A Tickle in Time - Chapter 4 (m>f)

[Agent 498]

Subj: A Tickle in Time, Chapter IV (m>f)
From: cs...@panix.com

A TICKLE IN TIME, Chapter IV

THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS SCENES INAPPROPRIATE FOR THOSE UNDER THE AGE OF 18.
DON'T ASK ME WHY, I DON'T MAKE THE RULES.

Jessica found herself in the dark with something soft under her. The
air was close, and when she tried to move, she found that her arms and
legs
were restrained. She could hear muffled voices nearby, but could see
nothing. Panic gripped her, freezing her with terror.

VIENNA, 48 N, 16 E, 1895 AD

The glowing letters of the chronal positioning system recalled Jess
to
herself. Drawing a deep breath, she settled down and started taking
stock.
Female body, adult, wearing a heavy skirt, boots, stockings, corset,
blouse -- appropriate to the period. The blouse was undone up the front
and
the sides of the corset were unlaced. She was lying on her stomach, and
could feel soft leather against her bare skin of her chest. A couch?
Wrists clamped in what felt like metal cuffs, leather-padded and attached
to the top edge of the couch, ankles probably in similar restraints. A
blanket over her head and shoulders. Faint smell of tobacco smoke, sound
of a door closing and then voices and footsteps coming closer. She tossed
her head, trying to dislodge the blanket, but it was too heavy to shift.
"I believe she has regained consciousness." The voice was male,
speaking what Jess recognized as the Austrian dialect of German. "Very
well, gentlemen -- if you will seat yourselves, I will begin." Rustle of
people moving about.
"Really, Herr Doktor, is all this necessary? It looks ... well,
degenerate." This man spoke harsher, more northern German.
"I'm afraid so," the first speaker said. "I've tried to set up things
so the minimum amount of exposure is necessary, so as to preserve the
patient's modesty. Perhaps in the future a more effective system will be
designed. Doktor Lowry has proposed certain improvements ... but that is
for later."
Another Lowry! Jess twisted under the blanket, wishing she could see.
This had to be more than coincidence ...
"She appears agitated," the northerner said.
"Yes," the Austrian replied. "The details of the case are as follows:
this woman, who I shall refer to only as Frau K, is a twenty-five-year-old
housewife who came to me complaining of extreme nervousness, violent
shifts
of temper, long periods of disorientation and delusions, and a
pathological
need to interfere in others' affairs ... " Jess could all but hear the
smirk in his voice. It was the other jumper, damn him! How had he brought
her here? " ... The diagnosis was, of course, hysteria. However, Frau K
had
tried the standard medical remedies for that condition without effect. She
has agreed to allow my technique to be tested on her in hopes of
alleviating her suffering."
"I've agreed to nothing!" Jess yelled in German. "Let me go!"
"The delusions get worse each passing day," the jumper said smoothly.
"There is no time to waste. Doktor Adler, your assistance, please ... "
"Certainly, Doktor Freud." Jess was so stunned by those words that
she
barely noticed the hands gripping her left foot, undoing the buttons of
her
boot. Was _nothing_ sacred to this bastard? And then the boot came away,
and she realized what was about to happen. Helplessly, she flexed her toes
in the thin silk stocking, wishing the real Frau K had had the sense to
wear thick wool socks.
Someone, "Freud" probably, gripped her instep and pushed up so her
foot was parallel to the rest of her leg, impossible to move an inch. He
held it in place as something small and hard -- a pen tip? -- glided
slowly down the center of her sole. Jess's head snapped up under the
blanket, and she shouted a word that none of the assembled doctors had
probably ever heard from a woman's mouth. Not only did the stocking
magnify
the tickling sensation, this body's skin was so sensitive it made the one
she'd worn in the Aztec temple seem like rhino hide. The pen circled
around
the ball of her heel, came back up. "The life-lines are very convoluted
here," Freud said. "It is necessary to outline them accurately to begin
alleviating Frau K's condition." Jess shook her leg furiously, but her
foot was immobile, unable to escape the teasing, tracing pen.
"Your pardon, Doktor," said Adler, "but it seems to me that you are
merely ... tickling the patient."
"Do not mistake side effects for the whole, Doktor," Freud retorted.
"This woman's lines are drawn tight, very tense. And just as plucking a
taut cord produces a musical note" -- fingernails scraped over Jess's
stockinged arch, and she could not hold back a stream of wild giggles --
"the act of expelling the tension by touch produces a sweet music as well.
Doktor Lowry and I have a paper in preparation regarding the phenomenon;
it
is purely beneficial. Now, we should begin treatment in earnest. Doktor
Lowry, the other boot?"
Freud continued to lightly tickle Jess's foot while someone undid her
right boot button by button, with tantalizing slowness. Jess's right sole
was tingling with anticipation long before the boot was finally lifted
off.
A hand seized her foot and bent it up into the same immobile position as
its mate. And then there were fingers gliding over each sole in
near-perfect unison, like figure skaters tracing their patterns on the
smooth silken surface, crossing and recrossing the most agonizingly
sensitive places. Jess's shoulders heaved as she buried her face in the
couch, biting deep into the leather in a hopeless effort to stifle her
uncontrollable, delirious laughter. "Mmmmpheeheeheeheemmmmm ... " she
gasped as her legs slammed away like pistons, trying to pull her feet
through the ankle restraints. Not an inch did they budge, though. For a
moment, she considered yelling out that she was cured, that she needed no
more "treatment," but even half-crazy from tickling, she realized that
"Freud" would only say it was another of her delusions. There was no way
out of this until Central recalled her. But did Central even know where
she was? Could she be stuck here until "Freud" let her go? The thought
added extra strength to her struggles.
"Do you grasp the principle, Doktor Adler?" Freud inquired.
"I ... I think so," Adler said. His voice was a strange mixture of
skepticism and desire. Desire was clearly winning. Jess could just
imagine him staring fixedly at her wildly gyrating behind.
"Well, why don't you take over Doktor Lowry's foot while he draws the
energy
higher?"
"Yes! Excellent!" Adler exclaimed greedily. The grip on Jess's right
foot shifted, and someone picked up the back of her skirt. Adler tickled
away on her right foot without any pretense of scientific exactitude, and
rather than correct him, Freud also abandoned the pattern in favor of wild
scrabbling. Meanwhile, Lowry's hands drifted up her calves, digging into
the tender tendons behind her knees. If the sensations surging through
Jess's body could have been turned into energy, she could have jumped into
orbit -- not that she didn't try. Dimly she heard her own laughter-choked
babbling: "Oh please, mercyyyyyyyyhahahahahahaha -- toooooohoooohoooo --
too much -- heeheeheehee -- no more -- "
Abruptly, all three sets of hands fell away from her. Jess collapsed
on the couch in astonished relief, still shuddering lightly, feeling a
sudden ache in her sides from continuous laughter. Beads of sweat crawled
down her back. And yet, there was something pleasurable in her weariness.
This body enjoyed being tickled, too, even if Jess thought otherwise.
"You see the benefits," Freud said. "She is much calmer now, is she
not? A far cry from the gibbering madwoman we saw but seconds ago."
"A very interesting means of therapy, Doktor," said Adler. "I believe
it might be of benefit to some of my own patients."
"I rather suspected you'd think so once you saw it in action," said
Freud. "Of course, the treatment is not yet completed, but there is no
hurry. Frau K isn't going anywhere ... are you, dear?" He laughed
mockingly, echoed by the other two men. Despite her exhaustion, Jess
could
have cheerfully killed the lot of them at the moment.
"Further treatment?" said Adler, sounding almost as if he were
licking
his lips. "I have some idea of what that might involve ... but I would
like to see it demonstrated. Purely to ensure that I have the correct
understanding, of course."
"Now, Doktor Adler, it is unwise to strain the patient too much,"
said
Freud. He paused, then went on, "But on the other hand, there is no
science without risk, eh? If you will be so good, Doktor Lowry ... "
"You son -- " Jessica broke off as Lowry's fingers touched her.
Slowly, with great delicacy, he traced his way up and down her sides, from
just below the armpits to just above the hips, over bare skin and the
tough
material of her corset. The feel was enjoyable, but nevertheless her spine
stiffened and her breath shortened every time Lowry's fingers neared a
potentially ticklish spot. Would he seize her ribs? Slide all the way up
under her arms? Burrow through her clothes to her waist? Another pair of
hands slipped under her shirt and began stroking her damp back, and then
the last "psychologist" joined in, palms sliding over her buttocks and the
backs of her legs and almost-but-not-quite touching her feet. And Jess,
caressed six ways at once, lay rigid with anticipation. It was like being
locked in a room with a swarm of anopheles mosquitoes; no matter what you
did, one would eventually land and bite.
When the doctors finally made their move a century or two later,
they
made it in unison. The hands on her legs slid over the edge of her heels,
and two handfuls of fingernails scraped down her soles as if trying to
stop
their fall; simultaneously, the hands on her back curved around her
ribcage, middle fingers working into the space between ribs. Meanwhile,
the fingers that had skated along her sides wandered almost casually into
her underarms, wriggling gently as if they were struggling to escape the
soft, ticklish hollows.
Jess, even though she knew what was coming, was taken by surprise.
She
let out a single bleat of shock that quickly dissolved into bursts of mad
laughter as tickling sensations washed into her brain. The one at her
feet
was working a double-handed attack on both sets of silken toes. Though she
could move her feet now, she couldn't move them enough to escape the
tormenting touch, and that only made it all the more frustrating. The
rib-tickler had shifted to the small patch under each set of ribs that was
the only real "magic tickle spot" on Jess's own body; it turned out to be
pretty darn magic on this body, too, each poke there rewarded with a
frantic jerk and an equally frantic laugh. But she would have accepted
four more ticklers if only they agreed to leave her underarms alone. They
were obviously this body's most vulnerable point, and the swirling,
caressing fingers there were what fueled her unstoppable gale of giggles
and made her strain upward in the restraints, trying to press her elbows
to
her sides but coming nowhere close.
Tears of mirth leaked from her eyes and slicked the leather under her
face as the incessant tickling continued. "Please!" she squealed in
English
as the rib-tickler spread his hands wide over her ribcage, working the
fingers slightly to tease her with constant little tickles. "Heeheeheehee
-- I -- "
"You what?" Freud asked in the same language.
Jess bit back the words _give up_ at the last minute. Damned if she
would! This was the second time so far she'd been tickled into nearly
forgetting her training, and it was going to be the last. Teeth grinding,
giggles leaking like steam between her tight lips, she arched her back in
an effort to escape the maddening underarm tickling and snapped her body
from side to side, flinging off the hands on her sides.
"Delusions of endurance, I'd say," Freud commented, switching back to
German as he took a firmer grip on her ribs.
"Not delusions, I hope. I'd rather she last a nice long time," came
Adler's voice from down by her feet as he continued his obsessive
bedevilment of her toes.
"Don't worry, Herr Doktor. I'm sure -- "
"WHAT THE HELL YOU DOING WITH MY WIFE?"
Another German voice, this one unfamiliar but filled with outrage.
All
six hands once more let go of Jess as one, and the sound of her demented
laughter was replaced by the sound of scuffles, glass breaking, blows
landing, feet running. And then by silence, and heavy footsteps
approaching
the couch where she lay.
Jess flinched involuntarily as something touched her calf, but then
the cuff that held her ankle was clicked open. The other one joined it,
and
then the cuffs that had restrained her sore wrists. She rolled over and
sat
up, sweeping off the blanket, and saw her rescuer standing by the couch.
He had a bodyjumper's sparkle around him.
She reacted instinctively. A stockinged heel slammed into his
kneecap,
knocking his leg from under him -- her body was young and fit, and she was
well-trained. As he toppled, she brought her joined fists up, catching him
hard on the point of the chin and sending him stumbling backward. She
leaped off the couch, dropping easily into an _isshin-ryu_ stance even
though her body was quivering with fatigue.
"Whoa! Truce!" yelled the man, trying to clutch his chin and his knee
simultaneously. "Jess, it's me -- Martin!"
"Martin?" Martin Galloway was the man who recruited her into
Central's
service. She looked more closely at the sparkle around him -- it was
indeed
a different pattern from the 'jumper she'd seen twice now. "What the hell
are you doing here?"
"Saving your ungrateful butt, what's it look like?" Martin said,
flopping into a chair. "Some thanks I get -- you nearly cripple me."
"Yeah, well, after what I went through, you're lucky I didn't go
straight for your balls." Jess looked around the room, a small, close
Victorian study that bore the marks of a knock-down, drag-out fight, as
she
wrapped her open blouse around herself. "Did Central send you?"
"Yeah. You dropped off its scope, so it sent me to try and find you.
If you have anything to do here, do it quick -- we'll both be recalled
soon. What happened, anyway?"
Jess filled him in, finishing up with, "So now the creep has turned
--
or tried to turn -- psychology into another tickling game."
Martin shook his head in disbelief, then grinned. "Well, look at it
this way -- it's no weirder than the _real_ Freud's theories on penis envy
and dream interpretation. And imagine all those Hollywood types and
society dames paying a shrink $100 a hour to be tickled loopy ... "
"Not funny."
"Hell, they'll probably be happier than when they were worrying about
whether they hated their parents. And you did look kind of cute squirming
around like that ... " Martin wiggled his eyebrows.
Jess glared at him. "Stand up. You just earned that kick in the
balls."
Instead, the study flickered out as Martin and Jess were pulled back
into the megaflow. "Can't get me now, nyah," Martin's mental voice said.
"I'll owe you."
"Seriously, Jess -- why don't you ask Central to transfer you back to
the present? You've gathered your share of information, and you've had a
rough couple of jumps by the sound of it. You're within your rights to ask
for a rest. And this guy sounds out of your -- and my -- league. You
catch
up with him again, he might do something worse than play kitchy-coo."
Jess paused before replying. "I can't stop now. The bastard's left me
a clue, and I mean to follow it. Central?"
"Yes," the computer said.
"How far back does the corruption extend now?"
"40 AD and spreading quickly. Agents are focusing on preventing its
spread toward the present; it has currently progressed to the late 1970s."
"I believe a family called Lowry" -- Jess focused on her memories of
Megan and Christine, wishing she'd had a look at Dr. Lowry -- "has
something to do with the 'jumper's plan. I want to see the earliest
ancestor of that family within the corrupted period."
"Good luck, Jess!" Martin called to her as the currents of the
megaflow whirled her away.
She didn't reply. Something was nagging her. She'd heard "Freud"
close
the door when he came into the room with Adler and Lowry, and nobody had
opened it. And try as she might, she couldn't recall hearing it open just
before Martin's yell. Could ... could he have been in the room all that
time? "You looked kind of cute squirming around like that ... "
No. She was just getting paranoid after being assaulted twice. She'd
been in the middle of a ticklish frenzy when Martin entered, in no state
to
pay attention to anything but her own torment. And if Martin was on the
'jumper's side, then why would he "rescue" her instead of joining in the
game of Let's Drive Jess Crazy? Dumb cracks aside, he was a friend, not
likely to stand by and let her be humiliated like that. "Get your head on
straight, girl," Jess told herself as the megaflow sailed by, "'cause you
sure don't want to be caught by surprise again ... "

NEXT: The Giants' Dance, or Tickled for a Century.