This story will make a bit more sense if you read part 1 first:
http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?316975-The-Price-of-Power-(m-f-politics)
As usual, we writers live for the comments, so be sure to write one when you finish reading!
KI
The Price of Power, Part II (f/f, mf/f, politics)
by
Kid Indy
FEBRUARY 2020: AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE
After 2016 nobody expected politics as usual, but these were strange results by any standard: Iowa had gone convincingly to Tulsi Gabbard, but Bernie Sanders had taken New Hampshire. Tulsi had come back in Nevada to establish herself as the front runner, but now Joe Biden was polling with overwhelming leads in South Carolina with four days left until the primary. All but five candidates--the ever-optimistic Elizabeth Warren and latecomer Mike Bloomberg were still in--had dropped out.
The news networks and social media were buzzing with chatter about the upcoming Super Tuesday primaries, a fourteen-state battle that stood to narrow the field of real contenders to two or even to establish one of the five as the presumptive candidate.
After a campaign stop near Charleston, Gabbard rode alone in the back seat of a black SUV towards the airport, but they turned off from the route a few miles early, eluding news reporters for the moment and heading for the beach suburb of Sullivan’s Island. She sent texts and read post-primary reports and projections for the next week, distracting herself from what awaited her at her meeting with Apollo Group, her campaign’s chief shadow-donor, and with August Butler, the man at the head of their account. By the time they pulled into the garage of one of the houses, nobody was following, and she knew that the time had come.
Gabbard stepped out of the vehicle and looked across to see her driver also emerging. This was no Secret Service agent or even a private bodyguard but her Director of Social Media Outreach Wendy Fleming. The two women had come alone, knowing that no news photographers could catch them at this sort of meeting.
As the garage door closed and the morning’s light narrowed to a thin band at the floor, a door to the house opened, and August Butler, in slacks and a polo shirt, stepped into the garage. “Good morning, Madam President!”
Gabbard glared. “Don’t make jokes, August. You said dominos. These first four would fall like dominos. But now people are talking about Comeback Joe, not any game of dominos!” Wendy cringed as she pulled a duffel bag out of the passenger seat.
“Not to fear, Tulsi! We have plans for this! Remember that you’re not like these other candidates: we actually have a plan to win the general. Once we remind California and Virginia and Texas of that, you’ll be on your way to that big stage in Milwaukee.” He stepped aside and gestured grandly to the doorway. “But we don’t need to have this conversation in the garage, do we? Come in!”
Gabbard was still doing the talking. “You’re alone here, right?”
“Only the Apollo Group knows that we own this house. We bought it through a shell company, a local tourist outfit. There’s no need to worry.”
Tulsi and then Wendy followed Butler into the house, and they made their way to a living room. Through the front window, between two houses across the way, Wendy could make out a sliver of Charleston Harbor.
Butler pointed down a hallway. “You can change into your gym clothes in any room down that way, Miss Fleming. We’ll wait for you here.” She looked to Gabbard, who nodded, and she withdrew with her bag.
Gabbard wheeled on Butler as soon as they were alone. “You’d better have a plan, Gus, or Biden and Sanders are going to turn this into an old men’s race!”
“Of course we do, Madam President. This is a game we don’t lose.”
“You’re reducing this to a game? We’re staring down a double-digit loss in South Carolina three days before Super Tuesday! Be serious!”
“Politics is the most serious of games, Miss Gabbard. But Wendy is returning, so you’ll find that out soon enough.” Wendy came out of the back room, dressed in form-fitting gym shorts and a loose-fitting cotton top over a sports bra. Butler beamed. “Welcome back, Wendy! I was just telling Candidate Gabbard about a game of sorts you two will be playing today.”
Wendy eyed him. “What game?”
Butler pulled two small envelopes out of his pocket, one marked “Candidate” and the other “Director.” He held one in each hand as Gabbard Fleming stood before him. “The paper in each of these envelopes describes a prize, and one of you will win today, and one of you will lose.”
He handed the envelopes to them and watched as they opened them, each pulling out a piece of paper and a pen. “As you no doubt see, the paper requires you to participate in our little contest. I’ll give you a moment to read and write.”
Wendy sat on one of the room’s couches and looked over her paper:
YOU WILL BE TICKLED FOR A DESIGNATED SPAN OF TIME, A TIME THAT YOU WILL NOT KNOW UNTIL IT ELAPSES OR YOU SURRENDER. IF YOU ENDURE FOR THE ENTIRE SPAN WITHOUT SAYING THE SECRET PHRASE OUT LOUD, AN INVESTMENT FIRM OWNED BY APOLLO GROUP WILL PAY OFF ALL OF YOUR STUDENT LOANS.
IF YOU SAY WHAT YOUR PRIZE IS DURING THE CONTEST, YOU FORFEIT THE PRIZE IMMEDIATELY.
Wendy gasped. Her student loans were Yale-sized, and she really anticipated paying them for years to come. She took the pen and wrote the first phrase that came to mind, an exam answer from a history exam: “Battle of Actium.”
Across the room Gabbard looked at her paper:
WENDY WILL BE TICKLED UNTIL SHE SURRENDERS BY SHOUTING THE SECRET PHRASE OR UNTIL YOU DECIDE THAT THE TICKLING WILL STOP. IF SHE SURRENDERS, YOUR FUNDING FOR THE REMAINDER OF PRIMARY SEASON WILL INCREASE BY A PERCENTAGE THAT YOU DESIGNATE IN THE BOX BELOW. IF YOU END THE TICKLING BEFORE SHE SURRENDERS, YOUR FUNDING FOR THE REMAINDER OF PRIMARY SEASON WILL DECREASE BY THE SAME PERCENTAGE.
IF YOU SAY WHAT YOUR PRIZE IS DURING THE CONTEST, YOU FORFEIT THE PRIZE IMMEDIATELY.
Gabbard’s smile stretched from ear to ear as she wrote “100%” in the box below. Whatever Wendy thought she was winning today, Gabbard was about to seize the opportunity to destroy the old men in every Super Tuesday state. She would watch her tickled until she surrendered without another thought about it.
Butler was watching both women and relishing “Let’s retire to the basement, shall we? We’ll have some privacy there.”
The three descended the stairs in the middle of the house to a TV room with a long sectional couch and a big-screen television. But what caught both of their eyes was a full-sized bed. The frame and mattress looked normal, but in this rec room it seemed entirely out of place. Butler led them to the bed, and Wendy sat down on the bed to take off her shoes and socks, knowing what awaited her here.
Gabbard decided to get in Wendy’s head. “Where are you going to tickle her first today, Gus?”
Butler was the one grinning now. “Why, Madam President, I’m not going to tickle Wendy just now. You are.”
Both women took in a deep breath as they looked at each other.
Wendy protested almost immediately. “You can’t do this! I did not agree to this!”
Butler’s grin would have remained had the rest of him disappeared. “You agreed to be tickled, Miss Fleming. The document did not designate a tickler.” The young woman stammered but ultimately knew that she was not going to win this. “Now Wendy, I will warn you that if you try to fight her off, there are penalties in this game.”
“Penalties?”
“Just be a good girl, and you’ll be fine. Madam President, you will designate how long the tickling goes on by tickling until you quit or until your opponent surrenders. Now get that secret from Agent Wendy!”
Gabbard set her jaw and slid shoes off of her feet without taking her eyes off of her staffer. Wendy, still sitting on the bed, held hands in front of her as the military veteran lowered her weight into a crouch. “Tusli, don’t do this! Please!”
Gabbard, dressed in traveling clothes, did not respond but dove onto the bed, eluding Wendy’s hands and shoulder-rolling past her. She grabbed the edge of the mattress and pulled her hips around, her leg wheeling high over Wendy’s head so that each foot was on one side of her. One shoe hit the ground as Gabbard got belly to back behind her staffer. Wendy tried to move herself away, but Gabbard’s legs grabbed Wendy’s midsection in a scissor hold from behind, and her other shoe came off and tumbled to the floor. Wendy’s hands instinctively tried to pry Gabbard’s legs off of her, but Tusli’s hands were in those armpits in a flash, and Wendy arched her back into her boss as she let out a squeal of surprise and melted into giggles. Gabbard was not as practiced as August Butler seemed to be, but she did have a politician’s attention to people’s reactions, and she remembered that initial assault back in Vegas, how Wendy’s defiance had disintegrated when Butler’s hands went under her arms.
Tulsi tickled until she could feel Wendy’s strength start to wane, and she rolled her staffer onto her side, moved her own leg out of the way, and grasped her side at the hip bone. Wendy flailed in vain, her own arms and legs unable to keep her boss from having her way with any ticklish spot she could find. Tulsi’s hands flashed here and then there, finding their way under Wendy’s arms, then squeezing a hip bone, then a knee, then a ticklish side. Wendy slapped weakly at her hands, but as the Congresswoman’s hands found one opening after another all the beautiful, giggling staffer could manage was to curl up on her side, her elbows pressed in to her sides and her knees almost up to her chin, and try not to shout the code word.
Tulsi could sense that Wendy was no longer going to defend herself, and she did not lose the opportunity: she shot one cruel hand under Wendy’s hip, between body and bed-sheets, and started a chain of staccato squeezes. Wendy’s rump shot off the mattress, and she got onto her elbows and knees to elude the tickling. Tulsi once again showed an athletic flash as she looped an arm under Wendy’s torso and hauled her up off the mattress, sliding one of the Congresswoman’s own legs under her and throwing her other leg over her back. She locked in a scissor-hold around Wendy’s thighs, and Wendy’s arms gave out, leaving her face-down and unable to leverage herself up. Tulsi, both hands free, pushed herself down the mattress away from Wendy’s head and re-established the scissors around Wendy’s calves. Wendy screamed; she knew what was coming, but she couldn’t turn herself over to make it stop. Tulsi squeezed strong legs around Wendy’s calves and sat up, her shoulders towering over Wendy’s squirming feet. With both hands she went to work, and Wendy screamed as Tulsi’s fingers started scratching at her heels.
She couldn’t maintain the scream long, though; all of the tickling that Tulsi had given her had worn down any ability to resist or protest, and soon all she could do was shake her head “no” and laugh wildly as Tulsi’s fingernails skittered across her soles, explored the spaces between her toes, and ignited every ticklish nerve on her feet. She could still see that life without the monthly loan payment in front of her, but it dimmed as Tulsi reduced the universe to the skin that she so masterfully and so mercifully tickled. Wendy’s eyes shut, and she knew that her body was going to betray her before long, that even Cleopatra was not going to save her from shouting out the battle of Actium.
But then things got worse. Gabbard released the scissor-hold and pushed herself back up on the bed. With strong hands she turned Wendy over onto her back, and Wendy felt her knees being pushed outwards, apart from each other. She felt Tusli’s strong legs against the insides of her own, and her knees came up as Tulsi’s calves pushed her own thighs outwards and Tulsi’s feet rested on her sides.
She couldn’t be.
But then the truth struck home: Tulsi’s toes dug into her sides, just below the ribs, and Wendy went through the roof. She couldn’t turn over. She couldn’t get away. Her shoulders tried to roll but couldn’t, and she screamed as Tulsi sat up, still tickling Wendy’s sides with her feet, and reached forward, cross-armed, to tickle Wendy’s exposed inner thighs.
With a burst of strength that only comes from desperation, Wendy reached out and pulled Tulsi’s left foot away from her side, and in the next moment, though she knew that it wouldn’t stop the torture, something made her start scratching at Tulsi’s sole. Tulsi’s grip slacked just for a moment as her boss, until this moment in total control, screamed as the energy that had been building on that bed suddenly got at her skin. She released her scissor-hold and sprang away from Wendy, who collapsed backwards onto the mattress. Wendy, a predator’s instinct suddenly awake, rolled sideways and reached out, her hands finding Gabbard’s side. Gabbard curled up and let out a ticklish squeal as her young campaign worker turned on her.
Both women heard a voice that they had forgotten in their intense encounter. “Now, now, Wendy, you know the rule. You just tickled the Congresswoman. Now you’re going to pay a penalty.”
Wendy did not hear a word of that--this was too much fun turning the tables. She continued to press her advantage and tickling Gabbard, and only when a foam-padded leather cuff wrapped around her wrist and clicked home did she break off the tickling. Butler pulled on the nylon rope trailing from the cuff, and Wendy fell backwards onto her bum. He pulled more, and she dropped onto her back. He snapped a handcuff at the rope’s other ehd onto one of the bed’s posts. Wendy pulled, but the rope held fast.
“Wait a minute! You can’t tie me up!” Butler calmly walked back to the chair where he had been sitting and pulled another cuffs-and-rope out of the bag. Wendy couldn’t remember the bag’s being there, but that was a secondary matter: she wheeled around and tried to kick out at Butler as he got close, but she was no fighter, and he brushed her legs aside and grabbed her wrist. Without much doubt as to the outcome, he had fastened the other padded cuff to her wrist and the other metal cuff to another bed post.
“Madam President, would you please fetch the remaining cuffs from my bag?” Gabbard, still beet-red from the embarrassment of bring tickled in front of this donor, complied immediately, and against Wendy’s attempts to kick away, they fixed her in a spread-eagle, face up, to the bed. Butler leaned in and whispered to her, inches from her face: “Remember, Wendy, you have the secret word to make this stop. But now Madam Congresswoman and I are both going to work on you!”
Gabbard needed no convincing; she walked towards Wendy’s feet with her fingers flexing.
“No, Madam President, I’m going to tickle her feet. And the customer is always right, remember?” Gabbard grinned and nodded. Butler gestured for her to take a place at Wendy’s waist, and Gabbard did. “And I’d be careful who finds out how ticklish you are, Tulsi. I’d hate for an enemy of the state to use that for leverage!” His hands came to rest on Wendy’s immobile soles. “Now Wendy, we’re going to tickle you like you’ve never been tickled before. We know just how ticklish you’ve been before, but even you have no idea how torturous this is going to be when you can’t cover up and can’t get away. You know how this is going to end: you’re going to say your magic word.” He licked his lips, and Wendy cringed. “But don’t give in too quickly, okay? I’ve been looking forward to this part.” He nodded to Gabbard, whose hands waited at the ready. “Take it home, Madam President!”
Wendy squealed as Tulsi’s hands began to squeeze her hips. The earlier tickling had prepped her too well, and she did not get the chance that she had visualized to stare down the candidate; instead her eyes shut, and her hips started writhing this way and that as she started to giggle at the sensations. This really was the worst that she had ever experienced: pull as she might at the ropes, Gabbard’s hands met no opposition as they squeezed at her hips then started wandering, unhindered, up under her cotton top to her sides and across her belly, which the shirt had exposed when her arms stretched over her head. Wendy thrashed and squirmed, but she could not cover up any of her most ticklish spots, and she could already feel the urge growing in her head to say the words that would end her humiliation.
Then Butler started in.
When Wendy thought about that moment in the days to come she was sure that Butler had tickled a hundred women before her: his fingers moved faster than anyone’s hands had ever tickled her, and they found spots on her feet that sent her through the roof at first touch and then spun her around, even though she was tied face-up, and melted her dignity in seconds. Even as her spirit wanted to resist, just to show this powerful man and Wendy’s globally-ambitious boss that she wasn’t so easy to break, she heard herself shout, “Battle of Actium!” maybe a minute after the two started to work her. Butler’s hands stopped immediately, and he did not delay a moment to call off Gabbard, whose frenzy might not have stopped tickling her.
Butler gently released the cuffs’ latches and let Wendy retreat to a side bedroom to change back into her traveling clothes. Wendy’s mind went back into professional mode quickly enough. Two rallies today, one in the afternoon and one at night. Then a meeting with a more conventional fundraiser, then on to the candidates’ debate, then editing video of the debate for online ads. She didn’t know how they were going to stretch their budget to compete with Bloomberg on the air in Texas and California, but on social media they should be strong.
Gabbard was already waiting in the SUV when Wendy emerged. Butler approached her as she made her way across the garage and took her by the arm. He leaned in and whispered: “Look for your budget to increase in the next twelve hours, and target the Facebook demographic in the three big states. Our Super PAC is going to hit Biden so hard he’ll forget which race he’s running in, and with Bernie we can just outnumber him with anyone who’s not a white college grad.”
Wendy looked her tormentor in the eye. “And then what? More tickling?”
“Let’s wrap up this nomination, and then we’ll see. Now that I know what kind of fun I can have with both of you, maybe there won’t be any penalties for fighting back next time!”
Wendy grinned as she climbed into the SUV and turned the key.
http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?316975-The-Price-of-Power-(m-f-politics)
As usual, we writers live for the comments, so be sure to write one when you finish reading!
KI
The Price of Power, Part II (f/f, mf/f, politics)
by
Kid Indy
FEBRUARY 2020: AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE
After 2016 nobody expected politics as usual, but these were strange results by any standard: Iowa had gone convincingly to Tulsi Gabbard, but Bernie Sanders had taken New Hampshire. Tulsi had come back in Nevada to establish herself as the front runner, but now Joe Biden was polling with overwhelming leads in South Carolina with four days left until the primary. All but five candidates--the ever-optimistic Elizabeth Warren and latecomer Mike Bloomberg were still in--had dropped out.
The news networks and social media were buzzing with chatter about the upcoming Super Tuesday primaries, a fourteen-state battle that stood to narrow the field of real contenders to two or even to establish one of the five as the presumptive candidate.
After a campaign stop near Charleston, Gabbard rode alone in the back seat of a black SUV towards the airport, but they turned off from the route a few miles early, eluding news reporters for the moment and heading for the beach suburb of Sullivan’s Island. She sent texts and read post-primary reports and projections for the next week, distracting herself from what awaited her at her meeting with Apollo Group, her campaign’s chief shadow-donor, and with August Butler, the man at the head of their account. By the time they pulled into the garage of one of the houses, nobody was following, and she knew that the time had come.
Gabbard stepped out of the vehicle and looked across to see her driver also emerging. This was no Secret Service agent or even a private bodyguard but her Director of Social Media Outreach Wendy Fleming. The two women had come alone, knowing that no news photographers could catch them at this sort of meeting.
As the garage door closed and the morning’s light narrowed to a thin band at the floor, a door to the house opened, and August Butler, in slacks and a polo shirt, stepped into the garage. “Good morning, Madam President!”
Gabbard glared. “Don’t make jokes, August. You said dominos. These first four would fall like dominos. But now people are talking about Comeback Joe, not any game of dominos!” Wendy cringed as she pulled a duffel bag out of the passenger seat.
“Not to fear, Tulsi! We have plans for this! Remember that you’re not like these other candidates: we actually have a plan to win the general. Once we remind California and Virginia and Texas of that, you’ll be on your way to that big stage in Milwaukee.” He stepped aside and gestured grandly to the doorway. “But we don’t need to have this conversation in the garage, do we? Come in!”
Gabbard was still doing the talking. “You’re alone here, right?”
“Only the Apollo Group knows that we own this house. We bought it through a shell company, a local tourist outfit. There’s no need to worry.”
Tulsi and then Wendy followed Butler into the house, and they made their way to a living room. Through the front window, between two houses across the way, Wendy could make out a sliver of Charleston Harbor.
Butler pointed down a hallway. “You can change into your gym clothes in any room down that way, Miss Fleming. We’ll wait for you here.” She looked to Gabbard, who nodded, and she withdrew with her bag.
Gabbard wheeled on Butler as soon as they were alone. “You’d better have a plan, Gus, or Biden and Sanders are going to turn this into an old men’s race!”
“Of course we do, Madam President. This is a game we don’t lose.”
“You’re reducing this to a game? We’re staring down a double-digit loss in South Carolina three days before Super Tuesday! Be serious!”
“Politics is the most serious of games, Miss Gabbard. But Wendy is returning, so you’ll find that out soon enough.” Wendy came out of the back room, dressed in form-fitting gym shorts and a loose-fitting cotton top over a sports bra. Butler beamed. “Welcome back, Wendy! I was just telling Candidate Gabbard about a game of sorts you two will be playing today.”
Wendy eyed him. “What game?”
Butler pulled two small envelopes out of his pocket, one marked “Candidate” and the other “Director.” He held one in each hand as Gabbard Fleming stood before him. “The paper in each of these envelopes describes a prize, and one of you will win today, and one of you will lose.”
He handed the envelopes to them and watched as they opened them, each pulling out a piece of paper and a pen. “As you no doubt see, the paper requires you to participate in our little contest. I’ll give you a moment to read and write.”
Wendy sat on one of the room’s couches and looked over her paper:
YOU WILL BE TICKLED FOR A DESIGNATED SPAN OF TIME, A TIME THAT YOU WILL NOT KNOW UNTIL IT ELAPSES OR YOU SURRENDER. IF YOU ENDURE FOR THE ENTIRE SPAN WITHOUT SAYING THE SECRET PHRASE OUT LOUD, AN INVESTMENT FIRM OWNED BY APOLLO GROUP WILL PAY OFF ALL OF YOUR STUDENT LOANS.
IF YOU SAY WHAT YOUR PRIZE IS DURING THE CONTEST, YOU FORFEIT THE PRIZE IMMEDIATELY.
Wendy gasped. Her student loans were Yale-sized, and she really anticipated paying them for years to come. She took the pen and wrote the first phrase that came to mind, an exam answer from a history exam: “Battle of Actium.”
Across the room Gabbard looked at her paper:
WENDY WILL BE TICKLED UNTIL SHE SURRENDERS BY SHOUTING THE SECRET PHRASE OR UNTIL YOU DECIDE THAT THE TICKLING WILL STOP. IF SHE SURRENDERS, YOUR FUNDING FOR THE REMAINDER OF PRIMARY SEASON WILL INCREASE BY A PERCENTAGE THAT YOU DESIGNATE IN THE BOX BELOW. IF YOU END THE TICKLING BEFORE SHE SURRENDERS, YOUR FUNDING FOR THE REMAINDER OF PRIMARY SEASON WILL DECREASE BY THE SAME PERCENTAGE.
IF YOU SAY WHAT YOUR PRIZE IS DURING THE CONTEST, YOU FORFEIT THE PRIZE IMMEDIATELY.
Gabbard’s smile stretched from ear to ear as she wrote “100%” in the box below. Whatever Wendy thought she was winning today, Gabbard was about to seize the opportunity to destroy the old men in every Super Tuesday state. She would watch her tickled until she surrendered without another thought about it.
Butler was watching both women and relishing “Let’s retire to the basement, shall we? We’ll have some privacy there.”
The three descended the stairs in the middle of the house to a TV room with a long sectional couch and a big-screen television. But what caught both of their eyes was a full-sized bed. The frame and mattress looked normal, but in this rec room it seemed entirely out of place. Butler led them to the bed, and Wendy sat down on the bed to take off her shoes and socks, knowing what awaited her here.
Gabbard decided to get in Wendy’s head. “Where are you going to tickle her first today, Gus?”
Butler was the one grinning now. “Why, Madam President, I’m not going to tickle Wendy just now. You are.”
Both women took in a deep breath as they looked at each other.
Wendy protested almost immediately. “You can’t do this! I did not agree to this!”
Butler’s grin would have remained had the rest of him disappeared. “You agreed to be tickled, Miss Fleming. The document did not designate a tickler.” The young woman stammered but ultimately knew that she was not going to win this. “Now Wendy, I will warn you that if you try to fight her off, there are penalties in this game.”
“Penalties?”
“Just be a good girl, and you’ll be fine. Madam President, you will designate how long the tickling goes on by tickling until you quit or until your opponent surrenders. Now get that secret from Agent Wendy!”
Gabbard set her jaw and slid shoes off of her feet without taking her eyes off of her staffer. Wendy, still sitting on the bed, held hands in front of her as the military veteran lowered her weight into a crouch. “Tusli, don’t do this! Please!”
Gabbard, dressed in traveling clothes, did not respond but dove onto the bed, eluding Wendy’s hands and shoulder-rolling past her. She grabbed the edge of the mattress and pulled her hips around, her leg wheeling high over Wendy’s head so that each foot was on one side of her. One shoe hit the ground as Gabbard got belly to back behind her staffer. Wendy tried to move herself away, but Gabbard’s legs grabbed Wendy’s midsection in a scissor hold from behind, and her other shoe came off and tumbled to the floor. Wendy’s hands instinctively tried to pry Gabbard’s legs off of her, but Tusli’s hands were in those armpits in a flash, and Wendy arched her back into her boss as she let out a squeal of surprise and melted into giggles. Gabbard was not as practiced as August Butler seemed to be, but she did have a politician’s attention to people’s reactions, and she remembered that initial assault back in Vegas, how Wendy’s defiance had disintegrated when Butler’s hands went under her arms.
Tulsi tickled until she could feel Wendy’s strength start to wane, and she rolled her staffer onto her side, moved her own leg out of the way, and grasped her side at the hip bone. Wendy flailed in vain, her own arms and legs unable to keep her boss from having her way with any ticklish spot she could find. Tulsi’s hands flashed here and then there, finding their way under Wendy’s arms, then squeezing a hip bone, then a knee, then a ticklish side. Wendy slapped weakly at her hands, but as the Congresswoman’s hands found one opening after another all the beautiful, giggling staffer could manage was to curl up on her side, her elbows pressed in to her sides and her knees almost up to her chin, and try not to shout the code word.
Tulsi could sense that Wendy was no longer going to defend herself, and she did not lose the opportunity: she shot one cruel hand under Wendy’s hip, between body and bed-sheets, and started a chain of staccato squeezes. Wendy’s rump shot off the mattress, and she got onto her elbows and knees to elude the tickling. Tulsi once again showed an athletic flash as she looped an arm under Wendy’s torso and hauled her up off the mattress, sliding one of the Congresswoman’s own legs under her and throwing her other leg over her back. She locked in a scissor-hold around Wendy’s thighs, and Wendy’s arms gave out, leaving her face-down and unable to leverage herself up. Tulsi, both hands free, pushed herself down the mattress away from Wendy’s head and re-established the scissors around Wendy’s calves. Wendy screamed; she knew what was coming, but she couldn’t turn herself over to make it stop. Tulsi squeezed strong legs around Wendy’s calves and sat up, her shoulders towering over Wendy’s squirming feet. With both hands she went to work, and Wendy screamed as Tulsi’s fingers started scratching at her heels.
She couldn’t maintain the scream long, though; all of the tickling that Tulsi had given her had worn down any ability to resist or protest, and soon all she could do was shake her head “no” and laugh wildly as Tulsi’s fingernails skittered across her soles, explored the spaces between her toes, and ignited every ticklish nerve on her feet. She could still see that life without the monthly loan payment in front of her, but it dimmed as Tulsi reduced the universe to the skin that she so masterfully and so mercifully tickled. Wendy’s eyes shut, and she knew that her body was going to betray her before long, that even Cleopatra was not going to save her from shouting out the battle of Actium.
But then things got worse. Gabbard released the scissor-hold and pushed herself back up on the bed. With strong hands she turned Wendy over onto her back, and Wendy felt her knees being pushed outwards, apart from each other. She felt Tusli’s strong legs against the insides of her own, and her knees came up as Tulsi’s calves pushed her own thighs outwards and Tulsi’s feet rested on her sides.
She couldn’t be.
But then the truth struck home: Tulsi’s toes dug into her sides, just below the ribs, and Wendy went through the roof. She couldn’t turn over. She couldn’t get away. Her shoulders tried to roll but couldn’t, and she screamed as Tulsi sat up, still tickling Wendy’s sides with her feet, and reached forward, cross-armed, to tickle Wendy’s exposed inner thighs.
With a burst of strength that only comes from desperation, Wendy reached out and pulled Tulsi’s left foot away from her side, and in the next moment, though she knew that it wouldn’t stop the torture, something made her start scratching at Tulsi’s sole. Tulsi’s grip slacked just for a moment as her boss, until this moment in total control, screamed as the energy that had been building on that bed suddenly got at her skin. She released her scissor-hold and sprang away from Wendy, who collapsed backwards onto the mattress. Wendy, a predator’s instinct suddenly awake, rolled sideways and reached out, her hands finding Gabbard’s side. Gabbard curled up and let out a ticklish squeal as her young campaign worker turned on her.
Both women heard a voice that they had forgotten in their intense encounter. “Now, now, Wendy, you know the rule. You just tickled the Congresswoman. Now you’re going to pay a penalty.”
Wendy did not hear a word of that--this was too much fun turning the tables. She continued to press her advantage and tickling Gabbard, and only when a foam-padded leather cuff wrapped around her wrist and clicked home did she break off the tickling. Butler pulled on the nylon rope trailing from the cuff, and Wendy fell backwards onto her bum. He pulled more, and she dropped onto her back. He snapped a handcuff at the rope’s other ehd onto one of the bed’s posts. Wendy pulled, but the rope held fast.
“Wait a minute! You can’t tie me up!” Butler calmly walked back to the chair where he had been sitting and pulled another cuffs-and-rope out of the bag. Wendy couldn’t remember the bag’s being there, but that was a secondary matter: she wheeled around and tried to kick out at Butler as he got close, but she was no fighter, and he brushed her legs aside and grabbed her wrist. Without much doubt as to the outcome, he had fastened the other padded cuff to her wrist and the other metal cuff to another bed post.
“Madam President, would you please fetch the remaining cuffs from my bag?” Gabbard, still beet-red from the embarrassment of bring tickled in front of this donor, complied immediately, and against Wendy’s attempts to kick away, they fixed her in a spread-eagle, face up, to the bed. Butler leaned in and whispered to her, inches from her face: “Remember, Wendy, you have the secret word to make this stop. But now Madam Congresswoman and I are both going to work on you!”
Gabbard needed no convincing; she walked towards Wendy’s feet with her fingers flexing.
“No, Madam President, I’m going to tickle her feet. And the customer is always right, remember?” Gabbard grinned and nodded. Butler gestured for her to take a place at Wendy’s waist, and Gabbard did. “And I’d be careful who finds out how ticklish you are, Tulsi. I’d hate for an enemy of the state to use that for leverage!” His hands came to rest on Wendy’s immobile soles. “Now Wendy, we’re going to tickle you like you’ve never been tickled before. We know just how ticklish you’ve been before, but even you have no idea how torturous this is going to be when you can’t cover up and can’t get away. You know how this is going to end: you’re going to say your magic word.” He licked his lips, and Wendy cringed. “But don’t give in too quickly, okay? I’ve been looking forward to this part.” He nodded to Gabbard, whose hands waited at the ready. “Take it home, Madam President!”
Wendy squealed as Tulsi’s hands began to squeeze her hips. The earlier tickling had prepped her too well, and she did not get the chance that she had visualized to stare down the candidate; instead her eyes shut, and her hips started writhing this way and that as she started to giggle at the sensations. This really was the worst that she had ever experienced: pull as she might at the ropes, Gabbard’s hands met no opposition as they squeezed at her hips then started wandering, unhindered, up under her cotton top to her sides and across her belly, which the shirt had exposed when her arms stretched over her head. Wendy thrashed and squirmed, but she could not cover up any of her most ticklish spots, and she could already feel the urge growing in her head to say the words that would end her humiliation.
Then Butler started in.
When Wendy thought about that moment in the days to come she was sure that Butler had tickled a hundred women before her: his fingers moved faster than anyone’s hands had ever tickled her, and they found spots on her feet that sent her through the roof at first touch and then spun her around, even though she was tied face-up, and melted her dignity in seconds. Even as her spirit wanted to resist, just to show this powerful man and Wendy’s globally-ambitious boss that she wasn’t so easy to break, she heard herself shout, “Battle of Actium!” maybe a minute after the two started to work her. Butler’s hands stopped immediately, and he did not delay a moment to call off Gabbard, whose frenzy might not have stopped tickling her.
Butler gently released the cuffs’ latches and let Wendy retreat to a side bedroom to change back into her traveling clothes. Wendy’s mind went back into professional mode quickly enough. Two rallies today, one in the afternoon and one at night. Then a meeting with a more conventional fundraiser, then on to the candidates’ debate, then editing video of the debate for online ads. She didn’t know how they were going to stretch their budget to compete with Bloomberg on the air in Texas and California, but on social media they should be strong.
Gabbard was already waiting in the SUV when Wendy emerged. Butler approached her as she made her way across the garage and took her by the arm. He leaned in and whispered: “Look for your budget to increase in the next twelve hours, and target the Facebook demographic in the three big states. Our Super PAC is going to hit Biden so hard he’ll forget which race he’s running in, and with Bernie we can just outnumber him with anyone who’s not a white college grad.”
Wendy looked her tormentor in the eye. “And then what? More tickling?”
“Let’s wrap up this nomination, and then we’ll see. Now that I know what kind of fun I can have with both of you, maybe there won’t be any penalties for fighting back next time!”
Wendy grinned as she climbed into the SUV and turned the key.
