Under the table, her unclad fingers deftly unclasped the buttons at my wrist. Over the table, our gazes locked. Both her hands slid up my arm. Her fingers curled into the top of my glove. Gently, she teased the stiff, grungy fabric down my arm. The air was moist and cool on my skin on as she rolled my glove down. Every hair stood on end. My nerves crackled like static electricity. I think I gasped.
Minat’s fingers traced down the inside of my arm. When she touched the inner elbow, I jumped back, but she held tight. I couldn’t see what she was doing; I could only feel, and even that was too much. Sliding, stroking, caressing, she inched the remaining glove down to my wrist. Her thumb pressed on my pulse. My feet scraped across the floor, an imitation of running.
Grasping each fingertip in turn, she yanked the glove off and draped it across my knee. First my pinky, then my ring finger, she lightly brought her fingers up and down the length of each of my fingers. My eyes half closed. Her palm pressed flat to mine. We compared finger lengths. Her palm was hot; mine was sweaty.
Every touch sent shivers through my body. It was too much sensation. My fingers moved over the back of her hand, greedy for tiny bumps and delicate lines too fine for the eye to see but possible to feel. Her hand was hairless, smooth. Her knuckles were hard bone with a strong tendon running over the top of each one. Each fingernail was jagged. Some were long. One felt recently broken.
Minat’s fingertips brushed gently across the pads of my fingers, and then she was gone. She pulled back. I groaned.
As she drifted around the table on her way out, she touched her bared hand to my face. The human touch was a taste of heaven. Minat caressed my cheek. “The best native guide makes sure that you come back from your journey, Matt.”
Then she was gone. I stared at the tabletop, ignoring for a moment my human sitting patiently at the other table. I flexed my hand. Seventy credits. One hour closer to home. Taking the glove off my lap, I slowly pulled it back over my hand and started to cry.
Ten Apologies
Wayne Courtois
Nothing is easier than getting lost in a strange city. It might begin with a view from above, through a break in the clouds: unfriendly towers nestled in a loop of highways. From there it takes you down to the ground, carries you through an unfamiliar airport along with the black carry-on bag that is your only anchor to the life you’ve known. Outside, the street smells of burnt rubber and exotic sweat. You haven’t traveled that far but you might as well be in a foreign country, or on another planet.
The cab will take you to the appointed corner, you don’t have to worry about that. Yet the ride is disturbingly long; you sit for what seems like many miles, staring through the abused back window at block after block, each one identical to the last. How does anyone find anything here?
Long before the cab finally pulled to the curb, Drake was wishing he’d bought a street map. Confusion set in as soon as he wedged himself into the noontime crowd, all of them wearing sunglasses, all with sweat rings under their arms. He had memorized directions to the bar where he was supposed to meet Nick – Have him drop you off at the corner of Main and Somerset, walk west on Somerset three blocks – but which direction was west? In Manhattan you could align yourself with the compass pretty easily: walking toward downtown, you were going south. Heading toward midtown, you were going north. It was about the only logical thing about New York, but at least it helped.
Probably he could buy a street map at any newsstand or fruit market, but he resisted the impulse and let himself drift with the crowd. There was a hypnotic quality to the sea of bobbing heads, all of them facing away from him, focusing forward, never turning right or left. He couldn’t recall feeling this mesmerized at home, as thick as the crowds were there, because he always had some personal agenda urging him along. Now his agenda would be partly, or mostly, or totally that of someone he had not yet met face to face.
Before he knew it he had walked several blocks, without seeing the sandwich board with Jack’s Bar written in script. He had to turn around, but it would be so much easier to keep drifting in this direction . . . what if he just kept on drifting? How many possibilities lay ahead?
When he got tired of musing, tired and hot, he turned around. It took twenty minutes to retrace his steps to Main and go three blocks beyond that, where he finally found Jack’s Bar. It looked like a throwback to the seventies, with potted ferns hanging in the windows, and from the outside it seemed very crowded. Drake spent several more minutes on the sidewalk, fighting with himself over whether to go in.
Why did Nick specifically tell him to get dropped off on the corner?
Because that way, no cab driver could testify that he had been dropped off at Jack’s Bar.
And why meet at such a crowded place?
Because he would be less noticed in a crowded place. Less likely to be remembered.
He almost turned back. He could easily put this episode behind him, lose any risk of getting in over his head, take the next flight back to New York. Then someone pulled open the bar door, and the air-conditioned draft ruffled his hair, teased the collar of his shirt. Suddenly he had never been so aware of his own body, the body that had always told him what to do. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his sweaty forehead, felt the unbearably hot sidewalk through his sneakers. He pushed through the door.
It was a straight place, with men and women paired up evenly along the bar. Tables toward the back. Drake headed in that direction, aware that a few of the men, straight or not, were giving him the eye. It always happened. They would notice his physique first, then his deep blue eyes, then the faint dimple in his chin. There was a small gap between his two front teeth – nothing disfiguring, it charmed the hell out of guys when he smiled. He usually took it in stride, but right now he was damned grateful for the attention. He shouldn’t have felt that he wouldn’t be noticed.
Nick sat alone at a corner table. Drake placed him by his ex-marine build and graying crewcut. Dark eyes. Drake had seen those eyes before, in the faces of certain boys and men, appearing out of nowhere, fixing him with The Look – a look that said I know how ticklish you are.
The two men nodded to each other, and Drake took a seat, setting his small canvas bag on the floor. It contained a change of clothes, his personal care items, and the magazine with Nick’s ad, its bold headline circled:
MASTER SEEKS TICKLISH SLAVE.
The ad would be a clue, if the bag was found and Drake was not. Is that why he had brought it? Clues would be scarce. He had taken an indefinite leave from work, just for this trip, and had not told anyone exactly where he was going.
The first words out of Nick’s mouth were, “You’re late,” followed by a small, tight-lipped smile.
Before Drake knew it he was stammering. “I . . . I’m sorry. I d-didn’t . . .”
“I’m sorry, Sir.”
Now he was tongue-tied. The voice like a bark, the tight smile. Here was a master of discipline, the real thing, the absolutely real fucking terrifying thing.
“Ha!” Nick smiled for real, his face opened up; he leaned back in his chair and became a friendly guy who liked to have fun. Just like that. “You should have seen your face.”
Drake passed his hand over his forehead, wiping away his dark thoughts, and managed a smile himself. “I’m sorry. I think maybe the heat has gotten to me a little.”
“Well, relax. Have a beer.”
“Thanks, I will.” Relieved, he took a deep breath. He was okay, except for his hands, which seemed to be trembling a bit. He placed them on his knees. When his beer came he gulped down half of it, then lowered the mug to find Nick leaning toward him again.
“You’re not wearing what I told you to wear,” Nick said, with his earlier, tight-lipped smile. “I told you to wear a tank top. Something revealing. And shorts. And sandals on your bare feet.”
Drake looked down at his clothes as if he were seeing them for the first time. For some reason he had decided to wear one of his white business shirts
, buttoned to the collar, and his brown corduroy jeans and white sneakers. “Sorry,” he said, his face reddening. “I just . . .”
Nick waved a hand. “Ah, forget it. I’m just kidding.” He leaned back, his hand resting easy on the back of the chair. But his eyes had that look, and his next words sent a shudder up Drake’s spine: “Don’t worry, you’ll suffer for it later.”
Drake took another long drink, if only to avoid looking into Nick’s eyes. As much as he had wanted this, had formed fantasies and dreams around it, he was no longer sure he could stay.
Nick seemed to sense his uncertainty, but it didn’t stop him from leaning forward and saying, in his deep rumbling voice, “Tell me more about your experiences. The ones that really drove you crazy.”
Drake looked around. Already the lunchtime crowd was thinning, they were alone in their corner of the dining room. Maybe if he started talking he would calm down. So he began.
Drake had always been ticklish, always, and from the beginning there were certain boys who could always tell, who would give him The Look. They couldn’t wait to get him alone, but most of the time they were satisfied with a few jabs to his ribs, enough to make him giggle. Then there was a cousin he played some tickling games with. But his first taste of real torture was filed in his memory under one name: Rodney Cole.
When Drake was in the sixth grade he was intensely aware of Rodney, a redheaded boy a year or so older. He seemed to be always staring at Drake, and Drake instinctively kept away from him. He would watch from afar, though, as Rodney tickled other boys on the playground, as many as he could grab, quickly rendering them helpless. They tried to struggle but Rodney’s greedy fingers made them weak. He would sneak up behind a boy and before the victim knew what was happening Rodney would have his hands inside the boy’s shirt, going for his ribs. What happened next, as Drake watched, was always the same: soon the laughing victim would be too weak to stand, sinking to his knees and then flat on the ground. That was when Rodney really had him, because then it was easy to straddle his victim and tickle torture him from his neck to his waist. Sometimes other boys stood around and watched – it was amazing the way Rodney could make kids kick and scream – but no one interfered, because they were all afraid of Rodney and his strong, sure hands.
Watching these tickle attacks always gave Drake strange sensations. He wanted to get closer, to see better, to hear the voices of the victims shrink to a hoarse whisper begging Rodney to stop. Then one day Drake did get closer, hiding behind some bushes as Rodney tickle-attacked a younger boy named Charlie who was spread out on the asphalt right by the school’s front door. There was no one else around, classes were over and everyone else had gone home. It was fall, and Drake was surprised to see that the victim was shirtless. Then he realized that Rodney must have stripped off Charlie’s shirt, it was lying on the ground nearby. Where did Rodney get such nerve? Maybe the ticklishness of this particular kid egged him on, for Drake had never seen a victim react like this, screaming and screaming until he completely lost his voice, his face a mask of hysteria, tears streaming from the corners of his eyes. This is what I’ve been missing, Drake thought, because I never got this close before. In spite of Charlie’s struggles he was no match for Rodney, who was bigger and so quick with his hands and fingers. When he touched – whenever he threatened to touch Charlie’s bare belly or ribs or armpits, Charlie would desperately struggle, but it was no use.
Drake leaned forward, closer, his fingers digging among the leaves of the bush to get a better view. He’s tickling this kid to death. Drake’s own breath was coming quickly, as if he’d been running, and he had a strange sensation between his legs. The very thought of tickling tended to make him tingle all over, and make his penis get hard. The quickening of breath, the excitement he felt now was more intense than ever before.
Then Rodney did something Drake had never seen him do. He stopped tickling Charlie’s bare torso and turned around, awkwardly, on his knees, still straddling his victim but facing his feet. The poor tickled boy was gasping for breath, so weak that he couldn’t struggle, couldn’t even lift his hands off the ground as Rodney unlaced his sneakers. When his socks came off too, Charlie raised his head with a great effort and croaked, “Oh, no! Don’t tickle my feet!”
Drake’s breath came even more quickly now. He knew of very brief foot-tickling scenes in movies and TV shows, but he had never witnessed the kind of fierce, prolonged foot tickling that he anticipated now. As the victim’s pale, naked pale feet began to wriggle in Rodney’s hands, Drake felt he might faint.
Charlie’s feet were, if possible, even more ticklish than his belly and ribs and armpits. The boy croaked out shouts of laughter, his arms waving feebly as he tried to twist from side to side to escape Rodney’s fingers. Sometimes Rodney would tickle one foot with two hands, his fingers moving so fast they were a blur, and sometimes he’d tickle both feet at once, never missing his targets no matter how they wriggled. Now he was taking one foot, bending the toes back with one hand and tickling the sole with the other, sending fresh spasms through Charlie, who had again lost his voice completely and could only gasp. It’s only a matter of time, Drake thought. Nobody could stand to get tickled that much. The kid’s gonna die or go crazy.
And it did seem like a long time before Rodney finally took a break from tickling Charlie. His legs were probably cramped from kneeling so he moved, from straddling Charlie to sitting by his side. This was Charlie’s chance to escape, but he was too weak to try. He lay completely still except for his head moving a little, his chest expanding as he drew in deep agonized breaths. His skin had many marks left from the pressure and friction of Rodney’s fingers. His ribs had been tickled so much that each one was outlined in red. Rodney sat and studied his victim, sometimes reaching out a finger to prod a rib or the side of his belly, raising a few more exhausted giggles. And for the first time since the tickling began, Rodney spoke to Charlie.
“You know what I think?” he asked. “I think you could be a slave. I think I could make you do whatever I want, ’cause if you don’t I can tickle you to death.” He shook his head. “You think I just tickled you? That was nothing. How’d you like to get tickled for a whole day?”
Charlie tried to speak, but couldn’t. When he opened his mouth only a few gasps came out. Rodney poked him again, and again and again, in his poor abused ribs, and the gasps came more quickly.
“Maybe I’ll tickle you some more,” Rodney said. “You can’t do anything about it. Maybe I need to get back to these feet.”
Now Charlie’s eyes opened wide in terror, and he managed to croak again, “No . . . no . . . don’t tickle my feet!”
“Oh, shut up, I’m not even touching you yet.” But Rodney was getting ready to, he was once again facing Charlie’s feet. Drake leaned forward. His penis was stiff, and it hurt when he leaned forward, but he had to get as close as he could to see the kid get tickled again. Unfortunately Drake leaned a bit too far, lost his balance and fell against the bush, making a loud rustling sound.
Rodney Cole looked up.
For a second Drake and Rodney stared at each other.
“Hey, you,” Rodney growled.
That was all Drake needed to hear. He ran, taking to the overgrown field behind the school, nearly tripping several times over the dense undergrowth but never stopping, for he could hear Rodney’s footsteps crashing behind him. He ran faster than he ever had before, pushing through milkweed and golden-rod, his breath coming fast and hard. Finally he had to stop, when he had no more breath. The thought of what might happen if Rodney caught him made him dizzy.
But Rodney didn’t catch Drake. He gave up and went back to the ticklish victim he had left behind, who still had a long afternoon of torment to endure.
Drake could hardly sleep that night, worrying that Rodney would be out to get him now. Drake had spied on him, which was a bad thing to do. Rodney would want to punish him for it. There was only one kind of punishment Rodney gave out, and when Drake tried
to picture his own ticklish body at the mercy of Rodney’s fingers, it made his breath come hard and fast, and his penis stiffened again. He was terrified and excited in a way he’d never been before.
The few kids who walked to school often used the field as a shortcut. The grass and weeds were high but over the years some footpaths had been trampled out. Walking down one of these paths the following morning, Drake felt uneasy. As the path twisted through the brush it was sometimes difficult to see more than a few feet ahead or behind. A couple of times he stopped to listen, but the sounds he heard seemed to come from birds or small animals; they weren’t footsteps, after all.
He made it to school all right, but all day he worried, frightened and excited, because Rodney might try to get him after school. Because they were in different grades Drake wouldn’t see Rodney until recess, and up till then he tried to convince himself that maybe his nemesis had skipped school. But at recess Drake caught a glimpse of him. Rodney was standing across the playground, near the edge of the field. Drake stood right by the school entrance, near the steps; he didn’t dare go far away. But when Rodney turned his head Drake knew, even from that distance, that his worst fears were going to come true. Rodney was giving him The Look.
There wasn’t a lot of foot traffic through the field after school, because most of the kids lived farther away and took the bus or rode with their parents. Drake hoped he would catch up with somebody, though – maybe several kids he knew, offering safety in numbers. As luck would have it, though, he was alone as he entered the footpath and didn’t see or hear anyone else around. He tried to breathe normally, tried not to think about Rodney’s fingers. He tried to keep even the word “tickle” out of his thoughts. But the more he tried not to think about . . . getting tickled, the more nervous he got, and the word multiplied in his mind: tickle, tickled, tickling, ticklish . . . Please don’t tickle me. I’m too ticklish. Stop tickling me! Stop!
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 6 Page 26
