The Sleepover Game M/M, F/M (Patreon)

Harsh thumping pounded through Jackson’s chest as the name of the game came up in conversation. He looked around to see all eyes fall on him, familiar faces shooting him expressions that ranged from delightfully eager to just plain menacing. The boy sat cross-legged on his bedroom floor, a pair of Transformer pjs cloaking him down to his wrists and ankles. His friends muttered among themselves about the game, reminiscing about the previous times they had played it.

“Awww, man, you remember that time that you peed yourself, Harry?” Charlie asked, nearly chuckling himself to his side as he sat across the edge of Jackson’s bed. A pillow launched from the other side of the room, hitting half of Charlie’s face as he laughed.

“Shut up, no I didn’t!” Harrison said, his face cherry beneath a bed of freckles. Charlie continued to laugh with the others, though his was certainly the loudest.

The evening had played out like many of the sleepovers that the boys had shared throughout the years, yet still retained that special flair of being unique and deeply momentary. Video games had been played, toys were brought out, and pizza and soda resided on the breaths of the boys, grown rowdy from pleasurable company. While hosted at Jackson’s house, the sleepover ritual usually alternated settings between the close friends. It had simply been Jackson’s turn, whose mind tended to return to one game in particular that the group had played before.

“It’s so evil though!” Harrison said. Out of the small friend group, Harrison, Harry as everyone called him, was the only one smaller than Jackson. He sat on the floor leaning against Jackson’s closed closet door, his own pajama set featuring an assortment of Pokemon. Harry gave the group, arranged in a circle around Jackson’s bedroom, a nervous chuckle.

“That’s what makes it so fun,” Brian said. Brian was the oldest and boldest of the group; if only by a little, it became enough to make a difference. He was taller and was the first to begin talking about the girls in their class. Shaggy brown hair fluffed against his collar, his own sleepover attire having matured to a white tee shirt and gym shorts. He sat in a cheap office chair in Jackson’s room that his parents had given him with an old desk, meant to be for schoolwork but was usually used to play games or hold heaps of unfolded laundry. Suggesting the game had been his idea, at least for the evening. None of them remembered who, or how, the game started in the first place.

“You game, Jackie?” Charlie asked. Jackson felt himself frozen. While he was able to move, and did so anxiously, wafting side to side as he glanced down at his own curling toes. Telling heat rose to his cheeks, a sign he was able to wave away with a feverish scratch to the side of his nose.

Jackson had been thinking of the game since before it became his time to host a sleepover. The game was less of a game and more of a physical trial meant to test the fortitude of hosting friend. Jackson always felt like it was meant more of an initiation, of anyone joining their little group, not that anyone really was, that they would have to go through the game to make sure that they were tough or cool enough, though ‘tough’ and ‘cool’ were not words usually reserved for the boys in wider social circles. Instead, the game became a regular sleepover tradition to pinning down the hosting boy and tickling him like crazy.

Sometimes it would only last a few minutes, sometimes even up to half an hour. It would often go until one of the boys was screaming and their parents had to intervene, but such was the game’s caveat. No boy wanted to be the one to scream and get in trouble with their own parents, so the game would continue until they finally relented. Each of the boys was ticklish in different ways with different means. Harry had proven quite sensitive across his belly and sides. Charlie was particularly responsive from the boys digging into his doughy armpits. Brian had a spot near the small of his back that proved to be his deathly area after much assurance that they would never find his ticklish spot. After several rotations, each knew all of those secret spots quite well. Once the game finished, the sleepover activities could continue refreshed and renewed.

“Uh, I… y-yeah, I guess so…” Jackson attempted a tone of passivity to mask his nervous excitement. The truth that Jackson held onto was a gnawing, lingering interest in being tickled. He had no words to describe what the feelings were, how he came to realize it, and avoided bringing it up under the assumption that his friends might think he was some kind of weirdo and stop hanging out with him. The image of being tickle tortured like in the cartoons was a reoccuring one and the thrill of having his friends’ scribbling fingers all over his most sensitive, ticklish spot was an idea that would burrow deep into his mind, clenching tighter and tighter until the sensation was satisfied. Jackson swallowed, his hands clasped over the tops of his feet.

“Are you sure?” Harrison asked.

“He has to, it’s the rules,” said Charlie was the largest boy of the group in terms of size. He kept his hair military short and often went hunting with his father in late summer mornings, though as he grew older, he seemed to complain more and more about getting up so early. He had taken an early interest in anime and gaming culture, though he largely kept that from his parents while he continued to figure himself out. He was a kind boy, to his friends, though was often the target of bullying around the school, when Brian was not around to intervene.

“Right, and we know just where to get him,” Brian said. Jackson swallowed. The boy felt much smaller than the others than he already was, the target of their feasting eyes of impish revelry. He had endured the treatment just once before. Charlie had held him down while the other two laid sprawling fingers all over his body. Though when Harry had finally reached his delicate, bare soles, Jackson yelped a sharp squeal. He pulled back with enough force to nearly knock Charlie over. The game essentially ended when Jackson’s dad came charging up and through the door, barking the fatherly commands of ‘keeping it down’. The game was over, Jackson had paid the price for hosting, but he never shook just how exhilarated it all left him, and how those fond memories would always end sourly with wishing they had lasted longer.

Jackson knew well how ticklish his feet were and just how much he wanted to make this time last, finding the feeling more thrilling than most of the people he talked to regarding their own ticklish trials. Feeling his friends eyes on him, drifting down to his feet peeking out of the legs of his Autobot bottoms, his eyes grew wide. His heart pounded as he trembled with an intoxicating concoction of trepidation and enthusiasm. He always pictured perhaps running from the threat of tickles, tripping over something, and falling promptly victim to an assault of scribbling fingers. Here, he stared back at his future ticklers like a small fox in a wolf’s den, frightened, but not unwelcoming of the chase and challenge presented.

“Heh, I… I mean…” Jackson stammered, feeling a telling heat wash across his face. He curled his toes to hide his feet shyly, though no less transparently inviting. He looked across the bedroom to his close friends, all of whom shot him grimacing sneers. “If that’s… the rules.” Jackson fought back the smile, still putting on the act of greeting the game as a threat and not the thing he had been most excited about but kept to himself. Charlie hopped up from the edge of his bed.

“Come on, Jackie, take your medicine,” Charlie said.

“Yeah, just get it over with,” Harry said, smirking. Jackson’s chest fluttered as he rose to his feet. He swallowed a bit and pushed back a disheveled clump of hair.

“Or we can take our time,” Brain suggested, worsening, or improving, the beating that resonated through Jackson’s body. “Heh, you know, see just how much little Jackie can handle.” It had been almost like Brian could read Jackson’s mind, though Jackson imagined that Brian would be poking more verbal jabs his way if that had actually been the case. He, Brain, and Charlie had taken to their feet.

“Alright, so… how?” Jackson asked.

“Lie down on the bed,” Brian said. “Face down.” Another strange rush raced through Jackson’s body, or maybe his mind, at hearing Brain order him around. Normally, at school, he might have told Brian to ‘shove it’ or to go screw himself at being ordered around. But at the promising invitation to give him the sensations that he so oddly craved, Jackson huffed a little, out of nerves, and went to his bed. He looked over it for a bit before, feeling a slight layer of sweat laid across the back of his neck. Calming his nerves, he began to crawl across the edge of his bed, laying with his tummy pressed against the wrinkled top comforter.

“Like this?” Jackson asked.

“Heh, yeah,” said Brian. He and the other two watched over Jackson as he placed himself into position for the game.

“Except,” Charlie said, heading to the bottom of the bed where Jackson’s bare soles stared back at him, upturned and already blushing a fleshy shade of pink. Charlie grabbed onto both of Jackson’s ankles and pulled him downward, just to the point where his ankles hung slightly off of the end of the bed. Jackson gasped, being moved around so abrasively, yet before he had a chance to look back, he felt Charlie’s substantial weight press down on the backs of his calves, the boy’s meaty legs straddling them and framing his bare feet between his thighs. He looked behind him, his ticklish feet having been trapped and hidden from behind Charlie’s large, round figure, so far removed from him it was as if someone had detached them completely from his legs. The weight of Charlie’s sitting posture pressed against his calves was firm, yet relatively painless. He struggled to feel just how little he could free himself from such a design, his toes wiggling and squirming out of his eye-line.

“Haha, oh yeah, you’re not getting out of that,” said Harry, always able to talk the tough talk when the ticklish focus was on someone else. Charlie straddled the backs of Jackson's calves comfortably, his seat extending up the boy's legs toward the backs of his knees. His weight pressed Jackson down, sinking into the creaking bed. Jackson stared ahead of him, his heart continuing to race. He giggled nervously. His senses became flushed with the realization of his own helplessness, his bare feet pointed and positioned in a way he could neither see nor free himself. Jackson readied himself for what he knew would come, eager to make it last as long as he possibly could without being so loud that his parents would barge into his room and end the game. The other boys in the room came closer. Their eyes feasted on the sight of Jackson's soft, blushing soles pointing toward them, almost completely divorced from Jackson’s nervously trembling body laying on the other side of Charlie.

“Heh heh, you ready, Jackie?” Brian asked, sitting by. His stare traced the shape of Jackson's feet, his hands ready to pounce. “We're not going easy on you.”

“Y-yeah, I… I'm good,” Jackson said, his voice breaking slightly in his throat. He wiggled his toes a bit, feeling the air and movement free of abundant stimulation. “I can take it, you guys can’t break me!”

“I still remember how you gave it to me last time,” Harry said, crawling to the foot of Jackson's bed. “You're getting it tonight, Jack.”

“No going easy on these tootsies,” Charlie said. He looked down and watched Jackson's bare soles squirming between his thighs like two baby bunnies caught within a circle of hungry dogs. He and the other boys snickered with gaming intent. “So who's going first?”

“Me!” Harry said. “I told you, I'm gonna really mess them up!” The boys laughed as Jackson laid out, nervously watching his friends fight over who got to tickle his feet first. The pressure of having his soles so targeted weighed on Jackson’s nerves. He sank his teeth into his lip, not knowing when or how it would all start. The anticipation gnawed at him as Harry scooted over to the foot of the bed on his knees. Jackson could feel all of their stares on that one spot, the burn beneath the scattering of freckles across his cheeks glowing and growing more. His hands clenched onto the cool softness of his sheets, Jackson bracing himself for a surging onslaught of aggressive tickles right off the bat.

With Charlie straddling the backs of Jackson’s calves, Harry and Brian inched closer, with Harry scooting right up to the end of the bed. He observed Jackson’s feet up close, perfectly framed from between Charlie’s thighs as having been nearly completely separate from Jackson himself. The boys chuckled and smirked, each eyeing up the pair with impish intent.

“Should we cover his mouth so he don’t squeal as easily and ruin the fun?” Harry asked, still talking big for a boy who received more than his fair share of ‘getting ganged up on’ either by his friends or Neal Landon’s group back at school. His face seemed to light up at his own idea. Jackson too was not so opposed to it, but was not about to so willingly go along with it at risk of seemingly too complacent.

“Heh heh, yeah, we could use like a shirt or something,” Charlie added. Brian chuckled and shook his head.

“Nah,” he said, speaking with an almost trademarked appeal to maturity. “This isn’t to be mean, you two. You wouldn’t want us doing that to you, would you?” Charlie and Harry thought for a moment and disagreed. Jackson, still somewhat liking the idea as a means of helping him last out the tickles as long as possible, pushed a bit of his bed sheet in between his teeth, his tongue already starting to soak the fabric with saliva. “Now, Harry, let’s see what you can do.”

“Alright then,” said Harry. His eyes fell upon Jackson’s bare soles once more. Hidden away from behind Charlie’s body, they were just a ticklish pair of feet, presented like a toy designed to be played with as roughly as they could manage. From Jackson’s side, he was trapped with his feet tucked helplessly in the world of a couple monsters looking to tickle him into a state of sensory oblivion, an idea that he would sometimes get late at night and prayed that would feature in his dreams. He waited anxiously in that same bed, those monsters, as fun and friendly as they were so currently threatening to his composure, looming in the room with him, trapping his most ticklish spot.

Harrison’s fingers rose swiftly to Jackson’s bare soles. They scribbled and scratched haphazardly, fluttering about with the same vibrational patterns as the tickler’s own gleeful giggles. Jackson squealed as his teeth pressed hard against the sheet in his mouth. His body clenched, his back arching as his legs recoiled to save his feet. They failed to budge from beneath the heavier boy, keeping them trapped and framed perfectly for the devilish ticklers in the room. As such, having his feet tickled for more than a few seconds quickly satisfied the itch that had been so gnawing at his mind for some time. Feeling the helplessness wash over him at the same time as the sudden surge of skittering claws raining an influx of tickles across his bare soles worked together to create a dreamlike whirlwind of challenged elation.

“Neeeeaaaahahahhahahahahahahaa!! Ohhhh gahahahahahahaaad!” Jackson’s faint, boyish laughter began bouncing off of the walls. The others giggled along with him, monitoring his volume as they observed how his feet squirmed and curled against Harry’s wild approach to tickling. Jackson bent at the waist. His body curled against the bed, bunching the sheets beneath him, as his red-faced laughter fluttered from his mouth, far more involuntary then he imagined it would. He twisted, contorting his bedding into balled, wrinkled clumps beneath his. He clenched onto his sheets and pressed a corner into his mouth, his eyes closing and watering as the feeling of tickles scurrying across his feet enveloped his senses.

“Haha, yeah, get him good!” Charlie cheered. The boys tried briefly to stay relatively quiet, given the activity, but the carelessness of youth permeated through a blindness to their reactive behaviors. Brian watched on from the side while Harry scratched his shallow nails rapidly up and down Jackson’s soft, warm arches. The boys watched as Jackson’s feet curled, his toes bunching into small, pink pebbles atop pink, wrinkled streams. The pair shifted defensively, one covering the other and alternating back and forth fruitlessly. Natural reactions took over. Jackson endured the tickling as best as he could, knowing all he had to do was call out to either of his parents to end the turmoil. All of his conscious focus, what little remained after the dense dwelling of his own ticklish helplessness, was being put into restraining his voice so as to keep the game lasting for as long as he could.

“Gaaaahhhhhehehehehahhahahahaaaa! Nahahahahaaaaat my feeheheheheeet!!” Jackson laughed out the phrase that had echoed in his mind during many anxious nights thinking about how he would react to having his feet trapped and tickled. He imagined that it would stoke a further interest in the continuation of grueling foot tickling, hoping that his ticklers would not actually follow his word. Jackson was quite ticklish across the rest of his body, but was only a fraction as interested in being tickled in those areas. Something about that one spot, his most ticklish spot, left a lasting impression on the boy’s budding imagination. His friends, he knew, were more than happy to oblige his crying ruse.

“Get inside his toes!” Brian said, watching the action up close with wide-eyed intention. Harry was usually responsive in doing what Brian told him to do, but the demand came on the heels of his own mischievous determination to tickle however he could to best belittle Jackson’s delicate senses. Every little swipe of his fingers, up to that point, had proven nearly explosive to the fraile, plush nerves scattered throughout both of Jackson’s soles. His technique lacked any sort of thoughtful method, but anything stroking Jackson’s feet would have elicited screaming jolts of tickles through the boy. Harry smirked as he began directing his fingers toward Jackson’s toes. He weaseled his fingertips into the tightly clenched digits, scratching faintly against the delicate stems underneath. Jackson squealed against the sheets covering his bed. He clenched up again, letting his howling laughter fall largely muffled into his mattress.

“Neeeeeeaaaaahhhhhahahahahahahahahaaa!! Nahahahahahahahaaaaoooo!! Nahahahat my toeeeeshahahahaha!!” Jackson shrieked in a tone of laughter he was sure would get him made fun of for sounding girly. His ticklers snickered, Harrison at the mad helm while Charlie and Brian watched closely by. The third closed in around the spot, watching and chuckling to themselves as if toying over some crude joke, shared only by them. Harrison alternated between digging into Jackson’s toes and skittering his touch up and down the boy’s soles, warm and littered with pale, defensive wrinkles whenever they flailed in the aim of protecting themselves.

“Heh heh, they’re so wiggly,” Harrison said, spreading out his fingers as best as he could.

“Let me have a go,” Charlie said, staring down at the pair of ticklish feet hanging off the edge of the bed below his seat. Harry laughed as he got in a few more scribbling tickles before pulling away. The event did feel more like a group effort, a solidarity in riddling their friend’s senses through the humiliation of being so exposed as ticklish. As such, Harry pulled away, scooted back to take a break within a more observational position. Charlie had Jackson’s feet well within reach, more perfect than any of the others. He snickered as he plunged all ten skittering fingers down against the warm, plush soles, leaving Jackson with mere seconds with which to catch his breath between attacks. Jackson yelped while his body sprung into a new, restless fit of unending wriggles.

“Naahahahahahahhahahahaaaaooooo!! Ohhh gahahahahhaaaaad!!” Jackson howled with laughter. His face beamed with a shade conducive of the heat that poured through his complexion. His caramel hair bounced around the back of his neck as he swayed side to side in rolling laughter. The tickles from Charlie’s pudgier fingers flurried through Jackson’s senses like any other touch. The boy scraped more with shallow fingernails, dashing them all over both soles perfectly wedged between his thighs abrasively like he had spoken of doing to his younger sister many times prior. He would tell stories about how she would scream and cry and beg for it to stop, reactions that only served to stoke Charlie’s interest in seeing her laugh more. Jackson had always imagined how he would react being Charlie’s sister in those stories, though merely soaking in the moment was all Jackson was capable of while living through one of his own.

“Yeah, get him good!” Brian said, cheering on the ticklish display occuring before them all. Jackson’s feet continued to wiggle and flail, though Charlie’s ten scribbling fingers also fought against the boy’s insistence on protecting one or the other. His hands pushed the pair back, helping to keep them steady as his fingers feasted on the delicate nerves throughout. Jackson’s soles blushed with his face, though his cheeks were much more hidden from sight by the cool sheets into which Jackson’s squeals began to muffle the sound steadily filling the room. His soles were warm, the tepid softness creating a plush, musky texture that seemed to increase his overall ticklishness as the game progressed, a feat that Jackson never believed actually possible.

“Eeeeeekkkkmmmhehehehehhahahahahahahahahaaaa!!! I caahahahahahahaaaan’t staahahahahaand it!!” Jackson shrieked into his bedding. He held on for as long as he could, hoping to last long enough for the game to end without him calling out to either of his parents. The boys knew this to be the easiest way to forfeit the experience, the catch being that the boy who did actively call out to his parents before the laughter did it for them would be mildly picked on for the rest of the night. Jackson was determined to hold out for a natural conclusion, just as they all knew that the game would continue only until either his mother or father, both of whom were still home, would come storming up to the room to end it. Those were the rules and it was the ticklers’ responsibility to fulfill them, not that the boys, all the boys, were not enjoying themselves playing.

“Sure you can,” said Harry. “You have to!” The taunting banter and crying pleas for mercy were all a part of the experience for Jackson. A performative measure to help play out the ticklish measure the way that it always did in the cartoons, drawings, and stories that Jackson found online, it helped play into the helpless victim role just like it aided in coercing his sadistic ticklers to keep pushing the boy while implying that he despised the feeling that he had pined for so much. Charlie’s fingers scratched and skittered faster and more deliberately than Harry’s across Jackson’s soles. Charlie was a more experienced and eager tickler than Harry and the difference was not lost on Jackson, screaming with laughter as he cried and drooled against his pillow.

“Faaaahahahhahahahahahahahaaaa!!! Staaahahahahahahahaaaaaapp!!” Jackson laughed, though still fighting to reserve the volume to keep the game lasting for as long as he could. He bucked the front of his body against the bed, the springs of his mattress creaking into the floor. His arms moved with the frantic madness denied to his legs. His composure dwindled into little more than just a squealing little boy, crying out from a little tickling against both trapped feet at once.

“Coochie coochie coo!” Charlie taunted while chuckling. All the boys laughed as they watched the scene play out. They laughed at Jackson’s childish sounds, they laughed at how he flailed against his bed, they laughed at how his feet desperately tried to free themselves and how helpless Jackson and his soles were in such a position. Charlie felt the damp humidity of Jackson’s feet sweating beneath his touch, a touch that invited a mild insanity with every stroke of his fingers bursting tickles through the young boy’s nerves. Jackson’s body flailed to a greater extent than his feet did, though with no less sensory urgency flowing through them as the scribbling fingers played their tune across the strings of his delicate, boyish soles.

“Neeeaaahahhahahahahahahaaaaaa!!! Phhhhttttffeeehahhahahahahahaaaa!!!” Jackson’s volume rose. The persistence of the tickling came with a strange otherworldly panic that the feelings he was experiencing would never end, the anxiety that would hurry through one’s chest at being stuck with no apparent way out. Jackson came closer and closer to calling out to his parents, yet continued to deny the impulse, knowing, even in his ticklish frenzy, that he would hate himself for how the memory would play out forever. He withheld himself through the ordeal, screaming and crying into his sheets as the tickles poured more and more through his senses, compounding with the agony of distorted time.

“Let me have a go,” Brian said, inching closer. “I actually brought something just for this.” Charlie backed away as Brian gave Jackson several glorious seconds with which to catch his breath. The weight on the backs of his calves and ankles persisted, implying that the game would continue as normal. Jackson, red-faced and panting, gripped his hands into the soft cotton of his sheets, bracing himself for more to come. Jackson knew not what it was that Brian had brought, but by the snickering chuckles of his friends just out of view, he imagined it to be something relatively devastating. He felt a grip being placed around both of his downturned big toes, one hand holding them together and pulling them back toward the bed, stretching out his soles. Jackson had just enough time to gulp before the sensations began again, in ways that he could not have prepared for.

“WHHHAAAAAAAAHhahahahahahahahahaaa!!! Ohhhhgaaaaaahahahahahahahaaaad!!” Jackson burst into laughter as a harsh scrubbing tore up and down both of his soles at once. Brian, at the bottom of the bed, held Jackson’s toes back with one hand while his other wielded a wide hairbrush, sawing the cheap tool up and down the full, diminutive length of Jackson’s soles. Jackson’s reserved laughter broke into an uproarious fit. His ticklish nerves exploded with every rapid scrape of the dozens of ball-tipped bristles scraping against his soft, supple soles. Jackson launched into a banshee eruption of laughter, fighting to still muffle his voice by pressing his face down against the surface of his bed.

“Oh wow, that looks rough!” Harry said, laughing along still. Jackson’s feet trembled and squirmed in Brian’s idle grasp. He held on tight to both big toes, pulling them back almost painfully to keep Jackson’s feet as stable as possible. Both tried to fold in on each other, curling into a bed of wrinkles from behind the smiling, aquamarine back of the brush as it pistoned up and down at a ruthless pace. Jackson’s soles blushed with a brighter shade of cherry after every pass, coating both in a pink rose that bloomed and invited more ticklish touch.

“Gaaaaahahahahahahahahahaha!!! Stahahahahahahaaaaap!!” Jackson cried out, wondering if he actually meant it. He had enjoyed the experience of being helpless and having his most ticklish spot fawned over by his friends looking to push his limits, but the hysteria had reached an extent of ticklishness that he had only imagined being felt in some much more dire circumstance. Several fond ideas had featured him being tickle tortured by robbers for information on his family’s wealth or even him being held prisoner by some evil witch that uses prolonged tickling to extract some kind of energy or something from her captives. The tickling of the tool that Brian had brought, the brush that crudely scrubbed up and down both soles at once, was akin to what he imagined would be the worst of what such villains were capable of.

“Saw this in a video once,” Brian said, tickling with little visible remorse. “Girl was screaming her head off just like Jackie.” The group chuckled as they watched Jackson’s soles burn a glowing shape of pink from behind the rounded edges of the brush. Charlie reached down to hold Jackson’s toes together and back for Brian so he could continue tickling with relative ease. Charlie was the strongest in the group, but Jackson needed much less support in his rising exhaustion even as his toes pathetically pushed back against the boy’s grip. They all leaned in to observe the tickling up close. The brush made a grueling scrubbing noise as it scraped rapidly up and down both soles at once as if Brian was trying to buff a stain out of a carpet instead of just toying with a pair of ticklish feet. The heat that bloomed off of them began to ripen with a natural odor that failed to deter any of their shared interest.

“Staaaahahahahahahahahahahaapppp!!!” Tears trickled down the corners of Jackson’s eyes. He knew he didn’t mean what he begged for, or at least he didn’t want to mean it, but the words spilled out as naturally as the laughter itself. If it was up to him, he would have the game continue, despite the genuinely ruthless challenge against his ticklish soles, purely to last. But his conscious thought, his wants, were fading as natural response, the boy’s fight-or-flight steadily took over in the presence of prolonged tickle torture. He continued to enjoy the experience, knowing that he would specifically enjoy it more looking fondly onto those lifelong memories later, and held out as best as he could.

“Awww man, I think he may just pass out,” Harry said. Brian scrubbed harshly and deliberately up and down both soles screaming with sensitivity. Charlie had onto Jackson’s toes, keeping his feet pulled back and completely vulnerable to the sawing assault on the boy’s senses. A dense, humid musk filled the room, bouncing from the stains, posters, and bare plaster across each of the light blue walls. Jackson shifted and swayed side to side, sweat and tears seeping into his pillow where he buried his head face down to muffle the laughter. Steadily, as the tickles tore through his body in waves more intense than he ever anticipated, he found himself less concerned with hiding his laughter and allowed it to flow freely in reluctant hopes of ending the game, of savoring the memories that had been made and relieving himself of the sensory anguish that coursed through him. His silent wishes came answered at the turning of his bedroom door knob.

“Alright, what’s going on in here?” a delicate, yet firm, voice asked as the door swung open. In a moment that seemed to stretch, contorted and faded, in Jackson’s mind, the tickling stopped. Brian reeled back, pulling the brush behind his back and sitting upright. Charlie sat back as well. He began to lean toward the edge of the bed in an effort to roll off of it, but froze as his eyes met Tracy’s, Jackson’s strikingly youthful mother, freezing as if being hunted by a predator that could only see movement. Harry fell back against the dresser behind him, performing the role of someone not involved or invested in any way.

“Mrs… Kirchoff,” Brian said, stammering a bit. He dropped the brush back behind of where he knelt, reaching up to run his fingers through his hair. “Not much, just playing around. What’s up with you? Love the… uh… new hair style.” Tracy’s eyes furrowed slightly into dashing slivers. She smirked and walked inside, breathing in the rough and thick scent of budding boyhood weighing the air around her. She glanced over to Jackson, her son, before crossing her arms and walking further into the room.

“Playing around?” Tracy asked. “And what are we playing in here?” Tracy was shorter and more spritely attractive than most other moms that the boys had ever seen. Chestnut hair dangled in a comfortable ponytail down her shoulder. She wore a loose-fitting sweater with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. A pair of black leggings hugged her hips and stretched down to her ankles, where her bare toes tread delicately across the carpet. Jackson laid, still stuck beneath Charlie's weight, with his feet framed perfectly between his thighs. Deep, strained breaths puffed out of his mouth, his arms splayed and weakened at his sides. His face shimmered with sweat above a complexion of deep red. His eyes glimmered slightly, tiredly, above a faint smile, almost without acknowledgement that she was even in the room.

“Oh, just some game we play at every sleepover,” said Harry, looking away from the woman.

“Uh huh,” Tracy said, a grin starting to form. Closer to the end of the bed, she glanced down at her son’s bare soles, still blushing a bright strawberry shade, from between Charlie's knees. Charlie began to shift uncomfortably off of them, as if preparing for the trouble that he would surely be in. He watched and waited patiently for Tracy to scold him, if not all of them, calling all of their parents for the apparent bullying taking place, despite the truth being much more innocent in intent. Instead, Tracy held up a finger, stopping Charlie from shifting off completely. He froze once more as Tracy stood in Brain’s old spot at the end of the bed.

“S-sorry, we’ll… keep it down…” Harry said, the first to admit such defeat.

“You know,” Tracy said, ignoring him slightly. “If you wanted to tickle Jackie’s feet, you only had to call.” Tracy tossed back her ponytail and knelt down at the end of the bed, facing Jackson’s bare soles with shimmering, mischievous eyes. The other boys leaned in once more as Jackson began to push himself up, curious as to what was happening behind Charlie’s sitting figure. The answer came in the form of a gentle swipe across his left foot. Jackson squealed. Left fatigued and spent from the experience, his voice returned with a sharp, sudden giggle. The tickle flushed through his senses as a single, raging jolt, one that ignited a renewed energy, or at least tapped into a reserve of energy onto which Jackson had unknowingly held. Another swipe of her nails across Jackson’s soles sent another shriek from the boy’s mouth, his toes curling defensively.

“Neeeeeaaaaahhhhahahaha!!” Jackson yelped like a small dog. The boys chuckled as they watched Tracy tease their friend’s ticklish soles in front of them. Brain and Harry sat back comfortably to watch while Charlie let his weight drop back onto the trapped calves beneath his bottom. Tracy giggled with a faint glee at the sound of her son’s laughter. She raised both hands, all ten fingers tipped with firm, white fingernails, and stationed one at each foot. With a smug smirk tilting the corners of her lips, her subtle teasing faded into a devilish skittering of all ten digits scribbling and scratching up and down the lengths of both soles at once.

“Coochie coochie coo!” Tracy chanted softly in a pleasant, sing-song tone. Her nails plucked and scraped with rapid abrasion across her son’s trapped feet. Jackson quickly flew back into a hysterical frenzy, tossing side to side as he howled openly with deep, strained laughter. The tickles seemed to consume both feet at once. He grasped at his sheets while his laughter appeared to only encourage his mother to continue tickling much in the same way it did his friends. The game had taken on a new intensity, one that Jackson had abandoned his efforts for in withholding his reactions.

“GAAAAAHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!! NAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAOOOO!!!” Jackson screeched. The boy’s feet flailed in place until caught by Charlie’s hands, framing them steady between his palms. His body lurched and bucked against the bed. Tears trickled again down his burning cheeks as the tickles that exploded up from his feet with every passing second of enveloping skitters from his mother’s touch devoured what little dignity remained of his composure. Jackson huffed and panted, the tickling having taken on a much more potent effect on his body than he had ever expected. All the while, Tracy knelt in place, making herself comfortable. The woman giggled along with the rest of the boys while they leaned in and watched closely.

“Wow, you’re really good, Mrs. Kirchoff,” said Brian. Tracy smiled smugly, keeping her eyes and hands fixed on the familiarly ticklish pair before her.

“Don’t you boys know?” Tracy asked. “No one tickles better than a mother.”