The Gambling Stocks

Zee Rasravnoval smiled nervously as she was locked into the stocks. It was her first day at Yerch’s, and unlike the other women sitting there smug and barefoot, she was unrated. Which was why the bounceman put only a hundred quarter-credits in her pot. He gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Break your horns,” he told her, giving a traditional good-luck wish. “A Joe ship has just offloaded its cargo, and the joes should be arriving soon.”

Zee could have told him that the proper term for “joe” was human - that’s what that species called itself - but she didn’t bother. She was a university student, who had taken this job at the groundport Yerch’s for the spending money. Instead she lifted a blue-skinned hand to run through her white hair, and scratch the itch on her right antenna-horn. The cable attached to her wrist unreeled to allow this; it would not lock down until a patron came and paid for a tickle-gamble.

She listened to the other women’s idle chitchat. Like Zee, they had their bare feet locked in the gambling stocks, their ankles held with a security that would defy Hothcort’s greatest escape artists. These gambling stocks, however, were far more comfortable than the traditional ones used by the ancients, and the seats were positively cushy. Yerch’s, after all, wanted to make it as easy as possible for them to avoid crying edloc - mercy.

Joe Parry stepped off the shuttle and checked the site map. He had four hours of liberty here at Hothcort Main Groundport, and he had plans for the whole time. The first order of business, however, was to deal with his own personal superstition, and drop a wad of credits gambling. Yerch’s Gambling Halls were a franchise, here, and the groundport had three of them. The closest one was - yes. He made a beeline in that direction.

Less than five minutes later, he pushed through a set of anti-sonic curtains. “You feel lucky Joe?” a female voice called. He grinned at the venusian nymph who had spoken, and she wiggled her bare blue feet at him. “Feel lucky Joe?” she repeated. She didn’t know him, of course - they called all human males ‘Joe.’ Just as humans called them ‘venusian nymphs’ even though that wasn’t their own name for themselves.

“You feel lucky Joe?” the other nymphs called. There were ten of them locked in the gambling stocks, plus a bounceman to watch over them. Joe traded nods with the male venusian and stuck his credcard in the coin machine, filling his coin bag with one-credit pieces. Then he examined each female in turn. Things would change in a half-hour, as more crewers arrived on liberty, but at the moment he had the place to himself.

Each of the female nymphs was young and pretty, of course, with blue skin, long white hair worn in braids or tied back in a tail, and antenna-horns growing from the tops of their heads, rather than ears on the sides. They wore skimpy translucent tops that displayed their breasts rather than concealing them, slightly more substantial panties, and little else. They wiggled their bare feet at him, inviting him to try his luck with the tickling implements invitingly laid out. Each also had a rating displayed, along with a pot size. Except for the one unrated nymph, whose pot was of course the smallest. Still... Joe hooked a stool with his boot, and sat down in front of her bare feet.

Zee forced herself to smile and wiggle her feet when the joe - the male human - sat down in front of her. “Are you feeling lucky, Joe?” she asked, trying to sound confident despite her nerves.

“Yes,” the man answered, and dumped a fistful of one-credit pieces into the coin hopper. “You’re new here,” he observed, and she nodded. His eyebrows went up, in his putty-colored face with those strange ear things on each side. “You speak Anglic?” he asked.

“A little. Some.” she admitted.

“Well, all you need to say is ‘mercy’ - ‘edloc’ in your own language.”

“No. Never.” Much more boldly than she felt. He didn’t answer, but just punched the button to drop the first coin. The timer started, and he picked up the red-brush.

Fancy gambling places had force-fields or other barriers that protected the victims’ feet until payment was made. Yerch’s just had an alarm that would go off it the patrons touched anything without first paying. Fancy places also had tickle-nymphs with ratings in the double digits. A high rating meant that the gamblers were provided with a variety of implements to stimulate the bare soles, and with sophisticated means of holding those soles in place to receive that stimulation. Yerch’s had only the simplest foot-restraints, or none at all beyond the ankle-holding stocks, and a much smaller variety of tickle-implements. In the case of an unrated tickle-nymph, like Zee, the tickle-gambler had only a single red-brush, and his hands.

Zee felt a hand grasp her right foot, and the soft touch of the red-brush on her instep. She tried not to, but she couldn’t help giggling. She felt the cables attached to her wrists retract and lock, making her feel even more helpless. And even more ticklish. The tickling felt good, though, despite the way it forced her to squirm.

Like 85% of all v’hovin females, Zee found tickling pleasurable. She had made sure she wasn’t one of the minority who didn’t before applying to Yerch’s, and Yerch’s had made sure she wasn’t one of the minority before accepting her. However, all females have a point where the pleasure of tickling becomes unbearable, where they cannot keep themselves from crying ‘edloc!’ What tickle-gamblers bet on was the speed with which they could reach that point.

Joe grinned with his own pleasure as he applied a constant, gentle tickling to the helpless feet before him. Every so often another coin would drop down, keeping the timer going and reducing the ultimate payout by another credit, but he refused to let himself be rushed. He had only the one red-brush, but he applied it expertly, methodically painting each pale blue sole in turn, from heel to instep, from instep to ball, and from ball to the tips of the toes (and between them) and back again.

He heard the other nymphs call “Feel lucky, Joe?” as more patrons entered the gambling hall, and then laughter and giggling as those patrons tried their own luck. He ignored it, concentrating on his own nymph. A little bit more, and it would be time to change the tempo - and force her to cry for mercy.

Zee squirmed and giggled uncontrollably. The soft, continuous brushing over her helpless soles felt good. Far too good for her to have endured without her feet locked in place. This Joe, this human, was skilled - much better at tickling than the friend that Zee had recruited for her first test, and better even than the manager who had tested her before hiring her for Yerch’s. This human used only the red-brush, one hand holding her toes while the other applied a continuous touch that seemed to send tickle-tendrils halfway up her legs. And with each stroke, she felt herself grow more sensitive. She struggled harder now than when the tickling began, but just as uselessly: The stocks and the wrist-restraints held her just as perfectly as she knew they would, leaving her vulnerable to the tickle-gambler’s attentions.

Soon the tickling would become too sweet to endure. She would have no choice but to cry for mercy, just as she now had no choice but to laugh. She hoped to hold out for a while longer, though: If she held out long enough, she would earn a bonus, and the longer she resisted the bigger the bonus would be. Besides, despite her current, uncontrollable struggles to escape, she did not want this to end.

Now Joe thought. The nymph had resisted for longer than he had expected, and he’d had to throw in additional handfuls of coins to keep the timer running. The pot he would win when she surrendered would barely cover what he had already spent, but he sensed that she was at last ready for the final push that would have her cry edloc.

He set aside the red-brush and, still holding onto her toes with his left hand, began to flick his right fingers quickly, lightly, over her pale blue soles. Each flick came quickly, that is, but he paused between them, timing himself to give no more than one stroke per second. After thirty such strokes he’d dig his fingers in for a rapid and vigorous tickle, and then resume the slow tickling. One round of this might be enough to push her over the edge, and certainly she’d have to surrender after two or three cycles.

Zee didn’t know how she was still managing to resist. That fiendish human was using his fingers alone, now, and his excruciatingly pleasant touch made her feel as if her entire being was located in her feet. And that the rest of the universe consisted entirely of tickling. The laughter and useless struggles of the rest of her body only seemed to add to her sensitivity, but if she tried to hold still it only made the tickle-touch feel impossibly intense. So she giggled and laughed and fought her bonds, profoundly aware of the touch of those odd-colored fingers as their tempo went from slow, to fast to slow again. Each time the cycle repeated, she was sure that she’d have to give in. And each time she managed, somehow, to hold back the cry for mercy.

Joe tossed in another handful of credit pieces and turned back to the tickling. He’d lost count of the number of slow-fast cycles he’d put the nymph through, and he wondered what was keeping her going. She must be half-mad by now. Yet a part of him was glad that she resisted so heartily; he was enjoying this, and didn’t want it to end.

If it weren’t for that, he would have just quit and walked away. He had already spent much more than the pot was worth. He considered it, and realized that he couldn’t quit tickling this nymph any more than she could stop the tears of laugher from running down her cheeks. Still, it was time to change his tactics once again. He released her toes, and the fingers of both his hands began to tickle both her feet at once, running over every bit of sensitized sole.

Zee screamed with laughter as the final tickling began. It was too much, too much. She was drowning in sugar-syrup. She would explode with the pleasure of it. She had to give in.

It took only a second or two to breathe in enough air to speak the words, but each second seemed to drag on like an hour. “Edloc!” she cried at last. “Edloc! Mercy! Edloc! Edloc! Edloc!”

The tickling stopped. The human Joe leaned back, grinning like a demon. The pot tipped spilling out the quarter-credit coins. The bounceman stepped forward. “Good job!” he told the human in Anglic, before releasing Zee from the stocks for her legally mandated (and much needed) break.

Joe scooped the quarter-credit coins into his coin bag. He had spent over twice the pot’s value in order to win it, but that was part of the game. The important thing was that he had fulfilled the requirement of his own private superstition - and that he had enjoyed himself in the process.

“Good job!” he heard the bounceman tell him. “You try with another, eh?”

“Later,” Joe grinned back, the two males sharing the teeth-bearing gesture universal among humanoids. “Got other things to do first. But I’ll be back.” He gave the bounceman and the nymph a casual salute, and stepped out through the anti-sonic curtain. The sounds of laughter behind him were cut off. He looked up at the Yerch’s sign glittering above. “Yes,” he said aloud. “I’ll be back.”

Zee returned from her break and let the bounceman lock her, once again, into the gambling stocks. This time, though, he filled her pot with one-credit pieces, and laid out three different implements by her trapped feet. She now had a rating. The tickle-gamblers would pay more to test her resistance, and would win a bigger pot when she cried mercy. But if she could hold out, her bonus would be bigger too.

Another Joe - human - walked in through the anti-sonic curtain, and started looking at the blue-skinned women held on display. She wiggled her bare feet at him. “Hey Joe, you feel lucky?”

fin