Sarah returns
Okay, so this was probably about a year ago or so, maybe more. The previous time we'd seen Sarah had been just a few weeks earlier, when we swung by her place on a trip through her hometown. During that visit we'd all been watching TV that night and a conflict erupted between me and Sarah about what to watch. I had the remote and tried to keep it from her; she, of course, endlessly practical, seized my sides and started tickling. Shrieking, I immediately released the remote and thrashed and writhed; she kept tickling for just a few milliseconds longer than she really needed to. And then that was all behind us.
So now Sarah was coming to visit us for a few days. Sarah was due to arrive at our place soon for a visit, but I thought I had enough time to take a quick shower. While I did that, my wife was running around the house tidying up in a last-minute we're-about-to-have-guests-and-they-might-notice-we-live-like-pigs kind of mode. In her haste she scooped up the mound of dirty clothes I'd left on the bathroom floor, not noticing I guess that I didn't have any other clothes, dirty or otherwise, in the room.
When I turned off the shower I heard voices downstairs and realized that Sarah had arrived. I also discovered that my clothes were gone and, alas, so was my bath towel--another casualty of the eleventh-hour guest-is-coming better-do-some-laundry cleaning frenzy. The only thing I had at my disposal was sort of an oversized hand towel--pretty big, as hand towels go, but not as big as you'd want something to be to dry yourself off with, much less to be the only thing between your nakedness and the rest of the world.
Still, it seemed like I'd be safe. It wasn't a long dash from the bathroom to our bedroom. And Sarah would linger downstairs catching up with my wife for a while. So I dried off as best I could, held the towel around my waist--an awkward maneuver that required both hands, since it wasn't quite big enough for both ends to meet in the back--and I sprinted from the bathroom down the hall to our bedroom. Safe!
Except--
I burst into the bedroom to find Sarah standing in front of the mirror at my wife's dresser, arms overhead, pulling her hair back with one of my wife's hair ties. A big long drive, apparently the first thing she needed to do was ask my wife if she could borrow something to pull her hair back? Is this what women do?
So there I am with my towel, yelping in surprise. Sarah, hands overhead, messing with her hair, looked my way, registered the spectacle, and just started laughing. So did I, though not as freely.
"--Sorry," she chortled. "I'm sorry, Wade, I'll get out of here."
"No problem," I said, sheepish. "Uh, good to see you."
"Yeah, thanks," she said, making a beeline for the door. I stepped forward and sidled to the side and pressed my back against the wall, still holding the towel's ends behind me, prickling with involuntary anxiety about my position and her increasing proximity. I tried to relax by reminding myself: she's not a big tickler, she doesn't read the stories on TickleTheater, that's not where her brain's at, not every situation is an opportunity for tickling for her, this is perfectly safe, it's not even going to occur to her to tickle you. Relax. It's not even going to occur to her.
And as she passed, I said "Don't tickle me." Cringed slightly as I said it, my abdominal muscles contracting.
It was a reflex, entirely involuntary, an accident; it came out just like breathing. And as soon as it came out I knew how dire a mistake it was.
Sarah stopped and turned to face me, a wry grin on her face.
"No?" she said. "And why not?"
"I..." I stammered. "Nothing, never mind, just go and I, I'll..."
She crossed her arms and tilted her head, looking at me appraisingly. "It's a serious question, Furry," she said. "Why shouldn't I tickle you, exactly?"
"Because, because, you'd have to own up and talk about being mean in therapy," I said. "You hate that."
"I do," she said. "Of course, I'm overdue to talk about that anyway with our little fight over the remote last month, I haven't brought that up yet. So I'm going to have to do this anyway, could throw this in as a freebie."
"Sarah, c'mon," I said. "My hands are... I'm kind of helpless here and..."
"Mm, not really talking me out of it here, Wade."
"I don't think Amanda would appreciate it," I said.
"Amanda!" Sarah hollered to my wife without moving from her spot. "Okay if I tickle your husband within an inch of his life?"
I heard my wife call up "Sure, go for it!"
I was feeling increasingly panicky. "She's only saying that because she, she doesn't now that I, y'know, that I'm mostly..."
Sarah called out again: "He's pretty much close to naked. Is that still okay?"
"Yeah, sure," my wife yelled cheerfully. "Just don't break him."
Sarah smiled smugly, her arms still crossed. "That settles that," she said.
I'd scooched along the wall until I was in a corner, which was unfortunate. I twisted slightly from side to side, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. "Sarah, c'mon."
Sarah planted her hands on her hips. "Wade, you're completely ridiculous. I have no intention of tickling you."
"Okay, uh, thanks..."
"Or I didn't," Sarah said, "until you said that." And suddenly her fingers were on my ribs, dancing and scrabbling. Surprised and panicked I emitted an urgent laugh that was sort of a high-pitched gurgle, a sound that no adult male should ever be heard to make. It was absurd enough that Sarah paused in her playful assault.
"Wow," she said. "New sounds from Wade."
"Sarah don't!" I cried. "I'll drop my towel."
Her look turned steely. "Don't," she said with a stern schoolmarmish finger pointing at me. "Do not under any circumstances drop that towel. I'll have nightmares for weeks, and you will be subject to my mockery for the rest of your life."
"Sarah, don't, I can't help it..."
"Help it," she ordered, and her fingers were scrabbling along my ribs again. I held tight to the towel with both hands, driven by compulsive modesty and fear of mortification, but as a result my sides were completely defenseless. I twisted from side to side--though not too far, as my ass was not entirely covered behind me--but nothing I did could shake those scampering fingers from my ribs. My giggles were coming in a steady stream now as my body jerked into a staccato series of tortured poses, swiveling, ducking, bending at the waist, but she just wouldn't stop. At this point the sounds I was making fell into the classic "heeheehee" category, a merry-sounding giggle that just encouraged Sarah to keep tickling and keep tickling.
Until she stopped.
Thank God.
I straightened up a little, trying not to seem winded. "Okay," I said wearily--but she interrupted me.
"You're probably feeling pretty lucky," she said.
"Yeah, I'm the luckiest boy in the world," I deadpanned. "I'll see you downstairs."
"Lucky," she continued, gesturing at my stomach with her open hand in a circular motion, "because I'm not tickling your whole abdominal area there."
I was struck by a giddy dread: apparently we weren't done here.
"I don't know if you're aware," Sarah continued, "but you happen to be afflicted with a drastically ticklish stomach."
"Okay, Sarah..."
"This is extremely rare," she said, raising the volume of her spiel to shut me up. "Because this condition is typically found only in eight-year-olds and in college cheerleaders."
I felt my cheeks flush warm. "Hey," I said.
This taunting and teasing wasn't Sarah's usual M.O. I had apparently caught her in either a really good or a really bad mood, and whichever it was she was unleashing it on me. Whichever it was, it didn't bode well. It was sometime around this point that the notion flashed through my head: This seems like a story from TickleTheater, I thought. It's like I'm living a story from TickleTheater.
But Sarah was still talking. "So you're very lucky," she said, "that I've been avoiding that area."
Her mouth twisted with a smile she seemed to be trying to suppress.
"Until now," she said. And her hands darted toward my stomach.
She was right, of course; she spoke from experience. My entire abdominal area is a tickle disaster zone. So standing there with my hands fixed behind me and her fingers rushing toward my bare stomach, I couldn't help it: I twitched violently and, well... I'm not proud of this, but... I squealed. Yes, that's right. I admit it. Apparently I'm a squealer.
Again, my repertoire of noises froze Sarah in her tracks. "Well," she said. "This is fun."
And her hands darted at a different abdominal spot and I twisted and squealed again. And she did it again, and I responded just as she wanted me to. Dart, twitch, squeal. Dart, twitch, squeal. Each time she stopped short of actually touching me, and each time I couldn't help but react anyway.
"Sarah," I said again, growing desperate.
"I didn't realize the air around you was actually ticklish as well," she said. Dart, twitch, squeal.
Here's the thing though about the dart-twitch-squeal game: unlike actual tickling, the effect does wear off. Eventually--belatedly, if you as me, but anyway--my body gets hip to the fact that her fingers are never actually making contact with my flesh, and the twitch/squeal response gets dialed way back. This disappointed her, I think.
"Okay," I said. "It's not working anymOOOOORE NO!!"
Which sounded like that because Sarah--sensibly, predictably--switched to actual tickling; her hands darted in and just kept going, and now her fingers were scampering and spidering across my stomach and sides, steady, unyielding, indomitable, the touches light and feathery in character but firm and steely in their relentlessness.
I'd thought I was giggling and shrieking before but now I was out of control. Jerking, thrashing, twisting, flinching, my torso undulating in the corner as if it had any hope whatsoever of evading Sarah's fingertips.
"Please!" I hiccuped through the cascading laughter. When most people tickle me I'm quick to plead with them--whatever it takes. But my longstanding adversarial friendship with Sarah has always made me loathe to give her the satisfaction of my begging. So when I start in with the "pleases"--which I nearly always do, eventually--it means I really don't think I can take much more.
Of course, she doesn't know that. Or she doesn't care.
"Ple-e-e-e-ease," I giggled hysterically, slumping against the wall, twisting each time her fingers wandered over a new sensitive spot.
"Don't drop that towel," she kept saying. "Don't you drop it."
And I didn't. All I wanted to do was throw my hands in front of me, try to fend her off, but the overriding imperative--hold the towel! Shield your gonads!--prevented me. And so as I slid writhing to the floor I couldn't do anything but squeal and laugh.
And I was laughing so hard, the giggles pouring deliriously forth in an uninterrupted mirthful-sounding stream, I couldn't really hear anything else but I swear it seemed like Sarah sighed contentedly as her scrabbling fingers followed me down to the floor, moving efficiently from a twitching spot near my navel to the love handles that she may have remembered were so deadly to me--or if she didn't remember, she rediscovered it pretty quick, because it seemed like her strong swift hands kept returning to my waist with increasing frequency and for increasing durations, lingering there as I arched my back and howled, my hands now pressing the towel against my front because wriggling on the floor increased the risk of my modesty's exposure.
"Have you gained a little weight, Wade?" Sarah said matter-of-factly as her hands wandered systematically from ticklish spot to ticklish spot, making chatty conversation as though I weren't laughing wildly on the floor. "You should try a spin class." Tickle, tickle; yelp, shriek. "You do this to me," she muttered, shaking her head, fingers darting and scribbling. "Why do you do this to me? You practically dare me to, and then I can't stop." Fingers dancing and scampering, me wriggling back and forth on the floor laughing helplessly, my bare abdomen an unmissable and defenseless target. Tickling me there like this was the easiest thing in the world; every brush of her fingers brought forth a new pitch of hysterics. "How could anyone stop, Wade?" Tickling tickling; hoarse and desperate giggling.
I don't know how long Sarah's fingers had been dancing cruelly around and above my waist when I noticed my wife crouching next to us; I dimly perceived an amused smile on her face. "Okay, don't kill him," she said, but it was as if her mouth and her hands were following different instructions, because even as she sweetly counseled Sarah to give me a break I realized her fingers were thrumming lightly up my ribs and toward my underarms.
I thin I've mentioned before that however ticklish I used to be with my wife, now that we're married her power over me has increased exponentially. Her well-placed fingertips can reduce me to a heap in record time, whereas when we were dating I usually had at least a semblance of a fighting chance.
So what I'm trying to say is, with Sarah attacking my abdomen and my wife's feathery fingers advancing maddeningly on my underarms, it is only understandable that that's the moment at which I let go of the towel.
It didn't go anywhere right away, but it was unsecured, and Sarah noticed immediately as if an alarm had gone off. Her hands were clapped to her eyes and she was fumbling her way out of the room--"Oh! The towel! He dropped the towel!"
After Sarah was gone my wife's fingers kept sweetly and savagely dive-bombing me for a few more seconds, their light and intolerable spidering throwing me into renewed hysterics, writhing naked on the floor as my pitiful towel was flung aside. But she stopped and kissed me head and cupped my flushed cheek in her hand as she said brightly: "Honey? We have a guest. Come on down now."
And my wife flounced away. And sheepishly I got dressed. And that night I think the three of us had some kind of couscous. Which I made, by the way.