Happy Valentine's Part 1/4 - Cupid's Arrow (Patreon)

Lovestruck is usually just a turn of phrase. You see a gorgeous woman walking past and your head turns to follow her, heart racing, and you're hit by that hot wave of pure desire - blood-pumping, mind-numbing, jaw-dropping love. Your darling brushes your hand absentmindedly, someone remembers your favourite food, and cupid's arrow pierces through your heart, sending it soaring like a popped balloon.

But for the angels of love, or the Cupid Corps, there's nothing metaphorical about spreading the love. Armed to the teeth with enchanted arrows, these winged matchmakers scour the globe to dizzy heads and melt hearts - every drop of love powers their empire, granting them energy and strength, while making the world a softer place in the meantime. They're pragmatic and methodical, powering their society with the love of human folk, knowing that even in humanity's darkest times love will always prevail.

Of course, for such problem-solving minded creatures, they must always experiment. Shooting people with arrows and making them fall in love is all well and good, but are there better ways to get love? They've tried slow-burning arrows that build a lingering desire in targets, and hyper-arousal arrows that cause a massive momentary eruption of fiery passion, but the new prototype is expected to be a roaring success.

Testing time. Three humans are brought into the area. A cherub in a far-too-long white coat makes a few notes on a clipboard then signals to his companions. They draw back their bows and fire. One human is hit in the shoulder, the other in the lower thigh. The third looks around in confusion.

Pink smoke starts to billow out like steam from the spout of a kettle. The TIKL-U arrows are taking effect.

Faces flushing with excitement, the two humans turn to their friend and advance with wiggling fingers. Already she starts to giggle anxiously, regretting her choice to wear a crop top, seeing her friends eyeing her soft, chubby belly. Stumbling back, she falls onto the plush clouds, quickly squealing as one of them sits on her ankles with a desperate gasp, grabbing her big toe to hold her foot taut.

As she begins to giggle uncontrollably, the other sits behind her and digs all of her fingers into the squishy, ticklish fat of her belly, wriggling her fingers and spidering them over each inch. Her laughter raises in pitch; her stomach bounces with each sharp inhale, and she squirms helplessly on the cloud-bed as short, neat fingernails begin to skitter all over her toes.

The cherubs check the readings. Already off the charts; they expected good, but this is unprecedented. The two ticklers are emitting massive amounts of love radiation, delighting in tickling their friend silly and drinking the nectar of her laughter, but her love emissions are almost unreadably high, each buck and squeak nearly sending the love reactors into meltdown. Maybe that explains why she isn't protecting her ticklish tummy?

Conversing briefly, the cherubs nod and leave the humans to their ticklish glee and insincere begs for mercy. They have to activate the backup reactors to store this love energy, and consult the executive team; the city in the sky isn't in any dire need of more power, but a factory full of humans hooked up to the love converters, mercilessly tickling and being tickled for hours on end wouldn't hurt...