ACiT: Lesson 8 - Tickling With Wind

The bell rings and you leave your English teacher – Ms. Lukers’ class, heading for one brief moment of habit toward your biology class.  You don’t take two steps, however, before you remind yourself that Mr. Bugsby’s classes ended yesterday as he was to spend the remainder of the week grading final exams.  Internally questioning why your school had such a stupid policy of spreading out final exams over the week instead of just getting them all over and done with in a single day, you make an attempt to map out the quickest route to your elective and head in the direction you think it is.

Although the hallways did kinda look the same to you, you’ve gone to this school enough times to know the layout by heart and make it over to that familiar room in no time, walking up to the door and opening it as you have since last Monday.

As you make your way over to your seat, you cast a glance at the desk.  Next to the confused-looking, tank-top-wearing, jeans-sporting grey Husky strapped to the desk with the usual cloth-gag tied around the muzzle this time was Max dragging out an oxygen tank with a hose and what looks like a spray-gun-nozzle attached to it.  For a fleeting moment, you ponder if the Red Shepherd is about to attempt to inflate the poor thing before the reminder of this class’ subject in addition to the words on the board quickly put things into perspective: Tickling with Air.

“Morning, class,” Max calmly greets as you take your seat, watching him gently roll up the base of the Husky’s white tank-top to expose a flat tummy, which pertains fur of a similar color.

A majority of the room murmured a “good morning” in reply as they all gave in to curiosity as to what Max was doing.  He eventually ceased and turned his attention to the students, looking particularly pleased with himself today.  You can’t help but wonder what he was up to.

“Today, I’m going to attempt something…experimental,” he announced, triggering a sort of excited curiosity among his students.  You had to admit, you were a little interested in what this was yourself – up until now, Max had only ever been teaching methods he had likely considered to be tried-and-true.  It obviously has something to do with today’s lesson, but you were curious to see how it would become implemented.

“Before we get into that, I have t—oh, by the way, serving as today’s demonstration subject is…some husky fellow I ran into on the way over.  Anyway, I have to ask: how many of you know what a raspberry is?”

The entire class - excluding Gary, shoot their hands up.

“…I mean the tickling method, not the actual berry,” Max added with a huffing chuckle, which turns to a look of genuine surprise when only two students lower their hands.  “…Really?” he hums in thought as he looks around.  “More popular than I thought it was.”

“…Well then,” he adds as he makes his way back behind his desk, “for the two of you who don’t know, a raspberry is tickling method usually applied to the midsection of the body – almost always the belly-slash-tummy.  The one applying said method presses their mouth against said area upon the subject and blows as hard as they can.  The result is a rather silly noise as the air escapes the lips, spreading out upon the area’s surface and triggering a rather intense tickling sensation.  Like this.”

Without hesitation, as usual, Max suddenly throws his head in the direction of the Husky’s tummy, planting a puckered mouth upon it before blowing.  It almost sounds like a trumpet…if that trumpet were pressed against a flapping, rubber sheet and accompanied with muffled whimpers and panicked giggling; the Husky’s pupils constrict at the sensation as his mouth curled and lips parted into a forced grin, unable to open his mouth to let out even a single laugh.

Max quickly stops after a moment, much to the poor Husky‘s relief.

“It’s my favorite means to tickle someone, in case you couldn’t tell,” he adds with an enthusiastic giggle before sticking his tongue out in some kind of pride akin to that of a puppy showing off his favorite squeaky-toy.  Behind him, you could even see the tip of his tail swishing back and forth in a pleased wagging motion.  It’s actually quite an adorable display which, unfortunately, doesn’t last long as he soon retracts his tongue and returns to his teacher-like stature.

“Aherm…moving on,” he adds, returning to his spot in front of the desk.  “This method can also be applied to the sides, ribs, and feet, but…nowhere else, unfortunately.  Either because mouth placement is physically improbable or because nobody in their right mind would put their mouth anywhere near such an area.  …Fortunately, I do believe I’ve come up with some kind of a solution to such a problem!”

Max picks up the air tank and shows it off to the class, whose only response is a myriad of curious looks.

“Compressed air,” he announces before gently putting it back down.  “As the raspberry alone demonstrates, mobile air can tickle quite a bit at the right amount of pressure.  So, theoretically, it’ll be like a…concentrated raspberry of sorts.  …Ok, a better explanation; how many of you have sat in front of an active air jet in a hot tub?”

Everyone exchanges glances before raising their hands.

“Well…it’s just like that, only without water as a buffer to slow it down,” Max explains as everyone’s hands lower.  “Now, obviously, that isn’t the experimental bit of this process I mentioned at the beginning of class.  No…the experimental bit is seeing how other parts of the body react to the raspberry sensation.  Remember, the only places to ever have experienced this before are the tummy, sides, ribs, and feet.  Even with air-jet contraptions, I’ve never known of anyone who has ever given a pondering on what the reaction would be like in other areas.  Or what if the jet of air isn’t stationary, but instead travels along the body?  I mean, really, how many people have ever experienced a moving raspberry before?

“Obviously, it’s going to tickle, and quite a bit too, but it’ll still be interesting to see.  So,” Max says as he, to the very visual dismay of the strapped-down Husky, grabs hold of the spray-nozzle.  “Let’s get started then.”

Max turns to the Husky and seems to ponder for bit.  Then, as if on a whim, he presses his own hand against the head of the nozzle and squeezes.  A loud hiss of air fills the room and his hand is pushed back a few inches.  Max contemplates on something for a moment then gives a shrugging nod before pressing the nozzle directly up against the Husky’s tummy and doing the same for a longer period of time.

Amidst the loud hiss, you can just manage to make out a muffled, ticklish yip before the dog descends into a torrent of hysterical giggling and muffled whimpers as he struggles in his restraints.

“…Interesting,” Max comments after eventually ceasing the tickling torment.  “The compressed air seems to trigger more of a reaction than a normal raspberry despite covering less of a distance.  Is this because it’s concentrated?  …No, you dummy, the belly’s too tender for concentration – remember?  Plus, when you factor in that a breeze will hardly do anything in terms of triggering a ticklish reaction, it must be the air pressure.  So…increasing the air pressure increases the intensity, which increases the tickling.  Not too much, obviously – wouldn’t want to hurt them.  …Think I’ll keep it exactly where it is just to be safe.”

Before you can even process Max’s audible monologue, he aims the nozzle into one of the hollow of one of the Husky’s underarms and squeezes the grip-based trigger.  Another hiss escapes the nozzle, another muffled ticklish yip can be heard escaping from the dog’s throat, and you notice that his attempt to lower his arm seems a little more frantic than usual.

This one stops quicker, however, before starting up again in a pattern similar to that of a sprinkler; each single hiss traveling down to the base of the adjacent rib before traveling back to the pit with a single stream of compressed air.  The Husky’s whimpering and struggling continues as the forced smile grows and fades under the tickling torment.  Part of you almost feels bad for the guy…but then, he did volunteer.  Perhaps a lot of these guys were some weird kind of masochists?

“Pits are as expected,” Max begins in a tone full with a kind of calculated pondering.  “Maybe not too big sensitivity-wise, but definitely not comfortable with such an unfamiliar feeling.  Theory: could said affected area be feigning an increased ticklish sensation in an attempt to spur the body into defending such a vulnerable area faster?  …Perhaps, but this would change nothing – serving as little else than a more in-depth explanation of the anticipation effect, which subject is displaying all signs of.”

“Erm…Mr. Max?” a meek voice from one of the students calls out.

One of Max’s ears gives a twitch as he appears to snap out of whatever he was doing and turns back to the class with a smile.

“Yes?” he replies.

“Er…w-why are you talking like that?” the student asks.

Max casts a curious look for a moment before evidently realizing what the student was talking about and lets out a nervous chuckle.

“S-sorry,” the red dog apologized.  “I’ve, eh…always had a habit of over-analyzing stuff I find interesting or even remotely curious.  You could say that I’m a bit of a nerd in this sense.”

“No, I mean…why are you debating with yourself like you’re two different people?”

Silence falls among the entire room at this question as everyone looks over to Max with curiosity and apprehension – almost as if they’re afraid of how he’s going to react.  Max, however, calmly keeps his smile.

“It’s just simply how I think: my curious side sort of interacts with my intellectual mindset, making it seem like some sort of conversation is going on inside my head.  And a lot of the time…that conversation becomes an audible one.  Just…try to pay it no mind.  I just want to check the effects on the sides, feet, and tummy-tracing before delivering my findings.  We should still have enough time for all of that before the final bell.”

Max turns back to the Husky and sprays the air against his exposed side.  Yet another muffled yip is released in response to the accompanied hiss and a sort of hysterical giggling could be heard managing an escape through the Husky’s nose, along with a few stifled howls that would’ve undoubtedly been louder, had the Husky’s mouth had been open.  Such a noise reminds you of how yesterday’s class ended and you couldn’t help but ponder if this was the reason Max had decided to tie the demonstration subject’s muzzle shut this time instead of gagging him in the usual way.

Visibly restraining the urge to monologue his thoughts any further for what you could only assume was out of an attempt to not bore the entire classroom, Max quickly moves over to the Husky’s feet, pulls his toes back, and sprays up and down the sole.  The muffled, closed-mouth giggling increases in hysteria – you could almost call it laughter now, as the Husky desperately attempts in vain to free his tormented foot from the clutches of the leather strap and Max’s forepaw.

Max follows this up by pressing the nozzle between two toes, giving the compressed air a quick spray between them, and doing the same for the other spaces along the foot – four in all.  The Husky puts on a look as if he were going positively mad at the sensation, though his reaction doesn’t change otherwise.  Max just hums in thought at this and pauses for a moment before pressing the nozzle directly up against the center of the Husky’s foot and squeezing the grip-trigger with that familiar satisfied smile upon his face.

After a final ticklish yip and another frantic tug at the leather strap from the Husky, Max finally moves back to the tummy area and begins to spray the air there once again, tracing around the outer edges of the Husky’s midriff and sending him into a hysterical giggle-fit.  This went on for about three or five full laps before Max finally stopped and turned his attention back to the class.

“…Well, that was quite interesting,” he announced with a chuckle.  “Well…maybe not the whole bit about air being very capable of tickling – we already knew that much, but I did develop some interesting ideas that I might have to try out later…like adding a sort of showerhead filter, for example – y’know, to divide the air pressure into smaller points.  Actually, we might even be able to tickle someone with water with a method like that.  How often has that been implemented?

“Heh, indeed…we live in such a resourceful age where anything and everything can become a tickling implement – even stuff like water and air.  And where one idea crops up, several improvements can be added to increase or ensure the sensation lasts.  Whether it be increased pressure or more focused points of contact or even a bit of both, tickling always has a sort of science to it that leads to ideas and discoveries such as this and allows them to thrive and evolve over time.

“Case in point: this entire lesson.  I wanted to come up with a way to apply something like a raspberry effect to more than just the areas limited to mouth placement, and eventually came up with something…quite simple.  Granted, it’s not perfect – for one, dragging around a heavy air tank does seem like it would pose a hassle, but I’m sure plenty of other clever minds could come up with ways around that.  For the time being, however, it gets the job done, and that’s ultimately what matters in the end.”

The ringing of the final bell fills the room as Max concludes his final statement, leaving the class with looks of deep thought in their eyes at his words.

“Class dismissed.”