You see my folks made me take this trip to Silver Oaks, California. I was there visiting the college they thought I would be attending ... after living all eighteen years of my life till then in and around Houston, a city with worse traffic jams and noxious emissions than Los Angeles. At first I was scared of the Metro; what if I took a wrong turn and ended up in the ghetto?

Well, guess what? I did, the first time I ever rode it alone!

As difficult as it is to get lost using the color-coded maps that mark the way of the yellow, red, green, orange, and blue lines, I managed to get myself stuck in the middle of some horrendously poor, entirely minority-filled, entirely terrifying neighborhood instead of arriving at the DeFalco Restaurant I'd set out for.

Steeling myself for assault or murder (or both), I walked around and worried how I was going to glean enough money to get another ticket since I was flat broke after purchasing a stash of weed in Holcombe County.

I was pacing back in forth in a panic until I realized I had 28.5 grams of weed on me. I figured I could sell a portion of it, get a new ticket ... or maybe even pay for a cab ... and ride out of that nightmarish place.

So I stood on the corner of Garrison and Wagner for about an hour staring into every car that passed, trying to hook customers while trying not to look like some lost suburbanite lamb ripe for the inner-city slaughter. I finally saw a car stop and I rushed over to this potential customer, but it took off down the street when the occupants got a close-up of what I looked like; a well-dressed young preppie who didn't fit the ethnic profile of the neighborhood. Probably thought I was a babyfaced cop trying to bait them. So I turned around and began heading back to the corner when I heard,

"Hey."

When I turned around I saw this young woman of about nineteen. She was absolutely stunning. She had long black cornrow braided hair that fell just past her waist. Her eyes were the color of root beer. She was thin and shapely and dressed in a waitress uniform. Despite her tired, workday-weary appearance, she was definitely the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. The tag on her uniform said her name was Althea.

"Hey, how about a bag?" I asked, knowing that she'd know what I was talking about.

"How much?"

"Ten bucks." I replied.

"Ten dollars? Do I look like yesterday's fool to you, boy?"

Before I could answer she turned in disgust and began to walk away.

I called out, "Hey, wait ...half a bag then? Five bucks?"

"No ... the WHOLE bag for five. I haven't smoked so much of that shit that I can't see that you're desperate for cash. And that says what? That says we're going to do some negotiating."

It was then that I decided a certain amount of charm was needed to change this girl's mind. I glanced over at her and rather quietly asked, "Were you a cheerleader in high school? You look like you were a cheerleader." I wasn’t lying either.

"No." The young woman answered in a cold, clipped voice. When she began to make her way up the street, I followed her. She and I started across the park together. My horniness instilled me with a level of bravery I normally don’t possess. I glanced at Althea more fixedly as we walked along. The moonlight really became her. Yeah I had a girlfriend back home, but she was almost a thousand miles away ... and a fella gets tired of humping his hand every night, you know what I mean?

"Well ... do you model?"

"No."

I was going to ask--since she didn't model and never cheer-led--what HAD she been involved in that would exploit her beauty? But, as if she was reading my mind, Althea said, "I've been in a few rap videos. If you consider THAT modeling ..."

Yes! I thought to myself. I knew that if I could get this beauty to speak of something other than the narcotics sale at hand, I'd have a chance at temporarily bonding with her. Bonding with her just long enough so that I could get the better of her in the deal. Maybe even get her into bed.

So we walked and talked for a bit. And as we walked along we soon found ourselves debating about whether or not a model's career was over at age twenty-eight, whether or not Eileen Ford was the best modeling agency in the country, whether or not porn models made more money and so on. By this time we were in a secluded section of a place called Mason Children's Play Park. I noticed this with some discomfort.

"You have someone coming to pick you up when you're done selling, or will you take the train?" She asked me.

"That's actually WHY I'm selling … to make enough to get on the damn train! You see I got a little mixed up between the red-line and the green."

"Oh, you got off at the wrong stop." She said, shaking her head in realization. I could smell Althea's perfume. I could even feel her warm breath on my cheek as she strolled beside me. Lewd thoughts I never thought I'd possess for someone like her invaded my mind. They fueled an unnamed desire within me.

I nodded, "If I can make enough in two hours, I can get back home in time for my mom's birthday party."

"Hmmm ... well I don't have much time then."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing." She replied, rolling up the jump ropes that had been left lying around the play park. I wondered if she had a job as the park's official equipment manager or something. Perhaps that's just what she was. I never asked if she did anything besides waitressing. After she rolled up the jump ropes, she looked at me and asked, "What's your name anyway?"

"Kevin. Kevin Hauser. I'm so glad to have found a friendly face out here. Still pretty worried I'll end up stabbed to death before I can sell enough chronic to get back home."

"Aw, poor Kevin!" she said as she stroked my neck lightly. Her touch was like an electric bolt through my body. Not just because I was hot for her, but because my neck was one of many hyper-sensitive spots on my body.

I giggled and jerked away. "Stop that! I'm uber-ticklish!"

"Really?"

"Yeah ... all over my body! I'm just a mass of nerve endings in Abercrombie & Fitch clothing."

And, of course, it was at this moment that Althea decided to playfully tickle me to death! With both hands she attacked my ribs and danced her fingers around them as I howled out in laughter. I tried to fight her off bud ended up curling into a defensive ball--frantically trying to ward off this vicious tickling assault. Thankfully Althea was having a tough time keeping my violently wriggling body pinned down and I was finally able to get loose.

When I recovered we continued walking in the park. Eventually I girded up my loins and asked her if she was seeing anyone.

"I was married.” She said with this far away look in her root beer-colored eye. “And the relationship I had with my husband was so F'd up. I don't know why the hell I wasted my time on it. Well I do actually. I needed to feel loved and I thought the way he treated me was love. I confronted him one day because I knew he was cheating on me with his ex girlfriend - I'd seen him and the ho together ... he couldn't deny it, you know?"

I nodded, not bothering to mention the fact that I fully intended to cheat on my own girlfriend with Althea if I could. "So what happened?"

"I moved back in with my Mama. Then I started thinking about what he did to me. And the more I thought about it the more pissed I became. So I went back to the apartment we shared. I knocked on the door and when he opened it I strangled that son of a bitch to death with my own hands," she said with a sadistic smile. "Yes, I'm THAT strong. You saw how hard it was for you to get away from me when I was tickling you, right? Choking the life out of that bastard was a cinch."

I acted as if I didn't believe her, but I was getting cold all over, you know?

"That m-musta been awful." I said nervously. And I was trying my best to pretend that everything was okay … that nothing was wrong.

"Wow ... there is nothing weirder than seeing an already pale boy get even paler." Althea said, staring at me. "I was only joking you know."

"I was pretty sure you didn't kill him." I said. But it was a lie. In my rapidly thudding heart I really thought she had killed her ex out of a thirst for vengeance. My legs still felt wobbly even though I was so relieved.

"But all you men are the same ... pure unadulterated dogs. And prettyboys are the worst. I swear, the prettier a man is the more I just want to break his goddamn neck"

For a quick second I got a little mad. "Now wait a damn minute! Just because you've had some bad experiences, you don't have to label every 'prettyboy' a dog. Hell, look at me! Most folks agree that I'm darn handsome an-- "

The panicked nervousness returned when I saw the look in her eyes. I felt a bug-like bead of sweat slide down my back. "Umm ... I think I need to get back to the corner and get this weed sold. And .. and ... and I called my dad. He's going to drive up here to pick me up if-"

Althea shook her head. "Cut out the fronting, Kevin ... I swear you prettyboys are ALL a bunch of lying sacks of shit."

I glanced around at the emptiness of this particular area of the park. It was behind the abandoned sub station where the grass was dead and stuff. It was clear that no one ever went to this unattractive portion of the park. I was in a full-blown panic now. I thought about running but, racial stereotypes aside, I knew there was no way in hell I was going to get away from her.

I tried to play it off. To see if I could appease Althea somehow before she did something crazy. "Hey, e-everyone makes mistakes that they later regret. Guys DO lie and cheat way too much. But they're not hopeless you know? Eventually they learn the error of our ... I mean their ways."

Without responding to what I said, Althea crouched and tackled me! She then slid up my body and started choking me! I tried to yell but she clamped down even harder on my throat. And she wasn't doing it carelessly either. She was doing it carefully--using her strong hand to search for some crucial spot.

I fought long and hard to pry her hands away, but eventually a terrible weakness came over me … and I suddenly understand what was happening.

I was dying!

I rolled over onto my back, but Althea hung on, squeezing. She was squeezing the artery in a special way that kept the blood or air or something from reaching my brain. I was so certain that I was being murdered. I was crying and silently screaming for my dad, my brother Eric, my mom … anyone! I tried to reach out, tried once more to push Althea away, but it was too late. I swear, I started seeing colored spots, and then the pain in my neck intensified.

I felt my own hands fall limply at my sides as the blackness swallowed me up.

When I woke up I had a BAD headache.

I found myself trussed up with jump ropes as I lay on my abdomen and my left foot was bare. Using one of the jump ropes she'd been carrying, Althea had tied me with my feet drawn up behind me--bound and secured to the other jump rope that similarly raised my arms. She checked the knots, drew them tight, gagged me with my right sock and then pulled off my remaining sneaker and sock. I blacked out again just as I felt her warm wet tongue stroke my bare sole.

The second I sort of came to my senses she immediately began running her fingers along my soles while apparently inhaling the smell of my feet. As the fog in my head began to dissipate I started to squirm more and more and began mumbling through my sock gag. She responded to my garbled pleas by placing her hands under my shirt. Her fingers around my defenseless ribs while I drowsily shifted my body to avoid the tickling sensations. It was horrible!

When she got bored with my ribs she began stroking my size ten soles in earnest and I started to complain in my semi conscious state, "Stop! ... Please! ... I can't take! Stop!" That's what I was trying to yell anyway. How all of this sounded through my gag, I haven't a clue. "Please!"

I snapped to instant alertness when I heard Althea say "I know you can't take it. Why the hell do you think I'm doing it?" Before I could make an attempt at replying, I burst out into a fit of laughter as she ran her fingernails all along my soles double-time.

"Stop, hahahahahaha, stop, why the hell hahahahahahaha are you doing this to me?" There was no reply, just more torture to my bare feet. Althea took up a tree branch, breaking off a twig and proceeding to run the prickly twig up and down my right foot as I went wild with gag-muffled laughter. Then she abruptly threw down the branch and proceeded to run all ten long-nailed fingers rapidly all along the soles of my helpless bare feet.

I screamed and flexed my soles as much as I could, but all I managed to do was encourage this insane woman to tickle me even harder! Eventually I blacked out, the sensations assaulting me were so intense. When I woke up again I felt something warm and wet on my feet. Althea eventually noticed I was conscious and stopped licking and sucking and doing whatever she'd been doing to my feet while I was out.

"Awake, huh? Okay, here we go again …"

Before I could answer, she began to tickle my feet by gliding a stiff leaf over and between my bare toes. She stroked it between and around each toe on both feet, smiling at the sound of my gagged and tortured screams. Even with the gag, my screams were getting pretty loud though. I was hoping that someone would hear me. Well, I HALF hoped that someone would hear me. Another half of me enjoyed what was happening. The feeling of being restrained and tickled was so incredible! Althea used her other hand to glide her fingers over my left foot--from my delicate heel, up my smooth sole, across the ball of my foot and all around my arch … then she repeated the same process over and over again. My bound body rocked like a rocking horse and I humped the grass while she tickled me. She tickled me till I came really close to blacking out yet again.

Once she was finished I sat on the grass, putting my shoes and socks back on while Althea watched with a satisfied smirk. I wanted to yell and curse at her--to tell her that she was a psycho bitch who should be put in a mental institution. But I didn't. At the time all I really focused on was how wet my right socks was. The left had been my gag … why was the right sock wet? It took me a moment to realize that Althea had probably licked and sucked it while I was unconscious. The thought of her licking and sucking the sweat out of my sock should have disgusted me, but instead it made me feel . . . umm, I don't really know if there's a word for it.

I put the socks on--socks that were damp with the mixture of my sweat and Althea's saliva--and wiggled my toes in them. Then I put on my sneakers--the interiors of which may have also been licked by Althea, but I couldn't really tell.

The whole experience was both a jumbled nightmare and a beautiful dream of lost time and reality. I watched Althea carefully roll up the jump ropes he had used to bind me like a calf set for branding. She asked me if she was any good at tickling, and my anger at her ended completely when she apologetically rubbed my hair . . . as if I were a dog that had been beaten just because his master had been in a bad mood.

I was too dazed to feel humiliated or anything. There really isn't a name for what I ultimately felt after this experience. But I'll tell you this much; what I felt wasn't bad.