Leaving the basketball courts, Dimo took his usual shortcut through the alley. Looking around, he lit a cigarette gratefully. No one was there to see him, which was good - his friends at the gym all thought he'd quit smoking, and they'd give him no end of shit about it if they found out. But he started walking home through the alley again when he decided the hell with it, he wanted to smoke again.
There was a sound behind him. A rustling noise. It was too quiet to be a person, so he relaxed and started to turn.
Something soft covered his eyes. Recoiling from it, Dimo landed right in the grip of several hands. He yelled, but a bandanna tightened up between his teeth.
Damn. Somebody was dragging him off...
He had barely started to fight - so maybe twenty seconds had gone by - when there was a louder sound in front of him. A door, scraping on the ground. What the hell?
They shoved him forward. He could almost see the damn gym, from where he was, and that was as far as the kidnappers were gonna take him?
Kicking, pulling as hard as he could, Dimo was dragged in anyway.
Darkness, a heavy metal door closing behind him - and then two more doors.
No matter what he did, the gloves were ready.
So many hands, pulling at his clothes, forcing him down. A padded chair...
The camera hung in the air. Why did the hands pause? He didn't understand -
One of them picked up something thin.
A black marker. It drew on the wall.
He finally recognized a smiley face.
Smile... for the camera.
Swearing angrily, he shook his head. Fighting the restraints...
The glove moved in, as he watched. But Dimo didn't realize what was about to happen until it was too late. If he wouldn't smile, it could make him -
Squeezing, in his armpit.
He slammed forward and barked suddenly. No, no, no!
The glove hung there, in front of him... and moved back in.
Suddenly the horrible, brutal truth dawned on him. That was no accident. Despite all hope, the hand was going to tickle him again. He was defenseless -
That was the point. Not the restraining... the tickling was the main deal. The glove - hell, all the gloves - acted as if it was an accidental discovery, but with a gut-curdling certainty he knew better.
His long, raging yell was muffled by the gag.
The fingers slid down his right side.
Oh, fuck, he jumped aorund like a crazy man. The fingers darted from side to side, making him laugh... and squeal. So unfair, he was unable to do a thing to protect himself, move out of its reach -
Other gloves were coming.
Dimo screeched at them. Still they grabbed on...
A blast of feral excitement swept over Dimo's body.
His brain really hit a new level of panic when the gloves started cutting his clothes off. The tickling was going to become so very much worse.
Every idea of how much worse was immediately smashed. He had never been so wild - so continuously provoked - in his life.
The gloves were only just getting started...
Hours, months, years. Eons.
His feet were treated to whole new dimensions of teasing and... handling.
Dimo's throat was sore, but he kept on roaring away.
There were times when he was allowed to rest, and drink water. Eat whatever was forced on him, smoke a cigarette or two -
And then the gloves returned, calmly honing in again.
To his amazement the entire ordeal took on a limitless new turn when the fingers started stroking, ever so gently, around his crotch. Slamming and flailing around didn't stop them, and neither did hooting intensely.
Instead the fingers worked on his armpits, and his feet - alternatively, or all at once, changing tempo, suddenly jumping onto his nipples too - and Dimo cried with laughter at the multiplied horniness, the amplified ticklishness... and the infinite patience of the gloves.
They had more food.
And more cigarettes - a whole carton. That detail really seemed to prove he was in for a long nightmare. It was way too thoughtful, or something. He'd get to smoke. By that time it seemed more likely than not that there was another carton waiting. Or two.
"How much longer" ceased to have all meaning. Clearly, the gloves were having way too good of a time with him.
Oh fuck - fuck! He was being held prisoner, and tickled, half a block from the gym... and no one knew. Day after day of hysteria, no telling how many more...
Ridiculous, somehow, to be hidden this close to where he was last seen. And not all that far from his apartment, either. I'm right here, he kept thinking. The cops had to start looking in the nearest places. Such as this building. Right?
Maybe there was nothing to rouse their suspicions.
Just the silent roaring, and howling, from his own mouth. The creaking and sliding of the gloves, the toys...
There wasn't any reason to believe that the cops would check every building along the way, including this one. That meant the damn tickling could go on, and on, and on.
And it did.
Every time he woke up, there was a moment of terror. Not more. Fuck.
But yeah, obviously, there was more. Another blistering, heart-pounding day.
The centuries kept starting over again. A new day. Today, too. Here goes...
There was no reason for it. That drove him wild, and he couldn't seem to stop thinking about it. It wasn't about ransom, or punishing him. Apparently.
The gloves wanted somebody to tickle... and he was it. Unthinkably sensitive to what they did to him.
How they'd laugh, if they could. If the gloves had mouths. They're so happy, doing this, and it really couldn't be more obvious.
He knew he was delirious, thinking stuff like that, but he couldn't stop.
No one knows, Dimo, and we love that. We can keep going and going. You're stuck. Still going to be our captive tomorrow. More tickling. Nobody will find out. Zero chance of a miracle happening to get you out of our hands. We were so careful, and we still are.
More and more tickling.
Sinister laughter...
I'm here, he kept thinking, I'm right here in this building. Somebody please help me. Come in and find me. Get me out of here, or the gloves will keep on tickling, and they're driving me crazy. So close. I'm right here.
You've got to save me from this.
By the middle of each day, he was convinced no one could help. Absolutely sure.
That's how it is, Dimo, the gloves would say. No way we're done tickling you. Not even close. How hard would it be for us to move you somewhere else, anyway? Huh? You can see how careful we're being, so nobody finds out. So we'll just take you to the next tickle-room, and the next, and all of this unbearable fun will keep on going. We've got you, and you're going to keep feeling it. Every second of it, Dimo.
"What do you want from me?" he snickered at the gloves. "What the fuck do you want me to do?"
They never answered him.
Oh, in his head they kept taunting him until tears ran down his face...
Gloves don't have mouths. The damn fingers couldn't hear him, maybe, because they kept on squeezing and running over the most ticklish spots, hour after hour, and he was gonna go through it all again tomorrow if nobody came to look in here, and somehow held 'em off while they loosened the restraints.
He took a long drag when they started opening a new bottle of oil.
Fed, scrubbed down, and now that he'd smoked a few cigarettes it was time for another impossible, exhausting day. There were restraints locking him down almost all the time.
It was silly to expect anyone to bust into this quiet, forgotten place.
The oil was poured across his belly just before the fingers moved in.
That first shock was long gone. Dimo expected to wake up there now. Every day was the same...
He still couldn't remember what his apartment looked like. That had made him panic, at first, but another week or so had gone by and it just didn't fuckin' matter anymore.
The gloves had more urgent matters for him to deal with. Two of them picked up cigarettes and a lighter.
Four others were waiting, over his thighs, with feathers.
Yeah. Still here.
Oh, well.
"You know who I haven't seen around in a while?" one weightlifter said to another.
"Who?"
"That Greek guy."
His buddy paused in mid-curl. "Niko?"
"Nah. It wasn't... Nemo." They both snickered.
"Probably been a couple months since he's showed his face in here. And that laugh."
"That's right. Man, he's got the weirdest laugh... I thought he lived right around here, too," the first guy said.
With a little shrug, the other dude finished his set, grunting with concentration.
02mar05