After what seemed like twelve billion eternities, Karl finally allowed me to take a breather. I lay gasping and panting on the satin bed cover, knowing that the reprieve was only temporary, that The Never Ending Tummy Tickle was merely the warm up for the main event. It always had been.

"All right," Karl remarked in casually offhand tones, "I'll let you decide for yourself this time. Where do you want to be tickled next?"

"I don't want to be tickled anywhere!"

Karl's fingers immediately found my ribcage, subjecting me to five endless minutes of wailing delight. I writhed and thrashed in his merciless grasp, pleading for mercy until my eyes overflowed with liquid mirth.

"Are we going to behave?" Karl asked in a husky whisper, looking down at me with that beautiful, rakish grin etched on his features.

I gasped in the affirmative, barely able to catch my breath. I would have agreed to anything by that point, my heart was racing with anticipation; I knew there was more to come, there had to be, but what did he have in mind?

"OK, then," he said, helping me sit up on the bedcover, "undo the back of your dress and take it off."

Noooooo, I moaned to myself, but I was already reaching back to unclasp the first button. Despite my overwhelming trepidation, I was tingling from crown to heel, knowing precisely what came next.

Karl was going tickle me in my underwear, just like he used to when I was just a little girl.

The memories came flooding back: the nibbled earlobes, the gobbled tummy-buttons and the delicious torture inflicted on my half-naked body night after night. Stripped all the way down to my panties like a mischievous six year-old, weeping wailing and begging for it to stop while my folks and my sisters and their closest friends looked on and cackled with raucous laughter. Promising, swearing on my grandma's soul that I was sorry: yes, really, TRULY sorry; I'll never do it again, I'll never do anything ever again, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to die. Screaming over and over that I'd had enough, that I couldn't take another second, that I was about to explode, all the while knowing that the tickling was going to wheel on and on throughout the evening and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it!

Once I'd loosened the back of my dress, Karl leaned forward, taking the hem in both hands, and slipped it up over my head in a single fluid movement. It peeled off like a glove turning inside-out, leaving me in nothing but my bra and panties. I crossed my hands over my cleavage, wild roses blazing on my cheeks. I didn't feel seventeen. I didn't even feel twelve. I felt like a very young child facing the longest tickling of her life.

And for all the dread, all the apprehension, all the lip-biting anxiety I felt at that moment…

I couldn't wait for it to begin.

Tossing the dress over his shoulder, Karl settled me back into the bed, making me lie full length with my arms by my side. I was literally quivering with suspense, knowing what I was in for. My feet were sensitive in the extreme, but my ribs were a hundred times worse. It's almost impossible to explain what I was feeling at that moment. My head was whirling with unwilling pleasure, the pulse was racing in my ears. Karl shifted me into position, ignoring my high-pitched, panting giggles: No, don't, please no, I'm terribly ticklish there, please don't -

Karlos wasn't listening. He was having far too much fun preparing for the afternoon's girl-tickling festivities. Smiling expectantly, he straddled my hips, locking my arms into place but leaving my smooth, naked tummy completely exposed. I began to flail about on the bed, howling like a banshee: in a few seconds, those lean, playful fingers would begin stroking my belly.

"NO!! STOP IT, DON'T TICKLE MEEEEEE!!"

"What are you screaming about?" Karl asked, "I haven't even touched you yet." His hands were poised directly over my torso, ready to descend. He was teasing me, stretching out the moment to unbearable lengths. I pounded my heels on the bedcover, whipped my head from side to side. It was so unfair! Karl was so much stronger than me, he could hold me down and tickle my tummy 'til I was blue in the face. Effortlessly. Worst of all, I would have to put up with it, no matter how long it took.

"All right, let's get started," Karl said. His hands darted towards my stomach, and my torture began anew.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!" I squealed, writhing convulsively in his grasp. I twisted back and forth between his thighs, frantically trying to evade his ruthless fingers. Resistance was futile, needless to say. Those implacable digits were everywhere at once, swarming over my ribs and waist and belly button. I clawed at the blanket, trying to free my arms, but Karl never gave me the chance. He clamped his knees into my sides with an almost casual ease, cutting off all avenue of escape.

"STOP IT!! KARL, DON'T, PLEASE, DOOOOOOON'T!!"

And on it went, seconds blurring into minutes; minutes blurring into infinity. I lost all track of time, conscious of nothing save the ripple of fingers over supple, ivory flesh. I was in purgatory. A sweet, delicious purgatory I secretly hoped would never end. I shrieked in wordless hysteria, my cheeks wet and streaming. One moment I felt his fingertips circling the soft bulge of my belly, the next caressing the tiny cup of my navel. His hands skittered over my ribcage like wicked little spiders, drawing wild screams from my diaphragm.

Have you ever been tickled so hard you'd sell your soul for even one second's relief? It was a humiliation beyond description. Some time later (I think maybe an hour, but I can't be certain), Karl allowed me to catch my breath, pausing long enough to tell me he was going to tickle my feet again. By this time I was too exhausted to object, other than to whisper hopeless entreaties under my breath: Oh no, not again, I can't stand it any more, you can't tickle my feet now, I've had enough ...

After a minute or so to get my strength back, he took hold of my small right foot. I immediately began to squirm in his grip, still gasping out pleas for clemency. I didn't want to be tickled, didn't want to submit myself to Karl's devilish attentions, but I had no choice in the matter. He was going to tickle my innocent young feet whether they liked it or not - frilly little girl-socks and all. Clenching my toes against the next onslaught, I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable.

Karl gathered both my feet into his left hand and attacked the soles with renewed vigor. He focused on the tender curl of skin at the top of the arch (I call it my T-spot), driving me into a storm of ecstatic laughter. I was his prisoner, his plaything, his obedient little tickle-slave. I contorted like a human question-mark, rolling from one side of the bed to the other.

Unfortunately, there was no where to run, nowhere to hide. No retreat from my just deserts. Karl held my ankles in a grip of steel as his fingertips ravished my defenseless feet.

"NO!! NO!! DON'T!! KARL!! PLEASE!! DOOOOOOON'T!!!"

He tickled me for another hour. No breaks, no rests, no breathers. He tickled my arches, he tickled my soles. He tickled my toes. The spaces between my toes (OMG, how I screamed). My left foot, my right foot, the backs of my knees. I suffered indignity after indignity, sobbing with hapless mirth, begging him to stop over and over again. Sixty minutes of agonized delight, sixty minutes of wailing bliss. I melted in his hands, dissolved into a mass of pure, liquid joy.

Then suddenly, shockingly, it was over.

Karl snuggled me up in his arms, stroking my head and back and bottom. He rocked me back and forth on his shoulder, kissing my cheeks and nibbling on my earlobes to calm me down. We lay together, hugging and kissing like two kids at a slumber party. It was wonderful, the perfect ending to maybe the best afternoon of my life. I'd never realized that tickling could be so exciting, so thrilling, so literally breathtaking. Looking back, I suppose I had come to a cross-roads, a turning point. I never looked at my cousin in quite the same way again, but at the same time, I loved him more than ever.

A few hours later, we were camped out on the sofa, gobbling microwaved popcorn and watching a video (Sleepless in Philadelphia, or some other tear-jerking romance). I was curled up in Karl's lap in my pink satin babydoll, he was stroking my cheek and running his fingers through my hair. I felt happy, protected, completely and totally loved.

I asked him why he'd done it, why he'd decided to strip me to my underwear and tickle me for like a million years. Karl glanced down at me and smiled.

"I think it was the socks," he replied, slipping a finger into my belly-button to make me chuckle. And there it was: the socks had been the trigger. Lacy pink girlsocks with a frilly trim around the ankle. Those pretty little foot-laces had been too darned cute. The temptation had been overpowering, Karl simply had no other choice. He just HAD to tickle me. I had no reason to complain; I had reveled in the outcome, after all.

At the end of the day, I had received everything I'd ever wanted.