Ah, the casual cruelty of college friends (F/M)

[Wade1]

I assume this story goes in this section, even though it's true.

In college, Sarah was my girlfriend's best friend, but we always had a thorny and prickly relationship--had to put up with each other because of my girlfriend, but probably wouldn't hang out otherwise. Sarah was fair-skinned with striking long dark hair and quick dark eyes; she wasn't fat but generously proportioned, with well-muscled forearms and big hands with blunt, strong fingers.

She was also quick to anger and had an occasionally discernible mean streak. She was contemptuous of people who weren't as smart as her (and there were a lot of those), and seemed to disdain me as frivolous.

It was an unfortunate development when Sarah discovered how ticklish I am; she walked into my girlfriend's dorm room shortly after my girlfriend had backed me into a chair and was tickling me with playful abandon, explaining to Sarah over my helpless giggles, "Wade's really ticklish." Periodically after that Sarah would use my newly revealed weakness against me, and each time it seemed only to increase her sense of superiority over me.

On one occasion the three of us were sitting around in Sarah's dorm room and my girlfriend left. I got up to go too but was holding a pen of Sarah's; she said "Give me that." Unwisely, perversely, I said "No." She grabbed it with one hand and quickly, efficiently tickled the side of my abdomen with the other, forcing me to let go of it.

"That's a really serious weakness you have," she said with a hint of judgmental pity.

"Well, you know," I said, bristling, "I could, I mean I can control it, if I try." I believed it at the time, too; it sounded convincing.

She nodded, skeptical. "Uh'huh." She nodded again. "Lift up your arms."

I could control it, right? I mean, ticklishness is at least as much a psychological phenomenon as a physical one, so if I just set my mind to it... "You're on," I said, putting my arms over my head.

Sarah reached for my armpits--a spot she'd never attacked before--and I jerked my arms back down. "Only rule," I said, "Not there. Anywhere but there."

Sarah suppressed a grin and said, "Okay." I put my arms up again and closed my eyes, setting my jaw and thinking really hard about very serious matters. This would work, right? This had to work. It's mind over matter. It couldn't be easier.

I felt her hands grip my rib cage. Nope. Nope. Big mistake!

My arms shot down, clamping her hands against my sides as they squeezed and tweaked and I instantly began giggling. "Okay," I tried to say, "Okay okay you win, stop!" I stumbled backwards and tumbled back onto her bed; Sarah loomed over me, as I thrashes and lurched back and forth; she just kept tickling incessantly. "Stop!!"

I had my arms pinned against her hands, bent at the elbows with my fists balled up against my chest. It is, any desperately ticklish person will recognize, an extremely instinctive posture to assume when tickled; it's also, as a defensive strategy, completely useless.

Sarah just tickled and tickled, her closed mouth twisting around the corners with a resistant smile--she didn't want to betray how much she was enjoying my suffering. She wanted my humiliation, I thought later, to exist apart from her own malice or cruelty or delight, because in a vacuum that humiliation would be all the more intolerable. She tickled and tickled as my helpless laughter reached alarming pitches. The people in the neighboring dorm rooms could have had no doubt as to what was occurring in here.

"Stop!" I pleaded, the word cascading bumpily along my prolonged laughter.

Sarah shook her head. "Nope," she said. "I'm gonna torture you," she said simply, self-explanatorily, as though it was the most natural impulse in the world, and with an accusing undertone, as though to say: if you weren't so unwise as to be this ticklish, you wouldn't be in this jam, you pussy!

Her fingers kept playing relentlessly against my ribs as I squealed and wriggled on her bed, squirming back along the bedspread but helpless to get away. Then I felt the pressure of her knees on either side of my stomach--Sarah was straddling me. Then the tickling stopped and I gasped and panted with relief; I knew she'd have to get bored with it sooner or later.

Then she grasped my left wrist with her right hand and lifted it, pinning it against the bed over my head. My mind raced as I remembered her discovery only minutes earlier and I clamped my right hand over my left armpit. Then she danced her fingers up and down my right side, forcing me to dart my right arm back over there, where she grabbed it and pinned it under her left knee.

Sarah looked down at me for a moment. Whether by design or otherwise, there wasn't anything playful or teasing in this matter, as one gets with a girlfriend or lover or affectionate friend who tickles you. We were two semi-friends who'd had semi-ugly rhetorical run-ins in the past, and this was for her just the natural outcome of it: her natural superiority expressing itself in how easily I proved to be vanquished.

So there was no anticipatory finger-wriggling, no taunts of "Kitchy kitchy koo." Having pinned me defenseless against the bed, Sarah simply and directly reached her left hand across my chest and started dancing her blunt fingertips in my helplessly exposed left underarm. Moments before her fingers alit on my underarm I couldn't stand the threat anymore and cried out "No!" but instantly dissolved into a renewed burst of shrieks and giggles, sounding more and more embarrassingly girlish with every passing moment. Limited in my movement I twitched back and forth as Sarah tickled mercilessly under my arm, enjoying the novelty of my amplified desperation. When that grew old she ran her fingers up and down my exposed left side and--I can only surmise--marveled at the inexhaustible depths of my capacity to giggle, and to be tormented.

Finally she relented. Looked at me for a moment. Then said "Now I guess all that remains is to decide how many people we tell aabout this experiment."

"None," I said, weary. "How about none?"

Sarah nodded, all business. "Fair enough." She got off the bed and I was on my way, rumpled and somewhat the worse for wear but extremely clear on the subtly shifted dynamics of my relationship with my girlfriend's best friend.

 

[nessonite1]

True or not that was a great story. 😀 Thank you for sharing with us. 😀

 

[MTJpub]

Great story and excellent title for the thread!

 

[Jenna L.]

Great story! Are there any other stories of Sarah, or any other girl, tickling you? If so, please post it.

 

[Wade1]

Sarah, cont'd

Yeah, I'm afraid Sarah tickled me more times than I can even remember. As time went by, her favorite strategy was to catch me when I was lying on my stomach (which, as I think about it, happened way more times than one would think possible; just goes to show, I guess, how much time one spends in college literally lying around). She'd sit on my butt or straddle my hips, place one hand on each side of my abdomen--the "love handle" area--and start tickling. And, y'know, not stop.

She enjoyed this particular arrangement, I'm guessing, for a couple of reasons: first, that's an especially susceptible spot for me. (A few years later when a mischievous co-worker named Jennifer would grin at me and say "I know your weak spot!" she wasn't just referring to my genral ticklishness; she was alluding specifically to that vulnerable and twitchy stretch extending from my hips to below my rib cage.) The moment Sarah's fingertips started trailing up and down that spot I would burst instantaneously into full-throated, sustained and helpless laughter, laughter that wouldn't subside until she decided to stop. It was such an explicit illustration of Sarah's brutal power over me that I confess I fully understand why she enjoyed it so much.

Second, as anyone who's desperately ticklish in that particular spot can attest, being tickled there while lying on one's stomach constitutes a maddeningly defenseless position. One clamps one's arms instinctively to one's sides, but that only covers the ribs; the arms bending forward at the elbow where they do, you're pretty much helpless to even try and cover the area under attack.

On one occasion I was sprawled on the sofa in an off-campus house watching TV while other friends occupied furniture scattered throughout the rest of the room. I hadn't even noticed Sarah entering the room but as soon as I felt someone sitting on me I feared I knew what was coming: I jerked my arms to my sides but, again, that did me no good; immediately I felt the familiarly torturous sensation of Sarah's fingers dancing back and forth from my stomach to my back, tormenting that small but excruciatingly vulnerable area of my sides.

Characteristically, I erupted instantly into loud and desperate laughter, attracting attention from everyone in the room (mostly women who, it would turn out, regarded my plight with indifference or amusement). People were saying things but I couldn't really hear them... I certainly couldn't respond, as I was completely involved in laughing hysterically in a cacophony that was starting embarrassingly more and more to sound like "hee hee hee."

As was Sarah's wont, she didn't tease me or make a big deal of the torture (nor did she pause); she left it to me to make the scene, emphasizing how disproportionate my wild reaction was to her effortless touches. (In retrospect it's funny that Sarah--so blunt and tactless, big and strong and deliberately awkward--would have been so adept at this light and lively style of tickling, her fingers gliding so gently across my ticklish sides. But then, her emphasis was on doing whatever it took to incapacitate me most completely, and this certainly fit the bill).

Finally, FINALLY, she stopped, but didn't get up. Karen, who was sitting nearby, said with a big smile: "I didn't know Wade was ticklish. He told me he wasn't ticklish!" (Which was true: on one occasion I was tickling Karen, who was very ticklish, and when she asked if I was similarly vulnerable I said no, and she--unlike most people in such situations--took my word for it; "Figures!" she'd said, doubled over and evading me.)

Sarah snorted in a derisive chuckle and said, "Uh, he's ticklish."

Karen's eyes flashed at me as she said "You lied to me!"

Matter-of-factly, her throaty voice sealing my doom, Sarah said to Karen, "Should I tickle him more?"

I didn't even have time to shake my head "no" when Karen exclaimed "Yes!!"

And so it resumed: fingers to my sides, a violent arch to my back and the room filled with cascading laughter...

 

[milagros317]

Great story, Wade. 😀

 

[Wade1]

Another Sarah-related recollection:

Sarah and my girlfriend and I were hanging around in my girlfriend's dorm room, and--as is my wont--I managed to spill coffee all over my shirt. My girlfriend indulgently offered to take the shirt down to the laundry room for me. So she did, leaving me in her dorm room, shirtless, standing across the room from Sarah.

Silence ensued. (Sarah and I often failed to find something to talk about.)

Then Sarah said, with her customary tact, "You're pretty hairy."

"Thanks," I said. More silence.

"Why are you standing like that?" Sarah asked. "Are you trying to hide... are you embarrassed that you're so hairy?"

I wasn't, for the record. And I could have said something about how Sarah had more fluffy brown hair on her muscular forearms than many women do. But I didn't. Instead, the master of the witty riposte, I said, "No."

"Then why are you standing like that?" Sarah said. "Are you afraid I'm going to tickle you?"

"No!" I said. (Also for the record: I don't know what she meant, "standing like that." My arms were crossed, but I'm convinced I was standing quite normally.)

"Why are you afraid I'm going to tickle you?" Sarah asked, a little contemptuous smile on her lips. "Are you more ticklish with your shirt off?"

"No!" I said, a little too quickly.

"You're more ticklish with your shirt off," Sarah said.

"Shut up," I said.

"I can't imagine how you could possibly be MORE ticklish," she said, her throaty voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Shut up," I said. "Stop saying that."

"Stop saying what?" Sarah said. "Ticklish?"

"Shut up," I said, only just realizing that I'd backed into the corner.

Sarah took a step toward me. "Ticklish," she said. "Ticklish. You don't like that? Ticklish. Ticklish. Ticklish."

Despite my best efforts to the contrary, now I was bending over a little at the waist, unable to fight the apprehension Sarah's behavior was triggering in me. And now she was slowly sauntering across the room toward me. I noticed her hands were slightly lifted to waist level, her fingers at the ready. Oh, crap.

"Ticklish," she said. "Ticklish. Ticklish. You don't like that word, Wade? Ticklish. Ticklish. Ticklish. Ticklish."

"I don't care about that word!" I said. Or started to say. Because Sarah had reached me by this point, and had darted her hand toward my bare abdomen, brushing her fingertips against it in a mischievous pincher motion. Needless to say, I twitched and giggled.

"God," Sarah said. "You're a mess." Then she started tickling me.

I tried to shield myself against Sarah's assault, but any really ticklish person knows how that goes: as soon as my arms jerked to cover a spot she'd just tickled, her hand would move to a new spot. For someone who wasn't a habitual tickler, Sarah had gotten devlishly good at tickling me: as I wriggled and convulsed in the corner her hands darted expertly at my sides, my stomach, my ribs and my neck, reducing me to a squirming mess.

"Ticklish," she said. "Ticklish. Ticklish."

If my ovesensitive nerve endings were my worst enemy, gravity came in a close second: as Sarah tickled and tickled, I inevitably sank to the floor. By the time my girlfriend returned from the laundry room, Sarah was looming over me and I was shrieking hysterically, emitting a particularly sharp yelp every time Sarah's blunt fingers brushed against a particularly vulnerable spot.

Sarah didn't stop when my girlfriend returned. Indeed, over my own giggling, I could hear my girlfriend say "Ooh, oh, watch this!" And the next thing I knew I felt her wickedly squeezing the tops of my knees. I threw my head back and howled as the two of them tickled and tickled to their heart's delight. Until something came along to distract them the way college students get distracted, leaving me to collect the tattered shreds of my dignity.

 

[Wade1]

This is the last Sarah story I'll be posting

At least for a while. Chiefly because it's the last instance I can remember of her inflicting sustained tickling on me. Again, Sarah wasn't a chronic tickler by habit; she just liked to make me miserable and found tickling to be an enjoyable means to that end.

It was another time when I was lounging on the couch in the off-campus house's living room, sitting up this time with my legs spread across the sofa, lazily flipping channels on the house's TV. It was early on a weekend morning--for college students, anyway--so I was the only one up.

Then Sarah wandered in from outside, presumably looking for someone to go to breakfast with. We exchanged low-key greetings, and then she watched me switch channels for a while.

Then she said, "Those socks are ridiculous."

I was wearing a pair of socks she'd made fun of before--white athletic socks that were positivly threadbare on the bottoms. She'd mocked me for not throwing away socks with that many holes.

More silent TV-watching, and then she ambled over to the sofa and sat down with the force of early-morning gravity. Of course, she sat on my legs. My calves, to be precise. I made an exaggerated "oofing" sound, and she scowled at me.

More silent TV-watching.

Then, inevitably, Sarah said, "Your feet aren't ticklish, are they, Wade?"

Now understand: up until now, I'd taken some pointless pride in the fact that I'd never begged or pleaded or otherwise humiliated myself to Sarah when she tickled me. Yes, in the throes of the tickling I'd say stuff like "Stop" and "Quit it," but those are reflexive responses as uncontrollable as the laughter. But I'd never beseeched her not to tickle me; I'd never voiced my weakness in that abject manner, knowing she'd enjoy it too much.

But every man has his breaking point. And for me, that point is located precisely on the bottoms of my feet. I was convinced that if Sarah tickled my feet with the same malicious relentlessness she'd shown when tickling my sides, my stomach or my underarms in the past, I would certainly lose my mind and possibly lose bladder control. So the pleading came pouring out.

"Sarah, don't," I said. "Please don't. You wouldn't. Not my feet. I'll do anything. Tickle me anywhere else, just not my feet."

Not surprisingly, these pleas had no effect on Sarah, other than her enjoying them thoroughly.

"I'll make you a deal," she said, casually lowering the fingers of her left hand toward my soles. "I'll only tickle in the places where your socks have holes." Since the bottom of one of my socks was nothing but one big hole from toes to heel, this was no consolation to me, and she knew it."

"Please, no, no," I said. "Everyone's sleeping, it'll wake them up."

"Then don't make any noise," Sarah said, the little bow of her mouth twisted into a delighted grin.

"Please, Sarah, you wouldn't--"

But she would. And did. She started dragging her fingertips lightly up and down the bottom of one of my feet and my reaction was, alas, instantaneous: every muscle in my body convulsed, I threw myself back against the couch, and I started laughing in full-throated hysteria.

"Oh, my God," Sarah said, presumably in reaction to the sensitivity of my feet.

I thrashed on the couch, rocking back and forth, my arms folded uselessly on my chest, my head thrown back, and all the while I laughed and giggled at the top of my lungs.

"Shhhh!" Sarah said. But she didn't stop running her fingers up and down my twitching foot.

Desperate, I sat up, lurching forward and trying to grab at Sarah's arms. But since I was in a frenzy she fended me of easily and shoved me back down in a reclining position, tickling my foot all the while.

Through my laughter I shouted "Stop stop stop stop!" but Sarah of course did not comply.

At some point during this frantic chaos people started stumbling into the living room to see what had so rudely awakened them: dudes in their boxer shorts, women from upstairs clutching their robes closed over their sleepwear. Saying things, I eventually realized, like "What the fuck is going on?" and "Wade, shut up!"

I had, of course, no capacity to shut up, at least not as long as Sarah's blunt strong fingers wandered gently and viciously up and down the exposed sole of my foot.

"Please no more," I said, the words cascading over my own laughter. "Someone help!"

Sarah added her other hand to the endeavor--now sliding her fingertips up and down both feet--and raised her voice to tell the assembled crowd: "We'll be done in twenty or thirty minutes!" Then I guess everyone wandered away, grumbling; soon a half-dozen stereos could be heard switching on to drown out my cacophonous laughter. A few of the women and one guy stayed behind to watch my torture, apparently considering it to be suitable weekend-morning entertainment.

I was shrieking by this time, twisting and wriggling so much that my shirt was riding up on my abdomen. At my wits' end, I ultimately slid off the sofa onto the floor, but my calves remained pinned firmly beneath Sarah and her tormenting of my squirming feet continued unabated.

Finally--long bfore twenty or thirty minutes had passd, I'm sure, but what's the meaning of time when you're being tickled?--she paused and said "What will you give me if I stop?"

My integrity and dignity having been thoroughly tickled out of me, I panted and said "Anything you want. Anything you want."

She smiled haughtily and said "You muct call me Queen for the remainder of the year."

"Okay," I said. "Anything."

I didn't really call her Queen for the rest of the year, and either she didn't notice or had lost interest in the whole thing. Either she forgot about or got bored with the tickling games or she considered them unnecessary now that she'd officially broken me and established her superiority over me, but I think Sarah never tickled me again after that.

(Some of the women who'd witnessed the tickling, of course, did, but few of them had Sarah's evil streak and capacity for sustained cruelty.)

 

[Wade1]

And in a very weird coincidence:

Out of the blue I just got an email from Sarah, after years of noncommunication; she'll be traveling this way and is looking for a place to crash. (Clearly she knows nobody else in my particular locale.)

I'm happy to host her, of course. And I'm guessing that since it's literally been years since last she tickled me, there's no danger of her revisiting that habit. But out of a sense of self-preservation I think I'll make a point of trying not to remind her.

 

[Darth Vegeta]

wow good story

 

[milagros317]

Great series of stories, Wade. 😀

In your place, I would be hoping that Sarah would remember and resume when she visits. 😀

 

[Wade1]

That's a good point. And I'll admit I'm torn. But since Sarah's intent was never particularly playful (and definitely not erotic, regardless of whatever antagonistic sexual tension might have existed in our vexed relationship), I'll admit to being wary of her potential determination to make me suffer. Like any ticklish person, I can only take it for so long before desperation sets in, and history suggests that Sarah is plenty capable of taking it well beyond that point.

We shall see...

 

[bigred651]

is sarah not ticklish at all ?

 

[Wade1]

I could try and find out. It'll be a perilous risk, of course.

 

[bigred651]

just think of all the payback you owe her, you'll see the risk are worth it !

 

[Darth Vegeta]

Indeed. A small peck to the ribs. A small test than... revenge later by pushing her or tying her 😛
And if she protests during it... remind her off what she did to you 😛
Besides who knows if you pull it off in a decent way... you might end up in something good.

 

[crydun]

love that story! I'd love to tickle you!!!! And someone needs to get even with Sarah!!

 

[Wade1]

Well, all the posts on this thread have almost convinced me to try and get even with Sarah when she swings through town... I just can't help but anticipate that she'll turn out to be insufficiently ticklish, though, and that the ensuing tickle-fight will turn against me, and that I might end up very very very very very very sorry...

Almost convinced it's worth the risk, though. ALMOST.

 

[Darth Vegeta]

hehehe. Get her in a compromising situation. A situation she will have trouble moving. Go for her ribs and armpits to weaken her.
Than... the feet.
Best is to get cuffs.

 

[Wade1]

I never followed up on Sarah's visit when she was passing through town. People here had recommended that I see if she was ticklish and try to get revenge on her; it sounded like a good idea at the time. It wasn't.

I'd waited for an opportunity to tickle her to arise, preferably one when she was semi-helpless or otherwise unlikely to tickle back, and one never did. So it the night before she was to leave, I was running out of time and opportunities, and as she packed her stuff up I went up behind her, grabbed her sides, and tickled.

Nothing.

She turned around. I did it again. Nothing.

She smiled. "I'm not ticklish." She actually lifted her arms up as if to say: See? I ran my fingers up and down her sides and she didn't so much as flinch.

"Oh, well," I said.

"Yeah, I've never been ticklish," Sarah said. Then she looked at me. Recognition and remembrance dawned in her expression. And she said: "But YOU are."

"No," I said. "Not really."

"Yeah, you are!" Sarah said. "In college, you were super ticklish!"

"Oh, well, in college," I said, crossing my arms. "I grew out of that."

She grinned and reached for my abdomen. I lunged backwards. And a chase ensued with me scrambling to stay out of her reach and Sarah, never breaking her stride, pursuing me with steady and unflappable determination. "Don't make me chase you," she kept saying, each time with an increasingly menacing edge. "Wade. Don't make me chase you!"

Inevitably, I wound up cornered in the living room, my hands poised defensively in front of me as Sarah advanced. "Sarah," I said, trying not to giggle in anticipation, "Don't you dare!"

"Why not?" she said. "You're not ticklish anymore. You grew out of it. Remember?"

And her fingers were upon my sides and in my keyed-up ticklish state I convulsed and emitted a helpless whoop which Sarah found utterly hilarious. She kept tickling, her fingers gliding against my sides and stomach in that same relentless pincer-motion she used to use against me so effectively in college. I grabbed her wrists and tried to pry them away from my twitching sides but couldn't do it: she was still strong, and I was increasingly weakening. I started to sink to the floor, laughing constantly.

"Good thing you're not ticklish anymore," Sarah said loudly over my shrieks. "Or this would probably really bother you!"

She loomed over my wriggling and thrashing, her hands darting smoothly from one ticklish spot on my abdomen to the next as my hysteria steadily increased. "Don't," I shouted. "Stop," I squealed.

"Don't stop?" she said. "Okay. You must really like this."

Her hands dwelled on the sides of my abdomen, a spot which reliably makes me into a basket case. I arched my back and clenched my fists, giggling uncontrollably as her fingertips danced relentlessly on those spots; I believe I howled something that sounded like "Ohnohohoho." Sarah said, "I bet you wish you hadn't tickled me. Wish you hadn't tried tickling me? I bet you wish you hadn't."

There was a huge smile on Sarah's face as she tickled and tickled; she's loosened up since college and isn't so serious or repressed. But her mean streak's still there. She'd reduced me to a completely helpless writhing mess before she finally paused, gazing down appraisingly and approvingly at my panting, blushing figure. She shot a glance back over her shoulder at my socked feet. "Should we do your feet next?" she said playfully.

"No!" I shouted.

Again, she laughed. "All right, then," she said, and left the room to go back to her packing, leaving me alone on the floor with my ignominy. The next morning she left with a friendly hug, inviting me to visit her anytime. There was no mischief in her eyes when she said it, and no hint of a sadistic subtext.

 

[MistressValerie1]

Wade, that account turned me on a LOT 😉 You are lucky to have friends like Sarah ... 😀

 

[Wade1]

You are lucky to have friends like Sarah ... 😀

Yeeesss... with friends like Sarah, who needs dignity?

Of course, the pattern so far suggests that Sarah and I will only cross paths every 5-7 years or so... which may be all I can take!

 

[Hue]

Wade, you and I need to meet one of these days. I may be able to teach you the fine art of 'How to Win in Tickle Fights' among other tickle attacks. But that is up to you my friend. Great stories Wade.

 

[milagros317]

Thanks for the follow-up, Wade. 😀
What you really ought to do is visit her, as she invited you to do, and provoke her into giving you the worst (that is, best) tickling of your life.

 

[Wade1]

I may be able to teach you the fine art of 'How to Win in Tickle Fights' among other tickle attacks.

Even given my admitted ineptitude--and complete disadvantage--when it comes to tickle fights, I don't think any strategies could possibly have helped me against Sarah, who is apparently impervious.

What you really ought to do is visit her, as she invited you to do, and provoke her into giving you the worst (that is, best) tickling of your life.

That probably wouldn't be hard to do; Sarah has kind of a short fuse and she doesn't suffer foolishness lightly, and though I don't think she's fully in touch with her cruel streak it doesn't take much for her to indulge it. But once she attacks I'm literally afraid she'll never stop; provoking her on purpose is a fearsome prospect.