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Bump closed up the paddock and sighed. The work was all done. He reached into his back pocket for his chew -
Instead of the round can, there was a familiar rectangle.
He stopped in his tracks.
"No, dammit," he complained, making a face. Then he sighed again and went looking for Rufus Yancey.

Yeah, the latest fuckbuddy of his happy boss was already in the truck. Yancey saw Bump and beckoned him over.
"She's not doing too well," he told Bump, getting behind the wheel. "I won't be back tonight. Or tomorrow either." Then he started the truck.
"Aw, hell," Bump said - and not 'cause of Miz Richey being that sick. There was a pack of smokes in his back pocket, and he knew just what that meant. Dance had him for a whole day, maybe two.
"Bump," Rufus yelled over the roar - he always had to gun it at first, just to keep the truck running - "you need anything?"
I wanna go with you, he thought, and not be alone here. But somebody had to see to the horses. "Nope. Thanks."
"I'll bring ya back some caramels," Rufus hollered.
"Hey," and his boss pointed at him. That meant he was serious. "No more'n three beers at a time. You know how you get."
"Okay," he sighed. "I hope she's feelin' not too bad."
Yancey's face softened a little. "Me too. Thanks. Later on."
And then they left. "Son of a bitch," Bump said to himself, waving. "I'm in for it again."

He turned and started walking to old bunkhouse, way on the other side of the pasture. "Didn't even come up with anything I gotta do. Just kick back, spend the whole damn time layin' around, Bump..."
The ranch was on its last legs. Mister Richey had passed on five, six years ago now, and his boy Rudy had been the real rancher in the family. But he always seemed to have a wild streak in him - like a secret life or something, major party animal stuff - and one night he just took off. Like Paul and Toro did, before that...
When Slakey quit all of a sudden, it was Bump's turn.
Rufus came last year. Bump was more'n ready to get some fuckin' sleep for a change, but apparently Dance thought he was too good to throw back or something. And Rufus, a big ol' twenty-four year old horndog who never stopped grinning, was somehow off the hook. Or maybe he got pulled in on alternate nights and knew how to keep his mouth shut, but Bump honestly didn't think so.
Two years and three months of this shit, and counting...
"Fuckin' good time for me now," Bump grumbled, kicking a dirt clod as he walked on. "Real funny."

On the old bedpost, down there, he'd counted forty-eight notches.
But Yancey never let on, so he must've been safe. Bump figured the younger guy never got worked over. The whole deal there seemed like a big ol' secret from the people in town.
"Party time," he sighed. "Dammit. A long one, too."

Not as long as his vacation last summer. He was still having bad dreams about that. He got about a mile down the road when Dance turned his truck around and hid it. Hogtied him real good and carried him back home. A solid week...
Bump had an urge to jump in his truck and make a run for it. He'd tried that about five times, but you never know. His keys were on his dresser - in the bunkhouse - but he'd made a spare key the last time he was in town, and taped it to the top of the gas tank.
Dance would really be mad. It always caught him before he got the damn truck rolling. And then it would really stick it to his ass. Probably it was hangin' right over him already. Just couldn't get enough -
"You're a sick bastard," he said, good and loud. "I don't wanna... do this."

But he had to. Locking himself in the main house didn't work. Or Rufus' room. Bump had tried everything. The fucker just dragged him back home every time. Never grabbed Rufus, far as he knew. But good ol' Bump, hell, he's not goin' anywhere...
"Why the fuck don't you ever do it to Rufus?" he shouted. Gettin' all worked up, and he warn't even in the door yet. "Huh? Or does he like it that much? Keep his mouth shut." That idea never failed to piss Bump off.
Now, it could be that Rudy did dig getting worked over. Liked it real well. He was a few years younger than Bump, and that man was always fixin' to party.
"He warned me," Bump sighed, shaking his head. "But did I listen? No."
As much as he loved horses, Rudy said he had to go. He'd been sneaking big cardboard boxes into the bunkhouse for weeks, and one night he pulled Bump aside and got him high. Talkin' real slow, so Bump would get it, he spun a yarn that was just crazy.
Rudy was a joker, but dammit - that time he meant what he said.

The thin dapple - what was her name, again? - well, she'd slammed Bump's head up against a post that same week. Not as hard as when the Gray Demon kicked him, thankfully, but enough to rattle him pretty good. He didn't tell anybody about that, because they put up such a fuss when he got kicked. He was fine, just a little slower than usual, and any other time Rudy's talk might've made more sense.
"I gotta git. Tonight," Rudy had said, sighing. "It just won't lay off me."
But he didn't get away. Hell, the bastard got him real good.

The old bunkhouse, where he'd stayed, was a lot smaller than the new rooms Mister Richey had built for the hands. And it was kinda drafty. Way out there, away from the main house. Nobody wanted to move in after Rudy "left," so it sat empty for all them months. Better part of a year...
Shit, he got the chills every time he thought about it. Rudy had been down there, with all that shit he'd carried in himself.
Everybody else was just a couple hundred yards away, never suspecting a thing. One month turning into three, and then six. It just kept going. Never got bored, that was for sure. Every time he woke up there - a couple hundred times? - Dance just started in again.
Bump had the notion that Rudy was stuck in some other room right now. That was too fuckin' scary to think about.

But there was nothing ol' Bump could do about it. He had problems of his own, ever since he moved out into the bunkhouse - well, since it made him move out here.
If he just stood still and didn't budge, in a couple minutes Dance would just grab on and drag him inside. Trying to run would just make it pounce right away.
It hadn't touched him since night before last. A brush teasing the back of his neck woke him up, around midnight, until Bump forced himself to get out of bed and climb down there. Six hours. He yawned his head off all the next day. And last weekend it had worked him over both nights...

"I have a truck," he told himself. "And money. No reason I cain't go to Jackson and find a job..."
But Dance didn't want that to happen. And hell, Rudy was so clever and quick. If he couldn't slip loose, what chance did Bump have?
His only hope, he figured, was to send a telegram. Not a letter. Tell Yancey if you don't get a phone call from me, once a week, please go look under the bunkhouse 'cause that's where I'll be...
"You could always catch you a hippie," Bump said to the door of his place. "Or a biker. After I scat. Nobody would know... The oldest Jennings boy is drinkin' now. Actin' all wild. Git him instead."
He sighed. Reaching for the doorknob -
There was something he was supposed to do first. Dance had made it clear enough...
Oh.
"Fuck," he drawled, digging out the cigarettes.

He didn't mind smokin', but it was the trying-to-quit part that got to him...
Closing the door, Bump felt the same quiet feeling as usual. Not like being sad. More of a done-deal, sure as shit thing. His room looked the same as always, all messy.
"I don't wanna do this," he said, like a little kid. I'm almost forty years old, he thought with disgust, and Dance still never gets enough of me. How the hell am I gonna follow through and get my ass out of this one?
Taking a drag to steady his nerves, he walked to the bathroom and kicked some old skivvies out of the way. The hardwood floor lifted up neatly - well, most of it - if you knew where to pull on it.
Pipes ran down behind the ladder. They looked like they'd been there for a good twenty, thirty years. Dance had brought water down there, so it was right close by. Power lines too.
When his boots hit the dirt, Bump looked up at the bathroom ceiling and tugged on his smoke. Please, he felt like saying. C'mon. Not this time. All night, all day tomorrow, maybe the next day too. All of the chores gettin' done while I -
The floor swung back down.
"Fuckin'...," but he just let the sentence hang there.
As always, the iron grate swung up. A big ol' padlock floated into place. Snap.
Now it's got me, he thought dismally.
Flicking the ash off his cigarette, Bump slowly made himself walk inside.

The door swung out right away, just like it always did. More locks. Nothing had changed since Wednesday. Rust-stained little sink. Thick, dirty padding on the walls... a couple caged light bulbs up above. Fireplace and a couple cords of wood across the way, there.
It always made him think of a showroom, so that's what Bump called it. Fourteen different places to truss him up. Some of the shit looked downright old, and he guessed the newer stuff was what it had made Rudy get - more than it could ever possibly use on one guy.
Dance took real good care of its gear. All of the chrome was shiny like brand new. Every bit of leather was oiled up - which just drove Bump nuts, to see it, 'cause there went any chance of busting an old dried-out strap. Dance was real careful about shit like that. There were feathers everywhere. If Dance wanted another one, it never had to reach far.
Each area had its own little table with feathers, and oil, two or three packs of cigarettes, an ashtray, a pint of grain alcohol... and more gloves than he could possibly count. Bump never would've guessed they made so many different kinds of gloves.
There were even a few joints scattered around. Dance rolled 'em nice and big. Two were on the little table next to the bed, but he couldn't take his eyes off the black rubber sheet already soaked with oil. Even the fans had been on before he got down there. Just for him. The smokes were a different kind than Rudy bought, and he drank bourbon more than anything else...
"You got me," he mumbled, putting the cigarette between his lips so he could start pulling his boots off. "But only for tonight."

A pigskin glove tapped him on the shoulder. Looking around threw him off-balance - but more gloves latched on to his arms. They pulled his right boot off, eager to get going.
The first glove cruised over to the old chalkboard.
YANCEY SAID...
"Aw, son of a bitch," he snapped. Dance had been listening, and there went any chance of keeping it short this time.
The glove moved way down on the blackboard and kept on writing.
SAY IT WITH ME.
Bump sighed, lifting his left leg. "I got you, I got you, I got you, I got you. Haw haw haw haw haw haw haw."
The glove drew a smiley face - except it had a real big smile, showing pointy teeth - and dropped the chalk.
"Yeah." It was gonna be a long fuckin' weekend.
One of them scary cock-toys floated over to the bed. It had a whole bunch of rings and straps...

How the hell, Bump wondered, could it keep this place a secret all these years?
Solid-looking fingers undid his belt and started pulling his shirts off. One of them took the cigarette away...
This time it brought him a pair of gloves to wear. Stretchy black fabric. Just pulling 'em on made him want to chuckle. The sad fact was, of course, that in a little bit he'd be laughing as hard as he could. It was gonna be a long fuckin' night - and then there was all day tomorrow, and most of Sunday. Son of a bitch. And Dance didn't care what he said. Bump had tried everything. Of course, Rudy had probably come up with more reasons why it had to cut him loose...
The first time Bump was wrestled down here, it was obvious somebody else had been sweating for awhile. It reeked like smoke, too. He'd seen Rudy's dinosaur-tooth choker on the bed, along with half of a letter addressed to Yancey - and that clinched it, already, because Rudy liked that damn tooth on a string way too much to just leave it behind. Dance wanted Bump to know... and later it had dropped more hints. Yup.
Poor Rudy.
Sometimes Bump felt like asking it - you still got him, don't you? Somewhere else. But there were some things it was better not to know.

A glove signaled him. It looked sorta like Yancey's hand did, earlier - hey, we're goin' now, so you just get along and suffer for a good long spell, Bump...
With his stinky ol' socks on, and Dance's fancy gloves that tickled even when they weren't alive, he took his time walking to the sling.

When it had him cuffed up real good, and another smoke in his mouth, he heard a couple quiet taps. Bump looked immediately at the blackboard.
With the chalk, Dance's glove underlined the tough smiley-face.
"Fuck you," he said. "You think I don't know that?"
A pair of gloves floated over his belly and curled a little. He was screwed, either way... but Dance could sure lean on him harder if it had a notion to.
"Dammit! I got you, I got you, I got you, I got you. Haw haw haw haw haw haw haw. And now I'm gonna laugh. Or wish I could keep laughin'. Shoot a few loads. Spanky spanky. The whole deal. Got it."
Slowly, the gloves came down.
Right around his ribs -
Bump flopped like a fish, swinging back and forth. Chains jingled, but the damn cuffs never, ever did more than squeak a little. "Aaaa-aaaah! Fuck you, hoooo hoo hoo hoo duh daa-aaah Dance yuh yaaaaaah! Hah hah hee hoo hoo..."
It knew right where to put its fingers. All over him. Move 'em just so.

Nobody knows, he thought wildly, and the Richeys ain't never been ones to abide company coming over unannounced. Eighteen miles from town, nuthin' out this way except a ranch that was just about closed up. Only an emergency would get Dance to quit early and carry him up the ladder. That had happened once - and he daydreamed about it for months. So great... But as soon as the vet had gone, Dance took him right back down here again. That was the only time, in two years - and the herd was a lot smaller now.
Fuck, he couldn't twist around enough to throw the damn fingers off.
Barking laughter, wailing - like he was real happy.
Yancey wouldn't be back early, either, because his mom was in the hospital in Cheyenne... and it had always been his way to guess long, ever since he was a kid. If he was thinkin' the worst case was Monday, he never said Sunday. Dance could rely on that.
Like magic, his socks were being peeled off. Dropped -
Then gloves took hold of his toes.
"Noooaaah haaah haaaaaeeeee!" Bump whined.
The scrub-brushes were coming.

Oh no, he begged in his head, no no no -
Dance made 'em coast across Bump's soles, real easy, in just the right way to make him truly flip out. No amount of wishing was gonna make the ankle-cuffs go away.

Even the first time he'd been dragged down there was like a magic show.
Straps and cuffs moved like they personally wanted him down on the bed. After he tried to bust loose for awhile, a pack of smokes was peeling open. And the pocketknife came...
Bump didn't know any better. He was scared enough to take a cigarette, and lift his head up so he could reach the match Dance had lit. But when the knife moved again, it went alongside the bed and down as it opened up. And he was still dumb enough, back then, to be all relieved. There were some scratching noises, but he didn't figure it out until later when he saw all the notches on that top right bedpost.
After a minute two pigskin gloves floated over him and pretended to crack their knuckles. Then the fingers moved real quick for a couple seconds - like Dance was thinkin', alright now, let's see what we got here...
But the first thing to touch him had been a pair of hawk feathers. They started real slow on his feet, and he was actually surprised when the first laughs came out. Then he couldn't stop. Laughed his fuckin' lead off.
They tickled harder and harder until he was too worn out to move.

Next, them ol' gloves had their turn. That was even worse. They wandered all over, one hour turned into two, and Bump couldn't believe that he wasn't getting used to it. He didn't want to believe it, but the fingers seemed to make him more ticklish than ever.
Dance must've thought he deserved a little break, then. Between cigarettes, it forced him to drink a big mug of water and have a joint. It knew about holding the smoke in and everything, which made sense if it had ever looked up Rudy or Toro after the sun went down.
Bump was so stoned. That felt real good, even though he was worn out and his sides hurt from laughing and the cuffs were still there, on him, so it looked like he was gonna get tickled some more. He had no idea what the fuck was going on, or how it was happening, but maybe it would be over soon. Just giving him a big ol' warning to keep his mouth shut about Rudy. Or maybe being high would make him not feel the tickles so much. The buzz was great. Bump didn't know when he'd felt that relaxed.
That's when he looked up and saw the gloves make a little move, curled just so. Like they were introducing somebody to Bump. It looked just like a cartoon - all that crazy shit flying around, gloves moving all by themselves like they did it every day - and sure enough, here they came. Let's hear it for... the scrub-brushes.
Bump didn't figure it out. Hell, he looked from the gloves to the brushes... and grinned at 'em. Sure, he'd been sweating like a pig, but why would they start cleaning him up down there?
Trapped, ticklish feet, y'all meet the scrub-brushes. Brushes, these here are Bump's feet. They ain't goin' anywhere.
The first time they were pulled across, Bump knew he was in serious fuckin' trouble.

Oh, they were the things that drove him crazier than anything else. Dance used 'em every time.
It was always rarin' to go. But Dance was smart. Right away it could tell that the scrub-brushes got to Bump even more if they were barely sittin' on him, pushed and pulled real slow...
A good hard scrub was bad enough - but when it rode easy like that, Bump was more awake than he'd ever been in his whole damn life. Hundreds of little feathers were moving... and coming back. Sometimes there was just a little pause between scrubs.
He kept climbing up the headboard. It would take him a second to realize that he was just imagining it. His fuckin' feet were still caught. The brushes pulled, and pushed. Bump wanted to get away so badly that the idea kept confusing him. Maybe the weed didn't exactly help. He absolutely had to sit up and get his ass off the bed, run for the ladder - but then he'd blink and his legs were still spread out, and they hadn't really moved. All them bristles crawled back, and forth, back, and forth, back, and forth, back, and forth.
Bump got to scream laughter, bounce around, kick all he wanted... but the scrub-brushes didn't quit. He'd never wanted to pass out so bad, not ever, but he couldn't make himself do it.
Five or ten minutes in, the brushes left him alone - and Dance made him have a smoke. More straps jumped up and clipped onto the damn cuffs around his ankles. They pulled tight every which-way... and then more came, cinching around his shins. One more set, for just under his knees. When they were done, it was like his lower legs were paralyzed or something. He couldn't turn 'em, or pull 'em back at all. Little chrome rings were next, flying right up with their little cables swinging free. One for each toe.
He got to watch the cigarette get stamped out in the ashtray, real careful... and when he looked back at the scrub-brushes they started on his damn soles again.
Hell, it was so much worse. His feet weren't just held down - they were fuckin' there for keeps. Standing tall for the brushes. Curling his toes hadn't helped before but he would've given anything to be able to do it again, now that he couldn't. It was so much easier for Dance to do its thing, and Bump couldn't get away quick even if both wrist-cuffs suddenly fell right off... which they weren't showin' any signs of doing. All that leather said his feet were really gonna get it now - for hours and hours.

Damn, but he sure was right about that.
After a long, long time and a few breaks for water, he squinted through the smoke and saw a white plastic bottle. Another first.
The oil made 'em feel like a million feathers -
And boom, before the brushes had even finished their backstroke, he felt something snap in his head almost like a bowline. Or a rifle shot goin' off.
Bump opened his eyes... and he was a new man.
Right away he knew that his limit, for tickling, was way far off. It was so much stronger now, what with the oil and all - just took his breath away - but the notion that it couldn't get a whole lot more intense than that was just plain silly. He had a quick thought of the walls falling down... and seeing more beds and racks and stocks that just fuckin' went on forever. Miles and miles.
He'd never get tapped out. The tickling could step up forever and Bump just knew he could take more and more, feelin' it all, no chance of fainting or of making it stop, every damn time it got stronger he'd just feel it harder yet -
Just like Rudy. He knew. All them months, down here. That didn't really make Bump feel any better.
Something had changed, forever, and now the brushes seemed to be ten feet tall. Back, and forth, back, and forth, back, and forth...
Scrub-brushes. Shit.

For the first few months he thought there was some different kind of magic in the damn things. Just thinking about 'em made him curl his toes and want to pull his arms in tight. Every inch of skin was so damn... alive. Dance usually oiled him down after the first pass.
More nights than he could count. And every damn time he was all by his lonesome. Pulled right down here, watching the scrub-brushes come back.
They'd gone through a few sets of the fuckin' brushes. Some were curved, and a few were smaller - generally those little ones were put to work on his nipples, and his dick.
These all had yellow bristles. Not too stiff, and not too loose. They tickled a hell of a lot more than the first ones.
After a few months it started putting his name on the backsides, stamped right into the leather. BUMP.
There was a bunch of slippery white gloves, early on, that had smiley-faces drawn on the backs. That was fucked up too. But nothing - and with Dance, that was sayin' a lot - held a stick to this...

During his vacation, Dance had used the scrub-brushes on him for the whole first day. Didn't even give him time off to smoke. Just quick breaks for water, or food, and then it picked up the brushes again. That was a whole other world of hurt, there. And Bump was sure, more than ever, that he really went crazy. For real. But when he finally woke up he warn't nuts yet, not even a little tetched, but he sorta wished he had been - as Dance started day number two of his fuckin' vacation, with five more to go, with him all wild to pull the straps loose and be anywhere else but there... but the scrub-brushes floated right down to his super-alive feet.

The oil bottle squirted him down again.
Slow, and constant, the scrub-brushes kept skating up and down his sides.
 

"I got chores," he whispered through the smoke.
A feather kept petting his johnson.
He guessed it was morning, because Dance had finally let him sleep for awhile. A long, wild day stretched out ahead of Bump.
Why, it would be more'n glad to take care of things. It always had before. The damn nags didn't care if pails just floated around and nobody was there carrying 'em, so long as the feed troughs were full. After two years they must've been used to it. Brushed down, tails trimmed right, hooves cleaned, you name it - by Dance. Sometimes they looked better when it got through with 'em than Bump would've managed to do himself. That made him mad, but hey. Whatever it took to make sure that Yancey or nobody got too curious. That way the fun in the tickle-room would never, ever stop.
Well, he could just forget all about the horses, or about going anywhere - and set all his attention on what Dance was gonna do to him today.
Some of the other feathers were just killin' him. The inside of his legs. Under his nuts...
After this, why, the gloves would come back. Ready to rock.

One soft point kept tickling Bump's tattoo. This rack pushed his belly up a little. Easy to get to. It had gotten him real drunk, the second or third time it had caught him, and pulled out another tack box.
The last time Bump saw him Rudy had looked around, parked his smoke between his lips and pulled his jeans down, just enough. He had the same tattoo. It was right over their rods.
A black glove, lookin' like it wanted to grab something. Just above it there was the word DANCE.
Below, PARDNER.
Whenever he stared at the tattoo, Bump wondered if there was supposed to be a comma or not.
Dance sure liked to tickle down around there...
 
 

It had an antique saddle on a big ol' sawhorse which pitched forward and back.
Bump was slumped forward over it. He had a cigar, but right then he was too worn out to smoke.
Dance had always liked this one - starting with a pair of gloves, and then six...
Right then it felt like about twenty. Maybe twenty-five. None of 'em really dug in, but the damn fingers never stopped moving and squeezing either. Head-to-toe.
His hands were lashed to the saddlehorn, and each ankle was tied to the outside of a stirrup. Little cords kept his toes apart. Feathers had been painted here and there on the saddle, right where Bump tended to look as he yanked and yanked at the reins. Just so damn wrong - a fine old saddle, from back in the days when shit was built to last forever, and now it had to take one horse-rider after another for a ride that went nowhere, tied to it just like Bump was, made to cackle and whoop and shoot his load all over it, then howl even harder than before...
At first he'd laugh real angry, rocking like a rodeo rider - like there was a chance in hell he could just outrun Dance and all these gloves, the scrub-brushes, and leave all this shit behind. For good. But after a while all Bump could do was wiggle some, and grunt from time to time. The damn fingers wouldn't lay off. More and more of 'em touched down...
Dance never, ever got enough of this shit.

Howling had fallen by the wayside a good two, three hours ago. Supper was probably just as far off.
Slow fingers rubbed all over his private parts.
It might keep on covering him, just like it was, all night long. He'd spent enough time in the saddle to know. All it had to do was shove a couple pills down his throat, and he'd be wide awake again.
After a while a glove got hold of his hair and pulled his head up. He didn't know when the cigar had been taken away. A bottle of water got stuck between his lips instead.
When a leather bit came up, jingling, he was glad that at least he wouldn't have to smoke for awhile.
Sorta checking to see if the gag was maybe gonna slip down, he glanced to his right...
Two scrub-brushes were sitting on the foot of the bed.
Bump nodded. It would feel so good to lie down - at least he'd get to enjoy that for as long as it took him to have a smoke. And then, well, he knew that Dance was gonna pick them fuckers up and scrub easy, like it had all the time in the world.
 

He sucked in on about the hundredth cigarette and groaned.
"I'm gettin' too old for this shit," Bump told the gloves. "Seriously. Will Jennings, now, he's ready. It's his turn. I won't tell a soul..."
Aw, hell - the prickly mitts were coming. Six of 'em. They tickled huge spots all at once. His whole damn foot, his armpit - even his ass was so damn ticklish it made his eyes water...
 
 

It had to be Sunday by now. That's what he kept telling himself. By tonight Yancey will be back, and this ticklin' son of a bitch would clean him up and let him go.
When it warn't havin' at him, he had to look normal. Like nothing funny ever went on. If Yancey found out, the party would move - to bigger quarters. Dance had written something like that once and refused to answer any questions, except with a couple dozen feathers. Bump got to fret over what it meant. Real long-time place for me, he'd howled at the gloves...
Would he end up where Rudy was now? Or would it go out and hunt Rudy down again, reelin' him back in? He felt bad enough about the kid as it was. There way no way he could've known there was a fuckin' first-class tickle jail under the bunkhouse, way back then, but he'd still he'd just gone about his business while Rudy got worked over, all them months. One time Bump even leaned against the bunkhouse in the shade and had himself a couple beers - right about over where the bed was - never suspecting a goll-durn thing.
The damn blackboard... Dance's gloves had written, time after time, that nobody was gonna find out. And if they ever did - why, then Bump was gonna disappear. A new showroom, somewhere else, secret as you please. He'd really be done for.
Whenever he tried to tell himself that Dance had to be bluffing, he thought about the dusty old frame over the mantel. Right there...

The only time he'd gotten a good look at it was the very first night. Dance had cuffed his hands and let him wander a bit, checking out all the stocks and rigging.
The old frame had been carved, real rough, out of lodgepole pine. Behind smoke-stained glass there was a drawing. The paper was flaking at the edges. A lot of things about the room seemed old - like the boards and beams holding up the ceiling, for example. And the biggest set of stocks. But that sketch...
A young man was laughing. Dark-haired, with stubble all over his face. Squinting, he looked happy and sad and used to it, all at the same time. Bump knew how that was.
There was a cigar between the guy's molars. One of his front teeth was missing.
A pair of gloves were tickling his armpits.
His arms were up, but the rope that probably held 'em down warn't there in the sketch. The main point was the look on his face.
Bump had thought about that cowboy a good deal, and if Dance had told him the drawing was a hundred years old he would've believed it.

In his head, he had it all worked out. Before the bunkhouse, there could've been a trap door. All hidden and shit, with grass over it. Well, that first cellar didn't have to be right under where the bunkhouse was built. Could've been anywhere. The ranch had been a lot bigger when ol' Josiah, Yancey's grandpa, ran the place. There were a lot more hands workin' the place. Guys coming and going... maybe never quite making it out.
They'd all ride past here on their way to town - well, the bunkhouse warn't even an acre off the old trail which they made into a road. So easy, for Dance, to pull 'em off their horses. Young ones, like Rufus, they had to look good to Dance. Lots of life in 'em. Never knowing how ticklish their feet could be, if they fell into the wrong hands.
Itchin' for a whore, a bottle, maybe a card game -
Bushwhack 'em, slide the door open, and down they go.
Where'd that durn kid run off to? Nobody could say. Guys took off all the time. Oh, well...

The one in that drawing was the first one. He'd asked Dance one time, really drunk. How long did you tickle him? A glove came right over him and held up one finger, then two - three, four, five. But it had to be fucking with him, alright, because that just didn't seem possible at all, whether it was months or years.
It could've fed 'em their own horses, and later maybe it had to bury a few cars. There was even a good flue. Dance had lucked out there. Bump had looked all over, and decided the passage in the rocks must've run all the way down to the hot springs in the valley. Woodsmoke wouldn't even be noticed, there, what with all the steam. The showroom was plenty warm enough in the winter, when Dance got a good fire goin', and the flue helped cool the damn place in July too.
All them notches on the bedpost....
 

Something touched his right hip. It didn't move none, so he relaxed a little...
Dance had him staked out on the bed. The afternoon had been sheer ticklin' hell. Four rubber gloves took their time getting him to spurt, then scrub-brushes worked all over him - and finally there was about ten green gloves, shiny new satin that never seemed to get damp. They just roamed from spot to spot and dug in as quick and solid as they pleased.
After it gave him a smoke and he took a few drags, enjoying the hell out of 'em, Bump looked down.
It was his answering machine. Plugged in and everything. Well, huh. That belonged upstairs...
He watched it go down, just a little, like something was pushing on it. Then there was a click, and the usual beep. Dance was playin' his messages.
"Bump? This here's Yancey. Mamma... she ain't lookin' so good. I'm gonna stay -"
"No!" he shouted at the damn thing.
"For a while longer," his boss went on. "This is probably the, uh, last stretch. Now Sweetgarden had said she'd come out tomorrow -"
Oh, yeah. The vet. Whew.
"But I called her and cancelled. It'll keep."
"Dammit!" he yelled.
"You just check on Sassy, couple times a day. See if her belly is hard. Don't fret about it or nuthin'. Before I left I checked her over, and I think she's okay. There's more feed next to the tractor, but you already knew that. Umm... Oh yeah. Don't bring Lou into the paddock. If she stays on grass this week, that leg should be fine. Well, buddy, I guess that's that. You, uh, probably better not look for me until next Saturday -"
"You son of a bitch," Bump growled at the answering machine. He tugged with his wrists, just once. Six more days of this shit?
"So take it easy. Actually, there's another case of beer in the back pantry. But remember what I said about that, Bump. Alright, now you call me when you get this, so I don't worry. Later."
He hung up.

"All... week?," Bump shouted.
A glove pointed at the blackboard.
"You really got me," he spat. "Yeah. Gonna have some real fun now."
One of the trunks started to move.
When he saw was was floating out, it like unto made his heart stop.
"Not that," he begged. "Dance, c'mon now, you know... Aw, you got fifty ways to have your fun already. Not that - goll-dang it! Please?"
It hadn't brought out them fuckin' things in a good year. Motorized pads, a good four inches across. No, more like fat little tubes. Covered with the softest damn fur he'd ever felt...
His feet were stuck, there, and Dance could just rig 'em up like before. Right on his feet. The tickling was a whole new world of hard. He'd never been more awake, either, then the last time it brought these fuckers out. Turnin' real slow was even worse than when they were kicked into high gear.
Two of the six machines moved until they were just over his toes.
A glove brought him his cordless phone, from upstairs.
"Huh?" he said.
There was a tap, at the chalkboard.
CALL HIM, a glove wrote. OR ELSE.
"Are you gonna promise not to, uh, use them things on me?"
Dance made him sweat for a good ten seconds.

MAYBE.
"Dammit all to hell," he barked, slinging himself around. Fuckin' cuffs...
That one glove dialed the phone, and held it up to his head. Bump watched the fur move closer, and closer, until it was almost touching him. He whimpered - and then knew he had to shut up and do this right, because there was no fuckin' way he could take them machines bein' used on him again. So he closed his eyes.
"Yeah," Rufus said.
"It's Bump."
"How's everything?" His cell phone was all scratchy for a few seconds.
Bump didn't know how everything was. Hell, he'd been locked in all weekend. Looking around, one of the gloves gave him a big ol' thumbs-up. "Right as rain."
"Good to hear. Y'know, uh, I don't say this often enough to ya... but it's a load off my mind that you're there."
Bump gulped, fighting the urge to tell Yancey to get his ass back home, right away. Or else -
"This is a rough time," his boss went on, "and you know my heart ain't in ranchin' like it used to be, not really. But come what may I'll do right by you."
"I know that," Bump said. The fur was backing up a little. Talk about rough times...
"Right. Well, if you're okay - oh, wait. I forgot."
Bump's stomach seemed to roll over. One more thing, huh? He just knew it was gonna be bad, too.
"Lainie's takin' this pretty hard." His sister. "Since there's nuthin' much that needs done back there, uh... Well, see, the thing is, there's no point in my driving back and forth, what with Lainie and all. So I'm gonna stick around and get the burial all set. Mamma wants to go back to Shoney."
Don't say that, Bump wanted to beg. Please come home - right now. It's got the fur-machines out and my legs are strapped down tight...
"And after, I wanna..." But Yancey's cell phone hissed for a few seconds.
Something really bad was coming. Bump could feel it. His eyes got all watery.

When Yancey's voice came back, all Bump could make out was "whole 'nuther week or two after that."
"Aw... hell no!" You cain't do that, he thought frantically. You're all I got left. Dance is gonna have a fuckin' field day now -
"What?"
Bump looked over, real quick, from the fur to Dance's magic gloves. "Nuthin'."
"Is there somethin' you ain't tellin' me, Bump?" his boss asked.
"Nossir," he said quietly, trying to kick. "Everything's fine. It's just... kinda boring here." Bump closed his eyes. Boring. Yeah, the boss would buy that one.
"Ah. Yeah, well, you're not one to lay around."
Except when I'm strapped down like this, he thought. Oh, hell, I'm gonna be slackin' off for the next two unbelievable, scrub-brush glove paddle feather cock-toy saddle-riding weeks. And not a fuckin' soul will know. "I got, uh, the TV."
"You been in the kitchen yet?"
He meant the one in the big house. "Well, now, nuthin' different jumped out at me... this morning, when I was in there -"
His boss laughed. "I dunno. Try opening the refrigerator. It won't bite. Ramsey came on by."
Bump perked right up. "He did?"
"Yup. Last night. Brought out more food than he knew what to do with. I guess he figured out how to fit it all someplace, between the refrigerator and the deep-freezer. You go on and help yourself. Bread, canned goods - and I didn't forget, now - more beer."
"He... Why didn't Ramsey stick his head in and say hello?"
"Aaaah," Yancey said easily, "that's what you get for livin' out back, there. Away from the house. Said your light was off, so he saw no point in drivin' back there just to wake you up and say hi. So he just let himself in and put the food away."
"Uh-huh." It was hardly the first time Ramsey, or his old man, had been good enough to do that.
"I wanted to make sure you didn't even have to go into town. Just goof off for a change."
"Well," Bump sighed - voice all shaky, as he stared at one of the gloves - "I'll get right on that."
"Treat it like a vacation," Rufus chuckled, "so long as the horses get fed. That's all I gotta say."

Help me, Bump's brain screamed. Dance is gonna wear me right out. Get me away from this fuckin' place, it's too nuts about ticklin' -
"Call if you need to. Alright?"
"Yessir," Bump sighed. "Take care of what needs it. I'll... stick right here."
"That's why I can relax now. Maybe after this, you wanna take a bunch of time off and get away from the ranch for a while - huh?"
Oh, fuck, it just got worse and worse. Bump squirmed in the restraints, knowing Dance had just lucked into another long stint on his ass. A scream was starting to build up in his gut -
"Much obliged," he finally said. "I won't call unless... well, you know."
If he didn't tell his boss, right that second - it was on. Bump had a horrible notion, though, that the longer Yancey stayed on the line - the more like the son of a bitch would feel guilty enough to deed the damn bunkhouse over to Bump or something. Turn the screw even more, without even knowing what a world of hurt he was settin' Bump up for. Or maybe he did know after all.
A month off - sure. That's an order...
Fuck it.

He made up his mind in a heartbeat. It was so easy. There was no way Bump could handle the thought of a whole 'nuther day of tickling. Fuck two weeks, or four. No. He had to do something - hell, at least he had to try.
Dance might kill him with the fur-machines, or move him out to wherever Rudy was, but Bump just couldn't stand day after day of this... without even trying his best to make it end.
Yancey would come flyin' back and save him. He had to -
But then again, if Bump's truck was hidden real well, and most of his stuff... why would anybody ever pull up the bathroom floor of the bunkhouse? It would be the same as what happened to Rudy, all over again. Scrub-brushes, fur machines, saddle. Days and weeks stretched out on the bed. Covered with gloves. Well, we used to have a hand here named Bump, but he just disappeared last spring. Took off one day, out of the blue. Got no idea where he went to.
The only other choice was hovering over him, and it worked out the same either way. Nothing much to lose. It was just a matter of getting the right words out before Dance could hang up the phone.
"Uh, boss," he finally said, "You -"
The phone clicked.
"Come quick it's ticklin' me oh shit emergency you gotta help get back here now!" Bump said, as quick as he could. Then he listened, all anxious 'n shit.
There were a few more clicks... and finally he heard the dial tone.
He moved his head and stared at the phone. Yancey always said "later," or maybe "later on," when he hung up. But Dance hadn't cut the connection. His boss must be really tore up about his mom dyin' and all. Bump felt sorry for him.
Then he looked at the fur tubes.

It was bad enough that he'd taken too long, and Yancey hung up right before -
But Dance had heard that other bit.
"A joke," he said to the machines. "Just... kidding."
Now, Bump thought, I'm gonna truly wish I was dead -
After a tap or two, the glove wrote a question mark on the blackboard.
Oh, fuck, there was a cigar coming his way.
He couldn't have been more glad to see it, just then.

Bump heard a few more impatient taps.
"Aw, hell," he drawled, watching the smoke wander up. He felt like a goner - and yet relieved at the same time. That was weird. There was no getting out of Dance's hands, never ever -
"Hey. Buzzard. You won. I only got one job, from now on, and that's to stay right down here. Turns out Yancey, he knew all the time. So you just keep on. They ain't never comin' back, Dance. Bet you can tickle me a lot better - hey, scrub-brushes for a whole month! How's that sound? Make it two. Hell, make it twenty. That guy, the first one in that frame, there, he's done lost the record. You get to fuck me just up the way you like for the rest of my days."
Yup. Rufus was out getting laid. That just figured. Just like every other weekend... and Bump was stuck for longer than he'd ever been tickled in one go - with the picture in his head, now, of Rufus and his shit-eating grin, laughing for a whole 'nuther reason as plowed one chick after another.
A bigger question mark was added to the first, and the fur-machines actually touched the top of his toes.

"Alright," he barked. Dance would find out anyway. It always did. "Two weeks. Three. I'm all by my lonesome. Fucked real good. You happy?"
The machines were taken away. He would've felt right nice about that, but all kinds of painter's brushes and feathers and them damn little rubber-tipped pointy things were coming at him from all sides. Dance was in a mood. Gonna celebrate.
A good twenty or thirty toys hung there - and a blindfold too - while he just looked 'em over, and puffed on his cigar...
The glove wiped the board clean with an old silk scarf.
A thin collar, with little chrome pyramids on it, coasted over and wrapped itself around Bump's neck. He hadn't seen that in awhile.
"Uh-huh," he said. "I'm your boy."
The glove drew a a big ol' happy face on the blackboard. It added a cigar, and a collar...
A scrub-brush came and set right down on his tattoo. Oiled up and ready to go.

12aug05