WhyNotNow?
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No idea where the inspiration came from. I'm not really a writer but it just sorta happened and if folks can get some enjoyment out of it more power to you.
================
"I didn't mean to, ma'am, I swear," James said again, more shrilly this time. His muscles strained against the ropes binding his hands above his head, his naked torso and boxer-covered thighs pressed against the wide leather straps keeping him seated on the rack, and his toes pitifully, impotently shuddered against the ties keeping them back against the stocks.
The witch smirked. "I believe you. I know you didn't mean to. What you don't seem to get just yet, but you will, is that I don't care."
Meri, which had been the witch's name for some time, ominously tapped her black, shiny righthand nails on the top of the stocks to distract James' eyes from the bristle brush in her left hand. With that brush she began to scrub up and down James' taut right sole as he screamed. Poor dope, she thought, he's got no chance at all.
She was right, he didn't. No more than all the others before.
James felt like he was dreaming, and was becoming awfully desperate to wake up. Seemingly just minutes ago, he'd been walking along the same trail he'd hiked hundreds of times before, taking in the fresh air, the smell and sounds of the tall dense woods, and the security that had always provided him. This was home. The path was so familiar, every root and rock and puddle so anticipated, that James let his mind wander while he walked.
He didn't see the moss-covered stone gargoyle until he'd already stumbled into one of its spread wings, knocking it spinning from its perch on the ancient stone wall abutting the trail, an ancient wall that James would spend the rest of his life insisting to himself had never been there before.
Its snarling expression far tougher than its construction, the gargoyle broke into pieces on impact. Immediately (impossibly immediately, in James' opinion), before the sound of breaking stone had even finished echoing in the woods, he was no longer alone.
"All these miles of forest and you just have to walk right into my friend and break him to pieces? Explain yourself."
James wheeled and was instantly eye to eye with an overwhelming presence. He vaguely, dreamily noted the long ringlets of black hair, the figure-hugging black and purple dress that nobody would wear in the woods, the perfect complexion that seemed to change with the light at any moment, and the statuesque bearing, but mostly he noticed the eyes. The shimmering violet of Meri's eyes was so captivating, so beautiful, it was impossible to look away.
"I.... I didn't mean to..." James was enthralled, and the lights seemed to be going out all around him as he felt the irresistible urge to lay down and sleep.
"Why don't you come inside and you can give me your side... and a few other bits" she muttered, but James was too far from consciousness to register the remark.
Even as he drifted to sleep he couldn't look away from her eyes. He was sure the patterns in her irises were moving and shifting even when her head was still. James' last waking thought was that the nice lady should probably see a doctor about that.
=================
"Stop please! Let me go, I'll pay for it. I didn't mean to!" James half-screamed, half-wheezed as Meri slowed and eventually, very eventually, unbearably eventually, stopped running the horse brush over his immobile feet.
"You ARE paying for it and you already said you didn't mean to. And I already said I don't care. Don't be boring; it defeats the purpose. Ugh."
Meri disappeared around the back of the torture rack and out of his view, but James could hear the sound of rummaging.
James flexed in the straps again but there was little give. He was well and truly stuck at the mercy of this crazy woods woman. James examined his surroundings for a potential escape. The room was warm and comfortable, and the floors were adorned with stunning rugs that James would have recognized as priceless antiques from the far side of the world if he'd known about those sorts of things. But the gray stone walls and the unseen fire dimly lighting the place gave the room an ominous, medieval feel. Of course the torture rack he was strapped to was ominous enough by itself.
What had even happened? James was sure he hadn't been obliviously walking past a creepy stone cottage with an ancient gargoyle wall every day for years. It doesn't make any sen-
"Ah, found it!" Meri exclaimed, still out of James' sight behind the rack. "This is what boring boys get."
James' eyes were straining to see behind him but the dark room wasn't helping. He barely had time to register the movement before a cloth was being stuffed in his mouth and a leather strap secured it in place.
"Why are you doing th--mhdfhhfhhfhf!"
"Hey, you finally had something new to say! I knew you could learn things. Here's the deal: I'm going to torture you some more now, and you're going to take it. And there's nothing you can do about it. And after a while, if you take your torture like a good boy, I'll remove your gag. At that point, I will allow you to ask me one question and I will answer it, coven's honor." She crossed her black-nailed fingers and with the other hand gave an earnest yet sarcastic salute.
"And after I answer your question, you're going to tell me a story. And you better have something interesting to say, because I don't get to do this very often anymore and I swear to all the Gods that if you don't make this entertaining for me I will fix your jaw open and drag my nails on the roof of your mouth until you cry."
James had never conceived of such a thing, and he didn't much appreciate being made to think about it now.
"Mmffhfhf!"
"Glad you approve. So start thinking of an interesting story to tell me. I love stories. While you're busy with that...."
Meri loved to start with her nails. After all, that human contact is what this is all about, right? The electric feeling of gliding her nails lightly over the skin, under an arm, across a nipple, down the flanks, across the belly, inside the trembling but oh-so-well-restrained thighs, over the tops of the feet and then over, down, across, between the toes and finally the drag race to the heel.
She had brushes, of course. And feathers. And pointy things and rolly things and powders. And they had their uses. Rubbing the itchy powder deep into a tickle toy's feet and then passing the time from "I don't feel anything" to "oh God I'll do anything just get it off!" by drawing a feather back and forth across a clit or cock, it's a good way to spend an evening. But in the end nothing beats the fingers for true fun, intimate, dread-inducing lovehate.
Across time and space, everyone was different, Meri had to give the normies that. When pressing the buttons on a new toy, she never knew which touch, which movement, which amount of pressure was going to turn giggles and wiggles into screams and thrashes, and it never got any less thrilling and delicious when she found out.
The exploration of James was no disappointment. He giggled when she played with his nipples, he moved his head to protect his neck and his ears, he jerked when she scratched under his arms. And he shivered and thrashed unexpectedly when she grazed lightly down his forearms.
"Oh really?" she smirked. "Noted. Remind me to get more rope for your elbows so me and your forearms can get to know each other better."
Even with the lower half of his face covered with the gag, James' expression betrayed his incredulity.
"I'm not joking about reminding me, Mister. You're here to make my life easier. See what happens if you don't."
Meri poked his sides and he jumped. She poked a few more times but he jumped less as he anticipated more. Meri dragged her nails down his sides and he tried to roll away, but was restrained too surely to do any more than rock to the side in a vain attempt to escape her nails. What the rocking actually did, however, was expose new real estate on James' torso, and when Meri dragged her nails down the side of James' back, he screamed into the gag and thrashed violently.
"MDHFFHFH shtp nogh dhehergh!"
"The fact that I almost understood that means you aren't gagged well enough. But I'll forgive that because your body just betrayed your mind and that makes me happy. Let me tell you, Mister, the way you reacted to my little affectionate backscratches, after this first exploration session I am going to tie your arm across your body to the other side of the rack so you can't move a muscle. And then I am going to spend hours sitting right here next to you while you beg me.
Meri lazily dragged her fingers up the same path as she spoke, and all James could do to keep from screaming was to bite down on the cloth, squeeze his eyes shut, and exhale loudly.
"Ooh perfect. Do that. Don't give into me. Don't make it easy. Struggle. Struggle and resist. Make this even harder on yourself and more fun for me. That'll show me. But it can wait. Delayed gratification is the secret to a long life, trust me. If you play your cards right I might even give you some hands on lessons in just how delayed I can make your gratification."
Under normal circumstances James would have appreciated the innuendo, but his current effort to block out the unbearable sensations shooting up and down his torso required too much processing power. And didn't work. When Meri finally stopped stroking, James slumped back into his restraints. He mentally asked himself how much more of that he could actually take.
"It doesn't matter," Meri sighed. "It's not up to you how much you can take, it's up to me. And no I can't read minds, don't be ridiculous. Your face is just so expressive I can't help but know what you're thinking. But to answer your question, that was about 15 seconds and you were already turning red and holding your breath. I'd say you can't take more than 20 seconds without something giving. When I restrain you so you can't move and tickle you there, the first round will be 20 minutes, so think about that."
He did.
=============
There had been some more exploring. Meri found James' belly and pelvis good for instilling discomfort but not as torturous as one would hope. He did struggle when she squeezed the insides of his thighs, and she made a mental note to do more with that. She left his boxers on for now. Meri had found over the years that you get more bang for your buck by leaving the sex torture until the toy was already broken in. Broken... down? Just broken, whatever. And she had already extensively documented the fiendish things she could inflict on James' feet.
Meri decided it was time to hear from James again. She removed his gag and stepped around to the front of the stocks where he could see her clearly.
"OK mister, one question. Better make it count."
Again the eyes. When she was torturing him, Meri's eyes were on her work, but whenever she looked directly into his face, everything else in the world slowed down and got fuzzy. On some level he knew this was not natural and not good for him. He could barely think, let alone convert the thoughts to coherent speech.
"Wh-- Who are you? And why are you doing-- this?"
For the smallest moment, sheer malevolence flashed in her eyes, but she softened quickly enough that James may have imagined it in the firelight.
"That was two questions, not one. By all rights I should punish you for that, but because I am the personification of benevolence I will answer. They both have the same answer anyway, I suppose."
"I've had many names over many years. For this time I am Meri of the woods. Long before your time I was Sophia of Greece. I've been Ioana of Romania and Nenetl of Mexico and Ameenah of Damascus. I spent a century as Saraswati terrorizing every ticklish soul up and down the Ganges and after that I offered my services as an expert in 'the laughing torture' to the Emperor of China. I'm a witch, or close enough to one that it's not worth futzing over. But you, you can call me Meri. If I ever ungag you and speak to you again. Charmed I'm sure."
James didn't know what to say, so he said nothing. Meri could feel his eyes on her face, scrutinizing for any hint of whatever prank or hoax or lie this must be. He could swear that as the dancing firelight moved in different patterns over her features, he could catch glimpses of each of the people Meri had been. Or is it just suggestion she put in his head? The eyes were always the same. James stared at her, mesmerized.
"Oh right, your illegal second question that I agreed to answer: why am I doing this to you? Because I like it. I've always liked it. I like the power, I like the intimacy. I like taking the most pleasurable sensations the human race can experience and turning them into instruments of dread and suffering. Honestly, after so many centuries of you people torturing and butchering each other over this or that bit of nonsense, it's all gets a bit boring after a while. I might as well enjoy myself. Did you know your ancestors burned people for witchcraft? I'm sure you wouldn't understand. Anyway."
Meri made an exaggerated roll of her eyes and waved her hand dismissively as she slinked back toward the stocks.
"The one thing," she cooed, punctuating each word with a scritch on a toe pad or horizontal swipe across the sole, "that still brings me pleasure is the look in a young man's eyes when he finally accepts I'm going to torture him for the rest of his life."
"You're not there yet, not even close. You're still thinking this is some kind dream or hallucination. Maybe some time in the night, between the sobs and screams, maybe it will graduate to nightmare. Even then, you won't be capable of appreciating the situation you're in. No one has ever, in all those places in all those times, escaped from me. No one has ever left me. If they had I wouldn't be here talking to you. I know exactly what I'm doing, I've had hundreds of years of practice tying down boys just [Meri's nails scratch the middle of his foot] like [Meri's other hand traces under the toes of James' other foot] you [Meri stops both hands dead in the center of each foot, not moving, just feeling the tension and trembling]."
"And sometime, days or weeks from now, your brain, or what's left of it, will finally accept that this is how it ends for you, these insufferable sensations are all you'll know until the end. And at *that* moment, I will drink you in and remember with astronomical intensity why I still find this place worth hanging around. But anyway, that's not for some time yet. For now, you're still dreaming and I'm the 'woman' of your dreams, right?"
"Now, about that story you owe me...."
==============
James had tried his best, he really had. After being tortured all afternoon and having his mind assailed by possibilities he couldn't believe, James concluded that Meri's request for a story was actually an opportunity. He decided to tell the longest story he could remember. The longer he can talk, the less he'll be tortured, right?
Unfortunately for poor James, there weren't many tricks Meri hadn't seen over the centuries, and she bored quickly.
"First off, I know what you're doing. For that I promise to torture you for 1,002 nights. Second, this story is ridiculous and offensive," she huffed. "Seven centuries on this miserable rock and neither I nor any other witch I know ever once called anyone a 'muggle.' Libelous. I've heard enough. What did I tell you I'd do to you if you don't entertain me?"
What she had told him she was going to do, and what she did do, was lie the rack horizontal, affix a mouth-opening gag onto James' face, sit on his chest, and use her nails, tiny brushes, and small flossers to agitate the roof of his mouth. All James could do was scream and plead with his eyes. For the next hour, he'd done both repeatedly. Eventually she stopped.
"Oh dear, it's ok, sweetheart, don't cry just because your story was bad," Meri cooed from his chest as she wiped the tears from the corners of James' eyes.
"You'll have another chance in the morning, and maybe something that's not about witches this time. Let's get you ready for bed."
====================
James screwed his eyes shut and screamed into the new, much thicker gag. He knew there was no point in pleading. There was no one outside the box to hear him. No humans anyway.
Story time must have been hours ago. But one's sense of time can become disoriented when one is mummified and blindfolded and shoved in a dark box in a dark corner of a dark room. James hadn't heard from Meri for hours. James could tell the fire was out, and the room was cold and dead. Almost. He could tell the fire was out because his box had holes cut in the bottom for his toe-tied and immobile feet. He couldn't see the room, yet he sensed with confidence that Meri's presence wasn't in it.
Unfortunately for James, Meri had conjured some company before leaving.
"Their names are Ophelia and Dahlia," Meri had offered nonchalantly as she set the witch's cats in front of James' soles, which Meri had taken an excessively long time to brush with tasty oil.
"They'll be your entertainment and company for the evening. Your protectors even. Think of them like patrolases or whatever they're called from your dumb story. Cast your protection spells now because they won't stop until I stop them. Night!"
James was unprepared for the sensation. Who wouldn't be? The rough tongues on his oiled soles were too much to comprehend, and so he screamed. He knew with complete and dreadful confidence that Meri was telling the truth about the sensation not stopping until she returned. So he screamed. The box seemed solid. Sounded solid. Even if someone had been standing right outside, James wasn't sure they could hear him. He was even less sure that they'd care. He screamed and thrashed anyway, as Ophelia and Dahlia continued their diligent, shameless lickling up and down the straining soles and toes. All night.
==========
At some point James mercifully lost consciousness. At some point after that the cats got bored of their food no longer wiggling and departed. James awoke to natural light streaming in through the stone windows of the cottage. He was still restrained but the lid of the box was open.
"What's the story, morning glory?" Meri was back. James could feel her before he could see her.
James tried to respond but quickly remembered he was gagged.
"Mfhfhfhh othfh hrr!"
"Oh you're welcome!" Meri exclaimed. "After spending all day yesterday in here paying for my gargoyle friend you destroyed, let's get some fresh air. And as an added bonus for your first day as my friend for life, I won't tickle you today."
Despite everything rational and reasonable in him, as he once again looked into those eyes, he believed her. He believed her down to his bones. This was not his fate, this was a person who could be reasoned with, who can empathize. This is all a misunderstanding. He felt hope.
As Meri slid the box over the threshold into the large courtyard behind her home, James lifted his head to get a better view. The mossy stone wall around the courtyard gave it the air of complete security and privacy. Lush, unkempt trees and plants lined the inside of the wall, but the central yard was perfectly manicured grass. In the middle of the yard was a white metal garden table with pitchers and cups and two chairs. James inhaled deeply and closed his eyes.
When James opened his eyes Meri was nowhere to be seen. He struggled in the middle of the courtyard against his bindings. Fruitless. He closed his eyes again.
=============
James awoke in the middle of the courtyard. Meri sat nearby at the table, with a glass of lemonade, wearing a sunhat and dress. "Hey there, sleepyhead!" In a different context it would be idyllic.
It was not idyllic for James. The gag had thankfully been removed, but his wrists were tied, spread, to stakes in the ground. His chest and waist and thighs were similarly staked into the ground. His feet were raised slightly in order for them to fit into the stocks that now decorated the courtyard next to the table. He was completely naked.
"You said you weren't going to tickle me. I believed you."
"I know you did. And I'm a witch of my word. I will not tickle you today."
Meri reached across the table and picked up a jar of white powder. She pinched her fingers into it and rubbed the substance between them, before shutting her eyes in a grimace and quickly wiping the powder on her dress.
Meri put on a sardonic smile, stood up, and approached James. She began lightly pouring the powder, on his palms, under his arms, on his face and ears, down his chest. She licked her finger before covering it in powder and swishing it around his bellybutton before again wiping it quickly on her dress.
Then she licked her other hand, dipped it into the powder. James knew her intentions. "Please, no. Please. I'll let you tickle me! Please!" The smile never left Meri's face as she smeared the unbearable concoction it on James' balls and cock before wiping the rest on the grass.
As the first itching sensations started to ripple down his palms and face and James began to whimper, Meri sat down hear his head, legs extended and crossed over, the picture of a pleasant picnic.
"Do you get the idea yet, mister? You're mine. I've been doing this for a thousand years and I'll do it for a thousand more. We're outside in the fresh air, you're ungagged, go ahead and beg me. Get it all out now and then accept your fate. No one can hear you."
"Ple--" James' cut himself off at the sound of... was it? Farm bells! Someone else was close enough to hear!
"Help! Help! I've been kidnapped! I'm in the courtyard! Please! Whoever you are! Help!"
The bells continued getting louder but no one answered. The itching sensation had proceeded down James' arms to his torso and his bellybutton. It would soon be everywhere.
James turned his now terribly itching face to Meri. His blood turned to ice in his veins.
Meri was holding her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. But her eyes. Those beautiful, mesmerizing eyes were once again filled with malevolence. He hadn't imagined that horrible visage the night before, and this time it stayed.
"I told you. No one is coming to save you. You belong to me. Forever. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Your only solace is that I won't tickle you today. I will tickle you every day for the rest of your life. I will tickle you until you forget what it feels like not to exist in ticklish agony. But not today."
The bells sounded like they were inside the courtyard. James struggled and itched but couldn't get a moment's relief. The wicked thing called Meri watched him struggle and groan. It looked into his face with vicious glee.
"I told you yesterday that your ancestors burned women accused of witchcraft. I didn't tell you how they extracted the confessions."
James blanched and struggled and begged.
"They took them one by one, and strapped them down in the town square. They put their feet in stocks, just like your feet are in my stocks. They covered their feet in salty brine. That's what you thought was lemonade. That's what I coated your feet with while you were asleep."
James tried to move his feet but there was no give. He screamed for help.
"Then they would bring in a goat, and while the goat licked the brine from the woman's soles, the bailiff would interrogate her. And she would scream and beg, like you're screaming and begging right now, and the bailiff would tell her that the only way to make it stop would be to confess to being a witch. Can you imagine how horrible the sensation must be to get someone to confess, knowing it would mean their death?"
"Please!"
"I can't imagine it. And the other accused people would be forced to sit there and watch this happen, the way that I'm watching you now. Looking at the fear in your eyes and the resistance on your face. Watching your composure and sanity slowly break down over time as everything you think is replaced by the experience of suffering the insufferable. There is one big difference though... do you know what it is?"
"What?! What's the difference?!"
The bells were mere feet away.
The demon of ancient hate and violet dread stared into James' eyes and smiled a shark's smile.
"The difference is, when the woman had finally been licked and tickled until she preferred the burning stake to one more second with the goats... your ancestors stopped."
As the first coarse tongue began lapping the brine from James' soles, as his mind began to shatter, James wrenched his body and bellowed.
"I didn't mean to!"
The demon witch Meri smiled and straightened its sun dress, then resumed staring intently into James' suffering eyes.
"I know. Now suffer forever."
================
"I didn't mean to, ma'am, I swear," James said again, more shrilly this time. His muscles strained against the ropes binding his hands above his head, his naked torso and boxer-covered thighs pressed against the wide leather straps keeping him seated on the rack, and his toes pitifully, impotently shuddered against the ties keeping them back against the stocks.
The witch smirked. "I believe you. I know you didn't mean to. What you don't seem to get just yet, but you will, is that I don't care."
Meri, which had been the witch's name for some time, ominously tapped her black, shiny righthand nails on the top of the stocks to distract James' eyes from the bristle brush in her left hand. With that brush she began to scrub up and down James' taut right sole as he screamed. Poor dope, she thought, he's got no chance at all.
She was right, he didn't. No more than all the others before.
James felt like he was dreaming, and was becoming awfully desperate to wake up. Seemingly just minutes ago, he'd been walking along the same trail he'd hiked hundreds of times before, taking in the fresh air, the smell and sounds of the tall dense woods, and the security that had always provided him. This was home. The path was so familiar, every root and rock and puddle so anticipated, that James let his mind wander while he walked.
He didn't see the moss-covered stone gargoyle until he'd already stumbled into one of its spread wings, knocking it spinning from its perch on the ancient stone wall abutting the trail, an ancient wall that James would spend the rest of his life insisting to himself had never been there before.
Its snarling expression far tougher than its construction, the gargoyle broke into pieces on impact. Immediately (impossibly immediately, in James' opinion), before the sound of breaking stone had even finished echoing in the woods, he was no longer alone.
"All these miles of forest and you just have to walk right into my friend and break him to pieces? Explain yourself."
James wheeled and was instantly eye to eye with an overwhelming presence. He vaguely, dreamily noted the long ringlets of black hair, the figure-hugging black and purple dress that nobody would wear in the woods, the perfect complexion that seemed to change with the light at any moment, and the statuesque bearing, but mostly he noticed the eyes. The shimmering violet of Meri's eyes was so captivating, so beautiful, it was impossible to look away.
"I.... I didn't mean to..." James was enthralled, and the lights seemed to be going out all around him as he felt the irresistible urge to lay down and sleep.
"Why don't you come inside and you can give me your side... and a few other bits" she muttered, but James was too far from consciousness to register the remark.
Even as he drifted to sleep he couldn't look away from her eyes. He was sure the patterns in her irises were moving and shifting even when her head was still. James' last waking thought was that the nice lady should probably see a doctor about that.
=================
"Stop please! Let me go, I'll pay for it. I didn't mean to!" James half-screamed, half-wheezed as Meri slowed and eventually, very eventually, unbearably eventually, stopped running the horse brush over his immobile feet.
"You ARE paying for it and you already said you didn't mean to. And I already said I don't care. Don't be boring; it defeats the purpose. Ugh."
Meri disappeared around the back of the torture rack and out of his view, but James could hear the sound of rummaging.
James flexed in the straps again but there was little give. He was well and truly stuck at the mercy of this crazy woods woman. James examined his surroundings for a potential escape. The room was warm and comfortable, and the floors were adorned with stunning rugs that James would have recognized as priceless antiques from the far side of the world if he'd known about those sorts of things. But the gray stone walls and the unseen fire dimly lighting the place gave the room an ominous, medieval feel. Of course the torture rack he was strapped to was ominous enough by itself.
What had even happened? James was sure he hadn't been obliviously walking past a creepy stone cottage with an ancient gargoyle wall every day for years. It doesn't make any sen-
"Ah, found it!" Meri exclaimed, still out of James' sight behind the rack. "This is what boring boys get."
James' eyes were straining to see behind him but the dark room wasn't helping. He barely had time to register the movement before a cloth was being stuffed in his mouth and a leather strap secured it in place.
"Why are you doing th--mhdfhhfhhfhf!"
"Hey, you finally had something new to say! I knew you could learn things. Here's the deal: I'm going to torture you some more now, and you're going to take it. And there's nothing you can do about it. And after a while, if you take your torture like a good boy, I'll remove your gag. At that point, I will allow you to ask me one question and I will answer it, coven's honor." She crossed her black-nailed fingers and with the other hand gave an earnest yet sarcastic salute.
"And after I answer your question, you're going to tell me a story. And you better have something interesting to say, because I don't get to do this very often anymore and I swear to all the Gods that if you don't make this entertaining for me I will fix your jaw open and drag my nails on the roof of your mouth until you cry."
James had never conceived of such a thing, and he didn't much appreciate being made to think about it now.
"Mmffhfhf!"
"Glad you approve. So start thinking of an interesting story to tell me. I love stories. While you're busy with that...."
Meri loved to start with her nails. After all, that human contact is what this is all about, right? The electric feeling of gliding her nails lightly over the skin, under an arm, across a nipple, down the flanks, across the belly, inside the trembling but oh-so-well-restrained thighs, over the tops of the feet and then over, down, across, between the toes and finally the drag race to the heel.
She had brushes, of course. And feathers. And pointy things and rolly things and powders. And they had their uses. Rubbing the itchy powder deep into a tickle toy's feet and then passing the time from "I don't feel anything" to "oh God I'll do anything just get it off!" by drawing a feather back and forth across a clit or cock, it's a good way to spend an evening. But in the end nothing beats the fingers for true fun, intimate, dread-inducing lovehate.
Across time and space, everyone was different, Meri had to give the normies that. When pressing the buttons on a new toy, she never knew which touch, which movement, which amount of pressure was going to turn giggles and wiggles into screams and thrashes, and it never got any less thrilling and delicious when she found out.
The exploration of James was no disappointment. He giggled when she played with his nipples, he moved his head to protect his neck and his ears, he jerked when she scratched under his arms. And he shivered and thrashed unexpectedly when she grazed lightly down his forearms.
"Oh really?" she smirked. "Noted. Remind me to get more rope for your elbows so me and your forearms can get to know each other better."
Even with the lower half of his face covered with the gag, James' expression betrayed his incredulity.
"I'm not joking about reminding me, Mister. You're here to make my life easier. See what happens if you don't."
Meri poked his sides and he jumped. She poked a few more times but he jumped less as he anticipated more. Meri dragged her nails down his sides and he tried to roll away, but was restrained too surely to do any more than rock to the side in a vain attempt to escape her nails. What the rocking actually did, however, was expose new real estate on James' torso, and when Meri dragged her nails down the side of James' back, he screamed into the gag and thrashed violently.
"MDHFFHFH shtp nogh dhehergh!"
"The fact that I almost understood that means you aren't gagged well enough. But I'll forgive that because your body just betrayed your mind and that makes me happy. Let me tell you, Mister, the way you reacted to my little affectionate backscratches, after this first exploration session I am going to tie your arm across your body to the other side of the rack so you can't move a muscle. And then I am going to spend hours sitting right here next to you while you beg me.
Meri lazily dragged her fingers up the same path as she spoke, and all James could do to keep from screaming was to bite down on the cloth, squeeze his eyes shut, and exhale loudly.
"Ooh perfect. Do that. Don't give into me. Don't make it easy. Struggle. Struggle and resist. Make this even harder on yourself and more fun for me. That'll show me. But it can wait. Delayed gratification is the secret to a long life, trust me. If you play your cards right I might even give you some hands on lessons in just how delayed I can make your gratification."
Under normal circumstances James would have appreciated the innuendo, but his current effort to block out the unbearable sensations shooting up and down his torso required too much processing power. And didn't work. When Meri finally stopped stroking, James slumped back into his restraints. He mentally asked himself how much more of that he could actually take.
"It doesn't matter," Meri sighed. "It's not up to you how much you can take, it's up to me. And no I can't read minds, don't be ridiculous. Your face is just so expressive I can't help but know what you're thinking. But to answer your question, that was about 15 seconds and you were already turning red and holding your breath. I'd say you can't take more than 20 seconds without something giving. When I restrain you so you can't move and tickle you there, the first round will be 20 minutes, so think about that."
He did.
=============
There had been some more exploring. Meri found James' belly and pelvis good for instilling discomfort but not as torturous as one would hope. He did struggle when she squeezed the insides of his thighs, and she made a mental note to do more with that. She left his boxers on for now. Meri had found over the years that you get more bang for your buck by leaving the sex torture until the toy was already broken in. Broken... down? Just broken, whatever. And she had already extensively documented the fiendish things she could inflict on James' feet.
Meri decided it was time to hear from James again. She removed his gag and stepped around to the front of the stocks where he could see her clearly.
"OK mister, one question. Better make it count."
Again the eyes. When she was torturing him, Meri's eyes were on her work, but whenever she looked directly into his face, everything else in the world slowed down and got fuzzy. On some level he knew this was not natural and not good for him. He could barely think, let alone convert the thoughts to coherent speech.
"Wh-- Who are you? And why are you doing-- this?"
For the smallest moment, sheer malevolence flashed in her eyes, but she softened quickly enough that James may have imagined it in the firelight.
"That was two questions, not one. By all rights I should punish you for that, but because I am the personification of benevolence I will answer. They both have the same answer anyway, I suppose."
"I've had many names over many years. For this time I am Meri of the woods. Long before your time I was Sophia of Greece. I've been Ioana of Romania and Nenetl of Mexico and Ameenah of Damascus. I spent a century as Saraswati terrorizing every ticklish soul up and down the Ganges and after that I offered my services as an expert in 'the laughing torture' to the Emperor of China. I'm a witch, or close enough to one that it's not worth futzing over. But you, you can call me Meri. If I ever ungag you and speak to you again. Charmed I'm sure."
James didn't know what to say, so he said nothing. Meri could feel his eyes on her face, scrutinizing for any hint of whatever prank or hoax or lie this must be. He could swear that as the dancing firelight moved in different patterns over her features, he could catch glimpses of each of the people Meri had been. Or is it just suggestion she put in his head? The eyes were always the same. James stared at her, mesmerized.
"Oh right, your illegal second question that I agreed to answer: why am I doing this to you? Because I like it. I've always liked it. I like the power, I like the intimacy. I like taking the most pleasurable sensations the human race can experience and turning them into instruments of dread and suffering. Honestly, after so many centuries of you people torturing and butchering each other over this or that bit of nonsense, it's all gets a bit boring after a while. I might as well enjoy myself. Did you know your ancestors burned people for witchcraft? I'm sure you wouldn't understand. Anyway."
Meri made an exaggerated roll of her eyes and waved her hand dismissively as she slinked back toward the stocks.
"The one thing," she cooed, punctuating each word with a scritch on a toe pad or horizontal swipe across the sole, "that still brings me pleasure is the look in a young man's eyes when he finally accepts I'm going to torture him for the rest of his life."
"You're not there yet, not even close. You're still thinking this is some kind dream or hallucination. Maybe some time in the night, between the sobs and screams, maybe it will graduate to nightmare. Even then, you won't be capable of appreciating the situation you're in. No one has ever, in all those places in all those times, escaped from me. No one has ever left me. If they had I wouldn't be here talking to you. I know exactly what I'm doing, I've had hundreds of years of practice tying down boys just [Meri's nails scratch the middle of his foot] like [Meri's other hand traces under the toes of James' other foot] you [Meri stops both hands dead in the center of each foot, not moving, just feeling the tension and trembling]."
"And sometime, days or weeks from now, your brain, or what's left of it, will finally accept that this is how it ends for you, these insufferable sensations are all you'll know until the end. And at *that* moment, I will drink you in and remember with astronomical intensity why I still find this place worth hanging around. But anyway, that's not for some time yet. For now, you're still dreaming and I'm the 'woman' of your dreams, right?"
"Now, about that story you owe me...."
==============
James had tried his best, he really had. After being tortured all afternoon and having his mind assailed by possibilities he couldn't believe, James concluded that Meri's request for a story was actually an opportunity. He decided to tell the longest story he could remember. The longer he can talk, the less he'll be tortured, right?
Unfortunately for poor James, there weren't many tricks Meri hadn't seen over the centuries, and she bored quickly.
"First off, I know what you're doing. For that I promise to torture you for 1,002 nights. Second, this story is ridiculous and offensive," she huffed. "Seven centuries on this miserable rock and neither I nor any other witch I know ever once called anyone a 'muggle.' Libelous. I've heard enough. What did I tell you I'd do to you if you don't entertain me?"
What she had told him she was going to do, and what she did do, was lie the rack horizontal, affix a mouth-opening gag onto James' face, sit on his chest, and use her nails, tiny brushes, and small flossers to agitate the roof of his mouth. All James could do was scream and plead with his eyes. For the next hour, he'd done both repeatedly. Eventually she stopped.
"Oh dear, it's ok, sweetheart, don't cry just because your story was bad," Meri cooed from his chest as she wiped the tears from the corners of James' eyes.
"You'll have another chance in the morning, and maybe something that's not about witches this time. Let's get you ready for bed."
====================
James screwed his eyes shut and screamed into the new, much thicker gag. He knew there was no point in pleading. There was no one outside the box to hear him. No humans anyway.
Story time must have been hours ago. But one's sense of time can become disoriented when one is mummified and blindfolded and shoved in a dark box in a dark corner of a dark room. James hadn't heard from Meri for hours. James could tell the fire was out, and the room was cold and dead. Almost. He could tell the fire was out because his box had holes cut in the bottom for his toe-tied and immobile feet. He couldn't see the room, yet he sensed with confidence that Meri's presence wasn't in it.
Unfortunately for James, Meri had conjured some company before leaving.
"Their names are Ophelia and Dahlia," Meri had offered nonchalantly as she set the witch's cats in front of James' soles, which Meri had taken an excessively long time to brush with tasty oil.
"They'll be your entertainment and company for the evening. Your protectors even. Think of them like patrolases or whatever they're called from your dumb story. Cast your protection spells now because they won't stop until I stop them. Night!"
James was unprepared for the sensation. Who wouldn't be? The rough tongues on his oiled soles were too much to comprehend, and so he screamed. He knew with complete and dreadful confidence that Meri was telling the truth about the sensation not stopping until she returned. So he screamed. The box seemed solid. Sounded solid. Even if someone had been standing right outside, James wasn't sure they could hear him. He was even less sure that they'd care. He screamed and thrashed anyway, as Ophelia and Dahlia continued their diligent, shameless lickling up and down the straining soles and toes. All night.
==========
At some point James mercifully lost consciousness. At some point after that the cats got bored of their food no longer wiggling and departed. James awoke to natural light streaming in through the stone windows of the cottage. He was still restrained but the lid of the box was open.
"What's the story, morning glory?" Meri was back. James could feel her before he could see her.
James tried to respond but quickly remembered he was gagged.
"Mfhfhfhh othfh hrr!"
"Oh you're welcome!" Meri exclaimed. "After spending all day yesterday in here paying for my gargoyle friend you destroyed, let's get some fresh air. And as an added bonus for your first day as my friend for life, I won't tickle you today."
Despite everything rational and reasonable in him, as he once again looked into those eyes, he believed her. He believed her down to his bones. This was not his fate, this was a person who could be reasoned with, who can empathize. This is all a misunderstanding. He felt hope.
As Meri slid the box over the threshold into the large courtyard behind her home, James lifted his head to get a better view. The mossy stone wall around the courtyard gave it the air of complete security and privacy. Lush, unkempt trees and plants lined the inside of the wall, but the central yard was perfectly manicured grass. In the middle of the yard was a white metal garden table with pitchers and cups and two chairs. James inhaled deeply and closed his eyes.
When James opened his eyes Meri was nowhere to be seen. He struggled in the middle of the courtyard against his bindings. Fruitless. He closed his eyes again.
=============
James awoke in the middle of the courtyard. Meri sat nearby at the table, with a glass of lemonade, wearing a sunhat and dress. "Hey there, sleepyhead!" In a different context it would be idyllic.
It was not idyllic for James. The gag had thankfully been removed, but his wrists were tied, spread, to stakes in the ground. His chest and waist and thighs were similarly staked into the ground. His feet were raised slightly in order for them to fit into the stocks that now decorated the courtyard next to the table. He was completely naked.
"You said you weren't going to tickle me. I believed you."
"I know you did. And I'm a witch of my word. I will not tickle you today."
Meri reached across the table and picked up a jar of white powder. She pinched her fingers into it and rubbed the substance between them, before shutting her eyes in a grimace and quickly wiping the powder on her dress.
Meri put on a sardonic smile, stood up, and approached James. She began lightly pouring the powder, on his palms, under his arms, on his face and ears, down his chest. She licked her finger before covering it in powder and swishing it around his bellybutton before again wiping it quickly on her dress.
Then she licked her other hand, dipped it into the powder. James knew her intentions. "Please, no. Please. I'll let you tickle me! Please!" The smile never left Meri's face as she smeared the unbearable concoction it on James' balls and cock before wiping the rest on the grass.
As the first itching sensations started to ripple down his palms and face and James began to whimper, Meri sat down hear his head, legs extended and crossed over, the picture of a pleasant picnic.
"Do you get the idea yet, mister? You're mine. I've been doing this for a thousand years and I'll do it for a thousand more. We're outside in the fresh air, you're ungagged, go ahead and beg me. Get it all out now and then accept your fate. No one can hear you."
"Ple--" James' cut himself off at the sound of... was it? Farm bells! Someone else was close enough to hear!
"Help! Help! I've been kidnapped! I'm in the courtyard! Please! Whoever you are! Help!"
The bells continued getting louder but no one answered. The itching sensation had proceeded down James' arms to his torso and his bellybutton. It would soon be everywhere.
James turned his now terribly itching face to Meri. His blood turned to ice in his veins.
Meri was holding her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. But her eyes. Those beautiful, mesmerizing eyes were once again filled with malevolence. He hadn't imagined that horrible visage the night before, and this time it stayed.
"I told you. No one is coming to save you. You belong to me. Forever. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Your only solace is that I won't tickle you today. I will tickle you every day for the rest of your life. I will tickle you until you forget what it feels like not to exist in ticklish agony. But not today."
The bells sounded like they were inside the courtyard. James struggled and itched but couldn't get a moment's relief. The wicked thing called Meri watched him struggle and groan. It looked into his face with vicious glee.
"I told you yesterday that your ancestors burned women accused of witchcraft. I didn't tell you how they extracted the confessions."
James blanched and struggled and begged.
"They took them one by one, and strapped them down in the town square. They put their feet in stocks, just like your feet are in my stocks. They covered their feet in salty brine. That's what you thought was lemonade. That's what I coated your feet with while you were asleep."
James tried to move his feet but there was no give. He screamed for help.
"Then they would bring in a goat, and while the goat licked the brine from the woman's soles, the bailiff would interrogate her. And she would scream and beg, like you're screaming and begging right now, and the bailiff would tell her that the only way to make it stop would be to confess to being a witch. Can you imagine how horrible the sensation must be to get someone to confess, knowing it would mean their death?"
"Please!"
"I can't imagine it. And the other accused people would be forced to sit there and watch this happen, the way that I'm watching you now. Looking at the fear in your eyes and the resistance on your face. Watching your composure and sanity slowly break down over time as everything you think is replaced by the experience of suffering the insufferable. There is one big difference though... do you know what it is?"
"What?! What's the difference?!"
The bells were mere feet away.
The demon of ancient hate and violet dread stared into James' eyes and smiled a shark's smile.
"The difference is, when the woman had finally been licked and tickled until she preferred the burning stake to one more second with the goats... your ancestors stopped."
As the first coarse tongue began lapping the brine from James' soles, as his mind began to shatter, James wrenched his body and bellowed.
"I didn't mean to!"
The demon witch Meri smiled and straightened its sun dress, then resumed staring intently into James' suffering eyes.
"I know. Now suffer forever."
