This story takes me back to my college days, before I moved to NYC. I went to Clemson-obligatory halfhearted “Go Tigers whoop”! My college years were pretty standard: studying, parties, relationships that came and went, lots of alcohol, yet I had one experience that stands out. It is a story of revenge, ok, that’s too tame, vengeance is probably truer. At the top, I want to say that I don’t condone my actions, and I even feel a little conflicted about what I did; yet, my tale needs to be told…
It all starts with a guy I knew, Matt. Matt was the kind of guy who was just always around, and when he wasn’t around, he was sliding up on my Instagram stories. Women readers, you know exactly what I am talking about, male readers… I hope you do too and aren’t that guy be that guy. Physically Matt was shorter than me, I am 5”7 so he was probably 5”5. He was a little chubby and had straight brown hair. He was a legacy in a frat and frequently bragged about the gym, although I couldn’t see any physical evidence of his gym-going and only had his testimony to go on.
Just to be 100% clear, I was not attracted to Matt. This is not a, will-they or won’t-they story. This isn’t an, “omg, I am deeply attracted to this man that used to repulse me”—I never was and never will be attracted to him.
Anyway, as the days went on, it felt like I ran into him too many times for it to be a coincidence, but not enough times to report him for stalking. I am not going to give all my examples, but sometimes I saw him several times in a day. Again, this could all be in my mind, but it sure felt like he was seeking me out. He would usually come over, say hello, and then be pretty awkward, not really sure how to carry the conversation. Occasionally, he would ask me to “do an activity with him”, which was almost him asking me out, but never being direct. I would reject him the way we’re taught: "I am busy”, “aw Matt I just don’t see you that way”, “I don’t feel a spark”. He would quickly retreat and get almost defensive. Saying things like, “Sophia, I didn’t mean it like that”. “Ok, be that way”.
Then the Clemson administration fucked me. They put us in an intro to psychology class together; there’s some joke of the universe here. If I was more conspiratorial, I would say, “Matt engineered it”, but I don’t really believe that. The class was in a big room, more of a 101-intro-classroom with tons of seats. Matt sat next to me. The first class, I arrived early, when he arrived, there were tons of open seats, entire rows even, yet, breaking the sacred-male-urinal code- he right sat next to me. Most other classes, he got there before me and I assume would just mill around, until I sat down and then sit as close to me as there was a seat available, it was creepy. There’s some line between, nice guy who pursues you despite you not being interested and creepy- we all know it. Matt was tiptoeing across the creepy line. Most classes, he would say hi and make small talk, never quite asking me out, due to previous rejection. It seemed to me, that either he just liked my presence or thought he could wear me down; I am not sure what he was thinking.
The queer goddesses gave me, a straight girl, a gift, and her name was Avery. I met Avery as a freshman in a chemistry class. She had a lot of confidence and was very blunt. Avery was tall, 5”10, and she had shortish curly red hair with springy ringlets, a short curly bob. She had a silver stud in her nose. I loved throwing problems at her, reveling in the way she effortlessly gave advice, never qualifying. She used to call me a fairy, laughing as she said it, “You’re like a little woodland creature.”
I once heard someone say, that the hottest thing in a man is, “that he's dangerous, but protective of you”. That, in a platonic way, is how I felt about Avery. Avery was always protective of me, once yelling at a girl who said something about my outfit. Avery was fond of saying, “every woman has a black widow buried inside her”. It always felt to me like hers wasn’t that far from the surface, although for that matter… maybe mine wasn’t either.
I hadn’t told her about my Matt problem until that day, there was a gaslighting voice in my head saying I was being ridiculous, that it’s my fault for letting it get to this point, that he’s just an awkward guy and I was blowing this out of proportion.
Once I started telling her, I couldn’t stop; the dam broke and all the details came pouring out. Every time I downplayed, Avery told me I was insane, that he was crossing boundaries and I need to stop making light of this. She told me to be way meaner and firmer. Her no-nonsense tone was so nice and reassuring. She, mostly jokingly, asked me if I would like her to kill him and joked about the gay mafia, which made me laugh. We batted around ideas, living in the vengeance of it. Ideas like posting pictures of him with a shrimp dick around his frat or hiring someone to stalk him for a change. I was saying something about humiliating him and making him feel small, and Avery gave a trademark Avery coy smile and said, “This reminds me of the time I tickled my cousin to death”. I was both surprised, and it made perfect sense, it was very Avery. “You did what Avery?” I asked. “pshhh, relax, he survived, he just wanted to die while it was going on”. The way Avery described this was so logical and cold; she made him regret what he did (I never did learn what this cousin did), so he would never do it again. And in this case, the correct weapon was tickling. It was a little terrifying. I told her that if I didn’t love her, I would be terrified of her, and like a true queen of retribution, she smirked, brushing a curl from her face, and whispered, “Good. Fear keeps people in line.” She then leaned over and gave me a reassuring hug.
The next morning, I woke up to see I was in a new group chat created by Avery. The only members were us two. The title was just the 🕷️emoji. It was very Avery, the grandiosity and playfulness of it, and it made me smile.
Like black widows, we realized we needed to weave a web. And I already knew the web, it was Matt’s infatuation with me. I knew as long as I gave him some rope or, better yet, some silk, he would follow me wherever I wanted, including into a very dark forest or even a Fae ring.
I sent him a text inviting him to a secret party off campus. I told him it would be an intimate affair, and I needed a friend there. He texted back in a couple of seconds, “I am down”. Never questioning my change of heart towards him. He probably just assumed that his almost stalking tactics had worked, and I finally gave in. Or maybe his hubris was so great, that he assumed, I had always been into him and finally admitted it to myself. Or maybe he wasn’t thinking at all, I’ll never know.
Avery and I picked our spot, a small, abandoned building near the Clemson Experimental Forest.
As much as I was weaving the web, I didn’t know what Avery’s plan was once we got him there.
Ever the Girl Scout, I got there 15 minutes before I told him to be there, and Avery was already there. There was a small kitchen and a big room with 2 three-seater couches. The rest of the place was a mess with lots of old, broken stuff strewn around. I sat next to Avery on one of the couches and we waited. We made small talk, but even Avery seemed a little nervous or maybe she was just poised, like a soldier before they go into battle. I was definitely nervous.
And then Matt walked in, smaller than I remembered. My nerves settled a little—just a little. He was smiling but it seemed forced. He was shorter than he was in my mind. He was wearing a red polo shirt and jeans. I am not sure what he expected, but definitely not the two of us sitting in silence. His fixation on me seemed to override any potential warning bells in his head, though. After a second, we both waved to him with whatever false warmth I could muster. Avery invited him to sit down, and he sat down on the couch across from us. Immediately upon sitting down, he said, “What’s up, what’s going on, where is everyone else?” with a bit of concern in his voice. Avery thankfully quickly took control and said, “Matt, it turned out to just be us three, are you ok with that?” When it was put to him like that, he said, “nah, it’s fine”.
Avery immediately went on a charm offensive playing to his frat-boy ego. She started talking about the gym, how good his arms looked (I was certain he couldn’t actually believe this shit), but he ate it up. She was literally complimenting things that didn’t exist, and she was a lesbian, but he had bought his ego but forgot his gaydar at home and ate it up: hook, line, and sinker. I am almost certain that his brain and his other head were screaming, THREESOME. She even complimented his stomach, which she couldn’t see and was ironic as fuck, as she actually had abs. He responded by taking off his shirt, which I could’ve died happy without ever having seen but… the price you have to pay for revenge.
I really had no idea where Avery was going with all this. Like she definitely was making him comfortable, but did she even mean for him to take his shirt off, I thought not!
And then Avery invited the fly, or maybe Matt is more like a praying mantis, to our couch. He smiled a big smile; this invitation seemed to settle him and calm his nerves. Unfortunately, his nerves would become his downfall. Time seemed to stop, as he slowly got up from the couch he was sitting on and then walked the few feet across the room. I heard Avery tell me to make space and I scooted over so Matt could fit in between us. I could smell his cologne, I could feel his skin and I hated it. I also hated that Avery wasn’t between us.
Despite all that, I knew what needed to be done. I needed to lower his guard so he would keep getting himself spun deeper in our web. I slightly tilted my head, “Matt, you always tell me about the gym, have you ever wrestled?”. “Well, not really, like I am pretty strong, but I never officially wrestled, but my friends all know not to mess with me,” sprinkling his ego-driven “truth” with what seemed to me an obvious lie. He turned to me without looking me in the eye and said derisively, “why, do you wrestle Sophia?” unable to hold back a snort. Something about that comment pissed me off and brought back all my hatred for this man. His constant hovering, his refusal to take no for an answer, his complete disregard for my feelings. I began to respond, but Avery swooped in like the mother eagle she is, saying, “Matt you’re a muscly gym guy; you could easily out-wrestle both of us”. Matt grabbed the bait; “of course, I could”. And without arguing or saying anything at all, Avery grabbed Matt’s arms and pushed them above his head while at the same time pushed Matt’s body tighter in between us. I had a front row seat to Matt’s struggle and it was delicious. First, he tried to pull his arms down and truly couldn’t, he tried to move his legs but Avery with magical fairy foresight, used hers to lock his in. I helped with holding down his leg and one of his arms. I wasn’t scared anymore. It now seemed like fate, and I was relishing in it.
I could see the exact moment he knew he was truly stuck when he honestly tried and couldn’t go anywhere. He was doing a ton of grunting. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything, as what could he say without shattering his masculine ego into a million pieces! I, on the other hand, had lots to say. “You can’t be trying for real, I mean you are Mr. Gym guy”. He then became Mr. Excuse, “I am not really trying”, “this isn’t real wresting”, “I wasn’t ready”. All three of us knew this was pathetic.
It was that moment, when I realized that I had known the plan the whole time, yet had pushed it to the back of my mind as it scared me a little. Yet now it was in my face, Matt being pinned shirtless, Avery’s story about her cousin. He was in the web stuck and wrapped tightly in our silk.
I softly said, “Matt, do you want us to let you go, do you want to be free of us?” He gave the smallest, meekest nod. I said, “It is ironic; I have wanted to be free of you for the whole year, yet this exact moment is the first time I have wanted to spend more time with you, and karmically, you don’t have a choice.”
He turned pale, and he looked scared; it was dawning on him that this was my revenge. That the fairy he thought he was pursuing had a black widow inside her.
I needed him to feel the humiliation, the fear, the smallness, so I told him, “there is something that boys like you have in common, putting the emphasis on the word boy, my words dripping with derision”. He looked really scared and didn’t say a word. So I went on, “all of you boys are really sensitive… ticklish one may say”, pulling out my ace. It was at this point that he started squirming like crazy, denying it even as his body gave him away. “I’m not… I grew out of it,” he meekly stammered. Avery started talking softly, in a low dangerous tone, “Matt, I believe you..” stopping to give him a second of hope. “But your body doesn’t”. And with that, she took her ten fingers and began to slowly wriggle them at him, his fighting became more intense. She sarcastically said, “yup not ticklish at all”. I knew Avery was killing him psychologically and probably could make him tell every last secret he had and yet I couldn’t wait any longer. I began to tickle him, using my dark green manicured fingers, just skittering them up and down his torso, my ten long nails skittering from his sides, up to his ribs and back down again. He responded by dissolving into wild, frantic laughter.
The floodgates were open and the teasing time was over, Avery began to work his sides, squeezing them over and over. There was no words, just fingers making our point, as helpless laughter poured out of Matt. It seems like he was so shocked at what was happening that he couldn’t say anything, couldn’t even protest.
But then I began to dig into his ribs as Avery worked his armpits and we could feel him try to jump, and he started to scream laugh. And began saying nononono, not as a request but as a deep realization that he was utterly fucked. Avery began to sing-song yesyes. As if she were Matt’s kindergarten teacher correcting him.
The next thirty minutes passed like no time at all. I slipped into a flow state. Tickle-torturing Matt felt automatic, like a reflex. Avery and I didn’t need to talk. I kept my hands on his knees and the soft spot just above them, squeezing as he laughed. I dragged my long nails along his neck, massaged his ribs, and listened to him scream, using it as feedback to decide what came next. I traced the slowest circles in his armpits until his laughter thinned, then switched to fast scribbles to push him back into that dark, desperate, ticklish place.
Avery taunted him, telling him, “if you weren’t so ticklish we would stop, this is your fault”. I don’t even know if he heard her, through his desperate laughter.
At some point, between the laughter, Matt started mumbling something. I leaned in, pretending to care. Giving him the attention he so deeply apparently wanted from me. “What was that?” I asked sweetly, as if I cared about him at all stopping the tickling onslaught for a moment. “I need to”, but it was interrupted by twenty fingers finding their ticklish targets. I taunted, “Oh no, I can’t understand you”. He couldn’t get the words out. He made one more attempt, stammering pee, “Avery tilted her head, all innocence. “Sorry, Matt, we don’t speak ‘ticklish.’ Try again without laughing,” He angrily said, “I can’t”! I enjoyed this immensely. I had the power; he couldn’t get what he wanted. My mind flashed for one second to all the times I didn’t want him around. And then I realized, I wanted him to pee, I wanted him to feel small, humiliated, out of control. And I knew how to push him over the edge.
I wasn’t even taunting; I was over that. I just wanted to destroy him. So I wordlessly walked over to his shoes. Took them off, peeled off his socks. Avery was still tickling him, so he barely noticed until he was barefoot. And then he just started saying nonono, it wasn’t a request, it was recognizing how fucked he was. To be honest, there is no situation I wanted to touch his feet, but this was worth it. I took my ten long nails and just went from the ball of his foot to his toes in the most striching ticklish way possible and he screamed laughed.
I felt the power; his laughter wasn’t his. It was mine. Mine to pull out of him. It took merely a moment or two and he started sobbing. It was at that moment when I felt my first twinge of guilt, but it was overcome by watching him pee himself, his boxers developing a dark stain and then dripping.
He was beaten. I could tell Avery wanted to tease him more, yet I was done. I thought about the triumphal speech I wanted to give, but it didn’t matter at this point. I got off him and started gathering my things. I could hear Avery threatening him to never look at me again, round 2 and other mean things, but it didn’t matter to me.
The fairy remained intact, but the black widow had grown, and I would have to live with both.
It all starts with a guy I knew, Matt. Matt was the kind of guy who was just always around, and when he wasn’t around, he was sliding up on my Instagram stories. Women readers, you know exactly what I am talking about, male readers… I hope you do too and aren’t that guy be that guy. Physically Matt was shorter than me, I am 5”7 so he was probably 5”5. He was a little chubby and had straight brown hair. He was a legacy in a frat and frequently bragged about the gym, although I couldn’t see any physical evidence of his gym-going and only had his testimony to go on.
Just to be 100% clear, I was not attracted to Matt. This is not a, will-they or won’t-they story. This isn’t an, “omg, I am deeply attracted to this man that used to repulse me”—I never was and never will be attracted to him.
Anyway, as the days went on, it felt like I ran into him too many times for it to be a coincidence, but not enough times to report him for stalking. I am not going to give all my examples, but sometimes I saw him several times in a day. Again, this could all be in my mind, but it sure felt like he was seeking me out. He would usually come over, say hello, and then be pretty awkward, not really sure how to carry the conversation. Occasionally, he would ask me to “do an activity with him”, which was almost him asking me out, but never being direct. I would reject him the way we’re taught: "I am busy”, “aw Matt I just don’t see you that way”, “I don’t feel a spark”. He would quickly retreat and get almost defensive. Saying things like, “Sophia, I didn’t mean it like that”. “Ok, be that way”.
Then the Clemson administration fucked me. They put us in an intro to psychology class together; there’s some joke of the universe here. If I was more conspiratorial, I would say, “Matt engineered it”, but I don’t really believe that. The class was in a big room, more of a 101-intro-classroom with tons of seats. Matt sat next to me. The first class, I arrived early, when he arrived, there were tons of open seats, entire rows even, yet, breaking the sacred-male-urinal code- he right sat next to me. Most other classes, he got there before me and I assume would just mill around, until I sat down and then sit as close to me as there was a seat available, it was creepy. There’s some line between, nice guy who pursues you despite you not being interested and creepy- we all know it. Matt was tiptoeing across the creepy line. Most classes, he would say hi and make small talk, never quite asking me out, due to previous rejection. It seemed to me, that either he just liked my presence or thought he could wear me down; I am not sure what he was thinking.
The queer goddesses gave me, a straight girl, a gift, and her name was Avery. I met Avery as a freshman in a chemistry class. She had a lot of confidence and was very blunt. Avery was tall, 5”10, and she had shortish curly red hair with springy ringlets, a short curly bob. She had a silver stud in her nose. I loved throwing problems at her, reveling in the way she effortlessly gave advice, never qualifying. She used to call me a fairy, laughing as she said it, “You’re like a little woodland creature.”
I once heard someone say, that the hottest thing in a man is, “that he's dangerous, but protective of you”. That, in a platonic way, is how I felt about Avery. Avery was always protective of me, once yelling at a girl who said something about my outfit. Avery was fond of saying, “every woman has a black widow buried inside her”. It always felt to me like hers wasn’t that far from the surface, although for that matter… maybe mine wasn’t either.
I hadn’t told her about my Matt problem until that day, there was a gaslighting voice in my head saying I was being ridiculous, that it’s my fault for letting it get to this point, that he’s just an awkward guy and I was blowing this out of proportion.
Once I started telling her, I couldn’t stop; the dam broke and all the details came pouring out. Every time I downplayed, Avery told me I was insane, that he was crossing boundaries and I need to stop making light of this. She told me to be way meaner and firmer. Her no-nonsense tone was so nice and reassuring. She, mostly jokingly, asked me if I would like her to kill him and joked about the gay mafia, which made me laugh. We batted around ideas, living in the vengeance of it. Ideas like posting pictures of him with a shrimp dick around his frat or hiring someone to stalk him for a change. I was saying something about humiliating him and making him feel small, and Avery gave a trademark Avery coy smile and said, “This reminds me of the time I tickled my cousin to death”. I was both surprised, and it made perfect sense, it was very Avery. “You did what Avery?” I asked. “pshhh, relax, he survived, he just wanted to die while it was going on”. The way Avery described this was so logical and cold; she made him regret what he did (I never did learn what this cousin did), so he would never do it again. And in this case, the correct weapon was tickling. It was a little terrifying. I told her that if I didn’t love her, I would be terrified of her, and like a true queen of retribution, she smirked, brushing a curl from her face, and whispered, “Good. Fear keeps people in line.” She then leaned over and gave me a reassuring hug.
The next morning, I woke up to see I was in a new group chat created by Avery. The only members were us two. The title was just the 🕷️emoji. It was very Avery, the grandiosity and playfulness of it, and it made me smile.
Like black widows, we realized we needed to weave a web. And I already knew the web, it was Matt’s infatuation with me. I knew as long as I gave him some rope or, better yet, some silk, he would follow me wherever I wanted, including into a very dark forest or even a Fae ring.
I sent him a text inviting him to a secret party off campus. I told him it would be an intimate affair, and I needed a friend there. He texted back in a couple of seconds, “I am down”. Never questioning my change of heart towards him. He probably just assumed that his almost stalking tactics had worked, and I finally gave in. Or maybe his hubris was so great, that he assumed, I had always been into him and finally admitted it to myself. Or maybe he wasn’t thinking at all, I’ll never know.
Avery and I picked our spot, a small, abandoned building near the Clemson Experimental Forest.
As much as I was weaving the web, I didn’t know what Avery’s plan was once we got him there.
Ever the Girl Scout, I got there 15 minutes before I told him to be there, and Avery was already there. There was a small kitchen and a big room with 2 three-seater couches. The rest of the place was a mess with lots of old, broken stuff strewn around. I sat next to Avery on one of the couches and we waited. We made small talk, but even Avery seemed a little nervous or maybe she was just poised, like a soldier before they go into battle. I was definitely nervous.
And then Matt walked in, smaller than I remembered. My nerves settled a little—just a little. He was smiling but it seemed forced. He was shorter than he was in my mind. He was wearing a red polo shirt and jeans. I am not sure what he expected, but definitely not the two of us sitting in silence. His fixation on me seemed to override any potential warning bells in his head, though. After a second, we both waved to him with whatever false warmth I could muster. Avery invited him to sit down, and he sat down on the couch across from us. Immediately upon sitting down, he said, “What’s up, what’s going on, where is everyone else?” with a bit of concern in his voice. Avery thankfully quickly took control and said, “Matt, it turned out to just be us three, are you ok with that?” When it was put to him like that, he said, “nah, it’s fine”.
Avery immediately went on a charm offensive playing to his frat-boy ego. She started talking about the gym, how good his arms looked (I was certain he couldn’t actually believe this shit), but he ate it up. She was literally complimenting things that didn’t exist, and she was a lesbian, but he had bought his ego but forgot his gaydar at home and ate it up: hook, line, and sinker. I am almost certain that his brain and his other head were screaming, THREESOME. She even complimented his stomach, which she couldn’t see and was ironic as fuck, as she actually had abs. He responded by taking off his shirt, which I could’ve died happy without ever having seen but… the price you have to pay for revenge.
I really had no idea where Avery was going with all this. Like she definitely was making him comfortable, but did she even mean for him to take his shirt off, I thought not!
And then Avery invited the fly, or maybe Matt is more like a praying mantis, to our couch. He smiled a big smile; this invitation seemed to settle him and calm his nerves. Unfortunately, his nerves would become his downfall. Time seemed to stop, as he slowly got up from the couch he was sitting on and then walked the few feet across the room. I heard Avery tell me to make space and I scooted over so Matt could fit in between us. I could smell his cologne, I could feel his skin and I hated it. I also hated that Avery wasn’t between us.
Despite all that, I knew what needed to be done. I needed to lower his guard so he would keep getting himself spun deeper in our web. I slightly tilted my head, “Matt, you always tell me about the gym, have you ever wrestled?”. “Well, not really, like I am pretty strong, but I never officially wrestled, but my friends all know not to mess with me,” sprinkling his ego-driven “truth” with what seemed to me an obvious lie. He turned to me without looking me in the eye and said derisively, “why, do you wrestle Sophia?” unable to hold back a snort. Something about that comment pissed me off and brought back all my hatred for this man. His constant hovering, his refusal to take no for an answer, his complete disregard for my feelings. I began to respond, but Avery swooped in like the mother eagle she is, saying, “Matt you’re a muscly gym guy; you could easily out-wrestle both of us”. Matt grabbed the bait; “of course, I could”. And without arguing or saying anything at all, Avery grabbed Matt’s arms and pushed them above his head while at the same time pushed Matt’s body tighter in between us. I had a front row seat to Matt’s struggle and it was delicious. First, he tried to pull his arms down and truly couldn’t, he tried to move his legs but Avery with magical fairy foresight, used hers to lock his in. I helped with holding down his leg and one of his arms. I wasn’t scared anymore. It now seemed like fate, and I was relishing in it.
I could see the exact moment he knew he was truly stuck when he honestly tried and couldn’t go anywhere. He was doing a ton of grunting. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything, as what could he say without shattering his masculine ego into a million pieces! I, on the other hand, had lots to say. “You can’t be trying for real, I mean you are Mr. Gym guy”. He then became Mr. Excuse, “I am not really trying”, “this isn’t real wresting”, “I wasn’t ready”. All three of us knew this was pathetic.
It was that moment, when I realized that I had known the plan the whole time, yet had pushed it to the back of my mind as it scared me a little. Yet now it was in my face, Matt being pinned shirtless, Avery’s story about her cousin. He was in the web stuck and wrapped tightly in our silk.
I softly said, “Matt, do you want us to let you go, do you want to be free of us?” He gave the smallest, meekest nod. I said, “It is ironic; I have wanted to be free of you for the whole year, yet this exact moment is the first time I have wanted to spend more time with you, and karmically, you don’t have a choice.”
He turned pale, and he looked scared; it was dawning on him that this was my revenge. That the fairy he thought he was pursuing had a black widow inside her.
I needed him to feel the humiliation, the fear, the smallness, so I told him, “there is something that boys like you have in common, putting the emphasis on the word boy, my words dripping with derision”. He looked really scared and didn’t say a word. So I went on, “all of you boys are really sensitive… ticklish one may say”, pulling out my ace. It was at this point that he started squirming like crazy, denying it even as his body gave him away. “I’m not… I grew out of it,” he meekly stammered. Avery started talking softly, in a low dangerous tone, “Matt, I believe you..” stopping to give him a second of hope. “But your body doesn’t”. And with that, she took her ten fingers and began to slowly wriggle them at him, his fighting became more intense. She sarcastically said, “yup not ticklish at all”. I knew Avery was killing him psychologically and probably could make him tell every last secret he had and yet I couldn’t wait any longer. I began to tickle him, using my dark green manicured fingers, just skittering them up and down his torso, my ten long nails skittering from his sides, up to his ribs and back down again. He responded by dissolving into wild, frantic laughter.
The floodgates were open and the teasing time was over, Avery began to work his sides, squeezing them over and over. There was no words, just fingers making our point, as helpless laughter poured out of Matt. It seems like he was so shocked at what was happening that he couldn’t say anything, couldn’t even protest.
But then I began to dig into his ribs as Avery worked his armpits and we could feel him try to jump, and he started to scream laugh. And began saying nononono, not as a request but as a deep realization that he was utterly fucked. Avery began to sing-song yesyes. As if she were Matt’s kindergarten teacher correcting him.
The next thirty minutes passed like no time at all. I slipped into a flow state. Tickle-torturing Matt felt automatic, like a reflex. Avery and I didn’t need to talk. I kept my hands on his knees and the soft spot just above them, squeezing as he laughed. I dragged my long nails along his neck, massaged his ribs, and listened to him scream, using it as feedback to decide what came next. I traced the slowest circles in his armpits until his laughter thinned, then switched to fast scribbles to push him back into that dark, desperate, ticklish place.
Avery taunted him, telling him, “if you weren’t so ticklish we would stop, this is your fault”. I don’t even know if he heard her, through his desperate laughter.
At some point, between the laughter, Matt started mumbling something. I leaned in, pretending to care. Giving him the attention he so deeply apparently wanted from me. “What was that?” I asked sweetly, as if I cared about him at all stopping the tickling onslaught for a moment. “I need to”, but it was interrupted by twenty fingers finding their ticklish targets. I taunted, “Oh no, I can’t understand you”. He couldn’t get the words out. He made one more attempt, stammering pee, “Avery tilted her head, all innocence. “Sorry, Matt, we don’t speak ‘ticklish.’ Try again without laughing,” He angrily said, “I can’t”! I enjoyed this immensely. I had the power; he couldn’t get what he wanted. My mind flashed for one second to all the times I didn’t want him around. And then I realized, I wanted him to pee, I wanted him to feel small, humiliated, out of control. And I knew how to push him over the edge.
I wasn’t even taunting; I was over that. I just wanted to destroy him. So I wordlessly walked over to his shoes. Took them off, peeled off his socks. Avery was still tickling him, so he barely noticed until he was barefoot. And then he just started saying nonono, it wasn’t a request, it was recognizing how fucked he was. To be honest, there is no situation I wanted to touch his feet, but this was worth it. I took my ten long nails and just went from the ball of his foot to his toes in the most striching ticklish way possible and he screamed laughed.
I felt the power; his laughter wasn’t his. It was mine. Mine to pull out of him. It took merely a moment or two and he started sobbing. It was at that moment when I felt my first twinge of guilt, but it was overcome by watching him pee himself, his boxers developing a dark stain and then dripping.
He was beaten. I could tell Avery wanted to tease him more, yet I was done. I thought about the triumphal speech I wanted to give, but it didn’t matter at this point. I got off him and started gathering my things. I could hear Avery threatening him to never look at me again, round 2 and other mean things, but it didn’t matter to me.
The fairy remained intact, but the black widow had grown, and I would have to live with both.
