It was a quiet weekend afternoon and Sarah was over at our place, as is not infrequently the case; I gathered that her apartment, which I’d never seen, was small and her neighbors were reportedly unpleasant.
I was reading and my wife was doing some work in preparation for a phone call and Sarah was palpably bored. Which is why, I guess, she got up, went over to my wife and whispered something in her ear. My wife’s eyes flicked gaily in my direction and she gave a sharp nod. She set her work aside and stood up.
“What’s going on?”
They were coming over toward me. “Don’t worry about it, Wade,” Sarah said.
“What are you doing?”
Now they were together looming over me and my wife was taking my wrists in her hands. “Just relax, baby, it’s fine.”
“It doesn’t seem fine,” I said, as my wife tried to lift my arms over my head and I resisted. “What are you doing, you weirdos?”
“Sarah wants to try,” my wife said.
And that’s when I yanked my arms back down to my sides in earnest. Just a few weeks before, my wife had introduced Sarah to the fact that my armpits are unbearably ticklish by inviting Sarah to hold my arms while Amanda tickled me there; hysteria ensued. I gathered that Sarah wanted to repeat the experience only this time with Amanda holding my arms and Sarah doing the tickling.
“Nope, nope, nope,” I said, lunging to get out of my chair. But they were both standing there forming a kind of a wall, and I bounced back down into a seated position.
“Come on,” my wife purred sweetly, smiling, still pulling at my arms, “just for a little bit. Just for a little bit.”
“Are you out of your minds?”
“Come on, Wade, just for a little bit,” Amanda kept saying. Now they each had my arms in their grasp and they were pulling me forward out of the chair; I was resisting by leaning backwards but the whole operation just resulted in my tumbling backwards onto the floor. Now they were cooperating in trying to drive my arms up over my head.
“Stop it,” I said, starting to laugh in spite of myself. “You guys are insane.”
“Almost got him,” Sarah said. “Almost got him.”
And it’s true that I was struggling to resist against their combined strength; my arms were being driven slowly but steadily over my head. One of them let go of me with one hand and the next thing I knew fingers were fluttering devilishly against my ribs; I barked with surprised laughter and the unexpected sensation scrambled my defenses. The next thing I knew I was flat on my back and Amanda was using her hands and her knees to pin my wrists over my head. Sarah knelt by my side, fingers at the ready.
“Guys, no,” I said, writhing anxiously. “Sarah, c’mon.”
“Just for a little bit,” Amanda said, although at that point I couldn’t tell if she was reassuring me or admonishing Sarah.
Then Amanda’s phone rang. This was good news for me: she’d been waiting for a work call and if this was it, she’d have to go take it. She leaned back – my hands still pinned under her knees – and slid her phone out of her jeans pocket. Yep: it was my reprieve. “Sarah I’m sorry, this is the, I have to uh –”
Sarah was scowling. She leaned forward to hold my arms down with her hands as Amanda stood up and exited the room to answer the call. She glowered down at my, her dark hair swaying on either side of her face, which was a mask of grouchy disappointment. My arms were still helplessly pinned over my head, but as long as Sarah needed both of her hands to hold them there, she couldn’t tickle me.
I grinned. “Oh well,” I said. “Better luck next time.”
Sarah didn’t want to give up. She scooched closer to me and swung one leg over so she was straddling my torso. Then she did the thing where she brought my hands together over my head so she could try to hold them both down with one of her hands, freeing one hand to tickle me. But she didn’t quite have the leverage or the strength to secure both my hands; I pulled one of them free and immediately clamped it over my exposed armpit.
“Nice try,” I said. “Guess this just isn't your day.”
But she didn’t look mad or disappointed anymore. Her eyes flashed with mischief. Next thing I knew, the fingers of her free hand were scrabbling friskily at the spot on my side just above my waist, one of the many places where she knew I just couldn’t take it. Instantly I started laughing helplessly and, without my wanting or meaning it to, my hand flew from my armpit down to my waist to try and stop the tickling. Which was exactly what she’d intended to happen – she seized my free hand and instantly jammed it under her knee. I was suddenly exponentially more vulnerable, my one armpit completely unguarded.
Sarah was grinning with undisguised delight. “You were saying?” she said.
Her hand started to move toward my underarm and I twisted and thrashed under her weight. “No no nononono Sarah c’mon no!”
She hesitated. “Why are you freaking out so much?” She cocked her head. “Are you just that bad there?”
“Yes you know I am,” I said, still squirming.
“Yeah but you’re ticklish everywhere,” Sarah said. “Is under your arm really that much worse?”
“I don’t know I guess, I don’t know.”
“Worse than your stomach?”
“Sarah I DON’T KNOW, let me go!”
“I’ll let you decide,” Sarah said. “You want me to get you under your arm, or you want me to get your stomach?”
You have got to be kidding me. “Neither!!”
“Neither's not an option. Under your arm, or on your stomach?”
“Oh my God Sarah will you stop talking about this…”
“If you don’t pick,” Sarah said, “I’ll do both. Which one, Wade? Which one? Wade, which one?”
This was of course a nightmare – the idea of Sarah tickling me mercilessly in either spot was intolerable. Plus, I didn’t even know the answer to the question. Which one was worse? They’re both worse, both equally worse. I can’t even direct her to the less ticklish spot if I don’t know which one’s less ticklish. What if neither one is less ticklish? I was trying in a frantic moment to strategize in a situation with no good outcome.
“Time’s running out, Wade,” Sarah said, her free hand poised in the air at the ready. “Which one, Wade?”
“My stomach! My stomach! My stomach,” I said, panicked. Why did I say my stomach, when Sarah had so often driven me around the bend that way? Maybe because my armpit was right there, totally defenseless? Whatever the reason, the idea that I had just saved myself from getting tickled under the arm was a relief, and felt a little bit like a victory after all of Sarah’s exertions to get me in this position. Improbably, I felt borderline smug about taking control of my destiny in this way.
“Really!” Sarah said in disbelief. “You sure? You realize you have the tickliest stomach in the universe. It has its own gallery in the tickly stomach hall of fame.”
“Oh my God, stop talking,” I said.
“So your armpit is even worse, is what you’re saying.” Sarah said. “That is so hard to believe. And sort of embarrassing for you. That’s a real weakness you have there.”
I felt the warmth rushing to my cheeks and knew my face had to be visibly reddening.
“Anyway,” Sarah said, “I know it must have been hard for you to admit that weakness to me so I just want to say I appreciate your honesty and your courage.”
“Means a lot,” I said.
Then her hand started moving toward my armpit and every muscle in my body tensed.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“Oh, you really shouldn’t trust me, Wade,” Sarah said as her fingers started playing against my immobilized underarm. Instantaneously I burst out with frantic yelping laughter, laughter that was wild and piercing and burbling, my whole body twitching pointlessly as her fingertips made their cyclical motions, brushing against their immobilized target with expert ease.
She made me laugh and laugh like that for a while and then paused. “You said you weren’t going to!” I gasped.
“C’mon how could I resist? After that build-up? And I gotta say –” her fingers fluttered under my arm again, eliciting more shrieking laughter, before pausing again. “—you were not exaggerating. Ten out of ten, would tickle again.” And she did. Tickle again. And the wild laughter poured out of me.
It became another one of those situations where I was immobilized and helpless and Sarah’s tickling went on long enough that my whole existence just reduced to the ticklish sensations and my constant, uninhibited laughter. The area under my arm is so small, geographically, but just big enough for Sarah’s constantly gyrating fingertips to travel around in a little circle, with each millimeter being equally, unwillingly responsive to her casual, unhurried attentions, producing in me exactly the exaggerated, unhinged reactions she was hoping for.
She paused again and I said “Sarah! You can’t just torture me!”
Sarah said “Mmm, fact check false,” and resumed tickling, driving me into another burst of wild laughter.
This was the satisfying entertainment she’d been looking for, and as long as she kept inflicting those feathery touches under my arm I would keep producing it– and as long as I kept laughing uncontrollably, she’d keep tickling me there. It was an inescapable loop. I tried to say “Stop it, quit it” over and over again but even I couldn’t understand the words, distorted beyond intelligibility by my whooping laughter.
Finally she stopped. “You’re very sensitive there,” she said. “Word of advice, I wouldn’t volunteer for this activity in the future if I were you.”
“I didn’t volunteer for it now!!”
“You didn’t?”
“No!”
“Funny,” Sarah said. “Your hand is raised.” She resumed tickling and I howled again with helpless giggles, an unwilling laugh track to her comedy stylings.
Eventually she stopped again. Panting, I said “Okay that’s enough let me go.”
Sarah said “What’ll you give me?”
Oh great. “Whatever you want,” I said. My dignity was long gone, no longer a priority at this point.
She nodded toward my other arm. “I want you to lift that arm over your head.”
“Yeah, right,” I said.
“That’s what I want, Wade,” she said, affecting a steely tone.
“If I lift that arm up you’re going to tickle me there!” I couldn’t believe she was making me have these conversations.
“Correct,” she said.
“Well no!” I said.
She gave kind of a little shrug and resumed tickling my currently exposed armpit; I resumed thrashing and juddering and filling the room with peals of uncontrollable laughter. She did this for a while and then stopped again. “How about now?”
“Either way you’re tickling me,” I cried.
“True. But! If you don’t do it, I’ll keep doing this.” she fluttered her fingertips in my armpit again and I squealed obligingly “How long do you think Amanda will be on the phone? Ten minutes? An hour? It sounded like it was gonna be a long conversation, didn’t it?” More pitiless fluttering, more involuntary squealing. “Honestly, Wade, I don’t know if you can take this for much longer. I’m worried about you.” Another flutter, another squeal. “I think you should give in. For your own good. Just from a personal wellness standpoint.” Flutter, squeal.
“And if I do it then what?”
Sarah scrunched up her face in thought. “I’ll get you there for just one minute.”
I gasped in outrage. “Ten seconds!”
“Forty seconds,” Sarah said.
“Ten seconds!” I said.
She started tickling me again and I bucked and shrieked and yelped “Thirty seconds thirty seconds THIRTY SECONDS!”
She relented, smiling with superior satisfaction. “Deal,” she said. She released her knee’s pressure on my pinned hand and seized it, forcing it above my head and pinning it there. With her other hand she brought my other arm down to my side and pinned that one there with her other knee. In the midst of these operations I made assorted feints to fighting or struggling or pulling free but we both knew how it was going to wind up; I was too ticklish in too many places to win this battle.
So here we were in sort of a mirror image of our previous posture – now my other arm was pinned over my head, my other armpit was completely vulnerable, and her opposing hand was now the one that was free and poised in the air in pre-tickle mode.
I said “Hang on, hang on, set the timer.”
“What timer?” Sarah said.
“For the thirty seconds!”
“You really shouldn’t trust me, Wade,” she said as her fingers alit on the unforgivingly sensitive spot under my arm and my back arched and my legs kicked and I was laughing again but with a refreshed and frantic vigor because of the novelty of having a previously unexposed ticklish spot newly under assault.
And this time she just kept tickling, no pauses for wisecracks or negotiations. Her fingers just brushed continually, playfully, mercilessly, against my defenseless armpit, perpetually, inexhaustibly, as I just laughed and laughed and laughed, that helpless constant ticklish laughter where you laugh and laugh and breathe and laugh and laugh and breathe and laugh. HAHAHAhaha (breath) HAHAHAhaha (breath). It was clearly music to her ears; through my squinched eyes I saw her satisfied smile.
How long did she tickle me there? Was it less than thirty seconds? Longer than a minute? Who even knows. No idea. When you’re ticklish, thirty seconds is enough to make you crazy, and the difference between a minute and five minutes starts to seem almost theoretical. But she didn’t stop until Amanda came back from her phone call, and even then not until Amanda gently laid her hand on Sarah’s forearm and guided her fingers away from her target.
Amanda smiled brightly down at me. “Wade,” she said. “You let Sarah have her fun, that was so sweet.”
“He’s a saint,” Sarah said, still straddling me.
“Give him a break though, before he turns into a puddle,” Amanda said.
“Oh, but I just remembered,” Sarah said. “He asked to have his stomach tickled.”
“NO,” I said.
Amanda’s mouth opened in delight, her eyes flashing with merriment, her brows knitted in surprise. “You did?”
“No,” I said. “I mean technically yes but—”
Amanda’s tongue peeked out between her teeth in bratty mischief. Suddenly my abdominal muscles convulsed of their own accord as I felt her maddeningly deft fingers start to dance across my helpless sides and belly.
My laughter started burbling forth instantly. “There was, there was, there was CONTEXT,” I shrieked before dissolving into helpless giggles.
