Gargalaphobia

Vanessa's mouth dropped open.

'I thought you'd surprised me by coming home early! And you didn't say anything, slipped a blindfold on me and slowly put your hands up my shirt, then reached round and undid the buttons--'

'Why do you keep saying I did it!?'

'Because I thought it was you! Who else am I supposed to think comes into this flat and starts touching me?'

Vanessa shook her head in disbelief. 'Then what?'

'Then you took off my shirt and pants--'

'Stop saying I did it!'

'Okay, okay! Then they took off my shirt and pants and tied me to the bed.'

He indicated the proof; there were red marks around his wrists and ankles. Vanessa's palms and soles instantly began to sweat as she recalled what happened to her just hours ago.

'Then...'

'What, Ryan?'

'Then they started tickling me.'

The tiny hairs on Vanessa's back stood on end. 'What do you mean?' she asked.

'They grabbed me around the waist and I just lost it. I was laughing and laughing. I just couldn't stop it. I've never been... I mean, maybe years ago, but I've never been tickled before. Not like that. I didn't know I was so ticklish. It's like they knew exactly where to go and I went berserk.'

'They didn't say anything?'

'No. Even if they did I don't think I could have heard them because I was laughing so loud. It was weird -- like my laughing was the only thing I could hear, but I couldn't turn it off or turn it down. They just straddled me and tickled my waist. I was laughing and trying to thrash about... but I couldn't move because I was tied so tight.'

'Straddled you? They were sitting on you?'

'Yeah.'

'Were they light? Heavy? Male? Female? Tell me something, Ryan!'

'I really don't know, baby. Don't get mad at me. I thought it was you, so I didn't question who was on me. And I couldn't see because you--they--put the blindfold on me.'

'This is insane,' said Vanessa, distraught. 'Then what?'

'Well, then they moved up to my armpits and...'

'What, Ryan?'

'I had no idea how ticklish I was there.'

Vanessa dropped her face into her hand.

'Don't do that! Have you ever been tied down and tickled? It's torture! It makes the whole thing ten times worse! Whoever it was tickled my upper body for a long time and their hands were really strong, but, at the same time, they knew exactly how much pressure to use...'

Ryan's tendency to raise a questioning inflection at the end of a sentence like a Californian teen seeking confirmation often irritated Vanessa, but right now she had the compulsion to punch him. This was not the time to discuss the wondrous mysteries of tickling techniques.

'I thought it was over... But then they turned around and started teasing the backs of my knees. Oh, Christ, Vanessa, I thought I was going to lose my mind. It was such a light touch, but I was going crazy.

'Then they crawled their fingers down my legs, over my ankles and... started tickling my feet. They got my heels and went all over the arches. I thought feet were just feet -- I didn't know different parts of your feet would be more ticklish than others. It's when they went under my toes that I actually screamed, but with laughter, you know...'

Vanessa looked up. Ryan was staring into thin air and smirking.

'What are you smiling about?' she yelled.

'I'm sorry, okay? It's taking me a minute to get my head around the fact that it wasn't you. I've just never had my feet tickled before. I've gotta say... it turned me on.'

'What?' said Vanessa. The "t" in the word could have cut glass, but Ryan was so lost in reminiscence that he failed to read the room.

'I've never had it before. I've told you in the past that I wanted you to be more active in the bedroom and I thought this was you doing that. And I thought, after you saw me going crazy and thrusting against the mattress, that you were enjoying the effect it had on me.'

'The effect it had on you?'

'Yeah.'

'You thought I would get horny by seeing you, my husband--a grown-ass man--get turned on by having his feet tickled?'

'Don't talk down to me like that--'

'Why the hell not? You lounge around for months on end and lose your job, you do virtually nothing in the bedroom and then get turned on by someone--could even be a guy--tickling your feet! You think your wife should find the bright side to this? Great! You're a freak! Amazing...!'

'I'm not a freak. I know you've got a thing against tickling because--'

'Shut up!' screamed Vanessa, screwing her eyes tight and covering her ears.

Ryan gave her a moment to calm down and then sat forward and took her hands. She was reluctant to let him have them. He waited as she kept her eyes shut and calmed her breathing.

'Baby, I'm sorry. I didn't know, okay. How was I to know? I mean, who hell would do this?'

Vanessa's eyes popped open. She understood why she'd been detained in Florida.

***CHAPTER XI***

The next morning Vanessa arrived at Jaz's flat so early that Jaz was still in her pyjamas. She was used to seeing Vanessa serious and composed so it was disconcerting to see her circling the kitchen in a fury.

'I wanna nail this bitch to the wall,' said Vanessa.

'Okayyy...' said Jaz. 'Maybe we just need to calm down...'

'She sexually tortured my husband, Jaz -- for hours.'

'I'm sure she didn't personally do it--'

'I know that. I mean she got someone else to do it to prove a point. Goddamn psycho.'

'What I'm saying is, if she can co-ordinate getting you arrested in Florida with getting your husband tied up and tickled--'

Vanessa grimaced. 'Don't use that word!'

'Okay... With getting your husband tied up and assaulted in New York, then we need to be careful.'

Vanessa sat at the kitchen table and picked up a half-empty cup of coffee. Jaz stopped her. 'That's from last night. I'll make you a fresh one.'

'What have you come up with?' asked Vanessa.

'Not a lot,' said Jaz as she loaded a cappuccino maker. 'I was kinda waiting on you to give me some leads.'

'The lead is that Calhoun the Loon is a vindictive, botox-faced bitch. What does Brayden have?'

'I think he's avoiding my calls. It's weird.'

'"Weird",' Vanessa parroted.

Jaz took from the cupboard her favourite pink mug with a flamingo on it. 'I mean, by the sounds of it, whoever tick--er--fooled with your husband knew what they were doing. How do you find someone like that so quick? It's not like someone who's got a phobia of that would know where to look.'

Vanessa chewed the inside of her cheek. It was a good point: whoever broke into the flat and pretended to be her was not the average person, or even the average gun for hire; they would need a very particular skillset.

'Who is such a fanatic that they can do that to someone for hours...?' asked Jaz as she placed the coffee in front of Vanessa with a knowing air.

'No!' said Vanessa. 'I'm not going to see him!'

'What choice do we have?'

'Before asking the guy who attacked my sister and I got incarcerated for a favour? Plenty! This is New York, for God's sake -- you can find anyone here. Get on your laptop. Find people. And get photos of them.'

'What for?' asked Jaz.

Vanessa took up her jacket and Jaz's favourite mug. Before Jaz could protest, she was gone.

- - -

Vanessa was astounded by her apartment building's ancient closed-circuit television system.

'Don't you have anything more up-to-date? Like VHS?' she asked.

The head of security, who she believed was installed at about the same time as the cameras, was as bad at spotting irony as he was eager to please a beautiful young resident. 'I found this, Mrs Holbrook.'

He played footage of a strapping individual dashing down the stairwell just after 2:15am, dressed in black, wearing gloves and a baseball cap. The angle of the cameras meant that the only helpful factor they served to confirm was that the nose peaking from under the baseball cap was Caucasian... or possibly Asian.

'What about the cameras at the front entrance?' asked Vanessa.

'They haven't worked for a little while now, but they're due to be replaced next week.' The security guard's token look of apology was several miles from satisfactory.

'Superb,' said Vanessa. 'You really are terrific at your job.'

He drooped in his chair as she left the room.

- - -

Vanessa concluded that this was the most unproductive day she had ever experienced. Not because she hadn't discovered anything new--there were plenty of days like that--but because she could not get her head to operate correctly. The hatred she felt for Gabby Calhoun, for subjecting her to the Cape Coral PD HQ ordeal and having her own husband molested, did not focus her thoughts as she hoped it would; it became a permanent distraction. Not least because Ryan's comment, "I've just never had my feet tickled before. I've gotta say... it turned me on," just about ended all respect she had for him.

She was turned on my alpha males. She had been clinging to the idea that the man she loved and desired would one day return. But now, even if he did, he would still be the man who got overpowered and turned on by... that.

She rattled her head, trying to Etch-a-Sketch the idea from her mind as she arrived outside Jaz's apartment. She realised it wasn't a nice thought as soon as she had it, but she figured she could take some of her frustration out on Jaz. She pressed Jaz's number. The intercom was silent but the door buzzed open. The elevator was out of order -- not a remedy for foul moods.

Vanessa walked up to the fifth floor and found Jaz's door ajar. She went to push it open, then hesitated. Why hadn't Jaz said anything before she let her in? She pulled a can of mace from her purse -- buying the spray was the only constructive thing she had done that day. She held it ready and slid the door open.

All the lights were on. The only thing she could hear was the thump, thump, thump of bass from loud music playing in a neighbouring apartment. With a cat-like tread she went to the TV room and peeked towards the bedrooms.

A blast of laughter from behind made her jump and turn, ready to spray.

She found Jaz sitting at the kitchen table, where she'd left her that morning, hunched over her laptop.

'Oh, hi!' said Jaz, then she saw the can of mace. 'What's that?'

'Pepper spray,' said Vanessa, 'and you nearly ate it. What are you doing?'

'Research. Like you told me.'

'Why didn't say something on the intercom?'

'I didn't want to miss anything.' Jaz indicated the screen.

Vanessa looked over her shoulder and saw an old-school web site. 'What is it?'

'As far as I can tell it's the main web site for the worldwide tickling community. It's been around for decades,' said Jaz. 'They've got everything you can imagine: tickling discussions, video clips, fantasy art, stories, a personals section and this--where I am now--a chat room. If you want to find someone who knows about tickling quick, this is the place to come.' She made way for Vanessa to take her seat.

'I had to register. My screen name's JazzyToes,' she said with a beaming smile.

'Right,' said Vanessa.

'I've copy-pasted a bunch of conversations into a Word document so you could see.'

Jaz switched to text document. Conversations were sectioned under the screen name of each user. Vanessa skimmed the document, reading the first lines aloud, emphasising the phonetics of each one:

'"hi have you been tickled lately at all?"

"hey. were u tiklish?"

"wanna rp?"

RP?' she repeated to Jaz, who was refilling the coffee maker.

'It means role play. It's where people pretend--'

'Yeah, I know what role play means, Jaz. Thanks.'

Vanessa read on:

'"hi. u got tickelish feeet???"

'Jesus. Have any of these people heard of spell check? And does it really need three question marks?'

As she spoke the computer made a plink sound.

'That's a new message -- check it out,' said Jaz.

Vanessa switched to the browser and found a new message from user named SupremeMasterTickleDom. It read:

how tall are you?

'That's one way to say "Hello",' muttered Vanessa. She typed:

5'11"

SupremeMasterTickleDom replied:

not bad.

JazzyToes replied:

Keep your objectifying opinions to yourself, you obtuse hick.

SupremeMasterTickleDom replied:

huh?

'Jesus H. Christ,' said Vanessa.

'Fun, yeah?' said Jaz, handing her a coffee.

'Have you found anything worthwhile today, Jaz?'

'Oh, yeah. I've messaged with a bunch of guys in New York. They were all pretty cagey about sending out their photos, though.'

'Never mind,' said Vanessa. As the security video was such a wash-out she had nothing to compare the photos to anyway. 'What have you got?'

'There's a fetish club called Hades in Midtown West, which is on tonight,' said Jaz.

'It's a... tickling club night?' there was no other way to ask the question so Vanessa hurried the word.

'It's for all fetish and BDSM lovers, but the guys I spoke to all said they'd be there when I said I was interested in checking it out.'

'Alright then,' said Vanessa, getting to her feet. 'Get dressed -- we're going to Hades.'

***CHAPTER XII***

Since its inception, the New York fetish scene had experienced periods of popularity and abatement. Movements that brought what many referred to as alternative lifestyles to the fore, or the occasional book, TV show or movie that broke through into mainstream pop culture, often inspired a carpe diem attitude that increased the footfall of a previously tentative population to attend BDSM clubs, gatherings and private parties.

On the flip side, there were times when club promoters struggled to get people through the doors. This was one of those times. The current lull in attendance was caused by the heatwave; many felt it was just too hot to get dressed up in their usual rubber or leather gear and so preferred to play at home.

At the same time, there was a reliable core of individuals for whom it would take nothing short of a natural disaster to keep them away from the chance to play with a stranger. These were single men.

And so it was that Club Hades, with its three floors, four doormen, twelve bar staff and red and blue neon, which cast splashes of purple light over a plentiful array of quality bondage furniture, attracted patrons consisting of thirty-three straight males and one straight couple. That is, until Vanessa and Jaz arrived.

Prior to leaving the flat, Vanessa borrowed Jaz's plum lipstick, accentuated her eyes with a smokey mascara and fixed her hair to make it high and wild. They passed by a fetish shop on West 34th Street that was open until midnight and, with no attention paid to the price tags, Vanessa picked up a tall top hat; a black leather, lace & purple silk steel-boned corset; a stylish leather miniskirt; and a pair of designer thigh-high black leather boots with six-inch heels and lacing front & back -- from her ankles to the tops of her thighs. She appeared in the main doorway, silhouetted by a combination of the venue's entrance corridor strip lighting and dry ice. Towering over Jaz and everybody else in the venue, she turned the heads of dominants and submissives alike -- each with a sudden hope that this could be the best night of their lives.

Jaz--wearing a pair of her own high-heeled Dr Marten boots, whale net tights and (via Vanessa's credit card) an all-in-one strapless rubber zip-fronted shaper basque & miniskirt--was used to being ignored in Vanessa's company. As a lesbian, this was a grateful reprieve from the day-to-day unwanted and feeble approaches she got from men. She was, however, disappointed that the only other women in the place were the cloakroom attendant and a submissive in the roped-off play area who was bent over a leather bench and receiving an unnecessarily harsh paddling from her show-off Master.

Vanessa surveyed the room. 'What's his name?' she said over the house music that had no business being as loud as it was.

'He called himself TheTickleGod07', said Jaz.

'Of course he did.'

"There's nothing like an arbitrary number to seal your position as the definitive deity," thought Vanessa when a short, pudgy man in a leather jockstrap and a studded collar threw himself at her feet.

'Hello, Mistress,' he said.

'Erm... yes?'

'Can I lick your boots?'

'What would I get out of it?' she asked.

'You can call me slave,' he said.

'Yeah,' said Vanessa, unconvinced. 'Do you think women like to feel special?'

'Yes, Mistress!'

'How special do you think it feels that you call someone Mistress at the drop of a hat?'

An inane smile demonstrated that he didn't understand her point. She stepped over him and went to the bar. He shuffled on his knees to block Jaz's path.

'Hello, Mistress--'

'Go away,' said Jaz and joined Vanessa.

Vanessa bought the drinks while thirty-three pairs of eyes gawked at them from the shadows. 'What does this "god" look like?'

'I didn't ask,' said Jaz.

'Stellar journalism there, girl,' Vanessa sighed.

'Hi,' interrupted a voice at her elbow. A stern man in a long leather trench coat had appeared out of nowhere. A curled bullwhip hung from his belt and he sipped an orange juice. He rested against the bar and gazed out at the playroom as if there was more to observe than one couple and their monotonous spanking activities. 'Lots of potential...' he mused.

'Really?' replied Vanessa.

'Yes,' he said, matching her disinterest, but his cavalier attitude was undermined by a leather-trench-coat-in-a-heatwave-induced sweat.

'This is your first time here,' he said.

'Correct,' said Vanessa.

He faced her square-on. 'That's: "Correct, Sir." And you should say it on your knees with my hand at your throat.'

Vanessa coolly placed down her drink and leant to whisper in his ear. Jaz watched as his misplaced confidence withered like a deflating balloon. He straightened to his full height, which was still a full foot shorter than Vanessa, and paraded out of the room to explore one of the unpopulated floors; his whip somehow more floppy than it was before his approach.

Then Jaz noticed two young men watching from a shadowy corner next to the exit. She got the impression that shyness might cause them to run away at any moment. One tentatively lifted a hand and waved. She beckoned him over. He encouraged his friend to follow.

'Hi,' said the first. He carried a leather sports bag and obviously worked out but had the wispy beard of a guy who hadn't shaved since the first spring of puberty.

Vanessa rolled her eyes.

'TheTickleGod07?' asked Jaz.

'Yeah. Are you JazzyToes?' he asked with a glance up at Vanessa, hoping she was the lady he had been chatting with that afternoon.

'That's me,' said Jaz. She turned to the second young man, who was so skinny that his skin-tight rubber T-shirt was a loose fit: 'And you are...?'

'Sadist-underscore-Tickler69,' he said.

'You do know that means you tickle sadists, rather than being a sadistic tickler?' said Vanessa.

'Yeah, but the nickname Sadistic_Tickler69 was already taken,' he said.

'Right,' said Vanessa. 'Of course.'

'So...' said TheTickleGod07 as he cast an eye over the unused equipment, 'what made you want to meet us here tonight?'

'Curiosity,' said Jaz. 'Do you know know of any tickling experts? Who might, like, get paid to do it?'

'Any real expert would do it for the love of doing it. They wouldn't have to be paid,' said Sadist_Tickler69 with conviction.

TheTickleGod07 nodded agreement.

'Have you ever been asked to do that by someone?' asked Vanessa.

'Oh, God, no, but that would be perfect!' said TheTickleGod07.

'Yeah,' said Sadist_Tickler69, joining in, 'Real life non-consent, like what Jake Valentine did.'

Vanessa glared at the two boys.

'Not that we'd do it for real,' said TheTickleGod07, rolling back his enthusiasm in a hurry. 'Non-con is never alright -- only a fantasy, you know?'