The twins were the bane of my existence. How I hated them! They were always the cute ones, even in first grade. Precious Susan and Sarah Tyler, with their long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. All the teachers loved them because they were so bright and had mastered the art of sucking up even at that young age. I can still remember their sickly sweet “Good Morning Dear Teacher,” in perfect unison. Gag me!
Everyone else might have thought them angles, but I knew the truth. The twins had a nasty side, one they kept carefully hidden from the world. And, of course, they chose to take that nasty side out on me! All through school, from first grade on, Susan and Sarah call me names, steal my lunch or trip me as I walked down the hall. And with the expertise of seasoned veteran’s, they would never get caught. Nothing I could have said to the teacher would have ever convinced her that this pair from heaven would ever do anything like that.
As the twins got older, they only became meaner. In Junior High, they graduated to a higher lever of prank. They bombarded me with spitballs, pulled my skirt down once or twice in the hallway and wrote my phone-number on the wall of the boy’s bathroom. How do you explain those calls to your mother?! The rumors they spread about me made sure I had few friends. It took me years to clear up my reputation! And just like before, Susan and Sarah had all the teachers under such a spell, I don’t know if they would have believed my accusations if I had photographs!
That all changed suddenly in High School, however. My days of being a whipping girl were done. It wasn’t that the twins magically changed into nice people, or that they suddenly found a new respect for me. It was just that in High School, we found ourselves in different worlds.
The twins entered the world of the beautiful people. Susan and Sarah had matured into a pair of blonde bombshells. By senior year, they were co-captains of the cheerleading team, the two most popular girls in school, and the object of every adolescent male’s desire. I was a mousy redhead who was in all honors classes. Nothing else.
It was bliss! In three years, I never had a class with either one of them. Whenever I would pass Susan or Sarah in the hall, they were always busy talking to one of their popular friends. They wouldn’t have noticed me if I were on fire. I was sure neither remembered I had ever been alive.
By senior year, I had almost forgotten what it was like to be teased all those years. In fact, I had every reason to feel good about myself. I was 18, I had a small but loyal group of friends, and soon I would be going away to some Ivy League school far from my family and far, far, far from the twins. Life was good!
That all changed the day I found out that I was in the same gym class as the twins. Gym! There were hundreds of ways those two brats could make my life miserable in gym. I couldn’t sleep for a week because of all the nightmares I was having. I was afraid it would be like Junior High all over again.
To my surprise, at first, nothing happened. The twins stayed as far from me as possible, as if talking to me would expose them to some kind of disease…geekitis or something. If we formed teams, they were always on another. If we were put in a line, they were on the other end. Maybe they’d truly forgotten me. Maybe I could just continue leading my unpopular life without being driven insane.
The dream ended suddenly one day. We were doing a physical fitness until, and my ‘squad’ was assigned to the pull-up bar. Now I have no upper-body strength and couldn’t do even one pull-up, even on the lower bar set up for the girls. This didn’t bother me, but it did bother our teacher, Ms Fuller.
I was hanging from the bar, futily trying to pull myself over the bar and waiting until my time was up when I a pair of hands grab my torso. Through the thin gym shirt, I could feel sharp nails press into my rib cage.
Taken completely by surprise, I let out a quick stream of laughter. My hands quickly lost their grip on the bar, and I fell back into Ms. Fuller, who had come up behind me, trying to give me a boost.
We collapsed into a pile on the hard gym floor.
“A bit ticklish, are we Diane?” Ms Fuller asked lying in the ground beneath me. I was too stunned and embarrassed to move. To rectify the situation, Ms Fuller gave my belly two quick pokes. I squealed again, jumping off of her like she was on fire.
Ms Fuller slowly stood up and seemed about to say something when the first bell rang. It was the signal to head for the locker room, shower and change. Literally saved by the bell, I sprinted from the doorway.
At that point, I just wanted to get out of there. I mean, falling on your teacher! How humiliating! Had I stopped to look around the gym before fleeing, I would have seen Sarah and Susan only a few feet away, looking on with great interest. Being twins, they didn’t need to speak to communicate. One look between them was enough to agree on a plan. Susan came over to help Ms Fuller off the floor, while Sarah followed me into the locker room.
We didn’t have much time between gym and our next class, so I was moving quickly. I was already in the shower, rubbing my bar of soap over my sweaty skin. After the tension just minutes earlier, the hot water felt so good, so relaxing over my tired muscles. With the sound of running water and the laughter of the other girls in the large shower, it’s no wonder I didn’t hear Sarah.
She too had completely shed her gym uniform, and was now sneaking up behind me in the shower. The first I was aware of her was when her long fingernails were sliding up my wet and soapy skin. In a flash, they ran from my sides, over my ribs up almost to my underarms, then skidded all the way down again.
My reaction was the same. I howled with laughter, slipped on the wet shower floor, and fell back into those tickling hands. This time, my attacker caught me, wrapped me in her arms, and held me against her body. Then those fingers began to wiggle up and down my ribcage again, poking and prodding at the hard ridges found beneath my slippery skin.
I know there are things that I should have been able to do to break free, but I was like a deer caught in the headlights. All I could do was sink deeper into the body of my attacker, and flail my arms uselessly in the air. Unlike Ms Fuller’s accidental touch, these fingers had a purpose, and it increased the tickling ten fold.
“He eheh ehehehhe eh staawwpppp eheh ehehheheheh!!” I cried. I could feel her fingers digging into my sides. Up and down they moved, forcing more and more laughter through my lips.
“Awww, is like Diane tickly-wicklish!” I could hear Sarah whisper in my ear. I could feel her nipples harden as the pressed into my back. I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t get my footing on the slick tile floor. It was like the tickling was draining my strength!
“What about your pitties,” Sarah’s whispered. I tried to clamp my arms to my sides, but by that point, Sarah’s hands were soapy too, and her fingers slid right into my deep hollows.
This time I howled like a stuck pig. Nothing in my life had ever tickled like those few seconds. Her hard fingernails crawling over my tender, slick underarms sent waves of ticklishness cascading through my body. I could feel my legs go limp from the first touch. Even more so than before, I felt like a ragdoll in Sarah’s torturous hands.
It was only a few minutes that I lie in Sarah’s devilish embrace, but it felt like much longer. Finally, Susan stuck her head in the shower doorway. She had been keeping Ms Fuller busy, and her presence was a signal that it was time to stop. Sarah quickly slid out from under me, and I collapsed onto the tile, still giggling.
Would you believe it? When Ms Fuller finally came into the locker room, I got a detention for fooling around in the shower? All she had heard was me laughing, and assumed I was playing some kind of game. None of the other girls would come forward with the truth.
Meanwhile, every girl in the locker room had had a front row seat to my humiliation. The story spread faster than any rumor ever had before. By the end of the day, it seemed like everyone in the school had heard. I don’t know how many times I heard someone whisper ‘tickle, tickle, tickle’ or ‘coochie, coochie coo’. More than once, someone snuck up behind me and poked me in the sides or grabbed my ribs. One time, it tickled so much, I threw my books five feet into the air. By the end of the day, I was the laughing stock of the entire school. Again.
And that was only the beginning.
Everyone else might have thought them angles, but I knew the truth. The twins had a nasty side, one they kept carefully hidden from the world. And, of course, they chose to take that nasty side out on me! All through school, from first grade on, Susan and Sarah call me names, steal my lunch or trip me as I walked down the hall. And with the expertise of seasoned veteran’s, they would never get caught. Nothing I could have said to the teacher would have ever convinced her that this pair from heaven would ever do anything like that.
As the twins got older, they only became meaner. In Junior High, they graduated to a higher lever of prank. They bombarded me with spitballs, pulled my skirt down once or twice in the hallway and wrote my phone-number on the wall of the boy’s bathroom. How do you explain those calls to your mother?! The rumors they spread about me made sure I had few friends. It took me years to clear up my reputation! And just like before, Susan and Sarah had all the teachers under such a spell, I don’t know if they would have believed my accusations if I had photographs!
That all changed suddenly in High School, however. My days of being a whipping girl were done. It wasn’t that the twins magically changed into nice people, or that they suddenly found a new respect for me. It was just that in High School, we found ourselves in different worlds.
The twins entered the world of the beautiful people. Susan and Sarah had matured into a pair of blonde bombshells. By senior year, they were co-captains of the cheerleading team, the two most popular girls in school, and the object of every adolescent male’s desire. I was a mousy redhead who was in all honors classes. Nothing else.
It was bliss! In three years, I never had a class with either one of them. Whenever I would pass Susan or Sarah in the hall, they were always busy talking to one of their popular friends. They wouldn’t have noticed me if I were on fire. I was sure neither remembered I had ever been alive.
By senior year, I had almost forgotten what it was like to be teased all those years. In fact, I had every reason to feel good about myself. I was 18, I had a small but loyal group of friends, and soon I would be going away to some Ivy League school far from my family and far, far, far from the twins. Life was good!
That all changed the day I found out that I was in the same gym class as the twins. Gym! There were hundreds of ways those two brats could make my life miserable in gym. I couldn’t sleep for a week because of all the nightmares I was having. I was afraid it would be like Junior High all over again.
To my surprise, at first, nothing happened. The twins stayed as far from me as possible, as if talking to me would expose them to some kind of disease…geekitis or something. If we formed teams, they were always on another. If we were put in a line, they were on the other end. Maybe they’d truly forgotten me. Maybe I could just continue leading my unpopular life without being driven insane.
The dream ended suddenly one day. We were doing a physical fitness until, and my ‘squad’ was assigned to the pull-up bar. Now I have no upper-body strength and couldn’t do even one pull-up, even on the lower bar set up for the girls. This didn’t bother me, but it did bother our teacher, Ms Fuller.
I was hanging from the bar, futily trying to pull myself over the bar and waiting until my time was up when I a pair of hands grab my torso. Through the thin gym shirt, I could feel sharp nails press into my rib cage.
Taken completely by surprise, I let out a quick stream of laughter. My hands quickly lost their grip on the bar, and I fell back into Ms. Fuller, who had come up behind me, trying to give me a boost.
We collapsed into a pile on the hard gym floor.
“A bit ticklish, are we Diane?” Ms Fuller asked lying in the ground beneath me. I was too stunned and embarrassed to move. To rectify the situation, Ms Fuller gave my belly two quick pokes. I squealed again, jumping off of her like she was on fire.
Ms Fuller slowly stood up and seemed about to say something when the first bell rang. It was the signal to head for the locker room, shower and change. Literally saved by the bell, I sprinted from the doorway.
At that point, I just wanted to get out of there. I mean, falling on your teacher! How humiliating! Had I stopped to look around the gym before fleeing, I would have seen Sarah and Susan only a few feet away, looking on with great interest. Being twins, they didn’t need to speak to communicate. One look between them was enough to agree on a plan. Susan came over to help Ms Fuller off the floor, while Sarah followed me into the locker room.
We didn’t have much time between gym and our next class, so I was moving quickly. I was already in the shower, rubbing my bar of soap over my sweaty skin. After the tension just minutes earlier, the hot water felt so good, so relaxing over my tired muscles. With the sound of running water and the laughter of the other girls in the large shower, it’s no wonder I didn’t hear Sarah.
She too had completely shed her gym uniform, and was now sneaking up behind me in the shower. The first I was aware of her was when her long fingernails were sliding up my wet and soapy skin. In a flash, they ran from my sides, over my ribs up almost to my underarms, then skidded all the way down again.
My reaction was the same. I howled with laughter, slipped on the wet shower floor, and fell back into those tickling hands. This time, my attacker caught me, wrapped me in her arms, and held me against her body. Then those fingers began to wiggle up and down my ribcage again, poking and prodding at the hard ridges found beneath my slippery skin.
I know there are things that I should have been able to do to break free, but I was like a deer caught in the headlights. All I could do was sink deeper into the body of my attacker, and flail my arms uselessly in the air. Unlike Ms Fuller’s accidental touch, these fingers had a purpose, and it increased the tickling ten fold.
“He eheh ehehehhe eh staawwpppp eheh ehehheheheh!!” I cried. I could feel her fingers digging into my sides. Up and down they moved, forcing more and more laughter through my lips.
“Awww, is like Diane tickly-wicklish!” I could hear Sarah whisper in my ear. I could feel her nipples harden as the pressed into my back. I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t get my footing on the slick tile floor. It was like the tickling was draining my strength!
“What about your pitties,” Sarah’s whispered. I tried to clamp my arms to my sides, but by that point, Sarah’s hands were soapy too, and her fingers slid right into my deep hollows.
This time I howled like a stuck pig. Nothing in my life had ever tickled like those few seconds. Her hard fingernails crawling over my tender, slick underarms sent waves of ticklishness cascading through my body. I could feel my legs go limp from the first touch. Even more so than before, I felt like a ragdoll in Sarah’s torturous hands.
It was only a few minutes that I lie in Sarah’s devilish embrace, but it felt like much longer. Finally, Susan stuck her head in the shower doorway. She had been keeping Ms Fuller busy, and her presence was a signal that it was time to stop. Sarah quickly slid out from under me, and I collapsed onto the tile, still giggling.
Would you believe it? When Ms Fuller finally came into the locker room, I got a detention for fooling around in the shower? All she had heard was me laughing, and assumed I was playing some kind of game. None of the other girls would come forward with the truth.
Meanwhile, every girl in the locker room had had a front row seat to my humiliation. The story spread faster than any rumor ever had before. By the end of the day, it seemed like everyone in the school had heard. I don’t know how many times I heard someone whisper ‘tickle, tickle, tickle’ or ‘coochie, coochie coo’. More than once, someone snuck up behind me and poked me in the sides or grabbed my ribs. One time, it tickled so much, I threw my books five feet into the air. By the end of the day, I was the laughing stock of the entire school. Again.
And that was only the beginning.
Looking forward to part 2. 
