Sablesword
TMF Master
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2001
- Messages
- 787
- Points
- 18
While surfing the web the other day, I came across a reference to "tickle boots." Checking into this, I saw an entry that they were found in "certain science fiction stories" but the only real use I found was one episode of the UK series "The Tomorrow People."
My muse though "hey, this would be a great concept to use in a story," and a few days later we came up with the following. (Which I also posted over in TMF, so some of you may have seen it already.)
The story fell into something of a rut, wrt the tickling being "pure TORTURE and severe PUNISHMENT" - something I'd like to get away from in my future stories since I think it's being overdone. But in this case the story called for a punished male victim, and that's what I wrote. Anyway, here it is:
Toma 14,165
by Sablesword
Toma 14,165, formerly Captain Toma of the pirate ship Razor, looked down over himself as he waited for his mistress to appear. Like most civvie habitats, Ellen’s Coven ran warm, with the inhabitants scantily clad, and so what Toma mostly saw was skin. Taut skin over hard flesh, in Toma’s case. He had always been good about keeping fit, which was one reason why he’d been the Captain, but after his capture it had only brought a higher price on the auction block.
In addition to his skin, Toma saw the slave bands on his wrists and ankles, and could feel the matching collar around his neck. The bands looked like plain metal, but he knew they were stuffed with g-coils.
The only fabric on his body was a set of briefs in damned Security red, just large enough to hold his jewels and his jones. The latter organ would spring to attention when his owners commanded, and would only receive pussy when they choose to ladle it out, but was otherwise left alone. As long as he didn’t touch the skiving bitches, they didn’t care how badly he creamed his briefs. “Boys will be boys,” they’d say with infuriating condescension.
Toma thought he’d have used a chastity, in their position, but the bitches had something worse: Boots. Toma glared at his, the last item in his self-inspection.
The uppers were of ‘crystal leather,’ flexible and transparent. Toma could see his encased feet - including the toe-rings they’d made him wear. As if he were a woman! The tops of the boots had both physical and energy locks attaching them to the slave bands on his ankles. His mistress could remove the boots, if she choose; he could not.
The soles of the boots looked like rubberized cork, but were even more crammed with g-coils than the slave bands. Toma felt his feet cringe as he remembered just what the boots’ g-coils could do.
Toma had been cocky, when they first brought him here. That cockiness hadn’t survived the initial session where he learned just what the bitches’ tickling technology could do. He’d decided, very quickly, that he’d better pretend to fold. To make nice, and smile, and not resist the hypno-lessons, and kiss their feet, and appear as tamed and harmless as a hamster while waiting for his chance. And it had worked: He’d only been disciplined a couple of times, writhing on the deck and crying with laughter as the tickle boots punished him.
That, too, had boosted his price on the auction block. Another thing to pay the bitches back for. But only when the chance comes, he reminded himself.
The door dilated, and a woman came through. Toma sized her up with a space-pirates eye: Average height, brunette hair in a topknot, a bit on the skinny side. Wearing an ancient Terran ‘bikini’ in bright yellow. She’d bring a decent profit at auction, on a slave market Toma knew about. But in addition to the bikini she wore a control bracelet on her left wrist, and a headband as well. If they were what Toma suspected, she could activate his slave bands and tickle boots with either a touch of a button, or with a thought alone. Against that, finding his chance might be harder than he thought.
“Hello, Toma,” she greeted him cheerfully. “I’m Nanci, your new owner.”
Make nice. Toma reminded himself. “Mistress,” he said, falling to his knees. He crawled forward to kiss her sandaled feet.
She reached down to ruffle his hair. “You do that very well. Now, hands behind your back, please.” He looked up at her, and complied. The slave bands on his wrists locked together, as did the ones on his ankles. He hadn’t seen her touch her bracelet, so the command must have come from her headband. Yes, finding a chance would be a problem. If he seized her wrist, she could pin and punish him with the headband. If he snatched the headband, she could respond with the wrist control. If he were ever to turn the tables on her, he would somehow have to neutralize both controls at once.
She reached down to ruffle his hair again. “I am sorry about this, but it is necessary.” She stepped back and touched the wrist control.
Suddenly the universe shrank to the soles of his feet, and the soles of his feet were in hell. “What?” he gasped, “no, pleeese...” Then his need to laugh overrode his ability to speak. He thrashed and kicked, pulling at his bonds as shrieks and giggles poured out of him. But the g-coils in the slave bracelets held him with a force that no human muscles could overcome, and the g-coils in the tickle boots could not be escaped. Every ticklish nerve in the soles of his feet was mapped and targeted. Each was stimulated, gently but irresistibly, in a rapid random pattern. No matter how he clenched his toes, no matter how he squirmed, the tickling continued to punish him with its horrible softness, the suffering made worse by being only the tiniest bit different from pleasure.
It seemed to last much longer, but the tickling ended after sixty seconds. This, Toma knew, was the standard cycle for the bitches’ tickling technology. The tickling boots would then take fifteen seconds to reset, after which they could inflict another dose of tickle-torment.
The slave-bands released Toma, and he wanted few things worse than to rise up and give this Nanci-bitch what she deserved. But one of those few things was to avoid another round of tickling. So he lay on the floor, gasping, as Nanci said: “I really am sorry about that, Toma, but you were a pirate captain just a short time ago. I need to be sure that you’re truly tamed. If you are, then you’ll forgive me for this. And if you aren’t, then you need the reminder of what will happen if you don’t behave.”
Make nice Toma told himself again. Pretend to be tame, and wait for your chance. Not now, but soon. “Toma forgives you, mistress,” he said aloud. “Please don’t punish Toma any more. He’ll be good.”
“Good.” Nanci knelt down to caress his bare back. Toma found the touch disturbingly reassuring. The bitch’s tickle-torture had taken more out of him than he’d guessed. Wait he told himself yet again. Make nice, allow yourself to be petted, and pretend to be tame. You need a plan before you can act. For revenge to be sweet it first has to succeed.
“Now stand up, Toma,” Nanci said. “I’m going shopping, and I want you to come with me.”
Toma’s kennel was cramped, but it had two advantages: First, he had permission while in it to remove those shiving tickle boots. At least temporarily. Toma rubbed his poor abused feet and considered taking off the toe rings as well. Better not he decided. You’re suppose to be tamed, remember?
The second advantage was that he didn’t have to share it with Mistress Nanci.
After the shopping trip, Nanci had ordered Toma to her bed. A thought into her headband had left him spread-eagle there, the slave bands clamping him into place. Stretching alongside him, she’d cooed, and allowed her fingers to wander all over his helpless bod, tickling him lightly. She’d even removed the boots to finger-tickle his feet. That would have been the time for him to act. If he weren’t held helpless by the slave bands. And if he’d been able to stop squirming and giggling.
As torments went, it had been quite mild. Nothing he couldn’t handle. No where near as bad as the tickle boots, or the time that space-patrol officer had used the neuro lash on him, or even the various beatings he had picked up in various bar fights in his past. In fact, it might even have been a pleasure, if it weren’t for the utter shiving humiliation of it. Toma flushed hot at the memory. If he’d been able to resist, to ignore her dancing fingers on his bod... but he hadn’t. She’d gotten to him, made him squirm, made him giggle like a little boy as she made sickening baby-talk at him and let her teasing fingers roam over every bit of his bod.
Then she’d locked the tickle boots back on and sent him on his way. He’d had to thank her then, most humbly, before crawling off to his kennel. Well, he had spoken sharply, at first, but he’d backed down when she threatened to activate the boots. Even if he didn’t respect the bitch, he had to respect the technology.
But technology could be beaten. If he could jam the signals somehow, scrounge up something to build a jammer... yeah, that could work. And then he could give Mistress Nanci-bitch a taste of her own medicine. He imagined her bound hand and foot, screaming with laughter as he applied the g-coils applied to her own tender soles. Yeah, that would be sweet.
Toma fell asleep, smiling a genuine smile for the first time since his capture.
But the next morning, Toma had to lock the tickle boots back on his own feet, as Mistress Nanci watched. Then Nanci touched a stud on her wrist control, and Toma fell on his face. His slave bands clamped him to the floor, and the tickle boots cycled on. “No!” he had time to say before the laughter took him. It was just as bad as yesterday. Worse. He wanted to beg for it to stop, but he couldn’t stop laughing. He wanted to brace himself against it, but he couldn’t stop squirming. The tickle boots bathed his feet in a gentle softness that should have been pleasant, but the twisted intensity of it turned it into a torment.
As the seconds ticked away, oh so slowly, Toma felt as if his feet had grown two meters long and two meters wide. With each square centimeter assigned its own custom feather. And each feather was wielded by a master tickler. And each tickler was competing against all the others. And all of them were winning.
At last it ended. Toma gasped for breath, listened to the mistress’s condescending apology, bit back a sharp reply. “Yes mistress,” he made himself say when he could speak again. “Toma understands.”
“Good boy! Now I’m going shopping again this morning, and then to visit some friends. You will accompany me, as you did yesterday.”
For an instant, Toma was tempted to make a rude reply. But the boots were still on his feet, and Mistress Nanci-bitch still had the control bracelet and headband. And he did not want the tickle boots activated for another cycle. He made himself make nice: “Yes mistress.”
For the rest of the morning, Toma found himself wishing that he had made that rude reply. It would have earned him another cycle with the tickle boots, but it would have been worth it. Almost. Maybe. If he could have come up with a really good put-down.
That wish abruptly died at noon. It turned out that Nanci’s friend Mistress Kate had bought Toma’s old second in command. Toma remembered a man with icy blue eyes, who had retained a cold panache even in the disaster that had ended in their capture. But Rogar’s panache was nowhere to be found, and tears streamed out of his blue eyes. “Please,” he moaned. “Please.”
He sat with his back against the wall, dressed in as little as Toma himself: Tickle boots locked on his feet, briefs in Security red, slave bands on his wrists clamping his arms to the wall above his head, just as those on his ankles clamped his legs to the floor.
A control unit sat on a low table nearby, green numbers counting down to zero. “Pleeeese!” Rogar said one last time as a red ‘60’ replaced the green ‘0.’ “Ha...haha...hahahahaha...” Rogar squirmed weakly and laughed as his tickle boots cycled back on. Toma felt cold sweat as he stood watching with horrified fascination. His feet cringed in sympathy.
On the table, the control showed an elapsed time of 8 minutes 50 seconds, and a time remaining of 54 minutes 40 seconds.
“Rogar’s been a naughty boy,” Mistress Kate explained. “He was rebellious this morning, and actually spoke rudely to me. I’ve always though the Skaligrim Auctions never gave enough training, leaving it to us to make up the difference.”
“You have a point, there,” Nanci agreed with her friend. “To be safe, I give little Toma here a cycle first thing every morning. But Toma’s perfectly tamed now - or he’s learned how to pretend very well. Haven’t you, little Toma.”
“Y-yes, mistress,” Toma stammered. “I mean-”
“That’s all right, little Toma,” Nanci said, with condescension that would have set Toma on edge if he hadn’t been genuinely frightened. “I understand what you mean. I just want to be sure you understand: As long as you are perfectly tame and obedient, you have nothing to be afraid of.”
“Yes mistress,” Toma said again, and for good measure dropped to the floor to kiss her sandaled feet. That always worked, he’d decided. Kiss their feet, and they’d believe anything you said, no matter how full of bull it was.
“Good Toma,” Nanci cooed, and bent to stroke his bare back. “You see?” she told her friend. “ ‘A gram of prevention’ and all that. I told you that you should have done the same.”
“I guess you’re right,” Kate said. “But maybe you should give him another gram now.”
Toma cringed as Nanci fingered her bracelet. “No,” she said at last. “First thing every day, and no more - as long as he behaves himself.”
Over on the table, the red numbers fell to zero, and a green ‘15’ appeared. “Please, mistress,” Rogar begged. Kate looked down at him and silently shook her head. “Oh please,” Rogar moaned. “I’ll be good, I’ll be good. Pleeese mistress.”
The green numbers fell to zero, and Rogar began laughing again.
Toma came to dread locking on his tickle boots each morning, but Rogar’s fate haunted is dreams. So he set himself to endure the tickle-torment at the beginning of each day, and was sure to make nice to the mistress-bitch afterwards.
But as the days passed, he was able to filch bits and pieces with which to secretly assemble his jammer. It went slowly, shiving slowly, and the result was a kludge. Worse, he couldn’t test it without giving everything away.
He debated possible plans in his mind. If he acted and failed, he would suffer Rogar’s fate - or worse, although he couldn’t imagine what worst might be. Once he would have laughed at the idea of tickling as a torture to be feared. He snorted at the irony. Now his laughter would be of a different sort.
On the other hand, each day he delayed was another day when he might be caught - and another day where he was sure to suffer another cycle with the tickle boots. If he acted at once... He considered options. No way he could act before the daily cycle tomorrow, so he’d have to endure one more round of that fiendish tickling. Afterwards, yeah, that would be a good time to strike. He imagined the look on Nanci-bitch’s face when her controls failed. He imagined tying her down, and tickling her as he had been tickled himself, until she broke and begged for mercy. With help forced from her, he could steal a shuttle, get away from this skiving bitches’ habitat. And he could take Nanci-poo with him. Put tickle boots on her feet, punish her as she’d punished him, until she obeyed his every whim. And then tickle-torment her some more, just because. Yeah. That would be sweet.
When he presented himself to Mistress Nanci the next morning, boots locked into place, she had an odd smile playing about her face. Toma swallowed. Had he been caught? Then time for speculation ended, as she pressed the dreaded stud on her bracelet and his tickle boots cycled on. He lay on the floor, slave bands clamping him in place as usual, squirming as usual, laughing as usual, as the tickle boots subjected his feet to the familiar torments of the tickled damned. But this time Nanci knelt over him, tickling his ribs and legs with her own fingers. In a way that helped, but in another way that just made things worse. He wanted to beg her to stop, but of course his laughter kept him from speaking.
The eternal sixty seconds ended, but the tickling - didn’t. It went on and on, and Toma wanted to howl with anguish. He couldn’t; he could only squirm and giggle weakly. And then, like looking at an optical illusion, his perceptions changed: A million tickle-demons still tickled every square centimeter of his ultra-sensitive soles, but now their touch gave pleasure, rather than torment. It was still tickling, of course. It still made him laugh and squirm. But now he was glad, glad! that the slave bands held him helpless, that the tickle boots were locked against his soles. Now he wanted to fail to escape, no matter how much this wonderful tickling forced him to struggle. He wanted for it to go on, and on, and on...
He whimpered in disappointment when it finally stopped. “There now, little Toma,” Mistress Nanci said. “That was good, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
Her voice sharpened “ ‘Yes’ what?”
“Yes mistress!” he said. A stab of panic went through him. It couldn’t go sour on him now. “Yes mistress, it was very good. Toma thanks you. Toma is sorry he forgot.”
“I’ll forgive you this time,” Nanci said. “It was a shock, after all. Kate showed me the trick of it: The tickle boots cycle off after sixty seconds because the tickling... changes after seventy-five. But the controls can be hacked to get around the timer. You had three full minutes - and you did like it after the first bit, didn’t you.”
“Yes mistress,” Toma said. He still felt whipsawed, and breathed deeply to try to clear his head. There was danger here: Not just from Nanci-poo becoming suspicious (he cursed himself for that lapse), but also from this new form of tickling. If the bitches who had ‘trained’ him had mixed tickle pleasure with tickle torment, rather than relying on torment alone, he might have broken in truth to become ‘tame little Toma.’ He shivered.
“I’ll let you up now,” Nanci said. A moment’s concentration on her part and Toma’s slave bands released him. “Now go to the closet and get your new present.”
“Yes mistress,” Toma said, and took the time to kiss her feet - for luck, and to lull her, he told himself.
“Very good,” Nanci laughed. “But hurry to the closet and get your present.”
The ‘present’ turned out to be a black leather harness with a set of black briefs. “Go to your kennel and put them on,” Nanci told him. “And hurry right back.”
“Yes mistress! Thank you mistress!” Toma scurried away grinning. He felt elated; his luck was finally looking up. He had the perfect chance to use his jammer, and he could get rid of his current briefs in their damn Security red. With them gone, and with Nanci-poo broken as he intended to break her, he could enter the restricted areas, steal a ship, and be out of this pesthole. With Nanci-poo along as a bonus, to be his slavey. It would be so sweet.
On his return, Toma set his jury-rigged jammer on the desk and turned it on. “Nanci-poo, I’m back,” he said.
“Toma,” she began angrily, and then he pounced. The look of shock on her face was priceless as her headband and control bracelet both failed to stop him. He stripped both devices off her, and tied her to her own bed using torn strips of cloth - low-tech, but effective.
“Toma,” she said again, her voice a half octave higher. “What are you doing?”
“This is called ‘you lose, and must suffer the consequences,’” Toma told her. “I’m out of this place. But before I leave, I’m gonna make you pay for everything you’ve done to me. I not gonna hurt you, though, if that’s what you’re afraid of.” He meditated for a moment in memory. “I don’t talk about this much, but back when I was a juv, I had a run-in with the law. They put an inhibition in me, against hurting women. Ever since then, I’ve had to work around that inhibition. Like letting others do the hurting for me. Or like here - tickling isn’t considered hurting, is it? Coochie-coo!” He spoke the ancient incantation and his fingers lightly attacked her ribs.
It was just as sweet as he’d anticipated. Nanci-poo jerked and screamed as he let his tickling fingers roam over her female bod. He ignored her tears and her pleas for mercy, and let her laughter ring like music in his ears. He flipped her sandals off and paid special attention to the soles of her feet, causing her to thrash with her wildest struggles yet. The only fly in his ointment was that his slave bands, collar, and tickle boots were still locked in place. Well, he’d just have to get Nanci-poo to cough up the codes to unlock them. In fact, he’d enjoy doing so.
When his fingers grew tired of tickling, a bit of searching brought up... “What’s this, a tickle wand?” He grinned evilly.
“Please Toma,” Nanci begged. “Not that. Anything but that. I’ll tell you anything you want to know, do anything you ask, just don’t...” Toma shook his head silently, switched the wand on, and applied it to her bare feet. “Heeeeee...” she squealed. “Ha...hahahahahaha...” She squirmed, and tried to move her feet away, clenching her toes. From his experience with the tickle boots, Toma knew just how useless that was. He didn’t think much of these bitches, but he did respect their technology.
Toma timed his applications of the tickle wand carefully. He was an expert at breaking down prisoners, and didn’t intend to make any mistakes. He didn’t bother asking any questions, but simply maintained up tickle attacks that alternated between her feet and ribs, feet and belly, feet and arms, keeping her in near-constant hysterics.
It was his jammer that betrayed him, glitching and failing as jury-rigged devices are wont to do. The slave devices he wore finally acted on the signals they’d received, and he found himself falling limp. His slave bands clamped him to the floor. And his tickle boots cycled on.
“No!” he cried. “Nooo...haahahahahaha...” He’d come so close, and now he was back in hell. Feet first. And his feet were being tickled, and tickled, and tickled.
The tickle boots ran through a dozen cycles before stopping, and it took Nanci an hour longer to free herself, while Toma remained clamped to the floor. Her eyes glittered when she finally stood over him, control bracelet in hand.
“No, Toma,” she told him. “I’m not going to put you through another cycle right now. I’m going to put you out until I can think of a proper punishment. Nighty-night.”
Toma felt a shock from his slave collar. Stunner he thought, as the darkness claimed him.
When Toma woke again, he found himself stripped naked, except for his slave collar, slave bands - and the tickle boots, still locked on his feet. His ankles were clamped in place, and heavy chains ran from his wrists to either side. A drink tube dangled near his head, and a digital readout - not yet running - was visible further up. He lay, half-sitting up, in a prison bathtub. The sort used to clean recalcitrant prisoners while they still wore restraints. This was not going to be good he thought.
“You’ve been a very bad boy, Toma.” He looked to the side to see Mistress Nanci-bitch. “We’ve decided that you aren’t just to be punished, but to be disciplined. So this is what will happen to you:
“The controls on for your tickle boots have been changed to a one-oh-five second cycle. That’s seventy-five seconds of punishment, a fifteen second taste of what cooperation can bring, and then the usual fifteen second reset. Every hour you’ll have a four minute break to wet your dry throat - you’ll need it. And after twenty-four hours we’ll see if you really have been tamed, this time.
“Your discipline starts,” she touched a stud on her bracelet, “in fifteen seconds.”
Toma watched the green numbers count down on the timer overhead. “Oh no...” he whispered. Then the tickle boots cycled on.
My muse though "hey, this would be a great concept to use in a story," and a few days later we came up with the following. (Which I also posted over in TMF, so some of you may have seen it already.)
The story fell into something of a rut, wrt the tickling being "pure TORTURE and severe PUNISHMENT" - something I'd like to get away from in my future stories since I think it's being overdone. But in this case the story called for a punished male victim, and that's what I wrote. Anyway, here it is:
Toma 14,165
by Sablesword
Toma 14,165, formerly Captain Toma of the pirate ship Razor, looked down over himself as he waited for his mistress to appear. Like most civvie habitats, Ellen’s Coven ran warm, with the inhabitants scantily clad, and so what Toma mostly saw was skin. Taut skin over hard flesh, in Toma’s case. He had always been good about keeping fit, which was one reason why he’d been the Captain, but after his capture it had only brought a higher price on the auction block.
In addition to his skin, Toma saw the slave bands on his wrists and ankles, and could feel the matching collar around his neck. The bands looked like plain metal, but he knew they were stuffed with g-coils.
The only fabric on his body was a set of briefs in damned Security red, just large enough to hold his jewels and his jones. The latter organ would spring to attention when his owners commanded, and would only receive pussy when they choose to ladle it out, but was otherwise left alone. As long as he didn’t touch the skiving bitches, they didn’t care how badly he creamed his briefs. “Boys will be boys,” they’d say with infuriating condescension.
Toma thought he’d have used a chastity, in their position, but the bitches had something worse: Boots. Toma glared at his, the last item in his self-inspection.
The uppers were of ‘crystal leather,’ flexible and transparent. Toma could see his encased feet - including the toe-rings they’d made him wear. As if he were a woman! The tops of the boots had both physical and energy locks attaching them to the slave bands on his ankles. His mistress could remove the boots, if she choose; he could not.
The soles of the boots looked like rubberized cork, but were even more crammed with g-coils than the slave bands. Toma felt his feet cringe as he remembered just what the boots’ g-coils could do.
Toma had been cocky, when they first brought him here. That cockiness hadn’t survived the initial session where he learned just what the bitches’ tickling technology could do. He’d decided, very quickly, that he’d better pretend to fold. To make nice, and smile, and not resist the hypno-lessons, and kiss their feet, and appear as tamed and harmless as a hamster while waiting for his chance. And it had worked: He’d only been disciplined a couple of times, writhing on the deck and crying with laughter as the tickle boots punished him.
That, too, had boosted his price on the auction block. Another thing to pay the bitches back for. But only when the chance comes, he reminded himself.
The door dilated, and a woman came through. Toma sized her up with a space-pirates eye: Average height, brunette hair in a topknot, a bit on the skinny side. Wearing an ancient Terran ‘bikini’ in bright yellow. She’d bring a decent profit at auction, on a slave market Toma knew about. But in addition to the bikini she wore a control bracelet on her left wrist, and a headband as well. If they were what Toma suspected, she could activate his slave bands and tickle boots with either a touch of a button, or with a thought alone. Against that, finding his chance might be harder than he thought.
“Hello, Toma,” she greeted him cheerfully. “I’m Nanci, your new owner.”
Make nice. Toma reminded himself. “Mistress,” he said, falling to his knees. He crawled forward to kiss her sandaled feet.
She reached down to ruffle his hair. “You do that very well. Now, hands behind your back, please.” He looked up at her, and complied. The slave bands on his wrists locked together, as did the ones on his ankles. He hadn’t seen her touch her bracelet, so the command must have come from her headband. Yes, finding a chance would be a problem. If he seized her wrist, she could pin and punish him with the headband. If he snatched the headband, she could respond with the wrist control. If he were ever to turn the tables on her, he would somehow have to neutralize both controls at once.
She reached down to ruffle his hair again. “I am sorry about this, but it is necessary.” She stepped back and touched the wrist control.
Suddenly the universe shrank to the soles of his feet, and the soles of his feet were in hell. “What?” he gasped, “no, pleeese...” Then his need to laugh overrode his ability to speak. He thrashed and kicked, pulling at his bonds as shrieks and giggles poured out of him. But the g-coils in the slave bracelets held him with a force that no human muscles could overcome, and the g-coils in the tickle boots could not be escaped. Every ticklish nerve in the soles of his feet was mapped and targeted. Each was stimulated, gently but irresistibly, in a rapid random pattern. No matter how he clenched his toes, no matter how he squirmed, the tickling continued to punish him with its horrible softness, the suffering made worse by being only the tiniest bit different from pleasure.
It seemed to last much longer, but the tickling ended after sixty seconds. This, Toma knew, was the standard cycle for the bitches’ tickling technology. The tickling boots would then take fifteen seconds to reset, after which they could inflict another dose of tickle-torment.
The slave-bands released Toma, and he wanted few things worse than to rise up and give this Nanci-bitch what she deserved. But one of those few things was to avoid another round of tickling. So he lay on the floor, gasping, as Nanci said: “I really am sorry about that, Toma, but you were a pirate captain just a short time ago. I need to be sure that you’re truly tamed. If you are, then you’ll forgive me for this. And if you aren’t, then you need the reminder of what will happen if you don’t behave.”
Make nice Toma told himself again. Pretend to be tame, and wait for your chance. Not now, but soon. “Toma forgives you, mistress,” he said aloud. “Please don’t punish Toma any more. He’ll be good.”
“Good.” Nanci knelt down to caress his bare back. Toma found the touch disturbingly reassuring. The bitch’s tickle-torture had taken more out of him than he’d guessed. Wait he told himself yet again. Make nice, allow yourself to be petted, and pretend to be tame. You need a plan before you can act. For revenge to be sweet it first has to succeed.
“Now stand up, Toma,” Nanci said. “I’m going shopping, and I want you to come with me.”
#
Toma’s kennel was cramped, but it had two advantages: First, he had permission while in it to remove those shiving tickle boots. At least temporarily. Toma rubbed his poor abused feet and considered taking off the toe rings as well. Better not he decided. You’re suppose to be tamed, remember?
The second advantage was that he didn’t have to share it with Mistress Nanci.
After the shopping trip, Nanci had ordered Toma to her bed. A thought into her headband had left him spread-eagle there, the slave bands clamping him into place. Stretching alongside him, she’d cooed, and allowed her fingers to wander all over his helpless bod, tickling him lightly. She’d even removed the boots to finger-tickle his feet. That would have been the time for him to act. If he weren’t held helpless by the slave bands. And if he’d been able to stop squirming and giggling.
As torments went, it had been quite mild. Nothing he couldn’t handle. No where near as bad as the tickle boots, or the time that space-patrol officer had used the neuro lash on him, or even the various beatings he had picked up in various bar fights in his past. In fact, it might even have been a pleasure, if it weren’t for the utter shiving humiliation of it. Toma flushed hot at the memory. If he’d been able to resist, to ignore her dancing fingers on his bod... but he hadn’t. She’d gotten to him, made him squirm, made him giggle like a little boy as she made sickening baby-talk at him and let her teasing fingers roam over every bit of his bod.
Then she’d locked the tickle boots back on and sent him on his way. He’d had to thank her then, most humbly, before crawling off to his kennel. Well, he had spoken sharply, at first, but he’d backed down when she threatened to activate the boots. Even if he didn’t respect the bitch, he had to respect the technology.
But technology could be beaten. If he could jam the signals somehow, scrounge up something to build a jammer... yeah, that could work. And then he could give Mistress Nanci-bitch a taste of her own medicine. He imagined her bound hand and foot, screaming with laughter as he applied the g-coils applied to her own tender soles. Yeah, that would be sweet.
Toma fell asleep, smiling a genuine smile for the first time since his capture.
But the next morning, Toma had to lock the tickle boots back on his own feet, as Mistress Nanci watched. Then Nanci touched a stud on her wrist control, and Toma fell on his face. His slave bands clamped him to the floor, and the tickle boots cycled on. “No!” he had time to say before the laughter took him. It was just as bad as yesterday. Worse. He wanted to beg for it to stop, but he couldn’t stop laughing. He wanted to brace himself against it, but he couldn’t stop squirming. The tickle boots bathed his feet in a gentle softness that should have been pleasant, but the twisted intensity of it turned it into a torment.
As the seconds ticked away, oh so slowly, Toma felt as if his feet had grown two meters long and two meters wide. With each square centimeter assigned its own custom feather. And each feather was wielded by a master tickler. And each tickler was competing against all the others. And all of them were winning.
At last it ended. Toma gasped for breath, listened to the mistress’s condescending apology, bit back a sharp reply. “Yes mistress,” he made himself say when he could speak again. “Toma understands.”
“Good boy! Now I’m going shopping again this morning, and then to visit some friends. You will accompany me, as you did yesterday.”
For an instant, Toma was tempted to make a rude reply. But the boots were still on his feet, and Mistress Nanci-bitch still had the control bracelet and headband. And he did not want the tickle boots activated for another cycle. He made himself make nice: “Yes mistress.”
#
For the rest of the morning, Toma found himself wishing that he had made that rude reply. It would have earned him another cycle with the tickle boots, but it would have been worth it. Almost. Maybe. If he could have come up with a really good put-down.
That wish abruptly died at noon. It turned out that Nanci’s friend Mistress Kate had bought Toma’s old second in command. Toma remembered a man with icy blue eyes, who had retained a cold panache even in the disaster that had ended in their capture. But Rogar’s panache was nowhere to be found, and tears streamed out of his blue eyes. “Please,” he moaned. “Please.”
He sat with his back against the wall, dressed in as little as Toma himself: Tickle boots locked on his feet, briefs in Security red, slave bands on his wrists clamping his arms to the wall above his head, just as those on his ankles clamped his legs to the floor.
A control unit sat on a low table nearby, green numbers counting down to zero. “Pleeeese!” Rogar said one last time as a red ‘60’ replaced the green ‘0.’ “Ha...haha...hahahahaha...” Rogar squirmed weakly and laughed as his tickle boots cycled back on. Toma felt cold sweat as he stood watching with horrified fascination. His feet cringed in sympathy.
On the table, the control showed an elapsed time of 8 minutes 50 seconds, and a time remaining of 54 minutes 40 seconds.
“Rogar’s been a naughty boy,” Mistress Kate explained. “He was rebellious this morning, and actually spoke rudely to me. I’ve always though the Skaligrim Auctions never gave enough training, leaving it to us to make up the difference.”
“You have a point, there,” Nanci agreed with her friend. “To be safe, I give little Toma here a cycle first thing every morning. But Toma’s perfectly tamed now - or he’s learned how to pretend very well. Haven’t you, little Toma.”
“Y-yes, mistress,” Toma stammered. “I mean-”
“That’s all right, little Toma,” Nanci said, with condescension that would have set Toma on edge if he hadn’t been genuinely frightened. “I understand what you mean. I just want to be sure you understand: As long as you are perfectly tame and obedient, you have nothing to be afraid of.”
“Yes mistress,” Toma said again, and for good measure dropped to the floor to kiss her sandaled feet. That always worked, he’d decided. Kiss their feet, and they’d believe anything you said, no matter how full of bull it was.
“Good Toma,” Nanci cooed, and bent to stroke his bare back. “You see?” she told her friend. “ ‘A gram of prevention’ and all that. I told you that you should have done the same.”
“I guess you’re right,” Kate said. “But maybe you should give him another gram now.”
Toma cringed as Nanci fingered her bracelet. “No,” she said at last. “First thing every day, and no more - as long as he behaves himself.”
Over on the table, the red numbers fell to zero, and a green ‘15’ appeared. “Please, mistress,” Rogar begged. Kate looked down at him and silently shook her head. “Oh please,” Rogar moaned. “I’ll be good, I’ll be good. Pleeese mistress.”
The green numbers fell to zero, and Rogar began laughing again.
#
Toma came to dread locking on his tickle boots each morning, but Rogar’s fate haunted is dreams. So he set himself to endure the tickle-torment at the beginning of each day, and was sure to make nice to the mistress-bitch afterwards.
But as the days passed, he was able to filch bits and pieces with which to secretly assemble his jammer. It went slowly, shiving slowly, and the result was a kludge. Worse, he couldn’t test it without giving everything away.
He debated possible plans in his mind. If he acted and failed, he would suffer Rogar’s fate - or worse, although he couldn’t imagine what worst might be. Once he would have laughed at the idea of tickling as a torture to be feared. He snorted at the irony. Now his laughter would be of a different sort.
On the other hand, each day he delayed was another day when he might be caught - and another day where he was sure to suffer another cycle with the tickle boots. If he acted at once... He considered options. No way he could act before the daily cycle tomorrow, so he’d have to endure one more round of that fiendish tickling. Afterwards, yeah, that would be a good time to strike. He imagined the look on Nanci-bitch’s face when her controls failed. He imagined tying her down, and tickling her as he had been tickled himself, until she broke and begged for mercy. With help forced from her, he could steal a shuttle, get away from this skiving bitches’ habitat. And he could take Nanci-poo with him. Put tickle boots on her feet, punish her as she’d punished him, until she obeyed his every whim. And then tickle-torment her some more, just because. Yeah. That would be sweet.
When he presented himself to Mistress Nanci the next morning, boots locked into place, she had an odd smile playing about her face. Toma swallowed. Had he been caught? Then time for speculation ended, as she pressed the dreaded stud on her bracelet and his tickle boots cycled on. He lay on the floor, slave bands clamping him in place as usual, squirming as usual, laughing as usual, as the tickle boots subjected his feet to the familiar torments of the tickled damned. But this time Nanci knelt over him, tickling his ribs and legs with her own fingers. In a way that helped, but in another way that just made things worse. He wanted to beg her to stop, but of course his laughter kept him from speaking.
The eternal sixty seconds ended, but the tickling - didn’t. It went on and on, and Toma wanted to howl with anguish. He couldn’t; he could only squirm and giggle weakly. And then, like looking at an optical illusion, his perceptions changed: A million tickle-demons still tickled every square centimeter of his ultra-sensitive soles, but now their touch gave pleasure, rather than torment. It was still tickling, of course. It still made him laugh and squirm. But now he was glad, glad! that the slave bands held him helpless, that the tickle boots were locked against his soles. Now he wanted to fail to escape, no matter how much this wonderful tickling forced him to struggle. He wanted for it to go on, and on, and on...
He whimpered in disappointment when it finally stopped. “There now, little Toma,” Mistress Nanci said. “That was good, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
Her voice sharpened “ ‘Yes’ what?”
“Yes mistress!” he said. A stab of panic went through him. It couldn’t go sour on him now. “Yes mistress, it was very good. Toma thanks you. Toma is sorry he forgot.”
“I’ll forgive you this time,” Nanci said. “It was a shock, after all. Kate showed me the trick of it: The tickle boots cycle off after sixty seconds because the tickling... changes after seventy-five. But the controls can be hacked to get around the timer. You had three full minutes - and you did like it after the first bit, didn’t you.”
“Yes mistress,” Toma said. He still felt whipsawed, and breathed deeply to try to clear his head. There was danger here: Not just from Nanci-poo becoming suspicious (he cursed himself for that lapse), but also from this new form of tickling. If the bitches who had ‘trained’ him had mixed tickle pleasure with tickle torment, rather than relying on torment alone, he might have broken in truth to become ‘tame little Toma.’ He shivered.
“I’ll let you up now,” Nanci said. A moment’s concentration on her part and Toma’s slave bands released him. “Now go to the closet and get your new present.”
“Yes mistress,” Toma said, and took the time to kiss her feet - for luck, and to lull her, he told himself.
“Very good,” Nanci laughed. “But hurry to the closet and get your present.”
The ‘present’ turned out to be a black leather harness with a set of black briefs. “Go to your kennel and put them on,” Nanci told him. “And hurry right back.”
“Yes mistress! Thank you mistress!” Toma scurried away grinning. He felt elated; his luck was finally looking up. He had the perfect chance to use his jammer, and he could get rid of his current briefs in their damn Security red. With them gone, and with Nanci-poo broken as he intended to break her, he could enter the restricted areas, steal a ship, and be out of this pesthole. With Nanci-poo along as a bonus, to be his slavey. It would be so sweet.
On his return, Toma set his jury-rigged jammer on the desk and turned it on. “Nanci-poo, I’m back,” he said.
“Toma,” she began angrily, and then he pounced. The look of shock on her face was priceless as her headband and control bracelet both failed to stop him. He stripped both devices off her, and tied her to her own bed using torn strips of cloth - low-tech, but effective.
“Toma,” she said again, her voice a half octave higher. “What are you doing?”
“This is called ‘you lose, and must suffer the consequences,’” Toma told her. “I’m out of this place. But before I leave, I’m gonna make you pay for everything you’ve done to me. I not gonna hurt you, though, if that’s what you’re afraid of.” He meditated for a moment in memory. “I don’t talk about this much, but back when I was a juv, I had a run-in with the law. They put an inhibition in me, against hurting women. Ever since then, I’ve had to work around that inhibition. Like letting others do the hurting for me. Or like here - tickling isn’t considered hurting, is it? Coochie-coo!” He spoke the ancient incantation and his fingers lightly attacked her ribs.
It was just as sweet as he’d anticipated. Nanci-poo jerked and screamed as he let his tickling fingers roam over her female bod. He ignored her tears and her pleas for mercy, and let her laughter ring like music in his ears. He flipped her sandals off and paid special attention to the soles of her feet, causing her to thrash with her wildest struggles yet. The only fly in his ointment was that his slave bands, collar, and tickle boots were still locked in place. Well, he’d just have to get Nanci-poo to cough up the codes to unlock them. In fact, he’d enjoy doing so.
When his fingers grew tired of tickling, a bit of searching brought up... “What’s this, a tickle wand?” He grinned evilly.
“Please Toma,” Nanci begged. “Not that. Anything but that. I’ll tell you anything you want to know, do anything you ask, just don’t...” Toma shook his head silently, switched the wand on, and applied it to her bare feet. “Heeeeee...” she squealed. “Ha...hahahahahaha...” She squirmed, and tried to move her feet away, clenching her toes. From his experience with the tickle boots, Toma knew just how useless that was. He didn’t think much of these bitches, but he did respect their technology.
Toma timed his applications of the tickle wand carefully. He was an expert at breaking down prisoners, and didn’t intend to make any mistakes. He didn’t bother asking any questions, but simply maintained up tickle attacks that alternated between her feet and ribs, feet and belly, feet and arms, keeping her in near-constant hysterics.
It was his jammer that betrayed him, glitching and failing as jury-rigged devices are wont to do. The slave devices he wore finally acted on the signals they’d received, and he found himself falling limp. His slave bands clamped him to the floor. And his tickle boots cycled on.
“No!” he cried. “Nooo...haahahahahaha...” He’d come so close, and now he was back in hell. Feet first. And his feet were being tickled, and tickled, and tickled.
The tickle boots ran through a dozen cycles before stopping, and it took Nanci an hour longer to free herself, while Toma remained clamped to the floor. Her eyes glittered when she finally stood over him, control bracelet in hand.
“No, Toma,” she told him. “I’m not going to put you through another cycle right now. I’m going to put you out until I can think of a proper punishment. Nighty-night.”
Toma felt a shock from his slave collar. Stunner he thought, as the darkness claimed him.
#
When Toma woke again, he found himself stripped naked, except for his slave collar, slave bands - and the tickle boots, still locked on his feet. His ankles were clamped in place, and heavy chains ran from his wrists to either side. A drink tube dangled near his head, and a digital readout - not yet running - was visible further up. He lay, half-sitting up, in a prison bathtub. The sort used to clean recalcitrant prisoners while they still wore restraints. This was not going to be good he thought.
“You’ve been a very bad boy, Toma.” He looked to the side to see Mistress Nanci-bitch. “We’ve decided that you aren’t just to be punished, but to be disciplined. So this is what will happen to you:
“The controls on for your tickle boots have been changed to a one-oh-five second cycle. That’s seventy-five seconds of punishment, a fifteen second taste of what cooperation can bring, and then the usual fifteen second reset. Every hour you’ll have a four minute break to wet your dry throat - you’ll need it. And after twenty-four hours we’ll see if you really have been tamed, this time.
“Your discipline starts,” she touched a stud on her bracelet, “in fifteen seconds.”
Toma watched the green numbers count down on the timer overhead. “Oh no...” he whispered. Then the tickle boots cycled on.
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