Kunzite1
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It looks like the girls are about to encounter some unwelcome attention! Hope you enjoy this chapter!
The Breeding Grounds
Chapter 4: Pedicures in the Jungle
“Is this really all you’ve got?” asked Kara, squeezing into the white lab coat with some difficulty.
“I told you, you’re lucky I have those with me,” answered Dr. Kim. The white lab coats that she had handed Kara and Zoe were perfectly sized for the Doctor herself, but on the two bounty hunters’ broad and towering frames they fit much more tightly. While the coat fell down to the Doctor’s ankles, on Kara and Zoe they fell above the knee, like short dresses. And while the Doctor could button her coat in front without any difficulty, wrapping the coats around Kara and Zoe’s massive, spherical breasts was proving nearly impossible. After trying and failing several times to button their coats, they finally gave up and let them hang open. It wasn’t much in the way of protection, but it was better than nothing.
“So what exactly is this planet?” asked Zoe of their new acquaintance. “I mean, I work for Calysta too, and I’ve never even heard of any of this.” The first part of that sentence, Zoe decided, was rapidly becoming less true.
“Calysta brought us here a few years ago,” answered the Doctor; apparently she felt that now she had given up her employer’s name, she may as well not hold back. “Biologists, botanists, and experts in terraforming and gene splicing, mainly. But the thing was, the atmosphere here was already breathable. What she wanted was to fill the planet with new plant species: species she wanted us to design.”
“Species that had a particular hostility to ticklish intruders?” asked Zoe.
“Exactly,” nodded Dr. Kim.
“But why?” asked Kara. “I mean, I know she has money to burn, but a whole planet is beyond excessive, even if her operation is going well.”
“No, you don’t understand,” explained Dr. Kim. “This planet is her operation. The kidnappings she sends her bounty hunters out on are just to provide her with a staff of researchers. This planet is the real moneymaker. It’s a breeding ground for tickling foliage of all kinds. Once we’ve determined that they work properly, the plants are bred and sold to rich property-owners as a completely new kind of security system.”
“So this whole planet is a kind of beta test?” asked Kara with an arched eyebrow.
“Something like that,” said Dr. Kim. “And these plant species have been selling at an incredible rate. Unlike machinery-based security, these plants don’t need maintenance, they don’t need power, and they don’t need any special installation. We just plant them where the customer wants them, and soon they have a fully operational security system that can be left completely alone. It’s much cheaper for the buyers, and we’ve found that many of them prefer to look at gardens instead of metal walls and razor wire.”
“I can’t believe this!” grumbled Zoe. “All this time she was getting rich off my hard work, and she never even told me about it! Do you know what kind of hours I work just to draw a paycheck, while she was lounging around watching the cash roll in?”
Dr. Kim shrugged. “Do you think I’m here because I want to be?”
“You looked like you were enjoying yourself well enough a few minutes ago,” pointed out Kara sharply.
“Yes, well…” Dr. Kim trailed off. “So what are you going to do now?” she asked, suddenly changing the subject.
“We’re going to find Calysta, and I’m going to settle a score,” said Kara matter-of-factly. “And you’re going to help us.”
Their march through the jungle was slow and methodical, with Kara taking the lead and using a broad stick like a machete to hack away at any suspicious-looking plant life blocking the way. Zoe took up the rear, putting herself in position to keep a careful eye on the good Doctor, in case she should decide to run off. The three of them walked in strained silence, with distrust hanging thick in the air.
“I don’t see why you keep looking at me like that,” grumbled Dr. Kim after a while as Zoe glared at her from behind. “It’s not like I can run off.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Zoe, eyeing the Doctor’s briefcase which she carried at her side. “We’re still not too clear on exactly what kind of tools you have in there. Something that could be used as a weapon?”
“I don’t have any weapons!” protested the Doctor hotly. “There’s nothing in here but observational equipment for my research! Nothing that could be dangerous even if I wanted it to be!”
“And what about that bottle of pheromones?” asked Kara from the front. “From what you were saying when we saw you, it could be used to attract some…unwelcome attention.”
“Good point,” said Zoe in agreement. “I think I’d feel better if I were the one carrying that briefcase, Doctor.”
Zoe grabbed the briefcase and pulled, but the Doctor was stronger than she appeared. She gripped both hands around the handle and began pulling back, not about to surrender her equipment without a fight.
“Let go!” cried Zoe, and gave another tug at the briefcase. And this time, she managed to break the Doctor’s grip on the case. But Zoe pulled too hard, and as her mighty tug yanked it from the Doctor’s hands, Zoe too lost her grip on it. The briefcase flew into the air, and at the peak of its arc, the briefcase’s latches fell open, scattering the contents in all directions! Most of it was harmless: small metal implements or handheld computer devices that fell to the ground around them. But the one thing that made them stop in their tracks was the bottle of pheromones.
The three of them gasped as the bottle of pheromone-laden liquid flew through the air, like a live grenade thrown into a battle. All of them reached up desperately to catch it, but it was too late. It twirled end over end, flying above their heads, and the girls watched in horror as its top came loose and fell to the ground. The uncapped bottle scattered a fine blue mist all over, covering each of their bodies in the pernicious liquid. Their hair, their clothing, and most of all their skin were tinged blue and gave off a sweet, pungent aroma that made their blood run cold.
“Look—Look what you’ve done!!” cried Dr. Kim, her eyes conveying sheer terror as they darted back and forth like a trapped animal, surrounded by predators.
“What I’ve done?! This is your fault!” cried Zoe, but her outrage was also tempered by fear. With the blue liquid covering her skin, the jungle suddenly seemed a much more hostile place. She felt as though eyes were watching her from the underbrush, tracking her every move, salivating in the darkness and waiting to strike.
“What’s going to happen to us?” asked Kara, keeping her back to her two companions as she scanned the treeline. She tried to brush the liquid off her skin, but with no success: it seemed to bond with her skin the moment it made contact.
Suddenly, the three of them heard an unmistakable rustling in the trees. Something very close to them was moving.
“Could it be a wild animal?” asked Kara hopefully.
Dr. Kim shook her head. “This planet has no indigenous animal life, and we only engineered plant life. Which means that sound is something…responding to the plant pheromone.” She spoke the words like a death knell.
“We have to get out of here,” muttered Zoe, her eyes wild as she tried to fight off the claustrophobia of the forest around her.
“Where would we go?” asked Kara, who could also feel the unsettling sensation of the forest closing in around her. “We’re too far in to run.”
“We have to do something!” exclaimed Dr. Kim, who appeared the most frightened of all of them. “If we just stay here, any minute, something’s going to—“
The Doctor’s sentence was cut short as the terrifyingly familiar sight of moving vines broke through the trees, taking the three of them by surprise. Before they could do anything, vines wrapped around their waists, lifting the three struggling ladies off the ground and pulling them back into the underbrush as they screamed and fought for dear life.
And in seconds, they were brought face-to-face with their captor. It was a terrifying spectacle even on this strange and frightening world. Ten feet tall, it was comprised of a tall, thick stalk like a tree trunk. It had a huge pod at the top larger than a human head, bedecked with teeth like a Venus’ fly trap that gave it the eerie appearance of smiling wickedly at them. Extending from the stalk in all directions were a hundred different tendrils, flailing like tentacles: each of them seemed to have something different at the end of it, giving the plant a chaotic, patchwork appearance, as though it had been stitched together from dozens of different plants. As the plant beheld its new prey, all its tendrils immediately came to attention.
“Oh no. Oh no, no, no,” said the Doctor in horror, shaking her head.
“What is it?” asked Kara, not sure she wanted to know.
“It’s…a pedicure plant,” said Dr. Kim. “It’s a new creation in the experimental phase. Oh god, why did it have to be this?”
“A pedicure plant?” echoed Zoe with concern. “Is that what it’s going to do to us?”
But Zoe did not have to wait long for her answer. With the girls still lifted off the ground, the plant extended six thick tendrils, one for each of their bare feet. At the end of each was a large green pod, filled with some kind of liquid that sloshed around inside. With single-minded determination, the plant encased each of the girls’ feet in a pod of their own, sealing them at the ankles. For several seconds, nothing else happened: their feet were left to soak in the pods and absorb the moisture as though they had been in a foot-soaking tub. Kara was about to tempt fate by asking whether this was all there was. But the next moment, the liquid inside each of each soaking pod began to whirl around in a frenzied vortex.
“Mmmmph! Mmmmmmmpppphhhh!!” Kara struggled to hold in the laughter as the warm water whirled around her bare feet. She could feel tiny jets of water spraying against her soles, causing her feet to squirm as she fought for composure.
“Eeeeeek! It tickles!” giggled Zoe, the streams of bubbles striking the bottoms of her feet as well.
Dr. Kim tried to keep silent, but snickering escaped her sealed lips as her feet wriggled helplessly inside the soaking pods. With every passing second, more bubble jets were turned against the girls’ soles, and the water vortexes inside the pods began to churn at faster speeds. The girls tried to resist, but they could feel their resolve slipping: the foot-soaking was making their already sensitive feet all the more tender. They could feel the laughter building up, ready to break through their trembling lips, as they tried to hold it back one more second…
And then, unexpectedly, relief came. Just when they thought they couldn’t hold out for another second, the soaking pods opened up and drew away. Three pairs of warm, pink feet emerged, dripping with sweet, rose-scented liquid, dangling in the cool air.
“Is…is it over?” asked Zoe, breathing heavily.
But before anyone could answer her question, a new threat arose that caused all three girls to gasp aloud. More vines rose up towards them, except these did not carry liquid-filled pods like the last ones. The ends of these vines were coated in stiff bristles like a brush, covered in a thick, shiny liquid that gleamed like soapy water.
“It’s—it’s the next phase,” whispered Dr. Kim, her face pale. “Foot brushing.”
“No!” squealed Zoe, her toes curling in anticipation. “Keep them away!”
“S—stay back!” demanded Kara shakily. But the vines kept slowly approaching their targets.
“BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!” Instantly, all three girls exploded into hysterical laughter as the bristles made contact with their bare feet. The liquid the plant excreted coated their soles in seconds, allowing the stiff bristles to whip across the wet, slippery surfaces with ease. It was exactly like the touch of a foot-buffing brush covered in soapy water, wielded by a sadistic pedicurist out of a ticklish nightmare. And in this nightmare, their pedicure was not going to be over soon.
The three of them screamed with laughter, tugging on the vines holding them while their defenseless feet were exposed to one of the most nefarious tortures they had yet encountered. Kara and Zoe’s massive size fifteens danced in ticklish spasms beside Dr. Kim’s tiny size fives, but despite the difference all three were equally ticklish. And after their foot-soaking, their feet felt twice as ticklish as before. Any resistance they might have built up by walking across the dusty ground was gone: their feet were soft, perfectly clean, and ready for torture.
“STAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPPP!!!” pleaded Kara through wild laughter. The brushes continued to scrub her bare feet, coating her soles in sudsy bubbles that left them soft and frictionless. She cried hot tears as the bristles ran up and down her tall arches, buffing her heels and the balls of her feet with ruthless abandon. Kara had endured some pedicures in her time, but not one of them reached this level of pure, unbridled torture.
“NOOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOO!!!” howled Zoe, with her hyper-sensitized soles being utterly dominated by the soapy brushes. When they reached a soft spot on her soles, the brushes would rotate in a quick, circular motion like an electric toothbrush, tickling Zoe so badly that she could not even think straight. Her massive feet were at the mercy of these brushes, and they were happy to deliver a pedicure capable of tickling their subject to death.
“SAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAVVE US!!!” begged Dr. Kim, whose tiny tootsies were receiving every bit as much attention as their larger neighbors. The brushes concentrated their scrubbing even more tightly, as though they wanted to make up for the lack of surface area to tickle. Even worse, they focused on brushing underneath and between the Doctor’s toes, sliding their bristles into the hidden crevasses while the Doctor screamed at the top of her lungs. Her black-rimmed glasses fell off her face and her hair fell out of its neat bun into a disheveled mess, but she did not even notice: all she was aware of was how horribly ticklish her feet were.
And it was about to get worse. With their feet buffed by the hellish brushes, it was time for exfoliation. More vines arose, secreting a thick cream with a rough consistency onto the girls’ feet, as though it were filled with ground pumice. As the brushing continued, the vines spread the cream over every inch of their soles.
It was like receiving a foot massage with itching powder. The finely-ground granules inside the cream gave the rough effect of an abrasive that tickled their already sensitized soles like they could barely believe. The girls whooped with renewed, louder laughter as the tickling of the exfoliating cream contrasted with the quick strokes of the brushes that continued to torture their feet. With two different kinds of torture assaulting them simultaneously, their minds could no longer put up a defense against the tickling. All they could do was abandon their sanity and howl as they endured the spa treatment from hell.
“I CAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHANN’T TAKE IT!!!” laughed Kara, her poor feet glowing pink beneath the layer of cream. Her toes went into wild spasms as the brushes scrubbed her feet even harder, but this only caused the exfoliating agent between her toes to tickle even more. It was a devastating combination, one that was taking Kara and her companions to the edge of insanity.
Zoe and Dr. Kim, meanwhile, were past the point of speech. They babbled incomprehensibly in their laughter as their unbearably ticklish feet faced the treatments of a ravenous tickling machine. Their faces were red and their voices hoarse; it looked as though they might pass out from the tickling at any moment. But the plant, in its fiendish intelligence, seemingly knew to keep its victims conscious for their entire, harrowing ordeal. Moments before Zoe and Dr. Kim, and perhaps Kara as well, were about to slip into blissful unconsciousness, the tickling stopped.
The brushes receded from the girls’ abused, tickled feet, leaving only the combination of cream and soapy liquid behind. It dripped viscously from their dangling feet, which hung untouched for a moment of rest that the three girls desperately needed.
None of them could speak. For endless seconds, they only gasped for breath in silence. After what seemed like forever, Kara finally opened her mouth to speak. But she never got the chance. Their floral pedicurist, carefully attuned to the vital signs of its victims, apparently decided that it had given them enough of a rest. Suddenly, dozens of jets of the rose-scented water sprayed at the girls’ feet from all angles, washing the cream and liquid from their feet, and causing them to erupt in wild laughter once again.
“YEEEEEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!!!” squealed Zoe, accompanied by the high-pitched laughter of Kara and Dr. Kim as the bubbly jets sprayed their feet clean. In several minutes that felt like hours to the girls, their feet were once again pristine and sweet-smelling, dangling in the air and even more sensitive than ever before.
“W—what’s next?” asked Kara with a low moan. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take!”
“Please tell us it’s over!” begged Zoe. Her tender tootsies had had all the loving care they could stand.
But Dr. Kim said nothing, and the girls knew what it meant. There was no good news to give: more of this pedicure nightmare was on its way. The Doctor looked as though she was summoning up the mental strength to even name their next trial. But in its eagerness, the plant saved her the trouble. More vines rose up: these ones shaped like hands, with five finger-sized appendages at the end of each one. More noticeably, each “finger” had a pointed, rigid growth at the end of it, which looked exactly like a long fingernail filed to a rounded point.
“What are they going to do?” asked Kara fearfully.
The vines approached their helpless, wriggling feet once again, taking a hold of them gently as the girls fought to hold back the laughter. Like the last ones, these vines squirted a soft, white cream onto the girls’ feet. But this was not an exfoliating scrub: it felt more like a cool, moisturizing lotion. But unfortunately, the vines were not content to leave it at that. Using its appendages as fingers, the vines began to firmly massage the moisturizing lotion into the girls’ feet.
The sensation was like having their feet massaged by a pair of hands with devastatingly long, pointed fingernails. No matter how hard they tried, the nails kept touching ticklish flesh, pressing into the tender skin and brushing over soft spots by “accident”. No one but an expert could have given a foot massage with nails of that length, and the plant was channeling the spirit of either a complete amateur or a secretly malicious foot-tickler.
“NO MOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHORRRE!!!” Kara begged her deaf assailant as it worked the lotion into her feet. The touch of the finger-like vines on her soles was bad enough, but the fingernail-like appendages were truly doing the damage. You never knew when one of them might scratch your instep, or press into a soft spot with the accuracy of a homing missile. They were the kinds of accidents that could have caused a weaker woman to lose bladder control. And they happened with devastating frequency.
“PLEEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEAAASE NOOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!!!” Zoe screamed beside her. The lotion on her enormous feet was doing more than just moisturizing her skin: it was providing a slick, slippery surface for the fingernails to slide across with impunity. The finger-like vines rubbed the lotion deep into her ticklish feet, and after all the scrubbing and exfoliating she had endured, Zoe’s feet were now little more than a huge, ticklish nerve ending to be exploited.
“STAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPP!!! STAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPP!!!” was all Dr. Kim could cry. Even half-delirious from the tickling, she could still feel the humiliating burn of suffering this indignity at the hands of her own creation. But she had little time to reflect on the irony, as her feet were subjected to the most ticklish lotion massage of her life.
And with every passing second, the fingernail-touches became more frequent, and more devastating. The plant was slowly discarding the subterfuge that it was trying to avoid these “slips”. The girls felt one sharp nail, and then another, and then ten, scribbling across each smooth, lotion-covered sole with glee. It was a full tickling assault: sharp, manicured nails against soft, pedicured feet. All of the ticklish preparation and pampering of their tootsies had led them up to this, with soles more sensitive than they had ever been in any of their lives. None of them could have understood was it was to be truly ticklish until now. They could not see through their tears, or hear through the sound of insane, babbling laughter: the tickling was their entire existence. The cruel nails raked across their feet, scribbling forth the laughter that their tickler craved like sweet nectar. Their feet were beyond sensitive: they knew they had only seconds remaining before they were tickled into unconsciousness. The world started to spin around them, and just as their vision began to dim, they felt it: mercy.
The tickling was over, and this time, they knew it was for good: the plant obligingly placed them on the grassy ground beside it. The pedicure was over.
For more than a solid minute, the girls lay motionless on the forest floor, teetering at the edge of consciousness. And then slowly, they managed to life their heads to see the three of them lying side-by-side. Their bodies were drenched in sweat, and their bare feet were soft, sparkling clean, and moisturized. It took them a moment to notice a final detail: as the final step of their pedicures, the plant had filed their toenails and painted them a bright cherry red. It was somehow vaguely mocking.
“I…am never…getting…a pedicure…again…” gasped Zoe, before she collapsed on her back.
The Breeding Grounds
Chapter 4: Pedicures in the Jungle
“Is this really all you’ve got?” asked Kara, squeezing into the white lab coat with some difficulty.
“I told you, you’re lucky I have those with me,” answered Dr. Kim. The white lab coats that she had handed Kara and Zoe were perfectly sized for the Doctor herself, but on the two bounty hunters’ broad and towering frames they fit much more tightly. While the coat fell down to the Doctor’s ankles, on Kara and Zoe they fell above the knee, like short dresses. And while the Doctor could button her coat in front without any difficulty, wrapping the coats around Kara and Zoe’s massive, spherical breasts was proving nearly impossible. After trying and failing several times to button their coats, they finally gave up and let them hang open. It wasn’t much in the way of protection, but it was better than nothing.
“So what exactly is this planet?” asked Zoe of their new acquaintance. “I mean, I work for Calysta too, and I’ve never even heard of any of this.” The first part of that sentence, Zoe decided, was rapidly becoming less true.
“Calysta brought us here a few years ago,” answered the Doctor; apparently she felt that now she had given up her employer’s name, she may as well not hold back. “Biologists, botanists, and experts in terraforming and gene splicing, mainly. But the thing was, the atmosphere here was already breathable. What she wanted was to fill the planet with new plant species: species she wanted us to design.”
“Species that had a particular hostility to ticklish intruders?” asked Zoe.
“Exactly,” nodded Dr. Kim.
“But why?” asked Kara. “I mean, I know she has money to burn, but a whole planet is beyond excessive, even if her operation is going well.”
“No, you don’t understand,” explained Dr. Kim. “This planet is her operation. The kidnappings she sends her bounty hunters out on are just to provide her with a staff of researchers. This planet is the real moneymaker. It’s a breeding ground for tickling foliage of all kinds. Once we’ve determined that they work properly, the plants are bred and sold to rich property-owners as a completely new kind of security system.”
“So this whole planet is a kind of beta test?” asked Kara with an arched eyebrow.
“Something like that,” said Dr. Kim. “And these plant species have been selling at an incredible rate. Unlike machinery-based security, these plants don’t need maintenance, they don’t need power, and they don’t need any special installation. We just plant them where the customer wants them, and soon they have a fully operational security system that can be left completely alone. It’s much cheaper for the buyers, and we’ve found that many of them prefer to look at gardens instead of metal walls and razor wire.”
“I can’t believe this!” grumbled Zoe. “All this time she was getting rich off my hard work, and she never even told me about it! Do you know what kind of hours I work just to draw a paycheck, while she was lounging around watching the cash roll in?”
Dr. Kim shrugged. “Do you think I’m here because I want to be?”
“You looked like you were enjoying yourself well enough a few minutes ago,” pointed out Kara sharply.
“Yes, well…” Dr. Kim trailed off. “So what are you going to do now?” she asked, suddenly changing the subject.
“We’re going to find Calysta, and I’m going to settle a score,” said Kara matter-of-factly. “And you’re going to help us.”
Their march through the jungle was slow and methodical, with Kara taking the lead and using a broad stick like a machete to hack away at any suspicious-looking plant life blocking the way. Zoe took up the rear, putting herself in position to keep a careful eye on the good Doctor, in case she should decide to run off. The three of them walked in strained silence, with distrust hanging thick in the air.
“I don’t see why you keep looking at me like that,” grumbled Dr. Kim after a while as Zoe glared at her from behind. “It’s not like I can run off.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Zoe, eyeing the Doctor’s briefcase which she carried at her side. “We’re still not too clear on exactly what kind of tools you have in there. Something that could be used as a weapon?”
“I don’t have any weapons!” protested the Doctor hotly. “There’s nothing in here but observational equipment for my research! Nothing that could be dangerous even if I wanted it to be!”
“And what about that bottle of pheromones?” asked Kara from the front. “From what you were saying when we saw you, it could be used to attract some…unwelcome attention.”
“Good point,” said Zoe in agreement. “I think I’d feel better if I were the one carrying that briefcase, Doctor.”
Zoe grabbed the briefcase and pulled, but the Doctor was stronger than she appeared. She gripped both hands around the handle and began pulling back, not about to surrender her equipment without a fight.
“Let go!” cried Zoe, and gave another tug at the briefcase. And this time, she managed to break the Doctor’s grip on the case. But Zoe pulled too hard, and as her mighty tug yanked it from the Doctor’s hands, Zoe too lost her grip on it. The briefcase flew into the air, and at the peak of its arc, the briefcase’s latches fell open, scattering the contents in all directions! Most of it was harmless: small metal implements or handheld computer devices that fell to the ground around them. But the one thing that made them stop in their tracks was the bottle of pheromones.
The three of them gasped as the bottle of pheromone-laden liquid flew through the air, like a live grenade thrown into a battle. All of them reached up desperately to catch it, but it was too late. It twirled end over end, flying above their heads, and the girls watched in horror as its top came loose and fell to the ground. The uncapped bottle scattered a fine blue mist all over, covering each of their bodies in the pernicious liquid. Their hair, their clothing, and most of all their skin were tinged blue and gave off a sweet, pungent aroma that made their blood run cold.
“Look—Look what you’ve done!!” cried Dr. Kim, her eyes conveying sheer terror as they darted back and forth like a trapped animal, surrounded by predators.
“What I’ve done?! This is your fault!” cried Zoe, but her outrage was also tempered by fear. With the blue liquid covering her skin, the jungle suddenly seemed a much more hostile place. She felt as though eyes were watching her from the underbrush, tracking her every move, salivating in the darkness and waiting to strike.
“What’s going to happen to us?” asked Kara, keeping her back to her two companions as she scanned the treeline. She tried to brush the liquid off her skin, but with no success: it seemed to bond with her skin the moment it made contact.
Suddenly, the three of them heard an unmistakable rustling in the trees. Something very close to them was moving.
“Could it be a wild animal?” asked Kara hopefully.
Dr. Kim shook her head. “This planet has no indigenous animal life, and we only engineered plant life. Which means that sound is something…responding to the plant pheromone.” She spoke the words like a death knell.
“We have to get out of here,” muttered Zoe, her eyes wild as she tried to fight off the claustrophobia of the forest around her.
“Where would we go?” asked Kara, who could also feel the unsettling sensation of the forest closing in around her. “We’re too far in to run.”
“We have to do something!” exclaimed Dr. Kim, who appeared the most frightened of all of them. “If we just stay here, any minute, something’s going to—“
The Doctor’s sentence was cut short as the terrifyingly familiar sight of moving vines broke through the trees, taking the three of them by surprise. Before they could do anything, vines wrapped around their waists, lifting the three struggling ladies off the ground and pulling them back into the underbrush as they screamed and fought for dear life.
And in seconds, they were brought face-to-face with their captor. It was a terrifying spectacle even on this strange and frightening world. Ten feet tall, it was comprised of a tall, thick stalk like a tree trunk. It had a huge pod at the top larger than a human head, bedecked with teeth like a Venus’ fly trap that gave it the eerie appearance of smiling wickedly at them. Extending from the stalk in all directions were a hundred different tendrils, flailing like tentacles: each of them seemed to have something different at the end of it, giving the plant a chaotic, patchwork appearance, as though it had been stitched together from dozens of different plants. As the plant beheld its new prey, all its tendrils immediately came to attention.
“Oh no. Oh no, no, no,” said the Doctor in horror, shaking her head.
“What is it?” asked Kara, not sure she wanted to know.
“It’s…a pedicure plant,” said Dr. Kim. “It’s a new creation in the experimental phase. Oh god, why did it have to be this?”
“A pedicure plant?” echoed Zoe with concern. “Is that what it’s going to do to us?”
But Zoe did not have to wait long for her answer. With the girls still lifted off the ground, the plant extended six thick tendrils, one for each of their bare feet. At the end of each was a large green pod, filled with some kind of liquid that sloshed around inside. With single-minded determination, the plant encased each of the girls’ feet in a pod of their own, sealing them at the ankles. For several seconds, nothing else happened: their feet were left to soak in the pods and absorb the moisture as though they had been in a foot-soaking tub. Kara was about to tempt fate by asking whether this was all there was. But the next moment, the liquid inside each of each soaking pod began to whirl around in a frenzied vortex.
“Mmmmph! Mmmmmmmpppphhhh!!” Kara struggled to hold in the laughter as the warm water whirled around her bare feet. She could feel tiny jets of water spraying against her soles, causing her feet to squirm as she fought for composure.
“Eeeeeek! It tickles!” giggled Zoe, the streams of bubbles striking the bottoms of her feet as well.
Dr. Kim tried to keep silent, but snickering escaped her sealed lips as her feet wriggled helplessly inside the soaking pods. With every passing second, more bubble jets were turned against the girls’ soles, and the water vortexes inside the pods began to churn at faster speeds. The girls tried to resist, but they could feel their resolve slipping: the foot-soaking was making their already sensitive feet all the more tender. They could feel the laughter building up, ready to break through their trembling lips, as they tried to hold it back one more second…
And then, unexpectedly, relief came. Just when they thought they couldn’t hold out for another second, the soaking pods opened up and drew away. Three pairs of warm, pink feet emerged, dripping with sweet, rose-scented liquid, dangling in the cool air.
“Is…is it over?” asked Zoe, breathing heavily.
But before anyone could answer her question, a new threat arose that caused all three girls to gasp aloud. More vines rose up towards them, except these did not carry liquid-filled pods like the last ones. The ends of these vines were coated in stiff bristles like a brush, covered in a thick, shiny liquid that gleamed like soapy water.
“It’s—it’s the next phase,” whispered Dr. Kim, her face pale. “Foot brushing.”
“No!” squealed Zoe, her toes curling in anticipation. “Keep them away!”
“S—stay back!” demanded Kara shakily. But the vines kept slowly approaching their targets.
“BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!” Instantly, all three girls exploded into hysterical laughter as the bristles made contact with their bare feet. The liquid the plant excreted coated their soles in seconds, allowing the stiff bristles to whip across the wet, slippery surfaces with ease. It was exactly like the touch of a foot-buffing brush covered in soapy water, wielded by a sadistic pedicurist out of a ticklish nightmare. And in this nightmare, their pedicure was not going to be over soon.
The three of them screamed with laughter, tugging on the vines holding them while their defenseless feet were exposed to one of the most nefarious tortures they had yet encountered. Kara and Zoe’s massive size fifteens danced in ticklish spasms beside Dr. Kim’s tiny size fives, but despite the difference all three were equally ticklish. And after their foot-soaking, their feet felt twice as ticklish as before. Any resistance they might have built up by walking across the dusty ground was gone: their feet were soft, perfectly clean, and ready for torture.
“STAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPPP!!!” pleaded Kara through wild laughter. The brushes continued to scrub her bare feet, coating her soles in sudsy bubbles that left them soft and frictionless. She cried hot tears as the bristles ran up and down her tall arches, buffing her heels and the balls of her feet with ruthless abandon. Kara had endured some pedicures in her time, but not one of them reached this level of pure, unbridled torture.
“NOOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOO!!!” howled Zoe, with her hyper-sensitized soles being utterly dominated by the soapy brushes. When they reached a soft spot on her soles, the brushes would rotate in a quick, circular motion like an electric toothbrush, tickling Zoe so badly that she could not even think straight. Her massive feet were at the mercy of these brushes, and they were happy to deliver a pedicure capable of tickling their subject to death.
“SAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAVVE US!!!” begged Dr. Kim, whose tiny tootsies were receiving every bit as much attention as their larger neighbors. The brushes concentrated their scrubbing even more tightly, as though they wanted to make up for the lack of surface area to tickle. Even worse, they focused on brushing underneath and between the Doctor’s toes, sliding their bristles into the hidden crevasses while the Doctor screamed at the top of her lungs. Her black-rimmed glasses fell off her face and her hair fell out of its neat bun into a disheveled mess, but she did not even notice: all she was aware of was how horribly ticklish her feet were.
And it was about to get worse. With their feet buffed by the hellish brushes, it was time for exfoliation. More vines arose, secreting a thick cream with a rough consistency onto the girls’ feet, as though it were filled with ground pumice. As the brushing continued, the vines spread the cream over every inch of their soles.
It was like receiving a foot massage with itching powder. The finely-ground granules inside the cream gave the rough effect of an abrasive that tickled their already sensitized soles like they could barely believe. The girls whooped with renewed, louder laughter as the tickling of the exfoliating cream contrasted with the quick strokes of the brushes that continued to torture their feet. With two different kinds of torture assaulting them simultaneously, their minds could no longer put up a defense against the tickling. All they could do was abandon their sanity and howl as they endured the spa treatment from hell.
“I CAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHANN’T TAKE IT!!!” laughed Kara, her poor feet glowing pink beneath the layer of cream. Her toes went into wild spasms as the brushes scrubbed her feet even harder, but this only caused the exfoliating agent between her toes to tickle even more. It was a devastating combination, one that was taking Kara and her companions to the edge of insanity.
Zoe and Dr. Kim, meanwhile, were past the point of speech. They babbled incomprehensibly in their laughter as their unbearably ticklish feet faced the treatments of a ravenous tickling machine. Their faces were red and their voices hoarse; it looked as though they might pass out from the tickling at any moment. But the plant, in its fiendish intelligence, seemingly knew to keep its victims conscious for their entire, harrowing ordeal. Moments before Zoe and Dr. Kim, and perhaps Kara as well, were about to slip into blissful unconsciousness, the tickling stopped.
The brushes receded from the girls’ abused, tickled feet, leaving only the combination of cream and soapy liquid behind. It dripped viscously from their dangling feet, which hung untouched for a moment of rest that the three girls desperately needed.
None of them could speak. For endless seconds, they only gasped for breath in silence. After what seemed like forever, Kara finally opened her mouth to speak. But she never got the chance. Their floral pedicurist, carefully attuned to the vital signs of its victims, apparently decided that it had given them enough of a rest. Suddenly, dozens of jets of the rose-scented water sprayed at the girls’ feet from all angles, washing the cream and liquid from their feet, and causing them to erupt in wild laughter once again.
“YEEEEEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!!!” squealed Zoe, accompanied by the high-pitched laughter of Kara and Dr. Kim as the bubbly jets sprayed their feet clean. In several minutes that felt like hours to the girls, their feet were once again pristine and sweet-smelling, dangling in the air and even more sensitive than ever before.
“W—what’s next?” asked Kara with a low moan. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take!”
“Please tell us it’s over!” begged Zoe. Her tender tootsies had had all the loving care they could stand.
But Dr. Kim said nothing, and the girls knew what it meant. There was no good news to give: more of this pedicure nightmare was on its way. The Doctor looked as though she was summoning up the mental strength to even name their next trial. But in its eagerness, the plant saved her the trouble. More vines rose up: these ones shaped like hands, with five finger-sized appendages at the end of each one. More noticeably, each “finger” had a pointed, rigid growth at the end of it, which looked exactly like a long fingernail filed to a rounded point.
“What are they going to do?” asked Kara fearfully.
The vines approached their helpless, wriggling feet once again, taking a hold of them gently as the girls fought to hold back the laughter. Like the last ones, these vines squirted a soft, white cream onto the girls’ feet. But this was not an exfoliating scrub: it felt more like a cool, moisturizing lotion. But unfortunately, the vines were not content to leave it at that. Using its appendages as fingers, the vines began to firmly massage the moisturizing lotion into the girls’ feet.
The sensation was like having their feet massaged by a pair of hands with devastatingly long, pointed fingernails. No matter how hard they tried, the nails kept touching ticklish flesh, pressing into the tender skin and brushing over soft spots by “accident”. No one but an expert could have given a foot massage with nails of that length, and the plant was channeling the spirit of either a complete amateur or a secretly malicious foot-tickler.
“NO MOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHORRRE!!!” Kara begged her deaf assailant as it worked the lotion into her feet. The touch of the finger-like vines on her soles was bad enough, but the fingernail-like appendages were truly doing the damage. You never knew when one of them might scratch your instep, or press into a soft spot with the accuracy of a homing missile. They were the kinds of accidents that could have caused a weaker woman to lose bladder control. And they happened with devastating frequency.
“PLEEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEAAASE NOOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!!!” Zoe screamed beside her. The lotion on her enormous feet was doing more than just moisturizing her skin: it was providing a slick, slippery surface for the fingernails to slide across with impunity. The finger-like vines rubbed the lotion deep into her ticklish feet, and after all the scrubbing and exfoliating she had endured, Zoe’s feet were now little more than a huge, ticklish nerve ending to be exploited.
“STAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPP!!! STAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPP!!!” was all Dr. Kim could cry. Even half-delirious from the tickling, she could still feel the humiliating burn of suffering this indignity at the hands of her own creation. But she had little time to reflect on the irony, as her feet were subjected to the most ticklish lotion massage of her life.
And with every passing second, the fingernail-touches became more frequent, and more devastating. The plant was slowly discarding the subterfuge that it was trying to avoid these “slips”. The girls felt one sharp nail, and then another, and then ten, scribbling across each smooth, lotion-covered sole with glee. It was a full tickling assault: sharp, manicured nails against soft, pedicured feet. All of the ticklish preparation and pampering of their tootsies had led them up to this, with soles more sensitive than they had ever been in any of their lives. None of them could have understood was it was to be truly ticklish until now. They could not see through their tears, or hear through the sound of insane, babbling laughter: the tickling was their entire existence. The cruel nails raked across their feet, scribbling forth the laughter that their tickler craved like sweet nectar. Their feet were beyond sensitive: they knew they had only seconds remaining before they were tickled into unconsciousness. The world started to spin around them, and just as their vision began to dim, they felt it: mercy.
The tickling was over, and this time, they knew it was for good: the plant obligingly placed them on the grassy ground beside it. The pedicure was over.
For more than a solid minute, the girls lay motionless on the forest floor, teetering at the edge of consciousness. And then slowly, they managed to life their heads to see the three of them lying side-by-side. Their bodies were drenched in sweat, and their bare feet were soft, sparkling clean, and moisturized. It took them a moment to notice a final detail: as the final step of their pedicures, the plant had filed their toenails and painted them a bright cherry red. It was somehow vaguely mocking.
“I…am never…getting…a pedicure…again…” gasped Zoe, before she collapsed on her back.
