“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” Raul said. “Get a load of this.” He held up a stiff white feather.
“AAAAHHH! NO! NO! YOU SAID YOU’D NEVER DO THAT!”
There followed something unlike anything Drake, or even Nick, had ever seen. As Raul approached with the feather, Pedro totally lost his mind. He screamed, mouth stretched wide, tongue protruding, eyes popping out of his head. Nick was so startled he jumped back. Here was a man who was not only in terror of being tickled, he was in paralyzing fear of losing his immortal soul.
“Wait a minute,” Nick said. “There’s something else going on here.”
“He’s always been like this with feathers,” Raul said.
“So that’s it! Pteronophobia, fear of being tickled with feathers. I’ve read about it, but never actually saw it.”
“Watch what happens when I get even closer.”
Pedro squirmed, wallowing in sweat. The sound he made now was an eerie, high keening, an inhuman sound, a ghost sound. His bladder let go, piss trickling to the floor.
“Jesus Christ!” Nick said. “So this is what you did to Juan? Does he have that phobia too?”
“No, man,” Raul said, “just this little fucker right here.” He began his approach again, slowly. “And when . . . I touch him . . . with this feather . . . he’s going to . . . die!”
Pedro strained, every fiber of his being struggling against his bonds, and from his throat came another inhuman sound, an internal strangling, fear choking the life out of him. His body went limp.
No one moved. Raul stared at his brother, panic starting to show in his own eyes. “He ain’t breathing. He ain’t breathing, Nick!”
“Shut up.” Nick checked Pedro’s breath and pulse, lifted one eyelid. “He’s breathing, he’s just passed out. Christ, you guys are unbelievable. How have you managed to live around each other all these years and still survive?”
“Shit!” Raul let the feather drop and ground it with his heel. “I ought to slap the shit out of him when he wakes up, just for scaring me like that!”
So that’s how it came to be that Nick and Raul were sitting at the table by themselves, tickling Drake with their feet. Pedro was spending time in the Recovery Room, then the shower. When he finally appeared, wearing the sweatpants and T-shirt he had arrived in, he was so pale his face was almost luminous. Seeing Drake on the floor, he exploded. “Why, you . . .!” Nick and Raul both had to restrain him as he kept yelling at Drake, “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”
“Shut the fuck up,” Nick said. “You’re giving me a headache.”
“I want him, Nick,” Pedro said. “I want him so bad. Tied up. In my basement. For two weeks, or until he gives out, whichever comes first!”
“Here, sit down over here and we’ll talk. You can get his feet.”
Pedro positioned a chair where he could sit and raise up Drake’s feet to rest in his lap. “Oh, yeah, I want these feet all right.” He was able to trap Drake’s ankles in the grip of one strong hand while the tortured the soles with the other.
Delirious, writhing under the table so far as he was able, Drake realized at some level that this was the story of his life: the men with dirty feet were tickling him with them, and the man who had just taken a shower was using his hands. Even so the funky feet and wild sensations were driving him into a frenzy of desperation and lust. It didn’t help that Pedro was getting a boner, Drake’s feet squirmed against it as Pedro held them pinned more and more tightly in his lap.
“I say he’s mine,” Raul said.
Nick mumbled something.
“If my piece of shit brother gets him for two weeks, then I get him for two weeks!”
“The fuck you do! And hell no, you don’t get visiting rights!”
Drake drifted in and out of reality as the brothers argued about who would get to tickle him to death. Meanwhile Nick and Raul were having a shoving match with their feet against Drake’s ribcage, and Pedro was practicing his dexterity in tickling between the slave’s toes. Drake twisted desperately in his bonds, trying for some contact between his raging erection and the floor.
Sometime later Nick untied his wrists. “Come on, dickhead, I’ve got a plan.”
The words filled Drake with dread. His legs were shaking and it took him a few tries to get to his feet.
“You can sit at the table with us,” Nick said.
How long had it been since Drake had sat in a chair, a real chair with no restraints attached? It placed him at eye level with his tormentors, and for a moment it was almost like a normal scene, four guys sitting around a table, except that he was naked and the others were not. In front of him a silver cigarette case lay open, revealing several fat joints. Raul already had one lit and was passing it to Pedro, who took a few deep hits and offered it to Nick. Nick took a couple of shallow tokes and then, to Drake’s surprise, pinched the rapidly diminishing joint in the center and held it out to him.
“For this next game,” he said, “even the slave gets high.”
Somewhere in the past there was a different Drake, one who earned a good living from a major corporation, confidently strode the streets of Manhattan, and would not hesitate to say, in any situation, Hey, I never agreed to any drug use. But that Drake was gone. He took the joint, full of who-knew-what kind of weed, and sucked on it greedily. He hadn’t got stoned in years and he was ready for it now, anything to relieve his anxiety. The effects were almost immediate, blooming in his lungs, sweeping through his brain. When he finally expelled smoke his anxieties went too – some of them, anyway.
Raul grabbed the joint. “Jesus Christ, I’m already so fucking stoned I can’t see.” Which didn’t stop him from taking another deep hit.
“Ah, shit,” Pedro said, “I’m feeling no pain, man.”
“We don’t want to get so fucking stoned we can’t move,” Nick said. He still took only shallow puffs, letting the smoke go quickly as if he were only holding a cigarette. “That would spoil the race.”
Race?
Soon all four of them were standing in the middle of the kitchen. Nick was explaining the rules. They had shared another joint, with Drake getting the lion’s share of it, and now Raul and Pedro were laughing as they tossed Drake back and forth between them, casually tickling him. He could barely stand up.
“We’re going to let him run,” Nick said.
Run?
“You’re gonna let a slave run?” Raul asked. “Where’s he gonna run to?”
“Oh, he can’t really go anywhere. The loft is locked from the inside, I’m the only one who can open the door. The whole point is the chase. You two are going to chase him, and the first one who catches him gets to keep him for a week.”
“How’s he gonna run, man? He’s so stoned he can’t stand up, not to mention we’ve tickled him fucking silly.”
It was true. As he was passed back and forth between the brothers Drake’s giggling became shamelessly high-pitched, he sounded like a little girl about to wet her pants.
“That just makes the race a little more interesting,” Nick said. “ ’Course, you guys are wrecked too.”
Raul and Pedro were beyond noticing that Nick had managed not to smoke much dope at all. They were muttering things to Drake as they passed him back and forth.
“When I get you alone, bitch, I’m gonna tickle you like you’ve never been tickled before,” Raul said, “but I’m gonna go real slow, so it takes all seven days to fucking kill you.”
“When I get you alone,” Pedro said, “The first thing I’m going to do is fuck the living shit out of you. Then I’ll tickle you, but only till I feel like fucking you again.” He still had a hard-on, clearly outlined down the right leg of his sweatpants.
Drake wondered if these guys knew how funny they sounded, like cartoon versions of themselves. It made him giggle even more breathlessly as one groping pair of hands passed him off to the other. He made up a little song: fuck me tickle me fuck me tickle me . . . was it just a song in his head, or wa
s he singing out loud?
“You guys are fucking pathetic,” Nick said. “Come on, let’s get started before you all pass out.” He had them line up at the edge of the dining area, Drake in the middle. “I’ve closed and locked the Torture Chamber and my bedroom, so he’ll have to stick to the studio.”
Pedro rubbed his bloodshot eyes and frowned at the huge, mostly bare room. “How many laps?”
“Only as many as it takes for one of you to catch him. But to be fair, we have to give him a head start. Five seconds.”
“Okay, let’s get this fucking shit started, man.” Raul rubbed his brow, shook his head. “What it is we’re doing, now?”
“When I say Go, the slave takes off. When I say Go again, you guys take off after him.”
“This won’t take long,” Pedro said.
“The hell it won’t,” Nick said. “The shape you guys are in, a hundred-yard dash would take you an hour.”
“This won’t take long,” Pedro said.
“You just said that.”
Drake tried to keep track of the business at hand, with varying success from moment to moment. Somewhere something serious was going on, and he’d goddamn well better pay attention. At the same time a little film strip was playing in his mind: Raul and Pedro were tickling and fucking him, fucking and tickling him, and the speed was all out of sync like in a silent movie, and it was funny.
“When I say Go, slave.”
Drake closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he saw the studio before him, as if he had just been transported there. The huge room was bare except for an easel in the far corner and those huge torsos hanging on the wall. A few of them could have been his – perhaps the unfinished one on the easel was his. Confronting those vivid images of male agony was a sobering experience; for a moment he thought clearly, realized he might stand a chance of survival with Nick, but if either of the brothers got hold of him it would be the end for sure.
He had to run. He had to make sure they didn’t catch him. But how?
“Go.”
Drake lurched forward onto the waxed hardwood floor. He had to run, but his feet weren’t working right; as soon as he lifted them they fell at odd angles, as if he had never learned to walk, let alone run.
“Go!”
That was the signal for Raul and Pedro to take off after him. The sound of their bare feet hitting the wood was a great incentive, it got Drake moving again, not looking down but straight ahead this time as he tried to run. He seemed to be doing it, the walls were moving on either side of him. He tried not to think about how fast he was running or how close the two men behind him were.
“Hey, slave!’
“You’re mine, you ticklish bastard!”
Raul was going to tickle him, Pedro was going to fuck him . . . wait, maybe it was the other way around . . . hell, it didn’t matter, they were going to do whatever they wanted, there was no stopping either of them. Drake reached the end of the room and, with a shriek, veered off to his right.
“Okay, you fuck!” It was Raul’s voice. “I’ve . . . got . . . you . . . now!”
Drake braced himself to be tackled, hurled to the floor. Instead there was a crash behind him, and a moment later Nick was cursing a blue streak.
“Fucking . . . shit-for-brains greaser . . .!”
“What the fuck happened?” Raul stood by the corner where the easel now lay like a pile of kindling and the canvas leaned beside it, torn through the center. “I thought it was him, man!”
When Pedro saw that Raul had tackled a painting instead of his prey, he started laughing and couldn’t stop.
Drake saw his chance. While the others were preoccupied, he took off.
He never doubted that Nick was right – there was nowhere he could go. But he would try the outside door anyway. Before he knew it he had reached the shallow alcove that served as a foyer, and sure enough the door would not budge. It had at least three locks on it, each one needing a key.
But there was another door, at right angles to the exit. Drake tried it; it opened into darkness. He stepped inside and closed the door softly behind him. With a growing sense of panic he felt for a light switch. A bare overhead bulb came on and he was relieved to find himself in a large storage room. Along three walls metal utility shelves held sketch pads, rolls of canvas, lengths of wood, new and partially used tubes of paint. There were pots and jars and cans filled with brushes of all types; cans of gesso, the gluey, chalky stuff used to prepare canvases; palettes and palette knives; and all varieties of cleaning supplies. For a moment it was as if he had stepped into someone else’s life, a life filled with purpose, the love of tools and work, powered by a spiritual need to create. Was all of that part of Nick?
Nick! Any second he would be here. There was no lock on the door. But there was a straight chair set against the wall, and without even thinking Drake grabbed it and jammed it underneath the doorknob.
Almost immediately he heard voices.
“Hey, slave master, it looks like your slave’s disappeared.”
“He hasn’t gone far,” Nick growled.
Drake stood in the center of the room, hardly daring to breathe, his eyes on the doorknob. When it turned, he jumped. The door held fast.
“Son of a bitch.”
“Hey, slave master . . .!”
“Shut the fuck up!”
Nick tried to force the door, threw his weight against it, but it wouldn’t budge.
Drake didn’t want to laugh, but he couldn’t help it. He took his hand from his mouth and let out a haw haw kind of horselaugh.
“You had better get the fuck out of there right now, you piece of shit, before I double the punishment I’m planning for you!”
Drake backed farther away from the door. He hugged himself with delight, danced in small circles to his right, then left. They can’t touch me. The thought was delicious. He had to say it out loud, he just had to. “You can’t touch me!”
“We’ll do more than touch you . . .!”
“Hey, slave!” It was Pedro. “You’re mine! My brother tore up the studio, so he lost the game. Hee hee hee! You know what that means! You’re mine till the end of your life!”
“Fuck you!” Raul said to his brother. “This ain’t been settled yet!”
“I’m thinking of a time sharing arrangement,” Nick said, slowly enough for Drake to hear every word. “We’ll all three get to work on him for certain hours of the day. After a week there’ll be nothing left of him.” Drake laughed again, he couldn’t help it. “Ooooh, I’m so scared of you guys!”
Furious pounding on the door.
“I’m so thankful you can’t touch me,” Drake called. “I’m feeling soooooooo ticklish right now!”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“I think I’d just scream if anybody touched me!”
“Enough of this shit,” Nick said. “I’m going to get some tools.”
“Hey, slave.” Raul spoke with his mouth very close to the door, as if he were sharing a secret. “If there’s any poison in there you better drink it now, ’cause anything would be better than what we’re gonna do to you.”
“Oh, please . . . don’t frighten me like that. I might have a heart attack or something!” Giggling wildly, Drake dropped to the floor where he sat Indian style, rocking back and forth in amusement.
For a while he didn’t hear anything. It was hard to calm down, his excitement was so great. He had won, though he could not concentrate to figure out exactly what he had won or how long it would last. He sat still, listening for the voices in the alcove, but there were none. Was it a trick? He had to be very, very quiet . . .
He noticed his bare feet. What strange things they were, feet. These particular ones – not the cleanest feet in the world – now, where had they come from? Could he even be sure they were his? They looked more like funeral feet, corpse feet. So immobile and white.
The right foot lay on the floor, on its side, just in front of his left knee. Slowly he reached down
to touch it with his left index finger. The finger had barely touched flesh when he felt the spark.
It tickled.
Now, he had always been told, had always believed, that it was impossible for a person to tickle himself, and his own experiments in that direction had been failures. So he was not ready to believe, even in his altered state of consciousness, that it was possible now.
He stared at the foot for what seemed like minutes on end. It was its own entity, separate from him. It was not him. When the left hand appeared again, the threatening index finger flexing, flexing, it was not part of him either. He was watching images on a screen, within a frame, and he was well removed from them. He only kept watching because – well, just because.
When the finger attacked, stroking up and down the sole, it skewed the picture, the projector fell from its stand. Drake closed his eyes and there was laughter in the room.
He shifted a bit, and now the left foot lay on its side in front of his right knee. He waited to see what would happen, and there it was, the right hand this time. All of its fingers were flexing, not just the one. The foot, suddenly alive, flexed also. It was like one of those time-lapse nature films where a flower blooms in a second.
This time all of the fingers attacked, and did not stop. Drake rocked back and forth on the floor. Someone was laughing.
“. . . fuck is going on in there . . .?”
Oh God, I’m laughing.
Sound of a hammer, and then: “So much paint on these frigging hinges . . .”
Just to see if they could, the right hand and the left hand began working simultaneously, tickling both feet. Drake rocked and laughed, twisted side to side, trying to get away from those hands.
“Shut the fuck up in there!”
That was Raul, who couldn’t stand the thought that Drake was getting tickled and he couldn’t watch. It was just the kind of thing that would make him furious.
Drake lay back on the floor, under the bare overhead bulb. It reminded him of a locker room. Where was Carter? He had just seen him recently, he was sure of it. “Carter? Are you there? Look at this.” He raised his hands, held them between his face and the light. The fingers bloomed, they flexed, they threatened: they would be all over him, any second now.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 6 Page 33
