Day 2 here
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The air in the old family mansion, lost only four kilometers from the city limits, smelled of dust, winter dampness, and something else, a pungent aroma that could be immediately identified as surgical disinfectant.
Dolores, at 80, was a shadow of the dominant platinum blonde woman she had been. Her body, fragile and emaciated by terminal cancer, was sustained only by the contained fury of the last two decades, a bitterness and resentment that had matured into an existential necessity. Supported by an elegant mahogany cane, she wore a black silk robe over her pajamas, contrasting with the functional furniture and the leather restraints she had arranged with the precision of an engineer, as she used to do in other times. She was dying, and her last act would be to purify her lineage of the "virus" of fetishistic hypersensitivity—a condition she had fought all her life to eradicate but which Franco had exploited in her once more in those cursed days.
In the center of the room, under an overhead lighting system designed to expose, were the two captives: Vanessa (59), now with shoulder-length hair, had a collar chained to the ceiling, her mouth was gagged, her hands tied behind her back, her ankles were chained together, allowing her short steps. She stood facing her daughter, Martina (19), who was asleep but tied up just like her mother and herself 20 years ago: arms extended above her head and firmly tied to side posts, forming a Y shape, torso taut, armpits exposed, waist securely fastened with the leather strap, and, just like that time, the main focus was the young woman’s feet. Mother and daughter arranged for a visual and sensory confrontation.
Dolores's granddaughter is a recently accepted engineering student, tall (175 cm / 5'9"), with dark brown, waist-length hair and the facial silhouette of her father, Franco, but the intense green eyes of her mother, Vanessa. Naturally attractive and athletically built, she was the precise blend of strength and sensitivity that Dolores feared. She had been educated in emotional austerity, oblivious to her parents' turbulent past and completely out of contact with her grandmother.
Martina's feet, size 9 (US Women's, equivalent to EU 40), elongated like Dolores's with black painted nails, possessed catastrophic sensitivity (10/10), a secret neither she nor Vanessa knew, but which Dolores, the old fox, had concluded from her previous experiences, anticipating that her descendant might be at the pinnacle of sensitivity, and she was preparing to exploit it.
Psychologically, Martina exhibited a facade of control and strength, very similar to the one Dolores once maintained. Martina also disliked having her feet looked at; she never wore sandals, always Crocs and socks, even in summer.
Dolores brought a small glass of water and began to pour it very subtly, almost drop by drop, onto her granddaughter's big toes. Martina woke up in shock, wearing her university engineering pajamas (a comfortable, not very revealing outfit), but her feet were exposed on the stocks that had years ago held her mother’s feet.
Seeing her mother, Vanessa, and the woman she didn't recognize but found familiar, panic mixed with furious disbelief.
Martina: — What the hell is this? UNTIE US RIGHT NOW! Mom, are you okay? Are you hurting?
Vanessa, gagged and immobilized, struggled against her own straps. Her feet, size 7.5, were bare on what looked like metal.
Dolores slowly approached Martina’s face, leaning on a mahogany cane that looked more like a scepter. Her voice, raspy and weak, nevertheless retained an otherworldly authority.
Dolores: — You are just like him… (she turns to look at Vanessa and points to her) You, my cursed daughter, betrayed me… And you, Martina, (returning her gaze to her granddaughter) are the fruit and the proof of my failure. But no, you will not be the extension.
Dolores's tired blue eyes now looked at her granddaughter's feet with clinical intensity. She had noticed the tension and the instinctive curvature of her toes, a sign she knew too well.
Dolores: — Your father, Franco, the monster your mother helped create, died 15 years ago. And with that, I thought I could find you two, that I could spend my last days with my granddaughter. God knows I reached out, (looking at Vanessa), I sent you gifts, but it was no use, you cut off all communication with me. And two years ago I understood it: your damn husband left behind something worse: a daughter (pointing to Martina). The man who ruined my life and yours. Today, his legacy ends here.
Martina: — Gr… Grandma?
Dolores: — Yes, your grandmother, mother of your traitorous mother.
The old woman said with a sigh that sounded like terminal effort as she headed to a side table. She had used contacts and her money to find, kidnap, and prepare the captives in her old house, as well as equipping it with tools and gadgets. She took out a small, silent, compact vibrating unit, similar to the ones Franco used on Dolores, and placed it just beneath the arch of Martina’s right foot, securing it with packing tape so the machine wouldn't move. Then, she proceeded to secure the big toe.
Dolores: — Let's see if you have inherited your father's curse and your grandmother’s unresolved trauma.
She activated the machine. The hum, almost inaudible to Vanessa, transmitted directly to Martina’s hypersensitive sole. The reaction was instantaneous and disproportionate.
Martina: — WHAT IS THHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA?! GRANDMA, TURN IT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OFF! AAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHA STOOOP HAHAHAHA!
Dolores: — Don’t you dare call me Grandma, under any circumstance. You are nothing to me, just the offspring of a damned man.
Martina began to laugh hysterically, a sharp, utterly uncontrolled sound that contrasted with her initial stoic engineer's posture. Her body arched, desperately trying to break the restraints, but the machine continued its subtle but devastating assault. Vanessa watched from a distance and tried to untie herself but failed, although she managed to remove the gag.
Vanessa: — Dolores, stop! DON'T DO THIS TO MY DAUGHTER! She has nothing to do with it! YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS CRAZY!
Dolores: — Crazy, yes! But not blind. You did well not to call me Mom; you are nothing to me anymore. Watch her, Vanessa. Watch how she breaks with a simple hum. It's the same laughter, the same disease that the cursed man had and that I used to protect you from. I should have handed you over.
Dolores had struck directly at Vanessa’s conflict, which had cost so much to address in therapy with her late beloved. the old woman’s plan was twofold: use Martina’s agony to break Vanessa, and simultaneously, drive Martina to a psychological breaking point where she would understand the weakness of her lineage, leaving a mental scar.
Dolores turned off the vibrating unit (which had fulfilled its mission of breaking the initial composure) and took a fine-bristled brush. She knelt down, with visible effort, and approached Martina’s left foot, which resisted, but Dolores managed to tie the big toe.
Dolores: — You will suffer for a secret you didn't even know you carried inside, Martina. But I am here for you now… to collect your laugh.
She began to pass the brush softly over the hot, sweaty skin of Martina’s sole, concentrating on the base of the toes.
Martina: — AAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I’M HAHAHAHA I’M DYING! I CAN’T HAHAHAHAHAHA BREATHE! HEHEHE HAHAHAHA! STOOOP HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! ENOUGH!
Martina’s laugh was an unparalleled torrent of despair. She writhed and kicked uselessly, her body convulsing against the straps, demonstrating a hypersensitivity to touch that surpassed even Dolores’s.
Vanessa: — I BEG YOU, MOTHER, PLEASE! STOP! NOT HER!
Dolores, ignoring her daughter's words, stood up, her breathing labored. She activated the vibrator on her granddaughter's right foot and went to a high shelf, took a bottle of mentholated lotion, and approached Vanessa, ignoring Martina's screams.
Dolores: — You, Vanessa. You need to feel the itch. You need to feel the agony of exposure, the same I felt when your cursed husband poked at my weakness.
Vanessa: — What are you going to do? No… please, NO…
Dolores emptied the entire bottle of cold mentholated lotion onto Vanessa’s feet. The icy sensation on the metal, causing her soles to absorb the lotion, combined with the pungent menthol, made Vanessa gasp. Then, she rested her cane on the metal and pressed a button, making Vanessa's soles jump.
Vanessa: — HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHÁ! IT ITCHES HAHAHAHAHA! IT ITCHES SO MUCH!
Vanessa’s laugh was “more controlled” than Martina’s, a manifestation of nervous hysteria that she struggled to repress, but the burning and itching sensation amplified with every electric touch from Dolores’s cane.
Dolores: — Now, look at her. Feel the pain of your own itch and listen to your daughter’s agony. Who is the real monster here, Vanessa?
As she walked to the table, she picked up a large, silky ostrich feather and gently passed it over Martina's exposed armpit. The feather, the symbol of torment, unleashed a new wave of hysteria in the young tortured woman.
Martina: — AAAHHH HAHAHAHAHAHA! MOM HAHAHAHA! PLEASE HAHAHAHA! I CAN’T HO HO HO HAHAHAHA WITH THE HAHAHAHA ARMPIT HAHAHAHA! MY FOOT BURNS! GRANDMA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
The burning in Martina’s feet, amplified by the menthol Dolores had intentionally sprayed before starting, combined with the aerial torture of the feather in her armpit, achieved a multi-sensory assault.
Vanessa: — YOU ARE A MONSTER, DOLORES!
Dolores: — Lies! (dropping the feather) I am as much a victim as him, as her (looking at Martina). The only monster here is you. Tell her the truth, Vanessa. Tell your daughter the truth… YOU KILLED HIM! It's ironic how destiny turns, hahaha.
Vanessa began to cry uncontrollably and looked at her daughter, who was choking on her own laughter and pain, and the last wall of containment crumbled.
Vanessa: — YESSS! YESSS! He… I DIDN’T! He passed out from exhaustion from the tickling I gave him and choked himself! I was there… and I couldn't… and I couldn't… Martina was a baby… I couldn't…
A chilling pause settled in the air, filled with Vanessa's weeping and Martina's laughter, which was now a continuous groan of suffering. The vibrating machine remained stoic, maintaining a constant hum, ensuring Martina couldn't catch her breath.
Dolores staggered, leaning heavily on her cane. Vanessa’s confession was not the end, but the justification for the next act.
Dolores: — Thank you, Vanessa. Now (coughing, with drops of blood on the napkin she withdrew from her mouth) the last lie. Martina needs to know the truth of her lineage. You never abandoned Franco because of what I told you. You ran away with him because, deep down, you enjoyed those games and wanted more. You told him so, 20 years ago…
Dolores approached Vanessa, her gaze now filled with painful understanding.
Dolores: — I saw you… I saw how you laughed with him, Vanessa. You laughed with pleasure when he touched your feet. I paid private investigators who gave me hours and hours of your recordings… I protected you from my kidnappers and, in turn, from yourself, but no...
And the old woman put the cane back on the metal beneath Vanessa’s feet, pressing the button that released the electric jolts.
Vanessa: — AAAAH! HAHAHAHA TICKLE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! IT BURNS!! YES, I LAUGHED! I ADMIT IT!! I LOVE IT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! AND NOT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA A DAY GOES BY THAT I DON'T REGRET HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA THAT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HE DIED HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA IN MY ARMSS HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
The combination of the mentholated lotion with the metallic heat caused Vanessa to surrender to a hysteria of tickles and stabbing pain, her body trying to writhe in an agony of pleasure and humiliation, but she couldn't as she was held by her neck.
Dolores: — Look at her, Martina. That is the truth of your mother, the one who taught you to be strong while she was consumed by this damned sensory addiction.
Martina, hearing the complete truth, stopped laughing for an instant, the sound choking in her throat, only to be replaced by a groan of deep horror.
Martina: — It’s not true, Mom! IT ISN’T TRUE! TELL ME YOU’RE LYING! Grandma…
Dolores approached Martina's feet, opened the cane, and a thin rod emerged, which she used to give three lashes to the left foot, generating screams of pain at several higher levels in the young woman.
Dolores: — I told you not to call me Grandma. Sin doesn't end with confession, Martina. Only with purification.
With the foot now receiving the pulses, she reassembled the cane and pulled a metallic pen from her pocket, beginning to scratch with precision and methodical speed the skin beneath Martina's arch. The cold metal against the hypersensitive skin, combining the residual burning of the menthol, was the purest and most devastating torture Martina had experienced.
Martina: — AH! HE HE HE! AAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!! STOOP IT! I’M GOING TO PASS OUUT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! IT'S TOO MUCH!!
Martina's laughter and screams were a sound of absolute breakdown, tears and sweat soaking the platform. Dolores observed with cold calmness, measuring the intensity of the response.
Dolores: — You have maximum sensitivity, Martina. A perfect 10. That will be your ruin. Look at your mother, look her in the eyes knowing that a simple touch can drive you crazy. And it's thanks to her and her decisions.
Martina, caught between convulsions of laughter and terror, could not respond. It was too much information to process.
And the old woman turned to Vanessa, whose laugh had calmed down to gasps.
Dolores: — Your punishment, my daughter, is to watch your daughter confront the truth of her body…
Vanessa, breathless and her face contorted with anguish, looked at her daughter. Dolores coughed, a dry, brutal sound marking her imminent end. She took an injection from her pocket and applied it to Martina’s abdomen.
Dolores: — Your father believed that laughter is power, and I will take his word for it. That injection is a sensation enhancer, and I will teach you that the only way to purify a lineage is with fire.
Dolores untied Martina’s toes, placed a vibrator on the remaining foot, and then tied her granddaughter's big toes together with a rope that stretched her feet forward because it was taut with a mechanism that, if Martina pulled the rope, would begin to tighten the chains on Vanessa's neck, causing her death by strangulation. Neither of them knew this, and that was the macabre part of the old woman's plan.
Dolores: — Ha, it’s funny (coughing). Your daughter is going to play with you the same way you did with that (cough) cursed man.
Taking a seat in a nearby chair and feeling her last strength abandoning her.
Dolores: — The rest of the punishment is yours, Vanessa. You chose the game. Now finish the match.
Vanessa: — Dolores! Get us out of here! Please! I’m sorry!
Dolores: — 20 years late, Vanessa (cough). 20 years… (cough).
Vanessa: — NO, MOM! I’ll do anything! I swear!
Dolores pressed two buttons on an electronic device, smiled one last time, a smile of glacial satisfaction while her eyes held a final look at the person she once called daughter. Her head fell to the side along with her body. It was over.
Martina began an unparalleled fit of laughter, and when she moved her feet backward, trying to escape the tickling on her soles, a motor whirred as Vanessa was very slowly lifted by her neck.
Vanessa: — MARTINA! AGGG! MARTINA DON'T MOVE YOUR FEET!
Martina: — AAAA HAHAHAHAAAAAAA!! IT'S TOO MUUCH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I CAN’T HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Vanessa also felt heat on her feet; now it was difficult for her to rest on her heels. She had to stand slightly on her tiptoes to breathe, but the metal she was standing on had a resistance that heated up every short while, making Vanessa jump. Her mother’s idea on her deathbed was to kill them, to eradicate her and Franco’s lineage. But they were still alive.
Vanessa: — MART...! ARRRGGG! HONEY CONCENTRATE! ARGGG… CONCENTRATE, DON’T MOVE YOUR ARGGG FEET! BACK! ARGGG! DON'T MOVE THEM BACKKK ARGGG!
Martina: — HAHAHAHAHA ICAHAHAN’T HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Vanessa: — YES...! ARRRGGG! COME ON SWEETIE YOU CAN… ARGGG… CONCENTRATE! YES YOU CAN! ARGGG! DON'T MOVE THEM BACKKK ARGGG!
Martina made a superhuman effort not to move her feet backward, but her brain was entering a state of total madness. Vanessa, trying to regain her composure, managed to see that the shackles on Martina's hands were hooked with climbing carabiners, which could be an opportunity to escape.
Vanessa: — MARTINA YOUR...! ARRRGGG! HANDS… ARGGG… LOOK AT YOUR HANDS! FORGET YOUR FEET AND…! ARGGG! LOOK AT YOUR HANDS!
Through the laugh, Martina looked at her hands and understood that she could remove those carabiners by twisting her wrist so her fingers could open the latch. She tried to do it, but apparently, Dolores knew, because she had secured her granddaughter's waist precisely to prevent this.
Martina: — I CAN’T! I CAHAHAHAN’T HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I DON'T WAHAHAHANT TO DIEE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! MOMMA I DON'T WANT TO DIE LIKE THIIIS HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Vanessa: — NO...! ARRRGGG! WE ARE NOT ARGGG… GOING TO DIE!! CONCENTRATE! YES YOU CAN! ARGGG!!
The pressure on Martina's mind was brutal, the young woman knows that could escape but didn't know how. She was being relentlessly tickled on her feet, without stopping. In one of her attempts to open her hands, she pulled her feet backward several times, causing Vanessa to now only be able to breathe on her tiptoes with the occasional heat from her metallic floor making that act more difficult.
Vanessa: — I CAN'T...! ARRRGGG! MARTA ARGGG… DIE!! ARRRGGG! FEET ARGGG…!!
The tortured woman saw her mother struggling desperately to breathe, and something clicked in her head… she was being tickled on her feet, which she couldn't move, but she no longer felt the tickles; the primary panic of survival was born. Martina twisted her right arm until she couldn't anymore, she also twisted her right wrist, and with the tips of her fingers (for which she was grateful not to have long nails) she could unscrew the lock and free herself. Her foot muscles now hurt from being pointed forward so much, but she couldn't stop tensing them, as her mother's life depended on it.
In a couple of minutes, Martina unbuckled her left hand, the strap on her abdomen, opened the stocks by removing the pins, and had to use force to open the heavy wood, but she managed it. She untied her toes and removed those damned vibrators from her feet. Once free, ran to help her mother, but upon stepping on the hot metal barefoot, she recoiled in pain. She looked for the chair where Dolores's body was to bring it closer to her mother, who, with a last effort, jumped to catch her breath.
Vanessa: — MY GIRL! You’re okay! Your feet…
Martina: — I'm fine. Are you okay? I'm going to look for something to free you…
Epilogue:
Time blurred into dense, palpable terror. The smoke, increasingly irritating, obscured Vanessa's vision. Mother and daughter decided to set fire to that house full of evil and darkness.
Vanessa went to hug Martina, but the young woman pulled away.
Martina: — Mom? What exactly happened? Grandma? No lies.
Vanessa recounted the entire story, omitting no detail. About how her father was a victim of her grandmother (who was also a victim), about how she loved Franco and how she was manipulated, and about the choices. She also told her that she hadn't killed her father; it was an accident, and she could prove it to the police.
Vanessa: — …Your… your father left me a letter, which I swear I will give you to read. That letter, which I learned existed a month after he died, makes it clear the deep love we had, that your arrival had changed him in many ways, and his curse is not having been able to raise you, not having been able to watch you grow, to be the beautiful woman you are. The letter seemed to be written from beyond the grave… You have his face, and his hair color, you have his sensitivity…
Martina looked at her dirty, bare feet, wiggling her now free toes with a different gaze, remembering everything she had suffered.
— I feel violated, Mom. My mind feels like I’ve been raped…
Vanessa: — It’s because you were. Your grandm… Dolores was an expert in the matter. She was mentally corrupted, and that’s what she wanted to do to you. But we survived. You survived. Your father also did so in similar situations, and in the end, he became the best person I could have had by my side. And knowing that my daughter, our daughter, is alive and healthy is the greatest satisfaction I have as a mother, and your father would be very proud of you.
Martina: — I feel that too. When I was at a critical point with the tickling on my feet, something clicked in my head…
Vanessa: — Survival instinct. Your father told me about it, exactly as you are describing it. The best gift you could give to his memory, sweetheart. To live.
Vanessa tried to hug Martina again, who now finally allowed herself to be in her mother's arms.
— I never told you because I knew you wouldn't like the compliment, but since we're confessing, your feet are very beautiful my princess.
Martina blushed and thanked her.
— We’ll need a lot of therapy after this, Mom.
Vanessa: — Luckily, my psychologist is still practicing…
Vanessa lied... She had been aroused while being choked and watching her daughter suffer with tickles, her desperate laughter captured in the stocks. Dolores knew it; she knew that seeing that aroused Vanessa, and the punishment was precisely that—to see and not be able to touch herself—and that was the middle-aged woman's frustration. Frustration that also clicked in her head. The deep fear and hypersensitivity to touch in her feet awaited patiently in Martina. What the young woman doesn't know is that the demons that once held her grandmother and also her father were passed on to the person closest to her, waiting for the opportunity to assault feet of the ideal size and perfect sensitivity.
The purification had failed. The game would continue… silent and generational.
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The air in the old family mansion, lost only four kilometers from the city limits, smelled of dust, winter dampness, and something else, a pungent aroma that could be immediately identified as surgical disinfectant.
Dolores, at 80, was a shadow of the dominant platinum blonde woman she had been. Her body, fragile and emaciated by terminal cancer, was sustained only by the contained fury of the last two decades, a bitterness and resentment that had matured into an existential necessity. Supported by an elegant mahogany cane, she wore a black silk robe over her pajamas, contrasting with the functional furniture and the leather restraints she had arranged with the precision of an engineer, as she used to do in other times. She was dying, and her last act would be to purify her lineage of the "virus" of fetishistic hypersensitivity—a condition she had fought all her life to eradicate but which Franco had exploited in her once more in those cursed days.
In the center of the room, under an overhead lighting system designed to expose, were the two captives: Vanessa (59), now with shoulder-length hair, had a collar chained to the ceiling, her mouth was gagged, her hands tied behind her back, her ankles were chained together, allowing her short steps. She stood facing her daughter, Martina (19), who was asleep but tied up just like her mother and herself 20 years ago: arms extended above her head and firmly tied to side posts, forming a Y shape, torso taut, armpits exposed, waist securely fastened with the leather strap, and, just like that time, the main focus was the young woman’s feet. Mother and daughter arranged for a visual and sensory confrontation.
Dolores's granddaughter is a recently accepted engineering student, tall (175 cm / 5'9"), with dark brown, waist-length hair and the facial silhouette of her father, Franco, but the intense green eyes of her mother, Vanessa. Naturally attractive and athletically built, she was the precise blend of strength and sensitivity that Dolores feared. She had been educated in emotional austerity, oblivious to her parents' turbulent past and completely out of contact with her grandmother.
Martina's feet, size 9 (US Women's, equivalent to EU 40), elongated like Dolores's with black painted nails, possessed catastrophic sensitivity (10/10), a secret neither she nor Vanessa knew, but which Dolores, the old fox, had concluded from her previous experiences, anticipating that her descendant might be at the pinnacle of sensitivity, and she was preparing to exploit it.
Psychologically, Martina exhibited a facade of control and strength, very similar to the one Dolores once maintained. Martina also disliked having her feet looked at; she never wore sandals, always Crocs and socks, even in summer.
Dolores brought a small glass of water and began to pour it very subtly, almost drop by drop, onto her granddaughter's big toes. Martina woke up in shock, wearing her university engineering pajamas (a comfortable, not very revealing outfit), but her feet were exposed on the stocks that had years ago held her mother’s feet.
Seeing her mother, Vanessa, and the woman she didn't recognize but found familiar, panic mixed with furious disbelief.
Martina: — What the hell is this? UNTIE US RIGHT NOW! Mom, are you okay? Are you hurting?
Vanessa, gagged and immobilized, struggled against her own straps. Her feet, size 7.5, were bare on what looked like metal.
Dolores slowly approached Martina’s face, leaning on a mahogany cane that looked more like a scepter. Her voice, raspy and weak, nevertheless retained an otherworldly authority.
Dolores: — You are just like him… (she turns to look at Vanessa and points to her) You, my cursed daughter, betrayed me… And you, Martina, (returning her gaze to her granddaughter) are the fruit and the proof of my failure. But no, you will not be the extension.
Dolores's tired blue eyes now looked at her granddaughter's feet with clinical intensity. She had noticed the tension and the instinctive curvature of her toes, a sign she knew too well.
Dolores: — Your father, Franco, the monster your mother helped create, died 15 years ago. And with that, I thought I could find you two, that I could spend my last days with my granddaughter. God knows I reached out, (looking at Vanessa), I sent you gifts, but it was no use, you cut off all communication with me. And two years ago I understood it: your damn husband left behind something worse: a daughter (pointing to Martina). The man who ruined my life and yours. Today, his legacy ends here.
Martina: — Gr… Grandma?
Dolores: — Yes, your grandmother, mother of your traitorous mother.
The old woman said with a sigh that sounded like terminal effort as she headed to a side table. She had used contacts and her money to find, kidnap, and prepare the captives in her old house, as well as equipping it with tools and gadgets. She took out a small, silent, compact vibrating unit, similar to the ones Franco used on Dolores, and placed it just beneath the arch of Martina’s right foot, securing it with packing tape so the machine wouldn't move. Then, she proceeded to secure the big toe.
Dolores: — Let's see if you have inherited your father's curse and your grandmother’s unresolved trauma.
She activated the machine. The hum, almost inaudible to Vanessa, transmitted directly to Martina’s hypersensitive sole. The reaction was instantaneous and disproportionate.
Martina: — WHAT IS THHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA?! GRANDMA, TURN IT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OFF! AAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHA STOOOP HAHAHAHA!
Dolores: — Don’t you dare call me Grandma, under any circumstance. You are nothing to me, just the offspring of a damned man.
Martina began to laugh hysterically, a sharp, utterly uncontrolled sound that contrasted with her initial stoic engineer's posture. Her body arched, desperately trying to break the restraints, but the machine continued its subtle but devastating assault. Vanessa watched from a distance and tried to untie herself but failed, although she managed to remove the gag.
Vanessa: — Dolores, stop! DON'T DO THIS TO MY DAUGHTER! She has nothing to do with it! YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS CRAZY!
Dolores: — Crazy, yes! But not blind. You did well not to call me Mom; you are nothing to me anymore. Watch her, Vanessa. Watch how she breaks with a simple hum. It's the same laughter, the same disease that the cursed man had and that I used to protect you from. I should have handed you over.
Dolores had struck directly at Vanessa’s conflict, which had cost so much to address in therapy with her late beloved. the old woman’s plan was twofold: use Martina’s agony to break Vanessa, and simultaneously, drive Martina to a psychological breaking point where she would understand the weakness of her lineage, leaving a mental scar.
Dolores turned off the vibrating unit (which had fulfilled its mission of breaking the initial composure) and took a fine-bristled brush. She knelt down, with visible effort, and approached Martina’s left foot, which resisted, but Dolores managed to tie the big toe.
Dolores: — You will suffer for a secret you didn't even know you carried inside, Martina. But I am here for you now… to collect your laugh.
She began to pass the brush softly over the hot, sweaty skin of Martina’s sole, concentrating on the base of the toes.
Martina: — AAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I’M HAHAHAHA I’M DYING! I CAN’T HAHAHAHAHAHA BREATHE! HEHEHE HAHAHAHA! STOOOP HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! ENOUGH!
Martina’s laugh was an unparalleled torrent of despair. She writhed and kicked uselessly, her body convulsing against the straps, demonstrating a hypersensitivity to touch that surpassed even Dolores’s.
Vanessa: — I BEG YOU, MOTHER, PLEASE! STOP! NOT HER!
Dolores, ignoring her daughter's words, stood up, her breathing labored. She activated the vibrator on her granddaughter's right foot and went to a high shelf, took a bottle of mentholated lotion, and approached Vanessa, ignoring Martina's screams.
Dolores: — You, Vanessa. You need to feel the itch. You need to feel the agony of exposure, the same I felt when your cursed husband poked at my weakness.
Vanessa: — What are you going to do? No… please, NO…
Dolores emptied the entire bottle of cold mentholated lotion onto Vanessa’s feet. The icy sensation on the metal, causing her soles to absorb the lotion, combined with the pungent menthol, made Vanessa gasp. Then, she rested her cane on the metal and pressed a button, making Vanessa's soles jump.
Vanessa: — HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHÁ! IT ITCHES HAHAHAHAHA! IT ITCHES SO MUCH!
Vanessa’s laugh was “more controlled” than Martina’s, a manifestation of nervous hysteria that she struggled to repress, but the burning and itching sensation amplified with every electric touch from Dolores’s cane.
Dolores: — Now, look at her. Feel the pain of your own itch and listen to your daughter’s agony. Who is the real monster here, Vanessa?
As she walked to the table, she picked up a large, silky ostrich feather and gently passed it over Martina's exposed armpit. The feather, the symbol of torment, unleashed a new wave of hysteria in the young tortured woman.
Martina: — AAAHHH HAHAHAHAHAHA! MOM HAHAHAHA! PLEASE HAHAHAHA! I CAN’T HO HO HO HAHAHAHA WITH THE HAHAHAHA ARMPIT HAHAHAHA! MY FOOT BURNS! GRANDMA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
The burning in Martina’s feet, amplified by the menthol Dolores had intentionally sprayed before starting, combined with the aerial torture of the feather in her armpit, achieved a multi-sensory assault.
Vanessa: — YOU ARE A MONSTER, DOLORES!
Dolores: — Lies! (dropping the feather) I am as much a victim as him, as her (looking at Martina). The only monster here is you. Tell her the truth, Vanessa. Tell your daughter the truth… YOU KILLED HIM! It's ironic how destiny turns, hahaha.
Vanessa began to cry uncontrollably and looked at her daughter, who was choking on her own laughter and pain, and the last wall of containment crumbled.
Vanessa: — YESSS! YESSS! He… I DIDN’T! He passed out from exhaustion from the tickling I gave him and choked himself! I was there… and I couldn't… and I couldn't… Martina was a baby… I couldn't…
A chilling pause settled in the air, filled with Vanessa's weeping and Martina's laughter, which was now a continuous groan of suffering. The vibrating machine remained stoic, maintaining a constant hum, ensuring Martina couldn't catch her breath.
Dolores staggered, leaning heavily on her cane. Vanessa’s confession was not the end, but the justification for the next act.
Dolores: — Thank you, Vanessa. Now (coughing, with drops of blood on the napkin she withdrew from her mouth) the last lie. Martina needs to know the truth of her lineage. You never abandoned Franco because of what I told you. You ran away with him because, deep down, you enjoyed those games and wanted more. You told him so, 20 years ago…
Dolores approached Vanessa, her gaze now filled with painful understanding.
Dolores: — I saw you… I saw how you laughed with him, Vanessa. You laughed with pleasure when he touched your feet. I paid private investigators who gave me hours and hours of your recordings… I protected you from my kidnappers and, in turn, from yourself, but no...
And the old woman put the cane back on the metal beneath Vanessa’s feet, pressing the button that released the electric jolts.
Vanessa: — AAAAH! HAHAHAHA TICKLE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! IT BURNS!! YES, I LAUGHED! I ADMIT IT!! I LOVE IT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! AND NOT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA A DAY GOES BY THAT I DON'T REGRET HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA THAT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HE DIED HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA IN MY ARMSS HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
The combination of the mentholated lotion with the metallic heat caused Vanessa to surrender to a hysteria of tickles and stabbing pain, her body trying to writhe in an agony of pleasure and humiliation, but she couldn't as she was held by her neck.
Dolores: — Look at her, Martina. That is the truth of your mother, the one who taught you to be strong while she was consumed by this damned sensory addiction.
Martina, hearing the complete truth, stopped laughing for an instant, the sound choking in her throat, only to be replaced by a groan of deep horror.
Martina: — It’s not true, Mom! IT ISN’T TRUE! TELL ME YOU’RE LYING! Grandma…
Dolores approached Martina's feet, opened the cane, and a thin rod emerged, which she used to give three lashes to the left foot, generating screams of pain at several higher levels in the young woman.
Dolores: — I told you not to call me Grandma. Sin doesn't end with confession, Martina. Only with purification.
With the foot now receiving the pulses, she reassembled the cane and pulled a metallic pen from her pocket, beginning to scratch with precision and methodical speed the skin beneath Martina's arch. The cold metal against the hypersensitive skin, combining the residual burning of the menthol, was the purest and most devastating torture Martina had experienced.
Martina: — AH! HE HE HE! AAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!! STOOP IT! I’M GOING TO PASS OUUT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! IT'S TOO MUCH!!
Martina's laughter and screams were a sound of absolute breakdown, tears and sweat soaking the platform. Dolores observed with cold calmness, measuring the intensity of the response.
Dolores: — You have maximum sensitivity, Martina. A perfect 10. That will be your ruin. Look at your mother, look her in the eyes knowing that a simple touch can drive you crazy. And it's thanks to her and her decisions.
Martina, caught between convulsions of laughter and terror, could not respond. It was too much information to process.
And the old woman turned to Vanessa, whose laugh had calmed down to gasps.
Dolores: — Your punishment, my daughter, is to watch your daughter confront the truth of her body…
Vanessa, breathless and her face contorted with anguish, looked at her daughter. Dolores coughed, a dry, brutal sound marking her imminent end. She took an injection from her pocket and applied it to Martina’s abdomen.
Dolores: — Your father believed that laughter is power, and I will take his word for it. That injection is a sensation enhancer, and I will teach you that the only way to purify a lineage is with fire.
Dolores untied Martina’s toes, placed a vibrator on the remaining foot, and then tied her granddaughter's big toes together with a rope that stretched her feet forward because it was taut with a mechanism that, if Martina pulled the rope, would begin to tighten the chains on Vanessa's neck, causing her death by strangulation. Neither of them knew this, and that was the macabre part of the old woman's plan.
Dolores: — Ha, it’s funny (coughing). Your daughter is going to play with you the same way you did with that (cough) cursed man.
Taking a seat in a nearby chair and feeling her last strength abandoning her.
Dolores: — The rest of the punishment is yours, Vanessa. You chose the game. Now finish the match.
Vanessa: — Dolores! Get us out of here! Please! I’m sorry!
Dolores: — 20 years late, Vanessa (cough). 20 years… (cough).
Vanessa: — NO, MOM! I’ll do anything! I swear!
Dolores pressed two buttons on an electronic device, smiled one last time, a smile of glacial satisfaction while her eyes held a final look at the person she once called daughter. Her head fell to the side along with her body. It was over.
Martina began an unparalleled fit of laughter, and when she moved her feet backward, trying to escape the tickling on her soles, a motor whirred as Vanessa was very slowly lifted by her neck.
Vanessa: — MARTINA! AGGG! MARTINA DON'T MOVE YOUR FEET!
Martina: — AAAA HAHAHAHAAAAAAA!! IT'S TOO MUUCH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I CAN’T HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Vanessa also felt heat on her feet; now it was difficult for her to rest on her heels. She had to stand slightly on her tiptoes to breathe, but the metal she was standing on had a resistance that heated up every short while, making Vanessa jump. Her mother’s idea on her deathbed was to kill them, to eradicate her and Franco’s lineage. But they were still alive.
Vanessa: — MART...! ARRRGGG! HONEY CONCENTRATE! ARGGG… CONCENTRATE, DON’T MOVE YOUR ARGGG FEET! BACK! ARGGG! DON'T MOVE THEM BACKKK ARGGG!
Martina: — HAHAHAHAHA ICAHAHAN’T HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Vanessa: — YES...! ARRRGGG! COME ON SWEETIE YOU CAN… ARGGG… CONCENTRATE! YES YOU CAN! ARGGG! DON'T MOVE THEM BACKKK ARGGG!
Martina made a superhuman effort not to move her feet backward, but her brain was entering a state of total madness. Vanessa, trying to regain her composure, managed to see that the shackles on Martina's hands were hooked with climbing carabiners, which could be an opportunity to escape.
Vanessa: — MARTINA YOUR...! ARRRGGG! HANDS… ARGGG… LOOK AT YOUR HANDS! FORGET YOUR FEET AND…! ARGGG! LOOK AT YOUR HANDS!
Through the laugh, Martina looked at her hands and understood that she could remove those carabiners by twisting her wrist so her fingers could open the latch. She tried to do it, but apparently, Dolores knew, because she had secured her granddaughter's waist precisely to prevent this.
Martina: — I CAN’T! I CAHAHAHAN’T HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I DON'T WAHAHAHANT TO DIEE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! MOMMA I DON'T WANT TO DIE LIKE THIIIS HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Vanessa: — NO...! ARRRGGG! WE ARE NOT ARGGG… GOING TO DIE!! CONCENTRATE! YES YOU CAN! ARGGG!!
The pressure on Martina's mind was brutal, the young woman knows that could escape but didn't know how. She was being relentlessly tickled on her feet, without stopping. In one of her attempts to open her hands, she pulled her feet backward several times, causing Vanessa to now only be able to breathe on her tiptoes with the occasional heat from her metallic floor making that act more difficult.
Vanessa: — I CAN'T...! ARRRGGG! MARTA ARGGG… DIE!! ARRRGGG! FEET ARGGG…!!
The tortured woman saw her mother struggling desperately to breathe, and something clicked in her head… she was being tickled on her feet, which she couldn't move, but she no longer felt the tickles; the primary panic of survival was born. Martina twisted her right arm until she couldn't anymore, she also twisted her right wrist, and with the tips of her fingers (for which she was grateful not to have long nails) she could unscrew the lock and free herself. Her foot muscles now hurt from being pointed forward so much, but she couldn't stop tensing them, as her mother's life depended on it.
In a couple of minutes, Martina unbuckled her left hand, the strap on her abdomen, opened the stocks by removing the pins, and had to use force to open the heavy wood, but she managed it. She untied her toes and removed those damned vibrators from her feet. Once free, ran to help her mother, but upon stepping on the hot metal barefoot, she recoiled in pain. She looked for the chair where Dolores's body was to bring it closer to her mother, who, with a last effort, jumped to catch her breath.
Vanessa: — MY GIRL! You’re okay! Your feet…
Martina: — I'm fine. Are you okay? I'm going to look for something to free you…
Epilogue:
Time blurred into dense, palpable terror. The smoke, increasingly irritating, obscured Vanessa's vision. Mother and daughter decided to set fire to that house full of evil and darkness.
Vanessa went to hug Martina, but the young woman pulled away.
Martina: — Mom? What exactly happened? Grandma? No lies.
Vanessa recounted the entire story, omitting no detail. About how her father was a victim of her grandmother (who was also a victim), about how she loved Franco and how she was manipulated, and about the choices. She also told her that she hadn't killed her father; it was an accident, and she could prove it to the police.
Vanessa: — …Your… your father left me a letter, which I swear I will give you to read. That letter, which I learned existed a month after he died, makes it clear the deep love we had, that your arrival had changed him in many ways, and his curse is not having been able to raise you, not having been able to watch you grow, to be the beautiful woman you are. The letter seemed to be written from beyond the grave… You have his face, and his hair color, you have his sensitivity…
Martina looked at her dirty, bare feet, wiggling her now free toes with a different gaze, remembering everything she had suffered.
— I feel violated, Mom. My mind feels like I’ve been raped…
Vanessa: — It’s because you were. Your grandm… Dolores was an expert in the matter. She was mentally corrupted, and that’s what she wanted to do to you. But we survived. You survived. Your father also did so in similar situations, and in the end, he became the best person I could have had by my side. And knowing that my daughter, our daughter, is alive and healthy is the greatest satisfaction I have as a mother, and your father would be very proud of you.
Martina: — I feel that too. When I was at a critical point with the tickling on my feet, something clicked in my head…
Vanessa: — Survival instinct. Your father told me about it, exactly as you are describing it. The best gift you could give to his memory, sweetheart. To live.
Vanessa tried to hug Martina again, who now finally allowed herself to be in her mother's arms.
— I never told you because I knew you wouldn't like the compliment, but since we're confessing, your feet are very beautiful my princess.
Martina blushed and thanked her.
— We’ll need a lot of therapy after this, Mom.
Vanessa: — Luckily, my psychologist is still practicing…
Vanessa lied... She had been aroused while being choked and watching her daughter suffer with tickles, her desperate laughter captured in the stocks. Dolores knew it; she knew that seeing that aroused Vanessa, and the punishment was precisely that—to see and not be able to touch herself—and that was the middle-aged woman's frustration. Frustration that also clicked in her head. The deep fear and hypersensitivity to touch in her feet awaited patiently in Martina. What the young woman doesn't know is that the demons that once held her grandmother and also her father were passed on to the person closest to her, waiting for the opportunity to assault feet of the ideal size and perfect sensitivity.
The purification had failed. The game would continue… silent and generational.
