29 seconds remained on the clock. Craddock College led the number 3 team in the country 68-66 with a chance to pull a massive upset and crack the polls for the first time in 22 years. Most of the women on this team weren't even alive last time the Eagles had a winning season and now they were on the brink of the biggest win in school history. Coach Harmon had her ladies in position, all they needed was a defensive stop and maybe they could ice the game with a couple free throws. Prescott University were set to inbound. Ashley Cook, an All-American point guard the year prior, ran up toward the baseline and received the pass. Craddock pulled back into a half court defense. They were looking to set a trap, hoping to force a mistake and turn the ball over. Cook dribbled into the corner where the half court line met the out-of-bounds line and was greeted by two Craddock defenders, Samantha Pruitt and Leslie Jackson. It seemed as though she had nowhere to go. Just as she was ready to pick up her dribble, help arrived in the form of Sarah Malone. She set a screen on Jackson, allowing Cook to slip around the trap. And just as everyone was focused on the ball handler, a screech rang out from the court. Malone sat at mid-court clutching her ankle. A ref stood just behind the half court line signaling a foul on Leslie Jackson. Jackson, a 6'4 forward, immediately confronted the ref. She stood a whole foot shorter than Jackson, pale-skinned with her reddish orange hair tied into a ponytail.
"I didn't touch her! She flopped! That's a bullshit call!" Jackson yelled at the ref with her hands held out in exasperation. With that, the ref threw her hands together in a t shape. A technical foul and she motioned that Jackson was ejected from the game. Chaos ensued with Jackson furiously lunging toward the ref as her teammates and coaches tried to intervene. "Fuck you, ref! You got something comin to you!" She screamed as she was escorted of the court by two assistants. The foul had put Prescott in double bonus, meaning that, with the technical, they were due 4 free throws. Cook stepped to the line and sank both technical free throws, after which, Malone stepped up and sank both of her free throws from the foul on the court. Prescott now led 70-68, 15 seconds remaining. Craddock still had a chance. Pruitt inbounded the ball to point guard Stephanie Petree who ran up the court looking for an open shot. She couldn't find it. Prescott had her well defended and with the clock winding down she tried to dump the ball off to a teammate but instead threw it out of bounds. A quick foul after the inbound and two more made free throws from Prescott put the game away. The final score was 72-68. A hard fought effort for the ladies of Craddock came up short on a controversial call.
The locker room was solemn after the game, aside from Leslie Jackson still voicing her frustrations. "I didn't touch that little bitch! She fell over on her own! They had that ref in their pockets!" She threw her jersey angrily into her locker and sat down to unlace her shoes. "We had that game, we fuckin had it! I swear if I see that ref on the street!" At that moment Coach Harmon walked in and stood in front of her team. The room went quiet as they awaited their coaches post game speech. The normal cliched, way to go ladies, it was a hard fought game, you played your hearts out, it didn't go our way, blah blah blah. She stood in front them in silence for a moment and bowed her head into her hand with her other arm across her chest. She began to pace back and forth, keeping her arms crossed and her eyes fixed at the floor. She walked back to the center of the room, took a deep breath and let out a loud sigh of frustration. The room remained quiet, not a soul let out a peep as everyone held their breath in anticipation for what their coach was about to say. Coach Harmon looked up and scanned the locker room, noting the defeated and angry expressions on her players' faces.
"Fuckin ref," She said at a tone just higher than whisper. The players all leaned in now, listening even more intently. "Ladies, I'm not normally one to call out officiating, but you played your asses off and it got stolen from you." Her eyes scanned the room until they came across a sulking Leslie. "Les, forget about it. We have three more games to go, we can still end on a high note. Gotta keep your head up and your mind focused." With that, turned and walked toward her office and shut the door. The rest of the ladies continued to changed out of the uniforms and into their street clothes and warm-ups. Jackson, Pruitt and Petree all gazed at each other with contempt on their faces. They stood up and slipped out of the locker room undetected.
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In the ref's locker room, Sally Murphy was changing out of her stripes. she pulled up her jeans, which were dark blue and tight around the ankles, threw on the black Misfits shirt she wore to the arena and slipped into a black hooded jacket, leaving it unzipped. The other two refs had already left the arena as they had to catch a flight back to Indianapolis. She lived in the area which is why she requested to be assigned this game. She was a Craddock graduate 3 years prior with a degree in mechanical engineering. She was a bit of a nerd but she loved basketball thanks to her dad and three older brothers. She got into reffing as a way to stay connected with the game, seeing as she wasn't super athletic nor very good at basketball. But she knew the game inside and out and enjoyed watching the games with her dad and brothers and was always the loudest one yelling at the television when the refs missed a call or made a bad one at that. Suffice it to say, she understood the rules of the game and could recite them word for word off the top of her head. She went over to the bench in the center of the room and sat down to put her socks and shoes on. As she slipped the first sock onto her pale, white foot, she heard the door open.
In walked five members of the Craddock basketball team. The starting five. Samantha Pruitt, the 6'9 Center, Allison Daly, a 6'6 Power Forward, Siobhan Huxley, a 5'11 Shooting guard, Stephanie Petree, the 5'8 Point Guard and of course, Leslie Jackson. Sally stopped putting on her other sock, holding it in her right hand, and looked up at the players towering over her. Every one of them were taller than she was. She stood a mere 5'3 1/4 and looked like a dwarf compared to these five ladies. As they circled around her, she felt a nervous tingle in her side. None-the-less, she knew that she was the authority amongst this group of ladies and she spoke as such. "You're not allowed in here," she said sternly. The 25 year old knew that, when trying to exert authority over someone nearly the same age as you, confidence was important. None of them budged and stared begrudgingly at her. She stared back, trying not to show her anxiety over this confrontation. "Look, I haven't reviewed the clip of the foul yet. If you're expecting an apology I-ahh!!"
At that moment, Pruitt slipped her arms under Sally's and employed a full nelson, holding her firmly in place. Jackson walked toward her with a menacing smirk on her face and held out her phone which was already cued up to the video of the foul. She thrust it right in front of Sally's face and hit play. As the video played, Sally could clearly see that Sarah Malone tripped over her own foot as she turned to face the basket. Leslie was innocent in the matter. As she had protested on the court, she never touched Malone. "You're about to get yours," she uttered quietly. With that, Pruitt slid her hands up Sally's arms and grabbed her wrists, pulling her back onto the bench and dragging her up until her back was in the center. The other ladies proceeded to put her into place, resting her ankles near the end of the bench so that her feet hung slightly over. Petree pulled out some medical tape from her backpack and handed a roll to Huxley, who headed toward the ref's extended arms. She and Daly proceeded to wrap the tape around Sally's wrists while Leslie and Petree secured her ankles. Sally kicked and protested, trying to free herself, or at the least alert someone, a night janitor maybe. It was all futile. The ladies were way too strong for her to fight off...and the janitor had been cleaning the inside of the arena from the aftermath of the game.
Sally, still clutching the sock in her left hand, was growing panicky at her situation. She couldn't move and 5 angry women circled around her. "Look, I admit, I missed the call, but from my angle it looked like you tripped her." The ladies remained stoic at Sally's reasonable (and honest) explanation. She pulled at her wrists and ankles to no avail. "You have a right to be upset but doing something like this, you're throwing your season awAYYYHAYHAYHAHAH!!" As she spoke, Leslie ran her finger up the sole of Sally's naked left foot. Her body gyrated at the gentle sensation. She was very ticklish and her feet were butter soft, which made them incredibly sensitive. "Ohohokay, while I'm relieved you're not beating me up, could we please be more rationALHALHAL!!" Leslie struck again, this time poking her long fingers into Sally's small bubble toes. Sally cringed. She normally had a laid back personality and didn't really hate being tickle despite her erratic reactions, but she had never been subdued quite like this and most people who tickled her were friends or family. Not angry college basketball players with an ax to grind.
"Alright, I know you're upset and understandably so. NOHOHOHOHOH!" Samantha Pruitt started wiggling her fingers and lowering them towards Sally's armpits. She hadn't even been touched yet, but as soon as Sally saw those long fingers and sharp nails coming down on her, she felt an intense tingle of vulnerability and lost all composure. She erupted in a giggle fit, going breathless as Pruitt's hands drew near. It was like a NASA rocket launch. Imagine a figurative countdown, 10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...... Blastoff!! "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Sally shrieked. Her body bounced up and down on the bench and her waist swung side to side as she tried to evade the onslaught of fingernails coming through her shirt and jacket.
"Hold on a second," Petree uttered. Thank God, Sally thought. Perhaps somebody realized that what they were doing was an excessive reaction to an honest mistake. "I wonder how it would feel on her bare pits," Petree continued. Dammit, Sally thought. Petree walked to the center of the bench and swung her leg over Sally's body and straddled her. Sally tensed her back and neck, squeezing her shoulder blades together in anticipation. Petree pulled the tail of her shirt back a bit, exposing Sally's midriff. She then slid her left hand under the shirt and up Sally's side. Sally was clenching her eyes and jaw, awaiting the inevitable...
"WHAHAHAHAHAHAHahahahahahahahahaha." Her laugh erupted and fizzled into a fit of heavy giggles. Her eyes clenched even tighter now as Petree skittered her nails around Sally's armpits. She thrashed back and forth with her head tilted fully back and her mouth gaping open as each laugh escaped. The sensation was maddening. She couldn't compose herself and couldn't control the laughter. She especially couldn't control her shrieks when Petree snuck her other hand up the other side. "NoHOOOOHOHOHOHOHOHO pleheheheheheheheeeeasee!!! Ahahammm Sahahaharreeheheehee!!!" Petree continued to wriggle her fingers around for another minute or so. To Sally, it was hours. Her laugh stuttered as it got deeper and deeper. She was in tickle agony. Finally Petree relented and allowed her to catch her breath.
Sally was beside herself. She understood the frustration they felt, but she couldn't withstand being their patsy for too much longer. She continued to try and reason with them. "Ok, I get it, you're understandably upset. But, hey, I went to school here. I would never intentionally sabotage my Alma Mater." She pleaded with as much contrition as she could muster. The ladies looked at each other blankly and down at Sally. She panted and gasped for air, trying to get her breathing pattern back to normal. As the ladies silently deliberated, Sally tried to find more words of reason to dole out if they gave her the chance. She focused back on the blank stares of her assailants, hoping to gauge what they were thinking. One by one, they all halfway nodded at one another as if they had come to some sort of silent agreement.
"Let's get her feet," Leslie said stoically.
"Oh my God, please!" Sally pleaded as Huxley, Daly and Jackson all congregated at her ankles. She was still sporting a sock on her right foot, which bore green polka dots on a navy blue field, the inverse pattern of the one she still clutched in her left hand. Sally was starting to come to the conclusion that this wasn't being done for vengeance. There had been other refs throughout the year who had blown calls and made boneheaded mistakes. None of them had been subjected to this torment. This was the culmination of frustration throughout the year. All the blown calls, missed opportunities, games lost ny player error or shots coming up just short or too strong at the buzzer. There was no taunting, mocking, or teasing. This was brutal, evil, cold hearted catharsis. They went about it with maniacal methodology. She cringed and clenched her toes tightly as they slipped off the remaining foot garment, exposing a soft, tender, white sole with stubby, pink bubble toes accented with raspberry red nail polish. Huxley and Daly each pulled a folded chair up and got into position as Leslie straddled the ankles and pulled back the toes, extending Sally's vulnerable arches.
Sally tightened her eyes and her mouth moved as if she was saying a silent prayer. Huxley and Daly examined her soft soles, noting the wrinkles from her heels to the balls of her feet. They began to lightly massage the feet, lightly rotating their fingers around the instep, her toes trying to clench but being met by the resistance of Leslie's large, soft hands. She bit her lip and let out slight tittering giggles as they moved their hand down to her heels and around her ankles. The cuffs of her jeans felt like part of the restraints, tight around her ankles. Her giggles intensified, as did the fluttering of nails on her feet. Gradually and methodically, both Huxley and Daly worked their fingers to the center of the soles, Sally's laughter slowly getting louder and deeper as they did. It was time to launch another rocket...
"WEEEEEEEEEEEHEHEHEHEHEHehehehehehehee!!! Ahahahahahahahahaha!! Ohohohohoho Myhyhyhyhy GAWAHAHAHAHAHAHAWDDDD!!! NOHOHOHOHOHO MOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOORRREEE!!!" It took nothing but mere light scratches in the center of the soles to send Sally into fits of ticklish hysteria. Her eyes remained clenched as she tossed her head back and forth, her shoulder length hair whipping along with it. Those scratches turned into skitters and soon progressed to an all out tickle attack on Sally's wrinkly soles. Leslie would occasionally sneak in some pokes on Sally's toes, which caused a brief shriek. Eventually, Huxley and Daly did turn their focus to the soft, pink bubble toes. Daly was simply poking the bases of the toes with her long, sharp nails, while Huxley on the other hand was slowly dragging a single nail, back and forth across the stems, while Leslie held them securely in place. Sally continued let out long, loud, deep belly laughs as her toes and soles were tormented. "EEEENOHAHAHAHAHAHAOUGH!! I MAHAHAHAHADE A MISTAHAHAHAHAHAKE!!!! PLEHEHEHEHEHEEEHEEASEE!!" Rather than relent, this prompted Leslie to release Sally's toes and join her teammates in their malicious onslaught. She focused her nails on the toes while Huxley and Daly turned their attention back to the balls, soles and heels. Sally momentarily went breathless until they briefly relented to let her inhale. It only lasted a second. As soon as she gasped the air in, they went right back to their attack. This continued for another two minutes before they fully relented.
Sally wasn't naive enough to believe they were done, so she resorted again to begging. "Please! Please! I'm sorry, I know I messed up but it was an honest mistake!! Be reasonable!" As she plead her case, Leslie stood up and turned to face her, sitting right back down, this time on Sally's shins. Petree was still straddling her waist and Pruitt now sat on her wrists. Sally knew she was screwed. this was Armageddon. Ragnarok. The end of days for her. She badly wished to be raptured in this moment in hopes of escaping the hell that befell her. All five starting players of the Craddock Eagles women's basketball team started wiggling their fingers and slowly their hands began to gravitate toward Sally's body. Pruitt to the armpits, Petree to the ribs, Jackson to her knees and of course Huxley and Daly to her feet. Sally began to hyperventilate as ten hands closed in on her body.
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As Coach Harmon stepped out into the corridor, she heard a loud, bloodcurdling shriek from down the hall. She set off on a brisk pace to investigate. As she got to the ref's locker room, she could see her players through the long, narrow window inflicting a merciless attack on Sally. Immediately she threw the door open and marched in. "HEY!! What are you five doing in here?!" She had an infuriated tone in her voice. The players all stood up abrubtly. Silence filled the room, including poor Sally who was still trying to gasp in air. All of you get back to your dorms this instant! I'll see you in the gym at 5 tomorrow morning! Be ready to sweat!" She yelled as they all slowly and quietly filed out of the room. Coach Harmon quickly walked over to attend to Sally. She was panting deeply and covered in sweat from head to toe. Coach Harmon placed her hand on Sally's right shoulder and asked, "Are you alright?"
Sally, through deep inhales, mustered a response, "Yeah, yeah I'm ok."
Coach Harmon smiled and responded, "Good. Now," she walked down to Sally's ankles and grabbed the big toe of her right foot, "about that call..."
END.
"I didn't touch her! She flopped! That's a bullshit call!" Jackson yelled at the ref with her hands held out in exasperation. With that, the ref threw her hands together in a t shape. A technical foul and she motioned that Jackson was ejected from the game. Chaos ensued with Jackson furiously lunging toward the ref as her teammates and coaches tried to intervene. "Fuck you, ref! You got something comin to you!" She screamed as she was escorted of the court by two assistants. The foul had put Prescott in double bonus, meaning that, with the technical, they were due 4 free throws. Cook stepped to the line and sank both technical free throws, after which, Malone stepped up and sank both of her free throws from the foul on the court. Prescott now led 70-68, 15 seconds remaining. Craddock still had a chance. Pruitt inbounded the ball to point guard Stephanie Petree who ran up the court looking for an open shot. She couldn't find it. Prescott had her well defended and with the clock winding down she tried to dump the ball off to a teammate but instead threw it out of bounds. A quick foul after the inbound and two more made free throws from Prescott put the game away. The final score was 72-68. A hard fought effort for the ladies of Craddock came up short on a controversial call.
The locker room was solemn after the game, aside from Leslie Jackson still voicing her frustrations. "I didn't touch that little bitch! She fell over on her own! They had that ref in their pockets!" She threw her jersey angrily into her locker and sat down to unlace her shoes. "We had that game, we fuckin had it! I swear if I see that ref on the street!" At that moment Coach Harmon walked in and stood in front of her team. The room went quiet as they awaited their coaches post game speech. The normal cliched, way to go ladies, it was a hard fought game, you played your hearts out, it didn't go our way, blah blah blah. She stood in front them in silence for a moment and bowed her head into her hand with her other arm across her chest. She began to pace back and forth, keeping her arms crossed and her eyes fixed at the floor. She walked back to the center of the room, took a deep breath and let out a loud sigh of frustration. The room remained quiet, not a soul let out a peep as everyone held their breath in anticipation for what their coach was about to say. Coach Harmon looked up and scanned the locker room, noting the defeated and angry expressions on her players' faces.
"Fuckin ref," She said at a tone just higher than whisper. The players all leaned in now, listening even more intently. "Ladies, I'm not normally one to call out officiating, but you played your asses off and it got stolen from you." Her eyes scanned the room until they came across a sulking Leslie. "Les, forget about it. We have three more games to go, we can still end on a high note. Gotta keep your head up and your mind focused." With that, turned and walked toward her office and shut the door. The rest of the ladies continued to changed out of the uniforms and into their street clothes and warm-ups. Jackson, Pruitt and Petree all gazed at each other with contempt on their faces. They stood up and slipped out of the locker room undetected.
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In the ref's locker room, Sally Murphy was changing out of her stripes. she pulled up her jeans, which were dark blue and tight around the ankles, threw on the black Misfits shirt she wore to the arena and slipped into a black hooded jacket, leaving it unzipped. The other two refs had already left the arena as they had to catch a flight back to Indianapolis. She lived in the area which is why she requested to be assigned this game. She was a Craddock graduate 3 years prior with a degree in mechanical engineering. She was a bit of a nerd but she loved basketball thanks to her dad and three older brothers. She got into reffing as a way to stay connected with the game, seeing as she wasn't super athletic nor very good at basketball. But she knew the game inside and out and enjoyed watching the games with her dad and brothers and was always the loudest one yelling at the television when the refs missed a call or made a bad one at that. Suffice it to say, she understood the rules of the game and could recite them word for word off the top of her head. She went over to the bench in the center of the room and sat down to put her socks and shoes on. As she slipped the first sock onto her pale, white foot, she heard the door open.
In walked five members of the Craddock basketball team. The starting five. Samantha Pruitt, the 6'9 Center, Allison Daly, a 6'6 Power Forward, Siobhan Huxley, a 5'11 Shooting guard, Stephanie Petree, the 5'8 Point Guard and of course, Leslie Jackson. Sally stopped putting on her other sock, holding it in her right hand, and looked up at the players towering over her. Every one of them were taller than she was. She stood a mere 5'3 1/4 and looked like a dwarf compared to these five ladies. As they circled around her, she felt a nervous tingle in her side. None-the-less, she knew that she was the authority amongst this group of ladies and she spoke as such. "You're not allowed in here," she said sternly. The 25 year old knew that, when trying to exert authority over someone nearly the same age as you, confidence was important. None of them budged and stared begrudgingly at her. She stared back, trying not to show her anxiety over this confrontation. "Look, I haven't reviewed the clip of the foul yet. If you're expecting an apology I-ahh!!"
At that moment, Pruitt slipped her arms under Sally's and employed a full nelson, holding her firmly in place. Jackson walked toward her with a menacing smirk on her face and held out her phone which was already cued up to the video of the foul. She thrust it right in front of Sally's face and hit play. As the video played, Sally could clearly see that Sarah Malone tripped over her own foot as she turned to face the basket. Leslie was innocent in the matter. As she had protested on the court, she never touched Malone. "You're about to get yours," she uttered quietly. With that, Pruitt slid her hands up Sally's arms and grabbed her wrists, pulling her back onto the bench and dragging her up until her back was in the center. The other ladies proceeded to put her into place, resting her ankles near the end of the bench so that her feet hung slightly over. Petree pulled out some medical tape from her backpack and handed a roll to Huxley, who headed toward the ref's extended arms. She and Daly proceeded to wrap the tape around Sally's wrists while Leslie and Petree secured her ankles. Sally kicked and protested, trying to free herself, or at the least alert someone, a night janitor maybe. It was all futile. The ladies were way too strong for her to fight off...and the janitor had been cleaning the inside of the arena from the aftermath of the game.
Sally, still clutching the sock in her left hand, was growing panicky at her situation. She couldn't move and 5 angry women circled around her. "Look, I admit, I missed the call, but from my angle it looked like you tripped her." The ladies remained stoic at Sally's reasonable (and honest) explanation. She pulled at her wrists and ankles to no avail. "You have a right to be upset but doing something like this, you're throwing your season awAYYYHAYHAYHAHAH!!" As she spoke, Leslie ran her finger up the sole of Sally's naked left foot. Her body gyrated at the gentle sensation. She was very ticklish and her feet were butter soft, which made them incredibly sensitive. "Ohohokay, while I'm relieved you're not beating me up, could we please be more rationALHALHAL!!" Leslie struck again, this time poking her long fingers into Sally's small bubble toes. Sally cringed. She normally had a laid back personality and didn't really hate being tickle despite her erratic reactions, but she had never been subdued quite like this and most people who tickled her were friends or family. Not angry college basketball players with an ax to grind.
"Alright, I know you're upset and understandably so. NOHOHOHOHOH!" Samantha Pruitt started wiggling her fingers and lowering them towards Sally's armpits. She hadn't even been touched yet, but as soon as Sally saw those long fingers and sharp nails coming down on her, she felt an intense tingle of vulnerability and lost all composure. She erupted in a giggle fit, going breathless as Pruitt's hands drew near. It was like a NASA rocket launch. Imagine a figurative countdown, 10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...... Blastoff!! "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Sally shrieked. Her body bounced up and down on the bench and her waist swung side to side as she tried to evade the onslaught of fingernails coming through her shirt and jacket.
"Hold on a second," Petree uttered. Thank God, Sally thought. Perhaps somebody realized that what they were doing was an excessive reaction to an honest mistake. "I wonder how it would feel on her bare pits," Petree continued. Dammit, Sally thought. Petree walked to the center of the bench and swung her leg over Sally's body and straddled her. Sally tensed her back and neck, squeezing her shoulder blades together in anticipation. Petree pulled the tail of her shirt back a bit, exposing Sally's midriff. She then slid her left hand under the shirt and up Sally's side. Sally was clenching her eyes and jaw, awaiting the inevitable...
"WHAHAHAHAHAHAHahahahahahahahahaha." Her laugh erupted and fizzled into a fit of heavy giggles. Her eyes clenched even tighter now as Petree skittered her nails around Sally's armpits. She thrashed back and forth with her head tilted fully back and her mouth gaping open as each laugh escaped. The sensation was maddening. She couldn't compose herself and couldn't control the laughter. She especially couldn't control her shrieks when Petree snuck her other hand up the other side. "NoHOOOOHOHOHOHOHOHO pleheheheheheheheeeeasee!!! Ahahammm Sahahaharreeheheehee!!!" Petree continued to wriggle her fingers around for another minute or so. To Sally, it was hours. Her laugh stuttered as it got deeper and deeper. She was in tickle agony. Finally Petree relented and allowed her to catch her breath.
Sally was beside herself. She understood the frustration they felt, but she couldn't withstand being their patsy for too much longer. She continued to try and reason with them. "Ok, I get it, you're understandably upset. But, hey, I went to school here. I would never intentionally sabotage my Alma Mater." She pleaded with as much contrition as she could muster. The ladies looked at each other blankly and down at Sally. She panted and gasped for air, trying to get her breathing pattern back to normal. As the ladies silently deliberated, Sally tried to find more words of reason to dole out if they gave her the chance. She focused back on the blank stares of her assailants, hoping to gauge what they were thinking. One by one, they all halfway nodded at one another as if they had come to some sort of silent agreement.
"Let's get her feet," Leslie said stoically.
"Oh my God, please!" Sally pleaded as Huxley, Daly and Jackson all congregated at her ankles. She was still sporting a sock on her right foot, which bore green polka dots on a navy blue field, the inverse pattern of the one she still clutched in her left hand. Sally was starting to come to the conclusion that this wasn't being done for vengeance. There had been other refs throughout the year who had blown calls and made boneheaded mistakes. None of them had been subjected to this torment. This was the culmination of frustration throughout the year. All the blown calls, missed opportunities, games lost ny player error or shots coming up just short or too strong at the buzzer. There was no taunting, mocking, or teasing. This was brutal, evil, cold hearted catharsis. They went about it with maniacal methodology. She cringed and clenched her toes tightly as they slipped off the remaining foot garment, exposing a soft, tender, white sole with stubby, pink bubble toes accented with raspberry red nail polish. Huxley and Daly each pulled a folded chair up and got into position as Leslie straddled the ankles and pulled back the toes, extending Sally's vulnerable arches.
Sally tightened her eyes and her mouth moved as if she was saying a silent prayer. Huxley and Daly examined her soft soles, noting the wrinkles from her heels to the balls of her feet. They began to lightly massage the feet, lightly rotating their fingers around the instep, her toes trying to clench but being met by the resistance of Leslie's large, soft hands. She bit her lip and let out slight tittering giggles as they moved their hand down to her heels and around her ankles. The cuffs of her jeans felt like part of the restraints, tight around her ankles. Her giggles intensified, as did the fluttering of nails on her feet. Gradually and methodically, both Huxley and Daly worked their fingers to the center of the soles, Sally's laughter slowly getting louder and deeper as they did. It was time to launch another rocket...
"WEEEEEEEEEEEHEHEHEHEHEHehehehehehehee!!! Ahahahahahahahahaha!! Ohohohohoho Myhyhyhyhy GAWAHAHAHAHAHAHAWDDDD!!! NOHOHOHOHOHO MOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOORRREEE!!!" It took nothing but mere light scratches in the center of the soles to send Sally into fits of ticklish hysteria. Her eyes remained clenched as she tossed her head back and forth, her shoulder length hair whipping along with it. Those scratches turned into skitters and soon progressed to an all out tickle attack on Sally's wrinkly soles. Leslie would occasionally sneak in some pokes on Sally's toes, which caused a brief shriek. Eventually, Huxley and Daly did turn their focus to the soft, pink bubble toes. Daly was simply poking the bases of the toes with her long, sharp nails, while Huxley on the other hand was slowly dragging a single nail, back and forth across the stems, while Leslie held them securely in place. Sally continued let out long, loud, deep belly laughs as her toes and soles were tormented. "EEEENOHAHAHAHAHAHAOUGH!! I MAHAHAHAHADE A MISTAHAHAHAHAHAKE!!!! PLEHEHEHEHEHEEEHEEASEE!!" Rather than relent, this prompted Leslie to release Sally's toes and join her teammates in their malicious onslaught. She focused her nails on the toes while Huxley and Daly turned their attention back to the balls, soles and heels. Sally momentarily went breathless until they briefly relented to let her inhale. It only lasted a second. As soon as she gasped the air in, they went right back to their attack. This continued for another two minutes before they fully relented.
Sally wasn't naive enough to believe they were done, so she resorted again to begging. "Please! Please! I'm sorry, I know I messed up but it was an honest mistake!! Be reasonable!" As she plead her case, Leslie stood up and turned to face her, sitting right back down, this time on Sally's shins. Petree was still straddling her waist and Pruitt now sat on her wrists. Sally knew she was screwed. this was Armageddon. Ragnarok. The end of days for her. She badly wished to be raptured in this moment in hopes of escaping the hell that befell her. All five starting players of the Craddock Eagles women's basketball team started wiggling their fingers and slowly their hands began to gravitate toward Sally's body. Pruitt to the armpits, Petree to the ribs, Jackson to her knees and of course Huxley and Daly to her feet. Sally began to hyperventilate as ten hands closed in on her body.
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As Coach Harmon stepped out into the corridor, she heard a loud, bloodcurdling shriek from down the hall. She set off on a brisk pace to investigate. As she got to the ref's locker room, she could see her players through the long, narrow window inflicting a merciless attack on Sally. Immediately she threw the door open and marched in. "HEY!! What are you five doing in here?!" She had an infuriated tone in her voice. The players all stood up abrubtly. Silence filled the room, including poor Sally who was still trying to gasp in air. All of you get back to your dorms this instant! I'll see you in the gym at 5 tomorrow morning! Be ready to sweat!" She yelled as they all slowly and quietly filed out of the room. Coach Harmon quickly walked over to attend to Sally. She was panting deeply and covered in sweat from head to toe. Coach Harmon placed her hand on Sally's right shoulder and asked, "Are you alright?"
Sally, through deep inhales, mustered a response, "Yeah, yeah I'm ok."
Coach Harmon smiled and responded, "Good. Now," she walked down to Sally's ankles and grabbed the big toe of her right foot, "about that call..."
END.
