” she whispered. “Don’t worry, I’ll go very easy on you.”
She slid away to stand next to me, tracing her fingers up and down the underside of my arm. Then Lisa pressed against me and kissed me.
“Glad to have you back,” she said, fingers trickling up and down my sides. “I’m looking forward to having you all to myself.” Still tickling me lightly, she moved aside to make room for Didi, who kissed me hungrily as her hands roamed across my waist and hips. “Welcome back,” she whispered. “Can’t wait to spend time with you…”
All of them pressed in, kissing me, touching me, telling me how happy they were that I’d returned and giving me some hint of how my time with them might go. I moaned and giggled under their attentions, their hands all over me.
They crowded around, jostling each another for access to me. “Let’s get this table down,” I heard someone say. They paused their sensual assault for a few moments while they hoisted the table off where it had been leaning against the tree and set it flat. Then they were all over me again, hands and fingertips fondling my feet, caressing my legs and thighs, flickering and dancing across my stomach and sides and ribs, sliding across my chest and burrowing into my armpits… Warm, wet lips and tongues joined the fray; hot breath tickled my ears and neck…
I could barely squirm under the soft press of their bodies. My laughter and cries reached an hysterical pitch, and my last coherent thought before my world burst apart like a bubble was that, whatever lay ahead, at least I was home now, and in friendly hands…
"Plaything off the Peasant Women" comes to its conclusion with Part 5. Our story thus far:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
In Part 5, there are a number of references to events and characters in an earlier story of mine called "Night of the Blondes," but you don't need to be familiar with it to know what's going on here. Thanks to everyone who read "Plaything of the Peasant Women" and left a comment or sent me a note. I can't tell you how much it's appreciated. But anyway, let's wrap this up. Hope you enjoy!
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Plaything of the Peasant Women
Part 5
A day’s journey brought us back home. My little cabin was a big mess. Inside, a layer of dust covered everything; my dwelling needed a thorough scrub down and air-out. Outside, the yard and the small plots of land where I grew my crops were overgrown and shabby. I spent the next few days washing and scrubbing and sweeping. I pulled weeds and cleared brush. Mary and Molly lent a helping hand through all this. At least one of them was always with me — if not both — and their cheerful presence made the work a lot easier. Several of our friends dropped by to welcome me back; they’d often stay for a meal, or just to chat and help us out.
It was such a happy homecoming, the mood so good, that I began to think that maybe I had been overly concerned about my reception, that my circle of friends had already forgiven what I had thought of as a betrayal…
But several nights after my return, I was abruptly woken out of a deep sleep by a small chamber symphony of noises — pattering feet, opening doors, creaking floors, whispered voices. I shot up, heart pounding in alarm. Molly had stayed with me that night, but I could tell she was no longer beside me. Before my eyes could fully adjust and make sense of the vague shapes surrounding me, a cloth bag was pulled over my head. Several pairs of hands gripped me and pulled me from the bed; excited, urgent whispers passed back and forth between my assailants. I even heard a few giggles. I shouted as I felt myself dragged out of my room, trying to put on a bold front, but it was a courage I didn’t feel. I feared the worst — that pursuers from the Temple of Zyriss had tracked me down. Or that the security forces were arresting me for my involvement in the whole Angie affair. At the very least, maybe Feth’s circle were coming to enact retribution for their friend…
Moments later, my fears were assuaged somewhat by a voice I recognized: “Be careful,” it said. “We don’t want to scare him.”
It was Loober, the strawberry blonde who had helped me the night all this had started, and as I listened a little more intently, the whispers and giggles of my assailants became more distinct. They were my friends, the little group I belonged to with Mary, Molly, Loober, and others. My panic ebbed away, only to be replaced by a sharp unease — as friendly and familiar as my captors might be, I was still apparently in a lot of trouble.
I was pushed and pulled out the back door of my cabin into the yard. Through the cloth over my head I made out a vague flickering yellow light, heard the low-level hub-bub of voices and felt the fission of activity. There was more giggling, then a voice that clearly belonged to Mary said “Bring him over here.”
I was hustled across the yard by multiple bodies. They suddenly stopped me, spun me around, and shoved me backwards. I fell, my back landing against some hard surface; I guessed it was the long, rectangular wooden table left out there. Hands under my arms dragged me up on the surface of the table. I struggled to get up, but my captors overwhelmed me. Blindfolded and outnumbered, distracted by ticklish pokes and prods, I felt them stretch my arms above my head, felt them slip loops around my wrists. My legs were stretched out too, cords tightened around my ankles.
Once my captors were done, they backed away. Though they had bound me to the table with ruthless efficiency, I couldn’t help notice there was rather more giggling now. As if in response to my thoughts, another voice — this one belonging to a girl in our circle named Bridget — spoke up in sharp admonishment: “Come on! Quit goofing off!”
“Oh, calm down,” someone responded. “No one’s ‘goofing off’…”
Then I heard Mary’s voice, very distinct. “Ok girls, on the count of three…”
With a collective grunt, the women lifted up the table I was bound across and carried it a few yards. I was jostled around as they propped the table up at a slight angle.
When they whipped the cloth bag off, the scenario revealed itself to be pretty much what I had imagined — my little gang, about a dozen or so, stood around in a loose semi-circle, facing me. They were all there — Molly, Loober, Bridget, Didi, Lisa… the only one I didn’t see was Angie — I remembered Molly telling me that she was hiding out somewhere safe — but I saw her housemate and close friend Paula. The table they had bound me to was propped against a thick tree, leaning back at maybe an 80 degree angle. My arms were stretched over my head, ropes looped around my wrists; my ankles secured similarly at the other end. A few lanterns hung from branches, casting a yellow, flickering light over the yard.
The light wasn’t particularly strong, but it took several seconds for my eyes to fully adjust. Mary stood just a few feet away in the center of the semi-circle, smiling at me, hands on her hips.
“What’s going on here, Mary?” I said. “Is all this necessary?”
“Did we scare you?” she said, her tone friendly.
“If you’re really trying to scare me, you should giggle a lot less.” I tugged at the ropes. “Is this a game or something?”
“No game. You know what this is.”
“Oh, come on, Mary,” I said. “A tribunal? Why? You said yourself that there was ‘no real harm done.’ Those were your exact words.”
“That’s not everything I said. I also said ‘it was nothing we couldn’t handle.’ But you know it’s not just up to me. Rules are rules.”
Our circle of friends indulged in plenty of little tricks or games among ourselves, but we stuck together in the face of outside threats. When it came to defending ourselves from poachers, raiders, another group bent on mischief, the authorities… it was all for one and one for all. Betrayals, lapses, grievances were taken seriously, and all dealt with within the group.
It wasn’t a question of “guilt” or “innocence” — if you found yourself the subject of a tribunal, it was understood that it was because you had wronged the group somehow. Usually, they were held to determine your punishment. And sometimes, there was no punishment at all.
“But Mary, I told you Feth tricked me. I tried to… mmmpphh!”
Mary silenced me with a hearty kiss on the lips. “Quiet, hun,” she said. “You know how we do things. We’ll hear your side of the story.”
I scanned the assembled women, trying to get a read on how this might go. I was somewhat relieved to see the mood seemed almost playful. The chatter was light, a little giggly, and I saw lots of smiles. Here and there, though, I spotted a few faces that might auger trouble. Bridget’s demeanor suggested an impatience with the lack of seriousness among her friends. Didi — who had a bit of a mean streak — looked at me with a rapacious gleam in her eyes and an unambiguous smirk on her lips. Angie’s housemate Paula, a shortish, dark-haired, dark-complexioned woman, appeared worried. Like Angie, she was a nice girl, usually friendly, though she could be a bit quiet in groups. Maybe that was the reason she wasn’t engaged in any of the talk taking place around her.
Mary turned towards the semi-circle of women. The general hub-bub died down as they gave her their full attention.
“Okay, girls,” she said. “We all know why we’re here. Our friend here revealed where we were hiding Angie to not one but two parties: first Feth, and then Jen and Kay. He was under… duress both times, but he put Angie and all of us in a lot of danger. We’re here to decide his punishment, or even if he should be punished at all. I’ll be moderator, if no one has any objections to that. Who wants to speak for him, and ensure he’s… treated well?”
Loober stepped forward. “I will,” she said, coming over to stand next to me.
“That’s nice of you, Loober,” said Mary. “Okay, the floor is yours…”
“We all know what happened,” Loober began. “Our friend here revealed the location of the safe house where we were hiding Angie to Feth and then Jen and Kay. But they inflicted terrible, terrible tortures on him, forcing him to reveal this information so that they could claim the reward the authorities had offered for Angie’s capture. We all know how ticklish he is, and we all know that Angie’s safety — and the safety of all of us — is as dear to him as it is to any of us here. What he endured must have been horrible for him to give that up. After those greedy bimbos had wrung him out and left him, he went to great lengths — putting himself at risk once again — to warn us and make right what he had done. Many of you have been in his position, tormented beyond endurance, maybe forced to betray your friends. He did something bad, yes, but we should show him mercy and kindness.”
Lisa, a short-haired brunette with a creamy complexion, wide hips, and a generous bubble-butt, stepped forward. “Wait a minute,” she said, walking over to me. “I heard the story about Feth, but I want to hear it from him.” She stood just a few inches in front of me. “So, she… ‘painted you’ or something, right?”
“Yes, she tricked me,” I said. “She dosed me with something that made me pass out. When I came to, I was bound to a bed and she… she painted me.”
“Umm-hmm.” Lisa reached behind her and pulled two feathers with fine points out of her waist band. “Now, let’s pretend these are paint brushes…”
“L-lisa… d-don’t…” I stammered, squirming.
“Did she paint you here? Like this?” With a grin, Lisa began to trace the feather tips up and down my underarms. I squeaked and spluttered, twisting in my ropes. “… ahh!… hehehe… s-stopp!… hee-hee-hee…”
“Did she?”
“…hehehehe!… y-yess!… hehehe… stop it!… teeheehee… st-stop!…”
“And what about here? Did she paint you here? Like this?” Lisa traced the feathers down my sides from my arm pits to my hips.
“…Yes!…” I squawked. “… yes!… haahaha!… L-lisa s-stopp!…”
“And what about like this?” She drew the feathers across my stomach and traced a line from hip-to-hip. I bucked furiously. “…aahaahaahaa!… yesss!… haahaahaa!…”
“Now, would you say these feathers I’m using tickle more than the brushes Feth used? Or did the brushes tickle more?”
“… AAA-hahahaha!… th-thu brushesss!… hahahah!…”
“Wow, even more than this? That must have tickled a lot,” Lisa said. “And when Feth had you strapped to this bed, she painted you all over?”
“… hahahaha!… YES! …evvvrryweare!…”
“Did she pay any attention to these spots right here?” Lisa flicked and swirled the tips of the feathers over my nipples. My eyes popped wide, my body bowed, and a high-pitched shriek of laughter burst from my mouth, the first of many. There was a ripple in the crowd at my strong reaction. Even Lisa, whose voice and demeanor was one of casual interest, looked momentarily surprised.
“So… I’m going to guess she used the brushes on your nipples, correct?”
I managed to scream out a “yes” as I writhed and twisted.
“Well, that must have been really bad for you. Is this what broke you? Is this what made you tell Feth where we were hiding? Or was it when she did this…”
She drew the feather tip up the length of my shaft, making me jump and let out a surprised scream. She moved it up and down, up and down while I bucked and shrieked hysterically. I heard laughter from the women watching us, a few cheers.
“… yyieeeheeeheeehee!… leeezzzzaaa staahahappp!…”
“I don’t know for a fact she did this to you, but she did say you painted you all over…”
Loober stepped forward. “Okay Lisa,” she said, barely suppressed laughter in her voice. “We get the picture. Give the poor thing a break.”
Lisa stopped and I cried out in relief. “Well, I have to say that that seems really bad,” Lisa said. “I’m not sure how much of that I could have taken. But why didn’t you just make something up?” A few girls echoed Lisa’s question.
“I tried,” I said, gasping. “I swear. Feth wouldn’t believe me. She knew I knew, and she just kept… tickling me, asking the same questions over and over…”
“You know that question really isn’t fair, girls,” Loober said. “You know how it can be, when you’re just so crazy you can’t even make stuff up anymore.”
I saw a few of them nod in agreement. Lisa shrugged. “Yeah, I guess that’s true,” she said, tucking the feathers back into her waistband. “Okay, I’m good. No more questions from me.” She turned and walked back to rejoin the semi-circle, hips swaying and buns rolling deliciously in her tight jeans.
Buxom Molly was next. “And then what happened?” she asked as she stepped up to me. “How did Jen and Kay get involved?” Using her index fingers, Molly began dotting my torso with ticklish pokes and prods. I jerked back and forth, trying to get away from her fingers, yelping with each poke.
“…YEEEPP!… stop!… M-molly don’t!…”
“How did those nasty bimbos get you?”
“…F-feth tied me to a f-fence… yeeekk!… sh-she l-left me there…”
“And they just came along and found you there, all helpless and naked? What did they do to you to make you tell them about us?”
“… hahaha!… st-stop molleee!… yeeheehee!…”
“Did they shake those big yahbos of theirs in your face?” Molly shimmied her shoulders, making her own big yahbos wobble enticingly under her tight tank top.
“…yes!… hehehe… I mean, n-no… yeeek!… th-they tickled my feee-heee-heeet!… m-molleee staahahahahaap!…”
Molly’s pokes and prods were coming more rapidly. I flopped around as much as my bonds would allow, unable to stop my instinctive reactions to each little ticklish jab. My pleas and protests came out as nothing but a barely coherent string of shrieked words. “… naked… feet… helpless… Feth…”
Loober finally intervened. “Okay, Molly, that’s enough,” she said. “He can’t get his words out. Give him a chance to speak.”
Molly backed off. My chest heaving with deep breaths, I tried to recover. Loober smoothed my disheveled hair and put a soothing hand on my cheek. She blew on the sweat-slicked skin of my neck to cool me down. Someone protested. “Hey! What are you doing there, Loober?” she said. It sounded like Valerie. “Is that allowed, Mary? Giving comfort to the accused?”
“So, tell us what Jen and Kay did to you,” Loober said. I gasped out that after Feth had bound me to a fence and left me there totally naked and helpless, Jen and Kay had come along and tickled my feet and teased me.
Valerie, a slim, svelte woman with long, curly light brown hair, spoke up. “I have a few questions.” She strode up to me. Molly crouched down in front of me and began brushing the bottoms of my feet with her fingertips. “What happened after Feth got away from the hideout and you chased after her? I heard the two of you were caught by the security forces and that they took you to the outpost station.”
Loober tensed up beside me. “We know that part of it, Val,” she said. She gave my arm a quick squeeze — part warning, part encouragement to stay strong. I guessed her friend Bobbi had given her the story of my “escape,” how she had basically let me go. Loober still wanted to keep her friendship with the blonde patrol woman a secret from the others.
“Yeah, but I want to hear it myself.” Valerie started to flicker her fingers in my stretched-out underarms. “What happened there? How did you escape?”
Giggling, I tried to tell her the story, but her incessant tickling — not to mention Molly steadily tracing a fingertip up and down the soles of both my feet — made it almost impossible to get a full sentence out.
“… eehehee… staahpp!… I c-can’t…”
“How did you escape the station?”
“…th-they t-took… hehehe… F-feth… anuther roo-hoo-hoomm… eehehe…”
“They took Feth into another room,” Valerie translated. “And then?”
“…neeheehee… I c-can’t… t-t-tahhllkk… hehehe… make her st-stopp…”
“Alright, Val, if you want him to answer, you need to stop that,” Loober said. “You too, Molly. Let him speak.”
Valerie stopped; Molly didn’t. She switched to fondling and petting my feet. It still tickled, but not so badly that I couldn’t manage to gasp out a shortened version of the story. “… there were only three guards who took us to the outpost,” I said. “No one else was even there. They were all out looking for you and the two patrol women. They strapped me to a chair and then took Feth into another room to interrogate her and left me there. But I guess they were too eager to get to Feth, and didn’t fully secure one of my wrists. I got a hand free. Just as I got out, the third guard came into the room. I overpowered her and shot her with her own stun pistol and then got out.”
“Wow, that careless guard was a… lucky break for you,” Valerie said. She lightly stroked my upper arms and armpits.
“…ahhh… I g-guess so…”
“You didn’t try to rescue Feth? You had the stun pistol. The other two guards didn’t know you had ‘freed yourself’…”
“No. I just wanted to escape, get as far away as possible while they were distracted.”
Loober spoke up: “Why would he put himself at risk for Feth? She brought that trouble on herself. And what started this whole thing was that she wanted to turn Angie in to the authorities for a reward.”
Several other women voiced their agreement.
“I’m not saying he should have,” Valerie said, still caressing me. “I’m just asking. I mean, Feth could have told them things about us.”
“Not anything they didn’t already know at that point,” Loober said.
Mary agreed. “That’s true. And whatever secrets Feth spilled, it was Feth’s circle that bore the brunt of that. The security forces rounded up a few of those girls.”
“The police may not have found us, but they were looking for us,” Valerie said. “We had to hide out for a while, and other country girls took advantage of that.”
“Also true,” Mary conceded.
“But you also captured those two guards,” Loober said. “The ones you lured into the woods away from the safe house. They were blindfolded the whole time you all had your fun with them, so they couldn’t identify you or where you took them, but you could say a big reason we all had to hide out for so long was because of that.”
Mary laughed. “Probably, yeah. You’re really good at this, Loober.”
“Thank you.”
Val addressed me. “And then you ran.”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” I said. “I thought the whole parish was after me — you girls, the security forces, Feth’s friends… I didn’t know where to turn. Anywhere I went would bring trouble, and not just for me.”
“And then you were a prisoner or something in the Temple of Zyriss?” Val said. “I want to hear that story.”
“Yeah,” Lisa said. “I only heard a little of it, but it really rang my bells. I’d like to hear more.”
“Me too!” Didi said. “Make him tell us every little nasty thing they did to him in excruciating detail!”
There was some laughter at this, more shouts of agreement. Mary put her hands up, calling them all to attention. “Hey everybody, let’s focus,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll tell us all about the Temple of Zyriss eventually, but now’s not the time. We’re here to figure out what to do with him.”
“I think we’ve heard enough,” Loober said. “He’s told you his story.”
“We’re getting off track here,” said a girl named Perry. “Like you’ve been saying, Loober, we’ve all been there. And that’s the thing — we have. And we’ve had to face the consequences. Remember when those poachers got Didi, and forced her to tell them where we kept our strawberry harvest? We punished her for revealing that, even though there were three girls working her over. Or when I was captured by those women from Spring Meadow when we had that feud with them, a feud I didn’t even start…”
“Of course,” Loober interjected. “Both of you were treated with kindness. We took into account your circumstances, what you were put through…”
“But we were still punished.”
Mary chimed in. “Oh, it wasn’t that bad, Perry…”
It was Paula, the usually quiet one, who spoke up next: “You’re talking here like ‘everything turned out okay, so maybe what he did was no big deal’,” she said. “But that’s not entirely true. Angie is somewhere safe — we’re all glad about that — but she was my housemate. With her gone, I have to do everything by myself now. Many of you have helped, but you can’t be around all the time. You have your own stuff to take care of. There’s no one to watch my back on a daily basis, either. Now, I’m not saying that’s all his fault, but you can’t really say it ‘turned out okay’ for all of us. And we all had to reclaim our lands, chase the other girls off, avoid the authorities… all that stuff. None of it was easy.”
There was general agreement.
“Okay, girls, we’ve heard the arguments,” Mary said. “What shall we do with him? What would ‘make things right’?”
“How about we play ‘The Naked Prey’?” someone called. “That would be fun.”
There was laughter at this, a chorus of assents, a cry of “too easy,” another of “too harsh.”
“Let’s give him a day in the stocks at the next market,” someone else suggested.
More laughter and amused chatter. An objection: “Nah, I don’t really want to share him with any other girls around here.”
Another objection: “Me neither. I say ‘no’ to the stocks. I think we just keep this in our little circle.”
A few other suggestions were shouted out, some serious, some not so much, all to laughter and excited chatter. Valerie stepped forward. “Hold on, I have an idea, and I’m being serious here,” she said. The crowd quieted down a bit. “Paula is right. We all had to work restoring our lands, putting our little farms and homesteads back together. That time and work is what we lost, and honestly, we’re still recovering. So, he should help all of us regain some of that. That would even things up.”
“Hmmm… so, like, he’d serve a period of indentured servitude?” Mary said.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“I like that idea,” Mary said. “So how about… he serves three days on each of our homesteads, helping us out with whatever we need. For those three days you can… well, use him however you see fit. Within reason, of course. How does that sound? Is that fair? Would that ‘make things even,’ as Paula so sensibly put it?”
There were calls of agreement from the crowd.
“… sounds fair…”
“… works for me…”
Mary asked Loober if she liked the idea. “Seems fair to me,” Loober answered. “If everyone agrees, I won’t object. Some of us could certainly use the help. You have to promise to treat him well, though.”
“Of course,” Mary said, turning back to address the group. “Loober has a good point. While he’s in your… care, you’re expected to treat him well. Not only is it the nice thing to do, but we all know how things tend to… come around, don’t we?”
The women laughed in agreement. Not that they didn’t take what Mary said seriously or that they would ignore these vague guidelines; it was more in recognition that what she said was true.
Mary addressed me. “And what do you think?”
“L-like I have a s-say,” I spluttered. Molly was still toying with my feet.
“Aww, don’t be like that,” Mary chided jokingly. “You’ll be with friends.”
“You just b-basically… (heeheehee) … rescued me from ‘servitude’ with J-jolie and her f-friends… yaaahh!…” Molly slid a hand up my calf to pinch behind my knee.
“Oh, I don’t know if I’d call it a rescue,” Mary laughed. “They were about to let you go anyway. And you got yourself into that trouble, jumping that big red-head. She seemed nice. We’ll be nice, too.”
“… oh-ho-ho-kayyy!…” I managed to say as I laughed. “… if you s-say so… hahaha!… just m-make Molly st-stop…”
But she didn’t call Molly off. Instead, she turned to address the crowd again.
“We’re all agreed? Well, good,” Mary said. “We’ll draw straws later, figure out where he goes first, where he goes second… If everyone agrees, then it’s all settled.”
“Now what?” someone asked. “What do we do with him right now?”
“I was thinking about that, too,” Mary said. “Whatever happened during all that trouble, I think we can all agree that we’re very happy to have our friend back with us…”
“… oh yes…absolutely…”
“So why don’t we show him how happy we are, and give him a proper welcome home?”
With excited giggles and laughter they all closed in on me. Loober gave me a big kiss on the lips, then leaned in to brush my ear with her lips. “Welcome home,” she whispered. “Don’t worry, I’ll go very easy on you.”
She slid away to stand next to me, tracing her fingers up and down the underside of my arm. Then Lisa pressed against me and kissed me.
“Glad to have you back,” she said, fingers trickling up and down my sides. “I’m looking forward to having you all to myself.” Still tickling me lightly, she moved aside to make room for Didi, who kissed me hungrily as her hands roamed across my waist and hips. “Welcome back,” she whispered. “Can’t wait to spend time with you…”
All of them pressed in, kissing me, touching me, telling me how happy they were that I’d returned and giving me some hint of how my time with them might go. I moaned and giggled under their attentions, their hands all over me.
They crowded around, jostling each another for access to me. “Let’s get this table down,” I heard someone say. They paused their sensual assault for a few moments while they hoisted the table off where it had been leaning against the tree and set it flat. Then they were all over me again, hands and fingertips fondling my feet, caressing my legs and thighs, flickering and dancing across my stomach and sides and ribs, sliding across my chest and burrowing into my armpits… Warm, wet lips and tongues joined the fray; hot breath tickled my ears and neck…
I could barely squirm under the soft press of their bodies. My laughter and cries reached an hysterical pitch, and my last coherent thought before my world burst apart like a bubble was that, whatever lay ahead, at least I was home now, and in friendly hands…
This was a fine series. 
