Featherscape Tickle Story Collection

A Ticklish Sleepover - Part 4

The pasty stone wall sent chills down Sara's back as she stood alone next to the drama room. She leaned, hunched over with her arms crossed and backpack sitting next to her Sperrys. The halls had emptied from the school day. The school resonated an eerie silence for Sara's mind to focus on the deed to come. With an icy grasp over her nerves, a lingering task plagued her mind. It slowed the day down to a crawl, turned each of her teachers' daily lectures into foggy, distant mumbles, and weighed heavy on her shoulders. Her eyes shut. Her jaw grinded her teeth against one another. She reached up and touched the silver dove dangling off of her necklace for comfort. Sara grimaced at the thought of what was to come, her twentieth cringe of the day. Still, the girl waited, wishing that either time would speed up or stop completely. She stood exactly where she said she would be, at exactly the time that Demi told her to be there when Sara told her friend of a matter in which she needed to talk about. That matter, the previous evening, played over in her mind time and time again.

"Wh-what do you mean?" Sara asked, lost for words in her own living room. Robyn smiled warmly at her daughter.

"Sweetie, it's okay," said Robyn, sitting on the couch with one hand still lightly tapping the black box which Sara had kept hidden beneath her bed. "I'm not mad. You have nothing to be ashamed of." Sara heard her mother, but the white hot train of embarrassment was stopping for no reasoning. Sara's mind traced all possible responses to the moment at hand. In an instant, she contemplated continuing to play dumb. She thought about a complete and total denial of the accusation. Sara weighed her chances of running out of the door and not stopping until her legs fell off. The longer the incriminating silence remained, however, the more inevitable defeat appeared to be. Sara hung her head.

"W-what do you know?" Sara asked softly. Robyn slid over on the couch and patted the empty seat. Sara mouth ran dry as she conceded, walking over to the couch and taking a seat next to her mother. She looked down at her twiddling fingers, trapped in a nightmare. Robyn adjusted her position. She looked down to her daughter with maternal concern.

"Sweetie, it's okay," said Robyn. "I know that you have been tickling your friend regularly, that it's become the reason you two have adopted such a close relationship." Sara cringed. Hearing the word 'tickling' pained her just as much as it did when it first came out of her mouth to Demi. She shrugged.

"I guess," said Sara. "I mean, it happens every now and then at sleepovers. It's not that big a deal, is it?"

"Of course not," said Robyn. "I know that you're doing nothing wrong. Like I said, there's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Right, it's just something silly that we do sometimes," said Sara, speaking quickly. "Nothing really more than that, right? It's nothing." Sara shot her mother a flashing smirk before standing up in dismissal.

"Right, except there's more to it than that, isn't there?" asked Robyn, stopping Sara from darting toward the stairs. "It's a fetish for you, isn't it?" A cold drop of sweat raced its way down Sara's face. Her cheeks burned with the flame of Prometheus.

"How -er- where do you get that?" asked Sara.

"Sara, there's no need to get defensive," said Robyn. "It's perfectly normal, I want you to understand that." Sara recalled back to what Demi said on their walk back to her house.

"I just... I guess you could call it that," said Sara. "I didn't really want anyone else finding out about it though."

"I can't say I don't understand," said Robyn. "It was just always such an importance to me that you knew you didn't have to hide anything from me." Sara bowed her head and nodded.

"I'm sorry," said Sara. "I'm just didn't really think it was something that needed to be talked about."

"That wasn't it," said Robyn, twirling the red and white feathers in her fingers, a pinkish hue appearing in their duet. "You felt embarrassed. You felt like you were doing something strangely wrong in a way. Weird. Something that would label you in a way that would mark you for life as an outcast; that you would lose the respect of everyone around you should your own private interests become public knowledge." Sara nodded, as if hearing her own insecurities take the form of spoken word. She looked up. Her eyebrows furrowed.