Thirteen months after the destruction of The House of White Feathers …
The late-afternoon light through the high gym windows caught the sheen of sweat on Jack Champion’s shoulders as he dropped from the pull-up bar and landed light on the rubber flooring.
At twenty-two and with three Avatar films under his belt where he mostly ran, swam, climbed and jumped about in a loincloth, he more or less now naturally moved like something built for display: long, clean lines of muscle under taut skin, a narrow waist that flared into a carved midsection, arms that looked almost too defined for how easily they had just finished thirty strict pull-ups. His pink sweatpants sat low on his hips. He wasn’t even breathing hard …
Bulk watched him from a few feet away, arms folded across a chest that had been thick and powerful for forty plus years and was still thick now, even if the power sat differently. Late forties. Balding on top. Forearms like hams. He was the kind of man who had never been pretty and had never needed to be.
Jack grinned, bouncing once on the balls of his feet, “Told you, Bulk. Nothing in here I can’t handle,” he sneered.
Bulk grinned his shark-like grin, pulled a crumpled five dollar bill from the pocket of his shorts and held it out, “Thirty pull-ups without breaking a sweat,” he announced, “You win, kid.”
Jack took the bill, flicked it between two fingers, and tucked it into his waistband. The contrast was almost comic: the young actor’s lean, camera-ready body against the older man’s heavy, work-scarred frame.
He picked up a nearby weight and began to lift it, huffing as he egged Bulk on, keen to keep proving him wrong, “What’s next, big guy?”
Bulk didn’t look annoyed. If anything, he looked patient, quietly content to let the moment play out.
After all, everything was falling neatly into place, and Jack was taking the bait exactly as he’d hoped …
“Next one,” Bulk nodded up to one of the steel bars above their heads, “Hollow-body hang. Ninety seconds. Another five if you last.”
Jack placed the weight carefully between his feet, wiped his palms against the chest of his vest, jumped, and locked into position - fists clenching the bar, arms in a firm line above him, body rigid, toes pointed.
Bulk had to take a quick glance at the two beauties staring him in the face - Jack’s moist, open pair of armpits, the faint and hardly there curl of underarm hair a little damp from all these bets …
Ninety seconds later Jack dropped, barely flushed. Another five dollars changed hands.
The third bet was fifty push-ups, chest to the floor every rep, under a minute. Jack dropped into position and tore through them. At fifty-two seconds he was back on his feet, shaking his arms out, still looking like he could do another set. Bulk paid again. Jack was riding it now. The easy arrogance of someone whose body had never yet failed him in a room full of mirrors.
Bulk scratched the grey stubble along his jaw, “Last one. Winner takes the pot. Loser spends the rest of the day taped to the decline bench. No getting out until I say so.”
Jack chuckled, “What’s the actual challenge?”
“Ten unbroken muscle-ups,” Bulk declared, “Strict. No kipping. No swinging.”
Jack glanced at the bar, then back at Bulk. He had done muscle-ups on the set of Avatar, in hotel gyms, showing off in front of Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña. Ten didn’t sound impossible after the other wins …
“You know I don’t need the money, right?” Jack cocked an eyebrow, hinting at the one million dollar paycheck he received for Fire & Ash …
Bulk saw his chance, “Are you a ‘champion’ or what, Champion?”
Jack jumped.
The first three were clean - explosive, pretty, the kind of movement that made people stop and watch. And people had caught sight of this little game between Bulk and Jack, so much so that a few nearby gym-goers paused their work out to see if he could make it.
Four and five started to grind. By six, Jack’s shoulders were burning in a way the earlier bets hadn’t touched. Seven was ugly. Eight he had to fight for the lockout. On nine his form broke and he still made it. The tenth he never finished. His right arm simply gave, and he dropped to the platform with a dull squeak of rubber soles meeting the mat.
For a second neither of them spoke …
Bulk didn’t gloat. He just reached into his bag and pulled out a thick roll of silver tape.
“Bench, loser,” he said.
Jack Champion did not lose.
Not at the gym. Not anywhere …
He had taken his roommate for one hundred and forty-seven dollars at poker last Thursday and still had the smug little stack of singles in his gym bag. He had never lost a game of Mario Kart in the apartment, not even when they made him play as Baby Peach! Beer pong at a friend’s place last month had ended 7–0 in his favour …
He always won.
So when Bulk said the word “loser” and reached for the tape, Jack’s brain simply refused the information. He laughed once, then bolted.
Bulk’s eyebrows shot upward, “Hey, you little—!”
Jack sprinted between the racks, his trainers slapping the rubber. Bulk cursed and came after him, heavier, slower, but with determination in his stride. Jack cut left around a cable stack, laughing so hard he almost clipped a bench.
“I don’t lose, man! I never lose!—”
He glanced back to shout it and immediately sideswiped the ice machine. The whole thing rocked. A cascade of cubes exploded across the floor in a glittering, ridiculous wave. Someone’s iced matcha, left on the edge of the front counter, went with it - green splash, plastic lid spinning like a coin.
Bulk slipped on the ice, recovered, kept coming …
Jack vaulted a foam roller, nearly took out a girl working with kettlebells, and made it as far as the stretching mats before a thick arm hooked him around the waist, “Come on!” He wriggled, still laughing, grabbing at Bulk’s wrist, “Best two out of three muscle-ups!”
Bulk didn’t answer. He just adjusted his grip to the back of Jack’s neck and started walking him toward the decline bench, Jack still twisting, still grinning, still insisting this didn’t count because he never lost.
Jack tried to keep it light as he was steered towards the workout bench, “F’real, teach. Are you - mnnn! - seriously gonna tape me up?—”, he said grinning, wriggling again - it looked more like play-wrestling than protest. Bulk didn’t respond. He just kept walking him, like a giant ogre who had caught a prince.
Two other regulars had drifted over - both older, both built like Bulk: heavy chests, thick arms, the kind of size that didn’t care about being cute. One of them, grey-haired and smiling, clapped a meaty hand on Jack’s other shoulder.
“I’ve been wanting to put this little show-off in his place all week!”
Jack laughed again, still twisting, still grabbing at whichever wrist he could reach, “Oh yeah? I’ve got like, ten five dollar bills stacked in my waistband that prove you suck, ol’ timer!” They sat him on the bench as Jack kept up the running commentary, half-protesting, half-entertained, as Bulk lifted his right arm and pressed the wrist high against the upright bar, “Aw dude, how long you gonna keep me here!”
The first wrap of silver tape went around Jack’s right wrist. Jack flexed automatically - the young, cut bicep jumping - and Bulk just taped over that too, wrapping the upper arm so the tape forced the limb straight and pulled Jack’s armpit wide open. Same on the left. When they finished, Jack’s arms were locked overhead, biceps bound, the pale, hairless, soft skin of both underarms completely exposed.
He tested the hold, wriggling his shoulders, still smiling, “Okay, damn, that’s kinda tight—”
They moved to his legs. One of the other men gripped Jack’s shins while Bulk pulled the roll of tape. Wrap after wrap around the shins, then the ankles, pinning both legs down the length of the decline so the soles of his feet faced forwards. Jack kept shifting, trying to draw his knees up even as the tape went on, laughing through it.
“—Come on, you don’t have to be so thorough! Bulk, seriously?—”
The last strips went around. When they stepped back, Jack was fixed in place: arms stretched up and taped at wrist and bicep, armpits open, legs secured from shin to ankle. He was still smiling, still a little breathless from the wriggling, looking from Bulk to the other two older men like he couldn’t quite believe they’d actually done it …
“Okay,” Jack said, tipping his head back to look at Bulk, “Very funny. You made your point. Now untie me, man, before someone …”
Bulk narrowed his eyes, “Before someone what, loser?”
Jack tugged at the tape binding his wrists high above him, but it wouldn’t budge, “Before someone takes like, a video or something!” His cheeks went as pink as his sweatpants.
Bulk checked his Rolex as if the time itself were the joke. Around them the gym had not gone back to work. A small knot of people had drifted in - there were two of the older regulars who had helped with the tape, the kettlebell girl Jack had nearly taken out, a couple of twenty-somethings with phones already up. Someone laughed.
An iPhone camera chimed. Jack heard it and twisted toward the sound, “Aw, man!” He whined.
Bulk watched the phones come out and felt the old, private certainty settle in his chest. When his now husband did this to him back in the 90’s, taking quick pictures on your phone wasn’t possible, so he luckily avoided that embarrassment at the time …
The beauty of it all is that Bulk did not have to start anything. He did not have to reach, to begin with a ‘first contact’. The position would do the reaching for him … A young man taped open like that, still grinning, still yapping away, still certain the room owed him some form of exit? No, someone would have to touch him. How could they not? Bulk only had to stand there and let the minute hand move. He wanted it with a patience that felt almost like hunger - it had been so long! He kept his hands to himself and waited for a brain in the crowd to catch up to what it was looking at.
Jack kept talking because talking had always worked.
“Bulk. Teach. Come on. I’ve gotta, like, zoom at two. You want fucking James Cameron seeing me like this? I’ll, I’ll buy you lunch. I’ll even let you pick the bar!—”, suddenly, a cool pinch closed on the bridge of his nose …
The matcha girl. She had come around the head of the bench without him seeing her, still faintly green at the cuffs of her sleeves, and she took his nose between thumb and finger the way you take a child’s. Not hard. Just enough to stop the sentence. Jack’s eyes crossed. He made an indignant sound through his mouth.
“Hey— that’s my— mmph—”
She held it a second longer, then let go, already smiling at her own phone. Another shutter sound, “That’s for spilling my breakfast, asshole!” She said.
Jack wriggled his nose, “Rude!” He sniffed.
Time leaked. Bulk’s watch said a little over a minute. The crowd had thickened by two more bodies. Then a shadow leaned in from Jack’s left …
… Todd.
Jack knew the face before the hand: the young guy from the free-weights side, the one who loaded plates like an argument, the one who had once called him “loincloth” loud enough for the stretching mats to hear. Todd’s grin was already mean. He licked the tip of his index finger with theatrical care, reached in, and pushed the wet knuckle into Jack’s ear.
The sound Jack made was not a laugh.
“UGH—Fuck you, Todd!”
He jerked his head so hard the tape at his right bicep creaked. Todd only twisted the finger a fraction, then pulled out, wiping it on Jack’s cheek. Phones caught that too. Jack’s ear burned. He could feel the wetness cooling there, ridiculous and intimate, and for the first time the grin on his mouth looked like work.
“You are so dead!” He told the ceiling, “Both of you. All of you! When I get out of this—”
Water hit his chest, wetting his new Nike top. Not a pour. A dribble. Someone - Jack never saw who - tipped a bottle and let a thin, playful stream run down the centre of his torso, someone else in the crowd said “oh my god” with delight.
Jack spun to the right, teeth bared, “Do that again! I dare you!” He tried to tug his arms down, looking at Bulk in disbelief, “Who carries duct tape in their gym bag anyway? You set me up!”
Finally, one of the older gym-goers saw it. Bulk recognised it in his eyes - maybe, hopefully, he was just like him.
Grey at the temples, heavy through the chest, one of the two who had helped bind Jack’s legs. He had been watching Jack’s left side the way a hunter eyes a deer. He did not announce himself. He simply reached out and, with two fingers, brushed Jack’s left, open underarm - light, almost accidental, a single slow stroke through the damp stretch of hairless, pale flesh.
Jack automatically folded into himself, quickly and suddenly. His whole body tried to corkscrew off the decline. The tape remained snug. Both arms had no choice but to stay where they were. The armpit he could not close pulsed under the retreating fingers as Jack’s grin broke all the way open into a shocked expression he could not hide … Surely it was a playful accident?
Bulk felt it land in him like a key turning.
There.
The door was open.
The laugh that went up around the bench was not kind. It was sniggering, making fun out of Jack’s humiliation …
The guy did it a second time, same two fingers, same light stroke through the open hollow of Jack’s left underarm, a little slower now that he knew what it brought …
“—HEY!—”, Jack yelped loudly, his whole torso tried to bend sideways as something in his face changed - recognition - the sensation was too sharp, too specific - he had spent years being thrown, filmed, dunked, made to climb and swim and hold impossible shapes for cameras, and none of that had ever felt like this. The knowledge arrived all at once, stupid and late: he was ticklish. Extremely. Perhaps he had simply never been held still long enough to find out …
Jack swung to a stop and glared at the guy at his side, catching his eyes, “Don’t do that, man!” Not a plea. An order, barked and extreme, as if a third press would be a step too far. He twisted toward the stranger with his teeth showing.
Bulk clapped his hands together once, loud enough to cut the chatter. The shark grin was back, wide and pleased.
“Huh,” he said, tasting it, “Is our Champion a little ticklish?…”
Jack gulped and grinned, looking down into his lap, “Whatever, man!”
The lie sat in the air for half a second, already ruined by the sound he had just made.
Bulk turned his head toward the older man as if they were only now being introduced at a door.
“What’s your name?”
“Kirk.”
Bulk put out a thick hand. Kirk took it. The shake was brief, companionable, the handshake of two men who had just agreed on the afternoon.
“We’re gonna have a lot of fun, Kirk.”
Kirk went to his knees at Jack’s left side without being asked. He found the line of rib just below the taped arm and poked - two firm, testing jabs into Jack’s waist. Jack yelped again, a cracked sound that broke on the way out, and the twist this time came with something new underneath it: a high, unwilling giggle that he tried and failed to swallow. His eyes flicked from Kirk to Bulk as if one of them might still call time.
Jack began to laugh, spinning and twisting, trying to use his elbows to bat them away, “Don’t be weird, guys, come on!”
Bulk moved to Jack’s other side.
Jack felt the shift of air first, the size and strength of both men at each side, now lifting the fingers of their right hand and wiggling them towards each of his exposed underarms, “Wait, no, wait, you’re playing dirty! …”
Fingertips met Jack’s hairless armpits, five in the left, five in the right.
The sound that tore out of Jack was a high pitched shriek, a genuine panic braided into one undignified noise. His eyes went wide. His body tried to spin on the spot, a full rocket launch against tape that would not grant him an inch. Shoulders wrenched. The decline pad squeaked. Both armpits, forced open and suddenly full of Kirk and Bulk’s fingers, lit up at the same time; there was nowhere to put the sensation and nowhere to hide it. He laughed in helpless, breaking bursts, head tossing …
“—WAIT HEY-WAIT-HAAHAHAHAHAAAAHAHAHAHAAHAAAA! WAIT-AAHHAHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAH! AHAAHAHA! OH, oh, you SUCK! Mnn, unfff, hehehe ahahaha ahaha ahaha AHAHA ahaha sss, stop it, SS, ssstop it HEY, teach, don’t, don’t, oh mahahaha, ahahahaha ahahahahan WAIT come on dude ahahaha ahahah WAIT-HAHA AHAHAHAA!—”
iPhones snapped in a ragged chorus. The crowd noise rose to meet him - laughter, a low whistle - near the cable stack a guy leaned into his girlfriend without looking away from the bench, “It’s like what happened that Christmas.”
She watched Jack’s face come apart and answered, almost in boredom, “Oh, everyone loves tickling these days …”
Bulk and Kirk watched Jack’s mouth.
It had fallen open and stayed open, a dark, working oval, the wet flash of tongue, the tonsils jumping in the back of his throat with every slam of hysterics, as if they too were trying to get away. Laughter came out of that mouth in constant, detonating waves …
“—GRAAAH AAAHAAA AHAAHAAA AHAAAHAHAHA AHAHAHAAAAA AAAA-NNnnNNnnn-OHHH! OHH MAN! AAAAAAHAH, AHAHAHAHAHAHA, youguysarefucked! AHAHAHAHAA MnnnNnnNnNNNnnnoooo-OOOOHHH SHIT ahahahaghaaaaagha! Guysguysguysguys! Agahaaaahahahahahah aaaaghhaaaaaahahah-GET-OFFME! FUUUUaaaaaaahhhhhh-KING quit it! QUIT IT!—”
Bulk’s fingers were buried in the left hollow; Kirk’s in the right. Jack’s underarms were an ultra ticklish zone. The skin there was too soft and sensitive for what was being asked of it. Each scribble of fingernails found the same electric seam, the unused, hyper-specific place that seemed to connect straight to the laugh and the panic and the bulging, disbelieving eyes. When they raked, he shrieked. When they paused in the crease and only pressed, he screamed out his laughter and tried to close arms that the tape had forbidden him to close, his voice now low and stern as he demanded: “—QUIT IT, I SAID QUIT IT!—”
Suddenly, a shape moved behind the hall window …
Bulk saw it first: the dark uniform, the pause of a man taking in the scene through glass. Kirk and Bulk’s hands stilled a half-second later. Both of them lifted off Jack quickly and the entire gym went quiet.
Jack hung there in the sudden absence of wiggling fingers, taped open, eyes blinking away blurred vision as he whispered, “… Fuck, fuck, that was not okay, dudes …!”
Bulk thought: this is it, the moment that ends the afternoon before it’s even begun.
The security guard came through the inner door in an unhurried walk. Older than Kirk, fat around the tummy, the kind of man whose job was mostly standing and watching other people sweat whilst he ate donuts. He took in the phones, the crowd, the handsome young man on the decline with his arms taped to the uprights, his armpits a little too bare. He did not reach for a radio, he simply said:
“Closing up.”
Just like that. The gym-goers looked at one another. A few phones lowered, reluctant, some grumbles and mumbles were heard at the back.
Jack found a voice that was mostly air, “Yo, officer, bro, please, he’s, they’re, Bulk, this mother fucker,” Jack couldn’t stop giggling, he couldn’t stop his armpits from feeling so tender, so vulnerable, “Can you, get me out of this, I can’t, sir, please, I’m serious! They’re both fucking with me!—”
The guard’s gaze moved to the surrounding crowd, “You lot,” he said to the room, tipping his chin, “Out. Doors lock in five. These three stay.”
Everyone filed toward the front with the satisfied reluctance of people leaving a film before the credits. The door sighed. Locks turned somewhere in the building. The three of them and Jack were suddenly the whole gym.
Jack’s quick begging collapsed into a stare as the guard stood at his taped legs.
“What’s all this laughing and screaming I can hear, hmm?” The guard folded his arms.
Bulk gestured to Jack’s armpits and replied with: “We’re just having a little fun, officer. My friend Jack here lost a bet and it turns out, his armpits are, well,” he smirked at Jack, “They’re ticklish as fuck …”
Kirk poked Jack’s left armpit again, as if flicking a switch, causing the young man to twist and bite at Kirk’s fingers.
The guard tilted his head, “Is that true, son? You do seem to’a got yourself a little … Stuck …” he walked behind the bench and looked down at the top of Jack’s head.
Jack’s hands curled into fists, his armpits a smooth expanse now close to all three men surrounding him, “Yeah, okay, I lost! But I’m not gonna take it, being damn, tickled outta my mind, man!”
Bulk watched the guard smirk.
“No, son, I think we should let these old dogs teach you a few new tricks,” he brought both hands around Jack’s chest and then slid his fingers inside both of Jack’s underarms, “You shave your pits, pussy?”
Jack inhaled quickly and bit his lower lip, “Y, yeah! Ss, so what, huh!” His elbows tried to touch as his spine arched.
Bulk grinned, “It’s probably what makes ‘em so damn ticklish, kid!”
Jack grimaced as the guards fingers turned into claws, “Who are you, man!” He started to wish he had armpit hair …”You helping me out or what?!”
Kirk grabbed Jack’s jaw and pulled his attention towards him, as Jack began to wheeze, the more the guard stroked his armpits, “Seeing as you’re so good with bets, how about we throw you a few, see if you can get outta this, huh?”
Jack nodded quickly, “Oh, I’m getting outta this!” He warned, “And when I do I’ma kill all you, assholes!” He sneered, grin manic and wide, eyes boiling with promise.
Kirk let go of Jack’s jaw, “Yeah? See, I bet you can’t last five minutes without laughing …” the guard and Bulk cackled, “… Win, we stop. Lose, and we take somethin’ offa you …”
Jack whined, “Take somethin’ offa me?—oh what! This is impossible, dude!”
Kirk began to use his index finger to gently stroke Jack’s left armpit whilst Bulk did the same to his right, all while Kirk used his fingers to softly butter up both armpits at the same time, causing Jack to wriggle non stop and now bite his upper lip, trying to hold back giggles, failing instantly as he began to laugh.
“… Nnn, no laughin’? It’s n, no-ahahahaahaha, ahahahahat poss, possib, ehehhe eheheheheh, eheheheh possible, man!—” Jack glared down at his left armpit, then his right, the tape squeaking above.
“Why’s it not possible, hm?” Kirk teased.
Jack’s upper body wriggled, “Be, because they’re too ticklish, man!”
Bulk looked at Kirk, “Reeeeaady …” then at the guard, “… Ssssssssset …” then at Jack, who locked everything he had.
His jaw clamped shut until the muscle jumped. His lips pressed white. His breath forced long and thin through his nose. Shoulders jammed down as if he could pinch the pits shut around the fingers. Abs braced. Thighs rigid, toes curling within the socks and sneakers laced around his feet - he focused on a crack in the far wall and tried to make his body a closed door.
“…Go,” Bulk whispered.
Color rushed into Jack’s face all at once - an uneven pink that climbed his cheekbones and stained the rims of his ears, “—MNN! Okay, okay!—”, sweat beaded along his hairline in a glittering seam as Bulk scribbled all ten of his fingernails into Jack’s right armpit, Kirk doing the same to Jack’s left armpit, Kirk reaching over Jack’s shoulders to scribble five fingernails in each underarm, the scribbling itself now gliding with ease due to the thin layer of perspiration gathering inside both of Jack’s pits …
Jack’s eyes, already glassy from the earlier assault, stretched wide until the whites showed all around the iris; they did not blink, “—MNN! MNN!—”, the tendons in his neck stood out like cables as he forced air through flared nostrils in long, trembling threads, “—Tick, tickle someplace else COME ON!—”
Bulk, ultimately one of Jack’s good friends, tried to help him out through the menace, “Breathe through it, Jack! Be a hardass!”
Jack’s shoulders jammed downward with such force the tape around his biceps almost tore apart - and that was just as tormenting as the tickling - the fact that the make-shift bondage wasn’t strong enough so he couldn’t move, but was strong enough to keep him in place. He tried to close his armpits shut, clamping them around the invading fingers but it just didn’t work; the skin there was too ticklish, too naked, a pair of smooth, flushed basins that offered no armor. These older men and their fingers, they owned this space on Jack’s body.
“—Mnn, mnn, ff, fuck, oh-GOD, fuck, heh—ehh—nn, nnn!—”, Jack began to whine, “—I’m a hardass! Nn, mnn, god, ssss, shit, fuckers, fuck!—” he was giving up …
Eight seconds of this armpits being tickled was everything Jack knew within that moment, the only thing. It occupied his mind, his throat, his face, his lungs - Kirk could see Jack’s toes wiggling within his sneakers, as if trying to dig for focus - Jack’s pupils looked blown. The pink in his cheeks deepened toward a fevered rose. He stared down at his left armpit, as if willing it to not be so ticklish.
Then the guards fingers changed angle by a fraction and dragged upward into the very centre of both of Jack’s armpits.
That did it - a ripped-open gasp that immediately detonated into a cascade of uncontrollable hysterics exploded out of Jack, “—NNNNFFFF—HAHAA-AHAHAHA! AHAHAAHHA! AHAHAHA! FUCK! AAAHHH-NO-AHHAHAHAHAHA GET ‘EM OUT-GET ‘EM OUT-AHAAHAHAHA-AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, AHHAHAHAHAHA!—”, his whole torso tried to leap against the air as the bench shuddered, his head flipped from side to side, sweat flying in bright droplets, those bulging eyes scorching - his mouth was open so wide it was as if the mania was trying to climb out of his throat, “—YOU-FUCCCKIN’-TICKLE ME WHAT? THE FFF, FFFF, FU-HUHAAAHAUHHHHUHUHUH-HUHAAAAAHAHA-AHAAHHAACK OH, OH GUH-AAAAHAHAAHA-AHAHAHAA, AHAHAHAHAHA-AHAHAHAHAHA-AHAAHAHAHAHD!—”
Kirk did not ease off. Neither did the others. Thirty fingernails scribbled and dug into the very depths and outer rims of both of Jack’s ultra-ticklish armpits, causing his arms to slam inward with a strength that would have broken a weaker hold; the tape only bit deeper into his skin. His sneakers hammered the bench in frantic, arrhythmic kicks. He was begging now purely because he had never felt anything quite like it…
“—STOP! OKAY STOP! OKAY STOP, STOP IT, WE GET IT!—STOP STOP STOP I CAN’T! I CAN’T—AHHAHAHAHAHA PLEASE I CAN’T BREATHE!—GETOFFAME—AHHAHAHAHAHA-AHAHAHAH-AHAHAHAHA-AHAHAHAH!—”
The pink in his face had gone blotchy now, fever-bright across the bridge of his nose, mottled down his throat. Sweat sheeted him. A dark patch spread across the front of his vest. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, then snapped forward, wild, pleading, furious all at once.
“Twelve seconds?” Kirk announced, “That the best you’ve got, loser?”
The guard joined in, “Let’s go the rest of the five minutes, men, it’s too fun not to!”
Jack tried biting at the hands but his jaw could not reach then, he licked his lips and tried to climb up the tape, anything to close up his armpits, “—YOU CAHAHAHAHAH-AAHAHAHAHAHA-N’T!—” he cackled, both blown away by how ticklish he was, as well as how sudden and unapologetic the tickling itself could be, “—YOU SERIOUSLY CAN’T!—”
The guard leaned over the crown of Jack’s head so his voice dropped straight into the boy’s skull, “Smooth as a girl’s,” he murmured, all ten of his fingernails scribbling in deep “No wonder you’re losing your mind …”
Jack’s scream-laugh hit the rafters. His spine arched until only his taped shoulders and hips still touched the bench. The unused, hyper-sensitive skin of his underarms had gone a furious, shining red. Every pass of a fingernail looked like it rewired him. He thrashed with a panicked, animal violence - twisting, bucking, trying to roll off a surface that would not let him roll, trying to close limbs the tape had turned into decorations, but the tickling didn’t stop, the laughter, the screams, the growls, it kept going on, twenty seconds, forty, a minute and a half, two minutes - Jack felt beyond betrayed, aiming his fury at the beefy gym-goer to his right.
“—BULK! BULK? BULK. WHAAHA WHAHAHAHA ARE YOU DO-AHAHAHAHA, AHAHAHAHAHA, YOu’re meant MEANT to be-eheh,EHEHEHE-EHEHEHEHAHAHAHAHAHAHA MY, my fr, fri, FRIEND you ass, ASS-hole, FUH-HUHAHAHAH, HAHAHAHAA-KAAAAAAAHH!—”, they did not give him rhythm to even try to compartmentalise this process, it had become a clawing frenzy, “—I LOST!—I ALREADY LOST, OKAY, okay? OKAY?—AHHAHAHAHA CUT ME L, loo, loo, LOOSE—DON’T—MY, my fuh, fucking, FUCK, FUCKING PITS ARE TOO t, t, teh, tickl—DON’T YOU FFFffffffFFFFffff-FUCKING—AHHAHAHAHAHA PLEASE I’M SERIOUS?—DON’TFU-HACKING-TICKLEME—I CAN’T!—”
Tears and sweat had made a mess of Jack. His lashes were spiked. The whites of his eyes were pink now too. His voice frayed into fragments. Two minutes, two and a half minutes, three … The determined set of his jaw was gone; what remained was a slack, glistening gape he could not shut. His threats had burned down to a single looping plea, “—OKAY stop, STOP, take anything I SWEAR, take anything!—” chopped to pieces by the laugh that would not die.
At four minutes they found a new cruelty: Kirk and Bulk held Jacks pits spread while the guard used only the very tip of one fingernail, tracing the same two inches over and over. Jack’s thrashing peaked into something close to seizure. The bench legs hopped. A strip of tape at his right wrist began to peel; Bulk smoothed it back down without missing a stroke …
They buried him for the last ten seconds. No technique. Just hunger. Three grown men erasing the same two patches of skin while Jack screamed laughter until his voice broke in the middle of a shriek and came back as a growled rasp.
“Five minutes …” Bulk said, “… I think we give the kid a break …”
All hands vanished.
Jack dangled in the sudden vacancy, dripping, heaving, panting, making tiny punched-out “—heh—heh—hhk—” sounds he had no power to swallow, even though he was still grinning. His pits tingled in the open air as if the fingers were still inside them. The pink in his face had drained to a shiny, exhausted flush. His eyes were swollen, unfocused, still too wide.
Kirk’s attention drifted down the length of the decline bench.
It was subtle enough that Jack might have missed it had he not become painfully, constantly aware of where every man around him was looking. Kirk’s eyes travelled from the tape wrapped tight around his shins, lingered on the sharp bones of his ankles, then settled on the pair of sneakers still laced around his feet as if they were the only interesting thing left in the room.
Jack noticed. The defiant grin stayed on his face. Something behind it shifted, “… Wait … Don’t you dare, man ….”
Kirk said nothing. He simply moved toward the end of the bench and crouched beside Jack’s right foot. One thick hand closed around the ankle. The other found the knot in the lace, “You lost the bet, so, time to take something off you …” he looked at the other guys to see if they were on the same page as he was, “… That right, huh, fellas?”
Much to Jack’s dismay, they all nodded and smirked in agreement.
“I was hoping you were gonna take them off,” the guard sneered.
Bulk and the guard swapped places. Bulk went behind Jack. The guard dropped to one knee beside Jack’s left foot, mirroring Kirk exactly - one hand around the ankle, the other already working the knot.
Inside the tight trainers, Jack’s toes were already clawing at the insoles, a frantic little scrabble the three men could almost see through the mesh: the fabric twitching, the toes bunching, the pair of feet trying to hide inside their own shoes.
“Listen to me,” Jack found Kirk’s eyes and held them, “You’re keeping ‘em on, man …”
Bulk’s fingers settled in the slick hollows of Jack’s armpits and began to stroke, faint, almost idle, just the pads of his thumbs dragging through the wet crease, “You’ve got pretty feet, Jacky boy, why not show ‘em off!” Jack twisted. The bench creaked. “Shall we take his vest, too?” Bulk asked, playful, as if it were an afterthought, while his thumbs kept that slow, ruinous glide.
“Oh, what!” Jack tried using his teeth again, nipping at Bulk’s fingers, “This is such, mnn, bullshit! I’m mnn warning you!”
Kirk’s lace came free. The guard’s followed. Bulk caught the hem of the Nike vest and ripped.
The fabric split with a wet, expensive crack. Jack could do nothing but watch it peel away from him - cotton dragging up his ribs, over the jumping ladder of his abs, catching for a second on the sheen of his chest before Bulk wrenched both halves up and tore them entirely from Jack’s torso. The vest was gone. The shoes were next …
Kirk pulled the right trainer off by the heel. The guard did the same on the left.
Jack’s socked feet emerged. White Nike cotton, darkened at the pads, “Damnit, you fucks!” His toes curled into themselves at once, making tight little fists inside the fabric, “Give ‘em back, I swear to god!” Jack tried to cross them; the tape at his shins only let him grind the socked soles together for a second before they sprang apart again.
The guard made a sound that was almost a groan.
He couldn’t help himself. One finger found the underside of Jack’s left sock and began to graze it - faint, almost worshipful, tracing the hidden arch through the cotton.
The foot twisted. Writhed. The right socked foot slapped across it at once, trying to cover, to shield, to make an X of fabric.
“—NO come ON mahahan DON’T do that!—” Jack’s cackle arrived instantly, “Enough with the tickling, guys!”
“Look at him panic,” the guard said, still stroking that one slow line along Jack’s left sole, “Has yer boy got tickly feet, too?”
Kirk hooked a finger under the right cuff.
Jack tried to grip the sock with his toes. The fabric slipped. His toes bunched, failed, bunched again, “NO, man! Socks stay ON! This is where I draw the fucking line!”
The right sock rolled over Jack’s heel, up his arch, over the ball. Five bare toes sprang free and clenched instantly. Then the sock was gone.
Jack tutted and bit at Bulk’s fingers again, snapping at digits that leaped away.
The left one lasted three more seconds. Jack’s toes locked in the cuff. The guard peeled it off anyway, slow, almost tender, and Jack made a wrecked little noise as the last of the cotton left him.
“Mnnuuhh!—”
Both of Jack’s feet were now bare. Lean, high-arched, flushed from the trainers, the skin of the soles faintly lined and already shining with sweat. The pads pink. The tendons standing out when Jack tried to fist them. The X he made was immediate and useless - right sole slammed over left, toes white-knuckled, then the whole pair twisting as he tried to decide which foot should sacrifice itself for the other.
The guard stared as if he’d been handed something he wasn’t allowed to touch and was going to touch it anyway.
His fingers returned. Grazing. Mapping. Treating the left sole like artwork, one knuckle along the high arch, a thumbprint at the ball, the edge of a nail between the clenched toes.
“Dah, damnit!—” Jack’s tongue wagged as he jumped forwards.
“Christ,” the guard breathed, “You walk on clouds, kid? You’re in some deep trouble, softie!”
“A ticklish masterpiece,” Kirk said, but he wasn’t looking at the torso anymore. He was looking at the way Jack’s bare feet kept trying to become fists, keep becoming an X, keep failing.
Bulk’s voice was warm against Jack’s ear, thumbs still stroking the open pits.
“Three of us. One of you. And those ticklish feet are all ours, loser …”
“We bet you can’t last five minutes without begging,” Kirk said, “Or we take another thing off you.”
Jack’s grin was already wrecked, “Yeah? You’re getting off on this, aren’t you, you damn per—”
—They didn’t wait.
Kirk and the guard drove their fingernails into Jack’s soles at the same instant.
Jack’s feet detonated as his eyes bulged out of his head. They twisted, curled, stretched, flayed themselves against the air - toes splaying then clenching - the right sole tried to cover the left and only offered Kirk a fresh plane of skin. The left writhed so violently the guard had to pin the ankle with his other hand and keep raking anyway.
Jack heaved, wheezed, then the cackle tore out of him, raw and unstoppable, a wet, high, breaking sound that punched the air out of his chest, “—NAAHHAAAHAHAHAAAA AHAHAAA NNnnnnNnnN sss sss AAHAHAHAAHA, GUYS fuhhuaahaa, ahahahaha ahahaha AHAHAHAH-ck GUYS wait oh my gu-AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH-aahahahahaha!—”, his nostrils flared wide, eyes blew open, unfocused, his whole torso hurtled against the tape, he couldn’t think, couldn’t form the words they were waiting for. The nails were everywhere - along Jack’s high arches, under his big toes, between the little toes, back down the soft inner edges until his feet were nothing but frantic flips and twists, “—No NO c’mon I CAN’T TAKE it-aahahahah-ahahaha I CAH—nn, sss, pl, ahahahaha, CAN I call you NAME’S at l, l least, HNN you per-vehahahahahehehHEHEHhahahah, ahehahahaha-erts!—”
“You can call us what you like,” Bulk purred as he continued to thumb Jack’s armpits.
Jack’s head slammed back, “—Fuck!—FUCKERS—assholes!—DAH-AHA-AHAM-BAH-STARDS!—”, the insults came out in tatters between the laughter, each one broken by another convulsion as the nails found a new strip of sole. His feet were glossy now, shining, his long, milky white toes fisted, unfisted and fisted again. One sole slapped the other and was pried apart by Kirks grabbing hands. Jack tried to point his feet downward, to make them small, to hide them, “—OOhh it’s SO TI—I’MA fucking KILL yoo-oahahaha-oahahahahahaha-FUCK, you FUCKERS!—” he panted, he blinked, his biggest weakness was being violated before his very eyes …
Behind him, Bulk left the bench.
Jack heard the zipper of a gym bag, the rustle …
Bulk came back into view holding an electric toothbrush, the one he packed every morning because he always showered and brushed after the early session. He thumbed it on - click! Btzzzzzzzzzz …
“Let’s give those PRETTY toes a ticklin’!” Bulk licked his lips.
The vibrating, spinning plastic bristles landed on the pads of Jack’s left row of curled shut toes.
Jack screamed so hard the sound shredded his throat on the way out., “—BUUUUAAAAAA-AAAA-AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHLK!—”, his spine bowed so hard that his stomach muscles stretched into a twinge, bones clicking, navel pulsing, armpits wet and open, both legs twisted out, hips slammed up, slammed down, slammed sideways, “—GAAAAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! AAAHAHAH! AHAHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAHA! BU-AAAAHAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA-LK!—”
Jack’s laughter no longer seemed attached to anything funny, or even to Jack himself. It blasted out of him in great shapeless eruptions, too loud for the room, ricocheting from the mirrors and steel until he appeared to be surrounded by versions of his own hysteria. His head snapped left. Right. Left again. He stared at the ceiling with enormous eyes then glared forwards as if he could blow the electric toothbrush out of Bulk’s grasp with his own pupils. Inexplicably, he started laughing even harder, not because anything had changed, because nothing had, the toothbrush was still there, still buzzing beneath his clenched toes.
“—YOU’RE—HAHAHAHA-hahahahahhaaa-AAAAHAHAHAHA-aahahahahahhAHAHAHAHA!—YOU’RE FU-HUU, HUU, HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAAAAAAHAHAHAHHAAAHAHA-CKING—HAHAHAAA-AAAHAAAHAAAAAA!—YOU’RE IN, IN, SANE! YOU’RE ALL—AAAAHAHAHAHAHA!—”
Bulk nudged the electric toothbrush sideways. Three centimetres, that was all, across the swollen pad beneath Jack’s second toe, over the crease below the third.
“—BULK, BULK BABY COME ON COME ON?—” Jack tried to shake what was happening out of his head, as his left foot tried to recoil. His toes flew apart, instantly realising that exposing the spaces between them was worse, then slamming shut again. His big toe hooked sideways over the second. The smallest three curled under until their tips disappeared.
Kirk laughed, “Look at those hot toes curl!” He began to scribble at Jack’s right heel, while the guard began to scribble at his left.
Jack sprang forward at the acknowledgement of a triple assault, “—NOO-NOOOO-NOOOOOO-NOT! NOT ALL THREE OF YOU?—”
Kirk’s nails swept down the newly stretched arch. The guard scribbled across the ball. Bulk pressed the electric toothbrush into Jack’s toes.
“—OH, THIS IS FUCKED! THAT’S—HAHAHAHAHAHA!—THAT’S SO FUCKED!—”, Jack wasn't begging. He was stating the obvious, DARING them, he had no choice but to swap how to respond, “—HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! COME ON YOU FUCKS DRIVE-ME-FU-HUCKING CRAZY! HAHAHA! COME ON! COME OOOON!—”, he screamed the challenge at the ceiling, eyes blazing, almost laughing at them now. He threw everything outward. Every impossible sensation became noise. Every impulse to say stop became another roar of laughter. He would be louder than the toothbrush. Louder than Kirk. Louder than the guard. Louder than his own feet screaming messages into his nervous system, “—THAT ALL YOU—AAAAHA-guuh-GUU-HAHAHAHA, AHAHAHAHA-guuhhh-HAHAHA!—THAT ALL YOU GOT?!—”
Jack jackknifed as far as the tape permitted and stayed there, abdominal muscles trembling violently, chin crushed toward his chest. He needed to see what was happening. Somehow watching had become unbearable, but not watching was worse.
Below him was complete mutiny. The guard had Jack’s left ankle trapped while his fingernails scribbled across Jack’s arch in alternating patterns, never allowing one patch of skin enough time to recover. Kirk had captured Jack’s right foot and was working from heel to ball and back again, while Bulk occupied the narrow territory beneath Jack’s toes with the electric toothbrush.
Jack fell to his butt with a huff and spun like a tornado, wincing and hissing inward as another avalanche of laughter spilled from his mouth, “—SSSsssoooN-OVA-BITCH! Are you fucking KIDDING me with this?!—”, he had discovered one mercy in movement. It was not escape, not even close, but it gave his frantic mind something to work with, “—HAHAHAHA! NOPE! FUCK YOU, YOU MISSED!—”, he could still twist his ankles, roll a sole away, clamp his toes down, cross one foot over the other. Whenever Bulk approached the left foot, Jack threw the right across it. Whenever Kirk found the centre of an arch, Jack rolled onto its outer edge, “—HAHAHAHA! TOO SLOW, OLD MAN!—”, every movement brought fractions of seconds rather than seconds, but those fractions mattered enormously now. They gave him the illusion that some small part of this still belonged to him.
Kirk noticed, they all noticed, so they stopped, and Jack’s feet went still, almost as if they had planned for them to.
Jack followed his gaze and immediately wished he hadn’t.
His discarded trainer lay on its side beside the bench, its loosened white lace spilling across the black rubber flooring. Kirk bent down, picked up the shoe and began pulling the lace through its eyelets. The soft whisper of fabric passing through fabric should have been insignificant beside Jack’s breathing and the toothbrush still buzzing in Bulk’s hand, yet Jack heard every centimetre of it.
Jack’s twisted grin faded, “Nooahaha, ohahaha, du, du, duhahahaha-ude. Come, c, come on! …”
Kirk continued unlacing the trainer, “Is that begging, boy?”
Jack understood before Kirk had even finished, “Nn, no! I was, I wahahahah, ahahahas just say, sahahaha, ahahahay—Mnn! What the fuck are you doing!—”, his feet reacted before the rest of him did. Both twisted inward and crossed, toes clenching so hard that the joints whitened. The instinctive movement exposed exactly what Kirk had noticed: Jack needed that freedom. The ability to move his feet had become a psychological handhold, and now somebody was reaching down to prise his fingers away from it, “No, no, no.” Jack shook his head, attempting to turn concern back into swagger, “You don’t need the fucking lace. Seriously, man! Puh, put it back!—”
When Kirk brought Jack’s big toes together, Jack stopped laughing.
That silence lasted barely a moment, but inside it Jack became intensely aware of himself: the violent pulse in his neck, sweat cooling beneath his arms, saliva thickening in his mouth, his heart hammering far too quickly beneath his ribs. He swallowed and found his throat dry despite how much moisture seemed to cover the rest of him. His breathing sounded embarrassingly loud.
Then the lace encircled his big toes.
Jack immediately tried to pull his feet apart, ankles twisting hard in opposite directions, but every attempt only drew the lace tighter around his big toes, “Oh, you FUCKS!—”, he tried again, slower this time, attempting to tease one toe sideways and create some slack; the knot cinched another fraction instead, “—I can’t, can’t move my f—, man I NEED to, to move my feet!—”, his smaller toes squirmed furiously around it, curling, spreading, searching for leverage that simply wasn’t there, until Jack finally realised his big toes were going nowhere. He stared down at them, jaw working around an exhausted grin,“—Okay, that’s clever. Real fucking clever,” he muttered, giving the restraint one last stubborn tug before glaring at Kirk, “How long is left, man! I swear it’s been five minutes!”
Bulk lowered the toothbrush with one hand, checking his watch with the other, “It’s been three and a half, loser …”
The vibrating bristles touched beneath both of Jack’s big toes and every scrap of sarcasm vanished beneath an explosive burst of loud, ravenous laughter, “—AH JEESAAAHAAAA-AHAAHAHAAAAA AHAAAAA JEESUAAAAHAHAHAAA AAAH JEEEESAAAHHHHHHHAAHAAAAHAHAAAA-US!—”, his ankles tore outward, expecting the familiar escape, only for the lace to arrest them, “—YOU’RE LYING IT’S BE-AAAAAHAHAHAAAAHAHAHAAAAAAAA-AAHAHAAAAA IT’S, SS, SSS, BEE-EEEEHAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAAN FIVE MINUTES?—”
The guard joined in, using all ten of his fingernails on Jack’s bare, toe tied soles, up and down, up and down, up and down, scribble scribble scribble …
There was no gym anymore. No mirrors. No equipment. No door. There were only two ticklish feet that felt impossibly sensitive and three men who had discovered how comprehensively those ticklish feet could overwhelm the person attached to them. The guard’s fingers scattered across both soles while Bulk worked the toothbrush beneath the big toes. Jack’s smaller toes curled desperately downward. The brush followed them. They sprang open. It followed them there too. He pointed his feet and immediately felt fingernails travelling along the newly stretched arches …
“—AHAHAHAHAHA—nnnNO, NO, I’M—HAHAHAHAHAHA!—I’m fuh-fucking FINE, you—HAHAHAHAA!—you think this is gonna—AAAAHAHAHAHAHA!—Jesus CHRIST, I can’t even—huh, huh—HAHAHAHAHA!—fuck, lemme fucking BREATHE!—No, NO, nnn, nnnn, I’m—HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!—I’m telling you I need—huhhh—need a fucking SECOND—AAAAHAHAHAHA!—oh my GOD, my fucking FEET!—HAHAHAHAHA!—”
His feet seemed determined to betray every instruction his mind issued. Curl. Wrong. Stretch. Worse. Twist. Impossible.
Jack threw his head backward and laughed until the muscles beneath his jaw hurt. The sound had become enormous again, stripped of amusement, arriving in great uncontrollable bursts that emptied his lungs faster than he could refill them. He tried breathing through his nose, but laughter kept breaking across the exhale. He tried swallowing and discovered he could barely coordinate that either.
“—HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!—FUCK—hah, hah—FUCKING—AAAAHAHAHAHA!—BULK, you—nnngh—HAHAHAHAHAHA!—I swear, I swear I’m gonna—HAHAHAHA!—I’m gonna fucking—huhhh, huhhh—oh, FUCK, I can’t—HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!—I can’t fucking—nnnNO!—don’t, don’t—HAHAHAHAHAHA! I’m NOT—hah—HAHAHAHA!—I’m not fucking begging!—Jesus, I need—huhhh—nnn, fuck—HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!—I need air, asshole, I need fucking AIR—HAHAHAHA!—oh my God, oh my fucking—AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!—”
He could feel himself becoming light-headed.
Not enough to frighten him yet. Just a strange silver softness at the edges of his vision whenever he laughed for too long without managing a proper breath. The overhead lights seemed brighter. Kirk’s face occasionally lost its sharp edges before swimming back into focus.
“—AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA—hah—hah—HAHAHA—nnn—fuck—HAHAHAHAHA!—huhhh—huhhh—NO—HAHAHAHA!—I—hah—I—AAAAHAHAHAHAHA!—can’t—huhhh—fuck—HAHAHAHA!—can’t fucking—hah—BREATHE—HAHAHAHAHAHA!—nnnNO, not—hah—HAHAHAHA!—just—huhhh—just fucking—AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!—oh GOD—hah—hah—HAHAHAHA!—I can’t—nnn—I can’t—HAHAHAHAHAHA—huhhh—huhhh—fuhhh—FUCK—”
Breathe. He managed one inhalation. Then another. Bulk moved the toothbrush around both big toes in a circular rotation..
Jack screamed into laughter again.
The worst part was that Kirk had stopped.
Jack became aware of him standing beside the bench doing absolutely nothing, and that inactivity somehow acquired its own menace. He was already trying to track twenty fingers and an electric toothbrush. Now part of his exhausted mind had to monitor the one man who wasn't participating.
Jack turned toward him, “—Lemme out, man!—”, he managed to wheeze, desperately, surely someone was on his side?
Kirk extended his index finger, sucked on it once, coating it in dribble, and then knelt beside Jack’s stomach, where he began to finger Jack’s bellybutton.
Along with the guards scribbling fingernails against his arches, and Bulk’s buzzing electric toothbrush around his big toes, having his bellybutton tickled was the thing that caused Jack to beg.
“—WHAAAAAA-AAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAT! AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! OH PLEASE!—”, he roared, the word exploding from him with almost furious force “—PLEASE, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES, NNNOT THERE-GET OFF ME!—HAHAHAHAHAHA!—GET!—HAHAHAHA!—”, Jack threw his head down towards his navel, “—BRO GET YOUR FUCKING HAND OUTTA THERE!—PLEASE!—”
The surrender only seemed to make him wilder. Jack thrashed and bucked against the bench with his teeth bared, soaked hair whipping across his forehead, eyes huge and blazing through the wetness gathering in them. His tied feet fought uselessly beneath him, smaller toes clawing downward while his stomach clenched violently around Kirk’s finger. Every scrap of breath he managed to seize was immediately hurled back at them as laughter, profanity or another savage plea.
“—I SAID PLEASE!—HAHAHAHAHAHA!—WHAT THE FUCK ELSE DO YOU WANT?!—PLEASE! PLEASE! FUCKING PLEASE!—GET OFF! GET OFF! GET OFF!—HAHAHAHAHAHA!—I’M FUCKING BEGGING YOU! IS THAT WHAT YOU WANNA HEAR?! I’M BEGGING!—”
“There’s our little ‘Champion’…” Kirk teased.
Jack practically snarled through the laughter. “—FUCK BEIN’A CHAMPION!—HAHAHAHA!—FUCK THE BET, FUCK YOU, FUCK ALL THREE OF YOU!—JUST FUCKING STOP! PLEASE!—”, his voice cracked violently on the ‘please’. He swallowed, dragged in half a breath and immediately lost it again. The edges of the room were turning pale and indistinct, but Jack kept throwing everything he had outward, almost enraged by his own helplessness, “—BULK! LOOK AT ME!—HAHAHAHAHA!—I’M FUCKING ASKING YOU!—PLEASE, MAN!—PLEASE!—I CAN’T FUCKING BREeee!—”, the begging had ceased to resemble surrender. It was a riot. Jack screamed it, spat it, laughed through it, practically weaponised the word please, firing it at each man in turn as though enough fury might finally force them to listen, “—PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE!—HAHAHAHAHAHA!—I’VE FUCKING HAD ENOUGH!—STOP!—HAHAHAHA!—I’M SERIOUS!—PLEASE, YOU FUCKING PSYCHOS, STOOOOOP!—”
The guard’s fingernail stayed in Jack’s navel one second longer than the begging did, then lifted.
Bulk killed the toothbrush and placed it under the bench.
Kirk’s hands left the soles of Jack’s feet.
There was a sudden silence as Jack hung in the tape, exhaling a huge, long and desperate, “—UuuuuUuuuuUuuuUUUH!—”, as if he had just broken the surface of water after being under for too long - his eyes rolled back, chest heaving, nipples hard, abs damp, gaze wet and bloodshot and nowhere near focused. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t think! He just grinned, mean and shaky, at the three men standing over him.
Bulk checked his Rolex again, “This mornin’, all you did was win bets, and now, kid, all you seem to do is lose ’em …” he cackled, “… You’re one ticklish motherfucker, you know that?”
Jack dragged in a breath that snagged on a leftover laugh, “It sucks, man! B-being ti-tickled like this! C’mon, c-cut me loose!”
Kirk stepped back from the navel. He looked at Bulk, then at the guard, “Rules are rules. We take something from him. Right, team?”
Jack’s head came up, “T-team? Team! What the fuck, man! You already took shit! What else is there!”
Nobody answered him.
Kirk crouched at the end of the bench and started working the lace around both of Jack’s big toes. The knot gave. The loop slid off quickly, causing Jacks feet to spring apart - for a second Jack just stared at them like he didn’t trust it.
“Yeah, that’s it, fucker,” he said, a wrecked little giggle breaking out of him, “Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Take the, take the stupid lace, about time you fuckers lemme—”
—The guard hooked a nail under the tape at the right ankle and ripped. Silver strips came away in a bright, ugly flap. The left followed. Both shins stung where the adhesive had bitten. Jack’s legs sagged free and he actually tipped his head back, grinning at the ceiling, breathless and stupid with relief.
“Finally! Jesus. Thought you were gonna, thought you were gonna keep me like that all day. Alright. Cool. We’re good. We’re good, right? Bulk?”
Bulk didn’t look at his face. He looked at the waistband of Jack’s pink sweatpants …
Jack felt the shift a half-second too late, “Wait.”
Kirk took one side of Jack’s sweatpants. The guard took the other. Bulk caught the drawstring and pulled.
“No— hey— HEY—” Jack’s whole body came back online at once. He bucked, heels slamming the pad, hips twisting, trying to roll, trying to clamp his thighs shut around the cotton before they could get it past his ass, “Don’t— don’t you fucking— ah!— Get off— stop, DON’T take off my sweats, man, I’m serious!—”
They didn’t rush it. That was the worst part. Kirk pinned one thigh. The guard pinned the other. Bulk worked the waistband down an inch, then another, peeling the damp fabric over the sharp bones of Jack’s hips while Jack thrashed like the bench was on fire …
“NO— no no no, not those, not— ahaha— fuck— stop— STOP!—”, a laugh tore out of him anyway, high and cracked, because Bulk’s knuckles dragged the sensitive skin just inside his hip and Jack’s exhausted body didn’t know the difference between a fight and a tickle anymore, “HEY! That’s not— this isn’t COOL man!—”
“Quit squirming, Champion!” Bulk sneered.
Jack’s sweatpants were already at mid-thigh. His underwear had caught and was coming with them, waistband dragging over his smooth, flaccid cock, “—No. No. No no no— give them back, give them— ahaha— fuck, Don’t! I’m actually— GONNA KILL, sss, st, looking, stop!—”
They got the bundle to his knees. Jack kicked, wild, one bare foot catching Kirk in the chest. Kirk just caught the ankle, laughing, and the guard caught the other, and between them they stripped the pink cotton and the briefs the rest of the way off and tossed them onto the rubber.
Jack was now totally naked. Cock floppy and half-hard from the audacity and the fight, balls drawn tight, thighs shaking, chest still heaving under the open armpits. He stared at himself, then at them, grin gone manic.
“Okay. Okay! H, hilarious! Put them back on!—” Jack growled, arms tugging at the tape, “Put them back on right now, I swear to god—”
—Bulk took the left ankle. Kirk took the right. They didn’t ask. They stepped in, locked an arm under each knee, and hugged the feet up against their chests, spreading his thighs apart …
Jack’s legs opened. His ass left the pad. His cock and balls tipped forward into the open air between his spread thighs, hairless, tight hole clenching in the sudden cold of the air-con, everything on display for the three of them while his arms stayed taped overhead and his pits stayed wrenched wide.
“—WAIT!— wait wait wait, no, not like that, not— oh my god! My ass— Bulk! You can see my—put my legs down, put my fucking legs down!—”
Kirk adjusted his grip, casual, keeping the ankle hugged tight to his chest. The guard stepped in between the spread and just looked, grinning.
Jack’s head dropped back against the bench. He was laughing so hard it hurt, furious and exposed and nowhere near free. “This is— this is so fucked— ahahaha! Whahaht the FUCK!— I thought you were letting me go, you bastards, I actually thought— oh my god, stop lookin’ at it—”
The guard didn’t announce it. He just bent, scooped the discarded white Nike sock off the rubber, and balled it in one fist while Jack was still cackling at the ceiling, legs hugged open, everything on display.
Jack caught the motion too late, “Don’t— don’t you dare, that’s my— mmph!—”
The cotton hit his mouth mid-word. The guard pushed, firm and unhurried, working the sock past Jack’s teeth until his cheeks bulged and the rest of the sock stuffed the sound back down his throat. Jack gagged around it, eyes blowing wide, a muffled “—mmh—mmph!—” vibrating through the fabric. Spit soaked the cotton immediately. His tongue fought it and lost.
“There,” the guard said, patting Jack’s flushed cheek once, “Now we can hear ourselves think.”
Jack thrashed anyway. Toes curling against Bulk’s chest and Kirk’s shoulder. His hips jerked, cock and balls swinging in the open spread, hole clenching every time he tried to twist away from their eyes. The tape overhead held. The arm-locks held. All that came out was wet, furious noise through the sock, laughter still hitching under it because Kirk’s thumb had drifted, idle, along the arch he was hugging.
“Mmph— mm— mmh!—” Jack’s stare cut between the three of them, bloodshot and disbelieving, grin ruined around the gag. He shook his head hard. The sock didn’t budge. A string of spit escaped the corner of his mouth and ran toward his ear.
Bulk chuckled, adjusting his grip so Jack’s left leg stayed pinned to his chest, “Looks good on you, kid!”
Jack made a sound that wanted to be fuck you and came out as another helpless, gagged cackle when the guard reached down and gave the head of his cock one light, testing flick.
His whole body jumped. The bench creaked. His eyes slammed shut, then opened again, furious and glassy, and the sock turned whatever he tried to scream into nothing but heat.
“Final bet,” the guard said, “I bet … That you can’t cum.”
He reached under the bench. The electric toothbrush came up in his fist. One thumb found the switch.
Bzzzzzzzzz.
Jack’s eyes blew wide. His head snapped side to side, a frantic no that the gag turned into a wet, muffled blurt. Both feet curled hard against Bulk’s and Kirk’s chests, toes clawing cotton, arches trying to hide in midair. The vibration alone, nowhere near him yet, had his stomach jumping.
Bulk leaned over the lifted leg and grinned down at him, “If you jizz all over yourself, we keep you here all night and tickle you till you piss your pants!” He let it hang, then tipped his chin, “Think you can take it, Champion?”
Jack stared at the buzzing head. At his own cock, still soft and plump between his open thighs. At the three of them. There was no third option left in the room. He nodded, eager and wrecked, the sock darkening at the corner of his mouth.
Bulk’s grin sharpened, “You’re not a faggot, are you, Champion? I normally see you checking out girls. So this should be a walk in the park, you’re not gonna get off on three older men playing with your ticklish body, huh?” His eyes dropped to the bare feet hugged against their chests, “Unless your toes get sucked at the same time.”
Bulk’s mouth closed over the toes of Jack’s left foot. Hot, wet, sudden. Kirk did the same on the right, tongue dragging between the smaller toes before he sealed his lips around the big one and sucked. At the same moment both men scratched, lazy and mean, through the soft, buttery smooth soles they were holding open.
The sound behind the sock was enormous. Jack’s spine tried to leave the bench. A roar tore up his throat and died in cotton, coming out as a shredded, hysterical “—MMMMMPH—MMMH—HHHNK!—”, his legs fought the arm-locks like they might actually win. They didn’t. Jack’s pretty feet twisted, slipped in sweat against their vests, curled so hard the joints whitened, then splayed when a tongue found the soft web between two toes and licked. Kirk nibbled the pad of Jack’s second toe. Bulk sucked the big one deeper and fluttered his tongue underneath it. Jack’s hips bucked. His hole clenched and throbbed, “—Mmph— mmph— nnn!—” drool ran down his jaw, every lick sent a bright, unbearable wire up the sole and into his gut. He was laughing and it wasn’t laughter. It was his body shorting out, intensely, stupidly ticklish, with nowhere to put his feet.
The guard stepped in closer. The toothbrush hovered an inch off Jack’s taint. Jack saw it. His eyes went huge. Another violent shake of the head. Another useless curl of both feet in their mouths.
The bristles touched, right on the thin skin behind his balls.
The socked gag turned Jack’s scream into a clogged, animal bellow, “—NUUUUUUU-NNNNN-MPH!—”, his ass lifted off the pad, then slammed back, then lifted again, hole fluttering, thighs shaking in the locks. The guard didn’t press hard. He just let the spinning head buzz in a slow circle around Jack’s rim, then down his soft taint, then up under Jack’s balls until they drew tight and jumped. Jack’s cock, betrayed, thickened slowly against his stomach, only by half an inch, but the growth was there …
“Oop! Getting hard already, Champion?” The guard bit his lower lip in focus as he trailed the bristles along the underside of Jack’s shaft, light, cruel, then back down to the hole and held them there while Bulk and Kirk kept sucking. Tongues in the creases. Teeth grazing pads. Fingernails scribbling the arches in no rhythm Jack could brace for. The toothbrush circled his rim until the muscle couldn’t decide whether to clench or open, then dipped lower, buzzing the taint in short, mean pulses that made his cock get rigid, slapping against his abs.
While Jack was still staring at himself in raw, eye watering disbelief, the electric toothbrush suddenly lifted away from his butthole and travelled up, where it found the lesser explored spot from earlier - his navel.
The spinning bristles dropped straight into the soft hollow and stayed there, buzzing in a tight, mean circle that never quite left the frame of Jack’s bellybutton. Jack’s abs seized. His spine arched so hard his abs shimmered in a defined line. The high pitched shriek behind the sock was ugly, a drowning “—MMMMMPH—HHHNK—MMMH!—” that tore at his throat. The tape around his arms and the gym equipment was now barely containing him, falling apart enough to allow him to extremely wriggle, but still holding firm enough that he could not escape. The hairless, tight hole the guard had just left clenched on nothing. His cock was now at full erection.
Bulk and Kirk felt the jolt travel all the way into the feet they were holding. They continued to suck, their focus now on the smallest of Jack’s toes, his little piggies. Bulk sucked Jack’s left pinky toe between his lips and worried it with his tongue, soft pad, sharp little nail, the tender webbing just beside it. Kirk did the same on the right, sealing his mouth around it and fluttering, then nibbling until the toe curled helplessly against his teeth. Both men scratched Jack’s heels at the same time, no pattern, just hunger.
“—MMMMMPH—HHHNK—MMMH! MMMMMPH—HHHNK—MMMH! MMMMMPH—HHHNK—MMMH!—”
Jack’s feet went insane. They twisted against the older men’s chests, slipped in sweat, tried to stretch free of the arm-locks and only opened his thighs wider. The little toes disappeared into their mouths and came back shining, then got taken again. A fresh roar pummeled at the sock. Dribble and drool now coated Jack’s jaw, his neck, his chest, his eyes were like planets, wet, fixed on the electric toothbrush buried in his navel like he could will it out.
The guard brought it up, past the heaving chest, past the hard nipples, and set the buzzing head into the left armpit. The right got his free hand, five fingernails scribbling the slick, hairless hollow while the bristles chewed the other. Jack’s arms were still just about taped overhead. He could not close either pit. The sensation hit both at once and his whole torso tried to corkscrew off the bench.
“—MMMMMPH—HHHNK— MNHHHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAA MMMH! MMMMMPH—HHHNK—MMMH! MNAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAMPHHHHH! MMMMMPH—HHHNK—MMMH! nnn, nnn, MMMMMPH—HHHNK— MNHHHAAHAHAHAHAHAA-nn-n, HAHAA MMMH! MMMMMPH—HHHNK—MMMH! MNAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAMPHHHHH! MMMMMPH—HHHNK—MMMH!—”
Jack’s head thrashed. His words were mangled, soaked, barely language, but they were there, forced out around cotton and spit: I can’t take it, I can’t take it, I can’t!— over and over, broken every time Kirk sucked that little toe deeper or Bulk’s nail found a fresh strip of heel. His pits went a furious, shining red. The toothbrush dug into the centre of the left one and his voice cracked into a high, gagged shriek that fogged the mirror across from them.
He was intensely, ruinously ticklish, and every place they touched was already past what he could bargain with!
The guard watched his cock jump, leaking freely now with a drop or two of pre cum, and took the toothbrush back down. He laid the buzzing head along the underside of the shaft and drew it up, slow, from the base to the swollen head, then down again. Up. Down. The bristles caught the frenulum on every pass and Jack’s hips stuttered, chasing it and fleeing it in the same helpless buck. Precum strung between his stomach and the slit.
While the toothbrush worked the shaft, the guard’s other hand slipped lower. One index finger, just the pad, stroked Jack’s hole. Not pushing in. Tracing. Circling the clenched rim, dipping into the heat of it, stroking the furl until the muscle fluttered and tried to grip a fingertip that wouldn’t stay still. Up the taint. Back to the rim. A slow, filthy stroke timed to the buzz travelling his cock.
Jack’s eyes rolled. The sock bulged with another shredded scream. His little toes curled hard inside Bulk’s and Kirk’s mouths, and the suckling only got wetter. His hole kissed the guard’s finger and clenched, kissed and clenched, while the toothbrush dragged another slow line up his shaft and his armpits still burned from the assault they’d just survived. He was shaking apart between the three of them, gagged, spread, hard, and nowhere near able to take it.
He shook his head, mentally screaming a ‘NO, PLEASE DON’T CUM, YOU CAN DO IT, HOLD IT BACK’, but unfortunately Jack’s physical response was not on his side …
“—MMMPH—hhhnn—MMMH… nnh—hhhk—MMMM!—”
Jack’s fierce writhing lost its edge. The tops of his feet still rubbed against Bulk and Kirk’s chests, but the kicks turned into shudders and flexes. His toes, trapped in Bulk’s and Kirk’s mouths, curled hard and stayed curled, trembling, instead of yanking free. The next sound came out thicker, almost surprised, like the tickling had tripped a wire he didn’t have a defense for …
“—nnnHHH—mmmph—ohhh—MMMH—hhaah—nnn!—”
Bliss bled under the mania. His eyes rolled half-shut, then snapped open again, glassy and furious at his own body. His stomach stopped trying to crawl away. A moan leaked around the cotton of the sock wedged in his cheeks, long and shaky, and collapsed back into a gagged cackle when Kirk’s tongue curled around his index toe and bit.
“—MMMM—hahh—nnnh—fuck—MMMPH—hhh—oh—ohhh—MMMH!—”
A low, drooling groan when the guard’s finger stroked his hole and the electric bristles vibrated across the top of his erection. His back arched and held, not fighting anymore so much as offering, even while his head still shook no. Drool soaked the sock through. His cock throbbed visibly, the helm bulging and throbbing, the slit welling.
The sound that finally sat in his throat was both things at once: a wrecked, gagged wail that kept trying to be a scream and kept melting into a moan, mania fraying at the edges into something helpless and hot …
“—nnnHHH—mmmph—hahh—ohhh—MMMH—hhhnn—I’m—MMMPH—oh god—nnnHHH!—”
And then Jack broke, his thick, wet cock jerking hard as cum exploded out of him in long, helpless ropes across his stomach and chest, the bet lost in just under four minutes …
Jack Champion froze on the laptop screen, flushed, drenched in sweat and utterly exhausted, his face caught somewhere between a heavy groan and the shattered remains of endless laughter, trapped behind a wet sock.
A slim female index finger rested on the space bar.
The nail was long, sharp and lacquered a deep, immaculate red.
For several seconds, nothing moved.
Then the woman withdrew her hand and settled back into the leather chair.
She could not have been much older than twenty-five. Brunette hair, styled with the expensive volume of a nineties Vogue editorial, brushed her bare shoulders above a slim black dress. One heel hung lazily from her foot beneath the desk. She reached for the cigarette smouldering in a crystal ashtray, brought it to her lips and inhaled without taking her eyes from the frozen image.
Smoke drifted slowly across Jack’s face on the screen.
The woman smiled.
Behind her, somewhere beyond the laptop’s cold pool of light, a man stepped forward just far enough for his reflection to appear faintly in the black edge of the screen. His attention remained fixed upon Jack.
“Hunt him down, Charm,” he whispered his order to his assistant …
“… I think we should ask Jack if he wants to play,” said Maxwell.
