ROFL, Inc.

By Mark Apoapsis

 

All alone in the room, Andy lay writhing helplessly on the table, stripped to the waist, his impressive muscles flexing uselessly against the bonds that held him spread-eagle.

All that was left of his shirt were some ragged scraps of red cloth hidden under his body, visible only when arched his back. He twisted this way and that to get away from the invisible tormentors that had ripped away his shirt and were now ruthlessly tickling every inch of exposed skin. His smooth chest glistened with sweat, and his shaggy blond hair was damp with it.

I lowered my gaze from the window and looked down again at his image on my screen. Twenty pairs of transparent but brawny arms, invisible to the unaided eye, were attacking him from all angles. Some were digging their thumbs into his armpits while others ran their fingertips between his ribs. Another hand lightly raked his belly with its ghostly touch. His feet were especially sensitive, I knew, but they were partially protected by thick white socks. I was working hard to keep them that way, keeping my hands pressed against his feet on the screen to fend off several attackers who would strip them off if I let down my guard for a few seconds.

Andy twisted more violently than before, laughing so loud I could probably have heard it through the window even without my headphones. One of the arms had found that especially sensitive spot on his side. It was D.J. in Texas, I saw from the tattoo on the ghostly arm. I risked leaving one of Andy’s feet undefended to swat the hand away on my screen. Someone else, a German guy named Rolf, instantly went for the foot, and got in a few seconds of tickling through the sock, but nothing worse than that, before I forced him away. He went back to the armpits. Well, I can’t be everywhere. Seconds later, I had to fend a Scotsman away from the spot D.J. had discovered on his side. I was beginning to get tired. Oh well, I would do the best I could, and if they exhausted me before their hour with Andy was up, at least it wouldn’t be my fault.

A new pair of arms appeared: WombatLover. Damn, what time was it in Australia? A minute ago he’d been one of the two hundred lurkers who’d logged in to passively watch the fun, but now he’d used his credit card to buy some tickle time. Good thing for Andy that the vast majority of the guys getting off on watching his helpless struggles were too cheap to pay anything above their monthly subscription fee. Twenty guys was already more than I could protect him from; if he’d had two hundred tickling him at once, I’d be completely overwhelmed and they’d be able to do whatever they wanted to him.

“G’day Andy. Remember me?” WombatLover ‘s voice said in my headphones, adding to the steady cacophony of taunts. Andy would hear it coming out of the speakers in his booth. His voice sounded familiar to me. WombatLover was a long-time subscriber, and I recalled that he’d tickled Andy dozens of times last summer. He might still remember Andy’s weak points.

He did. He went right for the nipples, and when I knocked him away he unerringly found the spot between Andy’s armpit and his shoulder where he’s super-sensitive. Now I had to defend both Andy’s chest and his feet at the same time. My T-shirt was soon soaked with sweat. I keep two dry ones in my desk drawer for exactly that reason, but of course I couldn’t stop to change until the hour was up. Or even take the sweaty one off. These guys would be merciless on poor Andy if I took my hands off my screen for even ten seconds. I’d have plenty of time to change shirts between shifts – although, come to think of it, the next model up was a new guy, so I had to remember to allow extra time to set up the next shift and see to his orientation, so to speak.

I decided not to change shirts until I’d untied Andy and helped him back to the locker room if he needed help. Not that it would hurt to leave him tied up for an extra minute or two, but I wanted him to see that I’d been sweating on his behalf all the time he was being tormented, that I’d tried my best. Then I’d change to look good for the new guy, Brad.

My dirty little secret was that I actually enjoyed seeing Andy reduced to helpless laughter, just as much as any of our subscribers did. That’s why I’d helped create this company, after all. But I had to at least appear to be fighting on his side. After all, I had to work with him, whereas most of his tormentors lived over a thousand miles away. I was the one who had to go physically into the room and untie him when they were finished with him. Andy is a big, strapping guy, like most of our models, and if he ever decides to take out his frustration on me, I don’t think I’d stand a chance in a fair fight. Although, come to think of it, it wouldn’t be a fair fight, since he was usually still weak from laughing and struggling. I might be able to best him after all.

Still, I liked to keep him thinking of me as his loyal teammate. Not as the guy in control, who could instantly rid him of all his tormentors with a single mouse click, and never does. And not as a co-founder of the company that pays him to get the shit tickled out of him by guys from all over the world. And certainly not as the inventor of some of the key pieces of the technology that make his torture possible.

“Give up, pal! Tell us the password,” someone yelled. A chorus of voices – all male of course – echoed similar demands, interspersed with more taunts about the helpless position the bound, half-naked man was in and exactly what they planned to do with him. With the new surround-sound speaker arrangement I’d installed and the signal-processing software I’d written, Andy would hear the voices coming from all around him. He wasn’t used to that, this being his first stint this summer, and I was pleased to see his dark eyes instinctively darting this way and that.

“Never!” he gasped. “Mike, I could use a little help, here!”

“I’m trying, buddy, I’m trying,” I panted into my microphone.

“Wow,” a voice said softly from behind me.

I whirled around on my swiveling chair and tore my headphones off. I had thought I’d been alone in the control room.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to distract you,” he said. He was a dark-haired guy in his mid-twenties, and one of the cutest men I’ve seen in a long time – which is saying something, given how attractive our models tend to be.

“I’m Brad. I came a little early because I wanted to see what I was getting into.”

That figured. Anyone that good-looking must be one of our models. Where do my partners find all these guys? And where can I get some for myself? Of course, it helps that the models don’t have to be gay; any attractive, well-built guy who doesn’t mind being tied down and having his clothes ripped off on camera and then being tickled all over, by guys from all over, is a good candidate. You’d think that a straight guy would rather spend a five or six hours flipping burgers than submit to an hour of that kind of humiliation, but I was constantly amazed at how easy it was to find guys who felt otherwise.

“Oh,” I stammered, “Hi. I’m Mike. Good to meet you, Brad. Listen, um-“

“Oh my god, how do they do that?” Brad said, his brown eyes wide as he stared over my shoulder, through the window.

I whirled back to my screen, guiltily realizing that I’d let Andy down. One foot was already bare, and the other one had the sock partially stripped away, leaving the ankle showing. By the time I got my hands back in the right place on the screen, the sock was down to his heel. They couldn’t get it any further down, or tickle his feet anymore, with my hands there.

I took one away for two seconds to put my headphones back on, only to hear, “Why’d you let them do that, Mike?”

“Sorry, buddy, there’s, um… I got distracted.” Muting the mike again with my chin, I glanced back at Brad and said half-jokingly, “Better hope Andy never finds out it was you, man, or the remote ticklers will be the least of your worries.” Andy couldn’t see into my darkened control room through the half-silvered glass, even if he’d had the strength to lift his head.

“Damn! I am so sorry! Should I get out of your way?”

“Well, technically it’s against the rules for you to be in here, but don’t worry about it. I don’t blame you for wanting to see how it works, since it’s going to be you strapped to that table in less than an hour.” I tried not to say it with too much relish. I was already anticipating how Brad would look with his shirt off. He seemed to be in good shape, and there was a suggestion of muscles under his loose-fitting polo shirt. I wondered how much chest hair he had. I thought I could see some hair peeking out at the neck, if I looked closely.

“There it goes again,” Brad said in wonder, his eyes fixed on Andy’s bound and helpless form.

I looked quickly back at my screen, and realized that my hand had slipped out of position, giving our subscribers access to what was left of Andy’s remaining sock. It was unraveling as I watched. I batted them away, but the pitiful scrap of sock that remained fell away on its own, as Andy flailed his foot around as much as his bonds would let him. In his struggles, he’d probably moved his foot away from my hand’s protection, not knowing I was still distracted and wasn’t tracking him. So now he was barefoot as well as bare-chested, and it was my fault. Well, I could defend bare feet as easily as socked feet. Too bad I couldn’t feel the flesh of his soles under my hands.

There was very little I could do about his ribs or armpits or belly, though. Our subscribers were all over them.

“Is it true that there are lasers burning his clothes away? I don’t see any lasers,” Brad said.

“They’re there,” I panted, knocking WombatLover away from Andy’s nipples and some guy from London away from the sensitive spot between his ribs. “Red lasers for stripping, green for tickling.” There were five guys attacking his bare feet by the time I got back there, and I had to deal with them one by one. “It’s not like in the movies,” I continued. “You can’t see a laser beam from the side, unless there’s smoke in the room. You may be able to see an occasional sparkle reflected from his chest, especially when it’s as smooth as Andy’s is, and slick with sweat. But-” and I paused to shoo someone away from his armpits, “the lasers don’t actually burn the clothes away. It’s a special programmable nano-fabric that unravels itself on command. When it detects red laser light hitting it, it sort of lets go and turns to lint. It’s programmed to.”

“But what about the tickling? How do you tickle a guy with lasers?”

“You can’t see it from here, but if you looked at Andy close up you would- Uh oh.”

“What is it?”

“Look at his waistband.” I resisted the urge to take my hand away to point. “See his dark green boxers peeking out from under the pants?”

“I thought they just got pulled down from all his struggling.”

“No, they’re taking his pants off.” It was a cooperative effort, with three guys in different parts of Europe and six guys in North America working on the pants, while his remaining tormentors continued the non-stop tickling of his already-naked torso. I couldn’t fight them all off.

“Can they do that? I always heard it was just the shirt and socks they could rip off.”

“Most of the time. But they must have gotten the password out of him while we were talking. The pants are nano-fabric too.”

“And his boxers?” Which were completely visible now.

I glanced back at Brad. He was staring through the window in fascination as Andy’s hairy legs were laid bare. “Put on that other pair of headphones there and judge for yourself.”

Brad came and sat next to me and put on the headphones so that he could hear what I heard: taunting voices from all over the world saying “He’s down to his shorts now” and “We’ll see you naked yet, Andy” and “What’s the password for the boxers?” and “Get his nipples again, WombatLover! We’ll make him talk!”

“Not my boxers! Please, guys! Mike, help! The inside of my legs! They’re- they’re tickl-” and his words dissolved into more helpless laughter.

“Shit,” I said, breathing hard, trying to be everywhere at once.

“Can I help?” Brad asked.

“Only … one screen,” I panted.

Brad got up and stood behind me, peering over my shoulder, then leaned over me, reaching around me with both arms, and copied my actions, batting ghostly hands away from Andy’s nipples and feet while I defended his legs and the secret spot between his ribs. I could smell Brad’s after-shave cologne and his own natural masculine scent under it. I had no doubt he could smell me too, given how hard I’d been working, but he didn’t seem to mind the close contact. No way was I going to point out that teaming up was cheating.

We had to leave Andy’s armpits and belly completely undefended in order to protect his legs and chest. The subscribers kept Andy laughing, but they couldn’t get him to divulge the password that would let them rip his shorts apart and leave him naked. Finally the hour was up and the computer automatically cut off the tickling.

“Thanks, buddy,” I said, giving Brad a high-five. We were both sweating heavily as heavily as poor Andy.

“It’s the least I could do, after distracting you at the crucial moment,” Brad said.

I opened the small fridge and got out three bottles of spring water. “Don’t drink all of this,” I said, tossing him one.

“Why not?” he asked.

“In case you’re one of those guys who pees in his pants when he’s tickled hard,” I explained. “Unless you’ve changed your mind, after what you’ve seen.”

“I can take it,” he said proudly. “But thanks for the tip. Where’s your men’s room?”

I pointed it out to him, then went to turn Andy loose.

***

“Oh, man! That was murder!” Andy greeted me. “Worse than I remembered it.” He sounded a little hoarse, not surprisingly.

“This was an especially intense session,” I said, releasing his arms.

“I swear your reflexes have slowed down since last summer.”

“Sorry, buddy,” I said, handing him his water, which he immediately took a healthy swig of. “We were up against over twenty guys this time. Isn’t it nice to be popular?”

“I’m sure you did your best,” he said, lifting up the hem of my T-shirt, which was damp as a dish-rag, to make his point. His knuckles brushed my belly, sending a shiver through me, all the way down to my balls.

When I’d freed his feet, he swung them over the table and sat up quickly. Too quickly, for a man who’s been hyperventilating for an hour. “Whoa! Mind if I lie here awhile and recover?”

“Actually, the next guy is new, so it might take some extra time to get him situated,” I said. “Let me help you to the locker room.”

Andy leaned on me gratefully. Secretly, I was even more grateful. Having a sweaty guy put his arm around your neck might not be every gay man’s dream come true – even if he’s dressed only in boxers and looks like Andy looks – but it certainly is mine.

“I guess getting him ‘situated’ is a euphemism for ‘tied up and helpless,'” he said.

“Well, yeah. That, and getting him comfortable with being tied up and helpless.”

“And with having a dozen horny gay men virtually paw over him. I remember that used to bother me a little, but what the hell.”

“So, how was your sophomore year in college?”

“Great! I made the wrestling team, and I still got a 3.2 average. It was nice not to have to work. Scrubbing pots my freshman year sucked.”

“Glad to hear it.” I lowered him down on a bench in the locker room. “Now you just stay and rest there as long as you want, buddy. Be sure to drink the rest of your water. John can get you some more if you want, as soon as he’s finished vacuuming up the room.”

“The torture chamber,” Andy corrected with a rueful grin. “Sweeping up the tattered remains of my clothes.”

“Hey, Mike!” Brad greeted me, walking through the other door. “And you’re Andy, right?” He offered his hand, and Andy shook it.

It may have been my imagination, but I thought Brad’s eyes raked up and down Andy’s half-naked body in exactly the same way mine wanted to. Maybe he was just thinking about how he was about to submit to being stripped, too.

“I’m Brad, the new victim.”

“Model,” I corrected.

“No, I think Brad’s catching on to the real terminology,” Andy said, grinning at him.

” Is this where I change?”

“Yeah. You can use that locker there with the green light. You know how to use a thumbprint lock?”

“Sure. I remember them from high school.”

Ouch. That made me feel old. I wasn’t all that many years older than these guys – I had just gotten my engineering degree and started this company a few years ago – but technology changes so fast that I felt like I was a whole different generation. They still had those ancient mechanical combination locks when I was in high school.

“You get the nano-clothes from this cabinet here,” I said. “I’ll grab them for you. Do you take a medium or a large shirt?”

“Large.”

I got him a medium, wanting it to fit tighter than his polo shirt. “Pants?”

“29-inch waist, 32 length.”

“How about socks? What’s your shoe size?”

” 13.”

“You’re doomed, pal!” Andy said almost gleefully. “Poor old Dan has size 12, and he attracts every gay foot fetishist in the world. They all go right for his feet.”

Brad looked worried. I told him, “It’s not too late to chicken out.” A loaded way of phrasing it, I know, but I didn’t want him to take me up on it.

“Do you work here a lot?” Brad asked Andy.

“Almost every day, but only during the summer.”

I handed Brad a folded red T- shirt, white socks, blue pants, and green boxers, and he accepted them. Someday we’ll vary the colors, when I get around to doing the programming. Brad had opened the locker but hadn’t moved to take off any clothes yet.

He fingered the nano-cloth boxers uncertainly. “Should I take off everything?” he asked me shyly.

“That’s right,” I said, trying to sound professional. “Nothing under the unravelable clothes. Our subscribers are titillated by knowing they can strip you naked if they get you to divulge both passwords. But that hardly ever happens. Most guys don’t crack under one hour of tickling.”

“What are the passwords?”

“You pick them. Enter them on this,” I said, handing him a data slate. “Just press the Save button when you’re done and leave it on the shelf or the bench; it’s wireless.”

“What if I don’t remember them afterwards?” Brad asked.

“Then you’ll wish you had,” Andy said darkly. “Trust me. I forgot mine once, and they didn’t believe me.”

“You gonna be okay? Having second thoughts?” I asked gently, squeezing Brad’s shoulder. He still had his polo shirt on.

He looked at Andy, and I could tell he didn’t want to look like a wimp in front of him. “No, I said I’d do it, and I will.”

” You sure? It’s not too late to back out,” I offered again.

“Yet!” Andy said.

“Yet,” I conceded. “Once the camera turns on, Brad, you’re committed. Nothing short of a serious medical emergency is going to get you out of it. Understand?”

“Yeah,” he whispered.

“You’ll do fine,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. “And I’ll be defending you.”

“I know. I’m counting on that.”

” Now, do you want me to try to keep them from ripping off your shirt? Or your socks? Those don’t have a password; I’m all that’s standing in their way.”

“My shirt,” he said in a small voice.

“OK. I’ll try to let you keep your shirt as long as possible. Any particularly ticklish spots you want me to keep them away from?”

“I don’t know. No one has ever really tickled me much before.”

I waited around awkwardly, trying to think of what else I needed to tell him. Then I realized I had covered everything and was just hoping that if I hung around long enough I’d get to watch him take off his street clothes. So far he hadn’t so much as reached for the one button on his polo shirt that was fastened. A little ashamed of myself, I said, “Put those on. I’ll meet you at the table in about ten minutes so I can…”

“Show you the ropes,” Andy finished for me.

“Wise guy,” I said fondly. I almost used it as an excuse to tickle Andy’s ribs, the old-fashioned way, but I’m afraid of stepping over the line and scaring him off. I like the arrangement we have now too much to push him.

I left Brad to get undressed in relative privacy. I guess Andy got to watch him, but I know he didn’t appreciate it the way I would have.

***

“OK, Brad, just lie back and relax for a minute. Don’t worry, I’m not going to tie you down yet. How do the clothes feel?” They certainly looked good on him, especially the tight T-shirt.

“Soft. Sort of silky. I almost wish I could take them home to wear as pajamas.”

“They’d wear out fast, and they’re not machine-washable” I said distractedly. The image of Brad wearing them at home suggested all kinds of interesting fantasies involving a roommate and a portable laser. Maybe a workable invention would even surface out of those fantasies someday. It had happened before.

“So… you never told me how you can tickle a man with lasers,” Brad said.

“Here. Let me show you.” I knelt down and found a loose thread that John had missed with the vacuum. “Lift up your shirt, would you?”

” Why? What are you gonna do to me?”

“Nothing that won’t happen a thousand times worse in a few minutes, okay?” I said a little impatiently. I thought it was ironic that Brad was reluctant to cooperate, seeing as how he was about to allow me to tie him down. Once I had him bound, I could have lifted his shirt up myself, whether he liked it or not. I was being polite, letting him have control over his own body a little longer. “So unless you’re going to back out…”

Brad bared part of his belly. It was flat, and tanned to a golden brown. I could see the tan line and just a little strip of whiter skin exposed. He obviously sun-bathed a lot, but not nude.

“See, when the clothes disintegrate, they’re programmed to leave these wispy fibers intact. They’re too fine to see on camera.” I held it up to his eyes. “See how feathery this looks?”

“Yeah,” he said nervously.

“Well, when it detects the green laser hitting it, each one of these little fibers starts waving around. There are sixteen patterns of waving depending on the laser pulses, and different guys are more sensitive to different ones on different parts of their bodies. That gives our subscribers a lot of control; they can dig their fingers in, stroke you lightly, or just about anything they could do in real life.” I dragged it across Brad’s exposed skin. He squirmed.

“It tickles a little even when it’s not activated, doesn’t it?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“With the hundreds of individual fibers brushing you, it’s much worse. I’ll give you a taste of it off-camera, if we still have any time left after I get you secured.”

“I’ll take your word for it, thanks!”

“You won’t have to. You’re gonna have thousands and thousands of these all over your body, under the control of a dozen experienced ticklers from all around the world. Think you can handle that?”

“I’ve come this far.”

“OK, then. I’m going to tie you down now. That’s as much to keep you from hurting yourself as to keep you from trying to brush off the nano-fibers.”

“Go for it,” Brad said, his voice breaking. He allowed me to stretch out his arms and slip them into the restraints. Then his legs.

“How’re you doing, buddy?” I asked once I had him spread-eagle. Some guys freak out at being tied up by a stranger.

“Fine.” He was trying to sound calm, but he was trembling a little.

“Let me know if this is too tight.” I tightened all four of the padded restraints carefully, tight enough that he wouldn’t be able to get loose but not so tight as to cut off his circulation.

“That’s okay, I guess. I’m glad they’re padded.”

“Try to break out.”

He tried, but he wasn’t going anywhere.

His belly was still exposed. I pulled his shirt down for him. Laying my hand on his chest, I said, “Last chance to back out, pal.”

He shook his head, even though I could feel his heart pounding very rapidly, just like most of the other guys I’ve tied to this table the first time. I patted him on the chest and left the room.

***

By the time I had peeled off my T-shirt, towelled the sweat from my chest and my back, and put on a fresh one, we had less than a minute left to go, and forty guys were already logged in, waiting to gawk at the new guy the second we went on the air.

“Thirty seconds, Brad,” I said into the mike. “I’m gonna do a quick test to make sure everything works, okay?” Not that he could do anything to stop me, whether or not he believed I needed to do a ‘test’.

“This,” I said, pressing a button to switch modes, “is what it’ll feel like when they tickle you.” I ran my finger down his image on my screen, over his ribs. He looked startled as the shirt material responded and tickled him lightly. He squirmed, but it did him no good. I jabbed my finger at his side, just below the ribs, and he gave a jerk and started laughing. Oh, the guys were going to love him! He was seriously ticklish, I could tell.

“OK, take a deep breath, buddy,” I said, clicking a button to switch to defense mode. “You’re on in ten seconds.”

I looked at the quickly growing list of subscribers logged in. I recognized the handles of a number of guys who loved tickling Dan’s big feet; apparently, posting Brad’s stats yesterday had attracted them in droves. Many of them – too many – paid for tickle time the minute they got a look at their new handsome victim stretched out helpless.

“Check out the fresh meat!” said a man with a mid-western accent.

“High quality fresh meat, it looks like,” a guy from the Netherlands agreed.

I concentrated on fending off attacks on Brad’s shirt, as he’d requested, so his feet were all theirs. First they spent at least ten minutes tickling him through his socks. Some guys were in a hurry to get them off and see his bare feet, but I guess some of our subscribers must have a thing about socks, because they fended off the overeager ones. Brad was laughing slightly, though I couldn’t tell whether it was from his feet being tickled, or from the hands that escaped my guard and tickled his ribs through his shirt.

“OK, Brad, tell us your password,” a guy from Nevada named Wheeler-Dealer finally threatened, “or we’ll take your socks off.”

“Nice try,” Brad shouted at his unseen tormentor. “You think I’d rather lose my pants than my socks? And how do I know you’d really let me keep my socks?”

“You don’t. I’m taking them off no matter what deal WheelerDealer makes with you,” said a young-sounding guy from New England.

“Hell with it. Let’s get the bloke’s socks,” said a guy with an Australian accent. Not WombatLover, someone I didn’t know.

I was still occupied keeping his shirt intact, so in ten seconds flat, they had his big feet bare, revealing long toes. Three guys were tickling each of his tender-looking pink soles, and it looked like the sensitive skin between each and every pair of toes had its own subscriber focusing on it.

“Oh, man!” His still-clothed chest was heaving with laughter. “How come it’s worse without… the socks, Mike?” he gasped out. “Isn’t there – ha, ha – isn’t there more of the nano-stuff before…” – he couldn’t finish.

” They’re programmed that way, pal,” I said into the mike. “Bare skin is normally more sensitive, so I- so they’re programmed to make it feel like it would if you really had-” and I glanced at a readout – “38 guys in the room tickling your bare feet.”

“Argh! Enough! Make ’em stop, Mike!”

I could have, of course, but I wouldn’t. We had to play by the rules and keep our subscribers happy. “You’ll have to take that up with them, buddy.”

“OK, guys! OK! Lay off!”

“Tell us your pants password,” a voice said from Ottawa.

“Yeah,” said the guy from Australia. “Let us strip you to your shorts, and then we’ll leave you alone, mate.”

” Except for ogling every inch of your hot body,” said D.J. from Texas.

“Don’t believe them, buddy!” I advised. “They never stick to their word. Maybe individually, but not collectively.” I knew that once they had him stripped to his shorts, they’d spend 30 seconds, max, savoring their prize before they started tickling every square inch of exposed skin. There were always a few guys who wouldn’t honor the deal; and in all fairness, there were plenty who didn’t even speak a word of English. I wondered if I should adopt a policy of enforcing such deals, or even program the computer to do it. Then again, that might take all the fun out of it.

Brad was laughing too hard to acknowledge my advice.

“Why does this guy still have his shirt on?” a new voice with a Southern accent asked. He’d apparently just tuned in.

“Mike’s been concentrating on defending it,” the Canadian explained. “That’s why his feet were so easy to get at.”

“Your mate can’t protect you forever, Brad,” said the Australian. “Your shirt’s coming off.”

“Let’s all try to rip off his shirt at once,” said someone calling himself Str8inAZ. I’ve never figured out whether a guy who pays to forcibly strip another guy’s clothes off and tickle him could really be considered straight, but we have several subscribers who identify themselves as straight. For that matter, I had my doubts about all our supposedly straight models. Maybe they had no desire to have sex with other men, but they didn’t seem to mind being stripped and tickled on camera by a distributed gang of men. We pay them well, but not that well.

“Right, then,” said the Londoner who’d concentrated on Andy’s chest. “One, two, three…”

There were just too many of them. I slapped them away as fast as I could. I might as well not have bothered changing into a dry T-shirt.

As for Brad’s T-shirt, it began to rip right down the middle, exposing dense whorls of black chest hair.

“No…” Brad moaned, maybe in response to being stripped or maybe because two guys had gone back to attacking his feet.

“Hello! Look at all this lovely chest hair,” said the Londoner.

” Go easy on him, guys,” I said. “He’s a little shy.”

But they were relentless. Despite my best efforts, the shirt ripped open wider, exposing his chiseled pectoral muscles, sparsely covered with more hair. While I was trying to slow that process down, other hands directed the lasers to shred the bottom of his shirt. The tan line I had seen before was exposed again. Then his navel. Brad howled with laughter as his unprotected belly was attacked by invisible hands from Chicago, L.A., and Glasgow all at once.

“C’mon,” I pleaded half-heartedly. “Won’t even one of you guys help us out?” But none of the subscribers joined in the defense, and more and more skin was laid bare. Soon Brad’s shirt looked more like a ragged vest. He had small, pinkish brown nipples. I was actually glad now that he hadn’t changed in the locker room until I left. It was much more fun this way, seeing his chest slowly revealed against his will, under the watchful eyes of a lot of hungry guys.

“OK, OK!” Brad shouted. “I give up! Stop!”

“As in, you’ll tell us the password?”

” No! Please, guys!” he begged. He was sweating more heavily than I was, but his shirt didn’t stick to his chest like my cotton shirt did; the nano-fibers were designed from hydrophobic molecules, so water rolled off like it did from a duck’s feathers. They would stay wispy enough to do their tickling job.

“We’ll break you yet, Brad,” taunted Str8inAZ. “We’ve still got you for over half an hour.”

Brad whimpered. Then the fabric covering his right shoulder split open, and it quickly fell away as Brad thrashed, revealing a hairy armpit. I love hairy armpits, myself, and I’d taken special delight in the challenge of programming the nearly invisible wisps of fiber to anchor themselves around the individual hairs while their feather tendrils reached in and found bare skin to brush against.

All those all-nighters paid off now, yet again. Brad was one of those guys who are extremely sensitive in their armpits, and it was fun to watch him writhe. Then I remembered I was supposed to be defending him, and started slapping ghostly fingers away from his exposed armpit while trying to keep others from ripping away the pitiful scrap of fabric that still protected his other armpit. But soon I was so exhausted, and half-blinded by sweat running into my eyes, that I had to surrender even that. There were just too many of them. More were paying to join in every minute; there were over 300 subscribers sitting on the sidelines watching. Every few minutes a fresh guy would give in to the temptation, buy some time, and join in the fun. Brad was earning a bundle for my partners and me, but I was sweating for it, and he was suffering.

“Sorry, Brad,” I panted. “Just too many.” He didn’t respond, having even less breath to spare than I did. I took ten deep breaths and rested, abandoning Brad to their tender mercies. They had him completely bare to the waist now, and his chest was slick with sweat, the hair matted down. He was still thrashing around in a useless effort to get away from his invisible tormentors, but his thrashing was getting weaker.

I dove back into the battle, fending off the tickling just enough for him to get the breath to gasp out, “Stop! I’ll do anything!”

“Tell us the first password, dude,” a voice demanded from California.

” No, tell us both your passwords. We’re stripping you naked.”

“It’s his first time,” I pleaded. “At least let him keep his shorts on.”

“Gan-” Brad said, then started laughing again; at least five guys where still tickling him.

“Let him talk!” someone said. “I think he’s telling us his password.” Most of the ticklers stopped. A few continued – there are always a few who never let up no matter what – but a dozen guys switched to defense mode and held them off.

“Ganymede!” Brad blurted. It must have been his password, because two seconds later, his pants began to unravel at the waist as the fastest typists entered the word on their keyboards and took control of the red laser. Interesting choice of password. I wondered whether he was thinking of the moon of Jupiter – there was a rover on its way there, but most people wouldn’t even be aware of it until it landed in a couple of years and made headlines – or the lover of Zeus who that moon was named after, the Trojan youth who was the most handsome mortal man on Earth and who Zeus abducted. Either way, it probably meant that Brad was more intelligent than I’d given him credit for. But if it was the Greek mythology connection he had in mind… did I dare hope?

A little more white skin was revealed, and then the green boxer shorts. At the same time, half the guys chose to start at his cuffs and work their way up from that end; soon it looked like Brad was wearing tattered knee-length pants, pulled down to reveal his underwear. He lay there quietly, his bare chest still heaving as he caught his breath, but no one was tickling him for the moment; they were all intent on laying his legs bare. I let them do it, saving my strength.

“Nice body, mate.”

“Do you work out?”

“Not much, lately,” Brad admitted. “I can’t afford a health club membership.” He seemed a little uncomfortable talking to disembodied voices while stretched out for their examination, stripped to his shorts. Well, he’d get used to it, if he stuck with us, as I hoped he would.

“I thought you guys had your own weight room,” said someone from Belgium. That’s the cool thing about the Web; strangers from half around the world can brief our new employees on the benefits as well as I can.

“We do have a small one,” I said. “And free membership in a health club down the street after your first month with us, Brad.” It was well worth the investment, since we like our models to be in good shape. “And that’s just part of our benefits package.”

“Nice package!” someone quipped.

Brad blushed, looking like he wished he could melt into the table. Or at least cover his crotch with his hands. But neither was possible.

“Look at these abs,” marveled a guy from Chicago, running his finger along them on his screen.

“Hey, that tickles!” Brad protested.

“And these muscular thighs!” the Englishman said.

“Mike! Get ’em off me!”

I knocked their hands away, but others joined in, until once again I could no longer keep up.

“Let’s get you naked!”

“What’s the password?”

“Tell us!”

“We’ve got you just where we want you now, mate!”

“Don’t try to resist! Those shorts are coming off sooner or later”

“Why not make it easy on yourself?”

Brad thrashed helplessly as the virtual hands explored every exposed bit of skin. He seemed to be ticklish all over; with so many parts of him being stroked at once, I couldn’t tell which ones were most sensitive. Fortunately for him, neither could his tormentors, not unless they all banded together and systematically explored his body, which they didn’t have the patience or organization to do. I fended them off as best I could, more or less at random.

Then someone remembered that they didn’t have to limit themselves to bare skin. Brad’s face registered shock as they started tickling his balls through his shorts. Previously they’d been protected by two layers of clothes and thus untouchable. Not anymore, now that he’d let them remove his pants.

“Oh my god! Stop! C’mon, guys! Mike, make ’em stop! I’ll do anything!”

“There’s too many of them,” I yelled. I glanced at a display. “Tell them your other password.”

“What?! No way!”

“Trust me, buddy. Tell them your password.”

“Please,” he begged, “I’m not ready to be naked on camera!”

“I think I can stop them from stripping you.”

“Patroclus,” he sobbed.

Patroclus? He’d chosen the lover of Achilles as his Achilles heel? I saw a theme here: two passwords showing an interest in one very specific aspect Greek mythology. This looked promising.

“How do you spell that?” someone demanded.

How can you be gay and not know how to spell Patroclus, I wondered. I’m an engineer, and even I know that much about the classics. But the question reminded me of my duty, and as one of the more literate subscribers started to supply the spelling for everyone, I pressed my hands firmly against Brad’s crotch – on the screen, I mean.

No sooner had the spelling bee ended than Brad’s boxers began to shrink away, but I managed to slow them down. I had programmed them like the pants, not like the shirt: they could be removed from either edge but not ripped down the middle. So the boxers got briefer and briefer, inching slowly up toward his balls and revealing more and more of his pale lower belly that had never been exposed outdoors but was now being transmitted around the world. Then it suddenly stopped. A little of his pubic hair curled around the top, but his cock was still covered, as were his balls, just barely. The last second had ticked away, and the computer had turned off the lasers. Howls of disappointment from around the world faded out.

I brought Brad a towel to wrap around his loins, since I figured the rags covering his crotch would fall off as soon as I let him stand up.

“You OK?” I asked gently as soon as I reached his side. I put my hand on his shoulder. This meant that my thumb was within reach of his wide-open armpit, but I’d never betray his trust like that. He might not let me tie him up again.

“Wow,” he said hoarsely. “I never thought I’d do something like that. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life.”

“Are you sorry you went through with it?” I started releasing him.

“Not really. No. In a way, it was kind of fun.”

“How do you feel?”

“Every muscle in my body is sore. And I got a cramp in my leg just at the end there.”

“Which leg?”

“Yeah, that one. Ah! Yeah, right there,” he said through gritted teeth as I dug my thumbs in.

“We have a hot tub.”

“Oh, man, a hot tub would feel fantastic about now. I could get to like this job.”

“I hope so. I’ll help you over there. In a minute!” I added quickly, as he started to sit up. I planted my hand in the middle of his hairy chest and pushed him back down. “Take it easy. We’ve got plenty of time before we have to reset the room, and you may be dizzy from hyperventilating.” His heartbeat, however, felt much slower than it had when I’d felt it when the session still lay ahead of him.

I worked on his calf for a few minutes more while he rested, moaning softly as I kneaded the muscle. My partners had pointed out recently that we were doing well enough to hire an attendant for the models. Then we could schedule the shifts closer together and bring in enough extra money to pay the attendant and still come out ahead. I’d talked them out of it, pointing out that there were a fixed number of potential subscribers in the world. But we all knew what the real issue was: my job satisfaction.

Finally I let Brad sit up and drink a bottle of spring water, while I knelt on the floor and continued massaging his leg. When I helped him out of the room, he leaned heavily on me. I wished, not for the first time, that I hadn’t been too shy to take off my sweaty T-shirt. Then we would have been skin-to-skin. I use the workout room myself whenever I get a chance, but I’ll never be in the kind of shape our models are in; I would feel shy about holding a model’s body up against mine – literally – if I were also bare-chested.

We passed by the door leading into the locker room, where Chris had arrived a little early for his shift. He had just taken his shirt off. I knew Chris’s bare chest like the back of my own hand by now, but he was facing away from us, giving us a few of his less familiar but equally well-muscled back.

It turned out that Andy was in the hot tub, having a long soak to recover from his own grueling shift. It’s big enough for three men – four or five if they’re really friendly – so Brad joined him, shyly removing his towel. I caught a glimpse of his white, shapely butt as I steadied him with a hand on his elbow while he gingerly lowered himself into the steaming water. Andy was in a good position to admire his cock if he cared to do so, but once again it was wasted on him.

“Want to join us, Mike?” Andy asked. “You look really beat. Or do you have another shift?”

“Yes, unfortunately. Thanks anyway.” I wondered if Andy had noticed that I never used the hot tub when anyone else was around. “How’s your leg feel, Brad?”

“Much better, thanks. The hot water really helps. So did your massage.”

“Maybe both together will work even better,” Andy suggested. “Prop your leg up on my knee and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Uh – okay, thanks,” Brad said with a shy grin. His big foot brushed against Andy’s chest and settled on his lap. Something told me he really had the hots for Andy. He was going to be disappointed. Still, he looked like he was in ecstasy when I left them; he was leaning back against the inside of the tub with his eyes closed, moaning in pleasure, with the long toes just inches from Andy’s cock, as Andy dug into his calf with both of his strong hands. That’s all the pleasure he’s likely to get out of Andy, but it’s more than I’ve ever gotten. I’d have given half my stock options to trade places with either of them right now.

Reluctantly leaving the two hot, naked studs, I went to the table where Chris was now patiently waiting for me to tie him down.

I love my job!