This story takes place a few weeks after ‘Croft’s Capture Part Three’
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S O H O , L O N D O N
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Joe lay casually on his bed, scrolling through his phone as typically British rain pattered against the bedroom window.
His thick bushy eyebrows burrowed into a flat frown as he endured the irritating noise that was Bash’s clumsiness, coming through the paper-thin walls of their apartment.
There was the sound of a hammer banging against wood, the hurried dismantling of cardboard, excited fingers rifling through a loaded tool box.
Joe stomped his Nikes against the wall, the rubber of their soles bouncing in a frustrated thump.
“Bash! What the bloody hell are you doing!”
Suddenly, the racket arrived at a pause.
“I’ve finished! Come take a look!” Bash called from his bedroom.
Joe huffed and rolled his eyes.
He dropped his phone onto the mattress and swung his legs off the bed.
Rolling the sleeves to his t-shirt a little further up each arm, he wondered through the hall and nudged Bash’s bedroom door open with the toe of his running trainer.
Joe’s mouth fell open.
“No way …”
Bash stood proudly at the foot of his bed, his hands on his hips, his hair messy and tasseled over the top half of his face, a screwdriver poking out of the pocket of his sweatpants.
“Harry bought them for me,” he sounded out of breath, his topless torso expelling a light scent of perspiration, “They’re cool, right? No the easiest to put together … But they’re only two hundred and fifty quid …”
Joe took a step into Bash’s bedroom.
At the edge of Bash’s double bed were a set of wooden stocks; their shape small, the wood itself sand papered and smooth, the tops showcasing ten individual metal hooks …
Joe fingered the green rope that had been knotted to each side of the rope, it’s length tied to the underneath of Bash’s bed, “They look ready for someone,” he picked up the cardboard box the stocks had arrived in, ready to clean up after Bash, like he always did, “Who’s your first victim?” He asked naively.
Bash’s hands slid off his hips, where they then dangled confidently at his sides.
“—You …” he declared, his mouth widening into a grin.
Joe held half of the cardboard box against his chest as if it were a shield.
“Me?” He enquired innocently.
Bash chuckled, “I love how you can transform yourself into an actual puppy, just by widening your eyes a little,” he began positioning pillows against the top of his bed and the bedroom wall, “Come on, let’s try them out …”
Joe, with some time to kill whilst his lunch cooked in the kitchen, decided to have some fun with Bash’s suggestion and actually accepted his offer.
“Al, alright …” now he was the one grinning.
Joe dropped the cardboard box into the corner of the room and then made his way to Bash’s bed.
Bash clapped his palms together once, “Yes, Joe!” He opened up the stocks, allowing Joe to take a seat on his bed and then rest his ankles over each groove, “I thought you’d say no …”
Joe’s face creased into a confused scrunch, “Why? Because I’m always the one asleep by nine thirty?” Joe shuffled into a comfortable rest against the pillow, placing his hands politely over the flatness of his stomach, “I am a fun time girl sometimes, Bash!”
“Oh yeah,” Bash’s tone was soaked in sarcasm, “You’re wild …” he sneered, locking the stocks securely around Joe’s ankles, the eyelashes of his right eye dropping into a playful wink, “… Right, kick as hard as you need, I mostly want to test their strength …” he knelt at the foot of the bed.
Joe nodded once, kicking his legs with enthusiastic strength, the stocks remaining mostly in place, the latch never unlocking, Joe’s feet never out of reach.
After a few seconds of providing a crystal clear demonstration, Joe shuffled up and readied himself to be unlocked, patiently waiting for Bash to do so.
“They seem good to me,” Joe smiled.
Bash sniggered.
“I’m obviously going to tickle you whilst you’re in them, dur brain…” he announced.
Joe felt a sting of panic press into his chest, “O, okay …” however, he felt sudden relief when that sting almost immediately transformed into a bubble of excitement, his voice presenting his doubts the same way he would ask someone to promise him something, “… Only for a bit, though, you know how ticklish my feet are … ”
Bash pursed his lips as he began to unpick the lace to Joe’s left trainer, “Christ, Joe, how many emotions did you go through just then? I practically heard every single one,” he decided to not acknowledge Joe’s request fully, instead choosing to cloak his response in a layer of vague-ness, “I’m going to use what I’ve learned, as a way to make you kick naturally …” he could not help but smirk, the sudden positions of power already highlighting his underlining levels of sadism, “… Will’s coming over in a couple of hours, who knows, maybe I’ll get him to help me out …”
Joe’s toes curled within the cotton confines of his sports sock, as Bash tugged his trainer away from his left foot, “Will’s in China, you idiot!” He caught Bash out, keen to put him in his place, as a way of asserting some control, “Hurry up, my pizza’s in the oven …”
Bash nodded, “… Yes, pizza’s the main priority, I’m aware,” he then took his index finger and pressed it against the centre of Joe’s left sole, “… Alright, let’s see …”
Joe bent his left knee automatically, his teeth clamping into a tight clench.
“Oh god,” he squeezed his eyes shut, the first thought landing in his mind after Bash’s touch being ‘you’re stuck’ …
“How do they feel?” Bash asked, his index finger now drawing a faint circle towards the base of Joe’s now scrunched up toes.
“Like I’m locked in, or something …” Joe twisted his left foot away from Bash, “… They’re tight!” He bent his left knee once again, the stocks remaining planted against the surface of the bed, “… Really tight!” His ankles held firmly by the leather clad insides of each hole.
“Is it uncomfortable?” Bash remained a friend above all else, as he tested out both the stocks, and Joe, “The ones I’ve been in were probably double the size of this …” he drew a long line away from Joe’s toes and down his socked sole, all the way to his heel, “… Then again, that was practically a throne,” he felt triumphant as he recalled his time at Halloween.
Joe’s foot twisted right, and then quickly left - his toes now pointing downwards, his right trainer-clad foot stretching inward where he tried to nudge Bash’s finger away, “No!” Joe wasn’t sure if the ‘no’ left his mouth because he was responding to the tickling, or because he was responding to Bash’s question.
Joe hid his giggling by lifting his tee over his nose, his eyebrows raising as Bash stopped toying with his foot for a moment and then began to unpick the lace to his right trainer, “How the hell did you handle this hardcore?” Joe asked behind the cotton, “With all the goats and the feathers and stuff?” Joe dropped his tee and huffed in disbelief, “That was such an insane evening …”
Bash tugged Joe’s right trainer away from his foot, “I guess I didn’t handle it,” he assessed how unworn the trainer was, Joe had a knack for keeping his belongings in pristine condition, “I couldn’t cope at points, it really made me feel something I’d never felt before …” he dropped both of Joe’s trainers to the bedroom floor, “… Maybe I can try and make you feel it now? See if you can guess what I mean …”
Joe tapped the watch strapped to his wrist, “—Pizza—”, reminding Bash of timings, the scent of bubbling cheese and sizzling pepperoni in the oven downstairs making its way gradually into Bash’s bedroom, “Remember?”
Bash held onto Joe’s left foot with one hand, in an attempt to keep it still, “You’re gonna turn into a pizza one day, Joe!” He then began to ever so gently scribble his fingernails across the sole of Joe’s left foot, starting at his arch.
Joe gasped and twisted both of his feet across each other, creating an X shape with their narrow, long shape, Bash’s hold over Joe’s left foot not tight enough to keep it in place.
He bent his knees into a frustrated singular kick, the stocks creaking as he forced his legs towards the bottom of the bed.
“Ah! Alright!” He huffed, “We get it!”
Bash’s teeth glowed white as his grin widened, “They’re doing a great job, right?” He admired how something so easily nailed together could contain a kick as strong as Joe’s, “Cootchie coo, Joe!”
Joe held onto his thighs as Bash used both hands to tickle both of his feet, their playful stroke and scribble spidering across his heels, the sides of his soles and over his sock covered toes at a speedy pace.
“Bash!” Joe’s feet twisted and flexed in various directions, sometimes without his control, “O, okay, we get it,” he repeated, “They’re good quality!” Joe had started to wonder what he had gotten himself into, the more Bash scratched at both arches at once, “Stop it!” His feet never remained still, they always stretched aside, scrunched into themselves or drew circles in the air with their writhing …
“Hm …” Bash’s scratch smoothed into a rub, “… You wanna see if I can drive you absolutely bananas?”
Joe sighed into his chest, unaware that he had fallen into a slumped slouch, “And what does that entail?” He shuffled upward, adjusting the pillow behind his back, conscious to impress Bash by not shying away from this laid back set up.
Bash fingered through part of the packaging sent by Harry as Joe’s toes wiggled away a tormenting itch caught between his socks, “They came with parts,” he explained, “As soon as I saw them I thought, bloody hell, that would be a lot for someone to handle …” Bash lifted a set of steel toe cuffs into the air and waved them in front of Joe, “… Step one, full restriction …”
Joe leaned forwards and curiously narrowed his eyes at the item held between Bash’s index finger and thumb.
He shaped his mouth into an ‘O’, ready to splutter out, ‘Oh, no, Bash, that’s too much’ … But the insecurity resting over each of his shoulders, the nagging reminder that most of his friends thought he was too quiet, too reserved, too against taking risks or doing the unexpected, made him instead produce an expression of fierce confidence where he decided to sit back calmly and provide Bash genuine consent, much to Bash’s satisfaction.
“My pizza’s done in twelve minutes,” Joe gestured to his watch once again as Bash unlocked the stocks, “If it burns, you’re getting in these and oh boy, it’s payback time …” Joe blinked as unexpected threatening and playful words slipped out of his mouth, during a time where he thought he might have crumbled by now and backed off at the developing circumstance.
Bash chuckled, lifting the top half of the stocks apart, “Deal,” where he then re-positioned Joe’s ankles so that they now rested in the central holes, “Your feet better not smell …”
Joe reached forward and flicked his fingers at Sebastian’s face, “Oi! You know they don’t smell …” he tutted, chortling at Bash’s insult, especially considering how he was the cleanest out of he, Bash and Kit as a three, “… My feet are perfect—”, he brazenly declared, “—No stinky-ness ever detected …”
Bash closed the top half of the stocks, securing Joe’s ankles once again, where he then began to pick and pull at Joe’s left sock, “You do have really nice feet, to be fair,” it was a well known fact - any time Joe was barefoot, around friends or strangers, he would often if not always receive a compliment on how pretty his feet were, “They’re not hairy, like my bad boys,” such a statement was proven true as soon as Bash peeled Joe’s sock away, revealing an exceptionally smooth size nine and a half sole, with a silky heel, a slender shape and five well kept, perfectly inline toes.
Joe blushed, his eyelashes fluttering, “Treat them tenderly,” he warned, “They’re like, my second favourite body part.”
Bash could not help but tease Joe by pressing the tip of his pinkie finger against the base of Joe’s index toe, “What’s the first?” He toyed, knowing full well what the answer would be.
Joe pointed his left foot towards the surface of the mattress, “Don’t make me say it!” He used his socked right foot to conceal the glossy chunk of flesh Bash currently poked at, his feet shaping into an X once again, so suddenly that the stocks rattled.
Bash challenged himself; he continued to lightly tickle at Joe’s index toe, whilst trying to catch his big toe with one half of the toe-cuff - a difficult task, considering how quickly Joe’s feet flapped from side to side, “What’s the first!”
Joe pressed his palms over the bedsheets and lifted his butt away from the mattress, “My ears!” He gave in instantly, his weight dropping back over the bed in a light bounce as soon as Sebastian hooked the small steel cuff around his left big toe, “Ah!”
Bash smirked in success, “The best ears in London,” where he then tugged at Joe’s right sock, “So, are you still selling foot pics to Leo?” He peeled the thick, white cotton over Joe’s heel and then up and over his toes, “You got quite a few bob from the last lot, right?” Sebastian discarded Joe’s socks, admiring both of his now completely bare feet, as he began to reach the remaining cuff towards Joe’s right big toe.
Joe sank into himself a little, at the reminder of his actions, “God, I’m such a whore,” he winced, the cold of the toe-cuffs ever so present around each of his big toes, big toes that were now securely and snugly connected together, “But he’s so rich! And handsome. He has a real thing about how soft my soles are. Those pictures paid my rent for the rest of the year! He—”
—Bash silenced Joe’s panic by creating a different kind of alarm within his mind set, as he lifted a bright blue hair brush away from the parcel at his knees and into Joe’s line of sight.
“You don’t have to justify yourself to me, Joe,” Bash felt an extreme wave of power wash over him, as he took in Joe’s intimidated expression; his cocked eyebrow, the uncertain lift of his smirk, the way his shoulders stiffened up, “Full restriction complete …” he purred, “… Step two: bananas …”
The layer of mozzarella over Joe’s pizza continued to sizzle as Bash rubbed lotion over Joe’s now slippery soles.
Before he allowed himself to say ‘I thought this was just a test?’ he reminded himself to appear open minded and fun, beyond willing to par-take in Bash’s dedicated attempts to not only assess his new toy and its sturdiness, but his ability to make ‘Joe feel what he felt’, when tickled in a more intense method.
“You should give me foot massages more often,” Joe tried to pull his feet apart but the steel toe cuffs were too firmly locked around each big toe, some strained giggles contained at the back of his throat as Bash kneaded the pads of his fingers into his arches, “It, it feels just about bearable—mnn!”
“I don’t want any black eyes!” Bash explained, “I’ve tried before, you nearly booted me in the face last time …”
Joe grinned and held his hands up in surrender, “Fair, fair,” he then sat back as Bash placed the brush beside the stocks.
“Don’t forget, kick as hard as you like,” Bash readied his fingers by entwining them and then stretching them outwards with such force his knuckles cracked, “Because I’m going to be a bit of a knob,” he warned, “I’ve never done this before, I want to let loose …”
Joe’s remaining eight un-cuffed toes flexed into a worried splay, “Bloody hell,” he huffed, “I think we both know it all works, Bash,” he sucked air through his lips as Bash began to lightly flutter his fingertips against each of his heels, “You’re just taking the piss, now! I’m not stupid!”
Bash gleefully owned Joe’s accusation, his fingers hardly making impact with Joe’s soles, their touch more of a hover, “I know! Isn’t it fantastic?” He now had Joe at his mercy - his best friend, who’s feet could barely stand to walk through grass, expertly contained within this wooden structure, this paid for and internationally shipped contraption, “Such soft, pretty feet, Joe! Your toes are like worms!” Bash’s fingertips stroked gently across Joe’s twitching pinkies, “Would you ever let Leo suck them?”
“Only!—”, Joe hurtled forwards, his knees bending up to his chest, “—Only if he paid me enough!—”, he reached both hands across the tops of the stocks, his fingers clawing over his soles, protecting their ticklish-ness, “Alright, Bash! That’s enough—” he had already started to pant, “—I’m sorry, you’re going to have to test them on someone else,” he urged politely.
Bash pulled Joe’s fingers away from his feet, “Don’t make me tie your hands to the bed!” Bash watched Joe sit on his hands, “We had a deal remember? Just till your pizza’s done …” he then watched Joe nod in defeat, his head dropping in a reaction to his telling off, “… Right, just one finger …” Bash took his left index finger and began to lightly, barely scribble, across the sole of Joe’s right foot.
Joe’s eyes widened; he grabbed the pillow from behind him and screamed into the cushioned surface, his cries muffled.
His feet did their best to squirm away from Bash’s touch, but with his ankles so contained beside each other, with the toe cuffs locked so tightly around each of his big toes, all he could do was wag and flap his feet from side to side, the stocks rattling from the strength of his kicks.
Bash took his index finger into a more firmer scratch, his fingernail arriving at Joe’s left big toe, where he drew circles over its soft, fleshy pad, “They ask me about you all the time, you know,” Joe giggled and shrieked into the pillow, his torso twisting from side to side, “… ‘When can you get your friend Joe in the tickle chair?’ …” Bash put on an American accent, doing his best impression of Miller, speaking in a deep growl, “… ‘How ticklish are the young man’s feet?’ … ‘Please, invite the dear boy to the next event’ …” Bash’s voice returned to normal, this time arriving in the form of a stern order, “Chuck that pillow! I want to hear you laugh!”
Always doing as he was told, Joe threw the pillow aside and cackled into his lap, “The tickle chair! No chance!” His knees bent upward, his feet now victim to two of Bash’s fingers as they ever so carefully drew exceptionally faint, hardly there lines around the arches of his feet, “I can hardly stand just this!” It took every fibre of his being to not reach across and stop Bash, his butt resting on his hands in the form of a non stop bounce once again, “My fffft, feet are too sensitive! This is unbearable! My pizza!”
Bash levelled up as soon as he heard Joe’s admittance, “They’re probably the softest feet I’ve ever seen!—”, where he then took all ten of his fingers and began to scratch and scribble against the bottoms of Joe’s feet, “How does that feel, Joe? Getting more intense by the minute, right?”
Joe leaped forwards, his head nodding quickly, his jaw stretching open, “—BAH-HASH!—”, he jumped to the left and then jumped to the right, the intensity of the tickling across both soles at once too much for him to handle, “Ssss, stop it!—”, the strength and structure of the stocks was surely tested, as Joe kicked and threw his legs forwards and backwards, the bed beneath him wobbling with every rampant thrust, “Oh! Mnn, mnn! Stop it, let me out, we get it!” His feet squirmed within the toe cuffs, his hands cupping his mouth in shock, “My feet are too sensitive! Ah-ha! My, my pizza’s done!—” he caught the faint whiff of burning, a scent Bash decided to ignore.
“Which is worse?” Bash took his playful scribble towards Joe’s heels, “Here?” He listened to Joe gasp and pant, “Or here?” He then scribbled up to the middle of Joe’s soles, where he then listened to Joe giggle and scream, “Maybe here, instead?” His scribble drew upward, arriving at the base of his big toes, where he then listened to Joe whine in desperation.
“No! No, Bash!” Joe had now bent his knees so far up his torso that he could press his chin over his kneecaps, “Ev, everywhere!” He howled, “They’re ticklish everywhere!” He kicked and kicked, the stocks still successfully containing his ankles, “Oh, please, that’s enough! My pizza!—”
“Beg me to stop,” Bash dribbled, his fingers now tickling the betweens of Joe’s big and index toes, “Go on, Joe, beg me …”
Joe did not hesitate; he discarded the enthusiastic exterior and crumbled back into his push-over truth, begging like a baby as soon as Bash began to scribble at both bases to his second to last toes, “Alright, okay, stop, please! Please, BAH-HASH! I’m begging you! Stop it, don’t be a twat!” He kicked again, this time an angered huff leaving his throat, “This is me begging! Oh, I mean it! Seriously!—”, his eyes rolled to the back of his head, his face saturated in a flustered boil, “You’ve ruined my pizza, you bloody—”, he chuckled and giggled, his breathless bellows leaving his chest in the form of furious pants, “Bah-hash, please, stop it, oh my goodness!—”
“—Say ‘my toes are too ticklish’ …” Bash grinned, “… And I’ll go switch off the oven …”
Joe leapt forwards, “—Mytoesaretooticklish!—”, his hands now grabbing at Bash’s claw across the oily landscape of his soles, his own fingers now trying to fight back at Bash’s touch, “Bloody stop, you git! My toes are too ticklish, my toes are too ticklish, my toes are too ticklish!—” he successfully concealed his toes and soles by clamping his palms over the bottoms of his feet, no longer allowing Bash the chance to infiltrate their extreme levels of sensitivity, “You’ve burned my pizza, you bloody buffoon! It’s your turn now!” He wheezed.
“Pah!” Bash stood, “No way,” he wriggled his nose, “Yeah, I think I should check that out …” he then decided to be sensible and left Joe by himself, where he charged down the staircase and strolled into the kitchen, “… You know, you wouldn’t have to audition for roles anymore if you just let them have your feet every …” Bash switched off the oven, opening the oven door, allowing a large wall of heat to greet his face, “… Two or three weeks, max? Ah, it’s fine!” He pulled on some floral oven gloves and removed the pizza, “It’s crispy, if anything. Just the way I like it …” Bash removed the gloves and eyed the surface of the pizza, which looked a little more dark brown than an inviting golden yellow, “… Do you think the stocks are good then, Joe?” Bash heard nothing but grunts as he placed the pizza aside and made his way back to his bedroom, “… Joe?”
Bash folded his arms and leant against the door frame, “As if!” He shook his head, his brown eyes taking in the sight of Joe desperately trying to untie the rope connecting the stocks to the bed with one hand, whilst his other tried to pull apart his toe cuffs, “What are you doing to do if you un-knot the rope, genius?” Bash walked back to the foot of the bed, “Hop around with stocks locked to your legs for the rest of your life?” He reached into the pocket of his sweat pants and pulled out a key, “You need this …” he smirked, placing the key down over the surface of his chest of drawers, a good four metres or so away from Joe’s clawing hands.
Joe gave up trying to escape, mostly because being caught trying to get out so suddenly had caused him to giggle - he dropped his back over the bed and bounced into a slump, “Oh, can’t we stop this, now? Bash, my feet are way too ticklish for this …” He ran both hands through his hair, sitting back up as Bash placed his index fingers over each of his index toes, “It’s obvious they do the job and, and I’m bloody hun—”
“—Don’t be a pussy, Joe! Your pizza is cooling off,” Bash announced, “Gives me just enough time to keep playing with you,” he scribbled both index fingers around the base of Joe’s index toes, “And no reaching across, if you do that again, I’ll force your hands behind your back, you know I’m stronger than you …”
Joe whined once more, “—Baaaaaaaah-ssshhhh!—”, he reluctantly sat on his hands, his feet twisting from left to right as Bash tickled his index toes, “—Grrr!—”, he had agreed to being locked in these things for a laugh, a moment, a brief opportunity to lift a dull afternoon into something more interesting, a ‘something’ that he thought would last a few minutes, “—You’re such a dickhead!—”, he cackled, his ticklish-ness clearly now quite unapologetically abused by Bash and his playful way, “—You can do it for a minute or so! Alright? Then you have to stop!”
Bash took all ten of his fingers and applied them to Joe’s soles; five over his left, five over his right, “I think I’ll decide when to stop, aye, Joe? I’m not the one on the receiving end, for once!” He then actioned a relentless and non stop scribble, journeying his tickle from the edges of Joe’s heels all the way up to the tips of his toes, and then back down again.
If Bash perceived Joe as a pussy, then so be it - Joe could no longer care any less, as the sensory overload endured by Bash’s scratch and scribble over the delicately soft bottoms of his feet started to make him behave in a way he had never behaved before; he became overwhelmed by how ticklish it felt, forced to sit on his hands, his eyes bulging out of his head as he cackled and giggled, laughing breathlessly into his lap, his feet unable to move even an inch due to their toe-cuffed, locked in stocks position …
“—Ahahahahaha! Ahahahahahaha! Ahahahahaha! Bahahahahahahahahash! Bahahahahahahahahahash! Bahahaahahahahahahaaaahahahahahash, stop it! Bahahahahaha! Hahahahaha! Bahahahahaha! Hahahahaha! Stop it!—”
Joe threw his upper body in a manic fling, the stocks rattling with every kick …
“—Stop it, please, stop! Bahahahahahash! Bahahahahahash! Bash! Bash? Bash—”, Joe started to lose his breath, his huffs and pants short lived as he used each second between his bellows of laughter to sniff or suck air back in, “—Alright, stohahahahahahap! Stoahahahahahap! Grr! Grr! Grahahahahaha! Mnn! Mnn! Mnn!—”. he kicked and kicked and kicked, the stocks now lifting off the mattress with every thrash of his legs, the rope knotted at each side keeping the device in place, “Mnn! Ahahaha! Bah-hash! Mnn! Oh! Please, stop! Ahahaha, mnn! Mnn, mnn!—”
Joe realised rather quickly that begging for Bash to stop would lead to nothing - instead, he succumbed to the giggling and the uncontrollable laughter, which he now produced in the form of impassioned grunts and determined shouts, his teeth biting down over his lower lip as he squealed and shrieked in high pitched volume, “Mnnn! Mnnnnn! Ahaha! Ah! Ah! Ah, oh! Oh! Let me go, you’re driving me—”
“—Bananas?” Bash narrowed his eyes in focus, always tickling a different part of Joe’s feet for no longer than a few seconds, “It’s fun, right? Not being able to cope, that’s how I was made to feel … Can you feel it now, Joe?” Bash danced his fingertips in a merciless scribble, travelling from an index toe to the side of his heel, then back to his arch and then over to his instep, never once allowing Joe to get used to one spot at a time, “Describe it to me, Joe …” Bash urged, his best friend now propelling himself in a speedy spin across the bed, his kicking actioned as if he truly believed delivering such a thrust would break his feet free from the stocks …
“Alive!” Joe shrieked, “I feel alive!” The word ‘alive’ was all he had to describe this level of intensity, and it was delivered with such powerful and honest force that it made Bash soften his scribble into a gradual stroke, giving Joe the chance to catch his breath.
“Yes… ” Bash observed, “… Alive …” he watched Joe lay on his back where he huffed and huffed and huffed, his slouch suggesting he really had been rendered exhausted, “… You are such a clever boy, aren’t you, Joe? Always had a way with words …”
Bash smirked as he watched Joe lift his right hand in the air, where he extended his middle finger.
Joe giggled and squirmed as he smacked Bash away from him.
“No, get off me! You’re such a piss taker …” Joe failed in shoving Bash away as Bash batted off his smacks and slinked around his torso, wedging himself between Joe’s back and the wall, now firmly positioning himself behind his casual ticklee, “… Bah-hash! What are you doing!”
Bash reached over Joe’s chest and grabbed his t-shirt, “Play ball, Joe! Be a good sport …” he teased, pulling Joe’s t-shirt above and over his head, despite Joe’s manic attempts to grab at the material.
“Stop, no, Bah-hah!” Joe gasped as Bash grabbed hold of both of his wrists and pulled them upwards, his forearms trapped behind Bash’s as Bash intentionally exposed Joe’s armpits, “Bah-hash! No!”
“Keep your hands behind your head,” Bash advised, “We’ll do five seconds …” he lied.
Joe pressed his lips together, “Mnn!” He glanced down at both underarms, their deep delves forced to present thick curls of dark pit hair, “Five seconds!” His knees clapped as he waited for Bash to start tickling his upper body, “Oh god, Bah-hah!” He giggled feverishly, some dribbling bubbling at the corner of his mouth as he anticipated just how awfully wonderful this might feel, “Ssss, stop! Ssss, stop!” Bash hadn’t even touched him from the waist up, yet.
Bash started by stroking Joe’s armpits, his fingertips barely making impact with the curls of his underarm hair, however such a softly actioned touch was more than enough to cause Joe to fiercely thrash and buck, his weight pushing itself into Bash’s chest in the form of an aggressive shove.
“BAH-HASH!” Joe shrieked and panted, his eyes squeezing shut as he thrust his body forwards and backwards, his legs kicking within the stocks, his narrow bare soles still contained side by side thanks to the toe cuffs, “BAHAHA-AHAHASH!” Joe could hardly think straight, his arms already trying to reach back down to clamp up the space between his sides and armpits, but Bash held them in place with one hand as he used the other to playfully dance between each armpit …
“One … Two …” Bash scribbled into Joe’s left armpit, causing Joe to scrunch and kick into the right side of the bed, “… Three … Four …” he then scribbled into Joe’s right armpit, causing Joe to scrunch and kick into the left side of the bed, “… Five … Six …”
Joe gasped in bewilderment, his eyes opening into a fierce and wide bulge, his mouth shaping into a small ‘o’ as he arched his back and kicked the hardest he had kicked yet, “NO, NO!—”, the shock saturating his face presenting itself as the perfect example of someone who was too ticklish to be toyed with, too ticklish to be told they would have to endure this for five seconds, when actually Bash had counted up to seven …
… Eight …
… Nine …
… Ten … His scribble now transforming into a relentless dig.
“BAH-HASH!” Joe flayed about in a raged bounce, his gasps and pants leaving his mouth in the form of high pitched, squeal-ish giggles as he twisted and writhed against Bash’s torso whilst Bash tried to contain Joe’s arms above him - unfortunately for Bash, Joe was far too determined to protect his underarms and by the time Bash had reached the number twelve in his count, Joe had torn his arms away from Bash’s grasp and snuck both hands into his armpits, blocking Bash’s attempts, his mad and repetitive bounce rendering him breathless and slumped against Bash’s lap.
Bash chuckled and tidied up Joe’s hair, sliding out from under him, where he then returned to his feet.
“You know, Harry once told me they tied him into an X position, pinned against floorboards, stretched him out, entirely naked …” Bash picked up the hairbrush, “ … He was played with for hours! Isn’t this so tame compared to something like that?”
Joe shuffled up into a seated position and pulled his t-shirt back over his torso, wiping away a tear from beneath his left eye, “You sound like you’re taking an interest in being a full time bell end!” He sniggered, his right foot jolting beneath the touch of the hairbrush as Bash gently pressed it against this left heel, “Alright, Bash, let me out! You’re now officially being a one hundred percent meany!” He whined.
Unbeknownst to Joe, Bash had started an audio recording on his iPhone as soon as Joe had stepped into his bedroom, “Okay, alright, I’ll stop …” where he would attempt to record evidence of Joe saying something that would secure Bash exactly ten thousand English pounds, enough for him to buy that new car he wanted to impress Harry with so badly, “… Only if you agree to a session with The House of White Feathers …” Bash scrubbed the hairbrush across Joe’s instep and down the side of his foot, where it arrived over his arch, “… What do you say?” Before Joe could leap forwards with both arms extended, Bash narrowed his eyes at Joe and firmly commanded that he, “Sit on your hands, Joe!”
Joe shoved his hands beneath his butt, “Why! Why! Why!—”, his feet twisting to the side as Bash dragged the brush up both of his oiled up soles at the same time, “Can you at least take off the toe things!” His request fell on deaf ears as soon as he had asked it, the brush now scrubbing from left to right across the bottoms of his feet, “Bah-hash!—”, Joe hurtled upwards, “BAH-HASH!—”, he kicked so hard the stocks almost tore away from the rope connecting them to the bed, “—BAHAHAHA-AHAHAHA-AHAHAHAHASH!—”, he bounced on the spot, his hysterical reactions produced thanks to Bash’s gentle scrub from left to right over each arch in unison, “—Stop! This isn’t fair! I’m sss, sooo, so getting a go on you after!” He tried to point all ten of his toes down towards the mattress, as Bash slid the brush up to the balls of his feet, “Please, stop!”
“Why?” Bash held the brush in position, not moving it an inch, pausing on the tickling for just a few seconds, “I told you, they’ve been asking about you for ages!” He then applied pressure to the brushes drag, taking it down to the centre of Joe’s right sole, the plastic bristles sliding down the super soft flesh that made up the bottom of Joe’s foot, “They’ll give you anything. Who knows, it might be fun! They might tie you in the same way they did with Harry, or maybe it’ll be something more intense!” He watched Joe lift his butt once again, his bushy eyebrows burrowing into a scrunched crease, his jaw widening to such an extent that Bash could see his tonsils, “Agree to a session and I’ll promise to let you go!”
Joe kept his mouth stretched open, however no noise left his throat as Bash dragged the brush down to his right heel; instead he kept everything at the back of his neck, his body stiff, his left shoulder lifting, his chest heaving with contained lunacy that promised to be extremely loud but for now remained utterly silent.
He dropped his weight back over his hands as Bash scrubbed at his soles with the brush whilst using his free hand to finger the betweens of Joe’s big toes.
“BAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!” Joe hurtled forwards, “BAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” He leapt to the left, then he threw himself to the right, “NOAHAHAHAHAHA—HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!—”, he leaned across the stocks, his non stop and uncontrollable laughter facing the brush and Bash’s hands directly, as if addressing the insanely pleasurable torment face on would make things better, “—You’re making me ugly lahahahahahahahahahahaugh!—”, Joe felt his expression squash into one only filled with distressed joy, “—BAH-HASH! STOP! STOP! STOP!—”, his big toes tugged at the toe cuffs, his feet flapping from side to side, his knees now squashed up against his chest, “—I don’t like the brush! I don’t like the brush! Anything but that!—”
Bash continued his scrub, the plastic bristles of the brush now running at a constant pace, their presence always dragging from left to right over the silky landscape that made up Joe’s soles, his toes also victim to Bash’s exploring fingernails, fingernails that always succeeded in discovering and locating hyper ticklish areas within the bases of Joe’s toes, the tall lengths of their curling, splayed shape, or the plump pads that made up the juicy-ness of their ends, “What is it about the brush you hate?” Bash knew the answer, after all, he had experienced it himself, “Go on, Joe, tell me—”, but to hear how it felt from someone else would surely be a satisfying chunk of curiosity fulfilled …
“It’s, it’s the spiky bits!” Joe’s eyes crossed into the bridge of his nose as he unapologetically threw his body forwards and backwards, “—At the end!—”, kicking the stocks with such relentless vigour that they had now shifted to the very edge of the bed, “There’s too many! It’s too much!—”, he whined, his cackles now breathless and filled with moments where he squeaked and wheezed, “—Oh, please, Bash, uuuuk! How long are we doing this!—”, Bash now scrubbed with the same level of intensity he would act out if trying to scrub away a stubborn curry stain from his newest pair of jeans, “—No, no, no! Pleeheeheeeheeheeheeheease! Pleeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeeeease!—”, Joe spluttered and arched his back, tried to stretch himself away from the stocks themselves, however like a magnet he was always pulled back into the torment, with no choice but to witness it taking place at the end of the mattress, “Sssstop! Bahahahash! Stoahahahahap! Bahahahahahahaha! Bahahahahahahash!—”, but it was when Bash located a ultra sensitive spot just above the pads of Joe’s left sole did Joe really start to lose his mind …
“—NO, AHAHAHAHA! NO! AHAHAHAHA! NO! AHAHAHAHA!—”, Joe’s panicked reaction, the fierce grab of his thighs, the way he leapt towards the stocks and expelled his squeals, it all informed Bash that he had struck gold, meaning he could not focus anywhere else but here, doing so would just be plain stupid, “NO!” Joe had half a second where he thought Bash did not notice how ticklish this newly found spot was for him, however his hopes were squashed when he realised Bash only paused for a moment to hold onto Joe’s left foot with one hand, whilst scrubbing the brush against the ball of his foot with the other, transforming Joe into a stunned and dumfounded shambles, “—OH NO!—”, confused and breathless laughter soaked his no’s, his palms planting over the bedsheets as he bounced and kicked his way towards the stocks, his knees bending, his head spinning, “—NO! NOAHAHA! NOAHAHA!—”, his eight un-cuffed toes curled into a tight scrunch, his voice now saturated in concern, “—Okayokayokayokayokay—okayokayokayokay!—” He was the perfect blend of euphoric exhilaration mixed with insulted distain, “—Okayokayokayokayokay, no more, no more, no more!—”, he cried.
“Okay what?” Bash scrubbed and scrubbed, the brush’s glide smooth thanks to how soft Joe’s soles were, “Okay what, Joe?”
Joe had twisted and stretched his feet with such flexibility that his left big toe had slid free from the toe cuff, “—OkayI’vehadenough!”—, he now actively tried to pull his feet through the stocks holes, “—OkayI’vehadenough!—”, he whined as if upset.
“Agree to a session with The House of White Feathers,” Bash snatched hold of Joe’s now free big toe and used it as a way to hold Joe’s foot in place as he continued his scrub, “Imagine this but all toes tied back, four brushes and not just one, how the hell do you think you’d cope, Joe?”
“I won’t cope, I won’t cope!—”, he declared, “I won’t cope!—”, he repeated, his hands and arms flaying through the air, “Oh, stop, please!—”, Bash had rendered Joe insane, his ticklee’s cheeks now flushing red, his eyes watering, his grin stubbornly present, as if painted over his face by a different kind of brush compared to the one currently scrubbing against the balls of his feet, from left to right, side to side, up and down, “I don’t like this! I don’t like this!—” he refused to do anything but whine, his pitch high and strained, his expression often shifting from perplexed and elated to annoyed and exasperated, “—Alright, alright, I’ll do what they want, just stop, please just stop!—” Joe declared, his tug on the stocks now so rampant that he had successfully started to loosen them from the knotted rope pinning them to the bed, a sight that was enough evidence for Bash to realise his fun needed to come to a natural end.
Bash reached for the key and and began to unlatched the lock of the stocks whilst adopted a caring, soothing tone to a voice once sinister, “Calm down, relax, it’s good, I got what I wanted …” he pretend to start opening up the stocks, beyond pleased with how quickly he had taken Joe from screaming ‘I won’t cope, I won’t cope’ to ‘alright, alright, I’ll do what they want’, all within a matter of seconds, “… I can’t wait to see what they do to you. Any ideas what you’ll ask for, in return?” Bash went to lift the top half of the stocks upwards, but he chose to playfully pause as he waited for Joe’s answer.
Joe, breathless and slouched into pillows and messed up bedsheets, could only point at Bash with his index finger, where he fiercely decided on what he would request from The House of White Feathers, in return for a tickle session, “… A new bloody flatmate!” He sniggered.
“Oh!” Bash locked the stocks once more, “Is that so?” He then actioned a sudden and aggressive scribble over both of Joe’s soles, his fingernails journeying from heel to toe, non stop.
Joe’s feet crossed into an X shape once more, his torso throwing itself towards Bash where this time, he did not hold back on trying to stop his flatmate from tickling his feet; he snatched at Bash’s long chunks of brown hair and pulled at them, “BAH-HASH, STOP IT!—”, his giggles produced in the form of grainy growls as he yanked on his friends hair with enough strength to ensure Bash would immediately retract.
Bash winced and stopped tickling Joe, holding his hands up in surrender, “Ow, ow ow! Alright, okay, sorry!”
Joe let go of Bash’s hair and then lifted the stocks open himself, freeing his feet from the wooden bondage, where he then scampered off the bed, his speedy escape causing him to be unaware of Bash now tapping his iPhone screen, ending the audio recording of Joe’s mania over the past twenty minutes or so.
“Your turn now, Bash,” Joe folded his arms across his chest, “There’s no way I’m letting you get away with it!” He gestured to the open stocks, then to Bash’s feet, “We’ve got nothing else to do, come on!”
Bash stood and tidied his head of hair, “Erm, wait, aren’t you hungry!” He chuckled nervously, a little intimidated by the vengeful monster he had created a few metres opposite him, “Your pizza’s in the kitchen, remember!—”
Joe flapped his hands at the bedroom door, dismissing his lunch entirely, more keen to act out revenge than to eat, “Pfft, I’ll tuck into that later,” he tapped his watch, “I’m waiting, Bash!”
Bash rolled his eyes and climbed onto the bed, shuffling into position as he placed his ankles into the open groves of the stocks.
“I’ve been through a lot worse than anything it is you’re about to try, Joe,” Bash wriggled his shoulders proudly, “I can take whatever you’re about to throw my way, believe me…”
Joe picked up the toe cuffs and opened them up, “I’ll be the judge of that …” he then knelt by Bash’s feet and began to cuff his big toes together.
Bash cocked an eyebrow, “What are you going to use first?” He enquired, “The brush, or your fingers …”
Joe clicked the toe cuffs together and then moved his mouth towards Bash’s left heel.
“Oh, I was thinking … My teeth …”
