Rithwraith
TMF Novice
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- Jul 7, 2005
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This one is weird, somewhat complicated and rather depressing. The tickling is M/F and almost entirely focused on feet.
Happy New year all.
Ten Years
By Rithwraith/Rinthrith
We were inside the Wyrla’s capitol city.
For nine months we had surrounded its huge stone walls, our catapult fire barely denting them, our long ladders and siege towers had been pushed aside like card houses, and our tunnelers had been buried alive by the spell-weaving of their witches.
It had been hard indeed to keep my soldiers from mutiny. Here we were, unable to advance, bearing taunts and sporadic fireballs from their battlements, bearing also the incessant rain and the lovely smell of swamp gas from the nearby bogs of Haldilitar. What hope we had was based on little more than my promise of a new and terrible weapon being marched to our position.
To their ears, such a weapon must have sounded like the fanciful imaginings of a lunatic. A great metal tube powered by black explosive dust which could hurl deadly balls of metal, to them, was as fanciful as the fireballs and succubi of the Wyrla might seem to you.
That was, of course, until said weapons appeared over the horizon and with such a terrible racket that sent most of my men falling to the floor in fright initially, they brought down a goodly chunk of the city’s defensive wall in less than an hour, and they did so well out of the range of the enemy’s own weapons.
There was no stopping us then. We swarmed into the city like a parcel of furies. This was the last stronghold that the Wyrla forces had left, and was supposedly where Samantha… I mean where their Dread Queen Samantha Skajuathas (Soul-Drinker) had hidden herself.
There would be no real end to this war whilst her head remained un-severed. If she escaped, she would find another army in the wildlands and in another ten years, this madness would all start anew.
So she would not escape.
My personal guard, the knights of St. Von Tieschowitz, were the first through the wall. They fell upon the stunned and wounded Wyrla spearmen within and cut down those who survived. Under normal circumstances a line of spears might hold cavalry at bay, but many of these Wyrla-men and women had had their eardrums blasted to buggery, or been sliced by flying debris. They were disorientated, disabled and ripe for the slaughter.
Archers and swordsmen swarmed through the breach next, to meet the oncoming defenders who remained standing. All the while the cannons launched fresh volleys into the battlements, sending many of the enemy’s own archers and spellcasters falling to their deaths.
Not long after I led my own company into the city. Evidently we had torn our way into a courtyard, which was now utterly taken. My troops covered every entrance and doorway, and at least fifty enemy bodies were being piled out of the way against a stone wall.
All heads bowed at the sight of me. After five years, I still haven’t gotten used to that.
“Remember what they did at Ihkalan.” I shouted to all who could hear me. “You all know what could happen if the Wyrla and their Queen are not destroyed here today. We fight, as ever, for our homes, our families and our country.”
A cheer answered me, some seemed sincere, but most sounded bloodthirsty. As far as those cheerers were concerned I had just said ‘Burn the city, kill the people to the last infant and walk away with no less than three armfuls of loot.’
I wish I could say that such men were mercenaries hired out of desperate necessity from Werzam in the south, a land well reputed for barbarism. They were instead my own countrymen though, once-decent men and women who had fallen in love with the grisly victories and all their spoils that this war had provided us with in recent months. This love had conquered their virtue.
All the more reason to end the war quickly.
We fought our way through narrow streets, as wary of ambushes as we could be. For the most part though the Wyrla fought us openly, their Queen’s name on their lips as they made their gallant last stands. There were not nearly as many of them as I had feared; and what we did face on those streets were merely men, not the Demons that had so nearly been our undoing at Nolriv and Devetril.
I cut down only one man myself before… well, you’ll see what ‘before’ what soon enough.
The man in question was shrieking, maniacal and utterly naked for reasons which I’m sure made sense to him. He took one of my guardsmen by surprise, catching him in the throat with his spear, and then with impeccable speed he tore the spear from his foeman’s throat and took out a second of my guards.
I rode forward and raised my sword. I thought I had him then and there but with that same speed he stabbed my horse in the heart. The beast fell dead almost instantly, flinging me forward.
I slashed out as I fell, and by more luck than skill I tore open the enemy’s own throat before landing in a graceless heap on the stone ground. I’m assuming that was a killing blow on my part at least, considering I wasn’t eviscerated a second later.
In any case, I was winded, and clad in full plate mail. In other words I was utterly incapacitated and vulnerable to any other nearby Wyrla. Fortunately my own men surrounded me and dragged me to my feet before anyone else could attack me.
It was then I heard her voice inside my head.
Are you ok Damien?
Her fucking voice; so unchanged since the old student days at Goldhawk lodgings, my mouth twisted in an unpleasant fashion and a snarl escaped.
I’ll take that as a yes, good. I’m relieved, honestly. If you were to die now it would ruin no end of my scheming.
“Countess Zaial!” I shouted, forcing my mind to focus in spite of the nattering witch polluting it.
“My liege?” The rather more welcome sound of the Countess’ voice said from outside my brain.
That won’t do any good Damian.
“I can hear the witch’s voice inside my mind. She may be able to enchant me further; command of the army is yours.”
The Countess stared at me for a few moments in disbelief, but she knew me well enough to know that I am no liar, nor am I an inventive coward.
“As you command sire.” She said, and then to the rest of the troops she shouted; “Our King is under attack by Skajuathas’ foul magic. Someone convey him to the healers, now!”
So much noise. I think we should speak privately, don’t you?
And then I was gone, or moved I suppose.
Abruptly, and for no reason I could divine, I was inside. Underground I think; there were stone walls which were bedevilled by weeds and mud.
I responded to this change of locale with all the lack of composure that you might expect. It didn’t much help that I was also abruptly stripped of my armour and held fast to the wall by iron chains.
I’ll spare you the full description of my disbelief, cursing, struggling and whatnot. It doesn’t make for a particularly flattering account.
“I’ve waited a long time to see this.” Samantha said aloud. I could not see her, doubtless she’d drunk one of those invisibility potions that had been so fond of in the old days.
“Don’t think this will stop my army.” I said, sounding oddly tired. “With or without me, they’ll rip you limb from limb within the hour.”
“No they won’t.” She replied simply, her voice utterly devoid of fear. I was inclined to believe her, though inclined not to show it as best I could manage.
I felt a hand close around the back of my neck, and an arm encircle my waist. Her invisible head pressed itself against my chest. I could smell the lingering scent of cinnamon underneath all the fragrances that recent potion brewing had left upon her. Despite myself, despite all my years of hate, that smell sent my memory back to before the war, to the happy years, such as they were. Back when she and I had been friends and… anyway, I digress.
“I missed you.” She said quietly, to which I rolled my eyes.
I could feel her foot trace its way up my leg. It was bare and almost hot; she had a partial demonic ancestry, which made her blood and skin much warmer than most peoples’. Again, memories came back to me before I could stop them. For the briefest fraction of a second, I forgot my hatred for her, but then the feeling passed and abruptly I wanted her dead again.
“You’ve made my work ten times more difficult than it needed to be.” She continued. “And now thanks to you I’m going to have to start all over again. If you were anyone else Damian I would feed you to the marsh eels for what you’ve done.”
“What I did was nothing less than stop you from handing this world over to the Hells.”
“Try to stop me, you mean.” She sighed and let go of me. “You just never understood what I was trying to do. You saw the spirit-kin as enemies right from the start and went running to the nearest sword like some…”
She broke off her sentence, deciding to backhand me across the face instead. I managed not to wince and forced a grin to my face.
“I never took up arms until your fucking spirit-kin put Ihkalan to the torch.”
“They were remaking Ihkalan!” She shouted, for a second I thought she was going to hit me again. “What was that town? A slavers’ nest, a place of murder and prostitution. A place of wretched, irredeemable humanity. I, they, we were turning it into a reborn city, the first of its kind where worthy humans and the spirit kin could coexist as they were meant to.”
“Slavery and murder were back-alley dealings which the governors were trying to stamp out. Ihkalan was also a place of families, schools, parks, decent and innocent people who died for no greater reason than that they didn’t share your maniac ideals.”
She was silent for a moment. Don’t ask me how, but I knew she was smiling.
“How many have died thanks to this war that you started?” She said. “If you’d stuck with me from the start, this world would be a paradise now, and it would be ours.”
“Minus several million ‘unworthy’ people.”
“Shh.” She put her hand over my mouth. “It’s over now. The souls of this army you’ve brought me will be more than enough to appease Bazkainan, the spell is already in the works. He’ll undo all the damage you’ve caused.”
Bazkainan is one of the multiverse’s many names for Satan. The Master of all evil who Samantha had, long ago, let herself believe was some kind of pagan leaf-god. He promised to twist this world we’d found ourselves in into a second garden of Eden. That was her dream; a simpler, magical, wondrous existence. As for anyone who disapproved, well, they weren’t obliged to keep breathing.
“As for you,” she continued; and I could feel her foot running up the inside of my leg again. “I can still save you.”
With some effort I managed to shift her hand from my face.
“I will kill you.” I replied. “And halt your mad scheming, just like I’ve done time and again these passed five years.”
She laughed, not mockingly, not even unkindly. In spite of everything more memories came to mind. I became rather conscious of her foot’s presence again. I remembered the smell of cinnamon and assorted toiletries that had been in her bedroom that first night.
“Do you really think I can’t change your mind?” She said, suddenly visible. “One way or the other?”
Her red hair was longer than I remembered it, and her eyes never used to be black, but I could still see the woman I remembered.
There was a noise from above, it was the sound of cannon fire. A second later and the room, or cavern I should say, shook. I felt a surge of hope; my people were still fighting, still progressing through this wretched city. Perhaps the disappearance of their King had spurred them on.
“By day’s end, you’ll love me again.” Samantha said, undisturbed by any of it.
There is a knife concealed in my sleeve. If she gets close enough, perhaps I can end this. The world depends on it.
Wish me luck.
Ten Years Earlier
“Samantha, what are you doing?” I asked, Smirnoff bottle in hand as I stared out the window at my strange friend who was outstretched on the wooden bench outside the Goldhawk building at 7PM on New Year’s eye.
This might not sound so unusual, but consider that on the one hand, there was a party going on inside with all the alcohol supplied by Frank’s saint of a grandfather. Consider also that it was minus three degrees outside and that Samantha was dressed in thin summer-wear. She was also barefoot, which made for a rather nice spectacle for such a one as me, but can only have been uncomfortable for her, and possibly quite dangerous.
“Nothing.” Came the cryptic response.
“Are you mad woman? Come out of the cold and get drunk with your fellow penniless idiots.”
“In a minute.” She said again.
I stood there a little longer, torn between not wanting to come across like a mother hen by warning her of the health hazards, and at the same time not wanting to leave her alone where she might contract frostbite.
Fuck it, I thought, she could take care of herself.
Fifteen minutes passed, I downed two more shots of vodka and felt no more drunk for it. It’s quite strange really, some days I’m the most pitiful lightweight imaginable, other days I can’t get drunk for trying.
The others, Frank and Valerie and their friends whose names I really should have learned by now had all settled into a conversation about some band or other that I didn’t really know, leaving me with little to do except stand in the corner and drink. I wasn’t trying to be a recluse, I just didn’t have anything to add to the discussion, or most other discussions for that matter. Oh well.
It occurred to me about then that Samantha still hadn’t shown herself. I walked back to the window, then decided instead to head outside myself to see how, and what, she was doing.
Fucking wars it was cold; and I, fool that I am, had blundered outside in nothing but a t-shirt, hole riddled jeans and socks.
Samantha was still lying on the bench, staring up the sky, not even shivering. She noticed me as I stepped out, probably thanks to my own disgruntled shivers and complaining.
“Hi Damian.” She said cheerily. “Something wrong?”
“No, not at all.” I replied, truthfully it would seem. “I just wanted to see what you were doing out here?”
“I’m stargazing.” She said, sounding a little embarrassed I think. “I never used to see skies like this in Seattle. Too much light pollution, or rain clouds, or both.”
“Ah,” I replied. I tried to think up a response with some relevance, but ultimately only one question sprung to mind.
“Aren’t you cold?” My breath turned to vapour as I spoke.
“A little, I guess.”
‘A little?!’ A little she said? whilst lying outside, inappropriately dressed in Cambridge in midwinter? She was either utterly desensitised to the cold or else had had chillies for dinner. Either way I was quite jealous.
“Is that for me?” She asked, waving a hand at the vodka bottle which, to my surprise, I was still carrying.
“I didn’t, uh, sure, I mean…” I gave up and just passed the damn thing over. Bless her, she didn’t laugh or comment on my pitiful sentence construction.
She took a swig of the bottle and handed it back to me. I took a swig myself and handed it back again. A pattern formed and soon the bottle was much depleted. I felt rather warmer for this foolishness; perhaps that was Samantha’s secret.
“Good Lord,” I said rather loudly at one point, being quite drunk I should add. “It’s Hezekiah, the Dentist’s Chair.”
“Hezekiah the what?” Samantha asked with a raised eyebrow.
I pointed upwards to where a group of curiously assembled starts sat overhead.
“Hezekiah the dentist’s chair, right there. I never could get my head around the usual star constellations so I made up a few of my own.”
If I’d been sober I’d have found that a rather embarrassing admission. I am an eccentric drunk however.
“I haven’t seen him in almost ten years.” I muttered.
“Oh yeah, I think.” Samantha replied, somehow managing to sound both enthusiastic and sceptical at the same time. “I can almost see it. Looks kind of like a ‘4’.”
“True, but ‘Hezehiah the four’ just sounds weird.”
She laughed; a lovely sound to be sure. She lent up then and pulled her knees to her chest.
“Any more of your constellations up there?”
“Hmmm,” I replied, sitting down in the now open space on the bench. “Let me see…”
I introduced her to Jimmy the Crucifix, Miranda the Libra impersonator and Nigel the four-pronged goblet. Together we also discovered and named Alison the mallet, as well as Lance the ironing board.
We laughed like fools all the while and it was fun, well worth the aches my over-craned neck suffered.
When we headed back inside, almost an hour later, everyone had vanished. Odds are they went back to Henry’s room to make use of his cocktail shaker.
“God my feet are freezing.” Samantha said, the elements having caught up to her at last evidently. All the same she tittered to herself as she hobbled slightly on her smooth, pale feet. I found myself staring a little overlong before finally gaining to wherewithal to look up and nod in acknowledgement.
“Would you mind massaging some warmth into them?” She asked, innocently as you please with a mischievous smile. Let me tell you, my heart nearly beat itself straight through my ribs when she asked that.
Now I am, I’ll admit, a colossal idiot. I know you won’t believe me but it’s true, once upon a time when chance placed me and a beautiful woman named Hannah Grayson beneath the mistletoe, I backed off before anyone could notice rather than seize the opportunity. Before that I’d actually feigned diarrhoea so that I might escape when a girl in high school started flirting with me. Such was my cowardly nature.
For some reason however, I was not an idiot that day. With a gentlemanly nod I sat myself down on the worn, beige couch that the landlord persistently refused to replace, and extended a hand, inviting her to join me.
On drunken legs she made her way to the couch and fell upon it. She damn near drove the heel of her right foot into my groin when she outstretched her legs over my lap.
I took her left foot in my hands, it didn’t feel all too cold in retrospect, but I wasn’t exactly inclined to register such facts at the time. I started to massage it as best I knew, and she seemed to like it considering she lent back on the couch, grinned contentedly and closed her eyes.
When I moved upwards, and my fingers found themselves around her toes, her eyes shot open and she flinched, she even yelped a little.
“Hey!” She squeaked.
“What? What did I do?” I replied innocently, keeping hold of her foot which, in fact, she wasn’t actually trying to reclaim.
I switched feet and shifted my legs a bit in an attempt to hide the inevitable erection. Thankfully she’d closed her eyes again.
It wasn’t long before she flinched once more. Her foot twitched violently in my hands and she giggled a little.
“Cut it out.” Samantha pouted.
“I’m not doing it deliberately.” I replied truthfully.
“Liar.”
“It’s the truth.” I said, clasping the top of her left foot with one hand, I moved my fingers to her sole. “This is deliberate.”
I scrabbled my fingers over her vulnerable sole, the shriek that followed was violent indeed. She lunged forward and clawed at my gripping hand. Finally, and laughing all the while, she managed to prise her foot free.
With one well deserved kick to my leg, she drew her feet back out of my reach.
“Bastard.” She said, though not with venom as I had feared. She seemed to be having to resist the urge to smile.
“How could I resist?” I countered.
Samantha was about to say something else when we heard the myriad voices of the others in the hallway upstairs. They all sounded cheerful and wasted. Good for them, though I couldn’t say I was pleased for their reappearance considering I’d been spending some quality alone time with a beautiful young woman who’d even let me near her feet.
I was about to feign nonchalance when something unexpected happened. Samantha stood up, grabbed hold of my wrists and pulled me off of the couch.
“Follow me,” she said. “Quickly.”
I did, adjusting my trousers as I went because of, well, you know.
We made haste to her rented room. The voices were getting louder and there was a sudden kind of childish apprehension in the air that I hadn’t felt since my last game of hide and seek some fifteen years ago.
She opened the door and in we flew, she then closed it behind her with haste. A smell of cinnamon and… something suddenly pervaded the air. I don’t think anyone noticed our suspicious looking flight into…
Hang on, I was in Samantha’s room, she’d just snuck me in here. What was going on?
I mentally denounced all of my hopeful theories, steeling myself for some mundane explanation, even as she locked the door behind her.
“Now then.” She said, smiling and sitting herself down on the edge of the bed. Her left foot crept forth and started to trace its way up the length of my jeans. My heart started racing again.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice that bulge in your pants.” She said. “You got turned on by tickling my foot didn’t you?”
“I did.” I replied; alcohol and exposure making me temporarily bold. “Yours are very sexy feet.”
She giggled and even blushed a little. I suspect my own face was plenty red and the aforementioned bulge in my pants wasn’t going away, especially with her foot stalking up and down the length of my jeans like a paintbrush.
“You want to tickle me some more?” She asked, pushing herself backwards and lying down on the bed. Her feet lay motionless atop the quilt, just waiting for me to reach out with fingers extended.
Samantha, I decided then, was the world’s most perfect woman. I would consider my life a complete and utter failure if I did not marry her one day.
I sat down on the bed, picked up her beautiful feet and wrapped my right arm around them. I could see her trying not to snigger, but it was a fight against a very strong tide.
I wasted no time with slow starts or coyness and launched an all out assault on her feet with my free hand. My fingers assailed her soles, arches, heels and toes at random, following them wherever they squirmed to.
Samantha broke into hysterics almost instantly. Her feet were ticklish indeed. Fortunately the walls in our rooms were well soundproofed, so none of the others had any inclination of what we were up to.
Her reactions were particularly vigorous when I tickled underneath her toes, all their scrunching could not deter me however.
“Stop!” I soon heard her scream. “Just waaiiaaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Gaaahd Damieeeeeeeeeee aaah ha ha han Staahahap it! Pleeeeeeaaaaaeehessseee!”
Somehow, my sense of chivalry won out over my long neglected libido. I stopped, I even released my hold on her feet.
“Are you ok?” I asked.
I didn’t get an answer right away, first off she rubbed and scratched at her feet, trying to force away the lingering tickling sensations.
“I’m ok.” She said. “Wow, that was… different.”
Surprising me once again that night, she lent forward and kissed me on the cheek. I turned around myself afterwards and I think was about to try and kiss her more saliently, for lack of a better word. Before I could though she laid back down, her feet still outstretched towards me.
“Would you mind doing something else for me?” Samantha said quietly, almost whispering.
“What?”
“It’s… Since we’re here and…”
She sighed, half hesitant, half eager, and rather frustrated it seemed.
“Just ask.” I prompted.
“Would you… suck my toes, please?”
This was impossible. Miraculous good fortune. I was not about to waste time thanking the fates however considering what I’d just been asked.
“I’d be glad to.” I replied numbly as I dropped to my knees at the end of the bed. She outstretched her left leg, her foot pointed towards my mouth. I took it in my hands and, daring not hesitate, I wrapped my lips around her toes.
I worked down the line gradually, largest to smallest, and soon added my tongue to the task. Samantha laughed and flinched again, and came rather close to lacerating the roof of my mouth with her toenails.
Holding her foot as tightly as I could, I began to lightly tickle her sole with my thumbs. This added an extra urgency to her laughter. All the same I found myself hungry to hear more. Part of me wanted to tie her up and unleash unrestricted havoc upon her utterly immobilised feet, and any other ticklish spots she might have, as the videos of the TMF taught us.
Most of me however was feeling an increasing desire to… Hmmm, I find myself indecisive. I despise the term ‘making love’, but just saying ‘sex’ wouldn’t seem to do my desires justice. Forgive me if that sounded pretentious.
I switched to her other foot; she was still laughing, still writhing, but the moans that were starting to accompany them were unmistakable.
I continued like this, switching back and forth between feet and with a lovely backdrop of laughter in the background until I felt Samantha’s free foot pressing gently against my crotch.
There was a moment of great stillness then; we looked at each other with almost shocked faces, as if we were abruptly surprised by what the other, and what we ourselves had just done.
The next thing I knew though, we were both stood up. I was pulling her shirt off, she then rid me of my jeans. We kissed fiercely, and believe me it was bloody fierce. Her fingers were pressing into the back of my skull like talons, her breath was hot and she almost seemed to be snarling.
When we had both disrobed utterly… No. I’m sorry, but the specifics I shall not tell you. In truth I may have said too much already. I will however impart these three facts to you which will hopefully explain most of it:
1. I’d always feared that my first time, assuming I’d even manage a first time, would be an embarrassing spectacle of apologies and subsequent recriminations. In fact it was the best thing I’d ever done, and I’d shared it with the most beautiful and wonderful person I’d ever met no less.
(Anyone who would like to kick me in the bollocks after having read that is more than welcome.)
2. I discovered that Samantha’s waist and underarms were ticklish as well. The next morning as we enjoyed an overlong lie in together, I tickled her in these spots for almost half an hour whilst she clung on to me all the while. Her laughter seemed far more joyful than involuntary. In fact we only stopped because of a knock at the door, at which point I wound up hiding in the wardrobe.
3. The others all seemed rather keen to know just how exactly my trousers had found their way half-hanging out of Samantha’s perpetually open window. The answer I gave them was that we’d been using them as part of a makeshift catapult in an attempt to dispose of the leftover Christmas sprouts. They did not believe me.
The End.
Happy New year all.
Ten Years
By Rithwraith/Rinthrith
We were inside the Wyrla’s capitol city.
For nine months we had surrounded its huge stone walls, our catapult fire barely denting them, our long ladders and siege towers had been pushed aside like card houses, and our tunnelers had been buried alive by the spell-weaving of their witches.
It had been hard indeed to keep my soldiers from mutiny. Here we were, unable to advance, bearing taunts and sporadic fireballs from their battlements, bearing also the incessant rain and the lovely smell of swamp gas from the nearby bogs of Haldilitar. What hope we had was based on little more than my promise of a new and terrible weapon being marched to our position.
To their ears, such a weapon must have sounded like the fanciful imaginings of a lunatic. A great metal tube powered by black explosive dust which could hurl deadly balls of metal, to them, was as fanciful as the fireballs and succubi of the Wyrla might seem to you.
That was, of course, until said weapons appeared over the horizon and with such a terrible racket that sent most of my men falling to the floor in fright initially, they brought down a goodly chunk of the city’s defensive wall in less than an hour, and they did so well out of the range of the enemy’s own weapons.
There was no stopping us then. We swarmed into the city like a parcel of furies. This was the last stronghold that the Wyrla forces had left, and was supposedly where Samantha… I mean where their Dread Queen Samantha Skajuathas (Soul-Drinker) had hidden herself.
There would be no real end to this war whilst her head remained un-severed. If she escaped, she would find another army in the wildlands and in another ten years, this madness would all start anew.
So she would not escape.
My personal guard, the knights of St. Von Tieschowitz, were the first through the wall. They fell upon the stunned and wounded Wyrla spearmen within and cut down those who survived. Under normal circumstances a line of spears might hold cavalry at bay, but many of these Wyrla-men and women had had their eardrums blasted to buggery, or been sliced by flying debris. They were disorientated, disabled and ripe for the slaughter.
Archers and swordsmen swarmed through the breach next, to meet the oncoming defenders who remained standing. All the while the cannons launched fresh volleys into the battlements, sending many of the enemy’s own archers and spellcasters falling to their deaths.
Not long after I led my own company into the city. Evidently we had torn our way into a courtyard, which was now utterly taken. My troops covered every entrance and doorway, and at least fifty enemy bodies were being piled out of the way against a stone wall.
All heads bowed at the sight of me. After five years, I still haven’t gotten used to that.
“Remember what they did at Ihkalan.” I shouted to all who could hear me. “You all know what could happen if the Wyrla and their Queen are not destroyed here today. We fight, as ever, for our homes, our families and our country.”
A cheer answered me, some seemed sincere, but most sounded bloodthirsty. As far as those cheerers were concerned I had just said ‘Burn the city, kill the people to the last infant and walk away with no less than three armfuls of loot.’
I wish I could say that such men were mercenaries hired out of desperate necessity from Werzam in the south, a land well reputed for barbarism. They were instead my own countrymen though, once-decent men and women who had fallen in love with the grisly victories and all their spoils that this war had provided us with in recent months. This love had conquered their virtue.
All the more reason to end the war quickly.
We fought our way through narrow streets, as wary of ambushes as we could be. For the most part though the Wyrla fought us openly, their Queen’s name on their lips as they made their gallant last stands. There were not nearly as many of them as I had feared; and what we did face on those streets were merely men, not the Demons that had so nearly been our undoing at Nolriv and Devetril.
I cut down only one man myself before… well, you’ll see what ‘before’ what soon enough.
The man in question was shrieking, maniacal and utterly naked for reasons which I’m sure made sense to him. He took one of my guardsmen by surprise, catching him in the throat with his spear, and then with impeccable speed he tore the spear from his foeman’s throat and took out a second of my guards.
I rode forward and raised my sword. I thought I had him then and there but with that same speed he stabbed my horse in the heart. The beast fell dead almost instantly, flinging me forward.
I slashed out as I fell, and by more luck than skill I tore open the enemy’s own throat before landing in a graceless heap on the stone ground. I’m assuming that was a killing blow on my part at least, considering I wasn’t eviscerated a second later.
In any case, I was winded, and clad in full plate mail. In other words I was utterly incapacitated and vulnerable to any other nearby Wyrla. Fortunately my own men surrounded me and dragged me to my feet before anyone else could attack me.
It was then I heard her voice inside my head.
Are you ok Damien?
Her fucking voice; so unchanged since the old student days at Goldhawk lodgings, my mouth twisted in an unpleasant fashion and a snarl escaped.
I’ll take that as a yes, good. I’m relieved, honestly. If you were to die now it would ruin no end of my scheming.
“Countess Zaial!” I shouted, forcing my mind to focus in spite of the nattering witch polluting it.
“My liege?” The rather more welcome sound of the Countess’ voice said from outside my brain.
That won’t do any good Damian.
“I can hear the witch’s voice inside my mind. She may be able to enchant me further; command of the army is yours.”
The Countess stared at me for a few moments in disbelief, but she knew me well enough to know that I am no liar, nor am I an inventive coward.
“As you command sire.” She said, and then to the rest of the troops she shouted; “Our King is under attack by Skajuathas’ foul magic. Someone convey him to the healers, now!”
So much noise. I think we should speak privately, don’t you?
And then I was gone, or moved I suppose.
Abruptly, and for no reason I could divine, I was inside. Underground I think; there were stone walls which were bedevilled by weeds and mud.
I responded to this change of locale with all the lack of composure that you might expect. It didn’t much help that I was also abruptly stripped of my armour and held fast to the wall by iron chains.
I’ll spare you the full description of my disbelief, cursing, struggling and whatnot. It doesn’t make for a particularly flattering account.
“I’ve waited a long time to see this.” Samantha said aloud. I could not see her, doubtless she’d drunk one of those invisibility potions that had been so fond of in the old days.
“Don’t think this will stop my army.” I said, sounding oddly tired. “With or without me, they’ll rip you limb from limb within the hour.”
“No they won’t.” She replied simply, her voice utterly devoid of fear. I was inclined to believe her, though inclined not to show it as best I could manage.
I felt a hand close around the back of my neck, and an arm encircle my waist. Her invisible head pressed itself against my chest. I could smell the lingering scent of cinnamon underneath all the fragrances that recent potion brewing had left upon her. Despite myself, despite all my years of hate, that smell sent my memory back to before the war, to the happy years, such as they were. Back when she and I had been friends and… anyway, I digress.
“I missed you.” She said quietly, to which I rolled my eyes.
I could feel her foot trace its way up my leg. It was bare and almost hot; she had a partial demonic ancestry, which made her blood and skin much warmer than most peoples’. Again, memories came back to me before I could stop them. For the briefest fraction of a second, I forgot my hatred for her, but then the feeling passed and abruptly I wanted her dead again.
“You’ve made my work ten times more difficult than it needed to be.” She continued. “And now thanks to you I’m going to have to start all over again. If you were anyone else Damian I would feed you to the marsh eels for what you’ve done.”
“What I did was nothing less than stop you from handing this world over to the Hells.”
“Try to stop me, you mean.” She sighed and let go of me. “You just never understood what I was trying to do. You saw the spirit-kin as enemies right from the start and went running to the nearest sword like some…”
She broke off her sentence, deciding to backhand me across the face instead. I managed not to wince and forced a grin to my face.
“I never took up arms until your fucking spirit-kin put Ihkalan to the torch.”
“They were remaking Ihkalan!” She shouted, for a second I thought she was going to hit me again. “What was that town? A slavers’ nest, a place of murder and prostitution. A place of wretched, irredeemable humanity. I, they, we were turning it into a reborn city, the first of its kind where worthy humans and the spirit kin could coexist as they were meant to.”
“Slavery and murder were back-alley dealings which the governors were trying to stamp out. Ihkalan was also a place of families, schools, parks, decent and innocent people who died for no greater reason than that they didn’t share your maniac ideals.”
She was silent for a moment. Don’t ask me how, but I knew she was smiling.
“How many have died thanks to this war that you started?” She said. “If you’d stuck with me from the start, this world would be a paradise now, and it would be ours.”
“Minus several million ‘unworthy’ people.”
“Shh.” She put her hand over my mouth. “It’s over now. The souls of this army you’ve brought me will be more than enough to appease Bazkainan, the spell is already in the works. He’ll undo all the damage you’ve caused.”
Bazkainan is one of the multiverse’s many names for Satan. The Master of all evil who Samantha had, long ago, let herself believe was some kind of pagan leaf-god. He promised to twist this world we’d found ourselves in into a second garden of Eden. That was her dream; a simpler, magical, wondrous existence. As for anyone who disapproved, well, they weren’t obliged to keep breathing.
“As for you,” she continued; and I could feel her foot running up the inside of my leg again. “I can still save you.”
With some effort I managed to shift her hand from my face.
“I will kill you.” I replied. “And halt your mad scheming, just like I’ve done time and again these passed five years.”
She laughed, not mockingly, not even unkindly. In spite of everything more memories came to mind. I became rather conscious of her foot’s presence again. I remembered the smell of cinnamon and assorted toiletries that had been in her bedroom that first night.
“Do you really think I can’t change your mind?” She said, suddenly visible. “One way or the other?”
Her red hair was longer than I remembered it, and her eyes never used to be black, but I could still see the woman I remembered.
There was a noise from above, it was the sound of cannon fire. A second later and the room, or cavern I should say, shook. I felt a surge of hope; my people were still fighting, still progressing through this wretched city. Perhaps the disappearance of their King had spurred them on.
“By day’s end, you’ll love me again.” Samantha said, undisturbed by any of it.
There is a knife concealed in my sleeve. If she gets close enough, perhaps I can end this. The world depends on it.
Wish me luck.
Ten Years Earlier
“Samantha, what are you doing?” I asked, Smirnoff bottle in hand as I stared out the window at my strange friend who was outstretched on the wooden bench outside the Goldhawk building at 7PM on New Year’s eye.
This might not sound so unusual, but consider that on the one hand, there was a party going on inside with all the alcohol supplied by Frank’s saint of a grandfather. Consider also that it was minus three degrees outside and that Samantha was dressed in thin summer-wear. She was also barefoot, which made for a rather nice spectacle for such a one as me, but can only have been uncomfortable for her, and possibly quite dangerous.
“Nothing.” Came the cryptic response.
“Are you mad woman? Come out of the cold and get drunk with your fellow penniless idiots.”
“In a minute.” She said again.
I stood there a little longer, torn between not wanting to come across like a mother hen by warning her of the health hazards, and at the same time not wanting to leave her alone where she might contract frostbite.
Fuck it, I thought, she could take care of herself.
Fifteen minutes passed, I downed two more shots of vodka and felt no more drunk for it. It’s quite strange really, some days I’m the most pitiful lightweight imaginable, other days I can’t get drunk for trying.
The others, Frank and Valerie and their friends whose names I really should have learned by now had all settled into a conversation about some band or other that I didn’t really know, leaving me with little to do except stand in the corner and drink. I wasn’t trying to be a recluse, I just didn’t have anything to add to the discussion, or most other discussions for that matter. Oh well.
It occurred to me about then that Samantha still hadn’t shown herself. I walked back to the window, then decided instead to head outside myself to see how, and what, she was doing.
Fucking wars it was cold; and I, fool that I am, had blundered outside in nothing but a t-shirt, hole riddled jeans and socks.
Samantha was still lying on the bench, staring up the sky, not even shivering. She noticed me as I stepped out, probably thanks to my own disgruntled shivers and complaining.
“Hi Damian.” She said cheerily. “Something wrong?”
“No, not at all.” I replied, truthfully it would seem. “I just wanted to see what you were doing out here?”
“I’m stargazing.” She said, sounding a little embarrassed I think. “I never used to see skies like this in Seattle. Too much light pollution, or rain clouds, or both.”
“Ah,” I replied. I tried to think up a response with some relevance, but ultimately only one question sprung to mind.
“Aren’t you cold?” My breath turned to vapour as I spoke.
“A little, I guess.”
‘A little?!’ A little she said? whilst lying outside, inappropriately dressed in Cambridge in midwinter? She was either utterly desensitised to the cold or else had had chillies for dinner. Either way I was quite jealous.
“Is that for me?” She asked, waving a hand at the vodka bottle which, to my surprise, I was still carrying.
“I didn’t, uh, sure, I mean…” I gave up and just passed the damn thing over. Bless her, she didn’t laugh or comment on my pitiful sentence construction.
She took a swig of the bottle and handed it back to me. I took a swig myself and handed it back again. A pattern formed and soon the bottle was much depleted. I felt rather warmer for this foolishness; perhaps that was Samantha’s secret.
“Good Lord,” I said rather loudly at one point, being quite drunk I should add. “It’s Hezekiah, the Dentist’s Chair.”
“Hezekiah the what?” Samantha asked with a raised eyebrow.
I pointed upwards to where a group of curiously assembled starts sat overhead.
“Hezekiah the dentist’s chair, right there. I never could get my head around the usual star constellations so I made up a few of my own.”
If I’d been sober I’d have found that a rather embarrassing admission. I am an eccentric drunk however.
“I haven’t seen him in almost ten years.” I muttered.
“Oh yeah, I think.” Samantha replied, somehow managing to sound both enthusiastic and sceptical at the same time. “I can almost see it. Looks kind of like a ‘4’.”
“True, but ‘Hezehiah the four’ just sounds weird.”
She laughed; a lovely sound to be sure. She lent up then and pulled her knees to her chest.
“Any more of your constellations up there?”
“Hmmm,” I replied, sitting down in the now open space on the bench. “Let me see…”
I introduced her to Jimmy the Crucifix, Miranda the Libra impersonator and Nigel the four-pronged goblet. Together we also discovered and named Alison the mallet, as well as Lance the ironing board.
We laughed like fools all the while and it was fun, well worth the aches my over-craned neck suffered.
When we headed back inside, almost an hour later, everyone had vanished. Odds are they went back to Henry’s room to make use of his cocktail shaker.
“God my feet are freezing.” Samantha said, the elements having caught up to her at last evidently. All the same she tittered to herself as she hobbled slightly on her smooth, pale feet. I found myself staring a little overlong before finally gaining to wherewithal to look up and nod in acknowledgement.
“Would you mind massaging some warmth into them?” She asked, innocently as you please with a mischievous smile. Let me tell you, my heart nearly beat itself straight through my ribs when she asked that.
Now I am, I’ll admit, a colossal idiot. I know you won’t believe me but it’s true, once upon a time when chance placed me and a beautiful woman named Hannah Grayson beneath the mistletoe, I backed off before anyone could notice rather than seize the opportunity. Before that I’d actually feigned diarrhoea so that I might escape when a girl in high school started flirting with me. Such was my cowardly nature.
For some reason however, I was not an idiot that day. With a gentlemanly nod I sat myself down on the worn, beige couch that the landlord persistently refused to replace, and extended a hand, inviting her to join me.
On drunken legs she made her way to the couch and fell upon it. She damn near drove the heel of her right foot into my groin when she outstretched her legs over my lap.
I took her left foot in my hands, it didn’t feel all too cold in retrospect, but I wasn’t exactly inclined to register such facts at the time. I started to massage it as best I knew, and she seemed to like it considering she lent back on the couch, grinned contentedly and closed her eyes.
When I moved upwards, and my fingers found themselves around her toes, her eyes shot open and she flinched, she even yelped a little.
“Hey!” She squeaked.
“What? What did I do?” I replied innocently, keeping hold of her foot which, in fact, she wasn’t actually trying to reclaim.
I switched feet and shifted my legs a bit in an attempt to hide the inevitable erection. Thankfully she’d closed her eyes again.
It wasn’t long before she flinched once more. Her foot twitched violently in my hands and she giggled a little.
“Cut it out.” Samantha pouted.
“I’m not doing it deliberately.” I replied truthfully.
“Liar.”
“It’s the truth.” I said, clasping the top of her left foot with one hand, I moved my fingers to her sole. “This is deliberate.”
I scrabbled my fingers over her vulnerable sole, the shriek that followed was violent indeed. She lunged forward and clawed at my gripping hand. Finally, and laughing all the while, she managed to prise her foot free.
With one well deserved kick to my leg, she drew her feet back out of my reach.
“Bastard.” She said, though not with venom as I had feared. She seemed to be having to resist the urge to smile.
“How could I resist?” I countered.
Samantha was about to say something else when we heard the myriad voices of the others in the hallway upstairs. They all sounded cheerful and wasted. Good for them, though I couldn’t say I was pleased for their reappearance considering I’d been spending some quality alone time with a beautiful young woman who’d even let me near her feet.
I was about to feign nonchalance when something unexpected happened. Samantha stood up, grabbed hold of my wrists and pulled me off of the couch.
“Follow me,” she said. “Quickly.”
I did, adjusting my trousers as I went because of, well, you know.
We made haste to her rented room. The voices were getting louder and there was a sudden kind of childish apprehension in the air that I hadn’t felt since my last game of hide and seek some fifteen years ago.
She opened the door and in we flew, she then closed it behind her with haste. A smell of cinnamon and… something suddenly pervaded the air. I don’t think anyone noticed our suspicious looking flight into…
Hang on, I was in Samantha’s room, she’d just snuck me in here. What was going on?
I mentally denounced all of my hopeful theories, steeling myself for some mundane explanation, even as she locked the door behind her.
“Now then.” She said, smiling and sitting herself down on the edge of the bed. Her left foot crept forth and started to trace its way up the length of my jeans. My heart started racing again.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice that bulge in your pants.” She said. “You got turned on by tickling my foot didn’t you?”
“I did.” I replied; alcohol and exposure making me temporarily bold. “Yours are very sexy feet.”
She giggled and even blushed a little. I suspect my own face was plenty red and the aforementioned bulge in my pants wasn’t going away, especially with her foot stalking up and down the length of my jeans like a paintbrush.
“You want to tickle me some more?” She asked, pushing herself backwards and lying down on the bed. Her feet lay motionless atop the quilt, just waiting for me to reach out with fingers extended.
Samantha, I decided then, was the world’s most perfect woman. I would consider my life a complete and utter failure if I did not marry her one day.
I sat down on the bed, picked up her beautiful feet and wrapped my right arm around them. I could see her trying not to snigger, but it was a fight against a very strong tide.
I wasted no time with slow starts or coyness and launched an all out assault on her feet with my free hand. My fingers assailed her soles, arches, heels and toes at random, following them wherever they squirmed to.
Samantha broke into hysterics almost instantly. Her feet were ticklish indeed. Fortunately the walls in our rooms were well soundproofed, so none of the others had any inclination of what we were up to.
Her reactions were particularly vigorous when I tickled underneath her toes, all their scrunching could not deter me however.
“Stop!” I soon heard her scream. “Just waaiiaaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Gaaahd Damieeeeeeeeeee aaah ha ha han Staahahap it! Pleeeeeeaaaaaeehessseee!”
Somehow, my sense of chivalry won out over my long neglected libido. I stopped, I even released my hold on her feet.
“Are you ok?” I asked.
I didn’t get an answer right away, first off she rubbed and scratched at her feet, trying to force away the lingering tickling sensations.
“I’m ok.” She said. “Wow, that was… different.”
Surprising me once again that night, she lent forward and kissed me on the cheek. I turned around myself afterwards and I think was about to try and kiss her more saliently, for lack of a better word. Before I could though she laid back down, her feet still outstretched towards me.
“Would you mind doing something else for me?” Samantha said quietly, almost whispering.
“What?”
“It’s… Since we’re here and…”
She sighed, half hesitant, half eager, and rather frustrated it seemed.
“Just ask.” I prompted.
“Would you… suck my toes, please?”
This was impossible. Miraculous good fortune. I was not about to waste time thanking the fates however considering what I’d just been asked.
“I’d be glad to.” I replied numbly as I dropped to my knees at the end of the bed. She outstretched her left leg, her foot pointed towards my mouth. I took it in my hands and, daring not hesitate, I wrapped my lips around her toes.
I worked down the line gradually, largest to smallest, and soon added my tongue to the task. Samantha laughed and flinched again, and came rather close to lacerating the roof of my mouth with her toenails.
Holding her foot as tightly as I could, I began to lightly tickle her sole with my thumbs. This added an extra urgency to her laughter. All the same I found myself hungry to hear more. Part of me wanted to tie her up and unleash unrestricted havoc upon her utterly immobilised feet, and any other ticklish spots she might have, as the videos of the TMF taught us.
Most of me however was feeling an increasing desire to… Hmmm, I find myself indecisive. I despise the term ‘making love’, but just saying ‘sex’ wouldn’t seem to do my desires justice. Forgive me if that sounded pretentious.
I switched to her other foot; she was still laughing, still writhing, but the moans that were starting to accompany them were unmistakable.
I continued like this, switching back and forth between feet and with a lovely backdrop of laughter in the background until I felt Samantha’s free foot pressing gently against my crotch.
There was a moment of great stillness then; we looked at each other with almost shocked faces, as if we were abruptly surprised by what the other, and what we ourselves had just done.
The next thing I knew though, we were both stood up. I was pulling her shirt off, she then rid me of my jeans. We kissed fiercely, and believe me it was bloody fierce. Her fingers were pressing into the back of my skull like talons, her breath was hot and she almost seemed to be snarling.
When we had both disrobed utterly… No. I’m sorry, but the specifics I shall not tell you. In truth I may have said too much already. I will however impart these three facts to you which will hopefully explain most of it:
1. I’d always feared that my first time, assuming I’d even manage a first time, would be an embarrassing spectacle of apologies and subsequent recriminations. In fact it was the best thing I’d ever done, and I’d shared it with the most beautiful and wonderful person I’d ever met no less.
(Anyone who would like to kick me in the bollocks after having read that is more than welcome.)
2. I discovered that Samantha’s waist and underarms were ticklish as well. The next morning as we enjoyed an overlong lie in together, I tickled her in these spots for almost half an hour whilst she clung on to me all the while. Her laughter seemed far more joyful than involuntary. In fact we only stopped because of a knock at the door, at which point I wound up hiding in the wardrobe.
3. The others all seemed rather keen to know just how exactly my trousers had found their way half-hanging out of Samantha’s perpetually open window. The answer I gave them was that we’d been using them as part of a makeshift catapult in an attempt to dispose of the leftover Christmas sprouts. They did not believe me.
The End.
