She dusted the large steel dome of the machine with a microfiber cloth, leaving it sheening under the fluorescent lights of the laboratory. Helen was tired. Her early shift had carried on until well after everyone else had left for the day. At that moment, she could have been at home taking a hot shower and preparing to slip into soft bed sheets had her boss not ordered a last-minute deep-clean of all lab equipment. Most people would have responded with a kind ‘fuck off’ before permitting themselves to leave but Helen was not most people. She was a Houndoom. A type of fiercely loyal canine Pokémon. Anyone familiar with the species could attest to their unshakable determination when it came to completing the tasks assigned to them by their masters. She was tall and mostly covered in short dark brown fur with orange spots around her muzzle and tummy. Two back-curled horns jutted from above her scarlet eyes.
The contraption she was cleaning was a full-body stimulation device designed to find and excite a given subject’s sensitive areas. In other words: it was a tickle machine. It consisted of two different parts: a horizontal slab of metal with a pair of cuffs at each end, meant to hold down a subject with their arms above their head and their legs straight; And a large suspended round dome that housed delicate mechanical appendages that descended to work over the subject’s body. The device looked somewhat dull, no branding whatsoever marked its chrome shell and it was clear that little thought had been put towards the comfort of its subjects, as evidenced by the lack of any sort of padding on the restraining slab or the inside of the cuffs. It was, after all, just a prototype.
When not a single speck of dust was visible on the machine’s outer shell, Helen switched the cloth for a feather duster and went under the dome. She looked up to see dozens of retracted mechanical arms neatly arranged side-by-side like a platoon of army men awaiting orders to attack. They were tipped with a variety of implements that would make even the least ticklish of subjects squeal at a glance. Then the real challenge started. Carefully, she swiped the duster over those appendages as lightly as she could so as to not force any of the delicate motor components out of place. Halfway there. She was doing a good job until some dust fell on her canine nose and the muscle spasm from the ensuing sneeze pushed the duster into the machine and managed to dislodge a good three arms from their resting spots.
“Oh crap…” she lamented, hurrying to grab the machine’s control tablet. “That’s okay, I can fix this. Just need to run self-calibration.” Her hands were shaking. Usually her boss did that, not her, but she was sure she could manage. She looked for the icon she thought was the right one on the complicated dashboard and clicked it. A pop-up displaying bold characters in all caps appeared:
‘THIS ACTION MAY RESULT IN IRREVERSIBLE DATA LOSS. PROCEED?’
“Yeah, it’s just self-calibration. The data will be fine.”
She tapped ‘yes’.
‘DELETE OPERATION COMPLETE (2567899 ROWS AFFECTED)’
“…What?”
The Houndoom took a moment to realize she had clicked the wrong icon. “No. Oh please no,” she begged to no one in particular as she brought up the machine’s internal database and peered through empty tables. She had just screwed up big-time. Weeks of subject data lost with the push of a button. Helen felt lost. She knew her boss would berate her for wiping countless hours of work. Defeated, she gave up for the night.
Next morning, Helen arrived early and sat waiting for her boss to enter the lab, mulling over how to break the bad news to her. The sliding door opened and in sauntered a Pokémon of the Liepard variety. Her slender feline frame was covered in short-trimmed purple and yellow fur.
“Goood morning, Helen!”, she purred in an overly sweet tone. “Did you clean the lab like I told you to?”
“Good morning, Leila. I did but there was a… small accident,” said Helen, unable to look her superior in the eye as shame welled up in her throat. “I accidentally pushed some of the arms while cleaning and tried to run self-calibration, but I kind of wiped the database…. I’m so sorry!”, she blurted out, hanging her head in shame.
“Oh that’s okay!” chirped Leila. The canine’s ears peeked. Did she hear her boss right?
“…It is?”
“Yeah! Don’t worry about it! Besides, I know how you can make up for it.”
Helen jumped out of her seat, wagging her tail. Thank goodness her boss wasn’t mad at her! There wasn’t much that made Helen sadder than disappointing her superior. After all, she was a good dog.
“I’ll do anything!”
“I know you will.”
The cold metal table was rather uncomfortable against the nervous dog’s back. There she lay, stripped down to her underwear with her hands and feet through the cuffs, waiting for Leila to boot up the machine.
“Remember, pumpkin, no holding back! We’ve got weeks worth of data to re-collect all in one session, so I’m dialing in the highest setting. You understand,” said the cat, joyfully. She hummed a melody to herself as she configured the machine to put the bound dog through a full course of science-powered tickle torture. “To be fair, I would’ve keyed the highest setting anyway. Wouldn’t be a very effective punishment otherwise.”
“P-Punishment?” questioned Helen, turning her head to look at the grinning feline.
“Of course, silly!” Leila’s tone soured. There was little sweetness in her voice now. “Did you think you’d get away with nuking literal WEEKS worth of testing without punishment? That’s adorable. You’re in for the long haul, sweetheart.” The machine whirred to life.
Helen whined. She should’ve known Leila would never let her off lightly. Nevertheless, she knew she deserved it and braced for the torture. A pair of arms began their descent towards her exposed body. Thay had gloved hands with slender digits. She was familiar with the machine’s processes, and knew it always started with a general examination of the subject’s ticklish spots. The fingers landed on her armpits and she tensed, then let out a chortle through her nose as they steadily circled the ticklish hollows. Pulling on the cuffs was useless but she did it anyway out of reflex.
“Hehehehe!~”
“Daww, is the doggy a little ticklish maybe?” cooed Leila. “You really should’ve thought of that before messing with things above your paygrade.”
“I’m sohohorry!”
“You will be.”
The hands moved down to run their digits over her ribs, causing the girl to let out a squeal and wiggle from side to side as if trying to worm her way out of the machine’s grasp but it kept its laser focus on her tender sides. After the algorithm decided she’d had enough, it commanded the appendages to target another spot, perhaps the most vulnerable one on the dog’s exposed body: her belly. The hands spread out their fingers and dunked their synthetic fingernails into the softly furred skin all at once. Leila was caught off-guard by the Houndoom’s screech and nearly dropped the tablet.
“If I knew you were going to scream I would’ve gagged you!”
“PLEHEHASE!” begged Helen. The bondage allowed her a fair amount of clearance to move her hips from side to side but that hardly mattered when her attacker was a mechanical monstrosity with a reaction time of less than ten milliseconds.
“Oh stop being such a drama queen,” said Leila with an exaggerated sigh. “We’re only at the testing stage, if you’re begging already then I don’t know how you’ll handle the next few hours.”
“HOUHOUHOURS?!”
“Yes, dear. Hours. Now take your punishment like a good girl. Laugh it all out!”
The arms went lower again to squeeze her plump thighs. They were less ticklish than her belly as evidenced by her laughter becoming a little quieter. Leila took the chance to complement the machine’s physical attack with a more psychological approach of her own.
“I’m getting lots of lovely data from the machine,” she tittered, looking down at the tablet. “Your belly sure is ticklish, huh? It’s even recommending me to lower the intensity of the upcoming program based on your current reactions. Nonsense, you’re a tough girl, you can take it!”
“I CAHAHAHAN’T,” yelled Helen, the fingers now scratching away at her soles, paying special attention to her orange paw-pads. Her toes curled and splayed in quick succession trying everything and succeeding at nothing to ease the sensations.
“And those big feet of yours! According to the machine, they’re most sensitive on the pads! You gotta tell me where you get your pedicures after we’re done.”
“STOP, STOHOHOP!!” Helen tried to look at Leila pleadingly but her sight was blurry with tears. To her surprise, the arms retracted and fell back in line with their many identical twins under the dome. Her chest heaved and her cheeks burned, her pits, ribs, tummy, thighs and paws all tingled in aftershock.
“Is it over?…” trembled Helen.
“The first part? Yep,” replied Leila, fidgeting around with the tablet. “You’re ticklish pretty much all over, the machine says! With an exception or two but that’s alright, we’ll compensate. Ready for the next part?”
Helen didn’t bother to answer. The hands returned to her paws to hold back her padded toes so that she couldn’t move her feet if she wanted to. A new assailant made its way towards the exposed soles: an arm sporting a pair of circular rotating brushes spaced apart just enough to touch both of her paws at once. And so they did. The bristles were soft and densely packed together, a perfect fit for the equally supple paw-pads of their victim. The sensations traveled from her pads up through her legs and spine to flood her brain with pure ticklish information. She did the only thing she could and started laughing her snout off.
“That’s it, good dog! Laugh and giggle and giggle and laugh! Give me all of that precious data!” teased the purple cat, sadistically.
“PLEHEHEASE!” Helen’s speech was near-incomprehensible.
“Daww, not enough for you? Don’t worry,” chirped Leila as she tapped a button on the tablet, awakening more of the arms. They moved quickly, each targeting a different spot on the dog’s near-naked body and making use of the data previously gathered to dish out as much ticklish damage as possible. More hands gripped her horns, holding her head still for another implement to wedge itself under her chin, it looked like a neck brace but lined with wiggling tickly fibers. Harsher brushes planted themselves into the hollows of her armpits and spun there while similar implements trailed up and down her sides. Finally, a large feather-wheel lodged itself between her thighs to caress them with its spinning feather tips.
Helen would beg if she could, but her vocal cords were much too busy producing the loudest howling laughter they were physically capable of. She was way past squirming, too, simply laying there on the torture table and taking the inevitable tickles while roaring her head off. Maybe her body had subconsciously accepted the fact that there was no escape and decided to conserve its energy.
Everywhere tickled. The wiggling fibers against her neck, the stiff brushes on her tender pits and sides, the feathers sweeping endlessly between her thighs, the maddeningly soft brushes against her maddeningly soft paw-pads and her belly… Oh, her belly. It… didn’t tickle? Why? That made no sense. The machine had most certainly ascertained it to be her worst spot, and even if it didn’t, the sly cat had most certainly noticed.
The tools stopped, leaving a panting, teary, sweating mess of a dog on the table.
“Please… Please let it be over…” huffed Helen between labored breaths.
“Helen, Helen, Helen…” tutted Leila as she waltzed over the table to peer down at her subordinate. “We’ve only stopped because you’ll need some of your breath back to survive the next part~ Did you think I’d neglect your best spot?” She unsheathed a claw and circled it over the bound girl’s belly button.
“Hehehe~ P-Plehehease!… I– Hahaha– Can’t take it!!”
“You can and you will,” reprimanded Leila, stepping back to mess around with the control tablet. “Or else you wouldn’t have wiped the data.”
“I… already said I was… sorry…” muttered Helen.
“‘Sorry’ doesn’t cut it sweetie,” Leila touched another button on the tablet. “Now let’s put you to work some more!”
Three distinct brushes slowly approached her taut belly, spinning as they did. Helen closed her eyes and braced for impact… But that did nothing to lessen it. The first brush pressed down over her belly button, it was fairly wide and had long but soft bristles, some of which nestled themselves into the navel there while still covering the area around it. The second brush was shaped like a drill made of stiffer fibers. Instead of attacking a fixed area, it poked and prodded at random, keeping Helen guessing where it would strike next, making the tickly strikes themselves a lot more effective. The third and final brush was the widest, and it planted itself firmly above the first, spinning twice as fast and covering twice the area.
Helen roared, howled, begged (or tried to) but didn’t squirm, could’t squirm, she lacked the energy. Having her belly exposed and tickled like that was just too intense, as much as she thought she deserved it. It couldn’t get any worse until, of course, it did. All of the other tools reanimated to torture every single ticklish nerve on the poor dog’s body.
Helen didn’t know how much time had passed. Belly, pits, toes, thighs… she could hardly tell the difference anymore. They all felt exactly the same: red-hot sensitive. She thought Leila said something, but couldn’t hear her through the panicked laughter echoing inside her head. A head which felt light, like it was floating… Her eyelids were heavy, the sensations seemed to dullen. She was almost out… almost…
The machine stopped and Helen was still awake. Somehow she’d made it through without passing out. Her eyes were blurry and her fur was matted with sweat.
“Good girl! There’s all the data we need,” praised Leila, her sickeningly sweet tone was back. She sipped from a steaming cup of coffee. “You’re officially forgiven!” In her exhausted state, it took the Houndoom a moment to register those words, but when she did, she was glad. Leila approached the bound dog and carefully scanned her with wide catty eyes before stating her conclusion: “You need a bath.”
Helen knew it. It would never end, not while she was still trapped in the sadistic Liepard’s clutches. ‘A bath’. She knew exactly what that meant. Leila engaged the machine’s cleaning protocol and a small army of soapy brushes and water jets began forcefully bathing the dog who, by now, could only muster weak giggle-barks in response.
Leila crouched down and purred into the dog’s ear:
“And don’t think I’ve forgotten your special spot…” She tapped a button on the tablet, commanding the machine’s ultimate tool to make an entrance. It was a buffer brush covered in soapy water, large enough to work over an automobile and way overkill for the Houndoom. Regardless, it descended to meet the defenseless belly of its victim. Helen let out a long, trailing howl that dissolved into more tired giggles.
Leila turned around and skipped towards the door.
“I’m off to lunch, heard they got pizza at the canteen today. Be back in an hour or two… Oh! By the way, I’ve restored the backup already, the data is safe and sound. Well, see you!”
Helen was relieved, angry and confused all at the same time, but at least she wouldn’t have to shower that day.