Nike Gyna

Mikos of Sillon sat with his arms above his head, wrists bound to the post behind him. His legs were stretched out before him, ankles locked in a set of wooden stocks. The centauress Callia brandished a vos-hawk feather before him. “I know how ticklish you are, Mikos,” she said.

“How would you know that, my lady? I’ve never been in the centaur Land before.” He used the formal, polite form of address because today was Nike Gyna, “Women’s Victory.” On this holiday, celebrated on both sides of the border, females commanded and their menfolk obeyed.

“Thelissa told me,” Callia explained simply. Thelissa was Mikos’ sister, and a good friend of the female centaurs when they crossed to the human side of the border to visit the village of Sillon. Mikos nodded his understanding, his brown-black eyes riveted on the feather in Callia’s hand.

A vos-hawk’s wing feather was the most effective tickling feather of them all, and there was a lot of Mikos to tickle. He was nude at the moment, except for a pink codpiece, embroidered with flowers. The centaur females had put that on him, when they brought him here with two other men from Sillon. But they hadn’t had to strip him, other than to remove his sandals. Thelissa had taken care of that herself, that morning. Then she had further celebrated Nike Gyna by trading him to the female centaurs for one of their males - for Mikos friend Timon Blacktail, in fact. The trade would only last until the morning, when Nike Gyna ended, but until then Timon belonged to his sister, and he was the captive of Callia and the other females.

Callia wore the typical blouse of a female centaur, sleeveless in this case, and overlain with a masculine leather weapon-harness in honor of the holiday. Her own grey eyes moved appreciatively over Mikos’ nude body, leanly muscled from hard work in field, vineyard, and olive grove, and from chasing sheep and goats over the hills.

“Time for fun,” Callia grinned. Mikos smiled wanly in return, a smile that turned into a chuckle as the centaur ran her feather over his bare right sole. That chuckle turned into a full laugh as Callia’s free hand found his left sole. Mikos squirmed as he laughed, and clenched his bare feet, but he was trapped and couldn’t avoid the tickling.

As Mikos had said, he had never been in the Land before. He knew Callia and the other centaur friends of his sister, of course, and had shared an occasional wineskin with his own centaur friend Timon, but he had always done so on the human side of the border. The border humans avoided entering the centaur Land even when they were friendly with the centaurs. They preferred to let their centaur friends visit them. For when a human did enter the centaur Land, he -or she - had to submit to the centaurs’ law, and undergo a merciless tickling.

This was because of the Prophesy, which read Alja Kentaros mor kental velator velex bartaros mel Uru, nor Kentaros yonvel morkap i patalos. ‘If the Kentaros should ever fail to visit merciless torment on foreigners who enter the Land, then will the Kentaros suffer betrayal and ruination.’ The human villagers of Sillon respected this Prophesy as much as the centaurs did. Furthermore, they were wise enough to know that betrayal and ruination for the centaurs would not be good for the border communities either. So the humans mostly avoided the issue by staying on the human side of the border, and when they did choose to enter the centaur Land, they submitted to the required tickle-torment with as much good will as they could muster.

But today was Nike Gyna, and the three men being tickled by their centauress captors hadn’t been given a choice. Or rather, their womenfolk had chosen for them. The party of female centaurs had brought three males to Sillon, including Mikos’ friend Timon Blacktail, and Thelissa and the other village women had traded Mikos and two other men for the three male centaurs. It was only until the next morning, Mikos told himself again, but that seemed a long way away to him just now, as Callia inflicted tickles on his helpless feet, expertly applying feather and fingers and blunt-tined wooden fork.

The other two men, Alexi and Photus, were also laughing uproariously. Alexi had grinned fit to split his face as the female centaurs brought him here. But then he was one of the few, crazy, humans who chose to make frequent visits to the centaur Land. Now he was howling, as Idalia applied the leather device known as a ‘bullfeather’ to his helpless soles. Photus had looked sour as they dragged him past the border marker, pulling him along by a rope tied to his bound wrists. But then he always looked sour. Except that now he wore an expression of open-mouthed astonishment as the laugher poured out of him. There were five female centaurs in the group, and three of them were now working on Photus, tickling not just his feet, but also his sides, his legs, his arms, and his stomach.

Then two of the centaur females left Photus, with Beatrice remaining to continue tickling his soles. One of the two centaurs went to join Idalia in tickling Alexi, and the other came to Mikos. He recognized Rhete, another of Thelissa’s friends, just as she began to tickle his ribs.

“He is a tender one, isn’t he,” Mikos heard Rhete say as if from a great distance. His own laugher was loud in his ears, and the tickle-sensations seemed to sink into his bones. He could not keep from laughing as Callia tickled the soles of his feet, alternating now between applying a wooden fork to his left foot and a stiff-bristled brush to his right. He could not keep from squirming as Rhete tickled his upper body, running clever fingers around and around his navel, and at the same time running a feather up and down his sides. He struggled, but he could not escape. His bindings were designed and built to hold a human in place for merciless tickling, and they functioned perfectly.

“Yes he is,” Callia said. “See?” She did something to his soles that sent tickle sensations up through his legs, almost to the place covered by the codpiece. Mikos howled. “And he sounds just like Alexi. I’ll bet that won’t be his last visit to the Land.”

Rhete ran a feather up and down Mikos’ left arm, and then stepped around the stocks to run it down his right. Mikos laughed and laughed, and then laughed some more as Rhete set the feather aside to dig expert fingers into his armpits. The tickling paused, briefly, to let Mikos catch his breath. As he gasped, he heard Alexi and Photus both squealing and laughing as the other female centaurs continued to tickle them. “No,” Rhete said. “He is tender, but he won’t return anytime soon.”

Mikos wanted to agree with this, as soon as he stopped gasping. He caught his breath, and then burst out in laugher once more as Callia ran the knobby wooden roller back and forth across his insteps. He heard her say, “I’ll bet silver tetradrachm that he will return.”

Rhete retrieved her feather and ran it very lightly across Mikos’ chest. He squirmed. There was something seductive about this tickling, and it was, Mikos though, something that a man should experience once in his life. Once. But he wasn’t ever going to return.

“Make it a hand-mirror, from Zorian the Merchant,” Rhete said. “He won’t be back for at least a year - and most likely not at all.”

“A hand-mirror then,” Callia said. Mikos watched - and felt - her draw a square of silk between his toes. Between each pair of his toes in turn, slowly, with a light finger-scratching of each of his feet between, from the heels to the balls, and back again. No, he wouldn’t ever return here, no matter how tempting it might be.

Mikos struggled again against his bonds, and again found it useless. The tickling was driving him mad: He must be mad to even think of returning here for another session of this torment. And Callia and Rhete were wagering over him! No one could possibly be tickled as much as he was, but the sounds that Idalia and the other female centaurs were producing from Alexi and Photus proved otherwise. They laughed and squirmed, nude and locked in their own stocks, and the knowledge of their tickling seemed to double and triple Mikos’ own tickle-sensitivity.

The two female centaurs switched places, Rhete moving to Mikos’ feet, and Callia stepping to where she could reach his upper body. “There’s a full moon in three days,” he heard Callia say as she ran the smooth back of a polished wooden spoon over his stomach. “A hand-mirror from Zorian, then, that Mikos will come back here by the full moon after that.”

“Done,” Rhete said from her new position by Mikos’ trapped feet.

No! Mikos wanted to shout. He might have managed it too, through his chuckles, if he only had Callia’s stomach-tickling to deal with. But now Rhete was applying a bull-feather to his soles. Her tickle-touch as she wielded the leather device was different from Callia’s, but just as laughter-inducing.

It was sweet, like drowning in honey. It was too strong, like unwatered wine. If he weren’t bound, he would jump up and run away, far and fast, and never return. But the stocks built by the centaurs to hold human ‘flatfooters’ kept him in place. No matter how hard he squirmed and struggled. And his squirming and struggling just added pleasure to the torment.

Yes, he could admit to being pleased to experience this once. Once was not too much, but it was enough. It would end, eventually, and then Callia would have to buy Rhete a mirror. Because twice would be too much. He wasn’t crazy like Alexi.

Callia and Rhete were tickling Alexi now, Mikos realized, and Beatrice and Stephina were now tickling him. He hadn’t noticed the switch, but now he saw the female centaurs moving from one male victim to another. Sometimes two centaurs would tickle Photus or Alexi or Mikos himself, and sometimes three would do so. But always there was at least one female centaur by each captive human, applying the torment required by the Prophesy, tickling feet and belly, and ribs and arms and legs and chest. Mikos squirmed, hearing his own laughter mix with the chuckles and howls of Alexi and Photus. The five female centaurs took turns tickling them all between the toes and behind the knees and in the navel and across the insteps...

Mikos felt only a slight tinge of regret in his relief as he lay on the grass. The tickle-torment was finished, and the centaurs had released him from the stocks. Somewhere along the way he had jismed himself, but the codpiece hid it. Then he noticed Callia smirking down at him, and realized that his accident was known to her - and that it wasn’t an accident from her point of view. “Get up, you lazy flatfoot stallion,” she said, “There’s currying for you to do.” But she seemed content to look down at him, smiling a superior smile.

“I don’t think he can get up yet,” Idalia put in judiciously. “We were properly merciless, and it takes a little while to recover from that.”

Mikos sat up, and the two centaurs reached down to help him stand. He saw Alexi and Photus stand as well, still shaky from their tickle-torment. But the tickling was finished, and the men had only the ordinary duties of males on Nike Gyna. They would curry the female centaurs, and serve them bread, wine, and cheese, and otherwise obey them as tradition required on this holiday. Then in the morning they would return to Sillon, and Timon Blacktail and the other two male centaurs held captive by the village women would come back here to the centaur Land.

Mikos would not come back here. He could forgive his sister: It was a good trick for Nike Gyna, trading him to the female centaurs. But only once. He wasn’t crazy like Alexi. He would stay on the human side of the border, and Callia would lose her bet with Rhete.

The moon would be full that night, but it was still morning when Mikos came to the old tree and old stone that marked the border of the centaur Land. He paused only to take the coil of rope that hung from one of the tree’s broken limbs, and crossed into the centaur Land.

A few moments later, he heard the clip-clop of centaur hoofsteps coming toward him on the path. He swallowed, but it was too late to turn back now. He had already crossed the border and invoked the Prophesy. Rhete came into view, and smiled when she saw him. “Mikos! What are you doing here?”

“I’m going to tell Callia that she won her bet with you. So stop looking so happy.”

Rhete embraced Mikos. “Just because we’re merciless to foreigners doesn’t mean we’re not glad to see them. Not when they’re friends.”

Mikos hugged back. “I know,” he said.

“I was going to Sillon see your sister, but that can wait.”

“I know,” Mikos repeated. He handed to coil of rope to Rhete and spoke the formal words: “I surrender myself to the law and custom of the Kentaros.” He held out his arms, and Rhete tied his wrists. Then with the loose end of the rope, she led him off to the stocks.