OldEnglish
TMF Regular
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2001
- Messages
- 248
- Points
- 28
I don’t know what I have done to fall into such a run of good fortune lately - an ironic statement considering this event takes place around a recent wake of a family friend - but I am happy to continue to report the events taking place in front of my eyes.
This one took place a couple of weeks ago. I’ve just struggled to find time to put it into words. As usual, it’ll take longer to read this than it did for the actual tickling to take place.
This is a two-part story; the first takes place at the actual wake and is more a casual tickle with a lot of dialogue and the second takes place back at our house and is a more intense tickle.
As I mentioned, recently an old family friend passed away, which drew all of the extended family members into the funeral home for the wake and the services. As the old cliche goes, it was time to see a bunch of people that you only see at weddings and funerals. It was also time to see my favorite sisters-in-law again.
Prior to the wake, we had made plans that we would head over to our house once we left the funeral home - pizzas, maybe a fire pit, and just an opportunity for us to host where we usually end up at someone else’s house.
We all trickled in at different times, but eventually my family found ourselves standing with Erica and her husband, Morgan and her husband, and Ally and her husband. With the recently deceased being a closer companion to the previous generation than to ours, we were sort of doing the awkward “standing around wondering when it’s acceptable to leave” thing - no disrespect intended, of course.
Naturally, it being a wake, we were all dressed appropriately for the occasion, and since it’s been unseasonably chilly and gray in the area as Spring has struggled to emerge, the women were all wearing nylons of some kind. Erica, as is usually the case, was the most conservative, dressed in a black dress that went just below her knees with a black cardigan sweater over the top; suntan pantyhose encased her legs, which ended in a pair of black pumps, her least conservative part of her outfit. Ally was in the middle, dressed in a black skirt that went right to her knee with a white blouse and a gray sweater above; tonight Ally was also wearing suntan pantyhose with a pair of black pumps. Morgan, of course, was the most provocative of the three - which is not to say that her outfit was by any means inappropriate. It just came the closest to the border of appropriate and inappropriate. Morgan’s skirt sat right above her knee and her white blouse rested just at the waist line of her skirt. She wore a somewhat sheer black cover over the blouse. Morgan was also wearing black pantyhose and of the three, she by far wore the highest heels, a pair of stilettos that had to add a good four inches to her height.
As a nylon aficionado myself, it’s not often that one sees Morgan in nylons. She usually wears them on the special occasions, of course, but those have been happening fewer and farther between lately. The thought of all three women potentially in my house later on with nylons on and shoes that were almost certainly going to be removed the second they walked in the door certainly started my gears turning.
Thus, you can imagine my dismay when the following conversation took place:
Ally: “I can’t wait to get back to your house to change out of these clothes.”
Morgan: “Oh absolutely. I’m so glad I brought a change of clothes.”
Erica: “Same.”
D’oh!
I figured that just as it was likely that their shoes would have been removed the second they walked in the door, so too was it likely that - maybe besides Erica - there was little chance that pantyhose would survive an outfit change.
Oh well…
After a couple of minutes of standing around awkwardly, we were approached by another family friend, Cindy, and her daughter, Michelle. Cindy was in her 50s, whereas the generation of the deceased were mostly in their 60s. Michelle was in her early 20s. Both were also dressed appropriately for the event, with Cindy opting for the black pants and black top look to pair with her black nylons and black flats and Michelle wearing a black skirt with a gray top to pair with her suntan pantyhose and black heels.
We all made idle chit-chat for a bit - “Haven’t seen you in so long”, “Oh wow - you’re in college now?”, “How’s married life treating you?” - before running out of discussion topics and falling back into the awkwardness again. Cindy and Michelle seemed like they were about to walk away when it happened..
At this point, Erica was standing in front of her husband, her smaller stature not at all blocking her husband’s view of Cindy and Michelle. From my vantage point, I could see it all go down. Erica’s husband had brought up both his hands and made a fist with only the pointer finger on each hand sticking out. He then slowly, casually, nonchalantly brought those two pointer fingers to rest on the sides of his wife standing in front of him. It wasn’t necessarily an actual tickle, but I’m sure you’re all well aware of the move.
And regardless of whether or not it was an actual tickle, there was no doubt that Erica’s body registered the touch as a ticklish touch. As soon as his fingers made contact with her sides, Erica’s body began to arch forward, her body contorting into a combination of a Limbo Line move and a Keanu Reeves Matrix style move as her body attempted to flee from the probing digits.
“Aaaahhhh,” Erica blurted out as she jumped from the touch, turning quickly to confirm that it was indeed her husband who was the perpetrator. “Oh my God,” Erica said, her face quickly turning a bright shade of red. “Not at a wake,” she chastised, slapping her husband’s arm. “Are you serious?”
“What happened?” Cindy asked, having missed the sneak tickle attack and seeing only Erica’s reaction.
“I don’t know,” Erica’s husband said, playing dumb. “All I did was put my hand on her and she jumped like a mad woman,” he said.
“Oh,” Cindy said, not quite picking up on the joke as she wasn’t used to his sense of humor. And to her credit, probably wasn’t expecting a person to tickle another person at a wake, no matter how slight the tickle may have been.
But Morgan had seen the whole thing go down and she wasn’t about to let a chance to point out Erica’s weakness go by without taking advantage of it.
“She’s SUPER ticklish,” Morgan said, nodding her head in Erica’s direction as she explained the situation to Cindy and Michelle. Morgan couldn’t have emphasized the word “super” more if she jumped and down shouting it from the rooftop.
“Morgan!” Erica said, her face somehow turning even redder than before.
“Oh,” Cindy said, now realizing what had happened. A smile came over her face as she looked at Erica. “That makes more sense now,” she said.
Erica adjusted her cardigan and her hair, trying to get her appearance back to how it was pre-paroxysm. Cindy must have sensed Erica’s embarrassment and felt the need to console her because she then offered up the following words of encouragement to Erica along with this tidbit to the group.
“Don’t worry about it, hun,” she said, putting her hand on Erica’s arm to comfort her. “It happens. Shelly’s (Michelle) crazy ticklish, too,” she said with a chuckle.
“MOM!” Michelle said in shock at what her own mother had just said about her.
“Well,” Cindy said, looking at her daughter while seemingly finding nothing wrong with what she just exposed about her. “It’s true, isn’t it? Just own it,” she said.
“Mom,” Michelle said, the stern tone of her voice evidence that she was not happy that her mother was airing this element of her life to the public in such a way. Michelle’s was now starting to rival Erica’s in terms of how red it was. “It’s not something that I just go about telling people,” she said in an almost-whisper.
“Oh, Shelly,” Cindy said with a slight laugh. “You’re trying to say that all the people in the nail salon earlier who were watching you fall out of the chair while they were scrubbing your feet couldn’t tell that you’re ticklish?” she said with disbelief.
“Oh my God, Mom…” Michelle said, her face now turning even redder than Erica’s as Shelly covered her face with her hands in embarrassment. “Can you not?” she asked, removing her hands from her face as she looked at her mother. “Can you seriously just not?” she repeated before turning back to us. “I…” she said, as if trying to form the right words that would put an end to this conversation once and for all. “I have a slight problem with pedicures,” she confessed, her face grimacing as she said the words.
“Hey, happens to be the best of us, girl,” Ally said, chiming in for the first time. “No shame,” she said, offering words of encouragement.
So this was the second family gathering in a row where Ally had volunteered some sort of confession about being ticklish. First on Easter, about how having her feet tickled like Erica’s were while her husband was sitting on her shins was her absolute worst nightmare, and now tonight, where she pretty much all but confessed to not being able to handle a pedicure. I’m sure her confessions have been motivated by a combination of a wish for solidarity amongst the in-laws and also for support for those being outed as ticklish themselves, but whatever the reason, it’s certainly been an intriguing development.
“See?” Cindy said, almost whispering so Michelle wouldn’t hear her. “Crazy ticklish,” she said even lower, this time bringing one hand up to her face as a “wall” while using the other hand to point at Michelle.
“Mom, oh my God,” Michelle said. “They get it.”
“Sounds like you and Erica have a lot in common, then,” Morgan said, not wanting to let Erica off the hook too easily on this one.
“Nooo,” Erica said, turning to Morgan as she heard her name brought back into the conversation. “We don’t have to talk about me being ticklish anymore,” she said, clearly wanting her statement to come across as a command despite it coming across more as a plea.
“Or me,” Michelle said, looking at her mother as she said it.
“OK, OK,” Cindy said, putting her hands up in the air as if to show she were “unarmed”. “I didn’t realize it was such a ticklish situation for you,” she said, chuckling at her own joke.
“Mom, seriously,” Michelle said, at first sternly but eventually letting a slight chuckle out of her lips as she picked up on her mother’s joke.
“They’re so sensitive, aren’t they?,” Morgan said to Cindy, tilting her head in Erica’s direction to continue the play on words. Erica shot her a look in response. Cindy winked at her.
And true to their words, that was the end of the conversation. A few more generic pleasantries were exchanged before Cindy and Michelle said their goodbyes to us and were on their way.
Eventually we followed suit, as we said goodbye to the deceased’s family and then to the rest of the in-laws before our group hopped back into their respective vehicles and departed for our house, where the second part of our story takes place.
We eventually made it to our house, where we all parked our cars and made our way into the abode, our guests carrying their bags of change of clothes with them.
They each took turns going into the bathroom to get changed. Morgan went in first, transforming from her black skirt, black pantyhose, white blouse, black cover, and black heels into a more comfortable pair of skinny jeans, a gray hoodie sweatshirt, and a pair of black boots. Next was Ally, transforming from her black skirt, white blouse, suntan pantyhose, and gray sweater into a pair of heather gray sweatpants and a white long sleeve shirt. She also now had on a pair of white socks under a pair of tan UGG slipper-shoes. Finally, Erica went in. Ally and I stayed near the bathroom area getting drinks and snacks ready for everyone while Erica changed and the other congregated in the living room area.
“Hey, hun?” Erica called out as she opened the bathroom door and stepped out. She, too, had changed into something more comfortable, as she now sported a pair of black leggings with a red long sleeve shirt. As I had come to expect, she still wore her suntan pantyhose from earlier. She held her heels in her hands by the tips of her fingers as she waited for her husband to come in.
“Yeah, babe?” he said, entering the area.
“You remember when you said you dropped my change-of-clothes bag in the house before we left?” Erica asked.
“Yeah?”
“Did anything fall out?” she asked him, clearly already knowing the answer.
“Did anything….oh yeah,” her husband said, seemingly recalling the events of earlier that day.
“Oh yeah,” Erica said, mimicking her husband’s response. “What fell out, hun?”
“Your shoes and socks,” he said.
“My shoes and socks!” Erica said, again mimicking what her husband had said. “Now what am I supposed to do?”
“Well, don’t you have shoes in your hand?” her husband asked, seeming to genuinely think that wearing heels for the duration of the night was an option for Erica.
“Heels?” Erica asked.
“Yeah,” her husband said “No?”
“No…” Erica said, as if trying to comprehend why her husband would think that was a viable alternative. “That’s all,” she said, almost dismissing him. “I just didn’t know if you had seen my shoes.”
“Sorry,” he said and turned and went back to the other room, leaving Erica, Ally, and me in the room again.
“What am I going to do now?” Erica said aloud, though I’m not sure if she was asking either of us or just asking rhetorically. Either way, you could sense the growing desperation in her voice.
“Just go without shoes,” I said simply, though I knew - or at least had a very strong gut feeling - as to why that was not an option in Erica’s mind.
“I can’t walk around here all night in nylons,” she said.
“Well, I didn’t take my nylons off,” Ally said, pulling the top of her pantyhose out from under her sweatpants with a tug of her thumb. “I could take my socks and slippers off if you didn’t want to feel out of place,” she offered.
Ally must have caught me looking at her - admittedly, in disbelief that she was also wearing nylons and under her sweatpants of all things - and looked to justify her fashion choices. “Well, I was being lazy,” she explained, without mentioning exactly what she was being lazy about. “And I wanted to get out of the bathroom quickly so other people could go in,” she continued. “Plus, I know we had talked about maybe having a fire pit, so I thought it might be chilly out and they’d be another layer for me,” she said.
“Hey, you don’t have to explain to me,” I said
“No, no,” Erica said, the tone of her voice making it seem as though she realized she was making too big a deal out of the issue in front of Ally. “I’ll be fine,” she said, seemingly trying to convince herself more than Ally.
“Well, just let me know,” Ally said, gathering up some stuff to bring to the other room. “I don’t mind,” she said as she left the room.
Erica looked at me and laughed.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re just the nylons guy, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, instantly turning a deep shade of red, I’m sure.
“No, just that everyone seems to try to justify to you why they’re wearing nylons,” Erica explained, as her face, too, turned a little red as she realized the possible double entendre of her words.
“I guess I have a trusting face,” I said, really unsure of what to even say.
“Well,” Erica said, clearly wanting to end that conversation just as quickly as I hoped, “I suppose we should bring these in there,” she said. She placed her heels on the floor and slid each foot in, one at a time, twirling her ankle a little to ensure a good fit. We walked into the other room one after the other, Erica’s heels announcing our arrival as they click’d against the wood floors.
The clicking of the heels clearly caught Morgan’s attention because she turned to look at Erica as soon as she entered the room.
“Oh,” Ally said, noticing that Morgan had detected Erica’s heels. “Her husband didn’t pack her shoes so all she has is her heels,” Ally said, explaining Erica’s plight to Morgan.
“Oh, girl,” Morgan said, empathizing with Erica though, no doubt, with duplicitous intentions. “Why don’t you just take them off? Your feet are going to be killing you,” Morgan reasoned.
“I’m a big girl,” Erica said, trying to end this conversation quickly, as well. “I can take it.”
“You jerk,” Morgan said to Erica’s husband, slapping him on the arm.
Nothing eventful happened over the next hour or so. I will admit I was paying close attention to both Erica and Morgan, not wanting to miss anything that might have gone down. And I’ll also admit - and this might be why some of my stories can be rather lengthy - that this is also one of my favorite elements of the whole tickling culture. Here you had these two vanilla people - Morgan and Erica - in a very vanilla situation - just hanging out with extended family members.
First there’s Erica. Erica is literally putting herself through the torment of wearing heels for an extended period of time out of concern that should she remove the heels, her feet would instantly receive tickle targets on them. She clearly 1,000% would rather not be wearing the heels - evident both because she had planned to bring alternate sneakers to change into and because she had been sliding her feet in and out of her heels nonstop since sitting down - but has made the choice to cause herself discomfort rather than leave herself somewhat vulnerable to what would be - in her mind - the inevitable tickle from someone.
Then there’s Morgan, someone who at this point in the story wasn’t even really technically involved in anything. Sure, she had noticed right away that Erica was wearing heels still, but to a non-TMF-er, the observation ended there. However, it was quite clear as we were sitting there that Morgan no doubt felt she had a stake in the outcome of Erica’s heels that evening. As inconspicuously as she could, Morgan had been stealing glances at Erica’s heels throughout the hour, glances ranging from quick glances to confirm that Erica’s heels were still on to slightly longer glances to see if Erica would finally remove her heels as she was sliding her feet in and out of the heels. The untrained eye wouldn’t even have noticed. The TMFer caught on right away (or, admittedly, was wish-casting, but as you’ll soon see, I don’t think that was the case).
And then let’s not forget about Ally. Ally has become a person of particular interest over these last few gatherings. There was, of course, her free admission that being tickled on her feet would be her worst nightmare, and now tonight she’d made the choice to wear pantyhose under her sweat pants. How - if at all - would she factor into any of the night’s potential goings-on?
Eventually, Erica and I ended up in the kitchen again as we both went to grab another drink at the same time. With just she and I in the kitchen, she finally came clean.
“Oh my word, my feet are KILLING me,” she said in a pained whisper, holding onto the kitchen counter as she bent down to remove the heel off of one of her feet.
“Just take them off,” I suggested. “You don’t need to be a hero.”
“I might have to,” she said, a clear look of worry on her face at the possibility of spending the rest of the night without one less level of protection on her feet.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” I said, balancing the line of wanting to be supportive but also hoping to plant the seeds of something to come. “No one will even notice,” I added, “unless your feet stink.”
Erica’s jaw dropped a bit in faux-shock. “Excuse you, my feet do not stink,” she said with a slap of my arm. “I guess you’re right, though,” she said, slipping her feet out of heels with a sigh of relief “You’re just lucky you don’t have to wear heels,” she said to me as she gathered her drink and brought it back into the other room.
Oh, if only you knew, Erica… haha
Of course, I couldn’t have been any more wrong about my comment regarding no one even noticing that Erica had taken her heels off. Somewhat shockingly, though, it was Ally who would be the first to chime in.
“Finally ditched the heels, huh?” Ally asked as she watched Erica walk into the room absent the click’ing of her heels.
“Yeah,” Erica said, immediately dreading that someone had noticed. “Why put myself through that punishment, right?” she asked rhetorically.
Morgan didn’t say anything but had, without a doubt, made a mental note of Erica’s now shoeless situation, as she kept giving quick glances in Erica’s direction, unable to hide the small smile forming at the corner of her mouth. Erica, meanwhile, immediately upon sitting down tucked her feet under her body as a means of ending their showcase to everyone in the room.
It was a short while later, though, when business would pick up, as ol’ JR used to tell us on Monday nights…
At this point, for some reason, people were standing in the room; most had gotten up to get a new beverage or to use the restroom and, upon return, had just remained standing. The topic of conversation at this point was an upcoming family wedding that everyone was dreading going to because of its inconvenience and the “Bridezilla” stories that were going around.
“Well, at least there’ll be dancing,” Ally said, looking to make the most of what would undoubtedly be a dreary evening.
“Yeah,” agreed Morgan. “Maybe we’ll get to see Erica break out her dance move from earlier tonight, too,” she joked.
“What dance move?” Erica asked, unsure of what Morgan was referring to.
“Remember?” Morgan asked. “This one,” she said, as she dug her fingers into Erica’s sides the same way her husband had done earlier in the evening at the wake.
Poor Erica nearly jumped out of her skin. Not that there was much expectation that it would, but the thin material of her red t-shirt provided virtually no protection against Morgan’s probing digits as they poked and squeezed at Erica’s sides. That and the fact that Erica had instinctively clamped her arms down by her sides - effectively trapping Morgan’s fingers in their tickling position - had rendered Erica between the proverbial rock and hard place.
“Morgan, no, no, no, no!” Erica pleaded between laughter as her body twisted and turned, shimmied and shook as it tried to find a way to get those tickling fingers away from her sensitive sides.
“Yeah, see?” Morgan said laughing. “That’s what I’m talking about!” she laughed as she continued to manipulate her now-trapped fingers any way she could to get the largest reaction out of Erica.
“Morgan, please stop!” Erica pleaded, realizing that she was falling deeper and deeper into despair with each passing second that Morgan’s fingers remained pressed against her sides. In addition to twisting and turning and shimmying and shaking, Erica had also now added bobbing up and down to her repertoire in trying to rid Morgan’s fingers from her sides — all to no avail.
If I may analyze for a brief moment.. . I’m actually quite impressed with both how easily and how quickly Morgan was able to weave in this tickle attack on Erica. Referring to this as Erica’s dance moves was a seamless transition and an easy avenue to take to introduce the tickle attack. Though she couldn’t possibly have known Ally was going to mention dancing in the conversation, it was apparent - at least to me, anyways - that Morgan had been trying to find a way to make an organic moment like this happen.
It was also apparent - to everyone in the room - that Erica was quickly losing the battle against Morgan’s tormenting touches. It couldn’t have been more than 10 seconds at this point since Morgan’s fingers had first made contact and already Erica’s face was turning beet red, her eyes clenched shut as she fought to cast away the ticklish pokes against her sides. Where Erica had been able to form some words seeking mercy within those first few seconds, her words were now more jumbled, the waves of laughter interrupting the flow of words as they both escaped Erica’s mouth.
Morgan was grinning ear to ear, obviously quite pleased with her work. She was laser focused on matching Erica step-for-step, on making sure that Erica wasn’t able to break free from her clutches. Morgan was Erica’s shadow, making it impossible for Erica to escape.
“What do you call this dance, Erica?” Morgan joked as she ‘danced’ behind her victim. “I spent years in dance classes but I don’t ever remember being taught this one,” she laughed.
“I still can’t believe Erica’s this ticklish,” Ally said to me as we watched the scene unfold in front of us.
“She hid it well for so long,” I said.
“Yeah, well, once something like that is out of the bag…” Ally said, not completing her thought.
Of course, she didn’t have to complete her thought, for one needed to only look at Morgan to know what happens when something like that is out of the bag. At about 20 seconds in, Erica was fading fast, her eyes still clenched shut, her body using its dwindling reserve of energy to try to hop forward, away from Morgan.
Unfortunately for Erica, she was hopping straight to the couch, and eventually, she stumbled onto the side arm of the couch. With her eyes clenched trying to block out the tickling, she hadn’t noticed how close she was to the obstacle. Her forward movement of hopping combined with Morgan’s momentum coming from behind her resulted in Erica sort of toppling over the side arm of the couch, her body now bent at the waist. Erica had used her hands to brace herself during her unexpected tumble, an act that had no doubt saved Erica from injury but had also once again exposed her sides to Morgan’s tickling fingers. Morgan took advantage of this to slide her fingers up a bit into Erica’s underarms.
Though the conversations between Erica and me have been mostly limited to either how ticklish she is in general or how ticklish her feet are in particular, there is no doubt that while her sides are still a super ticklish spot, her underarms are a far more ticklish spot. I wouldn’t say her underarms come close to her feet in terms of the ticklish scale, but on a scale of 1-10, if her feet are a 20, I’d put her sides at a 12 and her underarms at a 15. Thus, it was only natural, then, that Morgan’s shift in focus to Erica’s underarms had caused an even more uproarious response from Erica as the room filled with her laughter cascading against the walls.
“No, no, no!” Erica screamed against waves of laughter, begging for mercy against a plight that had become all the more perilous for her with this shift in focus from Morgan.
“Yes, yes yes, yes,” Morgan replied, mocking Erica’s frantic pleas. Ally laughed, as well, clearly enjoying the scene unfolding before her eyes.
Erica was getting desperate. It couldn’t have been more than 30 seconds at this point, but 30 seconds of tickling for someone as ticklish as Erica had to be absolute torture. In a last ditch effort, Erica tried to use her positioning to her advantage to escape her torment. Bent over at the waist with her upper body, essentially, laying on the first cushion of the couch, Erica began worming her upper body closer and closer to that second cushion, hoping to create more distance between her sensitive sides and underarms and Morgan’s probing digits.
And that’s when things took a turn for the worse for Erica.
Though Erica was able to gain a momentary victory in that she was, indeed, able to move her upper body far enough away from Morgan’s hands that she got a brief reprieve, Morgan used that opportunity to find a new tickle target: Erica’s waist. Poking and prodding, Morgan tickled any area she could find, alternating between poking Erica’s waist and dancing her fingers across the slight patch of skin of Erica’s stomach that was exposed.
Though not as ticklish as she underarms, it was the shock of this new attack that caused Erica to jump. And it was this final jump that carried Erica’s weight from her bottom half to her upper half, causing her waist to topple over the arm of the couch and onto the first cushion below. Of course, the human anatomy being what it is, Erica’s waist was not alone in moving. Erica’s legs now floated above the ground, her thighs resting on the arm of the couch while her legs dangled in the air.
Right at Morgan’s eye level.
It took Morgan all of 2.2 seconds to realize what opportunity now lay before her, for not only were Erica’s legs dangling in the air, but Erica’s feet were now also dangling in the air, essentially at eye level for Morgan; they may as well have had giant “TICKLE ME” signs on them.
Morgan quickly deserted Erica’s waist, turning a bit to get an angle that would afford her a better grip on Erica’s ankles. Poor Erica had no idea. As Erica felt Morgan’s hands remove themselves from her waist, a brief look of relief appeared on Erica’s face, thinking that the worst was now over.
Oh, how wrong she was…
Before Erica could move, Morgan had grabbed onto one of Erica’s ankles, tucking it under her arm to secure it in place. The hunter had trapped its prey.
Erica’s eyes shot open as she realized what had happened.
“NO!” she screamed out, gathering up any ounce of energy she had left to try to pull her ankle free from Morgan’s grip. “MORGAN, NO, OH MY GOD, PLEASE NOT MY FEET!” she begged.
“Oooooh,” Ally said, almost giddy as if realizing she was about to come up to the exciting part of a movie. “She’s REALLY in for it now,” she said.
Morgan struggled to maintain her grip as Erica flopped like a fish out of water, desperately trying to pull her ankle free. Morgan finally got it under control enough where she was able to drag one finger down the bottom of Erica’s upturned sole.
Erica’s body jolted like it had been hit by an electric shock as she screamed out in laughter. “MORGAN, PLEASE!” she begged. “NOT MY FEET!!”
“I’m barely touching you,” Morgan said, as she was doing just that - just ever so slightly dragging one of her fingers up and down the bottom of Erica’s foot, almost as if she were toying with her.
But Erica wasn’t listening, instead too focused on trying in vain to bust out of this predicament. “MORGAN, PLEASE!” she yelled, emphasizing the “please” this time. “NOT MY FEET,” she repeated. “I’M SERIOUS!!” she yelled as the laughter continued to pour from her mouth.
“You don’t sound so serious to me,” Morgan joked, continuing to drag that one lone finger up and down the bottom of Erica’s foot while struggling to maintain control of Erica’s kicking leg.
But Erica was about to make another tragic mistake.
“MORGAN, NO!” Erica repeated, now using her other leg to try to push Morgan off, all in an effort to free her trapped foot. Unfortunately for Erica, Morgan used this as an opportunity to grab a hold of Erica’s second leg, pulling that ankle under her arm next to Erica’s other foot. Now, Morgan had both of Erica’s upturned soles facing her, trapped under her arm, with nothing that Erica could do to escape.
“There,” Morgan said, happy with her handiwork. “That’s easier.”
“NO!” Erica screamed, realizing that her situation had become exponentially worse. “MORGAN, DON’T!” she begged.
But Morgan wasn’t listening. Now with both feet secured and with Erica having little leverage to try to break free because of her positioning, Morgan was now in full control. Using one of her arms to make sure Erica’s ankles remained wedged under her arm, Morgan used all five fingers of her other hand to execute an all-out tickle attack on Erica’s vulnerable soles. This was no one-finger-slightly-dragging-across-the-bottom technique; no, this was a full-on, all-out tickle attack that sent Erica into hysterics at first touch.
If I had thought Erica was being tortured before, it was nothing compared to this. Erica’s laughter filled the room, her body thrashing as little as it could in an attempt to break free. Erica was, without a doubt, beside herself, in complete and total tickle agony - her eyes clenched shut, her face beet red, tears forming in her eyes, her free hand slapping on the couch as if tapping out and begging for mercy.
I felt bad for Erica. Once again, her rival sister-in-law had gotten the best of her, using her ultimate weakness in front of everyone to render her completely helpless. I remember thinking, ‘If only her husband had picked up her shoes…’
“See, now this,” Ally said, tapping me on the shoulder and pointing to Erica to show what she was going through. “This is where I would legit die,” Ally confessed. “Nope,” she continued. “No way I could handle it.”
“You’d die?” I asked, looking to see how far she’d continue to describe her own ticklishness.
‘OK, maybe I wouldn’t die,” Ally corrected herself. “But it’s still torture. This was how we’d get secrets out of each other at sleepovers growing up,” she said with a laugh.
“Really?” I asked, a little dry in the mouth from everything going on around me.
“For sure,” Ally said nonchalantly. “After about 5 seconds of this, we’d find out all about the person’s crush or whatever,” she said. “Honestly,” she said, now lowering her voice slightly though still above a whisper. “Even now,I would give up the PIN to my debit card, I would give the combination to my safe, I would do laundry for a week - a month, even… This is pure torture,” she said.
Of course, one needed to look no further than Erica to confirm just how tortuous this was. It couldn’t have been 15 seconds of tickling on her feet at this point, and Erica was already broken. I would have been worried that the neighbors might have called the police for a noise complaint because of how loud Erica was laughing, but she so often fell in and out of silent laughter that there were enough breaks in the volume to quell those concerns.
“I honestly think she’s the most ticklish person I have ever met in my life,” Morgan said, looking to us. “How did we never know about this?” she asked.
I must say that while the previous stories I’ve relayed involving Erica and Morgan were light-hearted in nature - no matter Erica’s fears and worries - this particular incident carried a different tone to it. I wouldn’t necessarily say that there was any evil or malice involved by any means. For all accounts, this was still just one sister-in-law tickling another sister-in-law. But something about this incident seemed a little more amped. Morgan had the look in her eyes almost of someone possessed. Whereas prior incidents seemed to be brought up by opportunity, it was as if Morgan had been thinking about this all night long, since the incident at the wake, and now was watching her plan come to fruition. And where Erica has never been able to handle any sort of ticklish touch, this particular tickle attack had her almost more panicked, in a way. Almost as if in previous incidents, she knew there’d be an end to the torture, but she wasn’t sure when the end to this one was coming. I could, of course, be completely overanalyzing this, admittedly.
Erica, meanwhile, was most likely wishing that no one had ever found out about this particular element of her life. For someone who prided herself so much on her maturity, her composure, her control, to be reduced to such a laughing spectacle must have been humiliating for her. And for as much as she liked to have control of things, there was nothing she could do about this; she was completely at Morgan’s mercy, and Morgan was seemingly running low on mercy this evening.
A couple of things that I find fascinating about the concept of tickling someone is 1) how much the sight of a person being tickled brings about other people to want to tickle that person and 2) how someone who is seemingly quite ticklish themselves will still show no mercy when given the opportunity to tickle someone else. Both of these came about with what happened next.
“Could I try?” Ally asked meekly, clearly wanting to give it a go herself but not wanting to sound too eager about it. Admittedly, the request took both Morgan and myself by surprise.
“Sure,” Morgan said, pausing her tickling to present the bottom of Erica’s feet to Ally, happy to have a partner-in-crime for a moment.
“Ally? No!” Erica begged as she gasped for air, clearly not anticipating a double team effort. “Please!” she pleaded, her petitions again falling on deaf ears.
Like Morgan, Ally started by just using one finger to drag up and down the bottom of Erica’s foot - almost as if she needed to test it out first. Naturally, even just this touch sent Erica into a fit of laughter as Ally smiled, seemingly pleased with the results of her test. The confirmation of Erica’s ticklishness spurred Ally to up her game, now employing all of her fingers to dance atop Erica’s arches.
“Oh my gosh,” Ally said. “The poor thing is so ticklish,” she commented, though her statement wasn’t enough reason in her mind to stop her tickling.
Poor Erica was losing her mind. All told, she had probably been tickled on her feet for about 30 seconds at the absolute most at this point, but that was clearly 29.99 seconds too many for Erica. It seemed she had lost all hope at this point, as all she was doing was laying there laughing — not that there was much else she could do given her positioning, of course.
Of course, I couldn’t consider it at the time, but this was essentially my dream scenario taking place in front of me, albeit with in-laws. Here you had Ally, who just moments ago was discussing her own level of ticklishness in great detail, taking advantage of Erica’s situation, tickling her nylon-clad feet to her delight, whilst Ally herself was wearing nylons underneath her socks at the same time.
Eventually, Morgan wanted another chance at tickling Erica, so Morgan slapped Ally’s hands away from Erica’s feet so Morgan could begin her own attack again.
In another second or so, Erica gasped for air and screamed out “PLEASE!” as best she could against her laughter, and I could tell she had had enough.
“OK,” I said. “I think you might actually be killing her at this point.
“Yeah,” Ally said, agreeing - though I’m not sure if it was out of sympathy for Erica or out of frustration that her own fun had been cut short. “She’s gasping for air,” she said, before adding in something that made my antennae stand on end. “And she had nylons on,” she said.
“OK, I suppose,” Morgan said, in an over-the-top dejected manner. She let go of Erica’s ankles with a pouty face and walked away from the couch.
Erica lay there panting, trying to get her breath back as quickly as she could. As soon as she could, she pulled her feet closer to her body and pushed herself to the far end of the couch, free from harm’s way.
Eventually, Morgan and Ally left the room, and I offered a hand to Erica to help her up off the couch. She accepted it and stood up, slapping me in the arm in the process.
“Ow!” I said in fake pain. “What was that for?”
“For not helping me!” she said, clearly not as upset with me as she was letting on.
“Hey, if it weren’t for me, she’d still be tickling you,” I said, mostly in jest but realizing that it was likely the truth.
Just then, Erica’s husband came into the room. “Babe, I could hear you from outside,” he said, complaining.
“Shut up,” she said, with equal parts disdain and jest, I’m sure. As quickly as he entered the room, he turned and left. Erica rolled her eyes in my direction.
But all in all, it was another positive moment - well, for me, anyways, maybe not Erica. Temperatures have increased to more summer-like numbers here, so I’m not sure how many more times I’ll see any of them in nylons, but if this was it, it was certainly a way to go out.
This one took place a couple of weeks ago. I’ve just struggled to find time to put it into words. As usual, it’ll take longer to read this than it did for the actual tickling to take place.
This is a two-part story; the first takes place at the actual wake and is more a casual tickle with a lot of dialogue and the second takes place back at our house and is a more intense tickle.
As I mentioned, recently an old family friend passed away, which drew all of the extended family members into the funeral home for the wake and the services. As the old cliche goes, it was time to see a bunch of people that you only see at weddings and funerals. It was also time to see my favorite sisters-in-law again.
Prior to the wake, we had made plans that we would head over to our house once we left the funeral home - pizzas, maybe a fire pit, and just an opportunity for us to host where we usually end up at someone else’s house.
We all trickled in at different times, but eventually my family found ourselves standing with Erica and her husband, Morgan and her husband, and Ally and her husband. With the recently deceased being a closer companion to the previous generation than to ours, we were sort of doing the awkward “standing around wondering when it’s acceptable to leave” thing - no disrespect intended, of course.
Naturally, it being a wake, we were all dressed appropriately for the occasion, and since it’s been unseasonably chilly and gray in the area as Spring has struggled to emerge, the women were all wearing nylons of some kind. Erica, as is usually the case, was the most conservative, dressed in a black dress that went just below her knees with a black cardigan sweater over the top; suntan pantyhose encased her legs, which ended in a pair of black pumps, her least conservative part of her outfit. Ally was in the middle, dressed in a black skirt that went right to her knee with a white blouse and a gray sweater above; tonight Ally was also wearing suntan pantyhose with a pair of black pumps. Morgan, of course, was the most provocative of the three - which is not to say that her outfit was by any means inappropriate. It just came the closest to the border of appropriate and inappropriate. Morgan’s skirt sat right above her knee and her white blouse rested just at the waist line of her skirt. She wore a somewhat sheer black cover over the blouse. Morgan was also wearing black pantyhose and of the three, she by far wore the highest heels, a pair of stilettos that had to add a good four inches to her height.
As a nylon aficionado myself, it’s not often that one sees Morgan in nylons. She usually wears them on the special occasions, of course, but those have been happening fewer and farther between lately. The thought of all three women potentially in my house later on with nylons on and shoes that were almost certainly going to be removed the second they walked in the door certainly started my gears turning.
Thus, you can imagine my dismay when the following conversation took place:
Ally: “I can’t wait to get back to your house to change out of these clothes.”
Morgan: “Oh absolutely. I’m so glad I brought a change of clothes.”
Erica: “Same.”
D’oh!
I figured that just as it was likely that their shoes would have been removed the second they walked in the door, so too was it likely that - maybe besides Erica - there was little chance that pantyhose would survive an outfit change.
Oh well…
After a couple of minutes of standing around awkwardly, we were approached by another family friend, Cindy, and her daughter, Michelle. Cindy was in her 50s, whereas the generation of the deceased were mostly in their 60s. Michelle was in her early 20s. Both were also dressed appropriately for the event, with Cindy opting for the black pants and black top look to pair with her black nylons and black flats and Michelle wearing a black skirt with a gray top to pair with her suntan pantyhose and black heels.
We all made idle chit-chat for a bit - “Haven’t seen you in so long”, “Oh wow - you’re in college now?”, “How’s married life treating you?” - before running out of discussion topics and falling back into the awkwardness again. Cindy and Michelle seemed like they were about to walk away when it happened..
At this point, Erica was standing in front of her husband, her smaller stature not at all blocking her husband’s view of Cindy and Michelle. From my vantage point, I could see it all go down. Erica’s husband had brought up both his hands and made a fist with only the pointer finger on each hand sticking out. He then slowly, casually, nonchalantly brought those two pointer fingers to rest on the sides of his wife standing in front of him. It wasn’t necessarily an actual tickle, but I’m sure you’re all well aware of the move.
And regardless of whether or not it was an actual tickle, there was no doubt that Erica’s body registered the touch as a ticklish touch. As soon as his fingers made contact with her sides, Erica’s body began to arch forward, her body contorting into a combination of a Limbo Line move and a Keanu Reeves Matrix style move as her body attempted to flee from the probing digits.
“Aaaahhhh,” Erica blurted out as she jumped from the touch, turning quickly to confirm that it was indeed her husband who was the perpetrator. “Oh my God,” Erica said, her face quickly turning a bright shade of red. “Not at a wake,” she chastised, slapping her husband’s arm. “Are you serious?”
“What happened?” Cindy asked, having missed the sneak tickle attack and seeing only Erica’s reaction.
“I don’t know,” Erica’s husband said, playing dumb. “All I did was put my hand on her and she jumped like a mad woman,” he said.
“Oh,” Cindy said, not quite picking up on the joke as she wasn’t used to his sense of humor. And to her credit, probably wasn’t expecting a person to tickle another person at a wake, no matter how slight the tickle may have been.
But Morgan had seen the whole thing go down and she wasn’t about to let a chance to point out Erica’s weakness go by without taking advantage of it.
“She’s SUPER ticklish,” Morgan said, nodding her head in Erica’s direction as she explained the situation to Cindy and Michelle. Morgan couldn’t have emphasized the word “super” more if she jumped and down shouting it from the rooftop.
“Morgan!” Erica said, her face somehow turning even redder than before.
“Oh,” Cindy said, now realizing what had happened. A smile came over her face as she looked at Erica. “That makes more sense now,” she said.
Erica adjusted her cardigan and her hair, trying to get her appearance back to how it was pre-paroxysm. Cindy must have sensed Erica’s embarrassment and felt the need to console her because she then offered up the following words of encouragement to Erica along with this tidbit to the group.
“Don’t worry about it, hun,” she said, putting her hand on Erica’s arm to comfort her. “It happens. Shelly’s (Michelle) crazy ticklish, too,” she said with a chuckle.
“MOM!” Michelle said in shock at what her own mother had just said about her.
“Well,” Cindy said, looking at her daughter while seemingly finding nothing wrong with what she just exposed about her. “It’s true, isn’t it? Just own it,” she said.
“Mom,” Michelle said, the stern tone of her voice evidence that she was not happy that her mother was airing this element of her life to the public in such a way. Michelle’s was now starting to rival Erica’s in terms of how red it was. “It’s not something that I just go about telling people,” she said in an almost-whisper.
“Oh, Shelly,” Cindy said with a slight laugh. “You’re trying to say that all the people in the nail salon earlier who were watching you fall out of the chair while they were scrubbing your feet couldn’t tell that you’re ticklish?” she said with disbelief.
“Oh my God, Mom…” Michelle said, her face now turning even redder than Erica’s as Shelly covered her face with her hands in embarrassment. “Can you not?” she asked, removing her hands from her face as she looked at her mother. “Can you seriously just not?” she repeated before turning back to us. “I…” she said, as if trying to form the right words that would put an end to this conversation once and for all. “I have a slight problem with pedicures,” she confessed, her face grimacing as she said the words.
“Hey, happens to be the best of us, girl,” Ally said, chiming in for the first time. “No shame,” she said, offering words of encouragement.
So this was the second family gathering in a row where Ally had volunteered some sort of confession about being ticklish. First on Easter, about how having her feet tickled like Erica’s were while her husband was sitting on her shins was her absolute worst nightmare, and now tonight, where she pretty much all but confessed to not being able to handle a pedicure. I’m sure her confessions have been motivated by a combination of a wish for solidarity amongst the in-laws and also for support for those being outed as ticklish themselves, but whatever the reason, it’s certainly been an intriguing development.
“See?” Cindy said, almost whispering so Michelle wouldn’t hear her. “Crazy ticklish,” she said even lower, this time bringing one hand up to her face as a “wall” while using the other hand to point at Michelle.
“Mom, oh my God,” Michelle said. “They get it.”
“Sounds like you and Erica have a lot in common, then,” Morgan said, not wanting to let Erica off the hook too easily on this one.
“Nooo,” Erica said, turning to Morgan as she heard her name brought back into the conversation. “We don’t have to talk about me being ticklish anymore,” she said, clearly wanting her statement to come across as a command despite it coming across more as a plea.
“Or me,” Michelle said, looking at her mother as she said it.
“OK, OK,” Cindy said, putting her hands up in the air as if to show she were “unarmed”. “I didn’t realize it was such a ticklish situation for you,” she said, chuckling at her own joke.
“Mom, seriously,” Michelle said, at first sternly but eventually letting a slight chuckle out of her lips as she picked up on her mother’s joke.
“They’re so sensitive, aren’t they?,” Morgan said to Cindy, tilting her head in Erica’s direction to continue the play on words. Erica shot her a look in response. Cindy winked at her.
And true to their words, that was the end of the conversation. A few more generic pleasantries were exchanged before Cindy and Michelle said their goodbyes to us and were on their way.
Eventually we followed suit, as we said goodbye to the deceased’s family and then to the rest of the in-laws before our group hopped back into their respective vehicles and departed for our house, where the second part of our story takes place.
We eventually made it to our house, where we all parked our cars and made our way into the abode, our guests carrying their bags of change of clothes with them.
They each took turns going into the bathroom to get changed. Morgan went in first, transforming from her black skirt, black pantyhose, white blouse, black cover, and black heels into a more comfortable pair of skinny jeans, a gray hoodie sweatshirt, and a pair of black boots. Next was Ally, transforming from her black skirt, white blouse, suntan pantyhose, and gray sweater into a pair of heather gray sweatpants and a white long sleeve shirt. She also now had on a pair of white socks under a pair of tan UGG slipper-shoes. Finally, Erica went in. Ally and I stayed near the bathroom area getting drinks and snacks ready for everyone while Erica changed and the other congregated in the living room area.
“Hey, hun?” Erica called out as she opened the bathroom door and stepped out. She, too, had changed into something more comfortable, as she now sported a pair of black leggings with a red long sleeve shirt. As I had come to expect, she still wore her suntan pantyhose from earlier. She held her heels in her hands by the tips of her fingers as she waited for her husband to come in.
“Yeah, babe?” he said, entering the area.
“You remember when you said you dropped my change-of-clothes bag in the house before we left?” Erica asked.
“Yeah?”
“Did anything fall out?” she asked him, clearly already knowing the answer.
“Did anything….oh yeah,” her husband said, seemingly recalling the events of earlier that day.
“Oh yeah,” Erica said, mimicking her husband’s response. “What fell out, hun?”
“Your shoes and socks,” he said.
“My shoes and socks!” Erica said, again mimicking what her husband had said. “Now what am I supposed to do?”
“Well, don’t you have shoes in your hand?” her husband asked, seeming to genuinely think that wearing heels for the duration of the night was an option for Erica.
“Heels?” Erica asked.
“Yeah,” her husband said “No?”
“No…” Erica said, as if trying to comprehend why her husband would think that was a viable alternative. “That’s all,” she said, almost dismissing him. “I just didn’t know if you had seen my shoes.”
“Sorry,” he said and turned and went back to the other room, leaving Erica, Ally, and me in the room again.
“What am I going to do now?” Erica said aloud, though I’m not sure if she was asking either of us or just asking rhetorically. Either way, you could sense the growing desperation in her voice.
“Just go without shoes,” I said simply, though I knew - or at least had a very strong gut feeling - as to why that was not an option in Erica’s mind.
“I can’t walk around here all night in nylons,” she said.
“Well, I didn’t take my nylons off,” Ally said, pulling the top of her pantyhose out from under her sweatpants with a tug of her thumb. “I could take my socks and slippers off if you didn’t want to feel out of place,” she offered.
Ally must have caught me looking at her - admittedly, in disbelief that she was also wearing nylons and under her sweatpants of all things - and looked to justify her fashion choices. “Well, I was being lazy,” she explained, without mentioning exactly what she was being lazy about. “And I wanted to get out of the bathroom quickly so other people could go in,” she continued. “Plus, I know we had talked about maybe having a fire pit, so I thought it might be chilly out and they’d be another layer for me,” she said.
“Hey, you don’t have to explain to me,” I said
“No, no,” Erica said, the tone of her voice making it seem as though she realized she was making too big a deal out of the issue in front of Ally. “I’ll be fine,” she said, seemingly trying to convince herself more than Ally.
“Well, just let me know,” Ally said, gathering up some stuff to bring to the other room. “I don’t mind,” she said as she left the room.
Erica looked at me and laughed.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re just the nylons guy, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, instantly turning a deep shade of red, I’m sure.
“No, just that everyone seems to try to justify to you why they’re wearing nylons,” Erica explained, as her face, too, turned a little red as she realized the possible double entendre of her words.
“I guess I have a trusting face,” I said, really unsure of what to even say.
“Well,” Erica said, clearly wanting to end that conversation just as quickly as I hoped, “I suppose we should bring these in there,” she said. She placed her heels on the floor and slid each foot in, one at a time, twirling her ankle a little to ensure a good fit. We walked into the other room one after the other, Erica’s heels announcing our arrival as they click’d against the wood floors.
The clicking of the heels clearly caught Morgan’s attention because she turned to look at Erica as soon as she entered the room.
“Oh,” Ally said, noticing that Morgan had detected Erica’s heels. “Her husband didn’t pack her shoes so all she has is her heels,” Ally said, explaining Erica’s plight to Morgan.
“Oh, girl,” Morgan said, empathizing with Erica though, no doubt, with duplicitous intentions. “Why don’t you just take them off? Your feet are going to be killing you,” Morgan reasoned.
“I’m a big girl,” Erica said, trying to end this conversation quickly, as well. “I can take it.”
“You jerk,” Morgan said to Erica’s husband, slapping him on the arm.
Nothing eventful happened over the next hour or so. I will admit I was paying close attention to both Erica and Morgan, not wanting to miss anything that might have gone down. And I’ll also admit - and this might be why some of my stories can be rather lengthy - that this is also one of my favorite elements of the whole tickling culture. Here you had these two vanilla people - Morgan and Erica - in a very vanilla situation - just hanging out with extended family members.
First there’s Erica. Erica is literally putting herself through the torment of wearing heels for an extended period of time out of concern that should she remove the heels, her feet would instantly receive tickle targets on them. She clearly 1,000% would rather not be wearing the heels - evident both because she had planned to bring alternate sneakers to change into and because she had been sliding her feet in and out of her heels nonstop since sitting down - but has made the choice to cause herself discomfort rather than leave herself somewhat vulnerable to what would be - in her mind - the inevitable tickle from someone.
Then there’s Morgan, someone who at this point in the story wasn’t even really technically involved in anything. Sure, she had noticed right away that Erica was wearing heels still, but to a non-TMF-er, the observation ended there. However, it was quite clear as we were sitting there that Morgan no doubt felt she had a stake in the outcome of Erica’s heels that evening. As inconspicuously as she could, Morgan had been stealing glances at Erica’s heels throughout the hour, glances ranging from quick glances to confirm that Erica’s heels were still on to slightly longer glances to see if Erica would finally remove her heels as she was sliding her feet in and out of the heels. The untrained eye wouldn’t even have noticed. The TMFer caught on right away (or, admittedly, was wish-casting, but as you’ll soon see, I don’t think that was the case).
And then let’s not forget about Ally. Ally has become a person of particular interest over these last few gatherings. There was, of course, her free admission that being tickled on her feet would be her worst nightmare, and now tonight she’d made the choice to wear pantyhose under her sweat pants. How - if at all - would she factor into any of the night’s potential goings-on?
Eventually, Erica and I ended up in the kitchen again as we both went to grab another drink at the same time. With just she and I in the kitchen, she finally came clean.
“Oh my word, my feet are KILLING me,” she said in a pained whisper, holding onto the kitchen counter as she bent down to remove the heel off of one of her feet.
“Just take them off,” I suggested. “You don’t need to be a hero.”
“I might have to,” she said, a clear look of worry on her face at the possibility of spending the rest of the night without one less level of protection on her feet.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” I said, balancing the line of wanting to be supportive but also hoping to plant the seeds of something to come. “No one will even notice,” I added, “unless your feet stink.”
Erica’s jaw dropped a bit in faux-shock. “Excuse you, my feet do not stink,” she said with a slap of my arm. “I guess you’re right, though,” she said, slipping her feet out of heels with a sigh of relief “You’re just lucky you don’t have to wear heels,” she said to me as she gathered her drink and brought it back into the other room.
Oh, if only you knew, Erica… haha
Of course, I couldn’t have been any more wrong about my comment regarding no one even noticing that Erica had taken her heels off. Somewhat shockingly, though, it was Ally who would be the first to chime in.
“Finally ditched the heels, huh?” Ally asked as she watched Erica walk into the room absent the click’ing of her heels.
“Yeah,” Erica said, immediately dreading that someone had noticed. “Why put myself through that punishment, right?” she asked rhetorically.
Morgan didn’t say anything but had, without a doubt, made a mental note of Erica’s now shoeless situation, as she kept giving quick glances in Erica’s direction, unable to hide the small smile forming at the corner of her mouth. Erica, meanwhile, immediately upon sitting down tucked her feet under her body as a means of ending their showcase to everyone in the room.
It was a short while later, though, when business would pick up, as ol’ JR used to tell us on Monday nights…
At this point, for some reason, people were standing in the room; most had gotten up to get a new beverage or to use the restroom and, upon return, had just remained standing. The topic of conversation at this point was an upcoming family wedding that everyone was dreading going to because of its inconvenience and the “Bridezilla” stories that were going around.
“Well, at least there’ll be dancing,” Ally said, looking to make the most of what would undoubtedly be a dreary evening.
“Yeah,” agreed Morgan. “Maybe we’ll get to see Erica break out her dance move from earlier tonight, too,” she joked.
“What dance move?” Erica asked, unsure of what Morgan was referring to.
“Remember?” Morgan asked. “This one,” she said, as she dug her fingers into Erica’s sides the same way her husband had done earlier in the evening at the wake.
Poor Erica nearly jumped out of her skin. Not that there was much expectation that it would, but the thin material of her red t-shirt provided virtually no protection against Morgan’s probing digits as they poked and squeezed at Erica’s sides. That and the fact that Erica had instinctively clamped her arms down by her sides - effectively trapping Morgan’s fingers in their tickling position - had rendered Erica between the proverbial rock and hard place.
“Morgan, no, no, no, no!” Erica pleaded between laughter as her body twisted and turned, shimmied and shook as it tried to find a way to get those tickling fingers away from her sensitive sides.
“Yeah, see?” Morgan said laughing. “That’s what I’m talking about!” she laughed as she continued to manipulate her now-trapped fingers any way she could to get the largest reaction out of Erica.
“Morgan, please stop!” Erica pleaded, realizing that she was falling deeper and deeper into despair with each passing second that Morgan’s fingers remained pressed against her sides. In addition to twisting and turning and shimmying and shaking, Erica had also now added bobbing up and down to her repertoire in trying to rid Morgan’s fingers from her sides — all to no avail.
If I may analyze for a brief moment.. . I’m actually quite impressed with both how easily and how quickly Morgan was able to weave in this tickle attack on Erica. Referring to this as Erica’s dance moves was a seamless transition and an easy avenue to take to introduce the tickle attack. Though she couldn’t possibly have known Ally was going to mention dancing in the conversation, it was apparent - at least to me, anyways - that Morgan had been trying to find a way to make an organic moment like this happen.
It was also apparent - to everyone in the room - that Erica was quickly losing the battle against Morgan’s tormenting touches. It couldn’t have been more than 10 seconds at this point since Morgan’s fingers had first made contact and already Erica’s face was turning beet red, her eyes clenched shut as she fought to cast away the ticklish pokes against her sides. Where Erica had been able to form some words seeking mercy within those first few seconds, her words were now more jumbled, the waves of laughter interrupting the flow of words as they both escaped Erica’s mouth.
Morgan was grinning ear to ear, obviously quite pleased with her work. She was laser focused on matching Erica step-for-step, on making sure that Erica wasn’t able to break free from her clutches. Morgan was Erica’s shadow, making it impossible for Erica to escape.
“What do you call this dance, Erica?” Morgan joked as she ‘danced’ behind her victim. “I spent years in dance classes but I don’t ever remember being taught this one,” she laughed.
“I still can’t believe Erica’s this ticklish,” Ally said to me as we watched the scene unfold in front of us.
“She hid it well for so long,” I said.
“Yeah, well, once something like that is out of the bag…” Ally said, not completing her thought.
Of course, she didn’t have to complete her thought, for one needed to only look at Morgan to know what happens when something like that is out of the bag. At about 20 seconds in, Erica was fading fast, her eyes still clenched shut, her body using its dwindling reserve of energy to try to hop forward, away from Morgan.
Unfortunately for Erica, she was hopping straight to the couch, and eventually, she stumbled onto the side arm of the couch. With her eyes clenched trying to block out the tickling, she hadn’t noticed how close she was to the obstacle. Her forward movement of hopping combined with Morgan’s momentum coming from behind her resulted in Erica sort of toppling over the side arm of the couch, her body now bent at the waist. Erica had used her hands to brace herself during her unexpected tumble, an act that had no doubt saved Erica from injury but had also once again exposed her sides to Morgan’s tickling fingers. Morgan took advantage of this to slide her fingers up a bit into Erica’s underarms.
Though the conversations between Erica and me have been mostly limited to either how ticklish she is in general or how ticklish her feet are in particular, there is no doubt that while her sides are still a super ticklish spot, her underarms are a far more ticklish spot. I wouldn’t say her underarms come close to her feet in terms of the ticklish scale, but on a scale of 1-10, if her feet are a 20, I’d put her sides at a 12 and her underarms at a 15. Thus, it was only natural, then, that Morgan’s shift in focus to Erica’s underarms had caused an even more uproarious response from Erica as the room filled with her laughter cascading against the walls.
“No, no, no!” Erica screamed against waves of laughter, begging for mercy against a plight that had become all the more perilous for her with this shift in focus from Morgan.
“Yes, yes yes, yes,” Morgan replied, mocking Erica’s frantic pleas. Ally laughed, as well, clearly enjoying the scene unfolding before her eyes.
Erica was getting desperate. It couldn’t have been more than 30 seconds at this point, but 30 seconds of tickling for someone as ticklish as Erica had to be absolute torture. In a last ditch effort, Erica tried to use her positioning to her advantage to escape her torment. Bent over at the waist with her upper body, essentially, laying on the first cushion of the couch, Erica began worming her upper body closer and closer to that second cushion, hoping to create more distance between her sensitive sides and underarms and Morgan’s probing digits.
And that’s when things took a turn for the worse for Erica.
Though Erica was able to gain a momentary victory in that she was, indeed, able to move her upper body far enough away from Morgan’s hands that she got a brief reprieve, Morgan used that opportunity to find a new tickle target: Erica’s waist. Poking and prodding, Morgan tickled any area she could find, alternating between poking Erica’s waist and dancing her fingers across the slight patch of skin of Erica’s stomach that was exposed.
Though not as ticklish as she underarms, it was the shock of this new attack that caused Erica to jump. And it was this final jump that carried Erica’s weight from her bottom half to her upper half, causing her waist to topple over the arm of the couch and onto the first cushion below. Of course, the human anatomy being what it is, Erica’s waist was not alone in moving. Erica’s legs now floated above the ground, her thighs resting on the arm of the couch while her legs dangled in the air.
Right at Morgan’s eye level.
It took Morgan all of 2.2 seconds to realize what opportunity now lay before her, for not only were Erica’s legs dangling in the air, but Erica’s feet were now also dangling in the air, essentially at eye level for Morgan; they may as well have had giant “TICKLE ME” signs on them.
Morgan quickly deserted Erica’s waist, turning a bit to get an angle that would afford her a better grip on Erica’s ankles. Poor Erica had no idea. As Erica felt Morgan’s hands remove themselves from her waist, a brief look of relief appeared on Erica’s face, thinking that the worst was now over.
Oh, how wrong she was…
Before Erica could move, Morgan had grabbed onto one of Erica’s ankles, tucking it under her arm to secure it in place. The hunter had trapped its prey.
Erica’s eyes shot open as she realized what had happened.
“NO!” she screamed out, gathering up any ounce of energy she had left to try to pull her ankle free from Morgan’s grip. “MORGAN, NO, OH MY GOD, PLEASE NOT MY FEET!” she begged.
“Oooooh,” Ally said, almost giddy as if realizing she was about to come up to the exciting part of a movie. “She’s REALLY in for it now,” she said.
Morgan struggled to maintain her grip as Erica flopped like a fish out of water, desperately trying to pull her ankle free. Morgan finally got it under control enough where she was able to drag one finger down the bottom of Erica’s upturned sole.
Erica’s body jolted like it had been hit by an electric shock as she screamed out in laughter. “MORGAN, PLEASE!” she begged. “NOT MY FEET!!”
“I’m barely touching you,” Morgan said, as she was doing just that - just ever so slightly dragging one of her fingers up and down the bottom of Erica’s foot, almost as if she were toying with her.
But Erica wasn’t listening, instead too focused on trying in vain to bust out of this predicament. “MORGAN, PLEASE!” she yelled, emphasizing the “please” this time. “NOT MY FEET,” she repeated. “I’M SERIOUS!!” she yelled as the laughter continued to pour from her mouth.
“You don’t sound so serious to me,” Morgan joked, continuing to drag that one lone finger up and down the bottom of Erica’s foot while struggling to maintain control of Erica’s kicking leg.
But Erica was about to make another tragic mistake.
“MORGAN, NO!” Erica repeated, now using her other leg to try to push Morgan off, all in an effort to free her trapped foot. Unfortunately for Erica, Morgan used this as an opportunity to grab a hold of Erica’s second leg, pulling that ankle under her arm next to Erica’s other foot. Now, Morgan had both of Erica’s upturned soles facing her, trapped under her arm, with nothing that Erica could do to escape.
“There,” Morgan said, happy with her handiwork. “That’s easier.”
“NO!” Erica screamed, realizing that her situation had become exponentially worse. “MORGAN, DON’T!” she begged.
But Morgan wasn’t listening. Now with both feet secured and with Erica having little leverage to try to break free because of her positioning, Morgan was now in full control. Using one of her arms to make sure Erica’s ankles remained wedged under her arm, Morgan used all five fingers of her other hand to execute an all-out tickle attack on Erica’s vulnerable soles. This was no one-finger-slightly-dragging-across-the-bottom technique; no, this was a full-on, all-out tickle attack that sent Erica into hysterics at first touch.
If I had thought Erica was being tortured before, it was nothing compared to this. Erica’s laughter filled the room, her body thrashing as little as it could in an attempt to break free. Erica was, without a doubt, beside herself, in complete and total tickle agony - her eyes clenched shut, her face beet red, tears forming in her eyes, her free hand slapping on the couch as if tapping out and begging for mercy.
I felt bad for Erica. Once again, her rival sister-in-law had gotten the best of her, using her ultimate weakness in front of everyone to render her completely helpless. I remember thinking, ‘If only her husband had picked up her shoes…’
“See, now this,” Ally said, tapping me on the shoulder and pointing to Erica to show what she was going through. “This is where I would legit die,” Ally confessed. “Nope,” she continued. “No way I could handle it.”
“You’d die?” I asked, looking to see how far she’d continue to describe her own ticklishness.
‘OK, maybe I wouldn’t die,” Ally corrected herself. “But it’s still torture. This was how we’d get secrets out of each other at sleepovers growing up,” she said with a laugh.
“Really?” I asked, a little dry in the mouth from everything going on around me.
“For sure,” Ally said nonchalantly. “After about 5 seconds of this, we’d find out all about the person’s crush or whatever,” she said. “Honestly,” she said, now lowering her voice slightly though still above a whisper. “Even now,I would give up the PIN to my debit card, I would give the combination to my safe, I would do laundry for a week - a month, even… This is pure torture,” she said.
Of course, one needed to look no further than Erica to confirm just how tortuous this was. It couldn’t have been 15 seconds of tickling on her feet at this point, and Erica was already broken. I would have been worried that the neighbors might have called the police for a noise complaint because of how loud Erica was laughing, but she so often fell in and out of silent laughter that there were enough breaks in the volume to quell those concerns.
“I honestly think she’s the most ticklish person I have ever met in my life,” Morgan said, looking to us. “How did we never know about this?” she asked.
I must say that while the previous stories I’ve relayed involving Erica and Morgan were light-hearted in nature - no matter Erica’s fears and worries - this particular incident carried a different tone to it. I wouldn’t necessarily say that there was any evil or malice involved by any means. For all accounts, this was still just one sister-in-law tickling another sister-in-law. But something about this incident seemed a little more amped. Morgan had the look in her eyes almost of someone possessed. Whereas prior incidents seemed to be brought up by opportunity, it was as if Morgan had been thinking about this all night long, since the incident at the wake, and now was watching her plan come to fruition. And where Erica has never been able to handle any sort of ticklish touch, this particular tickle attack had her almost more panicked, in a way. Almost as if in previous incidents, she knew there’d be an end to the torture, but she wasn’t sure when the end to this one was coming. I could, of course, be completely overanalyzing this, admittedly.
Erica, meanwhile, was most likely wishing that no one had ever found out about this particular element of her life. For someone who prided herself so much on her maturity, her composure, her control, to be reduced to such a laughing spectacle must have been humiliating for her. And for as much as she liked to have control of things, there was nothing she could do about this; she was completely at Morgan’s mercy, and Morgan was seemingly running low on mercy this evening.
A couple of things that I find fascinating about the concept of tickling someone is 1) how much the sight of a person being tickled brings about other people to want to tickle that person and 2) how someone who is seemingly quite ticklish themselves will still show no mercy when given the opportunity to tickle someone else. Both of these came about with what happened next.
“Could I try?” Ally asked meekly, clearly wanting to give it a go herself but not wanting to sound too eager about it. Admittedly, the request took both Morgan and myself by surprise.
“Sure,” Morgan said, pausing her tickling to present the bottom of Erica’s feet to Ally, happy to have a partner-in-crime for a moment.
“Ally? No!” Erica begged as she gasped for air, clearly not anticipating a double team effort. “Please!” she pleaded, her petitions again falling on deaf ears.
Like Morgan, Ally started by just using one finger to drag up and down the bottom of Erica’s foot - almost as if she needed to test it out first. Naturally, even just this touch sent Erica into a fit of laughter as Ally smiled, seemingly pleased with the results of her test. The confirmation of Erica’s ticklishness spurred Ally to up her game, now employing all of her fingers to dance atop Erica’s arches.
“Oh my gosh,” Ally said. “The poor thing is so ticklish,” she commented, though her statement wasn’t enough reason in her mind to stop her tickling.
Poor Erica was losing her mind. All told, she had probably been tickled on her feet for about 30 seconds at the absolute most at this point, but that was clearly 29.99 seconds too many for Erica. It seemed she had lost all hope at this point, as all she was doing was laying there laughing — not that there was much else she could do given her positioning, of course.
Of course, I couldn’t consider it at the time, but this was essentially my dream scenario taking place in front of me, albeit with in-laws. Here you had Ally, who just moments ago was discussing her own level of ticklishness in great detail, taking advantage of Erica’s situation, tickling her nylon-clad feet to her delight, whilst Ally herself was wearing nylons underneath her socks at the same time.
Eventually, Morgan wanted another chance at tickling Erica, so Morgan slapped Ally’s hands away from Erica’s feet so Morgan could begin her own attack again.
In another second or so, Erica gasped for air and screamed out “PLEASE!” as best she could against her laughter, and I could tell she had had enough.
“OK,” I said. “I think you might actually be killing her at this point.
“Yeah,” Ally said, agreeing - though I’m not sure if it was out of sympathy for Erica or out of frustration that her own fun had been cut short. “She’s gasping for air,” she said, before adding in something that made my antennae stand on end. “And she had nylons on,” she said.
“OK, I suppose,” Morgan said, in an over-the-top dejected manner. She let go of Erica’s ankles with a pouty face and walked away from the couch.
Erica lay there panting, trying to get her breath back as quickly as she could. As soon as she could, she pulled her feet closer to her body and pushed herself to the far end of the couch, free from harm’s way.
Eventually, Morgan and Ally left the room, and I offered a hand to Erica to help her up off the couch. She accepted it and stood up, slapping me in the arm in the process.
“Ow!” I said in fake pain. “What was that for?”
“For not helping me!” she said, clearly not as upset with me as she was letting on.
“Hey, if it weren’t for me, she’d still be tickling you,” I said, mostly in jest but realizing that it was likely the truth.
Just then, Erica’s husband came into the room. “Babe, I could hear you from outside,” he said, complaining.
“Shut up,” she said, with equal parts disdain and jest, I’m sure. As quickly as he entered the room, he turned and left. Erica rolled her eyes in my direction.
But all in all, it was another positive moment - well, for me, anyways, maybe not Erica. Temperatures have increased to more summer-like numbers here, so I’m not sure how many more times I’ll see any of them in nylons, but if this was it, it was certainly a way to go out.