Elarra’s New Year Tickle

“I am going to tickle you silly,” Master Tilborn said for the second time that morning.

“Yes, please master!” Elarra agreed eagerly.

Elarra was glad to hear her master’s words, and not just because she enjoyed being tickled silly. They also meant that Master Tilborn was cheering up again. The week after Yule was always the most melancholy time of the year, and this year it had hit Master Tilborn particularly hard.

The first time he had spoken those words this morning, they had both been naked in the washtub, taking a morning bath. Elarra was still naked, although now well tied, with ropes binding her ankles, her legs, her wrists behind her back, and her arms to her sides. She lay face-down in the sling Master Tilborn had set up, suspended and supported by its clinging silk, silk thin enough for Master Tilborn to tickle right through it.

Master Tilborn now wore a pair of string-tied trousers. No shirt at the moment – and no shoes either, as halflings didn’t wear those. Elarra could feel him tie her large toes together with a thinner cord, even if she couldn’t see him at the moment. Her green feet were nearly as large as those of a halfling woman, but much more tender. Master Tilborn understood this, and he would apply his tickle-tools accordingly. Among halflings, the whisk broom was the symbol of tickling, rather than the feather, and while Master Tilborn and Elarra both knew that he could tickle her with a whisk broom, they also knew that a feather would generally work better.

Stepping around back into Elarra’s view, Master Tilborn squatted to give her a kiss. He caressed her ears and tweaked her slave collar, reminding her of its presence. Elarra’s long ears and green skin marked her as a goblin, and her collar marked her as a slave wench, the only sort of goblin allowed in the Furfoot Counties.

“Perhaps I should gag you as well,” Master Tilborn suggested lightly.

“Whatever master wishes,” Elarra answered in the same spirit. She didn’t think he would gag her – he usually didn’t – but occasionally he surprised her. If he did, this time, it might be a sign of his cheering up again.

But Master Tilborn shook his head after a moment’s consideration, and gave Elarra’s ears another caress. He moved out of Elarra’s sight again, and she heard him pull up a stool. Then she felt his tease on her bare and helpless soles.

It was a slow tickle. Elarra felt her master’s fingertips moving, slow and straight, tracing a lazy path from her heels to her down-pointing toes. Then she felt them again. And again. Elarra felt him use both hands at once, stroking her bare soles in unison, and making her squirm and giggle. The strokes kept coming at just the right tempo to keep her at a giggle-simmer, with a tickle that neither faded nor grew stronger. It was too slow and soft to be a raking tickle, but it was still entirely effective. The same stroke came again and again, tickling. Tickling. And tickling.

There was no escape. The ropes and the clinging silk kept Elarra in place, vulnerable to her master’s fingers. Not that she wanted to escape. She had to try, just as she had to laugh, under that tickle-touch, but any success in escaping would be a disappointment. The best tickles were the ones she was made to hold still for, and the sling accomplished this. It had a sort of semi-stock that held her ankles, and along with binding ropes, the clinging silk of the sling easily contained her wiggles. Her soles were together, side by side, and perfectly presented for whatever delightful tickle Master Tilborn chose to inflict on them.

At the moment Master Tilborn was choosing to inflict a straight and lazy tickle. And to inflict it again and again. He kept up that slow and simmering tempo, allowing each touch of his fingers to sink into the green soles of the goblin wench he owned. It was a tickle that could last forever, or at least for as long as Elarra could squirm and giggle.

Elarra loved it. Then again she loved all sorts of tickling, especially when the tickles came from the fingers and toys of her Master Tilborn. The last session had been before Yule – well before Yule, it seemed, and she had missed this. It was an accomplishment for slavegirls to love being helplessly tickled. Especially goblin slavegirls from Cheetpinkiz Mountain. Or so Elarra would have said back when Master Tilborn had purchased her there. Since her arrival in the Furfoot Counties, she had learned that it was a more general female accomplishment.

And Master Tilborn enjoyed tickling her. He wouldn’t have been nearly so good at it if he didn’t.

Elarra felt a subtle change in the tickling of her helpless soles, from slow straight strokes in unison to slow straight strokes that alternated. Elarra giggled each time she felt that light and lazy touch run from heel to toes, first on her left sole and then on her right. And then on her left sole again. Again and again. She giggled because it tickled. It tickled and tickled, as Master Tilborn expertly kept her at that pleasant simmer, squirming, giggling, and occasionally making some other little happy noise.

The tickle-strokes paused, and Elarra heard the wooden stool shift as Master Tilborn stood. Then she felt the tickle-strokes again, on her legs now, instead of her soles. She felt the touch of Master Tilborn’s fingers as they tickled the exposed backs of her legs from above, and as they tickled their fronts through the silk of the sling. She giggled. Her master kept her giggling with those same slow, straight, steady strokes that had teased her soles so wonderfully.

“Tickle tickle tickle!” Master Tilborn now said, and Elarra’s giggling broke briefly into a full laugh.

The “tickle-tickle-tickle” did not linger on Elarra’s legs. She felt Master Tilborn’s fingers move on. She felt them running up and down to tease her bare spine, and back and forth to tickle her belly through the silk. And wherever those master-fingers touched, they tickled, keeping Elarra squirming and giggling.

Master Tilborn came back into Elarra’s view as he sat on the floor beneath her. He reached up to tickle through the silk of the sling with both hands. His fingers continued the same slow straight strokes as before, now up and down her sides, and now back and forth across her belly. He applied long strokes, tickling softly through the silk, starting at Elarra’s breasts and continuing down past her belly-button. Again and again those lazy tickle strokes came. And again and again and again, making Elarra giggle and giggle and giggle, a goblin slavegirl helplessly trapped in her master’s tickle-sling.

Master Tilborn stood up again. He gave Elarra’s ears a quick caress, brushed the hair out of her face, and bent to display his next implement to her with a grin.

It was a feather, a good stiff goose-wing feather.

“And what do you think of this, Elarra?” Master Tilborn asked. “It’s a small gift from the Radishworths; from their Yule goose.”

“Yes, please master!” Elarra answered.

Master Tilborn shook his head in mock disapproval. “You are having entirely too much fun, here, Elarra.”

“I certainly hope so, master.”

A smile twitched on Master Tilborn’s lips. He gave Elarra another ear-caress and moved her long dark hair again, this time to expose the back of her neck. Elarra then felt the feather tip touch there: Just above her slave collar, just below it, and right underneath it.

This was a squeaky squealing sort of tickle, and Elarra squeaked and squealed. Her master wasn’t just making her aware of her slave collar; he was teasing her with that awareness. Elarra knew he was grinning as he did so, without having to see it. She could feel that grin in the feather.

The feather-tip moved on, meandering down Elarra’s back and along her secured arms. Then, instead of moving on to the backs of her legs, it attacked from below as Master Tilborn sat on the floor with a thump. The feather-tip meandered and twisted, touching Elarra through the silk, and that silk did nothing to block that tickling tease on her breast and sides and belly.

By now Elarra was happily tickle-drunk. She couldn’t escape that feather-tip, she couldn’t keep from laughing as its tickle-sensations sank into her green skin, and she wanted more.

The goose-feather tickled Elarra’s legs now, both on the bare skin above and through the silk below. It moved toward her ankles, threatening her bare feet. Promising to tickle her bare feet. It paused only briefly as Master Tilborn moved his stool back into position.

Then Elarra felt Master Tilborn address her soles. Her bare soles, helpless to resist the touch of his feather. The tip flicked and circled and curved with confident touch, tickling and making Elarra giggle, tickling and making Elarra squirm, and tickling and making Elarra laugh. The whisk-broom might be the icon of the tickle among halflings, but Master Tilborn was an expert with the feather, too.

The irresistible tickle sensations sank into Elarra’s feet. Not just through her soles, but through the tops of her feet as well. Master Tilborn didn’t need to seek out especially sensitive spots. He had given Elarra the happy tickle, and now every spot on her helpless feet was specially ticklish. No matter where that feather tip now touched and teased, it made Elarra laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh. Because it tickled, and tickle-tickled, and tickle-tickle-tickled. All over Elarra’s bare feet.

At last Master Tilborn said, “You’ve had enough of this, Elarra.”

“Enough, master?” Elarra felt a pang of disappointment. But then she always did when Master Tilborn ended the tickle; she always wanted just a bit more.

Except this time Master Tilborn was teasing. “Enough of this… feather,” he said, and Elarra could hear the grin in his voice.

She felt him massage her feet, in a way that didn’t tickle at all – but that did set them up for a new tickle to come.

“I still have one or two more toys I want to use,” he continued. “In particular, that cherryoak fork I’ve been working on. It’s ready now, and I’ve brought it in from the workshop.”

“Oh!” Elarra said. She knew that wooden fork, even if she hadn’t felt it yet. Crafted by a tribe of dark elves who lived in the Middle Forest, it was made of black cherryoak, a wood known to readily take magical enhancements. When Master Tilborn had acquired it, its prongs had been pointy, as the fork was intended as a prickly tickle-toy for use on halfling soles, and he had refused to use it on Elarra until he had sanded and rounded its prongs to his satisfaction. Then the week after Yule had come. If he was willing to use it now, that was a good sign, a sign he was cheering up from his melancholy.

Master Tilborn didn’t say, “Let me know if this doesn’t tickle.” So Elarra didn’t say, “I’m sure it will be fine, master.” Instead she waited silently for the new tickle to begin.

It came as a pokey tickle on Elarra’s green feet. Not a prickly tickle, but a dancing one; not sharp, but round. Then it became a soft rake down Elarra’s soles, heels to toes, heels to toes, heels to toes. Like her master’s fingers before, but quicker. Sometimes the touch was light, and made Elarra giggle. Sometimes the touch was vigorous, and made Elarra laugh. But light or vigorous, it made Elarra squirm. Because it felt wonderful.

The fork move on to tickle legs and arms, back and belly. To tickle a well-secured Elarra who had to hold still for it, no matter how much she squirmed. She had to squirm, just as she had to giggle. She was glad she couldn’t escape, even though she had to try. Her useless struggles against the ropes binding her, against the clinging silk of the sling, and against the semi-stocks locking her ankles made the tickling all the sweeter.

Master Tilborn moved back to Elarra’s feet, and again Elarra could only squirm and laugh and laugh and happily squirm. She felt herself becoming even more tickle-drunk. She didn’t have to tell Master Tilborn that his cherryoak fork didn’t tickle. It tickled lots. It tickled wonderfully.

The tickle-raking slowed in tempo. Rake. Rake. Rake. And each rake tickled. Master Tilborn was drawing it out, as he teased her soles, soles held in place by the semi-stocks locking Elarra’s ankles and the cord tying her two large toes. Rake. Rake. Rake. And each rake forced a giggle. Sometimes the raking stroke wiggled, and sometimes it passed crosswise across her soles, instead of up and down. But each stroke was an expert stroke, a stroke that teased Elarra’s green soles from heels to toes, a stroke that sank those tickle-sensations deep into her feet, and a stroke that provoked a laugh.

The tickling paused. “Catch your breath, Elarra,” she heard her master say. “I have something else to try, but catch your breath first.”

“Yes, master.”

Elarra obeyed, catching her breath as she waited for that next tickle. She hoped it would be a good long one.

Master Tilborn came around to show her his next tickle-toy. It was a brush, a broad paint-brush softened with use. It wasn’t the old one he had used many times before – that one had gotten lost, somehow – but rather a replacement that he had found somewhere.

He then showed that he knew how to use it, as he tickle-painted Elarra from her collar down to her ankles. He didn’t linger on any particular location, but made a point of tickle-painting his goblin wench all over. The soft strokes tickled Elarra’s arms and back, and her breasts and belly, where the silk of the sling did not stop the teasing sensations at all. He tickled her sides and her legs with those soft giggly tickles. Then Elarra felt Master Tilborn settle in to give her feet a thorough tickling.

Elarra felt the soft, teasing sensations sink into her soles. They sank into her feet from all over, as Master Tilborn tickle-painted the tops of her feet as well.

“Yes,” Master Tilborn’s voice said from the far side of that tickling. “This is good. Tickle tickle tickle!”

“Yes master!” Elarra gasped. “Hehehehehee!”

Elarra loved it. Maybe it was her tickle-drunk, but this felt like the best tickle. It felt so good to be made to squirm helplessly in her master’s ropes. And it felt good to make her master happy. He needed that cheering up, after the dull days that followed Yule, and now he was getting it.

“Heeheeheehahaheeheeheee!” Elarra said.

“Tickle tickle tickle!” Master Tilborn answered cheerfully.

The tickle-brush tickled Elarra’s toes, and her soles. It tickled her heels and the tops and sides of her soft green feet. Master Tilborn kept tickling them, and kept tickling them, and kept tickling them as Elarra squirmed and giggled and laughed and squeaked. Completely tickle-drunk now. Completely and happily tickle-drunk in a way she had not felt since the last tickle session. The one before Yule.

The dwarf-clock chimed, in the other room. Had it been only an hour? No, less than an hour; the clock had chimed before while Master Tilborn was locking the semi-stocks. It felt as if it had been longer. But Elarra still wanted more. More tickle!

She heard the sound of the brush being set aside, and of Master Tilborn’s voice from beyond her feet. “You’ve had enough now, Elarra.” But this time he wasn’t teasing, the way he had with the feather. This tickle really was over.

Elarra did still want more, even though she knew that it was the tickle-drunk talking. But if the tickling had ended, she wanted to be untied now. She got that wish at least; she felt her master untie her toes, and she wiggled her feet in relief as he began to work on the other knots securing her.

Master Tilborn’s hands felt cheerful to Elarra as he untied those knots, and that pleased her. It was good that his after-Yule melancholy had finally ended. Then she realized, with a shock, that her melancholy had ended too. That Master Tilborn had been worried about her during the gloomy days after Yule. But she was blissfully tickle-drunk now, from this first tickling of the New Year, and that pleased her Master Tilborn.