801

A door closed.
He moaned. Wake up, dammit. Right now. I'm going to open my eyes and be home...
White ceiling. Chrome hooks sticking out of the padding. The rails of the hospital bed were still there.
"Fuck," he sighed.
"Good morning," the voice said, cheerful as always.
Lifting his head, he saw two rubber gloves past his feet. The little table was there too, as always, loaded up -
"No no no nnnnth!"
The fingers. Dammit, he thought wildly, here we go again.
Latex eased down his middle of both soles. There was something like petroleum jelly all over them, less heavy but good and slippery just the same. Before they slid back up again, he was squirming and chuckling...
"Laugh yourself awake," the voice said.
The fingers knew not only how ticklish he'd become, but each glove knew what spots in motions were the absolute worst things to take...
Even going easy on him, they had a perverse affection. Oil was being spread from the balls of each foot to the heels, along the sides - and he couldn't do a damn thing except laugh harder. The cuffs had been put on him before he woke up, as usual. Three straps pinned each ankle. His feet wouldn't move.
This had been happening every fucking day. He could still manage to laugh during the first couple hours...

It seemed like he'd been getting fucked with for a month.
The voice that teased him sounded like a woman. He'd tried everything to beg "her" to stop, and then it became his personal mission just to get her angry. But it never worked. The voice was always... perky.
He had no idea where he was.

The gloves trailed down his soles and back up, just enough pressure to make him laugh - and moving at the right speed to keep him laughing. It seemed like he was just shy of being able to kick out the minimum amount of laughter that would make the tickling something he could tolerate.
After a couple days, this tickler had learned right where to keep him so it was just too much. Hours stretched into days, this way. Or the gloves and brushes tickled him right at the point where he was dying to laugh, or cum. Riding the edge. All fuckin' day. He was allowed to sleep - usually - and then it started all over again.
"Fifty-eight minutes to go," the voice said helpfully. "Nonstop tickling."
He whooped a few times, grinding his ass into the mattress.
Fingers slipped between his toes. Almost dainty. Even the least contact there made him howl. Bay like a wolf.

His voice started cutting out. When it was silent - just huffing air, but still laughing his ass off - he knew the hour was about half over. That was the routine.
Oh, shit, he thought, thirty more minutes of this...
The smooth texture of the fingers, riding the oily skin, made it harder and harder to think.

A lifetime later, the most unbearable rubbing started on his belly. New gloves, sloppy with oil.
Arching, he shouted laughter at the ceiling. His wrists were extended above his head and tightly held down against the mattress. They wouldn't move either.
There was nothing else he could do except quiver. The hands could've cut him a little slack - but they didn't. They really knew how to make him thrash. Rocking only made it harder to deal with the tickling. Moving around was useless. He knew that. But the first hour of the day was when his body learned it all over again. Week after week, the same damn thing.
"Enjoy the tickling," his tormentor said, actually sounding sympathetic. Encouraging him.
Desperately, he shook his head as hard as he could. It was impossible to stand one of the gloves skating and kneading, much less two. And later there would be twenty-four. Sure as night followed day... and one morning followed another, here, with the cheery "Good Morning!" and the horrible first stroke of oily fingers.

As the gloves extended their teasing work to his pecs, making any kind of noise was already beyond him.
Slowly, they rolled and buffed and pinched his nipples. Moving in any direction was a complete disappointment - already. Not even an hour into each scorching, unending day, he was tickled until the small comforts of writhing and laughing were taken away. There was so much more tickling in store. He couldn't even think about the next sixty seconds because it just made him get all... fuzzy. That felt like the bastards were really winning. They could work on his body, but he hated to let them shred his mind too. Whether he fought it or not, the gloves and feathers and brushes and... so many more gloves tickled the piss out of him. Always waking up again for another long day. The tickling never ended. Every hour meant more -
"Five minutes to go," the voice informed him. "Then you eat. And guess what happens to you - all morning? Tickling. That's right. And after lunch - you guessed it. More tickling. One, two three, four full hours of personalized tickling. Dinner will be followed by a nap, today, so then you won't get four, but six more hours... full of tickling."
He found the ability to chuckle a few times, silently, and then he just gulped for air.
"Then you sleep. Get rested up for day number nineteen. It'll be filled with lots and lots of tickling, too. Solid tickling, all day."
Each animated finger left a deep, dark... thrill in its wake. Every one of them kept on the move.

After he panted for awhile, the wrist-cuff straps were loosened. A big pillow was shoved under him, and a thick strap was puled over his chest. It wasn't very tight, but the message was clear. The preparations were done quickly, as always, and the bedsite table rolled up.
Three bottles of water, a little cup of pills and a covered plate were on it...
There was a lot of food. He was really hungry in the morning. Hot, and fairly bland - egg whites, a mild cheese on top, a big mound of fake bacon - his breakfast tasted better than any hospital food he'd come across. He tore through it, at first, pretty much as fast as the fork would move.
He sat there for maybe another ten minutes, trying to fall asleep. His feet wouldn't let him. They were still tingling like crazy. Oiled, captured, and about to get attacked again.
The restraints were always snug. Dammit. It didn't matter if he was sitting or hanging. His feet got extra straps to anchor them...
All of the amazement was gone. Days ago, he quit thinking that maybe it would end soon. The schedule was almost always the same. That maddening voice had said there would be another day of tickling after this one, and he couldn't even handle the thought of it starting again now.
It had never crossed his mind before that tickling could go on all day. He'd never imagined that anyone would... study it, learning not only how to keep a guy from getting used to it - going numb, or coping with it - but varying how and where to tickle so it kept getting hotter and hotter. The technique was perfected to make the torture, which was overwhelming pleasure, gradually peak after a whole fuckin' day.
And it was consuming more of him as the days went on. Whether it made sense or not, he was clearly becoming more ticklish -
Oh, no. They touched down.
He jumped, but of course his legs didn't really move. The fingers kept raking across his soles again.
"Three hours," the voice announced, happy as it could be. "Here you go."
"Nooo-ooooooo..." How many hundreds of gloves had the tickler gone through? He was willing to bet there were boxes and boxes in the next room, gallons of oil -
That image kicked him over the edge. The whispery, pathetic laughter shot out of him. Kick, snap, strain, turn, bounce, arch... Check. No good.
Still stuck.
He eased back down.
The fingers dragged heavily, working their way from heel to ball, oiling every inch. They could still make the most astonishing, mind-warping power shoot up his body. Nowhere to go. He couldn't laugh it all out. The pileup of energy just fuckin' magnifed each hand's touch.
Scrubbing, almost. Continouous, solid. About an hour before they stopped - but only to give him water, and make sure he was ready for more. They knew that combing his feet like this just tore him apart, but it kept on coming.
He kicked at the cuffs again. Just a little spasm. Pathetic, hopeless.
Gloves were going to fill the whole damn morning, again. No matter what -
He shrieked, but even he couldn't hear it. Laughing, laughing...

More hands joined in. Slowly petting his belly, and his thighs, they didn't mind fingering his nuts for awhile, or squeezing around his neck. Anything more than a twitch was already beyond him.
It was a thoroughly unbearable day - and when he was forced to drink some water, the truth came as a dull shock just like it always did...
That hadn't been a whole day. Just an hour.
Double that, and it would be time for lunch. All too soon they'd start again. Four more hours. He couldn't even grasp it anymore. After dinner, and a desperately needed nap - five more hours of tickling.
The nightmare that had seemed like a whole day would be repeated eleven more times.
That was a real day, in their inhuman hands. And after he slept the cycle would recur as many times as they wanted.
He wasn't getting less ticklish, either. On the contrary...
Eleven more eternities. It was too much to comprehend.

"Ninety minutes until lunch," the voice said reassuringly. "Jam-packed with tickling."
That roused him - oh, not that he'd been able to sleep. More like it snapped him out of the womb of slippery hands that encased him. All that sensation was not going to be ignored.
The ability to laugh was long gone. He saw fingers diligently moving in his armpits, and more covering his legs. Brushes kept his dick hard. Unbelievable pleasure, there.
With his mouth hanging open, he scanned the room again - as much of it as he could see. There had to be somebody else. The tickler was going to keep on going if nobody came around. One look and they'd feel sorry for him. Make it stop.
Each glove looked as if it had just inflated and come to life. No knuckles underneath the rubber...
He felt like such a moron. No one would be coming. It was a fantasy. A dream. He just didn't want to let it go - a human face, looking at him and gasping. Or maybe they'd frown. And soon, oh yeah, oh fuck, please, the gloves and feathers would all stop. And the face would stay right there until the cuffs were unchained. In the bad version, the rescuer left early - and fifty hands pulled him back down, reattaching the chains, so that eight gloves and a bottle of oil could rush down to punish him for almost getting away. Or he imagined making it to his truck and locking the doors, absolutely desperate to light a cigarette before the other car's taillights disappeared around a curve - and strong hands stopped the lighter an inch or two from his smoke, turning the steering wheel the wrong way and driving him to another padded room hidden in the trees.
There was no way they were... just going to stop. He pounded his head on the pillow to emphasize it. No face, filled with mercy, would show up. It was never, never gonna happen. He had to believe that. Nine and a half hours left today, and dammit, the tickling was going to keep right on coming no matter what.
"You're going to feel every second. Every finger," the voice chuckled.
A condom was rolling down over his meat.

Eventually moving at all was impossible. Laughing was a distant memory.
But the slippery fingers kept on moving. And he felt it more and more...
It didn't matter how much he yelled or cried. The tickling always continued.

802

All good. He took another drag and let the smoke ooze out, picking up another four boxes. There were already about eighteen pairs of gloves in his kit-bag. His ID only got him onto the fourth floor - without logging his presence, anyway - and that was accessories. But the other times he'd boosted these gloves, the vintage stores had paid top dollar. They were the fuckin' top of the line. He had a pair on, himself.
But this new batch had a secret loss-prevention feature...
It was infused, somehow, in the wholesaler's warehouse. The result was simply that the leather goods were aware of their purpose, and eager to fulfill it. One pair stayed conscious at all times, in case they were moved en masse - like two other batches before them had been.
That was happening. By the time their boxes had been shoved into his kit-bag, all of the gloves had been awakened. Some were already slipping out of their boxes.
He chuckled and moved on to the belts. Packing about ten or fifteen - polished leather whose purpose was to encircle a man and hold snug.
Then, mainly because the price they'd fetched was so high, he went for the women's opera gloves...

By the time he made it to the shoe care counter, the merchandise in the kit-bag was just starting to shift around.
. . .

Oh, fuck - this was a nightmare! The gloves were determined to tickle the shit out of him. Nobody knew, either...
Roaring with panic, he swatted at the magic hands. Some had clamped onto his ribs and were squeezing. He yowled and squeaked as the fingers tightened a little more, shifting this way and that. Then his hands were prying at the fingers -
Until other gloves snagged his wrists. They pulled his arms away from his body.
Hopping with frustration, in the spasms of more tickling than he could stand, his laughter climbed up into weak screams.
More gloves scrabbed into his armpits... and there wasn't a damn thing he could do to stop 'em now.
The fire swept over his torso for a long time.

He panted wearily, opening his eyes.
His shirt was wet. To his shame, so were his briefs. That got him moving.
First he rolled over. So shaky. After a minute, he could stand up.
A light clicked on. Maybe thirty yards away, a crowd of gloves was hanging in the air -
Now moving toward him.
With a squeal, he started backing up. Nothing was more important than putting a door between him and all those psychotic tickling fingers. He ran until he saw one, and the thought occurred that maybe he was being herded.
No time to think it over. It was a storeroom, and he flew inside. Slamming the door.
And of course, the light clicked on.
Fearfully, he turned - to see a half-dozen gloves holding brand new feather dusters.
A yell jumped out of his throat. He opened the door... just in time to admit all the other gloves. Most of them grabbed his limbs, and a few closed the door again. Now he was really screwed.
They wasted no time pulling his jacket off, and his shirt.
Horrorstruck, he fought with all he had as they yanked off his shoes and socks.

It had to be an hour.
Unbelievable - and it kept increasing. They were getting better at tickling. That was scary. Of all the things they could do...
He gathered his clothes and limped to the elevator. There were no gloves in sight, but in a way it didn't matter if he was careful. They could jump him anytime.
No sign of a single animated hand, though.
With massive relief he punched the button for the first floor.
The doors closed, and he started to descend -
Stopping suddenly.
"No," he wailed, voice all raspy.
The access panel in the ceiling swung up.
Dozens of gloves - some leather, some satin. In no time they had him laid out on the floor, pinned tight...
Fingers dug in again.

There was a nagging pain.
He woke up - and found his wrists tied together, hung from the ceiling. All of his clothes were gone now. There was a silk scarf tied tight between his jaws.
He didn't recognize the small, empty room.
The gloves had decided to keep their new plaything around for awhile.
Pulling didn't change his predicament... but he didn't really believe it, not completely, until the door opened.
Gloves were carrying things and dropping them.
Candy bars. Bottles of water. Bags of peanuts. They must've raided the snack shop downstairs.
And two had brought him packs of cigarettes.
This cannot be happening, he thought numbly. Not to me.

803

Checking the self-test log, he flips his phone open without even looking at it...
"Hello?"
"Don't think about my gloves."
Click.
He blinks. That voice...
Instantly he's nineteen again. Howling, and bucking, until he just can't move. The memories are too much, and they're not even as vivid as they used to be.
No, no, no.
After five years without getting kidnapped he quit looking over his shoulder. The bastard was busy with other dudes.
I'm thirty-one, he thinks. All that time.
Well, _tickler_ did say it would look him up again.
Shit.

"_name_!"
He looks up. _name2_ is looking concerned. Did he yell, just now?
"You okay?"
No, he thinks wildly. Save me. It's gonna...
"I guess," he finally says.
"You were out of it, there. Haven't moved a muscle in, like, two minutes."
"Sorry," he mumbles automatically - thinking about the painter's brushes, oh fuck, tracing the crack of his ass. Hours, and more hours. Like it can just never get enough of him. This can't be happening again. It just can't.
"You're still... frozen," _name2_ says.
"No," and he makes himself lower the phone, standing up. "I just..."
"Bad news?"
Well, fuck, he doesn't know what to say to that.
. . .
 

The car is turning.
Damn restraints...
He wants to scream, and just keep screaming. No more tickling, it's too insane to take -
A glove curls carefully over his mouth. There goes the chance to yell for help. Of course.
The door opens, and another guy is shoved inside. Slam, shift, peel out.
He's a fighter. Hooded. Rope has his arms stuck together, in front of him. He leans forward, and then yanking with his arms doesn't change anything. Tied to his ankle-ropes, maybe...
Off comes the hood.
"Dammit!," he explodes, shaking his head. A mullet. Angry eyes.
"Not you, too."
The newcomer looks over. His eyes widen, as recognition dawns. "What is this?," he yells. "Are you - oh, shit. Tied. This is insane. What's the deal -"
He jumps.
"My shoe just came off," he says, looking down.

The next stop is right alongside a huge fuckin' musclebound dude. Buzz cut, tight black t-shirt, black jeans and tennies. Handcuffed, behind his back.
A gun is poking him between the shoulder blades.
The nearest back door opens, and he piles into the car. The driver senses a certain lack of fight, there - but already the car punching it, fishtailing until they damn near clip a lamppost, and there's some big hurry to get on the freeway. Take these three poor sons of bitches to a place where - if the thick cackling which pours out of the second guy is any indication, will be truly, unbearably thorough. Fuck. Tickling. And nobody's ever gonna believe this, not any more than they did the last times.

There's something dreamlike about it. He's trying to find some distance...
The car was pulled into an old warehouse, and a dozen hands curled around his arms. Further in, marched through the dark - all three men, no matter how much they fought and twisted.
A nightmare playroom, all set up. A fan was already running, quietly, somewhere overhead. Ventilation. No other sounds, yet. The fuckin' fan was already on, dammit. Waiting for the hunt to be successful.
Maybe it had been an old cooler, because the padded door was incredibly thick.
The other dudes' clothes were coming off. So were his, but it was too scary to watch. Then he might believe this was real. Metalhead had tattoos, but he was struggling too much for _name_ to make 'em out. The weightlifter had boxer shorts on - until they were ripped away.
All three guys were naked.
Weightlifter was dragged to an enormous set of stocks. Metalhead was being laid on a mattress. Pipes hung over him, on chains.
And a rack, almost vertical, was _name_'s destination.
No matter what they did, the cuffs wrapped and buckled.
The big guy sat on thick foam, with his legs slightly bent. A set of stocks closer to his chest trapped his wrists... and his feet were there, big and restless. Fuckin' locked in.
Metalhead's limbs were padlocked to the bars. Feet and hands lifted up there, and apart. He fought all he could...
And _name_, he was stretched out like a big human 'X'.
A hand let go of his mouth. The others, too - they were yelling, and cussing. All of them. _name_ did it automatically... but the sound was terrifyingly weak. Padding all around.
The lights dimmed most of the way.
Music - a fuckin' orchestra? It was like 50's makeout music. No singer -
The captives were gonna provide the vocals, _name_ realized.
All set. The cuffs were as real as real could be, and he couldn't do much more than sling his ass back and forth.
Something came into the single beam of light.
A feather. Big, and brown, with a point -
More. A whole line.
The men all flailed and screamed. A good dozen feathers lined up... and began to move. Splitting up.
Tickling for everybody.
Horrendous tickling.
_name_ could yank and babble all he wanted, but that didn't stop the impossibly soft edges from touching his feet... and his pecs.

The laughter, in their cell, went from truly insane to weak and labored. Twenty, thirty minutes - _name_ couldn't be sure - of feathers never pausing. Each of the other guys hit loud, truly frantic peaks. So did _name_, but he was locked on the faint shape of the snickering weightlifter. Laughing like a machine, now, a very strained sound. Intense.
_name_ found it so much easier to pay attention to the other guy's fever, and not his own.

At long last, the feathers left him alone.
He caught his breath, knowing something even more grueling was on tap.
A glove paused in the light. Dripping with oil.
All of them screamed and thrashed around.
_name_ counted an even dozen before they split up.
Obscenely arousing fingers got personal with his armpits, and his knees.
Fireworks. Inside. These were much bigger explosions than just watching a show in the sky.

He jerked around for awhile, and then the impact seemed to kick up a notch or two. Torture, his mind kept saying - except it felt good. Definitely pleasure. Tortured with pleasure. Unable to move a muscle, after ten or fifteen more minutes. Hard as rock, too.
The other prisoners giggled and yelped. Just done in, like _name_ was. It felt way too good, and that was distantly infuriating. The gloves showed a creepy devotion to their task, too.

Water.
Oh, yeah...

It looked like a toothbrush.
"Oh, hell no," he sighed, voice all scratchy.
More of 'em, in single file. Twelve unthinkable tickling tools - on their way over.

804

"There must be some kind of mistake," he says automatically.
Nothing happened - yet - but if he made any move, except walking inside, there'd be a response. Damn right. This room, this... fuckin' cell was filled with bondage shit, and the door had too many locks for a place where people wanted to be. It was a real dungeon. And he was halfway inside already.
 

When he got the job, Zax didn't mean much to him. Just another corporation that made cigarettes 'n shit...
They were bigger than he realized, but that didn't affect his job any. Shit, a year earlier he would've been glad to work in a warehouse with all that stuff to smoke - and an employee discount too - but he hadn't even snuck a drag in a good six months. He thought he could handle the temptation. His ex-wife said he wouldn't last a week.
It was almost two weeks, but only 'cause there was no way he'd let her prediction be right.
Hell, it was only a matter of time. Even though it was against the law, he'd seen two guys smokin' when the interviewer walked him around. The day he started working they told him how it was. Unofficial indoor smoking area - how cool was that? It was okay for anybody to slip into the warehouse and have a cigarette. They had seriously beefed up the ventilation system, just so the nonsmokers wouldn't have to deal with it. The other guys pointed out the three people who got irritated... but they sorta had power over everybody else, where this one thing was concerned, and two of 'em didn't want that to change. The other one was his boss, who'd quit a long time ago and had pretty much surrendered to the inevitable. So long as he and everybody didn't blow smoke right in their faces, they got along great. Like adults.
He'd been determined not to start up again, but his willpower was definitely crumbling. After work one of his co-workers had brought in twelve-pack and slammed it down. The boss frowned, but had one before he took off, warning 'em to not screw this up by doing anything stupid. And sometime during the second beer, he watched his coworker light one up - and felt a tap on his arm. Another guy had noticed the look on his face. Only a matter of time, he laughed... holding a pack out. Same brand he used to smoke.
 

Damn, he loved this job.
Not even a year went by, and Zax opened another distribution center an hour away. When the transfers were figured out, he was the lead guy on the day shift. Trippy.
 
 

Within another year his boss got promoted. None of the other shift leads wanted the bullshit... so he was suddenly a supervisor. Two flings with women in the offices were under his belt, and his current girlfriend was definitely pleased.
 

[Mysterious European family with a vast fortune...
Grandpa was a fetishist - one of the best financial decisions he ever made was helping to found a secret, elite BDSM fraternity.
The TMs moved in later...]
 
 

He blows out the smoke raggedly. "I don't get it."
"Okay," the older man said, "Hit me."
"It's like a secret club? For tickling?"
"Whole new level of 'secret,' but - yeah."
"Devoted to tickle torture."
Older guy shook his head immediately. "No. Wait. I think... What does that phrase mean to you?"
He thinks about it. "Duh. Working me over as hard as they can. Making it hurt."
"That's what they've been doing, huh?"
"Yeah."
Older guy just keeps looking at him.
"Well, they're definitely working up to it," he says lamely.
"You'd think so," older guy says sympathetically. "I remember now. Been there. This will seem cruel, but the sooner you know the better. They're not after a peak."
"Well, that's... bullshit. They are too."
Older guy shakes his head, and thinks a sec. "Tickle torture is about scaling new heights. That'll keep happening to you, but it's not the main reason."
"You're crazy."
"Not torture. They call it the T-life."
He snorts.
"If they're not after pushing as hard as they can..."
Oh, no, he thinks. This guy is really nuts. It can't be.
"Say it," old guy says softly. "Get used to the idea."
"As long as they can."
"And you'll be okay. I mean it."
Stunned. Like he's underwater. Looking up at the older guy.
"I did my time. They let me go, I still had a life. Really."
"How long?"
Shaking his head, older guy reconsiders. Frowns. "Don't pin your hopes on m-"
"Dammit! How long? For you?"
"Eleven years."
 

[many months later]
They lit his cigarette and picked him up.
Out of the cell, and down the hall... and he tugged mechanically on the smoke, no longer looking around. They were taking him to room where the tickling would blow the top of his head off. There were dozens of cells in the place. At least he had these few minutes of peace.
The gloves carted him along, and turned left. The hot tub today, maybe. Or one of the violet room setups. He shivered. But even that was automatic. He'd suffer through the pleasure, wake up as alert as he was now and do it all over again.
A hundred times, now, he'd thought he was losing his mind. Not the constant feeling of... being about to snap. Really something different. Then he forgot about it under the bombardment. But during the past couple days something was persistent...
A doorway opened - at the end of the hall.
This was new. Same thing, when they'd taken him to wherever he was going. Damn sure.
Upstairs. Then, another flight. The ticklers had a new torment in store. Whoopee.
He took a bored drag.

The room was three flights above his usual stomping grounds. Padded bench, backrest -
TV monitors.
Huh?
After they locked the door, and set him down, they took off the restraints. He waited glumly for different cuffs to levitate into position.
One of the monitors lit up.
STAY
He looked around, puzzled. Like he had a choice?
A shiny metal disc floated up to him. It was about the size of a quarter, except about a quarter-inch thick. Suddenly it slammed against the side of his throat.
SAY SOMETHING, the screen displayed.
"Ow," he complained. "That hurt."
LIKE THOSE COMBS MOVING SLOWLY UP AND DOWN YOUR CALVES? THAT KIND OF HURT?
That was one of the worst kinds of tickling, for him. Raw fear took over. Not that again, not the the combs, aw please...
"Please," he started to say.
SSSSSH. IF YOU TRY TO GET UP, YOU'LL BE ROLLED OVER AND CUFFED. THEN - THE COMBS WILL ARRIVE. UNDERSTAND?
He nodded quickly.
AND THEN THE FEATHERS WILL COVER YOUR FACE.
"No," he yelped, way past embarrassment. It just didn't pay in this place. He'd had nightmares - not about feeling smothered, because he could always breathe. The feathers tickled so much that he never wished for unconsciousness as hard... and his cheeks weren't anywhere near that ticklish before.
Somebody knew all about his weaknesses.
"I'll sit right here," he finally said. "No cuffs?"
NOT IF YOU BEHAVE.
"Uh, thanks."
A pack of smokes floated to him.
SOMETHING DIFFERENT TODAY.
"Uh-oh," he mumbled.
YOU GET TO DECIDE HOW YOU'RE TICKLED TONIGHT.
A groan sighed right out -
IT DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU DO...
Three other screens lit up.
Naked guys, in restraints. Other prisoners.

"Now hold on," he said reflexively.
CHOOSE ONE, TO START.
"Why?"
CHOOSE.
The youngest guy was Mexican. T-life tats all over him. Not all that sweaty, yet.
All three would be tickled to the point of endurance today, no matter what. He knew the drill.
"That one," he said, pointing.
The other screens went dark -
And then they showed the latin guy from different angles.
PICK A LOCATION.
"What?"
PICK A SPOT WHERE TODAY'S TICKLING WILL START.
"Get real."
TEN SECONDS.
"I don't wanna..." It was all so pointless. Fighting. A huge, well-run organization was making sure they all got tickled, endlessly. He sighed. "Belly."
NOW PICK A TOOL.
Do I go easy on him, he wondered, or is this a test to see what a bastard I am?
"Feathers. Uh, the ostrich."
TEMPO?
"You mean, like, the pattern -"
SPEED.
He felt guilty. This wasn't cool. If the guy only knew... or maybe he'd come up with suggestions for the torment of -
TEN SECONDS.
"Mix it up," he said hopelessly. "Start real slow."
Sure enough, ostrich plumes started drifting into view.
The dude struggled - for about five seconds. Then he slammed back, looking about as disgusted as possible. There was no point. He'd done this dance too many times.
Four airy tips started to tease, and he locked up. Gritting his teeth. Shaking his head a time or two, his mouth opened suddenly. And he was chuckling. No smile at all.
"Do I have to, y'know, watch this?"
IT'S YOUR DECISION. YOU MAY SLEEP, OR REQUEST A BOOK.
"That long, huh."
ONE HOUR.
He felt sick. That wasn't the end of it. "And then?"
YOU WILL DECIDE WHERE AND HOW HE'S TICKLED NEXT.
"This is really sinister," he said. "But I guess you know that."
TICKLING IS FUN.
"For _you._ Doing the tickling - sure."
TICKLING FOR LIFE.
That shut him right up. He had to be psychotic now. Imagining all of this.

[later - a replay. All that he picked for the latin guy is visited on his ass.
Tragic fuckin' mistake, there, to see if that dude had it as bad when his calves were combed. Oh, fuck, fuck...]

805

It was just another motel room. I opened a drawer, looking for a phone book -
Something flew at me.

The room had changed. White padding...
Something was around my neck. My fingers found a chain there, with some kind of medallion. My clothes were all gone.
Suddenly I started taking a deep breath.
It almost seemed like the chain was alive -
I noticed movement behind me. Turning, I saw a big bed... covered with a black rubber sheet. Oil glistened on it -
Cuffs appeared above the bed.
I stood still, more relaxed than I thought I'd be, as the cuffs came over and wrapped around my wrists. Another pair trapped my ankles. Straps were next - clipping on, and pulling me gently to the mattress. And it seemed like I should fight, but overall I felt so good...

More straps wound themselves around my waist, upper arms and shins.
I really couldn't move. The oily rubber felt weird under me. The padding all around me made a word come to mind - "soundproofed". Like everything else, there was a definite reason for that. I had the idea that there was no one who could possibly hear me anyway. Thinking about yelling for help didn't seem to translate to being able to do it.
The chain and pendant were warm. Somehow I was the reason why. Getting me here, and now helpless, was going to do something the medallion needed...
I felt something near my cock, and raised my head -
A long black feather had been laid across my crotch.

I was going to be tickled.
That didn't seem to be possible. The perfect setup, with me restrained and all. I didn't like the idea. It even seemed like I should've been more concerned. Panicky.
The feather rose above me, and turned into a shiny black glove. Its fingers made a quick gesture - and suddenly there was another one.
As they descended to my chest, I started squirming around. My last chance, it seemed, was if they weren't really going to do it. Maybe I'd wake up -
The fingers started to massage my pecs.

Oh, shit, it felt wonderful and dangerous. I was strapped down so tight...
The fingers strayed - as I knew they would - and crept into my armpits.
I wanted to... complain, or beg. All that came out was a stream of lazy chuckles.
The gloves lifted up, gestured - and doubled.
There was time to shake my head, but the fingers started back in.

Being stretched out was not helping. I was more ticklish than I expected, and the gloves could work as long or as hard as they wanted. My giggles turned to belly-laughs. I could rock a little, from side to side, but they just moved faster.
The result was the feeling of a steady, unbearable stream of electricity throbbing all the way down my sides. The leather wasn't going to let me scoot away from the fingers. They'd only been tickling for a couple minutes, and my whole body was caught. The gloves covered my ribs, and dug into my armpits... and I cackled harder, trying to get free.
It felt good, and completely unbearable.

Five minutes turned into ten. Twenty. It felt like a year.
The gloves finally let go of me. I laid there, panting for breath, feeling the sweat roll down my neck.
Pulling feebly, I looked at the pair of gloves that were only an inch or two above my left side...
They weren't done with me.
Somehow I knew it for an absolute certainty. The tickling had just barely gotten started.
As I strained to pull the arm-straps loose, the gloves gestured - and then each was holding a small toothbrush. They all turned toward my feet, and pointed with the brushes as if they held magic wands -
Chrome and leather stretched my toes apart.
"No," I begged, fighting harder than ever. But I watched the gloves gather over my soles... and put each brush to use.

806

The bigger animals are easiest to read. Strong signals are emitted.
A few of them are in a large space covered with metal. As the observer approaches, one of them appears outside the structure. It appears to be eating -
No, it ignites the vegetable matter and inhales. That's curious.
Simple animal pleasure flares up.
The biochemical reactions which occur as it inhales are stimulating and calming - both at the same time. That paradox is really interesting. The observer enters -
Smoke. That's the term for this behavior.
Expected pleasure has fallen slightly to .67, and experienced pleasure is still higher at .76. The observer shares in that enjoyment. That was not foreseen...
More.
The mechanism by which favored impulses register is examined. Stimulated -
Suddenly the animal makes noise. Reflex, instinct, autonomic reaction. The observer removes the emphasis.
Expected declines to .52, while experienced increases slightly to .69.
Fascinating.

The animal self-refers using "me" and "I." Communal labels are "he", "him" and "Ray." It's male. Approximately one-third of... his lifespan has elapsed, calculating from his own estimate.
It has no basis for comparison yet, but his stimulus-response mechanism is far more interesting than his appearance would suggest.
He is "having a smoke". This is a mandatory activity, in his self-image. Names and definitions of many other activities become known to it, alternate descriptors, preferred memories...
When he throws the cigarette away, Ray visualizes him-self - himself - having another. The option generates conflicting images within him. There is labor still to be performed, and another animal displays facial cues which Ray finds undesirable. His mood becomes more depressed, but only slightly, as he turns and reaches for the doorknob.
The observer doesn't understand why he would decide to forgo pleasure. Perhaps he has detected its presence, and is altering his behavior as a result? But that theory is quickly disproven. Isolating that desire to smoke, the observer increases the pleasure he expects -
Ray quickly complies.
As an experiment, his experienced pleasure is increased -
Sagging back against the building, Ray makes a primal noise of contentment and slides down to the ground.
The observer is stunned by the amount of enjoyment that it shares.
Even after it ceases augmenting his perception, the pleasure ratio is .47/.84 - inverted, somehow. More information is needed.
Ray smokes with great determination, and the observer disproportionately enjoys the result too.

It contemplates what to do next, and when to act. For the time being it allows him to return inside and continue "working". Ray would rather smoke... and then "crash".
The observer finds a variant of that plan most acceptable.

807

Last thing I remembered was stumbling out of the bar, too drunk - and hands shoving me into a cab. It was magic, though, because I couldn't see the driver...

Then I dozed off.
And now I don't know where I am.
The room is dark. I'm strapped down to a bench or something, with no clothes on. A round tube is held between my teeth, by a strap which pulls against the back of my head, and from the way the gag feels when I bite down I think it's leather.
I yell a couple times, but the volume getting out is disappointing.
This is not my idea of a good time. The straps are way too tight to move around. I'm still a little drunk, and now I'm laid out for some bastard to play with -
A door opens, and a sliver of light gets wider. Still nighttime, outside.
Clicks I can feel seem to come from the floor - and I start to move. Rolling...
 

Padded room. Nice, safe torture chamber.
Gloves are coming...
 
 

Roar and wrestle around all I want - the straitjacket is here for a reason, just like the ankle cuffs, and the fingers keep tickling and tickling until I wish I could just pass out or something. But I can't.

808

Young guy, new in town, working overnight in a "funbooth" - future peep show with automated fetish games.

He preferred to work soloauto, but the big demand during the first hour or two of his shift was scenes with two or more people. While he could always skip anything on his don't-list, the choice before midnight was usually take a few scenes that weren't solo or sit around and make no money...
So that fateful night he spanked a chick, then got the hot wax thing done to him - tight restraints, full hood. After he cleaned up, he let another boothboy tie him up and get him off with feet only. That was his least favorite deal, with only other dudes, but the pay was really good for a full climax.
Back to the showers, and there was one more group scene. Then he could relax and do his auto gigs. He was still too new to have anyone asking for him, so it was luck of the draw. Whoever wanted a boothboy that looked like him could pay to watch near-real characters and toys have their way with him...

[TM seizes the funboothshop computer. Feeds old footage into the surveillance camera port of past clients, alters the log with multiple fictional appointments.)
 

Okay. Last group scene. Whew. Tickling a dude. If he hadn't been so good at hiding his disgust, sometimes, and acting all excited, there was no way he'd survive in the booths...
He pushed open the door.
The victim wasn't there.
Shit, he thought, I'm in the wrong booth. But no, his employee number was displayed in the datacrawl. A little message display was right under the customer window, so the boys could get news and scene information - or the random safety checks - without the customers ever knowing.
There it was. His number, tickling-sub, another number, tickling-top.
Hold on. That was backwards. He wasn't the sub. That was out. Not in a million years.
He looked at the customer window and held up one finger - just one minute - and reached for the door.
And his hand hit something.
To his shock, there was a commandpad there. As if it was stuck to the side of the door handle. His right thumb landed on the scanner.
No - it was scary, but he made himself think it - actually the pad had been pressed against his thumb.
The bolt latched, suddenly. That was never supposed to happen when somebody was in the booth.
He felt a wave of fear roll through him.
"What's the matter?," a voice rumbled.
Though he didn't want to, he turned around.
Nobody was there.

There was still a chance, however slim, that this whole nightmare was a big misunderstanding. Or a practical joke the boys played on new employees. His heart was beating so fast. This was so much like the most grueling nightmare, back when he was a new boothboy...
"Hello?"
"Hey, _name._ You ready?"
Gravelly, easygoing voice.
"Ready for what?"
A feather lifted off the far shelf.
He jumped, real big, and started yanking on the door. No, no, dammit, not this, oh fuck.
"Easy," the voice said.
"I got no problem with initation shit, for new boys on the staff and such," he panted, "but I'm on to you guys. Check my don't-list." That would be enough to end this... fucked-up joke. If a boothboy forced another dude to go through something on his don't list, the aggressor would never work again. They took a real dim view of that. Dammit, teasing was fine - so long as it wasn't something that he'd already said he would never, ever, ever do for a customer.
"Uh... I booked the hour," the voice replied. "You know why?"
He leaned against the door, closing his eyes. No. I'm gonna freak out. Absolutely wig, here. "Boothguard. Where the hell are you?"
"Ah-ah-ah," the voice snickered. "We got real privacy. I disabled the audio monitor. And the video too. The boothguard is getting A/V feed that was recorded over the past week - and that dude on duty just got back from vacation. All new to him."
This wasn't really happening. Perfect, secure nightmare.
It was getting hard to breathe. "Buggy buggy!" That was the emergency code.
"Nobody can hear you," the voice said, with a cruel chuckle. "Well, except me."
"First of all," his voice was shaking badly, "customers aren't allowed inside the fuckin' booth. And I don't think you can even book an hour straight. Ever. The system won't even take half-hour scenes without me approving it ahead of time. And there's supposed to be another dude in here - the sub. I tickle him! That was the deal. No way am I g-gonna... aw, shit."
"Yes, you will."
"Open the damn door," he said.
"Me?"
"You must've hacked the computer. Security would've been in here already. I'm... at your mercy. So just give me a break and hire some dude who loves this shit. We've got subs that you hardly even have to pay, and they're all buffed out. They do private gigs. Lots more fun, but dammit, buddy, I gotta get you to leave me alone..."
"Fuck. You're really phobic."
"Help," he said, on the verge of crying.
"Who would wanna put somebody this freaked out through his paces?"
For a second he was hopeful. But the bastard didn't say anything else...
Fuck. I'm gonna die, or go insane, right in this funbooth.
Taking a couple deep breaths, he turned around. There was no hope. If the interloper had isolated him successfully, and now controlled the near-real system, he was a goner.
"That's better," the voice said, approvingly. "You're a pro."
"One question."
"Well, shoot."
"Can I see my don't-list?"
"Okay."
A monitor lit up.
Dammit. It was really happening. He wanted to believe he was asleep, but the sweat and the pounding of his heart was all too real.
"And now, my do-list."
Right at the fucking top, there. Tickling-sub.
Amazing...
I am so, so dead now.
"They told me those things were unbreakable."
"Yeah. Unless the boy thumbs an auth-pad."
"But -"
At the door - that pad was pressed against his thumb, when he was trying to bolt out. It was so ridiculous that, despite the terror, he started to laugh. "Okay. You win, alright."
"Thanks."
"Why?" So much trouble.
"You'll see."
"Are you the computer?"
"Hell, no. I like to do it direct," the voice said smugly. Beats near-real every time. You about ready?"
"Hell... no," he sighed.
A cabinet door opened -
Wrist-cuffs. Floating out. Near-real simulation.
No, wait. They were so solid. Not translucent.
The computer could wrestle him down - even with "living" rope, fluctuating gravity so well that it looked as solid as his dick. That was the whole appeal of his variety of boothwork. Anything could happen.
Those fuckin' cuffs were real.
And somehow they were on their way to him. Cruising right over.
"This isn't some kind of sim?" he asked the nearest cuff.
"No... way."

Reflexively, he fought the restraints. One thing was leading to another, and he was going to end up on the stretch-tack with horrible tickling all over his helpless, trapped body. Boothwatch wouldn't find out. It appeared inevitable, but he was sure gonna delay it as much as possible.
Incredibly strong hands got the cuffs on him - he couldn't see them at all, just the indentations they made on his skin - in about thirty seconds. Then they slowly, teasingly dragged him to the rack.
The wild-man voice chuckled softly, as they did.
"I'm gonna die," he babbled, "look, you don't know how crazy this makes me. Bad-crazy. I'm not kidding. This isn't part of the booth act, dammit, listen, you can't do this to me!"
"Up you go," the captor said.
Hands picked him right up and slammed his limbs into position. The chains snapped onto each cuff.
"Oh nooooooooo..."
The feather was coming.

. . .

"I have never," the tickler said conversationally, "seen a dude so afraid of a feather. But you lived."
"Lemme go," he panted. "Over. It's over."
The tickler thought that was fuckin' hilarious. "Over? I'm not done with you."
His night-schedule popped up on screen.
When he figured out why, he screamed.
Time blocks began turning red.
All of them. The whole fuckin' shift.
"You're going through it again," the voice decided. "Again, and again. Five more hours. Power tickling, after-climax tickling. Every square centimeter. Amphetamines. Nothing but tickling for you."
He screamed weakly.
"Glad you're excited about it too."
"Help! Why?"
"Consider this... your audition."
He froze - again. "What?"
"And I must say you've got enormous potential, _name_."
"No. Aw, no."
"I think you will. As a matter of fact, you'll be too tired to do anything else. Come work for me. The dungeon is nice and private. And it's waiting for you. So many feathers."
"Noooooooo," he moaned.
A finger touched his right sole. Oh shit, no, no, it was tickling him.
He raised his head and saw a greasy latex glove.
Another scream...

The fingers barely bore down. They tickled him slowly.
Somebody was getting to know his body, because it had hours and hours to torture him - and then, dammit, he would be carried off and locked in a dungeon. Tickling all the time. The bastard was smart enough to take it easy, so it would find out just how to make it more and more fuckin' unbearable.
He couldn't laugh any harder. Every kind of noise didn't satisfy. He wasn't filled with terror, really. Waves of impossible current spread out from the fingers.

"Please, please don't tickle me any more."
"Hey - look at that. It's time for another session."
"Fuck... nooooooooo -"
The gloves. Oh, no. He jumped around as much as he could. It was so frustrating... and shocking. He started cackling again, like a fuckin' machine. No relief in it.
How he wished the gloves would go away. Just leave.
They rubbed his torso as if they were massaging in ticklishness, and not just the oil. Something magical, not physical. Touch and polish. squeeze, scritch, and a profoundly crazymaking force he couldn't see was injected, somehow. The sensation just buried him, and every instant it slammed him in one spot or another.
He had no fuckin' defense at all. That was stunning. Worrisome.
The tickling made him squirm and twitch, whenever he was able. Crackling power from gloves to muscles, so deep down, breathtaking and rousing. It knew how to tickle with the maximum intolerability. How to keep him far from passing out. And there was such a complete lack of mercy, even after two or three utterly hysterical hours.

"I... cuh-can't," he rasped.
"You will."
They repeated that set of words a thousand times. It was all he could manage to say - as a plea, and a threat, his last capability to make it see reason. And the response was just the same.

The fingers nestled down again. He just could not believe this -
Sliding. Tickling, oh shit, absolute expert.
Whoop, squeal, bark and keen. Giggle uncontrollably. The stimulation didn't let up the least little bit.
 

[Hour after hour - another name forged at shift change, more archival footage for the video monitor.]
 
 
 

[Finally it forces another thumbprint on his resignation, ties him up -
Off to a mansion. Absent owner. Tricked-out dungeon. His new funbooth...]

809

Summer school for 18-year-old, prior to starting senior year a year late because of prior drug rehab.
Dad is "slow"... developmentally disabled.

First day - hijacked. Hair-curling tickling.

That night...
He's on thin ice with dad. No talking him into going the GED route. The alternative high school is really full of drugs, he can't go there. No way Dad would believe what happened.
With no alternative, he goes back to school the next day.
 

[Key image - his books, being set in on the same pedestal/table, only to be swept off so a box of rubber gloves or a pile of feathers can take their place.]
 

Good progress reports go home to Dad. The tickler can actually jigger the books so he'll pass.

Daily prisoner, unable to imagine anyone will believe it. Nothing else at the school seems weird, from what he can see.
 

An all-nighter, one Friday, is assumed by Dad to be him just runnin' around with his friends.

More and more all-nighters follow...
 

"Field trip," one weekend.

Then, more and more solid weekends...
 

Dad (earlier) got a letter indicating school runs until late August. It really was supposed to end three weeks earlier.
The victim has to fearfully go to the empty campus - by himself.
The tickler starts lengthening the school day.

Then it's picking him up earlier and earlier.
Finally just "escorting" him from bed to car, and later carrying him from car back to bed. Long days.

[Then - it's the day after school ended, so far as Dad knows. Victim is trying hard not to get his hopes up, as if finally it's all over, but a tickler determined enough to carry him from bed to car to cell and vice-versa may well not be done with his ass]
At the breakfast table Dad remarks about how intensely his kid smokes, but he's an adult now after all. Tells victim he oughta go camping or something until the fall term of school starts, to celebrate working so hard at summer school. The victim, horrorstricken, feels something - and looks down. Thin leather gloves are sticking out of his pocket.
No, no...
His dad gets distracted by a phone call / putting the dirty dishes in the sink.
Pressure, on his arms and hands, makes the victim pull the gloves on. They control his hands. Caught. Going straight to his "vacation," and he fears it'll last until the very morning the tickler drops him off in front of the high school...
And he's right.
 

From then on he's rarely allowed to take the gloves off. People at school mock him, but that passes.
It works him up to a good four packs a day.
So much easier to haul him into the secret tickle-dungeon it built for him, immediately after his last class ends.
 

Saturday morning... early.
The gloves are hanging over him. Beckoning.
No, he whimpers - but they wait. Nothing else will be allowed to happen.
He chain-smokes as he drives to school, parking on the street a half-block away. Nobody ever knows he's in there. All day.
And Sunday goes just the same way too.
 
 

See you signed up for tutoring, Dad says a couple weeks later.
Huh?
Dad waves another letter that arrived...
 

All semester he "studies" late-nights, over the weekends.
 
 

His grades are jiggered in the reports mailed to his dad. In reality he's pulling C's and D's.
 
 

That semester is all it took to get the degree.
Dad wants him to do the graduation ceremony, but victim had already sneered at that.
Okay, so here's your gift - a week in Florida.
Nooooo...
 
 

Dad, relieved - he's doing so well, according to the written reports from "teacher", and all the extra studying too! - decides to go to a convention. Leaving him on his own.
Another full week.
 
 

His dad gets a letter - the kid has been offered an internship at a private nature institute ("you applied for this? Ya didn't even tell me" - "uh, yeah, guess I forgot"), hints that it could lead to a scholarship. He absolutely lays down the law. Says he's read every word in the brochures, etc. sent by the institute (!?!) and will get progress reports every month. Dire threats if the kid doesn't work hard enough to make those regular reports glowing.
Victim tries every way out, but his friends don't believe the truth for a second.
Finally he packs his car, to run away - and the TM latches on smoothly.
Victim half-expects and fears to be driven back to the school, that nice private torture chamber, but no - it's driving him to the "institute," oh yes he will show up for the "program," and oh yes there will be great updates given to your dad - and an actual college certificate, hacked into a small college's computer. It will be a two-year program, but the only thing that could make him "fail" now would be escaping before the tickler can lock the cell door. But he's buried in chain, flying down the freeway on his way to the institute, so a lucky break is out. His friends will think he did skip out, and his dad will keep getting the good reports - while he, uh, continues to develop his mind.

12jun2006
 

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