The Gallery
by Medak

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Jonathan returned from the restroom, drying his hands on his jeans as he walked, and looked back at the computer where his friend Ryan was sitting.

Ryan, a thin guy with penchant for plaid short-sleeve button-down shirts to go with his thin pencil frame, wasn't turning around to acknowledge his approach, though. As the rugged twentysomething Jonathan pulled forward, he saw an image on the screen. A private image. A horribly, horribly private image buried deep in his hard drive that Ryan had discovered. As Jonathan drew closer, his sense of embarrassment and personal horror grew and grew.

There, on the screen, wasn't just a picture of Ryan's bare soles, no. It was far worse: it was a collage. A series of digital photos taken of Ryan's feet in various state of dress: sock-footed, donning flip-flops, his toes peaking out from the covers of Jonathan's futon during one of the drunken nights he must've passed out at Jonathan's place -- a whole litany of foot fetish glory. The collage, however, didn't end with multiple images of Ryan's feet digitally duplicated and splayed out in a quasi-creative fashion, no. In the middle of this art, there were big printed letters saying "You like these feet, don't you? Go ahead and tickle them ...", as if taunting the person who made it. This was 100% genuine jackoff material, and, assuredly, something Ryan wasn't supposed to see.

Once Jonathan was standing next to the computer -- where the friends had been watching stupid YouTube videos earlier -- Ryan turned around, his look of horror complementing Jonathan's blushing face quite well. While Jonathan wanted to call his friend out for digging through his private picture folders on his computer, he kind of knew that Ryan had the upper hand no matter what.

"What the fuck is this, man?!" shouted Ryan, angry and mortified all at once.

"Dude," started Jonathan, "let me explain ..."

Ryan stood up. "What's there to explain man? I know you've had a male foot fetish -- that's fine, I don't care about that -- but you've been taking pictures of my feet when I wasn't looking? When I was sleeping here? And you've been jacking off to them? Holy shit dude, this is getting into, like, uber-creepy territory ..."

"Ryan, I ..."

"Did you do anything to my feet while I was sleeping?"

"No!", exclaimed Jonathan, defiant.

"Did you want to?"

A painful pause filled the air. Jonathan stuttered a bit: "I ... I mean, I'd want to, but there are certain lines between friends that shouldn't ..."

"Jesus Christ, man!" Ryan was angry now, still walking around with his faux-leather almost-work-friendly sports shoes on. "I mean ... god. This is just too weird. I'm too freaked out man, I ... I just can't be around you right now."

"Ryan, don't go ..."

"Did you send those pictures around to anyone?"

"No!" exclaimed Jonathan, again. Jonathan really meant it, too, as he would never do something as uber-creepy as sharing those photos online with others. They were for his own personal use, and that's it.

"Why do I get the sense that you're lying?" Ryan was really twisting the knife in at this point.

"Ryan, I'm not lying. I never shared those pictures with anyone?"

"Well I feel humiliated ... and, and kind of terrified."

"Ryan, I understand that. I really do. If you'd just let me ..."

"And your ultimate goal is to tickle them? Tickling my feet would get you horny and get you off? Is that right?"

Jonathan stuttered again, "It's ... you just got to give me a second to ..."

Ryan grabbed his gray hoodie and began heading from the door of his friend's apartment. "You know what? I can't stand this. You went too far, man. Seriously, this is ... sick. I'm telling everyone we know. Yeah. That'll show ya. Now let me get out of here."

Ryan unlocked the apartment door and left without saying anything else. Jonathan tried to run after him and plead for his return ... but it was pointless. If Ryan really did do what he was going to say, then yeah, he'd be ruined. The two friends went to the same high school. They work at the same place now that they both have Bachelor's degrees. There is, in short, a lot of fallout that could happen from this, and Jonathan, in a word, would be screwed.
The next 30 minutes had Jonathan pacing around his apartment frantically. All he did was go use the restroom as he usually does. What made Ryan decide to start snooping around on his computer, much less find a folder that far buried in his hard drive? Nothing was making any sense right now. Jonathan wondered if he should call Ryan or text him or ... no. He was pissed off and there was nothing that was going to change his mind, and if there's anything that Jonathan knew, it was that it took a LOT to piss off Ryan.

Jonathan really didn't want to do it. He didn't want to open up that can of worms, but, really, in a case like this, he had no choice. He picked up his cell phone, and called a number he's called many times before, but this time with a sense of urgency he's never had before. A voice on the other end picked up, and Jonathan began to speak: "Hey ... I got a crisis situation here. I ... yep. Ryan, the one I've told you about. I know it'd be a last-minute addition to ... I know. It ... oh trust me, he'll win it. Easy. I'd be more than happy to bet on that but right now I just need some containment. I ... OK, yes, let me give you his address ..."

***

Ryan was sitting on his bed, barefoot. Although his TV was on (turned to one of those "World's Scariest Police Chases" shows, with the volume turned way down), Ryan wasn't paying attention to it. He was focusing on his feet, and trying to figure out what about them made them appear "sexy" to his now-former friend. He didn't get it: his size 11s were thin, his toes were long, his arches were pretty well curved, and his skin was pasty-white (except on the base of the toes and the heel, as those were a shade red due to constant contact with his shoes/the ground) -- how is that sexually appealing? Here he was, 26 years old, living with his parent still, albeit with a hot girlfriend and now dealing with the fact that his best friend had been taking pictures of his exposed feet for what may very well have been years on end. It was a strange conundrum, and he didn't really want to think about it anymore. He still felt very violated by what he saw on Jonathan's computer. He'd known for years about Jonathan's foot fetish, but he just never thought his own toes would factor into the equation. This still made Ryan feel angry and exposed, and he was about to expose his friend in return. He put his dark gray socks back on and headed for his computer to start posting some stuff on the interwebs when he couldn't help but notice a flashing blue light on the evening street below. Ryan stuck his head out the window and saw a police car pulling up ... to the front of his house.

After a few minutes of those red and blue lights jutting in to his room, he finally got his shoes on and went to the front door to see what it was all about. His mother stood at the open door speaking to two police officers.

"What's going on, mom?"

She turned to her son with a look of worry on her face. The two officers' faces were practically expressionless.

"Oh honey, it looks like someone may have gone missing and the last place they were seen was at work. The officers here are wondering if you wouldn't mind coming down to the station to view some footage and see if you can't help find this per-- I'm sorry, am I speaking out of turn, officers?"

"No ma'am. You're doing a fine job," said the taller, slightly older one.

"Listen," started Ryan, "I don't really think that ..."

"It'll just be for an hour or so sir. Put some shoes on please and come with us."

Ryan was a bit flabbergasted by the suddenness of this whole thing, and was about to protest, but saw the look on his mom's face -- that look that implied he might be the key to this whole thing -- and couldn't say no. "I'll be right back," he told the officers, grabbing those shoes once more.

The officers were using a standard police car, with a fenced partition between the front and the back seats of the car. When Ryan got in the back, however, the other officer -- shorter, stockier, ethnic but in a way that Ryan couldn't immediately identify -- got in the back with him. Ryan thought this was unusual for sure but didn't say anything of it. The car slowly drove away into the nighttime streets.

The shorter officer sitting next to Ryan began to speak to him while appearing to reach for something under the passenger seat in front of him.

"We thank you for your cooperation, sir. We'll have you home in a few hours."

"I thought you said one hour."

"There's been a change of plans."

"But, we just barely ..."

And in a lightning-fast motion, the officer took a chloroformed rag and placed it right over Ryan's mouth. Before Ryan's brain even comprehended what was going on, it was too late: this too-strong sensation took over his brain, his eyelids seemed to get extremely heavy all of a sudden, and just like that, he plunged into a deep unconscious sleep. All was black.

***

Ryan awoke, groggy. He felt like he was awaking from a sleep so deep that everything felt very dreamlike, surreal, slow motion-y. A strange blue hue of light was penetrating his vision, and everything was all fuzzy. He tried rubbing his eyes ... but couldn't. His arms were stretched out to either side of him, but they were strapped down. Not very hard, mind you, but still within some of those big leather straps that he's seen in insane asylums in films, making sure no harm came to him no matter how hard he struggled. Ryan was still laying down, comfortably, but his arms just wouldn't go. He cussed out loud, but it was to no effect. He stared up and that glowing hue above him, and discovered that, in fact, there were a series of TV monitors positioned directly above him. Each monitor seemed to be tapped into some sort of CCTV, and he was looking at a ... gallery, of some sort. Everything was in black and white, but it looked like a series of hallways painted red. One monitor seemed to be zoomed in on something unusually specific: a piece of smooshed gum.

Well, wait, maybe it was ... yeah, smooshed gum on the sole of a shoe.

There was a matching shoe right next to it. Well that's weird. Ryan tried propping himself up to get a better view, but ... his legs were also bound. Ryan looked down at this feet and couldn't even see them. Although he was tied down in some sort of room where he couldn't move his arms, his feet seemed to be not just in a set of stocks: they were stuck inside a gigantic black wall. Ryan couldn't see anything outside of the glow of the overhead monitors, but his feet were inside a wall, in another room! It was weird: his feet were in one room and his body was in another. He tried finding something he could anchor his left foot on so that he could maybe get some leverage ... and then his mouth dropped in horror.

He twitched his left foot. The gum-stained foot on the monitor above him moved. He turned his right foot to the side as much as he could, and the right shoe on the monitor did the same. Holy shit: a camera was pointed directly at his feet, which were in another room altogether. He moved his feet up and down as much as he could and looked at the gallery monitor, and ... there he was. His feet were sticking out of a wall at about chest-level, and they were apparently a part of some ... gallery? He looked closely at the monitors and saw that, in fact, there were several other pairs of feet sticking out of the wall, all belonging to guys that were probably just as helpless as he was. Ryan had a bit of a panic moment: this wasn't right. This was ... insane. HE WAS A PIECE OF ART ON DISPLAY AT A GODDAMN FETISH GALLERY. Ryan spent the next 10 minutes screaming at the top of his lungs and struggling as much as he could, but all that came of his efforts was sweat percolating underneath his plaid button-down that he couldn't wipe away. Dread started creeping into his brain, and he had no idea what to expect next.

After a few minutes passed, Ryan heard faint music. A low, sexy pulse of something electronica, coming from the hallway where his feet were on display. He looked up at the gallery camera, and suddenly saw a large group of men enter, most wearing formal clothes, all of them wearing masks like they were at a masquerade. A waiter in a white tuxedo (and no shoes, Ryan noticed), walked around with champagne, and the gentlemen milled about the large gallery space, joking and talking amongst themselves. Ryan tried screaming for help, hoping that his words could somehow escape through his pantlegs and out to the room at large, but this proved futile -- he couldn't be heard over the throbbing dance music playing for these well-to-dos. Ryan eyed the monitor closely, and couldn't make a single woman at all -- just all guys. Ryan was trying desperately to wrap his head around what was going on.
Suddenly, a hand had placed itself around his foot, grabbing at the sole of his shoe, the hand forcibly moving his foot back and forth for no discernable reason, perhaps to examine it.

"Hey pervert! Let the fuck go!" Ryan shouted, but nothing came of it. He tried to determine who was holding onto his foot, but those masks were making it close to impossible for Ryan to determine who was manhandling his left clodhopper. Suddenly another hand began tracing the rim of Ryan's right shoe sole, going around and around at a deliberately slow pace, as if savoring, perhaps guessing was underneath. That hand then began tapping the sole with his fingers, playfully, as if trying to tickle Ryan's foot through his shoe. Ryan fidgeted as much as he could, trying to retract his foot through the wall hole, but to no avail. Looking at the monitor, it seemed that the people standing around his feet in the gallery were quite enjoying the boy's reactions. Before more people could gather, some sort of whistle went off and all the masked men met down at one end of the gallery, as the mingling time was over -- they were now going to be traveling in a group. Ryan didn't like the look of this at all.

He saw the men gather around one pair of feet sticking out from the gallery, and they were gathered so tight that Ryan couldn't make out exactly what was happening on the monitors. Minutes were passing and all he could see was the occasional reaction from the group -- usually something that pleased them. They stuck by that pair of feet for about 20 minutes or so, and each minute they were there Ryan's brain raced around with numerous nightmare scenarios, many way more gruesome, graphic, and bloody than they should be. Suddenly, the men moved on to the next pair of feet in the gallery. Just barely, Ryan could see that the pair of feet they were previously around were now bare and exposed -- a pair of sneakers were strewn about on the ground, and the socks were nowhere to be found (although maybe the guy went sockless? They were skater shoes, so that would make some sense ...).

The guys seemed to be equally taken with their new set of feet sticking out of the wall, and judging from the monitors, there was one other guy between where Ryan was now and where the group was. He watched the men closely, trying to see if could figure out anything that they were doing. Suddenly one shoe came flying up from the huddled group of masked men, landing behind them -- apparently, they were feeling a bit whimsical now ... or maybe just somewhat drunk. Ryan wasn't sure if this scared him or not.

The group moved from to the next set after about 10 minutes of playing with the last pair, and Ryan's whole back tensed up -- they were one away from him. Ryan still couldn't make out exactly what was happening, but given how much closer they were to him, Ryan could make out occasional glimpses of that poor soul's soles on the monitor. Depending on where the masked men moved, he could see the feet being touched and handled ... and the toes distorting in a spectacular fashion, as if they were trying to get away from something or ... oh dear god ...

... tickled.

Ryan had never been so scared. He struggled violently once more, but, once again, was greeted with nothing more than his body releasing more hot, sticky sweat. Ryan was the kind of guy who rarely took off his socks, much less his shoes -- a scroll through his pictures on Facebook never once shows his feet bare or exposed in any way (the few times he wore sandals, he made sure no camera was anywhere in sight). As such, his soles were very soft, lightly pink, and, very, very tender. Tickling positively drove him mental, and he's attacked those who've tickled him before. Right here, right now, however, he didn't have that kind of defense. In fact, right now, he was completely helpless.
The men seemed to be finished with the latest pair of tender goslings, and soon formed a circle around Ryan's feet, which were twitching with nervous anticipation. Ryan's back tensed up like it never had before, tighter than a thousand wound coils. He eyed the monitor very closely, and at first, the masked men were just ... standing around his feet. Watching them nervously twitch and move. Every time Ryan got self-conscious about it, his nervousness just made it worse, his sneakered feet fidgeting -- perhaps even groveling -- before the mysterious men.

Then, with no warning, a hand began caressing the instep of his shoe. Ryan tried to hit it away with his other foot, but it's at that moment that someone else's hand grabbed his other foot, rendering it immobile. The fondling of his left sneakered instep continued on for some time -- whoever was doing this was quite enjoying it. Then, the man's index finger went underneath the tongue of his shoe, his other hand grabbed the heel, and in one quick motion, that shoe came right off. Ryan couldn't see what happened on the monitor, as the men's faces were now out of frame, but it was obvious that someone was sniffing the collected foot sweat inside his shoe. Before Ryan even knew what was happening, the other shoe came off, and now Ryan's sweaty feet were down to those dark gray socks. The moisture from his socks suddenly became apparent once the cool air of the room hit his helpless dogs, and, strangely, that made Ryan feel even more vulnerable.

His toes curled, as if in fear, and there was some minor deal of movement around the men. One hand descended onto his right foot, cradling it, while another set of hands grabbed his left foot and began kneading his soles, attempting to massage it. His right socked sole was now just being fondled, stroked, caressed, while the kneading continued on his left. Ryan couldn't do much of anything, and found the sensation ... weird. These guys were ... trying to please his feet? Against his will? Brian's neurons were firing but all that came out were dull sparks: he couldn't figure out what the fuck was going on.

Suddenly, the man who was caressing his foot got down to his knees, so he was eye-level with Ryan's socked toes. Ryan couldn't make out much, but all he could tell was that the man was younger, handsome even. The man, still wearing his masked, pressed his nose right into the base of Ryan's big toe and inhaled. Ryan could feel the air rushing in between his big and first toe, and it was odd, to say the least. From what he could gather from the video feed, the young man really seemed to enjoy it, and proceeded to do it again. Another man bent down next to Ryan's other socked foot and after lightly caressing the sensitive sides of his left clodhopper, leaned up a bit and proceeded to suck on Ryan's big toe through the sock. Ryan's foot immediately tried to fidget away, but the guy's hands immediately held the foot in place. The sucking was slow, deliberate, and very, very sensual. Suddenly, his moist left sock was starting to get damp, and he had no idea what to think. Ryan may have even felt a tingle himself, but immediately ignored it.

Then, as the intensity of the toe sucking increased, fingers reached out to the rim of his left gray sock and began slowly snaking it off the boy's foot. Ryan desperately fought this as much as he could but it was pointless: the sock was off in seconds. His toes instinctively flexed a bit, adjusting to their new freedom, and just like that, his much-sniffed right sock also came off. His bare feet were sticking out the other end of a wall, and whatever the men on the other side were seeing, it was quite obvious that they liked it.

Being barefoot, his left toes slightly moist from the soaked-through saliva of his mysterious foot friend, Ryan had never felt so naked in his life. This includes the times he felt naked in the locker rooms at high school -- for some reason to have his shoes and socks forcibly removed at the whim of what seemed like a dozen professional foot fetishizers ... it was almost too much for him. While he wished he could've retracted his feet into the wall before, he now simply wished he could pass out and have the whole thing over with.

That, however, was not the case. The two men who were already kneeling in front of his feet were then joined by two other men who kneeled down. They seemed to be evenly-divided: two men to a foot. Ryan's toes once again curled in terror, and even Ryan's own face grimaced a bit in anticipation. Then, after each silent second creeped by as if it was an hour in length, the licking began.

Tongues slithered up his soles, across his too-sensitive tops, around his heel, and oh, especially at the toes. Whoever was working the toes of each foot were clearly enjoying themselves, their moist, horny tongues savoring each and every flavor, texture, and detail. Those tongues polished the toenails, lapped at the toepads, and slithered in-between each toe like a hungry snake. The tongues sneaking between each toe began driving Ryan bonkers: they were so wet they seemed to just glide, tickling him intensely. Ryan didn't want to be tickled, and fought it as much as he could, his face distorting and his arms moving at sharp angles, despite being bound down. Ryan closed his eyes and clenched his lip as the warm tongues played with his index toe, his too-helpless pinkie toe, and the base of his big toe, but as their speed increased, so did the moist tickles, the little taste bumps on each tongue scraping at the sensitive spaces in-between each digit.

The worshipper on his left foot then did something utterly devious: his tongue darted in and out of the space between Ryan's middle toes over and over again, quickly, quickly, tickling more and more each time. Suddenly, Ryan couldn't fight it anymore: the laughter burst out of him, and he resembled a Muppet gone wild. His body seizured to each side, he leaned forward as quickly as he could before slamming back down again, his body doing everything it could to combat the laughter issuing forth from his mouth, but it was all a wasted effort. The other tongues circled his heels and slowly traced his arches, but tongues between his toes were tickling way too much, saliva dripping down the sides of his feet like a melted ice cream cone.

Ryan's eyes were firmly shut, as if holding back tears. His head titled back, and his high-pitched cackles came jutting out. Mixed in with them were please of "Stop!" "Don't!" and the ever-classic "It tickles!!" Of course, with a wall between him and his tormentors, Ryan's pleas fell on deaf ears. If those mysterious men even could hear the boy, they'd probably just be turned on by what they heard: honest-to-goodness helpless laughter. Not a firm enjoyable chuckle, or high-pitched whine, no; genuine laughter. Laughter that had to be forcibly removed from its subject, which sounded like it'd do anything for its torment to stop. It was laughter that couldn't enjoy itself; it was laughter that was forced into being laughter.

A half-hour passed.

The slurping stopped, as if all at once. Ryan's feet were simply coated in saliva, his toes exhausted from their wiggling. Ryan's own chest began heaving heavily, his voice scratchy and hoarse, his body spewing out the occasional laughter aftershock completely against his will. With sweat forming on his brow that he positively couldn't wipe away even if he wanted to, all Ryan wanted to do was pass out. He was so weak, he couldn't even fight back when he felt the guys doing something to his toes, as if wrapping something around each one. He knew it was pointless to fight at this time -- it's like his own feet were no longer his.

Then, the cinch came. His feet were now completely flexed back. Ryan looked at the monitor: on the wall in the gallery, there were eight hooks located right above where Ryan's feet were sticking out of the wall. Every toe was tied back to a hook, all seemingly using the same piece of rope, which explains why when they cinched it tight, all his toes moved back at once. The cruel masked men, however, left his pinkie toe on each side completely free to move, giving him the horrible illusion of movement. Ryan, fearful, watched the monitor ahead, doing his best to curl his toes even a half-inch -- and they couldn't even do that. He was completely immobile, save his pinkie toes, which flexed and moved just a little bit, all cute and helpless. He then saw that two of the masked men had grabbed feathers and were nearing closer and closer to his immobile feet. Ryan screamed once more, and then ... he felt it.

The tiny scrape of the tip of a feather against the ball of his left foot. It ... almost didn't tickle. It was so slight, indiscernible. He felt a light wisp on his left foot, but, again, it was fleeting. Slowly but surely, the feather strokes became more apparent, just calmly tracing the balls of his feet on a horizontal line. Wisp. Wisp. Wiiiiiiiiiiisp. It was excruciating. In fact, this was worse than tickling: it was "almost tickling", and it was putting Ryan's exhausted mind in a state of perpetual tension, preparing itself for the full-blown tickles that weren't coming. This went on for five excruciating minutes, and Ryan's feet began to tingle with anticipation. "Just tickle me already!!" he kept thinking, but all he was greeted with was Wisp. Wiiiisp. Wisp. Another three minutes passed, and Ryan was about to lose it.

Then, the feathers stopped. Out of nowhere, a single fingernail glided up the arches of his left foot, and Ryan jolted. It was so unexpected, so -- AHHHH! It happened on his right foot. Then another on his right foot. And then Ryan realized his fears had come true: the tickling had begun.

A bevy of fingers descended on his bound soles, and they were enjoying their soft and fleshy playthings. Some finger scraped, some lightly poked, some traced circles, some scratched the sides of his feet, some wiggled in front of his toes, and all of them fucking tickled. His bare size 11s were on fire with electricity, processing through a million different ticklish sensations at once. His nerve endings were practically screaming at him, but all he could do was just unleash more torrents of laughter. Tickly tickles. Ticklish tickles. Tickle tickle tickles -- this was all his brain seemed to be capable of thinking. The more he laughed, the worse he got. Every time his lungs drew in to catch his breath, a finger went horizontal across his toepads and a laugh jumped into his lungs. Ryan's brain was buckling under the pressure. The person on his right foot apparently was trying to spell out letters on his soles, his fingernail no doubt leaving a trail of white as it drew across his pink soles, spelling out Q's and fancy S's with too many loops. Ryan pretty much went on cackle auto-pilot. His sanity slowly began to slip, and had he known this was going to continue on for 20 minutes more, his brain would've prepared itself more.

In Ryan's feathery fever dream, years must've passed. His brain had lost all sense of space and time -- he could be a medieval knight for all he knew. The only thoughts that were going through his brain consisted of only one or two syllables: Tickle. Feet. Toes. Tickle. Laugh. Lungs. Water. Ticklissssssssh. Tickley! Tickles. Toooooooes. Feet. Scratchy. Laughy. In truth, the tickling had actually stopped for a few minutes, but Ryan's brain didn't even detect it until long after.

When his eyes readjusted to the monitors above him, he could see that the men had moved on to maybe three other pairs of feet since he last checked. Ryan couldn't make sense of many things right now, but all he could tell was that the other pour souls (and soles) locked in the gallery right now did not have to suffer as long as his did. While all the men were huddled around their latest foot toy, one of the masked men broke from the pack and seemed to approach Ryan's feet. A hand reached down and briefly tickled Ryan's left heel. Instinctively, it flinched.

A feather then came out and proceeded to tickle only that left pinkie toe -- it tried its damndest to escape but that toe was too limited in its movements to do anything. It just danced with the feather, accepted its tickles, and only pretended to escape. For some reason, having his pinkie toes free to move about despite their limited capacity to do so was probably the most frustrating part of the whole thing. The masked man knelt down next to his bound feet, and, from what Ryan could tell through his fuzzy eyesight (hard to regain vision after you've teared up from laughing so much), that man was the same one who so passionately sucked his big toe through his sock earlier. The man leaned in, sniffed that left foot, and then planted a simple kiss on Ryan's left sole, then the right. The masked man reached into his pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a black sharpie marker, and proceeded to press it into Ryan's right sole, and really began to write something.

The letters tickled, and Ryan's last reserve of laughter just jumped out of him. This was weak laughter now: high-pitched and craggily. Laughter of the truly defeated. The slightly moist marker swooped in and out, made all sorts of shapes, and simply made Ryan go bonkers just one more time. FUCK Ryan hated whoever was doing this to him right now. When the marker seemed to reach the bottom of his left foot, the ticklish writing stopped. The young masked man got up and walked back to where the rest of the group was torturing some other helpless young man. Ryan, about to pass out, still managed to look up at his bound boyfeet on the monitor and make out what was written:

"I hope you learned your lesson, Ryan. Don't make us come back for you ... unless you want to join us ..." There was a smiley face at the end of that sentence, as well as the image of a crudely-drawn feather across the bottom of Ryan's heel. Ryan tried to make sense of it, but his brain couldn't fight his physical exhaustion much longer. At long last, Ryan -- with his feet in another room and his toes tied back, moist marker ink still drying on his soles -- passed out.

***

Ryan's eyelids fought very hard to remain closed, but Ryan could sense himself gradually waking up. All his body was telling him right now was how much it hurt, especially his feet. Ryan looked around: he was still wearing the same plaid shirt as before and the same pants, but he was very much barefoot. He looked around: he was in his own room again, but not underneath the covers, actually on top of them. Suddenly, Ryan shot up: he instantly remembered everything that happened to him the night before: his feet in a wall, his socked toes being sucked on, a feather teasing his pinkie toes with absolute relish. Ryan instinctively grabbed the soles of his feet with his hands, as if to protect them. Then he calmed down a bit -- was that all a dream? Did ... did that all really happen? After all, his toes still hurt a lot ...

Ryan looked around his room, just to make sure everything was OK, and then noticed that his computer monitor had a note taped to it. He got off of the bed, his bare feet making contact with his too-familiar carpet at long last, comforting him, and he leaned forward, eyeing what was taped there. It seemed to be a card of some sort, and all it said on the front was "You are invited ..."

The boy then opened up the card, and couldn't believe what he saw in side ...