Before I even knew about the TMF, I knew I liked tickling. I thought I was probably alone in this and I certainly didn't bring it up with anyone.
Throughout university and beyond one of my best friends was a girl I'll call Lina for the sake of this tale (and any future stories she shows up in). She was an attractive, cosmopolitan girl who spoke about four languages and was never short of male attention. She was slim and fair-skinned with hair I later learned was 'russet' in shade. She had great legs too.
In our final year, six of us shared a house. Lina, my friend and I had all been close friends since our first year. Three other girls joined us, two we knew, one was new to all of us but we all got on and it was fun and happy house. Living with Lina was a chance to see the effort her admirers would put in and eventually we all got used to being gatekeepers.
The phone would ring and it would be James looking for Lina.
"One sec, James, I'll see if she's in."
I'd look questioningly at her. She'd shake her head.
"Sorry she's out at the moment but I'll let her know you called."
The phone would ring again. "Hang on Matt, let me check."
This time she'd smile and take the call.
My own life was less exciting. I had been going out with the same girl for a while but we were hundreds of miles apart and it was growing increasingly obvious she was less invested in the relationship than I was.
One evening I was sitting in my room getting nowhere with an assignment when Lina came in to see how I was and to try and cheer me up. We chatted for a bit and after a while she sighed, "Budge up, you're in need of some of my red hot loving."
(Now despite the term, it wasn't what you're thinking. Sorry. She was a naturally tactile person and growing up in Europe it was normal for her to be more touchy-feely and huggy but in the more reserved UK, people were taken aback, or took it the wrong way. Basically she sat next to me on my chair and put her arm around me.)
It felt nice, I'm not going to lie. I was still pining for my GF so I wasn't even thinking of Lina as anything more than a friend.
So we chatted like that, she put her chin on my shoulder and tried to make me smile.
She pinched my cheek and remarked in surprise how smooth my skin was (lucky genes I guess) and then she said we were going to play a game. She was going to write things on my back with her fingertip and I had to guess what words she was writing.
She started out writing in slow block capitals. Those were easy to get. So she made it trickier by using a quicker flowing script. I don't know why but this started to tickle.
This didn't go unnoticed and when she asked me why I was flinching I told her I was just a little bit ticklish. I remember she whispered: "You shouldn't have told me that. But if it gets a smile out of you..." She said it with a grin that could only be described as impish.
She never tickled me that hard but being a tickle fan I found myself short of breath as her fingers trailed back and forth of my chest, back, neck and ribs and scribbling unintelligible nonsense words. My nerve endings were definitely tingling. One of the most insane ones was my forehead. She made me close my eyes and then wrote with her fingertip using the softest possible touch. Who the hell ever knew a forehead could be ticklish? (I tried it with another girl years later and it had the same effect on her, but that's another story).
"Oh look at you, was that a smile? Did you just laugh? I thought you were Mr grumpy."
Spurred on she gave me light tickles here and there and I had the sense she wanted to do more but we were just friends so there was a barrier or hesitancy for both of us. She had her chin on my shoulder and it moved to the juncture with my neck so when she spoke her chin would rub the sensitive spot and her breath tickled my cheek. It was subtly maddening.
She told me she wasn't going to write or tickle on my stomach as apparently guys got turned on when she did that. I was dying to ask her how many times she'd done this but then she remembered another trick.
For this one I had to look her dead in the eye without blinking. I felt her fingers glide over my thigh to my knee. She bunched her fingers together on my knee and then slowly dragged them outwards in a move I can only describe as 'spidery'. I'd never experienced that before but it was very effective.
I remember gasping through gritted teeth as I tried to hold my composure.
"That tickled, didn't it?"
I shrugged. She moved to the other knee. It was just a bad.
Finally I broke. She got me! The knee thing and her quizzical look and knowing smile did it.
"At last!" she said. She gave me a hug and said she had to go. She was supposed to be meeting some friends but was late because she had come to cheer me up. Now whilst there was some altruism there, she also knew the effect she could have on guys and she liked that.
It definitely cheered me up but I don't think I got any further with the assignment I was working on.
---
So why did I call this 'Timing is Everything'? (You don't have read this part, there's no more tickling.)
Whilst Lina and I were good friends, nothing ever happened between us. After university we discussed it once. Why had nothing ever happened? We'd spent enough time in each other's company, talking long into the night, lounging on the same bed. There had been times when I would have definitely liked to something happen.
Obviously she knew and it turned out there had been times she had felt the same way. Naturally I had been utterly oblivious. For whatever reason, it never happened at the same time.
We're in infrequent contact these days. Life has sent us in different directions and different continents so I guess we'll never know what would have happened if the timing had been right.
(I would say more, but given a couple of conversations we had where she really opened about a few things, I wouldn't be surprised if she is at least a lurker around here. Maybe she's reading this right now and thinking, "I know who that is!")
Throughout university and beyond one of my best friends was a girl I'll call Lina for the sake of this tale (and any future stories she shows up in). She was an attractive, cosmopolitan girl who spoke about four languages and was never short of male attention. She was slim and fair-skinned with hair I later learned was 'russet' in shade. She had great legs too.
In our final year, six of us shared a house. Lina, my friend and I had all been close friends since our first year. Three other girls joined us, two we knew, one was new to all of us but we all got on and it was fun and happy house. Living with Lina was a chance to see the effort her admirers would put in and eventually we all got used to being gatekeepers.
The phone would ring and it would be James looking for Lina.
"One sec, James, I'll see if she's in."
I'd look questioningly at her. She'd shake her head.
"Sorry she's out at the moment but I'll let her know you called."
The phone would ring again. "Hang on Matt, let me check."
This time she'd smile and take the call.
My own life was less exciting. I had been going out with the same girl for a while but we were hundreds of miles apart and it was growing increasingly obvious she was less invested in the relationship than I was.
One evening I was sitting in my room getting nowhere with an assignment when Lina came in to see how I was and to try and cheer me up. We chatted for a bit and after a while she sighed, "Budge up, you're in need of some of my red hot loving."
(Now despite the term, it wasn't what you're thinking. Sorry. She was a naturally tactile person and growing up in Europe it was normal for her to be more touchy-feely and huggy but in the more reserved UK, people were taken aback, or took it the wrong way. Basically she sat next to me on my chair and put her arm around me.)
It felt nice, I'm not going to lie. I was still pining for my GF so I wasn't even thinking of Lina as anything more than a friend.
So we chatted like that, she put her chin on my shoulder and tried to make me smile.
She pinched my cheek and remarked in surprise how smooth my skin was (lucky genes I guess) and then she said we were going to play a game. She was going to write things on my back with her fingertip and I had to guess what words she was writing.
She started out writing in slow block capitals. Those were easy to get. So she made it trickier by using a quicker flowing script. I don't know why but this started to tickle.
This didn't go unnoticed and when she asked me why I was flinching I told her I was just a little bit ticklish. I remember she whispered: "You shouldn't have told me that. But if it gets a smile out of you..." She said it with a grin that could only be described as impish.
She never tickled me that hard but being a tickle fan I found myself short of breath as her fingers trailed back and forth of my chest, back, neck and ribs and scribbling unintelligible nonsense words. My nerve endings were definitely tingling. One of the most insane ones was my forehead. She made me close my eyes and then wrote with her fingertip using the softest possible touch. Who the hell ever knew a forehead could be ticklish? (I tried it with another girl years later and it had the same effect on her, but that's another story).
"Oh look at you, was that a smile? Did you just laugh? I thought you were Mr grumpy."
Spurred on she gave me light tickles here and there and I had the sense she wanted to do more but we were just friends so there was a barrier or hesitancy for both of us. She had her chin on my shoulder and it moved to the juncture with my neck so when she spoke her chin would rub the sensitive spot and her breath tickled my cheek. It was subtly maddening.
She told me she wasn't going to write or tickle on my stomach as apparently guys got turned on when she did that. I was dying to ask her how many times she'd done this but then she remembered another trick.
For this one I had to look her dead in the eye without blinking. I felt her fingers glide over my thigh to my knee. She bunched her fingers together on my knee and then slowly dragged them outwards in a move I can only describe as 'spidery'. I'd never experienced that before but it was very effective.
I remember gasping through gritted teeth as I tried to hold my composure.
"That tickled, didn't it?"
I shrugged. She moved to the other knee. It was just a bad.
Finally I broke. She got me! The knee thing and her quizzical look and knowing smile did it.
"At last!" she said. She gave me a hug and said she had to go. She was supposed to be meeting some friends but was late because she had come to cheer me up. Now whilst there was some altruism there, she also knew the effect she could have on guys and she liked that.
It definitely cheered me up but I don't think I got any further with the assignment I was working on.
---
So why did I call this 'Timing is Everything'? (You don't have read this part, there's no more tickling.)
Whilst Lina and I were good friends, nothing ever happened between us. After university we discussed it once. Why had nothing ever happened? We'd spent enough time in each other's company, talking long into the night, lounging on the same bed. There had been times when I would have definitely liked to something happen.
Obviously she knew and it turned out there had been times she had felt the same way. Naturally I had been utterly oblivious. For whatever reason, it never happened at the same time.
We're in infrequent contact these days. Life has sent us in different directions and different continents so I guess we'll never know what would have happened if the timing had been right.
(I would say more, but given a couple of conversations we had where she really opened about a few things, I wouldn't be surprised if she is at least a lurker around here. Maybe she's reading this right now and thinking, "I know who that is!")
