"I... I can't. I'm sorry." Ellie gazed at Tom, apologetically.
"I don't understand. We've been together for two years. Do you not trust..."
"Of course I trust you. Trust has nothing to do with this." There was a long pause as Ellie shifted the weight of her five-foot-six frame on Tom's bed.
"Then why won't you... do it, for me?" Tom replied while still embracing Ellie. Poor Tom -- Ellie thought – this was, perhaps, more than she'd be able to handle.
As warmly as she could, Ellie replied: "It's just not something I'm comfortable with."
At times, Ellie wished that things had not progressed in the way that they did. Tom had a tickling fetish, along with its cousin foot fetish, and he had admitted this to Ellie very early on in their relationship when he and Ellie were both twenty year old college juniors. Majoring in psychology, Ellie had already heard of things such as fetishes before, and the revelation of Tom's desires had been more intriguing than shocking. Nevertheless, for some reason that she herself did not and could not immediately understand, Ellie forbade Tom from tickling her or touching her size eight feet in any way. Tom had been deeply disappointed, but he consoled himself with the reminder that Ellie was quite the catch for him.
And she was. Sporting a slim, athletic build, a brunette Ellie was lightly tanned and graced with the beauty of her female French ancestors. Her legs were toned and her feet were singularly feminine, if not petite. And like her predecessors, Ellie was well-aware that she was much desired by men.
And yet, never one to leave a stone unturned, Ellie had decided to privately explore the topic of tickling and feet soon after Tom's admission. Excusing herself from Tom's company with the claim that Ellie needed evenings to study the works of Freud and Carl Rogers, she perused the colorful catalogues of internet fetish video vendors. With astonishment and wonder, Ellie read stories upon stories of tickle torture, tickle enslavement, foot bondage, and babysitter tickling. In the very wee hours of the morning, Ellie had even downloaded sound and picture files of tormented laughter.
And at the conclusion of Ellie's private monthlong foray into the internet, Ellie had discovered something about herself that she did not know before:
Ellie loved tickling.
Indeed, Ellie was unequivocally aroused by the idea of someone immobilizing and exposing her vulnerable one hundred and twenty pounds of flesh. Ellie had enjoyed viewing the hudreds of pictures and sounds of tormented naked skin to the point where Ellie had even made it a habit to remove her own shoes and socks before she began her evening internet tours. Pressing her ankles firmly together, Ellie sometimes imagined that she was at the mercy of the tickle-crazed foot fetishists on her computer screen. Denying to herself that she would soon hold the status of a college graduate, Ellie fantasized that she was the star prostitute working a cocktail party full of tickle fetishists. Momentarily disavowing her own feminist beliefs, Ellie had even – in her thoughts – permitted herself to be the nonconsenting victim of a humiliating gangtickle. This last thought made Ellie's toes curl.
Somewhat mysteriously, Ellie consciously withheld her exploration and discovery from Tom. Ellie did not tell him of her recently developed fantasies, nor did she tell him of the many evenings she had spent in wonder in front of her computer screen. Perhaps foreboding of what was to come, Ellie received her first pedicure and began to meticulously care for her feet, all the while still refusing to allow Tom to touch her feet or tickle her.
But a love for tickling was not the only unique trait that Ellie had discovered twenty four months ago when, at twenty years of age, she began her fetish autotutorial. In fact, Ellie had had a second revelation:
Ellie loved to cheat.
Ellie didn't learn this from the internet or from some sort of congenital deep-seated desire. Rather, as she spent evenings away from her darling Tom (for the purpose of advancing her collegiate understanding of academic psychology), Ellie had realized that she enjoyed the attention of other men. There was her dormitory neighbor John who -- for example -- could not complete his assignments on time but could, however, procure the finest beer in the continental United States in less than forty four minutes.
At first, Ellie had dismissed John's overtures without a moment's thought. He was a sophomore, for heaven's sake, and he could not possibly comprehend the very excruciating pressures that a junior like her felt from school on a daily basis.
But as her textbooks often taught her, Ellie became fond of he who was in physical proximity. She grew to fancy John.
This liking precipitated into an evening of beer-motivated revelry, and Ellie found herself exiting from John's room in the late hours of one Thursday evening.
The guilt was explosive, but fleeting, for this encounter with the clumsy and inebriated John had set forth a chain of ideas in Ellie's head.
Back in her own room, Ellie thought back to the recently transpired events. In the middle of her drunken infidelity twenty minutes before, Ellie had shoved her lacquered toes into John's mouth and forcibly instructed him to "Suck 'em." Predictably, John had licked and sucked her toes, as any boy his age would when assertively told to suck any female body part by its owner. Unpredictably, this had pleased Ellie much more than she expected.
Whether or not John possessed a foot fetish was completely irrelevant to her at this moment, she realized as she lay prone on her bed. What aroused her was (1) that someone had orally savored her very ticklish feet, (2) the idea that she had cheated on Tom with a near-complete stranger and (3) that she had let a near-complete stranger please her in a way -- which was forbidden from her boyfriend -- that blew her mind and that would have also blown his.
At the same time, Ellie was troubled by these revelations. How could I be aroused by something so cruel? thought Ellie as she absentmindedly rubbed the tops of one foot's toes with the sole of the other. Why should I be so awestruck by the thought of keeping something so erotically powerful from Tom?
Ellie considered these questions as her months with Tom accumulated. She grew to like Tom very much. She felt happy waking up next to his handsome body. They could talk about nearly anything with the other and not feel bored or uninterested: one night they'd debate over Europe's post-colonial indenturement of Africa (a topic brought up in a lecture they both attended), and the next night they'd discuss muppet babies (Gonzo was Ellie's favorite). Ellie felt, somewhat justifiably, that they were a near-perfect match.
And yet... her own mind would not let her forget the things about herself she had learned from her tryst.
And, after their one-year anniversary, Ellie came to realize a final and condemning discovery:
Ellie needed to cheat with and be tickled on her pristine feet by near-perfect strangers to be sexually fulfilled. Ellie needed to be helplessly immobilized and have her soles licked and caressed while near-perfect strangers had sex with her. And... most troubling and upsetting of all... Ellie needed to have this done to her in front of a helplessly immobilized Tom, so that he could see Ellie being voluntarily ravished and tickled while he could do nothing about it.
After their one-year anniversary and as a senior psych major, Ellie could finally comprehend that her desires came from her wish to pursue taboos. Coming from a Midwestern family, it was taboo to have her soles licked and her toes sucked. It was taboo to be tied down and tickled for sexual pleasure. Coming from a religious background, Ellie understood that it was taboo to cheat. Being human, it was taboo to do all of those things in front of her immobilized boyfriend.
And so, Ellie contemplated and pondered her situation... and she made a choice.
Two years into a mutually satisfying relationship on a tranquil May evening, college graduates Ellie and Tom found themselves reclining on Tom's bed.
"Ellie..." Tom started, almost dreamily.
"What is it baby?" replied Ellie, adjusting her matching pink pajama bottoms.
"There are some things I want to do to you." There was a catch in his voice, and Ellie knew right away what it was that Tom wanted.
"What do you want to do to me, baby?" Ellie replied.
