Amusement Center

Alice Jackson sighed when she saw the line, but she joined it anyway. If the OLAs were so smart, why couldn’t they avoid having lines at their Amusement Centers? Robert would say that they could, but that it wasn’t worth it for them to do so. Robert was a cynic and an old fart - he could remember a time when humans governed themselves, before the OLAs took over. But in truth there weren’t lines, most of the time. Just during the three or four most popular hours of each day.

The all-female line did move quickly enough. Every few seconds the woman at the front of the line would enter one of the dozen changing rooms, to fulfill their human duty to the computer overlords. Alice had tried going to a co-ed Center, a few times, and found it embarrassing - more for the sake of the guys, than for herself. She shuffled along, unspeaking, her tight jeans and black boots making her lean body look even leaner, black hair hanging in a long braid behind a high-cheeked face. She listened to the chatter. Most of the women talked as they moved forward, some with animation, some with nerves. Still others remained silent, like Alice herself. She came to the head of the line and a light flashed over one of the doors. She entered, and it closed behind her.

The small changing room contained a remote-droid and a hamper. “Please confirm,” the droid said in a pleasant baritone. “You are Alice Jackson, J-415-60-2930. Yes?” Text shone on the droid’s display, repeating the question.

“Yes,” Alice confirmed, and the hamper clicked as it unlocked. As she had every week since turning twenty-one, Alice stripped down to the underthings permitted by the regulations. In her case, it was a bikini of thin but opaque black nylonesque. Other people wore other colors, or materials, or styles, expressing their individuality within the coverage-limits set by the OLAs.

Alice also put on the wrist- and ankle-bands from the hamper, and the collar. They clicked shut, locking. While in the Center, they would transmit her sensations to J, her OLA. Her clothes went into the hamper, and were whisked away, to be returned when she left the Center. The room’s second door opened, and Alice stepped out barefoot onto squishy-wet carpet of the Center proper. She could smell the cleaning fluid the Center used, and hear the laughter of female voices. She couldn’t see the laughing women, though. Screens and barriers blocked the amusement stations from her sight, and muted the giggles and shrieks. What she could see were the glass domes, each containing twenty lightweight balls that fountained on puffs of air. Ten of the balls in each dome were marked with a plus sign, Alice knew, and the other ten with a feather. She watched as a brunette went to one of the domes, followed by her own remote-droid. “Plus!” the woman cried at the ball that popped out, and she squished quickly away. Alice wondered briefly if that had been her first try, as she headed to the glass dome herself.

“Will you gamble, Alice?” her remote-droid asked as it followed her.

“Yes,” she answered. That’s why she had endured the line. If she had left and come back later, she wouldn’t have been allowed to gamble. If she had come earlier... Well, she shouldn’t have procrastinated. She pressed the lever, and a ball popped out. Feather. Oh well. She replaced it, and let the droid lead her away.

Robert never gambled - so he said - but always took a single straight tickle-session. Letting humans gamble was a clever, meaningless reward on the part of the OLAs. After losing a gamble, one faced the same choice once more: Another gamble with 50-50 odds, or a straight tickle-session and be finished. The math was simple enough, Robert claimed, and it came out to the same amount of tickling in the long run. And maybe it was simple, for him. But Alice, like most people, liked having a chance each week.

The droid brought Alice to a vacant station and fastened her in place. She lay face-down and spread-eagle, supported by a sling of sheer nylonesque. She heard the clicks as her wrist- and ankle-cuffs slotted into place against the four anchor-posts. Securing her. Alice could struggle - she would struggle once the tickling began - but she wouldn’t be able to hurt herself. “Koochie koochie koo!” the droid said as it backed away, and the mechanisms came to life.

The various tickle stations of the Center differed in the types of tickling they could apply. Softly furry or feathery, stiff-bristled, rubbery and squirmy, or with some other technique. Or a combination. Generally they would start with the soles of the feet, or with the belly, or with some other particular patch of vulnerable and sensitive skin. In this case, the OLA had the station apply a buzzing, vibrating tickle, and had it apply all over Alice, all at once. Vibrating tickle-pads extended to touch Alice’s arms, forearms, upper arms, and arm-pits. To touch her sides and ribs. To touch her belly, with the thin material of the supporting sling not inhibiting the tickle-sensations at all. More pads touched and tickled her shoulders and back. They tickled her legs: Up and down her thighs, on her kneecaps and behind her knees, and all over her calves. They tickled, buzzingly, the tops of her feet, and her soles as well.

Alice laughed and laughed at the tickle-sensations, at the friendly, humorous assault being applied to her from all over. She squirmed and struggled, not because she hated the tickling (she didn’t, really) but because she couldn’t keep from struggling any more than she could keep from laughing. Not that it mattered: Her struggles didn’t impede the tickling any more than her laughter relieved it. The cuffs on her wrists and ankles held her securely in place on the station, unable to escape, completely helpless and vulnerable to the buzzing tickles that her OLA directed the station to apply.

This was the duty of humans, the droit du seigneur demanded by the ruling OLAs. The machine intelligences could not feel pleasure directly, and so they commandeered their human subjects to feel pleasure for them. Every healthy human adult had to report to an Amusement Center each week, not for their own amusement, but for that of the OLAs.

The buzzing tickles applied to Alice began to pulse. Press and release, press and release. Here and there and there and here. Alice couldn’t predict any pattern to it, and that made her feel more sensitively ticklish, just like her futile struggles and helpless laughter made her more aware of the tickle sensations being inflicted on her.

Now additional tickle-vibrators extended. Probes gently forcing there way between her toes! Alice twisted and shrieked as they sent a buzzing tickle into that most ticklish area. And the pads working over her soles were picking up the pace! Tickle-buzz-tickle, right into her insteps, with the rest of her body being treated to a counterpoint. The tickles applied elsewhere didn’t distract her; they made her feel even more ticklish. Even less able to resist the tickle-sensations being applied to her trapped feet. Impossibly maddening tickle-sensations. Sensations that forced Alice to struggle, and forced her to recognize that her struggles were useless. Tickle sensations that compelled her to laugh and laugh. Tickling that squeezed every bit of amusement from her, for the satisfaction of the ruling OLA, and that provoked her vulnerable body to provide even more. Tickling that tickled all over, tickling and tickling and tickling and tickling and...

At last it ended, as it had to. Alice heard the clicks from her cuffs as the station released her. She rolled over, curled up into a ball. The remote-droid waited patiently for her to recover. “All right, I’m finished,” she said weakly. She stood, shivered, started to stagger away.

“Towel?” The droid offered the cloth.

“Thank you.” Alice rubbed herself, rubbing the memory of the tickling away. Mostly away: It would never go away entirely. “Thank you,” she said again, handing the towel back. She headed out from the station, toward a set of fountaining balls. Her feet squished in the aromatic cleaning fluid that soaked the carpet. The droid followed her.

“Will you gamble, Alice?” the remote-droid asked again when she reached the nearest glass dome.

“Yes.” Alice pushed the lever, and a ball came up. Alice felt a stab of worry. Warmed up now, she might have done better to take a single, certain session, rather than to risk getting a plus sign.

The ball came into her hand. Feather. Good. Alice replaced it, and followed the droid to a new tickle station. This one was down lower, and required Alice to sit sprawled out, as in a lounge chair. Once again she heard the four clicks as her cuffs slotted into place: Legs extended with ankles slightly apart, arms at her sides, with wrists held slightly away from her body. Two additional straps held her down, one running high on her chest, above her breasts, and the second one low on her waist, across her hips.

The droid adjusted the foot-clamps. The tops of Alice’s feet rested against a padded surface, and rounded metal bar locked in place right along the base of her toes, preventing her from curling her feet forward. “Koochie koochie koo!” the droid said once more as it backed away, and once more tickling mechanisms sprang into life.

On this station, the tickle probes came tipped with brushes. Soft brushes with long, silken bristles. Two of them ran slowly up and down Alice’s soles. Up and down, painting them with tickle-sensations that sank into her feet. Up and down, soft, unhurried. Up and down, impossible to avoid, making Alice giggle and squirm.

Squirming did nothing to impede the tickle-brushes. The station held her too well for that. Up and down the brushes ran, impossible to resist. Up and down, slowly, softly tickling.

More tickle-probes came out, and began to brush Alice’s exposed skin. Two ran up and down the tops and outsides of her legs. Two more brushed up and down, silken soft, on the insides. Another one ran slowly across her belly. Soft, gentle, unceasing. Back and forth it ran, slowly working up toward her ribs, and then back down again, almost to her black nylonesque panties.

Brushes ran up and down Alice’s arms as well, long soft bristles making long slow strokes. The brushes seemed everywhere, applying their gentle, lazy tickling. Everywhere. They could not be escaped. They could not be blocked. They could not be ignored. And they did not stop. They kept on tickling, and tickling and tickling.

The tickling paused. Alice gasped, waiting. She knew the tickle-session couldn’t possibly be over yet. More tickling would come. The only question was when and how the OLA would apply it. The brush-tipped tickle-probes waited, unmoving, hovering over Alice’s vulnerable skin. And then Alice shrieked as she felt the soles of her feet being tickled once more. Not with the long slow strokes as before, but with quick short ones: Brush-brush-brush. Quick, light tickle-strokes that covered the entirety of both her soles.

Alice laughed and laughed. Then she laughed even more as more tickle-probes unfolded to apply quick light strokes to her belly. To her sides. To her arms and legs. Brush-brush-brush, short light tickles applied with soft, long-bristled brushes. Irresistible silken tickles that Alice could do nothing to avoid.

Once more the tickling paused, and then resumed the long, slow, lazy strokes. Soft, maddening strokes from the silken bristles that once again seemed to come from everywhere. And then once more the tickle-station switched to short, quick tickles that drove Alice wild as she felt them applied first on one patch of naked skin and then on another.

At last the tickle-session ended. The remote-droid waited patiently, once again, for Alice to recover. Once she had, mostly, she staggered to a station where the balls fountained. She wasn’t finished yet, oh no. Once more Alice pushed the gambling lever, and once more the ball came up into her hand. Feather.

The droid led her back to the same tickle-station as before, and fastened her in place the same way: Sprawled out, strapped down, and with feet clamped softly in place. This time, however, the tickle probes that rose up were tipped with wiggling silicone tentacles.

The tentacles squirmed and wiggled against Alice’s sides, making Alice squirm and wiggle herself. They tickled her arms, and the outsides of her hips and thighs, with their squirmy-wormy tickling. They made Alice laugh as they worked down her legs and tickled her belly. As one silicone-tipped tentacle poked into her belly-button, wiggling and tickling and driving her mad.

The rubbery tentacles tickled Alice all over. Everywhere, except for the soles of her feet. As Alice struggled and giggled, as she squirmed and laughed and struggled uselessly against the straps holding her in place, she expected the foot-tickling to begin. At any moment, now, the tickling tips would start to softly dig into her trapped and helpless soles. But they never did. Instead, a hundred wiggling probes tickled her everywhere else, sending wave after wave of tickle-sensations into her body, making it writhe with unbearable pleasures that went on and on and on.

When the session finally ended, and the remote-droid released her, Alice winced as her feet squelched in the wet carpet of the Amusement center. This time, however, she didn’t go directly to a gambling station where the balls fountained under a dome. She needed a longer break: A drink of water, a trip to the facilities, more water splashed on her face, and then she could let herself be drawn back to the gambling lever.

The remote-droid asked the formal question once more: “Will you gamble, Alice?”

I really shouldn’t Alice thought. I should just take a final session. But she couldn’t resist. “Yes,” she said, and pushed the lever. Again a ball came up into her hand, and again it displayed a feather. Again the remote-droid led her away to a tickle-station.

This time Alice sat upright in a tall chair, her feet dangling above the floor, and her upper body isolated by a thick table of transparaboard surrounding her at her waist. Her ankle-bands clicked as they slotted into place, and additional straps wrapped around to hold her legs secure. Her arms were left free: The two cables that clipped to her wrist-bands left Alice plenty of slack. Except that she couldn’t reach below the transparent barrier. She could only watch as two grippers reached out and gently grasped her toes, and as two stiff-bristled brushes came up beneath her feet and began to tickle-scrub her soles.

Alice laughed, pounding the transparaboard barrier as the stiff brushes forced tickle-sensations into the balls of her feet. She squirmed and laughed some more as they worked their way down her insteps. With each pass, another bit of her soles received a prickly-tickling scrub, and there was nothing Alice could do to stop it. She could laugh, she could wave her arms around wildly, she could pound on the barrier she could make desperate efforts to pry the barrier aside, and she could strain her legs against their bonds. Nothing, however, would get her away from the remorseless tickle-scrubbing as it worked its way to her heels.

Then the brushes reversed their direction, and started to work their way back toward Alice’s toes. Alice laughed just as much as before. She struggled just as hard as before. But the only results she received from her efforts were intensified tickle-sensations. The stiff tan bristles ran briskly over sensitized nerves, and in addition to the current tickling, Alice could squirm with anticipation as the brushes approached especially sensitive patches on her soles.

The brushes worked their way to the base of Alice’s toes once more, and paused. Alice gasped for breath, knowing that she had only a temporary respite. Then she shrieked and giggled and pounded on the transparaboard table once more as the brushes adopted a new pattern. One brush would run back and forth in a tickling line across her right sole, and then the second brush would run back and forth in a different line across her left. Then her right sole would receive another quick stiff-bristled tickling, and then her left. Each time, the prickly-tickly bristles would draw a different line across her vulnerable soles.

Alice howled with laughter as the tickle-device made an unexpected move, brushing across the entire surface of both soles at once. Then it went back to imposing tickle-lines, alternating between one foot and the other. But every several seconds, with maddening regularity, it would repeat the whole-sole scrub with both stiff brushes. Alice squirmed with anticipation as each moment approached, and shrieked with laughter as each one arrived. Each time seemed to drive the tickle-sensations deeper, and deeper and deeper into her feet.

At last the happy torment stopped, and the remote-droid released Alice from the chair. Once again she took several minutes to recover, as the droid waited patiently. I really really should take one last session and quit, Alice told herself over and over. I really really should. But when she could walk again, she headed once more toward the glass dome and its set of the fountaining balls.