Return to Hog-Heaven

Ms. Cheryl Cabrera squirmed and tittered as Maestro Thomas applied his usual elegant touch. He was using feathers in this final phase of Cheryl’s tickle session, held this month in one of the ‘screened’ rooms. That meant Cheryl could not see the other patrons of McKay’s, each attended by her own tickle-master. She could only hear them, with the sounds of their giggles, squeaks, and laughter acting to boost Cheryl’s own sensitivity.

Not that Cheryl was consciously aware of the gleeful sounds. Not at this point. Her attention was focused on the two feather-tips, teasing her skin both directly and through the thin fabric of her tickle-outfit.

It was an elegant tickle-outfit, as befitted McKay’s, an establishment of luxury tickling for the well-to-do here in New Seattle. A tacky Paradise Suit, covering the whole body with tickle-amplifying fabric, would be completely out of place here.

Cheryl’s laughter grew louder as Maestro Thomas worked up to a final crescendo. The toes of her bare feet clenched and spread, released from their toe-clamps and now being ignored as the twin feathers ran teasing paths over legs and arms, and sides and belly. Cheryl could not resist. The restraints of the tickle-couch were effective as well as elegant, and had been carefully adjusted to fit at the start of the session – a time that now seemed so long ago.

Long lines and rapid zig-zags, ran over her helpless form. Cheryl felt the exquisite tickling touches grow faster and faster. Then the Maestro’s fingers, abandoned the feathers to tickle Cheryl vigorously under her armpits, and with that final flourish, the session ended.

Cheryl grinned up at Maestro Thomas, filled with a familiar sense of tickle-happiness. He sketched a bow, spoke soft words to her, and watched with his usual eagle eye as the serving-bots released her from the couch. She bent and stretched, and let the largest of the serving-bots escort her to the tea room, where she would take a glass or two before returning to her apartment.

The next morning, Cheryl woke up feeling vaguely dissatisfied. The stone in her mood ring shone bright and pale, as befitted a fine morning after a session at McKay’s, and yet it seemed wrong, somehow. She did her best to ignore her contrary feeling, eating a light breakfast, running through her usual morning routine, and going out to gossip with friends at the local puzzle bar. Noon came, and she treated herself to a special lunch in an effort to shake off that feeling of dissatisfaction. It seemed to work, at first, but on returning to her apartment the feeling crept back, and by mid-afternoon she was drumming her fingers.

A memory of Hog-Heaven surfaced. Cheryl had visited it once. Just once, six months – no seven… eight… almost nine months ago now. She had gone that one time when Maestro Thomas hadn’t been available. Instead of accepting one of the other tickle-masters at McKay’s she’d – perversely – sought out a seedy tickle center with its automatic tickling.

On an angry whim Cheryl strode out the door, only to make an immediate about-face. If she was going to return to Hog-Heaven, she’d need to dress properly. Which meant improperly, in something suitably ratty and threadbare.

On the slidewalk to Delwood Street SouthWest, Cheryl concentrated on her mood ring. There were biofeedback tricks that everyone knew about and that no one spoke about. Cheryl hadn’t used them since her foolish days as a college coed. She still remembered them, however, and while she couldn’t manage the blood-brown that legally mandated a tickle session, she did dull and darken her stone enough to justify seeking one out.

She saw the storefront sign: “Hog-Heaven: All Automatic Tickle Center.” It was much as she remembered: The biggest and most garish of the seedy tickle centers in that run-down part of New Seattle. She entered, she dropped in her credit tokens, and as she skimmed over the machine-menu, Cheryl suddenly knew what she wanted. She selected ‘Everything Foot’ and deposited the additional tokens demanded.

She entered the locker room on the women’s side. Shortly afterwards she left it, with her hair in a hairnet, her body covered from ankles to neck in a Paradise suit, and brass toe-rings on second and fourth toes of each foot. A visit to the cage machine to secure her hands in hand-cages, and then out to the platform where the captive-trolleys waited. She stepped over the safety line marked on the floor, and the automatic machinery snapped her up, secured her, and trundled her into one of the waiting tickle-bays.

Unlike her last time at Hog-Heaven, the machinery held Cheryl in a sitting position. The various body-tickle devices remained overhead and inert, rather than descending to tickle her through the smoothalene. A simple (but not primitive) electronic mirror dropped into place, giving her a magnified view of her bare soles. Those soles – Cheryl’s feet – were completely vulnerable; ankles secured by the pair of ankle-grabbers, and the four brass toe-rings clamped to hold her toes in place. The “Tickle Song” began to play, and in the background Cheryl could hear squeals and giggles and mad laughter. Recorded and edited squeals and laughter: Hog-Heaven offered a discount to customers who allowed audio recording of their sessions. That was, of course, an option Cheryl had turned down. She was slumming, but there were limits.

Foot-tickling implements appeared. Cheryl could see them only in the mirror, as the foot-stocks blocked her direct line of sight to them. She watched as they whirled and wiggled, stalking her helpless soles. And then they touched, and then they began to tickle!

The first line of tickle-devices consisted of soft brushes and short rubbery tentacles. Cheryl could see as well as feel the broad brushes as they went lap lap lap across her heels, and across the balls of her feet and over her toes. Cheryl squirmed and whimpered at their soft touch, bursting into laughter only when the rubbery tips of the tentacles began their circular patterns over her arches. She thrashed. She was able to thrash as the restraints on her upper body were relatively loose. But they were still present, and she could not possibly escape them. And her feet could not struggle at all. The foot-stocks held them perfectly in place, requiring them to receive their mechanical tickling.

The soft brushes continued their steady lap lap lap. The rubbery tentacles repeated their tickle-patterns with predictable variations on each pass. Hog-Heaven didn’t even attempt to match the artistry of Maestro Thomas at McKay’s, making up for that lack with the implacability and endurance of machines. Machines that tickled and tickled and tickled.

The machines went into syncopation, now teasing Cheryl’s left foot, and now tickling her right. Back and forth, and back and forth between her two helpless feet, again and again and again. The soft brushes withdrew, replaced by the high-pitched whining of the chrome-plated spheres dubbed ‘sonic feathers.’ The tentacles moved up and down, launching new tickle-attacks on the balls and the heels of Cheryl’s feet. And her toes, as well. Her arches were left for the sonic feathers.

The combined implements returned to making their sweet attacks on both of Cheryl’s soles at once. They paused, giving Cheryl an opportunity to catch her breath. They tickled, making Cheryl giggle and squirm. Pausing and tickling, pausing and tickling, and then tickling and tickling and tickling.

The ‘Tickle Song’ ended, and started to play again. The tentacles withdrew, and the soft brushes returned, now to lap lap lap across Cheryl’s arches. The sonic feathers buzzed around the edges of her soles, and across the balls of her feet. Then they withdrew, allowing the soft tickle-brushes to solo. Lap lap lap they went, focused on Cheryl’s most sensitive tickle spots. Cheryl could see each lap in the mirror, and feel each lap on her feet. And there were so many of them! Lap lap lap, and each lap was a tickle!

The bushes moved out of Cheryl’s sight to tickle the tops of her feet. Now she could only feel the tickle, light and soft, running across the tops of her toes. She felt them work down, toward where the ankle-grabbers held her ankles. But all she could see were her bare soles in the mirror, vulnerable and waiting.

The soft brushes withdrew. It wasn’t the end of the session, but only a pause. Cheryl twisted, feeling the restraints on her upper body tighten while those on her feet loosened. She could wiggle her feet. And then she couldn’t, as things returned to their initial settings: Her upper body could squirm, but her bare soles were once more held in place, completely vulnerable to the tickling they’d receive.

The recorded ‘Tickle Song’ began a new verse, “The grabbers and the scrubbers; feather-forks and nubby rollers; and all of them are waiting here for you! Coochie-coo! Choochie-coo! Choochie-choochie-choochie-coo! Yes, all of them are waiting here for you!”

With that the tickle implements named all moved into Cheryl’s view. Then a pair of grabbers seized her two large toes, while the others move back out of sight. The grabbers vibrated, inflicting a buzz-tickle that ran directly into those two large toes.

The buzz-tickles repeated randomly, each buzz brief, with maddeningly unpredictable pauses between them. And each time the grabbers buzzed, Cheryl would screech with laughter.

Between each buzz Cheryl sat still, clad in the smoothalene body-suit, secured in the tickle-bay, watching the images of the two grabbers in the mirror. They each covered one of her large toes, emphasizing the bareness of the rest of her soles. And then they would send a sudden buzz-tickle into the large toes they held.

Sometimes Cheryl’s right toe would receive the buzz-tickle. Sometimes her left toe would. More often than not, however, both toes at once would be surrounded by the buzzing tickle of the two grabbers.

Then Cheryl saw a pair of scrubbers move back into view. Scrubbers with lotion-dabbers. A scrubber for each foot, of course. The dabber would squirt a bit of lotion, and the scrubber would whirl to wipe and ‘clean’ the bare sole, moving around to tickle every helpless square centimeter as it scrubbed.

That didn’t mean the grabbers withdrew. They still held both large toes, and every so often one, or the other, or both at once would give the toe it held another buzz-tickle. Cheryl laughed and laughed with an occasional squeek! as the grabbers and the scrubbers continued their work.

The brief buzz-tickles emphasized the lotion-slick squirminess of the scrubbing. The lotion, Cheryl thought inanely, must be Jurgenesque’s. She had selected that brand, after all, for her session here. It was the brand of foot-lotion she used at home between tickle-sessions. McKay’s used its own special blend, of course – and of course Hog-Heaven didn’t even pretend to be as refined or artistic as McKay’s. It went for straightforward and effective.

The ‘Tickle Song’ continued playing, “Coochie-coo! Choochie-coo! Choochie-choochie-choochie-coo! Yes, all of them are here to tickle you!”

The scrubbers withdrew while the grabbers continued to grip Cheryl’s large toes. The ‘Tickle Song’ went instrumental. Every so often Cheryl squeaked as her large toes received yet another buzz-tickle. In between her squeals, she could hear recorded voices over the bay’s speakers, voices muffled as if heard through a wall.

“Tell me now that you want me to stop!” an exaggeratedly evil and robotic voice said.

“No! No! Don’t stop!” a woman’s voice answered.

Then the ‘Tickle Song’ began its lyrics again. “The grabbers and the scrubbers; feather-forks and nubby rollers; and all of them are here to tickle you! Coochie-coo! Choochie-coo! Choochie-choochie-choochie-coo! Yes, all of them are here to tickle you!”

The grabbers administered a brief buzz-tickle to both of Cheryl’s large toes as she watched the soft fingers of a feather-fork move into view to the left of her helpless left sole. Then she felt it rake her sole!

Rake rake rake! Tickle tickle tickle! Quick and soft. Softer than the scrubbers, softer than even the broad soft brushes that had tickled Cheryl earlier. This was a tickle that demanded giggles rather than wild laugher, Cheryl did not even try to resist it. She giggled and giggled, with an occasional squeal as the grabbers delivered another buzz-tickle. A second feather-fork appeared and began to tickle-rake her right sole. Softly, every so softly. Making her giggle… and giggle… and giggle…

The soft tickling went on and on and on, with the two feather-forks strictly alternating: They never teased both of Cheryl’s soles at once. The buzz-tickles came more seldom, but they still came, sometimes through the grabber on her right toe, sometimes through the grabber on her left, and sometimes into both large toes at once.

In the mirror she faced, Cheryl could see the enlarged images of the feather forks as they continued their tickle-work on her soles. She now saw that each grabber had a light that turned on just before it sent another buzz-tickle through the toe it held. And beyond her giggles she could hear the ‘Tickle Song’ playing. “Coochie-coo! Choochie-coo! Choochie-choochie-choochie-coo! Yes, all of them are here to tickle you!”

Eventually, the feather-forks withdrew. The grabbers still continued to grip Cheryl’s large toes, and Cheryl watched them wided-eyed, waiting for the light that would give a one-second warming before they sent another buzz-tickle into her toes. Cheryl briefly toyed with the idea of getting a pair of buzzers for her own use at home, but doing so would require a license. The kind that locked on, with a time, would need a license at any rate, and Cheryl knew she wouldn’t be able to resist taking off the other kind. Taking them off, putting them back on, taking them off, putting them back on…

The nubby rollers promised by the ‘Tickle Song’ now appeared. They began to slowly roll up and down Cheryl’s soles. Both her soles at once. Slowly. Cheryl burst into laughter, eyes wide. This was a firm tickle. Not fierce, and not at all soft and giggly, either. It was slow, which made it simultaneously teasing and bearable. Unbearably bearable. Cheryl could feel each nub as the rollers made their patient way from her heels to her toes, and then back down again from her toes to her heels.

And once in a while the grabbers would apply a buzz-tickle to one or both of her toes, adding a squeal to Cheryl’s laughter. The laughter of that firm, nubby tickle, as the rollers continued their steady movement, up and down both soles at once.

The nubby tickling didn’t stop. It didn’t give Cheryl a chance to catch her breath. It didn’t need to give her a chance to catch her breath. She could laugh and laugh as the carefully paced tickle sank into her bare soles.

Cheryl squeaked as another buzz-tickle went into her left large toe, but that was just an accent to the continuing slow tickle of those nubby rollers. On her feet. On the bare soles of her feet. On every bit of bare and helplessly ticklish soles of her feet, from her heels to her toes. In the magnifying mirror she could see those rollers at work as well as feel them.

And they didn’t stop. The slow-rolling tickle went on and on, making Cheryl laugh and laugh. Her feet kept being tickled! Her feet kept being tickled! Just like the ‘Tickle Song’ said they would be. “Coochie-coo! Choochie-coo! Choochie-choochie-choochie-coo! Yes, all of them are here to tickle you!”

Cheryl wiggled her toes. Then she realized she could wiggle her toes. The grabbers no longer held her large toes, and while the brass toe-rings were still on her second and fourth toes, they were no longer clamped to the foot-stocks. The ankle grabbers had released her ankles, and the restraints on her upper body were running through their release process as well.

The mirror lifted away, and the doors to the tickle-bay opened. Grinning and still emitting an occasional giggle, Cheryl rode the cart back to the Hog-Heaven locker room.

(end)