By Keith Steeclif
Paul woke up in bed. But it wasn’t his bed. (At least he didn’t think it was his bed.) And it wasn’t his room. (At least he didn’t think it was his room.) In fact, Paul quickly realized that he didn’t know much at all about where he was or, even, who he was.
Paul got out of bed. He was wearing a pair of blue shorts. He knew blue was his favorite color, but he didn’t remember why. Paul looked at himself in the mirror. He was muscular, in fabulous shape in fact, being six foot tall with black hair and dark eyes. His skin was olive complexioned, but he didn’t know if what his ethnic background was. And when he tried to think about his parents, family, and friends, Paul could not even pull up a mental image of anyone.
Just as Paul was starting to get rather concerned, the bedroom door opened and two men in lab coats entered.
“Good morning, Paul, how are you feeling?” one of the men said.
“I can’t remember anything.”
“That’s perfectly normal,” the other man said, “and part of the procedure.”
“Procedure? What procedure?”
“Come, lay down on the bed,” the first man said, “We need to examine you and see if everything checks out.”
Paul figured he must have been in an accident or something and this must be a hospital. Pretty nice room for a hospital. But he was eager to make sure he was okay, so he laid down on the bed as instructed. The two men stood on either side of the bed.
First they checked his eyes and throat and listened to his heart, regular doctor check-up kind of stuff. Then they took new tongue depressors out of their pockets and moved to the end of the bed. Each man grasped one of Paul’s ankles and drew the depressor from his bare heel up to his toes. Paul’s whole body spasmed as an incredibly strong sensation ran through his whole body.
The two men repeated the procedure. “Whoa, stop it,” Paul said, “that really tickles.” Instead, the two men dropped their depressors and started to scribble their fingers on the soles of Paul’s feet. Paul burst out laughing. He tried to pull his feet away but he couldn’t. In fact, he felt this odd weakness suddenly take over all his limbs. Despite the overwhelming tickling sensation and the desire to pull his leg back, Paul could not do so, both his legs were limp.
But his feet were not idle. They were wiggling, twitching, and flexing like crazy. Paul was laughing hysterically, begging the two men to stop, but they just lifted this legs, wrapped one arm around each ankle, and continued tickling his soles and toes.
Paul was hysterical, pleading with the men to stop, but they wouldn’t. They tickled him for many minutes. Paul thought they might actually tickle him to death but, every time he thought he couldn’t take any more, he’d get a second wind and found he could endure the tickling for a little longer.
Finally, the two men stopped. Paul gasped for breath for a few moments, but found that he recovered almost immediately. The tickling sensation subsided and he felt refreshed and back to normal almost immediately.
One of the men was jotting notes down on a clipboard.
“His left foot seemed more ticklish than his right,” he said to his partner.
“Yes, we should make sure to calibrate that.”
“What’s going on?” Paul asked and started to get up.
“Not so fast,” the man without the clipboard said. He came forward and grabbed Paul’s ribs. As soon as he started to tickle, Paul’s arms collapsed underneath him and he fell back on the bed. As the man tickled his ribs and stomach, the other man finished his notes, put down his clipboard and came over to the bed. He lifted Paul’s arms up. Again, they were totally limp and he could do nothing to stop this man as he raised Paul’s arms up over his head. Then the two men started to tickle Paul’s armpits.
Paul was screaming with laughter. His pits were even more ticklish than his feet, which he didn’t think was possible. Paul had no memory of his past, so he couldn’t recall if he’d ever been tickled so badly before. He only knew that these two men stroking his armpits and ribs could be described as nothing other than pure tickle torture.
One of the men stopped tickling and stood back. He took a small box out of his pocket. It looked like a remote control to a TV. He pressed a button on the box and then put the box back in his pocket. Then he moved down to the end of the bed and started to tickle Paul’s feet again as the other man continued to tickle Paul’s torso.
Paul was more hysterical than ever, but suddenly he noticed a change. The tickling was still extremely intense. However, he started to enjoy it. The more that the two men tickled, the more that Paul found the sensation appealing. Soon, Paul was laughing his head off as before, but he was begging the two men for more, not to stop. The two men tickled and tickled until Paul felt as if he was getting aroused. Once a bulge developed in his shorts, the two men stopped their tickling entirely.
At first, Paul was going to beg them to continue. But like before, as soon as they stopped tickling, the sensation ceased and Paul felt perfectly normal again.
One man picked up the clipboard again and started to write.
“Good,” the other man said, “I think this one is ready to go. Have his memory banks wiped again and download the customer specs.”
Then the man turned to Paul and said, “Well done, lad. You’ll be off to your new owner tomorrow.”
Paul was totally confused. The two men handed him a robe and slippers. He put them on and they led him out of the room. They walked down a hallway that did look very much like a hospital.
They passed a room with a little window in the door. Paul looked in and saw a man tickling a pair of feet. At first, it looked like the feet were sticking out from under a sheet, but then Paul realized that the feet were disconnected from a body. As the man tickled the feet and they wiggled and twitched, he typed into a computer.
“Come along Paul 34,” one of the two men said.
“Paul 34? What do you mean Paul 34?”
“That really doesn’t matter now,” one of the men said, “Well be giving you all the information you need shortly.”
Suddenly, from around the corner came two other men in lab coats leading a patient. Paul was stunned because the man looked like his identical twin. It was like looking into a mirror. Then Paul saw the plaque on the doorway from where they’d just come. The doorway where he was heading now. It read: “The P.A.U.L. Project – Pleasure Androids Utilizing Laughter.” As Paul entered the room, he saw two rows of men who looked like his exact duplicate lined up against the walls.
One of the technicians leaned closer to him and said, “I’m sure you’ll like your new owner. You’re our biggest seller. We haven’t been able to keep up with the demand.”
“Yeah,” said the other man, “And with the enhancements we’ve made to your design, your new owner will have years of tickling fun with you.”
Paul sat in the chair where he was directed. Just as all this was sinking in, an electrode was attached to his forehead and the memories of the day’s events were starting to slip away. And Paul realized that the next time he woke up, he would be someone’s personal tickle drone. But as the new programming began to download and Paul slipped into upload mode, he realized that that was exactly what he was built for, and that, in a mechanical, zeros and ones kind of way, made him happy.