A Game of Chess

Description:

Jason's tickling weakness is discovered by chance by his best friend Emily. On a bet, he agrees to let her tie him up and tickle him. But something about her has changed--it is a side of her he's never seen before, and there's something simultaneously terrifying and entrancing about it. Should he really have agreed to this?

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Emily and Jason had been close friends ever since they met junior year of college. They had been introduced through a mutual friend, and from the beginning, even though their personalities were quite different, something about them just seemed to click. Emily was outgoing and funny, and Jason was reserved and had a wry sense of humor, but when they spent time together, they always fell into a light, natural banter and mutually enjoyed each other's company.

Their relationship had always been completely platonic. What's more, Emily always had a boyfriend--she seemed to cycle through men the way some people cycle through clothing with the passing seasons--but throughout the three years they had known each other, Jason had mostly been single. He had dated several women during that time, but he and they never quite seemed to be compatible and never lasted long. To make matters worse, his girlfriends would would jealously inquire about this girl Emily that he was spending so much time with. He would always promise them that Emily and he were just friends, but each time, a slight nagging feeling would rise up in him that he did truly enjoy spending time with her more than with his girlfriend--but he always brushed the feeling away. But time after time, it would only take another month or two before they broke up.

One day, during one of those rare periods when she was between boyfriends, Emily invited Jason over to her apartment to watch a new anime show that had come out on Netflix. She made them ginger tea which they sipped together as they sat on her sofa, close but not touching, under her blanket. They were only on episode two, but the series seemed to be heating up--an errant knight in a mythical, medieval-style world had been captured by a wicked queen who believed him to be a spy from a neighboring realm, and she had him bound and tickle-tortured him, demanding information that the helpless and innocent knight was unable to give. The episode came to its climax when the knight managed to befriend a stray dog that lived near his cell and taught it to fetch him a sharp rock, which he used to free himself and run away in the middle of the night. The screen faded to credits.

"Wow," said Emily. "I don't think I've ever seen something like that in a show before."

"Yeah," said Jason dreamily.

"It was kind of...incredible!"

Jason didn't answer, his eyes drifting upward aloofly, as if he were far, far away, lost in an imaginary world of his own.

Emily looked up at him, her brow furrowed, and then her energetic, inquisitive eyes flashed with imagination. She took her fingertips and clutched his side, digging in firmly and wriggling them.

His response was immediate. His arm shot down in defense and his head twisted left with an expression of horror on his face.

"What are you doing?!?!" he said, his eyes wide.

"Oh, so you're ticklish?!" she said looking up at him, her voice steeped in performative innocence.

"No I'm not!"

"Are you sure?" A grin spread slyly across her face, and she reached down and dug her fingers firmly into his knee and lower thigh, which he reflexively jerked upward and covered with his arms.

"STOOOOOP!!!! OK, that's it, you're done!" he said, pushing her hand away.

She looked away, but she couldn't hide her irrepressible, malevolent grin.

Neither Emily nor Jason mentioned tickling again until the next weekend, when she invited him to her apartment again, this time in order to cook together. Emily was teaching herself to cook Indian food, and Jason happily obliged to come help make saag with her. In the kitchen she was accurate and efficient--Jason watched her hands as she cut an onion, then chopped spinach--her fingers were strong and deft and nimble. She didn't make one movement out of place as she laid out the ingredients and went about the prep-work, laying out the bowls and making the rice and gathering the spices. He, on the other hand, was distractible and diffuse, slow and dreamy, and it must have taken him three times as long to poorly cut up his portion of the vegetables.

It wasn't long before the meal was done, and to Jason's surprise, as they were enjoying it together, Emily opened a bottle of wine, which was rather unlike her--during their entire friendship, he didn't remember a single time that she'd offered him alcohol when they were alone together.

But it was excellent, and so was the food, and it was beginning to make Emily rather gregarious--she began relating every detail of her obnoxious colleague Larry and unknowledgeable boss, and Jason was beginning to become slightly tired and bored, when his eyes wandered to the corner and noticed something in the cabinet he had never cared to pay attention to before: a beautiful wooden chess set that sat on the top shelf.

"Do you play?" he asked, pointing to the cabinet.

"Of course I do," she said, a smile curling on her lips.

"How about we play and if I win," said Jason, pausing, a bit fuzzy from the wine, "you have to shut up about Larry and work for the rest of the night."

"Oh, a bet, how frisky," she purred, grinning even wider. She took the board down and placed it on the table. "And how about if I win?"

"I'm not sure, did you have anything in mind?"

She put her elbows down on the board and leaned forward, looking straight at him with almost predatory delight. But then a shadow of nervousness moved across her face, and she reflexively took a large gulp of wine. "Well, I have one idea..."

Jason looked at her quizzically for a moment, then with a smile spat out, "I suppose you can choose whatever you want, since you're not going to win anyway."

"If I win," she said, "I get to tie you to my bed and tickle you. For as long as I want."

Jason's eyes went blank, and his mouth fell cartoonishly agape. A dead silence hung in the air.

"...No, I'm sorry Jason, that was really weird. Forget I said anything. We don't have to play for anything." All the slyness in her voice was gone and her predatory grin had vanished.

"No, it's ok. I did write you somewhat of a blank check," he said lowly, his voice sobering.

"So you agree?!"

"I do," he said. "But you know it's not going to matter anyway--you aren't going to win."

It took her all of twenty minutes to resoundingly, mercilessly crush him. He had begun to play one or two games online nightly after work, as a way to relax, and in the months that he had begun playing regularly, his rating had increased from just above average to nearly the top 10 percent of all players. Something in the wine or in the course of the evening had emboldened him, and he was convinced because of this that he would very likely win, but he had no idea that Emily, though she no longer played seriously, had been one of the best junior players in the state and had never lost a tournament when she played competitively in high school. In all but twenty moves, she had cornered his king into a wall. Checkmate.

"Come on," she said.

Her eyes flashed and her head swished as she turned and led him by the hand to the bedroom. The blood was rushed and thumped in his ears, and a growing sense of nervousness invaded his body and settled in his stomach.

As they entered the room, she turned around and stood very close to him, looking up piercingly straight into his eyes.

"You're really okay with this, right?"

He nodded.

"I'm going to go to tickle you as hard as I want, wherever I want, for as long as I want, do you understand?"

"I understand."

His lips tightened and twitched. He had known Emily for years, and he thought knew and trusted her. She had never uttered an angry word at him; she had always been kind and supportive and fun, even if she was bit cocky at times. But the thought that he would soon be tied up in her bed, completely at her mercy--would she then still be the same perky, friendly woman that he knew? She had grinned so maniacally, once when she had discovered his ticklishness, and again after he had agreed to her bet to tickle him, but what that grin would mean for him, he did not fully know, and this was simultaneously terrifying and electrically exiting.

She made him take everything but his boxers off, "for easy access," then took out two pairs of cuffs secured to the bottom of the bed posts and fastened them to his wrists and ankles. She pulled on a contraption fixed to the straps so that the ropes tightened, and he was immobilized, his limbs splayed out wide, spread-eagle on the mattress. He couldn't budge his hands or feet more than an inch from side to side. He was completely defenseless.

She also stripped to her underwear (claiming "it wouldn't be fair otherwise") and sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at him with a malevolent grin.

"Feeling a little tied up at the moment, are we?"

"I never knew you were such a freak."

"Ha," she half-laughed, half-scoffed. "One of my boyfriends was. I wasn't into bondage at all before him, but once we introduced me to it, we found out I enjoyed it even more than he did." She chuckled slightly.

As she spoke she had draped a hand lazily across his chest, over his right nipple, the pads of her fingertips perched ever so softly on the inner tendon where his armpit began.

"Poor fellow. You wouldn't imagine what I used to do to him."

"I would--"

She didn't wait for him to finish his response, and with zero warning, she dug her fingertips hard into both of his armpits. He jumped, tried to twist in his restraints, a look of mortified confusion on his face, and a hard, uncontrollable laughter immediately came pouring out of him.

"Oh, so I was right! Someone is ticklish! And not even only a little."

The only words he could muster were "WHAT THE FUCK?!?!" between desperate laughs and strained gulps of air.

"Aww, you're already so out of breath and desperate from a couple seconds!" she said, her lips pouted and her voice syrupy. "Just think, I could tickle you all night if I want to. Are you really going to be able to make it? No???"

She lifted a leg and straddled him just above the waist.

"How about here?" she said, thrusting her fingers into his midsection. His face contorted, his eyes clenched, his nose wrinkled, his mouth opened wide, and he laughed and laughed and laughed. How helpless he looked, all spread out for her! There was nothing he could do to stop her eager, prying fingers--he was far too well restrained. So she set to work exploring him. She pinched below his ribs, and dug her fingertips into his navel, and scratched lightly above his hips, and then moved up and tickled his nipples. No spot was missed; she worked methodically, like she were charting a map of all his weakest, most vulnerable areas, then returning and exploiting them over and over, without relief. And how sweet the sound of his laughter was! This was not some ordinary giggle; his laugh was hard and loud and involuntary, and didn't stop until she paused her handiwork. She loved that sound--it gave her energy, the sound of his tormented desperation, the sound of him realizing he truly had nowhere to go, and that he was truly at the mercy of her devilishly persistent fingers.

When she got tired, or shifted her position, or sometimes just for the intense terror of anticipation, she would pause, or brush her fingers lightly over his skin. During these breaks the outlandish expression of laughter on his face would relax, and she would briefly see his true expression, like bits of blue sky through violent storm clouds; he was still smiling, and appeared to be having fun, but she detected that now his brow was also ever so slightly furrowed in what looked like embarrassment or almost a shadow of pain. It only flashed on his face for instants at a time, but there was something about that furrow did to her, that furrow that she knew that she had caused, and the way his chest that had become beaded with sweat heaved heavily up and down, and the way his body wriggled underneath her, trying helplessly to break free.

She was electrified, enraptured, entranced, riding high off of his desperation. She could feel within her a part of her that only wanted him to go lower and lower, to wreck him, to keep going and going even past the point where one who had good sense would stop, past his limit, past the point where it was OK. And yet there was another part of her, a voice of reason and restraint, that was disgusted and reproached her for even allowing herself to think that way, and reminded her that he was her friend, that she cared about him, that he had entrusted her with his safety for the evening, that it would be beyond wrong to hurt him, and that she would feel terrible about herself if she allowed any harm to come to him tonight.

But seeing that furrow in his brow was so intoxicating that that voice of restraint got quieter and quieter, drowned out by lustful, animal fervor, until she could barely hear it.

"NOT THEREEEE!!!" Jason's voice was beginning to hurt from yelling so much. After thoroughly exploring his upper body and midsection, Emily had moved down to the foot of the bed and had started on his left foot. With one hand she held back his big toe, and with the other she dug deep into his arch and scribbled on ball of his foot. It was absolute, unbearable torture. It felt like every nerve ending in his body was screaming for it to stop. This must be worse than being branded with hot iron, or being punched in the gut, he thought.

Sometimes she used her nails, which she inserted and forced between his toes, biting into his skin, or on the top part of the ball of his foot just below the toe, and sometimes she all five of them at once, putting them all on his soft, warm, sensitive skin of his soles and moving the around, each one tracing an independent path, causing him to shake his limbs with unbearable sensory overload. She ran her fingers over nearly every inch of his body, searching him, playing with him. She seemed remarkably receptive to his body, never failing to notice when he twitched or squirmed or laughed even harder when she passed over an especially sensitive area. Each time she uncovered a new spot it was like she was poking holes in a great defensive wall, and as she came back over and over to these spots he felt himself breaking down, and his body betraying him, his defenses being breached; slowly, gradually, she was breaking inside him and conquering him.

Soon the hot flush of humiliation swelled and spread across his face. He had never felt like this in front of anyone before, this helpless and desperate and powerless. Whether he breathed, or whether he had to fight his insides for air that was being forced from his lungs by involuntary laughter, it was all under Emily's control. Whether he was squirming and bucking, trying to get away from the torment of her fingertips, or whether he could relax, or whether she held him in agonizing anticipation, teasing and scrawling and grazing, making him guess when she would start up again, it was all under her control. She could make him feel however she wanted--his emotions and his body belonged to her now; they were hers to do with whatever she wished.

He was no longer his own. He was her object, her instrument, and she was playing him so skillfully and so deftly, that she was more of master of his body than himself. The feeling was agonizing and thrilling and terrifying all at the same time. Though he had never understood it before, there was something which awoke within him which craved this, which wanted nothing more than to be owned, controlled, no longer in possession of himself, to come deeper and deeper under her spell. It was like an addiction; it had seized his entire mind, and he felt as if he were falling, dropping lower and lower into a gaping chasm, and did not know whether she would break his fall or let him plummet and recede into the blackness below....

The smile had all but disappeared from Jason's face, and in its place was a jittery, disjointed expression of desperation. He no longer yelled out; his voice was quieter, softer, almost a whisper, and he pleaded, "Please," in between sputtering laughs. She watched the little muscles around his eyes and cheeks and nose contract and relax in an expression that almost resembled pain. She wasn't tickling hard anymore; she only needed to brush lightly to make him squirm and see his face wracked with anxiety. Something was quieter, too, within her--that electric feeling of excitement, that predatory, animal lust that had driven her was receding now. She found herself focusing on the heavy swell of his breathing, his soft moans, the shakiness of his voice. She released his foot, and sat on top of him again, cupping his cheek and looking into his eyes.

Her hair fell like a shroud around his face and grazed his shoulders, a column which enclosing her face with his below. Her breast welled with pride that this boy was so fully hers, that he had given himself up to her so completely. She had never let it show in front of him, and when they were together, though she usually talked more about herself, her life, and her problems, she had always admired his quiet demeanor and humility. Though she had never really thought much of him, and had never considered him anything more than a friend, now with him there, lying below her, looking up at her, so completely hers, she felt the urge to press her body against his and kiss his delicate, slender lips--but considering his restraints and the vulnerability of his situation, she thought it wouldn't be right. Another twinge of nervousness shivered through her body, and, passing her hand through his hair one more time, she unbuckled the restraints and let him up.

She had him get dressed, and offered to make him tea and sit together for a while in the kitchen, to which he aloofly agreed. They sat a few feet apart on high stools, and Jason peered into the tea that steamed up into his face while he legs swayed gently back and forth.

"Are you OK with everything that happened?" she asked.

"I think," he said, his voice falling, still looking down, as if the answer were somewhere to be found in the steaming, amber liquid.

She her eyes searched his face. "You can tell me if you aren't--."

He looked up at her with the eyes of a timid dog. He was searching her face for that thing, that wild creature that had possessed her when he was in her bed, that predatory animal that he was both entranced by and terrified of, but now it was gone. Now her expression radiated only calm and warmth and concern for him, and his shoulders relaxed a little, and he began to feel a bit calmer too.

He smiled back at her.

They sat for a while, only seldom speaking, but it had become late and Jason told her he needed to leave. She showed him out, giving him a warm but somewhat awkward hug as he left, his tall, long body seemingly mismatched with her short, tight one, her forehead pressing into his bony chest and collarbone. After she closed the door, she felt a twinge of loneliness--she wished that he had stayed and was beside her. With a half-heavy heart, she slid herself into bed and lay down on her side, and, neither fully asleep nor awake, in the bittersweet feeling between contentment and longing, she thought of Jason lying there below her, his face desperate, defenseless, hers--and with this image in her mind she lay for a long while and eventually drifted off into a deep, restful sleep.

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Thanks so much for reading! If you enjoyed the story or have any feedback, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comment section.