Welcome to St. Bridgid's School for Girls. The Headmistress here is a very strict woman who believes in two things: discipline and the Bible, and her methods of disciplining her students are truly biblical
All characters are 18 or older
Word Count: 6,202
F/F | Feet Tickling | Tickle Torture | School Setting
The morning air in the Great Hall of St. Brigid’s was thick enough to choke on. Five hundred girls stood in rigid formation, knuckles white as they gripped their small, black-leather prayer books. The silence was absolute, broken only by the rhythmic clack-clack-clack of Headmistress Sterling’s heels as she began her predatory stroll.
She paused before a girl in the front row. "A loose thread on your blazer, Sarah. It looks like a spider web. Clean it up." The girl nodded, trembling. Sterling moved on. "Ink on your knuckles, Beatrice? Are we a schoolgirl or a chimney sweep? Wash."
A soft sigh of relief followed her passing from each of the girls Sterling snapped at but didn't hand a punishment to—until she reached Rachel.
Sterling’s eyes dropped to Rachel’s empty, interlaced fingers. The silence turned deafening. "No prayer book, Rachel? Do you feel your soul is already so pure it requires no guidance?"
"I... I forgot it, Headmistress," Rachel whispered, her gaze fixed on the floor.
"Forgot." Sterling tasted the word like a sour grape. "In that case, you clearly need help with your memory. Report to my office after the final hymn for 'lines'."
A sharp, audible intake of breath hissed from the girls nearby. Lakshmi and Samantha exchanged a look of pure, cold dread. Everyone at St. Brigid’s knew what 'lines' meant. It wasn't about paper and pen.
---
When Rachel entered the office, Mrs. Sterling was already seated behind her massive mahogany desk. Bolted to the surface was the school’s most infamous fixture: a polished oak stockade. Its two holes were padded with rich maroon leather, topped with a series of brass eyeholes and a heavy latch.
Facing the desk stood the high-backed chair. It was an instrument of posture and confinement; a leather strap ran horizontally across the back, designed to pin the sitter's arms back, thrusting the chest forward and rendering the upper body immobile.
"The chair, Rachel," Sterling commanded, not looking up from her ledger. "Don't make me wait. I have a long day of 'tidying' ahead of me."
Rachel moved like a ghost. She sat, lifting her legs with practiced, fearful precision to slide her ankles into the cold grooves of the stocks. She pulled the top bar down and clicked the latch shut herself. Then, she reached her arms back, sliding them behind the chair’s backrest and under the thick leather strap.
"Very good, Rachel." Sterling stood, stalking around the desk. Her eyes never left Rachel’s as she approached the back of the chair. "You have learned that keeping me happy is a wise choice."
She grabbed the strap and gave it a sharp, professional tug. The leather bit into Rachel’s elbows, locking her arms in place. Sterling buckled it tight.
"Eyes front," Sterling barked as Rachel tried to twist to see her.
Rachel stared at the framed certificates on the wall, her breath shallow. Then, she felt it. With her shoulders pinned back, her armpits were dangerously exposed. Sterling’s sharp nails dug into the sensitive hollows.
Rachel snorted, her body jerking uselessly. "He-he-he, Miss, please... ha-ha-ha... stop!"
"Just testing the strap is tight enough, dear," Sterling purred. Her nails descended to Rachel's ribs, joined by three more on each side, dancing over the nerves.
"I'm strapped in! Hahaha! I can't... hahaha, I can't move... please, Miss... it tickles!"
Finally, the fingers lifted. "Good."
Sterling returned to the front of the desk, looming into Rachel's eyeline. Rachel’s heart hammered in her throat as she watched those long fingers reach for her shoes.
Rachel felt Sterling's eyes pierce her soul as she felt the sawing of a lace coming undone and then felt pressure at the heel of her foot before her dress shoe was peeled away. The cool air of the office raced over her sweaty sock-covered foot.
Sterling took a sniff of Rachel's shoe and then placed it on the desk where Rachel could see it.
She repeated the same with the other shoe, placing it beside the first. Then she pinched the toes of her left sock and slowly pulled it away. When the sock was off she placed it over the shoe and then dragged a nail down Rachel's sweaty foot from the ball to the heel. Rachel squealed and curled her toes. "A full day of lessons, Rachel. A full day of walking these hallowed halls has left your feet sweaty and sensitive."
Sterling looked at her with a predatory smirk then she pinched the toes of the other sock and pulled it free, placing it over the shoe, and then tracing a nail down that arch too "so soft... So delicate. Such a shame a girl with such ticklish feet is so forgetful."
Sterling then pulled some silk cord from her pocket "feet straight, toes back!" She commanded.
Rachel straightened her feet so they were parallel with the stocks and as flush as possible and then extended her toes. Sterling looped the cord around each toe individually, threading it back to the eyeholes and pulling them taut. When she was finished, Rachel’s toes were splayed and immobilized.
When she was done she admired her handiwork. She then traced a single nail down each foot. Rachel squealed and her toes tried to curl in protest but they couldn't.
"Tut-tut-tut. You know the rules with lines," Sterling said, settling into her chair to face the presented soles. She fished a small inkwell and a long eagle-feather quill from her drawer. "It is in your best interest to keep your feet still. If you force me to make a smudge, I will need to start over. And you know what that means."
She placed a basin of warm soapy water and a toothbrush on the desk. "I'll need to clean the canvas first. You remember how much you enjoy that part, don't you?"
"So," Sterling dipped the quill, the tip heavy with black, permanent ink. "'I will not forget my prayer book.' Ten times. Let's begin."
The quill hovered an inch from Rachel’s left arch. The girl watched it with the intensity of a condemned woman watching a swinging pendulum.
"Stay perfectly still," Sterling whispered. "If you had your hymn book today, you would know the correct words to pray for strength."
The first touch was electric. Not the scratch of a nail, but the maddening, feather-light bite of the quill. As Sterling drew the first 'I', the fine tip danced over the ultra-sensitive curve of the ball of the foot.
"Nnn-gh!" Rachel squeezed her eyes shut, her body bucking against the strap. Her heels thumped a frantic rhythm against the wood.
"No, no, Rachel," Sterling sighed. She set down the quill and picked up the toothbrush. The splash of the bristles hitting the water sent a fresh jolt of terror through the girl. "Look at that. A giant black smear. It’s a mess. I guess we'll just have to clean this up, won't we?"
Sterling didn't wait for a reply. She pressed the soapy bristles firmly against the taut ball of Rachel's foot and began to scrub.
"AHA-HA-HA! NO! PLEASE! HA-HA-HE-HE-HEE!" Rachel’s head snapped back against the high-backed chair, her throat cords standing out as she shrieked. The sensation was a chaotic blur—the heat of the water opening her pores only to let the stiff, sharp bristles dive deeper into the nerves.
Sterling’s free hand—those long, predatory nails—gripped the top of the stocks to steady her work, her thumb occasionally "slipping" to dig into the sensitive skin between Rachel's toes.
"Is it funny, Rachel? Do you find your lack of discipline amusing?" Sterling leaned in, her face inches from Rachel's thrashing feet. "Because I can do this until the water turns cold."
"I DON'T HA-HA-HA-HA-HA I'M SORRY BAAA-HA-HA-HA-HA... I'LL... HA-HA-HE-HE... I'LL BE STILL! I PROMISE! HA-HA-HA! MISS! MERCY... I'LL BE GOOO-HO-HO-HOOD"
Finally, Sterling lifted the brush. She took a linen cloth and dried the foot with a rough, brisk friction that was a torture all its own. "We shall see."
Sterling picked up the quill again and dipped it into the pot.
"Line one. Again."
This time, she wrote with agonizing slowness. She savored the vibration of Rachel’s foot, pausing every time the muscles tensed to a breaking point, hovering the wet ink just a hair's breadth from the skin until the tremor passed.
I... w-i-l-l... n-o-t...
By the fifth line, Rachel’s body was giving up on her. The effort of keeping her feet motionless had turned her muscles rigid, the arches burning as though they might seize entirely. Tears slipped free despite her, blurring her vision as she stared at the ceiling, afraid that even blinking too hard might betray her.
The ink told the story anyway—letters thick where she hesitated, thin where her control nearly broke, the sentence crawling unevenly across her soles like a record of every second she’d managed not to move.
Sterling put down the quill and Rachel gave a massive sigh of relief "oh well done, Rachel. See what you are capable of when you put your mind to it" she said, her voice dripping with condescension.
"Five lines done," Sterling announced. "Only five more to go."
Rachel's eyes went wide. "Wh-what? That's not all? But Miss, please—"
Sterling fixed her with a stare of pure ice. "If you want to keep it at only five more, I suggest you quit your whining." Then, a saccharine smile broke across her face. "But... it looks like we are out of room. So..." She waved the toothbrush cheerfully.
"No, please! Miss, no! I'll be good! I'll glue the hymn book to my hand!" Rachel pleaded as Sterling swirled the brush in the water.
"These feet are an absolute mess. This will take quite some time, dear..."
---
The lights in the East Wing dormitory were dimmed, the only glow coming from a single flashlight hidden under a duvet. Rachel sat on the edge of her bed, her legs dangling, her feet still throbbing with a dull, rhythmic heat.
"Show us," Samantha whispered, her voice tight with a mix of fury and fascination.
Rachel slowly lifted her feet. Even in the dim light, the damage was clear. The ink from the "lines" hadn't been fully scrubbed away—ghostly fragments of 'I will not...' were still visible—but the skin itself was a vivid, angry pink. The toothbrush had done its work; her arches were raw, the nerves still firing as if the bristles were still dancing across them.
"She wouldn't stop," Rachel breathed, her voice trembling. "Every time I twitched, she just smiled and reached for that basin. It’s like she wanted me to smudge it. She spent ten minutes just between my toes. She never got ink there!... But I knew the cost of complaint."
Lakshmi reached out, her fingers hovering just an inch away from Rachel’s foot. Rachel flinched instinctively, pulling back.
“Last month, she caught me using a pen to correct a grammatical error in the school hymnal. She didn't use the quill on me. She used a steel ruler.”
Lakshmi stared at Rachel’s foot, her voice dropping to a low, analytical hum. “She told me that if I valued 'precision' and 'straight lines' so much, I should feel them. She didn't hit me with it. She used the corner of the metal edge.”
Rachel shuddered, but Lakshmi continued, her gaze distant. “She spent an hour tracing the grid of my sole. Vertical lines, then horizontal. Slowly dragging that cold, sharp metal edge over the arch to ‘graph’ my sensitivity. She kept asking me to calculate the exact variable of pressure required to make me scream. She called it ‘Applied Geometry.’”
Samantha leaned over and pulled up her own pajama pant legs, though her skin had long since healed. "When she caught me ‘smirking’ during the Founders' Day speech, she didn't bother with the desk. She made me sit on the floor and put my feet in her lap."
Samantha continued, her eyes distant. "She used those nails. Those horrible, perfect nails. She started at my heels and just... dug in. Not enough to scratch, but enough to find every single nerve ending. It felt like ten tiny needles made of ice. I actually begged her to use the ruler. I told her, 'Please, Miss, just hit my feet instead,' because the sensation was so sharp, so invasive, I felt like I was going to jump out of my own skin."
Samantha shuddered, her fingers twitching against her blanket. "She laughed—that quiet, cold little chuckle she does. She told me that a ruler only teaches the skin, but her 'claws' teach the spirit.
The worst part was that I was not held down, but I was warned to keep my feet on her lap at all times. At least with the stocks you have a way of relieving the sensation a little, something to push against.
She spent well over an hour raking up and down my arches, whispering about how 'reactive' I was. At least with a tool, you know it's a piece of wood or plastic. But those nails... they feel like they’re part of her cruelty."
Lakshmi nodded slowly, her gaze drifting toward the heavy oak door of the dormitory. "It’s the personal touch. She wants us to know it’s her hand that’s making us lose control. She wants to feel the vibration of our laughter against her own skin."
"She’s a monster," Samantha hissed, clutching a pillow to her chest. "She thinks because she never cracks a smile, she’s made of stone. She sits behind that desk like a god, looking down at us while she plays with our feet like they’re toys."
"The worst part," Rachel whispered, looking down at her raw, sensitive arches, "is how she watches. She doesn't just want us to stay still; she wants to see the struggle. She wants to see us fighting our own bodies while she rakes those nails over us."
Lakshmi leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial hum. "She always says she’s perfectly disciplined. But nobody is perfect. Not even the Great Sterling. She must have a weakness."
The air in the dormitory seemed to vibrate with the lingering echo of Lakshmi’s words.
As the others drifted into fitful sleep, Samantha lay awake. If Sterling was hiding a vulnerability, the only way to find it was in the one place the woman lived: her private records.
---
The corridors of St. Brigid’s at 1:00 AM were a different world. The familiar scent of floor wax and old paper turned cold and oppressive in the dark. Samantha moved in her stocking feet, she opted to leave her shoes in the dorm, to ensure her footsteps were as silent as a heartbeat.
She reached the Archive Wing, a section of the school that felt older and more stagnant than the rest. The heavy oak doors groaned slightly as she slipped through, her heart hammering against her ribs. She was looking for the student and disciplinary ledgers from thirty years ago—the years Sterling herself was a student here.
Click.
The sound was distant, but unmistakable. The sharp, rhythmic strike of a high heel against stone.
Click. Click. Click.
Panic, cold and sharp, flooded Samantha’s chest. It was the measured, authoritative gait of the Headmistress.
Sterling should have been in her residence. Samantha scrambled backward, but the flashlight beam was already sweeping the hall. She bolted for the Great Hall, seeking the deep shadows of the north alcove behind the statue of St. Brigid.
She wedged herself into the gap, hoisting herself up by the stone ledge. Her blazer hiked up and flared open, leaving her silk blouse as the only barrier against the stale air.
The oak doors creaked open.
"I know you're in here, little bird," Sterling’s voice drifted through the darkness. "I saw the latch settle. Plenty of places to hide... and plenty of time for me to find you."
Samantha clamped her eyes shut, a single tear of pure terror pricking the corner of her lid. She pressed her lips together so hard they turned white. Her muscles were screaming, but she refused to breathe.
Then, she felt a presence. Her eyes snapped open. Just inches from her face, hanging by a glistening thread, was a house spider—its body long, its legs spindly and hairy. It descended slowly until it made contact with her collar bone. It scuttled immediately under her blouse, into the warmth of her armpit.
The sensation was an electric, maddening prickle. The tiny, frantic movement of eight legs in the hollow of her arm was like a thousand needles of laughter. Samantha’s throat tightened; a muffled hnh-hnh-hnh vibration started in her chest.
Sterling stopped right in front of the alcove.
Suddenly, as if startled, the creature bolted from her armpit, racing down her ribcage with terrifying speed.
The combination of the hyper-ticklish trail and the primal jolt of arachnophobia was the breaking point. Samantha’s composure didn't just crack; it exploded.
"GAAAH-HA-HA-HA-HEE-HEE!"
The shriek shattered the silence. Samantha tumbled out of the shadows, landing hard at the Headmistress’s feet. The spider scuttled away. Sterling looked down, a cold, predatory light in her eyes.
"Found you." She reached down, her nails catching Samantha’s collar like a hawk’s talon. "It seems the wildlife has a better sense of discipline than you do. Come along, Samantha."
The walk to the office was a symphony of dread. Inside, Sterling wasted no time forcing Samantha into the chair and tightening the strap. But instead of going to the desk, she pulled a silk scarf from her pocket.
"You’ve used your voice quite enough for one night."
She peeled the socks from Samantha’s feet, balled them up, and forced them into the girl's mouth, tying the silk scarf behind her head to secure the gag. Samantha could only produce muffled grunts of protest.
Sterling placed a steaming basin of peppermint-infused water at the base of the chair. "Feet in. Carefully."
The menthol hit Samantha's skin like cold fire. For ten minutes, Sterling sat and watched the clock while the peppermint tingled and gnawed at the girl's nerves. When time was up, Sterling dried the feet with a rough towel and locked Samantha’s ankles into the stocks on the desk.
"We can't have any rough skin dulling the 'clarity' of our session," Sterling said, picking up a coarse foot rasp.
She scrubbed with long, firm strokes. The friction, magnified by the peppermint soak, was unbearable. Samantha’s laughter was forced through her nose in jagged bursts as the rasp stripped away her defenses. "Mmm-ph-hnn-hnn-hff!"
"Quiet," Sterling snapped. She switched to a buffer, polishing the skin until the soles were a glowing, tender pink. Then came the warming oil. Sterling massaged it deep into the muscles, her fingers sliding between the toes, splaying them wide.
"There," she whispered. "Every defense gone. Perfectly soft, perfectly sensitive."
Sterling's eyes trace the shimmering, oil-slicked expanse of Samantha’s soles. The peppermint soak has left the skin so pink and engorged with blood that every tiny nerve ending is practically screaming for contact.
Sterling raised her right hand, her oiled nails looking like translucent ivory daggers in the lamplight. "Splay your toes. If I see them curl, I’ll tie them back so far they touch your ankles."
Samantha forced her toes apart, with a trembling, muffled "Mmm-ph."
Sterling began. She didn't dig; she ghosted. Using only the tips of her nails, she traced the skin from heel to arch. The oil eliminated friction, leaving only a slick, sliding sensation that felt like a cold spark.
Samantha’s body jolted, nasal bursts of Nff-nff-nff! erupting as her diaphragm spasmed. Sterling stopped in the deepest dip of the arch, letting her nails hover.
Samantha shook her head violently, a muffled "Mmm-nnn-nnn! Nnh-nnh!" vibrating through the gag as she met Sterling’s gaze with wild, frantic pleading.
"Look at you," Sterling mocked. "Vibrating like a tuning fork. And I haven't even begun to apply pressure."
Her expression hardened. She brought all five nails down onto the ball of the left foot and raked. She dragged them deep into the soft, raw skin, down through the arch to the heel and back up.
Samantha’s "dance" became a frantic jig. Her face flushed with helpless agony, tears streaming into the gag. "Mmph-heee! Mmm-HNN-HNN! NNN-HHEEE-PFFT!"
"Keep those toes open!" Sterling barked, diving her nails into the webbing between the big toe and its neighbor. She flicked the sensitive skin over and over.
Samantha’s discipline shattered. Her toes snapped shut, curling tight.
Sterling stopped instantly. "I gave you a simple instruction." She retrieved the silk cords, tying each toe back until they were immobile. She skittered her nails over the taut balls of the feet to test the tension.
"You chose the hard way. But first..." Sterling untied the scarf and pulled the socks from Samantha’s mouth. "I want to hear exactly how 'reactive' you are."
Before Samantha had a chance to react to the gag getting pulled out, Sterling’s nails dove back into her arches with vicious speed.
"AHA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HEE-HEE-HEE! NO! MISS... SNORT HA-HA-HA-STOP! I'LL BE GOOD!"
Four nails lightly scratched the taut balls of Samantha's hyper-sensitive feet while the thumb nails scratched just below the ball of each foot. "Have you learned your lesson? Will you go sneaking around late at night anymore, Samantha?"
"AHA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HEE-HEE-HEE! NO! MISS... SNORT HA-HA-HA-HA-STOP! I'LL-HA-HA-BE-GOOD."
"You really need to learn to annunciate your words, Samantha" Sterling teased. Then her nails moved up to the sensitive webbing between Samantha's toes. "Now, again—"
"NOT THE TOOO-HO-HO-HOES!! I'LL BE GOOO-HO-HOOO-HO-HOOD!!"
Sterling's nails moved to the undersides of Samantha's toes, where they meet the ball "LET ME FINISH, silly girl!"
"I'M SAAARRRRYY! AAA-HA-HA-HA-HA I'M SO-HO-HO-HOOORRY"
"Good. Now. Will you go sneaking around late at night anymore, Samantha?"
"NO! NO! I'LL BE GOOD!! I'LL BE GOOD SNORT JUST STAAAA-HA-HA-HAAAP PLEEEE-HE-HE-HEEASE! I'M DYYY-HI-HI-HIIING!"
---
The pre-dawn light filtered through the high, arched windows of the East Wing like gray ash. The dormitory was freezing, but for Samantha, the heat was all in her soles. She sat on the edge of her cot, her breath hitching every time the coarse wool of her blankets brushed against her feet.
Rachel and Lakshmi hovered over her, their own shadows long and jagged on the floor.
"She didn't just use the quill?" Rachel whispered, her eyes wide as she took in the sight of Samantha’s feet.
The skin was a feverish, translucent pink, glowing with a sickly sheen from the lingering traces of the warming oil. The indentations where the silk cords had bound Samantha’s toes were still deep, blue-white rings against the angry red of her flesh.
"No," Samantha rasped, her voice still hoarse from the screaming. She gingerly lifted her right foot, wincing as the mere movement sent a jolt of peppermint-fire through her arch. "She... she used a foot rasp. She polished me, Rachel. She took off every layer of protection until... until I could feel the air moving across the floor like it was a blade."
Lakshmi knelt down, her analytical gaze sweeping over the damage. "The peppermint," she noted, her voice low. "It’s a vasodilator. She opened the blood vessels, made the nerves hyper-reactive, and then..."
"And then she used her nails," Samantha finished, a fresh tear tracking through the dried salt on her cheek. "I thought I knew what ticklish was. I thought I’d been teased before. But she... she found places inside the arch. She dug in and just... vibrated her fingertips. It felt like my bones were laughing. I couldn't stop. I told her I was dying, and she just... she just smiled and told me to enunciate."
Samantha shuddered, her toes curling instinctively, then snapping straight with a cry of pain as the raw skin between them rubbed together. "She tied them. She tied my toes back so far I thought the tendons would snap. And then she... she just raked. Up and down. For an hour. I can still feel it. Every time I blink, I feel those nails sliding through the oil."
"She’s perfecting us," Lakshmi whispered, her hand hovering over Samantha’s trembling heel but not daring to touch. "She’s stripping away the girl to find the 'student' underneath. She wants us to be as hollow and polished as that mahogany desk."
"I can't walk," Samantha whimpered, looking at her heavy school shoes sitting like lead weights on the floor. "I have to put those on and... and walk to the Hall. I have to stand for the hymn."
"You’ll walk," Rachel said grimly, reaching for a pair of thick, soft cotton socks. "We all will. Because if we limp, she’ll know she hasn't 'finished' the lesson. And if she thinks the lesson isn't over..."
The three girls shared a look of pure, unadulterated dread.
"She’s not a god," Lakshmi said suddenly, her eyes flashing with a dangerous, intellectual spark. "She’s a technician. She uses our own biology against us. Peppermint, oil, friction... it’s just chemistry and physics."
"It’s cruelty, Lakshmi," Samantha hissed, pulling the socks on with a hiss of agony as the fabric caught on her raw soles. "Pure and simple."
"Perhaps," Lakshmi replied, standing up and smoothing her blazer. "But even the most perfect machine has a friction point. She thinks she’s teaching us about discipline. I think I’m going to teach her about resistance."
As the bell for morning prayer began its rhythmic, mournful toll, the girls stood. Samantha leaned heavily on Rachel, her face pale, her feet screaming with every step on the cold stone. They moved toward the Great Hall and their first lesson of the day.
The chalk squeaked against the blackboard, a sound that set Lakshmi’s teeth on edge. Miss Halloway, her hair pulled into a bun so tight it seemed to stretch her eyelids, gestured dismissively at the textbook.
"And so," Halloway droned, "we see the chaos of the polytheistic mind. A pantheon of dozens of gods, a cluttered spiritual house compared to the singular, orderly light of our own faith. It is the difference between a riot and a procession."
A few girls giggled. Samantha looked down at her desk, and Rachel bit her lip. Lakshmi felt a slow, hot simmer in her chest. She raised her hand.
"Yes, Lakshmi? A question about the reading?"
"A correction, actually, Miss Halloway," Lakshmi said, her voice steady and clear. "There aren't 'dozens.' There are three hundred and thirty million. But if you actually look at the Vedas, it’s taught that they are all different masks of a single ultimate reality. In that way, it’s not really that different from our own faith—just a different set of stories to explain the same infinite."
The silence that followed was absolute. It was the sound of a heresy being committed in real-time.
"Different stories?" A new voice cut through the air.
The classroom air was brittle. Miss Halloway’s face was a mottled red, her finger trembling as she pointed at the door. "Mrs. Sterling, this girl… she has the audacity to equate our foundational theology with… with paganism!"
Sterling stepped into the room, the hem of her dark skirt whispering against the floorboards. She stopped at the edge of Lakshmi’s desk, looking down at the girl with a clinical, detached curiosity.
"Is that so, Lakshmi?" Sterling’s voice was like velvet over a blade. "Do you find the curriculum here to be… insufficient?"
Lakshmi didn't cower. She straightened her spine, meeting Sterling’s icy gaze with a calm, analytical expression. "Not insufficient, Headmistress. Just academically narrow. If we are studying the nature of the Divine, surely we must look at the commonalities of the human experience. Whether one calls it Brahman or the Godhead, the philosophical root is identical. I’m simply suggesting that a more comparative approach would yield a higher level of discourse."
The class held its breath.
Sterling’s eyes narrowed, her long, manicured nails tapping a slow, rhythmic beat against the wood of Lakshmi’s desk. "A higher level of discourse. You speak as if you’ve already mastered the material, Lakshmi. You speak as if your 'logic' renders the discipline of this school unnecessary."
"I speak as someone who values the truth over dogma," Lakshmi replied, her voice steady.
Sterling smiled—a thin, mirthless expression. "A noble sentiment. But the 'truth' can be a very tactile experience. You believe your mind is superior to the structure of St. Brigid’s? Very well. We shall have a private seminar this evening. Let us see how your 'logic' fares when the discourse becomes… physical."
---
The heavy oak door of the Headmistress’s office clicked shut with the finality of a tomb lid. Lakshmi stood in the center of the room, her chin tilted upward, eyes fixed on the portrait of the school’s founder. She tried to wrap herself in the cool silk of her own intellect, but the air in the room was working against her; it smelled faintly of peppermint and the lingering, metallic tang of ozone—the ghostly remnants of Samantha’s session.
"Sit, Lakshmi," Sterling commanded. She wasn't behind the desk; she was standing by the window, silhouetted against the dying grey light of the evening.
Lakshmi sat. She didn't wait to be manhandled. She lifted her feet and slid her ankles into the stocks, the wood feeling shockingly cold against her skin. She reached back, her arms disappearing behind the backrest, and waited for the bite of the leather strap.
Click-click-click.
Sterling moved with predatory grace. She tightened the strap until Lakshmi’s chest was thrust forward, her shoulders pinned back so far the muscles burned. Then came the silk blindfold—darkness descended, absolute and heavy.
"You find our curriculum 'narrow,' Lakshmi," Sterling’s voice drifted from the left, a low, melodic vibration in the dark. "You spoke of three hundred and thirty million gods. A pantheon of infinite variety. You seem to crave... abundance. I expected little less from a first generation Catholic." Sterling spat the last words with venom.
Lakshmi felt Sterling’s fingers—those lethal, buffed nails—graze the soles of her feet. She flinched, her toes curling instinctively. "I only meant that logically—"
"I know what you meant," Sterling interrupted, her voice moving to the right. "You believe the 'Many' are as valid as the 'One.' So, let us test your devotion to the Many."
Sterling reached for a jar on her desk. Lakshmi heard the gritty, crystalline sound of the lid unscrewing. Suddenly, a rain of coarse, jagged sea salt fell onto her upturned soles. Because Lakshmi’s feet were damp with the nervous sweat of her journey through the halls, the salt stuck instantly—wedging between her toes, clinging to the sensitive dip of her arches like aggressive sand.
"This is the world you prefer, Lakshmi," Sterling whispered, pressing her palm flat against the sole to grind the crystals in. "A world of endless, uncoordinated friction."
Then, Sterling picked up the tool. It wasn't a quill or a cane. It was a heavy, circular artist's stipple brush , packed with thousands of stiff, individual hog-hair bristles cut to a blunt, unforgiving flat top.
"Three hundred and thirty million touches," Sterling hissed. "Let us see if you can find the 'Ultimate Reality' in this."
THUMP.
The first strike was a physical shock. Sterling slammed the flat head of the brush vertically against Lakshmi’s right arch. The thousands of bristles didn't just tickle; they drove the jagged salt crystals deep into the pores. It was a chaotic, overwhelming explosion of sensation—a riot of a thousand tiny, stinging needles.
"AHA-HA-HA-HA! NO! MISS! HA-HA-HEE-HEE-HEE!" Lakshmi’s head snapped back, her body bucking violently against the strap.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
Sterling worked with a rhythmic, mechanical cruelty. She pounced the brush across the balls of the feet, then down to the heels, then back up to the hyper-sensitive webbing of the toes. Each strike sent a fresh wave of salt-scoured agony and maddening, itch-like ticklishness through Lakshmi’s nervous system.
"Is it a 'procession' yet, Lakshmi?" Sterling mocked, her voice rising over the frantic, nasal barks of the girl’s laughter. "Or does the 'Many' feel a bit... crowded?"
"STAAAA-HA-HA-HAP! I CA-HA-HA-N'T... HA-HA-HEE-HEE... IT'S TOO MU-HU-HUCH!"
Lakshmi’s logic was shattering. Her brain was trying to track a million individual points of contact, and it was failing. She was drowning in the multitude.
Sterling set the stipple brush aside, but she didn't wipe away the salt. Lakshmi panted, her feet throbbing, the crystals stinging the raw micro-scratches left by the bristles.
Then, Lakshmi heard the sound of plastic rattling against the desk.
Sterling didn't strike this time. Instead, she took a common plastic hairbrush—the kind with hundreds of flexible, ball-tipped nylon pins—and pressed it firmly against the heel of Lakshmi's left foot.
"The Many are not just numerous, Lakshmi," Sterling whispered. "They are relentless."
Sterling began to move the brush in slow, heavy circles. The flexible plastic pins caught on the salt crystals, dragging them across the hyper-sensitized skin in a rhythmic, grinding vibration. It wasn't the sharp bite of the bristles anymore; it was a deep, invasive crawling sensation that seemed to vibrate through the very bones of Lakshmi’s feet.
"PFFF NAHA-HA-HA-HA-HA! MISS... PLEASE! NOOO! AAAARGH-AHA-HAA-HAA-HA-HA... GASP I CAN'T TAKE IT NNNAAAA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA MY FEEEEEET" Lakshmi’s legs bucked in the stocks, her toes splayed so wide they cramped. The plastic pins danced over her arches, the ball-tips rolling over the salt and finding every raw nerve ending.
"There is no mercy in the Many, Lakshmi," Sterling purred, increasing the speed of the circular scrubbing. "The Many are chaotic. They are demanding. They do not care if you can breathe or if you can think. They only want to be felt."
Lakshmi’s head thrashed against the high back of the chair, her muffled shrieks turning into high-pitched, whistling whines. Every rotation of the brush felt like a thousand tiny fingers made of static electricity, dragging the salt into her skin.
"One truth, Lakshmi," Sterling hissed, suddenly pressing the brush down with all her weight, pinning the girl’s feet still under the plastic pins. "Or a million little lies. Which would you prefer?"
"ONE TRUTH! ONE TRUTH! OOOOONEEE TRUUU-HU-HU-HUUUTH AAAAHA-HA-HA-HA-HA... GASP MAKE IT STAAAAAAHP!"
Sterling dropped the brush. She used only her right thumb-nail. She pressed it with crushing force into the center of Lakshmi’s left arch, dragging it slowly through the layer of salt. The singular, focused pressure cut through the chaotic tickle like a hot wire.
"There is only one truth in this room, Lakshmi," Sterling whispered, her nail digging deeper until the girl shrieked. "One hand that moves. One voice that commands. One God. One Headmistress. Do you see the 'Infinite' now? Or do you see me?"
Lakshmi’s blindfolded face was wet with tears, her laughter jagged and broken. "I SEE... HA-HA-HA... I SEE YOU! MISS! ONLY YOU! HA-HA-HA-HEE-HEE... JUST STO-HO-HO-OP!"
Sterling withdrew her hand. "Good. Then you are ready to write."
Lakshmi panted, her feet throbbing, the salt stinging the raw micro-scratches left by the bristles. In the newfound silence, her ears were hyper-attuned to every movement in the dark. She heard the soft, sliding friction of a heavy desk drawer being opened. Then, the unmistakable clink of a glass bottle meeting the mahogany.
Lakshmi’s stomach flipped. She remembered Rachel’s hushed warning in the dormitory: When the glass hits the desk, the real work starts. "The chaos is over, Lakshmi," Sterling’s voice whispered, sounding closer than before. She felt the Headmistress lean over her, the scent of her expensive perfume mingling with the sharp, acidic tang of permanent ink.
"Now," Sterling purred, the sound of the inkwell being unstoppered echoing like a gunshot, "to make sure the message sticks."
Lakshmi’s breath hitched. She knew what was coming.
Sterling reached down. Before tying the toes, she took the long eagle-feather quill. She didn't use the tip. She ran the soft, sweeping barbs of the feather slowly, agonizingly, through the webbing between Lakshmi’s salt-encrusted toes.
"Nnn-gh! HEE-HEE-HEE!" Lakshmi’s feet bucked in the stocks. The sensation was the polar opposite of the brush; it was a ghost-light, maddening feather-touch that seemed to bypass the skin and tickle her very brain.
"Please... Miss... ha-ha-ha... no more many! I was wrong!" Lakshmi’s voice was a frantic sob. "There isn't a multitude! There’s only one! I see it now! One power... one truth... your truth! Just... no more!"
"Words come easy, Lakshmi," Sterling whispered, dragging the feather over the very center of the salt-stung arch. "Conviction... conviction must be earned."
Sterling set the feather down and reached for the silk cords. With practiced efficiency, she looped them around each of Lakshmi's toes, pulling them back until the skin over the arches was taut as a drumhead, the salt crystals grinding deeper into the tension.
"If there is only one God, Lakshmi, then there is only one sentence worth writing. 'There is only one God.' Ten times. Perfect script. No smudges. If you twitch, we return to the 'Multitude' of the brush."
Lakshmi’s blindfolded head thrashed. "I'll be still! I promise! I'll be a statue! Just... please... no more salt... no more brush..."
"We shall see," Sterling purred.
Lakshmi felt the heavy, wet weight of the inkwell being placed near her feet. The air grew still. She waited, every nerve ending in her feet screaming, her brain trying to force her muscles into a frozen, dead state.
Then, the first touch.
It wasn't the soft feather. It was the sharp, wet, biting point of the quill. Sterling didn't just touch the skin; she pressed the nib into the hyper-sensitive, salt-raw ball of Lakshmi’s left foot.
As the tip began to draw the downward stroke of the first 'T', the combination of the cold, wet ink and the sharp scratch on the stinging skin was too much.
"A-H-H-H-H!" Lakshmi’s toes strained against the cords, a jagged, hysterical sound erupting from her throat as the first letter of her submission was carved in black.
---
In the darkness of the East Wing dormitory, three pairs of feet throbbed with a rhythmic, ghostly fire. The silence that hung over the room was no longer the silence of sleep, but the silence of girls who had learned that at St. Brigid’s, every nerve ending belonged to the Headmistress.
As the moon dipped below the horizon, Mrs. Sterling sat alone in her office, slowly buffing her nails to a shimmering, lethal point. She had tidied her school. She had corrected the prose of their spirits. And as she looked at the empty stocks, she knew that tomorrow, the girls would stand a little straighter, walk a little softer, and never—ever—forget their prayers. Though a small part of her hoped that one of the students would prove her wrong.
Next Chapter
All characters are 18 or older
Word Count: 6,202
F/F | Feet Tickling | Tickle Torture | School Setting
The morning air in the Great Hall of St. Brigid’s was thick enough to choke on. Five hundred girls stood in rigid formation, knuckles white as they gripped their small, black-leather prayer books. The silence was absolute, broken only by the rhythmic clack-clack-clack of Headmistress Sterling’s heels as she began her predatory stroll.
She paused before a girl in the front row. "A loose thread on your blazer, Sarah. It looks like a spider web. Clean it up." The girl nodded, trembling. Sterling moved on. "Ink on your knuckles, Beatrice? Are we a schoolgirl or a chimney sweep? Wash."
A soft sigh of relief followed her passing from each of the girls Sterling snapped at but didn't hand a punishment to—until she reached Rachel.
Sterling’s eyes dropped to Rachel’s empty, interlaced fingers. The silence turned deafening. "No prayer book, Rachel? Do you feel your soul is already so pure it requires no guidance?"
"I... I forgot it, Headmistress," Rachel whispered, her gaze fixed on the floor.
"Forgot." Sterling tasted the word like a sour grape. "In that case, you clearly need help with your memory. Report to my office after the final hymn for 'lines'."
A sharp, audible intake of breath hissed from the girls nearby. Lakshmi and Samantha exchanged a look of pure, cold dread. Everyone at St. Brigid’s knew what 'lines' meant. It wasn't about paper and pen.
---
When Rachel entered the office, Mrs. Sterling was already seated behind her massive mahogany desk. Bolted to the surface was the school’s most infamous fixture: a polished oak stockade. Its two holes were padded with rich maroon leather, topped with a series of brass eyeholes and a heavy latch.
Facing the desk stood the high-backed chair. It was an instrument of posture and confinement; a leather strap ran horizontally across the back, designed to pin the sitter's arms back, thrusting the chest forward and rendering the upper body immobile.
"The chair, Rachel," Sterling commanded, not looking up from her ledger. "Don't make me wait. I have a long day of 'tidying' ahead of me."
Rachel moved like a ghost. She sat, lifting her legs with practiced, fearful precision to slide her ankles into the cold grooves of the stocks. She pulled the top bar down and clicked the latch shut herself. Then, she reached her arms back, sliding them behind the chair’s backrest and under the thick leather strap.
"Very good, Rachel." Sterling stood, stalking around the desk. Her eyes never left Rachel’s as she approached the back of the chair. "You have learned that keeping me happy is a wise choice."
She grabbed the strap and gave it a sharp, professional tug. The leather bit into Rachel’s elbows, locking her arms in place. Sterling buckled it tight.
"Eyes front," Sterling barked as Rachel tried to twist to see her.
Rachel stared at the framed certificates on the wall, her breath shallow. Then, she felt it. With her shoulders pinned back, her armpits were dangerously exposed. Sterling’s sharp nails dug into the sensitive hollows.
Rachel snorted, her body jerking uselessly. "He-he-he, Miss, please... ha-ha-ha... stop!"
"Just testing the strap is tight enough, dear," Sterling purred. Her nails descended to Rachel's ribs, joined by three more on each side, dancing over the nerves.
"I'm strapped in! Hahaha! I can't... hahaha, I can't move... please, Miss... it tickles!"
Finally, the fingers lifted. "Good."
Sterling returned to the front of the desk, looming into Rachel's eyeline. Rachel’s heart hammered in her throat as she watched those long fingers reach for her shoes.
Rachel felt Sterling's eyes pierce her soul as she felt the sawing of a lace coming undone and then felt pressure at the heel of her foot before her dress shoe was peeled away. The cool air of the office raced over her sweaty sock-covered foot.
Sterling took a sniff of Rachel's shoe and then placed it on the desk where Rachel could see it.
She repeated the same with the other shoe, placing it beside the first. Then she pinched the toes of her left sock and slowly pulled it away. When the sock was off she placed it over the shoe and then dragged a nail down Rachel's sweaty foot from the ball to the heel. Rachel squealed and curled her toes. "A full day of lessons, Rachel. A full day of walking these hallowed halls has left your feet sweaty and sensitive."
Sterling looked at her with a predatory smirk then she pinched the toes of the other sock and pulled it free, placing it over the shoe, and then tracing a nail down that arch too "so soft... So delicate. Such a shame a girl with such ticklish feet is so forgetful."
Sterling then pulled some silk cord from her pocket "feet straight, toes back!" She commanded.
Rachel straightened her feet so they were parallel with the stocks and as flush as possible and then extended her toes. Sterling looped the cord around each toe individually, threading it back to the eyeholes and pulling them taut. When she was finished, Rachel’s toes were splayed and immobilized.
When she was done she admired her handiwork. She then traced a single nail down each foot. Rachel squealed and her toes tried to curl in protest but they couldn't.
"Tut-tut-tut. You know the rules with lines," Sterling said, settling into her chair to face the presented soles. She fished a small inkwell and a long eagle-feather quill from her drawer. "It is in your best interest to keep your feet still. If you force me to make a smudge, I will need to start over. And you know what that means."
She placed a basin of warm soapy water and a toothbrush on the desk. "I'll need to clean the canvas first. You remember how much you enjoy that part, don't you?"
"So," Sterling dipped the quill, the tip heavy with black, permanent ink. "'I will not forget my prayer book.' Ten times. Let's begin."
The quill hovered an inch from Rachel’s left arch. The girl watched it with the intensity of a condemned woman watching a swinging pendulum.
"Stay perfectly still," Sterling whispered. "If you had your hymn book today, you would know the correct words to pray for strength."
The first touch was electric. Not the scratch of a nail, but the maddening, feather-light bite of the quill. As Sterling drew the first 'I', the fine tip danced over the ultra-sensitive curve of the ball of the foot.
"Nnn-gh!" Rachel squeezed her eyes shut, her body bucking against the strap. Her heels thumped a frantic rhythm against the wood.
"No, no, Rachel," Sterling sighed. She set down the quill and picked up the toothbrush. The splash of the bristles hitting the water sent a fresh jolt of terror through the girl. "Look at that. A giant black smear. It’s a mess. I guess we'll just have to clean this up, won't we?"
Sterling didn't wait for a reply. She pressed the soapy bristles firmly against the taut ball of Rachel's foot and began to scrub.
"AHA-HA-HA! NO! PLEASE! HA-HA-HE-HE-HEE!" Rachel’s head snapped back against the high-backed chair, her throat cords standing out as she shrieked. The sensation was a chaotic blur—the heat of the water opening her pores only to let the stiff, sharp bristles dive deeper into the nerves.
Sterling’s free hand—those long, predatory nails—gripped the top of the stocks to steady her work, her thumb occasionally "slipping" to dig into the sensitive skin between Rachel's toes.
"Is it funny, Rachel? Do you find your lack of discipline amusing?" Sterling leaned in, her face inches from Rachel's thrashing feet. "Because I can do this until the water turns cold."
"I DON'T HA-HA-HA-HA-HA I'M SORRY BAAA-HA-HA-HA-HA... I'LL... HA-HA-HE-HE... I'LL BE STILL! I PROMISE! HA-HA-HA! MISS! MERCY... I'LL BE GOOO-HO-HO-HOOD"
Finally, Sterling lifted the brush. She took a linen cloth and dried the foot with a rough, brisk friction that was a torture all its own. "We shall see."
Sterling picked up the quill again and dipped it into the pot.
"Line one. Again."
This time, she wrote with agonizing slowness. She savored the vibration of Rachel’s foot, pausing every time the muscles tensed to a breaking point, hovering the wet ink just a hair's breadth from the skin until the tremor passed.
I... w-i-l-l... n-o-t...
By the fifth line, Rachel’s body was giving up on her. The effort of keeping her feet motionless had turned her muscles rigid, the arches burning as though they might seize entirely. Tears slipped free despite her, blurring her vision as she stared at the ceiling, afraid that even blinking too hard might betray her.
The ink told the story anyway—letters thick where she hesitated, thin where her control nearly broke, the sentence crawling unevenly across her soles like a record of every second she’d managed not to move.
Sterling put down the quill and Rachel gave a massive sigh of relief "oh well done, Rachel. See what you are capable of when you put your mind to it" she said, her voice dripping with condescension.
"Five lines done," Sterling announced. "Only five more to go."
Rachel's eyes went wide. "Wh-what? That's not all? But Miss, please—"
Sterling fixed her with a stare of pure ice. "If you want to keep it at only five more, I suggest you quit your whining." Then, a saccharine smile broke across her face. "But... it looks like we are out of room. So..." She waved the toothbrush cheerfully.
"No, please! Miss, no! I'll be good! I'll glue the hymn book to my hand!" Rachel pleaded as Sterling swirled the brush in the water.
"These feet are an absolute mess. This will take quite some time, dear..."
---
The lights in the East Wing dormitory were dimmed, the only glow coming from a single flashlight hidden under a duvet. Rachel sat on the edge of her bed, her legs dangling, her feet still throbbing with a dull, rhythmic heat.
"Show us," Samantha whispered, her voice tight with a mix of fury and fascination.
Rachel slowly lifted her feet. Even in the dim light, the damage was clear. The ink from the "lines" hadn't been fully scrubbed away—ghostly fragments of 'I will not...' were still visible—but the skin itself was a vivid, angry pink. The toothbrush had done its work; her arches were raw, the nerves still firing as if the bristles were still dancing across them.
"She wouldn't stop," Rachel breathed, her voice trembling. "Every time I twitched, she just smiled and reached for that basin. It’s like she wanted me to smudge it. She spent ten minutes just between my toes. She never got ink there!... But I knew the cost of complaint."
Lakshmi reached out, her fingers hovering just an inch away from Rachel’s foot. Rachel flinched instinctively, pulling back.
“Last month, she caught me using a pen to correct a grammatical error in the school hymnal. She didn't use the quill on me. She used a steel ruler.”
Lakshmi stared at Rachel’s foot, her voice dropping to a low, analytical hum. “She told me that if I valued 'precision' and 'straight lines' so much, I should feel them. She didn't hit me with it. She used the corner of the metal edge.”
Rachel shuddered, but Lakshmi continued, her gaze distant. “She spent an hour tracing the grid of my sole. Vertical lines, then horizontal. Slowly dragging that cold, sharp metal edge over the arch to ‘graph’ my sensitivity. She kept asking me to calculate the exact variable of pressure required to make me scream. She called it ‘Applied Geometry.’”
Samantha leaned over and pulled up her own pajama pant legs, though her skin had long since healed. "When she caught me ‘smirking’ during the Founders' Day speech, she didn't bother with the desk. She made me sit on the floor and put my feet in her lap."
Samantha continued, her eyes distant. "She used those nails. Those horrible, perfect nails. She started at my heels and just... dug in. Not enough to scratch, but enough to find every single nerve ending. It felt like ten tiny needles made of ice. I actually begged her to use the ruler. I told her, 'Please, Miss, just hit my feet instead,' because the sensation was so sharp, so invasive, I felt like I was going to jump out of my own skin."
Samantha shuddered, her fingers twitching against her blanket. "She laughed—that quiet, cold little chuckle she does. She told me that a ruler only teaches the skin, but her 'claws' teach the spirit.
The worst part was that I was not held down, but I was warned to keep my feet on her lap at all times. At least with the stocks you have a way of relieving the sensation a little, something to push against.
She spent well over an hour raking up and down my arches, whispering about how 'reactive' I was. At least with a tool, you know it's a piece of wood or plastic. But those nails... they feel like they’re part of her cruelty."
Lakshmi nodded slowly, her gaze drifting toward the heavy oak door of the dormitory. "It’s the personal touch. She wants us to know it’s her hand that’s making us lose control. She wants to feel the vibration of our laughter against her own skin."
"She’s a monster," Samantha hissed, clutching a pillow to her chest. "She thinks because she never cracks a smile, she’s made of stone. She sits behind that desk like a god, looking down at us while she plays with our feet like they’re toys."
"The worst part," Rachel whispered, looking down at her raw, sensitive arches, "is how she watches. She doesn't just want us to stay still; she wants to see the struggle. She wants to see us fighting our own bodies while she rakes those nails over us."
Lakshmi leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial hum. "She always says she’s perfectly disciplined. But nobody is perfect. Not even the Great Sterling. She must have a weakness."
The air in the dormitory seemed to vibrate with the lingering echo of Lakshmi’s words.
As the others drifted into fitful sleep, Samantha lay awake. If Sterling was hiding a vulnerability, the only way to find it was in the one place the woman lived: her private records.
---
The corridors of St. Brigid’s at 1:00 AM were a different world. The familiar scent of floor wax and old paper turned cold and oppressive in the dark. Samantha moved in her stocking feet, she opted to leave her shoes in the dorm, to ensure her footsteps were as silent as a heartbeat.
She reached the Archive Wing, a section of the school that felt older and more stagnant than the rest. The heavy oak doors groaned slightly as she slipped through, her heart hammering against her ribs. She was looking for the student and disciplinary ledgers from thirty years ago—the years Sterling herself was a student here.
Click.
The sound was distant, but unmistakable. The sharp, rhythmic strike of a high heel against stone.
Click. Click. Click.
Panic, cold and sharp, flooded Samantha’s chest. It was the measured, authoritative gait of the Headmistress.
Sterling should have been in her residence. Samantha scrambled backward, but the flashlight beam was already sweeping the hall. She bolted for the Great Hall, seeking the deep shadows of the north alcove behind the statue of St. Brigid.
She wedged herself into the gap, hoisting herself up by the stone ledge. Her blazer hiked up and flared open, leaving her silk blouse as the only barrier against the stale air.
The oak doors creaked open.
"I know you're in here, little bird," Sterling’s voice drifted through the darkness. "I saw the latch settle. Plenty of places to hide... and plenty of time for me to find you."
Samantha clamped her eyes shut, a single tear of pure terror pricking the corner of her lid. She pressed her lips together so hard they turned white. Her muscles were screaming, but she refused to breathe.
Then, she felt a presence. Her eyes snapped open. Just inches from her face, hanging by a glistening thread, was a house spider—its body long, its legs spindly and hairy. It descended slowly until it made contact with her collar bone. It scuttled immediately under her blouse, into the warmth of her armpit.
The sensation was an electric, maddening prickle. The tiny, frantic movement of eight legs in the hollow of her arm was like a thousand needles of laughter. Samantha’s throat tightened; a muffled hnh-hnh-hnh vibration started in her chest.
Sterling stopped right in front of the alcove.
Suddenly, as if startled, the creature bolted from her armpit, racing down her ribcage with terrifying speed.
The combination of the hyper-ticklish trail and the primal jolt of arachnophobia was the breaking point. Samantha’s composure didn't just crack; it exploded.
"GAAAH-HA-HA-HA-HEE-HEE!"
The shriek shattered the silence. Samantha tumbled out of the shadows, landing hard at the Headmistress’s feet. The spider scuttled away. Sterling looked down, a cold, predatory light in her eyes.
"Found you." She reached down, her nails catching Samantha’s collar like a hawk’s talon. "It seems the wildlife has a better sense of discipline than you do. Come along, Samantha."
The walk to the office was a symphony of dread. Inside, Sterling wasted no time forcing Samantha into the chair and tightening the strap. But instead of going to the desk, she pulled a silk scarf from her pocket.
"You’ve used your voice quite enough for one night."
She peeled the socks from Samantha’s feet, balled them up, and forced them into the girl's mouth, tying the silk scarf behind her head to secure the gag. Samantha could only produce muffled grunts of protest.
Sterling placed a steaming basin of peppermint-infused water at the base of the chair. "Feet in. Carefully."
The menthol hit Samantha's skin like cold fire. For ten minutes, Sterling sat and watched the clock while the peppermint tingled and gnawed at the girl's nerves. When time was up, Sterling dried the feet with a rough towel and locked Samantha’s ankles into the stocks on the desk.
"We can't have any rough skin dulling the 'clarity' of our session," Sterling said, picking up a coarse foot rasp.
She scrubbed with long, firm strokes. The friction, magnified by the peppermint soak, was unbearable. Samantha’s laughter was forced through her nose in jagged bursts as the rasp stripped away her defenses. "Mmm-ph-hnn-hnn-hff!"
"Quiet," Sterling snapped. She switched to a buffer, polishing the skin until the soles were a glowing, tender pink. Then came the warming oil. Sterling massaged it deep into the muscles, her fingers sliding between the toes, splaying them wide.
"There," she whispered. "Every defense gone. Perfectly soft, perfectly sensitive."
Sterling's eyes trace the shimmering, oil-slicked expanse of Samantha’s soles. The peppermint soak has left the skin so pink and engorged with blood that every tiny nerve ending is practically screaming for contact.
Sterling raised her right hand, her oiled nails looking like translucent ivory daggers in the lamplight. "Splay your toes. If I see them curl, I’ll tie them back so far they touch your ankles."
Samantha forced her toes apart, with a trembling, muffled "Mmm-ph."
Sterling began. She didn't dig; she ghosted. Using only the tips of her nails, she traced the skin from heel to arch. The oil eliminated friction, leaving only a slick, sliding sensation that felt like a cold spark.
Samantha’s body jolted, nasal bursts of Nff-nff-nff! erupting as her diaphragm spasmed. Sterling stopped in the deepest dip of the arch, letting her nails hover.
Samantha shook her head violently, a muffled "Mmm-nnn-nnn! Nnh-nnh!" vibrating through the gag as she met Sterling’s gaze with wild, frantic pleading.
"Look at you," Sterling mocked. "Vibrating like a tuning fork. And I haven't even begun to apply pressure."
Her expression hardened. She brought all five nails down onto the ball of the left foot and raked. She dragged them deep into the soft, raw skin, down through the arch to the heel and back up.
Samantha’s "dance" became a frantic jig. Her face flushed with helpless agony, tears streaming into the gag. "Mmph-heee! Mmm-HNN-HNN! NNN-HHEEE-PFFT!"
"Keep those toes open!" Sterling barked, diving her nails into the webbing between the big toe and its neighbor. She flicked the sensitive skin over and over.
Samantha’s discipline shattered. Her toes snapped shut, curling tight.
Sterling stopped instantly. "I gave you a simple instruction." She retrieved the silk cords, tying each toe back until they were immobile. She skittered her nails over the taut balls of the feet to test the tension.
"You chose the hard way. But first..." Sterling untied the scarf and pulled the socks from Samantha’s mouth. "I want to hear exactly how 'reactive' you are."
Before Samantha had a chance to react to the gag getting pulled out, Sterling’s nails dove back into her arches with vicious speed.
"AHA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HEE-HEE-HEE! NO! MISS... SNORT HA-HA-HA-STOP! I'LL BE GOOD!"
Four nails lightly scratched the taut balls of Samantha's hyper-sensitive feet while the thumb nails scratched just below the ball of each foot. "Have you learned your lesson? Will you go sneaking around late at night anymore, Samantha?"
"AHA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HEE-HEE-HEE! NO! MISS... SNORT HA-HA-HA-HA-STOP! I'LL-HA-HA-BE-GOOD."
"You really need to learn to annunciate your words, Samantha" Sterling teased. Then her nails moved up to the sensitive webbing between Samantha's toes. "Now, again—"
"NOT THE TOOO-HO-HO-HOES!! I'LL BE GOOO-HO-HOOO-HO-HOOD!!"
Sterling's nails moved to the undersides of Samantha's toes, where they meet the ball "LET ME FINISH, silly girl!"
"I'M SAAARRRRYY! AAA-HA-HA-HA-HA I'M SO-HO-HO-HOOORRY"
"Good. Now. Will you go sneaking around late at night anymore, Samantha?"
"NO! NO! I'LL BE GOOD!! I'LL BE GOOD SNORT JUST STAAAA-HA-HA-HAAAP PLEEEE-HE-HE-HEEASE! I'M DYYY-HI-HI-HIIING!"
---
The pre-dawn light filtered through the high, arched windows of the East Wing like gray ash. The dormitory was freezing, but for Samantha, the heat was all in her soles. She sat on the edge of her cot, her breath hitching every time the coarse wool of her blankets brushed against her feet.
Rachel and Lakshmi hovered over her, their own shadows long and jagged on the floor.
"She didn't just use the quill?" Rachel whispered, her eyes wide as she took in the sight of Samantha’s feet.
The skin was a feverish, translucent pink, glowing with a sickly sheen from the lingering traces of the warming oil. The indentations where the silk cords had bound Samantha’s toes were still deep, blue-white rings against the angry red of her flesh.
"No," Samantha rasped, her voice still hoarse from the screaming. She gingerly lifted her right foot, wincing as the mere movement sent a jolt of peppermint-fire through her arch. "She... she used a foot rasp. She polished me, Rachel. She took off every layer of protection until... until I could feel the air moving across the floor like it was a blade."
Lakshmi knelt down, her analytical gaze sweeping over the damage. "The peppermint," she noted, her voice low. "It’s a vasodilator. She opened the blood vessels, made the nerves hyper-reactive, and then..."
"And then she used her nails," Samantha finished, a fresh tear tracking through the dried salt on her cheek. "I thought I knew what ticklish was. I thought I’d been teased before. But she... she found places inside the arch. She dug in and just... vibrated her fingertips. It felt like my bones were laughing. I couldn't stop. I told her I was dying, and she just... she just smiled and told me to enunciate."
Samantha shuddered, her toes curling instinctively, then snapping straight with a cry of pain as the raw skin between them rubbed together. "She tied them. She tied my toes back so far I thought the tendons would snap. And then she... she just raked. Up and down. For an hour. I can still feel it. Every time I blink, I feel those nails sliding through the oil."
"She’s perfecting us," Lakshmi whispered, her hand hovering over Samantha’s trembling heel but not daring to touch. "She’s stripping away the girl to find the 'student' underneath. She wants us to be as hollow and polished as that mahogany desk."
"I can't walk," Samantha whimpered, looking at her heavy school shoes sitting like lead weights on the floor. "I have to put those on and... and walk to the Hall. I have to stand for the hymn."
"You’ll walk," Rachel said grimly, reaching for a pair of thick, soft cotton socks. "We all will. Because if we limp, she’ll know she hasn't 'finished' the lesson. And if she thinks the lesson isn't over..."
The three girls shared a look of pure, unadulterated dread.
"She’s not a god," Lakshmi said suddenly, her eyes flashing with a dangerous, intellectual spark. "She’s a technician. She uses our own biology against us. Peppermint, oil, friction... it’s just chemistry and physics."
"It’s cruelty, Lakshmi," Samantha hissed, pulling the socks on with a hiss of agony as the fabric caught on her raw soles. "Pure and simple."
"Perhaps," Lakshmi replied, standing up and smoothing her blazer. "But even the most perfect machine has a friction point. She thinks she’s teaching us about discipline. I think I’m going to teach her about resistance."
As the bell for morning prayer began its rhythmic, mournful toll, the girls stood. Samantha leaned heavily on Rachel, her face pale, her feet screaming with every step on the cold stone. They moved toward the Great Hall and their first lesson of the day.
The chalk squeaked against the blackboard, a sound that set Lakshmi’s teeth on edge. Miss Halloway, her hair pulled into a bun so tight it seemed to stretch her eyelids, gestured dismissively at the textbook.
"And so," Halloway droned, "we see the chaos of the polytheistic mind. A pantheon of dozens of gods, a cluttered spiritual house compared to the singular, orderly light of our own faith. It is the difference between a riot and a procession."
A few girls giggled. Samantha looked down at her desk, and Rachel bit her lip. Lakshmi felt a slow, hot simmer in her chest. She raised her hand.
"Yes, Lakshmi? A question about the reading?"
"A correction, actually, Miss Halloway," Lakshmi said, her voice steady and clear. "There aren't 'dozens.' There are three hundred and thirty million. But if you actually look at the Vedas, it’s taught that they are all different masks of a single ultimate reality. In that way, it’s not really that different from our own faith—just a different set of stories to explain the same infinite."
The silence that followed was absolute. It was the sound of a heresy being committed in real-time.
"Different stories?" A new voice cut through the air.
The classroom air was brittle. Miss Halloway’s face was a mottled red, her finger trembling as she pointed at the door. "Mrs. Sterling, this girl… she has the audacity to equate our foundational theology with… with paganism!"
Sterling stepped into the room, the hem of her dark skirt whispering against the floorboards. She stopped at the edge of Lakshmi’s desk, looking down at the girl with a clinical, detached curiosity.
"Is that so, Lakshmi?" Sterling’s voice was like velvet over a blade. "Do you find the curriculum here to be… insufficient?"
Lakshmi didn't cower. She straightened her spine, meeting Sterling’s icy gaze with a calm, analytical expression. "Not insufficient, Headmistress. Just academically narrow. If we are studying the nature of the Divine, surely we must look at the commonalities of the human experience. Whether one calls it Brahman or the Godhead, the philosophical root is identical. I’m simply suggesting that a more comparative approach would yield a higher level of discourse."
The class held its breath.
Sterling’s eyes narrowed, her long, manicured nails tapping a slow, rhythmic beat against the wood of Lakshmi’s desk. "A higher level of discourse. You speak as if you’ve already mastered the material, Lakshmi. You speak as if your 'logic' renders the discipline of this school unnecessary."
"I speak as someone who values the truth over dogma," Lakshmi replied, her voice steady.
Sterling smiled—a thin, mirthless expression. "A noble sentiment. But the 'truth' can be a very tactile experience. You believe your mind is superior to the structure of St. Brigid’s? Very well. We shall have a private seminar this evening. Let us see how your 'logic' fares when the discourse becomes… physical."
---
The heavy oak door of the Headmistress’s office clicked shut with the finality of a tomb lid. Lakshmi stood in the center of the room, her chin tilted upward, eyes fixed on the portrait of the school’s founder. She tried to wrap herself in the cool silk of her own intellect, but the air in the room was working against her; it smelled faintly of peppermint and the lingering, metallic tang of ozone—the ghostly remnants of Samantha’s session.
"Sit, Lakshmi," Sterling commanded. She wasn't behind the desk; she was standing by the window, silhouetted against the dying grey light of the evening.
Lakshmi sat. She didn't wait to be manhandled. She lifted her feet and slid her ankles into the stocks, the wood feeling shockingly cold against her skin. She reached back, her arms disappearing behind the backrest, and waited for the bite of the leather strap.
Click-click-click.
Sterling moved with predatory grace. She tightened the strap until Lakshmi’s chest was thrust forward, her shoulders pinned back so far the muscles burned. Then came the silk blindfold—darkness descended, absolute and heavy.
"You find our curriculum 'narrow,' Lakshmi," Sterling’s voice drifted from the left, a low, melodic vibration in the dark. "You spoke of three hundred and thirty million gods. A pantheon of infinite variety. You seem to crave... abundance. I expected little less from a first generation Catholic." Sterling spat the last words with venom.
Lakshmi felt Sterling’s fingers—those lethal, buffed nails—graze the soles of her feet. She flinched, her toes curling instinctively. "I only meant that logically—"
"I know what you meant," Sterling interrupted, her voice moving to the right. "You believe the 'Many' are as valid as the 'One.' So, let us test your devotion to the Many."
Sterling reached for a jar on her desk. Lakshmi heard the gritty, crystalline sound of the lid unscrewing. Suddenly, a rain of coarse, jagged sea salt fell onto her upturned soles. Because Lakshmi’s feet were damp with the nervous sweat of her journey through the halls, the salt stuck instantly—wedging between her toes, clinging to the sensitive dip of her arches like aggressive sand.
"This is the world you prefer, Lakshmi," Sterling whispered, pressing her palm flat against the sole to grind the crystals in. "A world of endless, uncoordinated friction."
Then, Sterling picked up the tool. It wasn't a quill or a cane. It was a heavy, circular artist's stipple brush , packed with thousands of stiff, individual hog-hair bristles cut to a blunt, unforgiving flat top.
"Three hundred and thirty million touches," Sterling hissed. "Let us see if you can find the 'Ultimate Reality' in this."
THUMP.
The first strike was a physical shock. Sterling slammed the flat head of the brush vertically against Lakshmi’s right arch. The thousands of bristles didn't just tickle; they drove the jagged salt crystals deep into the pores. It was a chaotic, overwhelming explosion of sensation—a riot of a thousand tiny, stinging needles.
"AHA-HA-HA-HA! NO! MISS! HA-HA-HEE-HEE-HEE!" Lakshmi’s head snapped back, her body bucking violently against the strap.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
Sterling worked with a rhythmic, mechanical cruelty. She pounced the brush across the balls of the feet, then down to the heels, then back up to the hyper-sensitive webbing of the toes. Each strike sent a fresh wave of salt-scoured agony and maddening, itch-like ticklishness through Lakshmi’s nervous system.
"Is it a 'procession' yet, Lakshmi?" Sterling mocked, her voice rising over the frantic, nasal barks of the girl’s laughter. "Or does the 'Many' feel a bit... crowded?"
"STAAAA-HA-HA-HAP! I CA-HA-HA-N'T... HA-HA-HEE-HEE... IT'S TOO MU-HU-HUCH!"
Lakshmi’s logic was shattering. Her brain was trying to track a million individual points of contact, and it was failing. She was drowning in the multitude.
Sterling set the stipple brush aside, but she didn't wipe away the salt. Lakshmi panted, her feet throbbing, the crystals stinging the raw micro-scratches left by the bristles.
Then, Lakshmi heard the sound of plastic rattling against the desk.
Sterling didn't strike this time. Instead, she took a common plastic hairbrush—the kind with hundreds of flexible, ball-tipped nylon pins—and pressed it firmly against the heel of Lakshmi's left foot.
"The Many are not just numerous, Lakshmi," Sterling whispered. "They are relentless."
Sterling began to move the brush in slow, heavy circles. The flexible plastic pins caught on the salt crystals, dragging them across the hyper-sensitized skin in a rhythmic, grinding vibration. It wasn't the sharp bite of the bristles anymore; it was a deep, invasive crawling sensation that seemed to vibrate through the very bones of Lakshmi’s feet.
"PFFF NAHA-HA-HA-HA-HA! MISS... PLEASE! NOOO! AAAARGH-AHA-HAA-HAA-HA-HA... GASP I CAN'T TAKE IT NNNAAAA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA MY FEEEEEET" Lakshmi’s legs bucked in the stocks, her toes splayed so wide they cramped. The plastic pins danced over her arches, the ball-tips rolling over the salt and finding every raw nerve ending.
"There is no mercy in the Many, Lakshmi," Sterling purred, increasing the speed of the circular scrubbing. "The Many are chaotic. They are demanding. They do not care if you can breathe or if you can think. They only want to be felt."
Lakshmi’s head thrashed against the high back of the chair, her muffled shrieks turning into high-pitched, whistling whines. Every rotation of the brush felt like a thousand tiny fingers made of static electricity, dragging the salt into her skin.
"One truth, Lakshmi," Sterling hissed, suddenly pressing the brush down with all her weight, pinning the girl’s feet still under the plastic pins. "Or a million little lies. Which would you prefer?"
"ONE TRUTH! ONE TRUTH! OOOOONEEE TRUUU-HU-HU-HUUUTH AAAAHA-HA-HA-HA-HA... GASP MAKE IT STAAAAAAHP!"
Sterling dropped the brush. She used only her right thumb-nail. She pressed it with crushing force into the center of Lakshmi’s left arch, dragging it slowly through the layer of salt. The singular, focused pressure cut through the chaotic tickle like a hot wire.
"There is only one truth in this room, Lakshmi," Sterling whispered, her nail digging deeper until the girl shrieked. "One hand that moves. One voice that commands. One God. One Headmistress. Do you see the 'Infinite' now? Or do you see me?"
Lakshmi’s blindfolded face was wet with tears, her laughter jagged and broken. "I SEE... HA-HA-HA... I SEE YOU! MISS! ONLY YOU! HA-HA-HA-HEE-HEE... JUST STO-HO-HO-OP!"
Sterling withdrew her hand. "Good. Then you are ready to write."
Lakshmi panted, her feet throbbing, the salt stinging the raw micro-scratches left by the bristles. In the newfound silence, her ears were hyper-attuned to every movement in the dark. She heard the soft, sliding friction of a heavy desk drawer being opened. Then, the unmistakable clink of a glass bottle meeting the mahogany.
Lakshmi’s stomach flipped. She remembered Rachel’s hushed warning in the dormitory: When the glass hits the desk, the real work starts. "The chaos is over, Lakshmi," Sterling’s voice whispered, sounding closer than before. She felt the Headmistress lean over her, the scent of her expensive perfume mingling with the sharp, acidic tang of permanent ink.
"Now," Sterling purred, the sound of the inkwell being unstoppered echoing like a gunshot, "to make sure the message sticks."
Lakshmi’s breath hitched. She knew what was coming.
Sterling reached down. Before tying the toes, she took the long eagle-feather quill. She didn't use the tip. She ran the soft, sweeping barbs of the feather slowly, agonizingly, through the webbing between Lakshmi’s salt-encrusted toes.
"Nnn-gh! HEE-HEE-HEE!" Lakshmi’s feet bucked in the stocks. The sensation was the polar opposite of the brush; it was a ghost-light, maddening feather-touch that seemed to bypass the skin and tickle her very brain.
"Please... Miss... ha-ha-ha... no more many! I was wrong!" Lakshmi’s voice was a frantic sob. "There isn't a multitude! There’s only one! I see it now! One power... one truth... your truth! Just... no more!"
"Words come easy, Lakshmi," Sterling whispered, dragging the feather over the very center of the salt-stung arch. "Conviction... conviction must be earned."
Sterling set the feather down and reached for the silk cords. With practiced efficiency, she looped them around each of Lakshmi's toes, pulling them back until the skin over the arches was taut as a drumhead, the salt crystals grinding deeper into the tension.
"If there is only one God, Lakshmi, then there is only one sentence worth writing. 'There is only one God.' Ten times. Perfect script. No smudges. If you twitch, we return to the 'Multitude' of the brush."
Lakshmi’s blindfolded head thrashed. "I'll be still! I promise! I'll be a statue! Just... please... no more salt... no more brush..."
"We shall see," Sterling purred.
Lakshmi felt the heavy, wet weight of the inkwell being placed near her feet. The air grew still. She waited, every nerve ending in her feet screaming, her brain trying to force her muscles into a frozen, dead state.
Then, the first touch.
It wasn't the soft feather. It was the sharp, wet, biting point of the quill. Sterling didn't just touch the skin; she pressed the nib into the hyper-sensitive, salt-raw ball of Lakshmi’s left foot.
As the tip began to draw the downward stroke of the first 'T', the combination of the cold, wet ink and the sharp scratch on the stinging skin was too much.
"A-H-H-H-H!" Lakshmi’s toes strained against the cords, a jagged, hysterical sound erupting from her throat as the first letter of her submission was carved in black.
---
In the darkness of the East Wing dormitory, three pairs of feet throbbed with a rhythmic, ghostly fire. The silence that hung over the room was no longer the silence of sleep, but the silence of girls who had learned that at St. Brigid’s, every nerve ending belonged to the Headmistress.
As the moon dipped below the horizon, Mrs. Sterling sat alone in her office, slowly buffing her nails to a shimmering, lethal point. She had tidied her school. She had corrected the prose of their spirits. And as she looked at the empty stocks, she knew that tomorrow, the girls would stand a little straighter, walk a little softer, and never—ever—forget their prayers. Though a small part of her hoped that one of the students would prove her wrong.
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