A Sorority Initiation

Lieutenant Motogomogor couldn’t grin, and didn’t have ears to prick up or a tail to twitch. But Commander Khof Clan Gmuf could interpret the squid’s tentacle-twitching as well as he could read the body language of a leotaur. And vice versa. It worked that way when two species had been allies for so long.

“What is it, Moto?” Commander Khof asked.

“Lookie here, sir.” The squid’s vocoder settings pushed the edge of what regs allowed. “We got a whiff of scent: A crate of the army’s plasma grenades transferred to a human resistance cell. One with the code-name ‘Tau-Kappa-Lambda’.”

Khof looked over the data. “Seven chances out of eight it’s just a clerical error. Something like a mislabeled crate of junk that the Army sold as surplus.”

“Still a chance to drop some Marines on them, sir,” Motogomogor pointed out.

“And a chance to twit those Army pukes,” Khof agreed. “All right, Moto, call the Sarge and get a team together.

Mary Zhan sat in the back of a ground truck with three other young women. She wasn’t a prisoner of the squidcats, even though the handcuffs she wore prevented her from reaching the blindfold that covered her sharp little nose and the brown eyes that had just a hint of epicanthal fold. Instead she was an applicant, being taken to the initiation ceremony of the Tau Kappa Lambda sorority.

Cygnus Minor had been one of the first human colonies to fall to the squidcats. But that had been over ten years ago. Politically, things had come to a delicate balance, with the occupying leotaurs applying what they called a “sharp claws sheathed” policy. They overlooked some transgressions and cracked down hard on others. The Resistance was now hardly distinguishable from an ordinary (and minor) criminal gang, with the real rebels either held as squidcat POWs or fled off-planet (with a wink and a nod from the occupiers) to join the Terran Forces.

Everyday life had mostly returned to normal. Including university life, where the initiation ceremonies of the fraternities and sororities when on as they had for ages.

The ground-truck stopped, somewhere in the woodlands. Mary could smell the scent of maplenut trees. Blindfolds were removed by the driver, a sorority sister who now wore a black domino mask. She let the applicants out to stand in front of a neat little cottage, surrounded by native maplenuts and imported terran oaks. The door was shut, and the windows curtained.

The masked sister unlocked the handcuffs on the first applicant, a dusky-skinned coed with long black hair. “Dievana Portski,” the sister said formally. “Do you dare the initiation into our sisterhood?”

“I do,” Dievana Portski answered.

“Then strip to your skin, and enter the door.”

The dark young woman removed her clothes, shoes and socks first at a word from the masked sister. Then, nude and barefoot, she walked to the cottage’s door, opened it, and entered. It closed behind her, and the others heard a shriek, followed by the sound of laughter that was suddenly cut off.

Next through the door was Elizabeth Smith, short, golden-skinned, and exotic-eyed. Then Kuana Brown, whose name was the only thing brown about her: Blue-eyed, with silver-pale skin and gold-white hair in a braid. And finally it was Mary’s turn.

“Mary Zhan,” the masked sister said. “Do you dare the initiation into our sisterhood?”

“I do,” Mary answered. Quickly, before she could change her mind.

“Then strip to your skin, and enter the door.” The sister leaned against the ground-truck to watch.

Mary removed her shoes and socks, her pants and bouse, and in less than a minute stood nude and barefoot. Brown-haired and pink-skinned, she was perhaps the best endowed of the four applicants. She stepped to the door, opened it, and went inside.

Just to her left she saw a doorway covered with a sound-blocking energy curtain that shimmered dully. To her right stood another sister, again wearing a domino mask, but also a plasticky black coverall. Beside her was a military storage crate. Mary could read squidcat: “Plasma grenades, M65, 96 units,” it read, but the label was marked out. And the black sphere the sister lifted from the crate was not a grenade.

The tee-pod hit Mary right between her breasts with a rubbery squelch. It instantly unfolded, its tendrils wrapping around her nude body. Two more sorority sisters, also dressed in black plastic coveralls, caught her as she fell, and took her through the sound-screened doorway. Mary was already beginning to laugh as they caught her, as the tee-pod’s tentacles began to softly poke and tease the soles of her bare feet and the sensitive skin of her bare belly.

The sorority laid her on a cot, the last of four they had set up for this initiation. The other three applicants lay in the other cots, laughing madly, with straps holding them in place, and with their tee-pods encasing them mummy-style with only their heads, feet and bellies showing.

The tee-pods tickled the four applicants just as they had been created to do. Leotaur explorers had discovered the psi-active ancestors of the creatures, and squid genetic engineers had modified them for the purpose of pacifying human prisoners. Their psionic senses allowed them to tickle most effectively, directing tentacles to the sensitively ticklish spots on the victim’s feet and stomach. Then, as the tickling and forced laughter softened the victim’s psychic defenses, it implanted temporary calming and pacifying suggestions in the victim’s mind. The squidcats considered this a much more civilized method of holding captives than the use of metal cages and armed guards.

The sorority sisters, however, were more concerned with the tee-pod’s tickling power than with their pacifying effects. And that tickling power was proving more than adequate. Mary saw them grin and exchange gestures of triumph as she laughed and laughed under the merciless tentacle-teasing. A dozen tentacles at least were exploring her bare belly, stroking and wiggling around and around her belly button and occasionally reaching within it. More tentacles gripped her toes, holding them firmly so that her soles were helpless. And yet more tentacles took advantage of that helplessness: Stroking, wiggling, flicking with light quick touches over her insteps and the balls of her feet, her heels and the pads of her toes.

On the next cot the tee-pod encasing Dievana Portski applied a different tickle-strategy. The tentacles around the edges of her dark-skinned belly marched in toward her belly button and then out again. In, and then out, again, and again and again.

Likewise, the tentacles progressed in a steady rhythmic fashion across the soles of her feet. They started at her heels and worked their way up, making Dievana shriek as they moved over her insteps and giggle uncontrollably as they crossed the balls of her feet on the way to the tips of her toes.

Likewise with Elizabeth Smith and Kuana Brown: The tee-pods, guided by their psionic senses, would apply quick and slow tickles, short and long strokes, light and heavy touches, all aimed at producing the maximum tickle effect from their victims. The four applicants lay strapped to the cots in the little room, unable to escape, or avoid, or resist the teasing touches being inflicted upon them. Four voices filled the room with uncontrollable laughter as the four tee-pods fulfilled their function, and tickled, and tickled, and tickled.

“The initiation will last until the tee-pods are exhausted,” Kuana Brown heard one of the sorority sisters say. But that voice was a distant thing in a universe filled with giggles. Giggles as the tee-pod encasing her applied slow curving strokes across the soles of her feet and the pale skin of her stomach. More giggles as a group of tentacles would suddenly apply a quick and vigorous burst of tickling to a random patch of belly-skin or to an unpredictable location on one of her feet. Hysterical giggling as the tee-pod would suddenly apply a total tickle experience to the entire soles of both feet, or to her whole belly at once. Or to both at once. And then the tentacles would resume their slow, lazy, unending tickling, leaving Kuana giggling as she waited for the next burst.

In contrast, Elizabeth Smith suffered from a steady tickling. Her almond eyes were screwed shut as she laughed and howled. The tentacles at her ankles raked the soles of her dainty feet with implacable vigor, while those around her stomach danced lightly over the golden skin exposed there, applying fleeting tickle-touches. Elizabeth couldn’t decide which was worse. If she tried to ignore the delicate teasing of her belly, her attention was drawn to the wild-boiling stimulation of her soles. And if she tried to ignore the tickling of her feet, she couldn’t help but focus on the light but maddeningly persistent tickling of her stomach.

Thus the initiation proceeded: A short enough tickle-session for the three Tau Kappa Lambda sisters running it this year, but a seeming eternity of maddening, teasing, tickling sensation for the four initiates.

At last the tickle-initiation came to an end. The tee-pods dropped away, exhausted. Humans have great endurance compared to other star-fairing species, and the squidcats would normally use a series of tee-pods on human POWs. But for this sorority initiation, a single tee-pod was enough.

The driver who had brought them here took off her domino mask. “Congratulations, sisters,” Min McDonald said (for that was her name). “You are now part of Tau Kappa Lambda. You can put your clothes back on now. It’s time to party!”

The two other sisters, their own domino masks removed, brought in jugs of brandy-tea and bowls of chips. Min turned on some music. Then the Marines crashed the party.

The sonic curtain gave a sad whine and died as a precise shot took out the generator. This was followed by an amplified voice speaking badly accented Anglo-Standard: “THIS IS COMMANDER KHOF CLAN GMUF OF THE ALLIANCE NAVY. MARINES HAVE SURROUNDED YOUR POSITION. SURRENDER NOW.”

Mary Zheng stood barefoot in the white-tiled prison room along with the other six sorority sisters of Tau Kappa Lambda. They all were dressed in the gauzy pastel pajamas the squidcats had issued them, and glanced uneasily at the tracks and machinery mounted out of reach on the ceiling above.

“It will take a day or two to confirm your IDs,” Commander Khof had told the sorority sisters. “Until then you will be treated as honorable POWs.” He showed his teeth in a deliberately human-style grin. “And you’ve already proven your ability survive that.”

That had been yesterday. That afternoon and evening, Mary and her sorority sisters had been subjected to five tee-pod sessions each, and this morning they had gone through three more. Now they’d been called in to listen to an announcement, standing meekly below the tee-pod projectors that had already thoroughly pacified them.

“This will be an initiation to remember,” Mary joked.

“I’ve already had my initiation,” Mim grumbled. “I didn’t need another one.”

“Well, we’re getting it anyway,” someone else said.

They fell silent at the faint hum of the speaker system turning on. “Good news, ladies,” Commander Khof said in his accented Anglo-Standard. “I have advance word on your release. It should arrive just after this next session.”

Mary and the others groaned - a groan cut short as the tee-pod projector above went pooft. Laughter began as tendrils wrapped mummy-like around the female prisoners, and tickling tentacles sought out sensitive stomachs and soles.