Inspired by a drawing of a captured dingo from the master of rusty tickle-art, Ximon (who has newer work at FA).
He thought he heard someone yell.
It was right at that point when he was almost asleep. Sighing, he looked over at the clock.
2:48 in the morning...
Cheap motel, Tuesday night - probably just some college kids goin' at it.
Back when he pulled around the end of the building, before midnight, there had only been a tricked-out Accord and a rusty pickup truck in sight. Three rooms booked in the wing, out of maybe twenty. And he'd been relieved the desk clerk didn't put him right next to anybody else's room. She had a good sense of humor, too, as she apologized for the remodeling - started a while ago, and then they ran out of money before they finished up.
He didn't care. It was quieter than he had any right to expect, and at least it wasn't on the freeway side.
And almost on cue, there was another long yell. Battle cry. And it had a rumbling quality to it, as if the dude - and it was definitely a man - was highly motivated.
Smirking, he wished he had some inspiration like that in his own bed. He rolled over and pulled the pillow against his ear.
But he was thinking too much...
Two yells. That first one hadn't sounded much like somebody cumming, but he wasn't totally awake when he heard it.
And the last one - well, that bothered him. Rowdy noise. Too loud for somebody who's happy, and it hadn't struck him as the sound of somebody in trouble, either.
Slowly, he loosened his grip on the pillow.
There were more noises. Very faint. Grunts?
They came too quickly. Nobody jacks off that fast, he thought. And then he caught himself. Voyeur, huh? Let 'em have their fun.
He listened to the sounds the dude was making, and didn't hear anybody else. Solo. The guy probably thought that nobody else could hear him. Empty rooms all around. Why not?
There was something... wholesome about it. Takin' care of business, almost mechanically. Relieving the pressure. Probably a young buck, not knowing yet how thin the walls were in these places. Relaxed enough to get a little loud, thinking no one would know.
Maybe not wholesome, then. Normal. That was the word.
Well, he'd been that dude a dozen times. Killing time, and burning off stress, before he fell asleep in a motel room...
Dull rhythm. On and on.
Huh? He woke up and listened.
Quieter, in the night. Slower. But the guy was still making noise.
The clock said it was 5:06.
He laid there with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling, and studied the noise. It was just too damn quick to be sex. Or masturbation. He had a fleeting idea, almost humorous, of a cock pump or something that wouldn't shut off -
No. It wasn't that.
The dude was... laughing.
For two hours straight?
Damn. That was what it sounded like, though.
He tried to remember the diagram of the wing he was in, at the front desk. Nine or ten rooms marked with red X's. Side-by-side, and not in one long row... His room was next to an empty one, he thought. So the other guy had to be two or three doors down, on the same side of the wing -
Oh, fuck.
He tensed up.
Wouldn't that put the laughing dude... in one of the sealed-off rooms?
Call the desk.
Or go check it out first...
It could just be a transient. He didn't want to get anybody in trouble. None of his business.
But the fucker kept on laughing. Oh, not every second. But if he paused for a couple minutes, he started up a little louder. Was there a medical condition that could cause that? Some kind of seizure?
If not...
Why would someone laugh for that long? Unless he couldn't help it.
Now that was a chilling thought. Imagine that. Somebody else making him laugh - all night.
He winced. That was just over the top. Overactive imagination. It was a cheap motel in a dead mining town. That was all.
Really, though, what the hell was he supposed to do? Call the cute babe on the front desk and say yeah, I know this sounds nuts, but there's a guy in one of the X'ed-out rooms that won't stop laughing?
He waited for 5:31.
That was the deadline he'd set. If the guy didn't shut the fuck up by 5:30...
Feeling like an idiot, he pulled on some shorts and grabbed his room key.
The sun was just barely starting to come up. No one around, so he stepped outside and left the door open.
He couldn't hear the laughter. That made him pause. Maybe the sound was coming through the attic? There would be firewalls, but the remodeling was left unfinished. Padding down the walkway, he wondered if the wing would even pass a code inspection now -
Then he heard it. Oh no...
The laughing guy was one door away from the end of the wing - down where every adjacent room was part of the aborted remodeling job.
He looked around quickly, and put his ear against the door.
The laughter had become slow and gravelly. It sounded happy - and sad, both at the same time. Crude, repetitive...
Smutty laughter. And dammit, it did sound as if he was unwilling to laugh. Feverish.
He shivered - and the intensity of that reflex surprised him. What a nightmare.
No one would subject themselves to that kind of hellish stimulation, on purpose. There weren't any other tell-tale sounds. If there was somebody else in there, tickling him - or a machine, as ludicrious as that sounded - they were silent.
The source of the laughter didn't seem to move around. It wasn't like the guy was pacing back and forth. He stayed in one place. Stuck there? Damn. What if somebody... restrained him? Got his shirt off, and his shoes - and drove him wild, until he was incoherent. He'd be too looped to get away. Easier to keep him there.
Fifty feet of rope would work just as well, so long as nobody else heard him.
Laying there, desperate for help. Maybe wondering if people in the other rooms were choosing to ignore the noise...
He stood back, remembering a few hours ago - when he thought it would be safer to get a room in a small town. No self-respecting serial killer would stalk this place.
Just... a tickler.
Oh, that was ridiculous. He put his head close by the door again.
No matter how hard he tried, there wasn't a healthy explanation for the hoarse, demented laughter he was hearing.
Something had to be done. If he hadn't noticed - Fuck. How long would it go on? The guy's voice would be gone, and then nobody would possibly know. The desk clerk had made it sound like those rooms hadn't been touched in months.
That was uniquely scary.
What if that guy wasn't the only one? Maybe he was just the latest catch. He thought about all the other rooms, imagining people in then, too hoarse to attract attention -
He backed away from the door. Call the police, he thought. Something's not right, and he might've been getting totally paranoid. Anyway, it was really the desk clerk's prob-
His heel found a sharp little pebble.
"Ow!" he hissed.
And he froze.
The dude's laughter tapered off.
Immediately, he ran back to his room.
Shit, oh shit.
He locked the deadbolt - and that forged-steel loop that replaced the old safety chain.
Safe. Hah...
He went over and picked up the phone. Breathing hard - he wouldn't sound very cool, to the fine-lookin' desk clerk, but the hell with that. Okay. How was he going to say it?
Staring at the keypad on the phone, he took a deep breath.
Behind him... the door clicked.
He froze.
Dial the phone. Hit the zero button. Now.
But he had to see what he was reporting. Hi, my door just made a sound as if it was opening, but I'm too freaked out by the guy getting tickled a few rooms down to look and see -
Fuck it. He reached for the keypad.
Something grabbed his index finger.
"No," he whined.
So close. Another fraction of a second...
A hand clamped over his mouth.
Fingers wedged their way into his armpits. They were strong and insistent.
Lightning blasted through his chest, up to his head. He yelled - but his mouth wouldn't open. Throwing himself around as hard as he could, there was a moment when he desperately hoped to whip himself right out of their grasp. But that ended, sadly, when he was slammed down against the mattress.
Oh, fuck, the fingers kept digging -
He heard the phone receiver hang up. Something else landed on the bed. It was his oversize gym bag.
Quick hands got hold of his arms, bending his elbows - pinning 'em behind his back. The smoothness with which it was done made him think that they were pretty damn experienced at it. Hollering uselessly, he tried to flop over.
Nothing he could see was touching his arms.
All those hands - there should've been three or four guys responsible. But he didn't hear them. That made him stop wrestling around - he needed to think fast, and it was so damn hard with the tickling going on. Just unbearable.
His jeans dropped on the bag. They were stuffed inside... And nobody was doing that, either.
He laughed wildly, staring -
Shoes, shirt, jacket. Everything was being packed up - magically.
Oh no, no, that was even worse. It couldn't really happen. His wallet was sliding into the bag.
He bucked a few times. The hands pressed down, and they didn't go away.
The tickler was invisible. At least with a crazy guy, he would've had some hope. People get tired at some point. But something else - with all these fuckin' hands, more than strong enough - was drilling his armpits.
Packing up his things.
And he wouldn't be going far...
The hands picked him up, and set him on his feet. The tickling made him jerk around, but they shoved him toward the door.
He tried to hook his heel on the doorframe, but a fist slammed into his shin. It hurt -
They hustled him down the walkway, far enough away from the building that he couldn't kick one of the other doors. Those rooms were all empty anyway.
Wildly, he giggled and looked around. Nobody else was in sight. Dammit -
His car. Oh, how he wished they were taking him closer to his car, not farther away! No, no. He wanted to pull loose and get out of this, drive away as fast as he could...
A door was opening.
"Oh... Help meeeee," a scratchy voice said.
Fighting as hard as he could, his nearly tripped - and then his feet left the cool cement of the walkway. A hard shove propelled him inside.
"No. Oh, fuck!" the laughing guy rasped, slamming around. He was flat on his back, arms and legs stretched wide. Prison tattoos everywhere. Soaked with sweat, hair all wild. Tears and snot were all over his face.
Black straps hid his wrists and ankles. All he was wearing was a diaper, and the front of it was wet -
There was another bed. Empty. Dark nylon straps were already at each corner...
The door closed.
"Get me outa heerrr rah hah hah hee hee hee hee heeeeenn," and then the guy arched his neck and strained at the straps, grabbing a quick breath and snickering it back out.
Behind the new arrival - over his head - there was the sound of metal sliding. He looked back and saw a big padlock swing around and close. That was the answer to the hysterical guy's plea.
Hands pulled him over to the empty bed and laid him out. Face down.The hands pulled his clothes off quickly. All the fight he had in him wasn't enough to keep the straps off his wrists. And then his ankles.
It was depressingly quick. Not even thirty seconds... and they had him stretched out. His head was picked up, and the hand finally let go of his mouth. He gasped -
Cloth slid between his teeth. Well, of course, he thought wildly, snickering into it, throwing his head all around. Daytime, the maids will be wandering around. The other guy's not loud enough to attract attention now.
The gag was knotted tight. He kept flailing - and finally, oh yeah, the hands got out of his armpits. That was such a huge fuckin' relief he was barely aware of the diaper being pulled between his legs - until the elastic tightened up, around his thighs. They were holding the legs open.
Something slid across each butt-cheek.
Fingers.
He thrashed and bounced on the bed, yelling as hard as he could.
The hands in his diaper started roaming around. Tickling. The fingers crept down, toward his meat.
Others got busy on his soles...
And a pair coasted up and down his ribs.
Roaring, giggling crazily, barking laughter, lunging, rolling, kicking - but nothing worked. He had to get the hands to stop tickling him! It was unbelievable. Way beyond too much.
Sunday night arrives.
The men continue to pant and quiver on their beds.
Like the captives in four nearby rooms, their vehicles are hidden well. They're all relaxed and quiet now. Dripping with perspiration, turned over every so often, swallowing water or food whenever it's brought to their mouths. Hardly ever looking at it - or anything else.
Both of them have huge, spacey grins.
And they hardly laugh at all anymore.
On to Episode 2
18nov03