Nightmerrogation

"Now then," Geller addressed her. "We're gonna start out simple. Be advised, Lucy, this doesn't have to be difficult. If you're willing to work with me here, you'll be allowed to dress and appear before the judge much sooner," she went on, trying to keep from grinning, knowing full well she was going to terrorize the life out of this poor young girl no matter what, whether she liked it or not. "If you're not...well...things are likely to get a little, shall we say, unpleasant."

She was insidiously lying to her; "unpleasant" wouldn't cover it. Not even close.

Lucy incredulously shook her head. Why wouldn't these damned people just believe her? She actually briefly considered trying to come up with some sort of story to concoct to adequately answer this detective's questions, but unfortunately she had to dismiss the idea. She wasn't that great at thinking on her feet (or on her tummy), and she'd long since sworn off lying, when she was a teenager. Eventually, after she got caught in what she thought was a harmless lie for the umpteenth time, she decided she wasn't very good at this lying thing, so she simply stuck to the truth.

She wished Mary were there. She thought she'd heard Mary calling after her about coming down here, and if it was true, she wished she could arrive already so she wouldn't be trapped in the defeat of isolation, being chained to this scary table by this mean detective woman. And if she couldn't have Mary there with her, she wished her Mum could be there. Or Greg. Or at this point just anyone else who would protect her.

In the meantime, Geller clapped her hands. "Now!" she announced. "Let's begin. So, the gist of the story is, you basically offed your boss, after having declared wishing she was dead, and relieved her of her bankroll."

Lucy just shook her head vehemently. "No!" she moaned from under her hair.

"That was not a question, Lucy; I saw the fingerprint match."

Lucy summoned all the breath she had. "IT'S A MISTAKE, GODDAMMIT!!" she screamed as loud as she could, adding her fists and feet to the tantrum, banging them on the table.

Geller's tone didn't change one bit. "You can cut the drama, princess; the only mistake that gets made around here is forgetting when Dunkin' Donuts is closed. Now, would you like to behave yourself, and explain to me how you came to such a decision?"

Lucy's only answer was to cry. Geller waited another moment, and then squatted down at the head of the table in front of her, reached under her neck, took her by the chin and brought her face upwards to look at her. Lucy certainly didn't want this sleazy woman to touch her. She jerked away from her hand.

"All right, Lucy, come on. Look at me."

Lucy turned her wet, messy face back to her and glared at her. She still couldn't make out hardly any of the detective's face. Geller retrieved something else from inside the bag.

"Lucy, I want you to take a look at something."

Lucy blinked her reddened eyes, trying to give them a little soothing, as Geller showed her what she was talking about. She held in her hand a long...moderately stiff...pheasant feather.

When she got it into focus, Lucy's eyes widened in fright. Geller was waving the feather in front of the girl's cloudy eyes, twirling it back and forth between her fingers. Suddenly, Lucy felt her body tense up.

"You see, this is what I was alluding to before, describing what might happen if one refuses to play nice with me," she explained, as she idly let the feather glide down Lucy's left cheek, making her twitch and turn her face away in discomfort. Geller moved it to her right cheek and then under her chin. "As well as what I was alluding to by saying that my method of interrogation may be seen as extreme, or a bit unorthodox..."

She let the edge of the feather glide from between her eyebrows down her nose, as she whispered the words—

"...but DEFinitely effective."

Lucy shut her eyes and scrunched her face, trying to avoid the tingling sensations. Her face tightened up even more when the feather reached just beneath the tip of her nose, and she heard, "Get a good look at it, young lady."

She frightfully opened her horrified eyes to see the feather being threateningly brandished before her. "Yes..." whispered Geller sinisterly, "Take a good, long look...I want this image BURNED forever into your memory. Look at it, up and down...isn't it pretty? How light it is...nice and loooong...the beautiful stripe-like pattern..."

She let the image firmly register in Lucy's brain, then leaned up closer to whisper right into her ear—

"...Scared?"

There was no point in denying. Lucy nodded her melancholy head. The sight of this feather had indeed been irreparably lodged into her mind, almost as if she was born with it. She couldn't not see the feather now, not even by closing her eyes.

"Excellent."

The poor girl buried her face in the table surface again, heart beating half again as fast as thirty minutes ago, to hear the squeaking sound of Geller's leather boots as she stood back up. "So, as you see, Lucy, young lady...we can do this the easy way..."

Lucy squeaked herself, twitching and jerking when she felt the feather playing about her spine.

"...or...the hard way."

The feather came up her side to just below her arm. Lucy wriggled on the table and rattled the cuffs, trying not to giggle too loudly or to let the detective know how ticklish she was. Unfortunately, she knew she wasn't going to be able to hold it inside for very long.

"That being said, Lucy...is there anything you'd like to tell me right now?"

She felt the feather leave her body and loosened up, settling down flat on the table again. "Why pray tell won't you bloody believe me??" Lucy begged. "I'm innocent, blast it all! I'm not a liar, a thief, or a murderer! I was fra-a-amed!" she cried, stretching the last word into a three-syllable sob.

The next thing she felt was the detective stroking and petting her hair. "Oh, young lady," she said, her voice oozing with condescension, "If we ignored the evidence and put our criminals on the honor system, we might as well just set all the inmates free, and take them out for a picnic."

"But I'm not a cr—EEEEE!" Lucy shrieked as Geller slipped the feather into her armpit and gave it a ride down her torso. She rattled the table. "OH my God, please STOP!" she beseeched as the detective again temporarily relented. "It's horrible! I can't stand it! Please, don't do this to me!" she cried.

"Then start talking, Miss Taylor."

This was beyond ludicrous. "But I keep telling you, I didn't DO anything!" wailed poor Lucy.

Geller smirked sadistically and produced another object from her bag, as she returned to in front of Lucy's face. "You know, my friend, this is one of my favorite segments of our little interrogation sessions," she told her. "In fact, sometimes it actually disappoints me when a confession is submitted right away. Because then we've no opportunity to do implement this funny little aid."

Lucy looked up to see the object Geller now held in her hand, which appeared to be a faded, torn scarf. Lucy had no idea what she was going to do with that, until the detective wrapped it over her eyes.

She started trembling with terrible anticipation. "Oh, no, no, God, no, please, don't do this, ple-e-e-ease!" she entreated as Geller finished tying it behind her head.

"That part has already been done, Lucy-goosey," the detective taunted her. She took her around the arm and middle and started to turn her body onto her back. "All right, come on now, over we go..."

Lucy felt her entire world falling apart. "Oh, please..." she wept, "Please, you can't do this to me...I swear to God, I'm innocent..."

"You keep saying that as if you actually expect me to believe it," replied Geller as she'd finished flipping her body all the way over. It was her back's, her bottom's and her calves' turn to feel the cold steel.

"But you must! You have to believe me, it's true!" the girl insisted.

"You're gonna have to tell me more than that, young lady."

Lucy broke out into a wracking infantile bawl, at which Geller reprimanded her by clamping her hand over Lucy's mouth.

"And knock off that sissy crying or I'll give you something to really cry about, you little weasel!" she threatened. "Now toughen up and take it like a woman!"

Lucy tried to be her grown-up 22-year-old self, but she was too petrified, too overwhelmed and too ticklish. Not to mention too innocent and too framed. Very few human beings' bodies turned less ticklish as they grew up, and unfortunately for her, Lucy was no exception. If anything, hers was even more sensitive than as a child.

She already hated and deathly feared this awful feather which was putting her through such anguish. Well, she obligatorily reasoned, there was no reason to hate the feather itself, but rather this horrible, ruthless, merciless investigator who was administering the torment herself. All of a sudden, she didn't have any trouble using the word "hate," or a more explosive choice of words, describing her feelings towards this nefarious Detective Geller.

Geller poured on the unjust punishment. "Now are you ready to be a good girl, and tell the nice detective lady the truth?"

Lucy shook her head hopelessly. "I don't know what else I can bloody tell you," she whined. "I did not do it! For the love of God, Miss, what do you want from me??"

She felt the feather slide from just between her bra cups down her belly. She involuntarily sucked it in and broke out in raucous laughter.

"OH, bleeding hell!" Lucy screamed again when she could take a breath. "Please STOP it! That tickles like the devil!"

"You have a startling grasp of the obvious, my lass," she heard Geller's voice say. The feather rode down her side. She uncontrollably laughed again, trying to twist and lean away from it. Geller poked at her with it wherever she could get at her, driving her insane. This little game filled the space of the next ten or fifteen minutes.

"PLEASE STOP!! PLEEEEEEASE STOP!!" Lucy roared between fits of laughter.

"You know how to get me to stop, Lucy," the detective said barely audibly.

Lucy struggled to circulate oxygen. "Bu-...but I...I ca-...I di-...I c—"

Geller slipped the feather into her belly button and gave it a wiggle.

"AAAAAHHHHHHHH!" Lucy erupted, screeching so loud the sound echoed off the walls.

"Isn't it SO much more fun on your back?" Geller shouted down at her over her scream.

Lucy was (quickly) losing her mind. The wicked feather at last vacated her belly button and she let out a coughing breath.

"Ahhhh," sighed Geller, leaning over the table. "What do you say, Miss Taylor? Ready to talk yet?"

This could not be logically happening, Lucy again thought to herself. She wasn't living in the real world anymore.

"Oh, please just kill me," Lucy finally sputtered out in tears.

"Ah—priorities, young Lucy. First we goochie the information outta you, then we can talk about putting you out of your misery."

Lucy had no reactions beyond tears and contemptuous thoughts.

Geller chuckled malevolently. "All right, tell you what. I'll make things a little easier on you. I'll ask you a more concrete question. How about this: when you murdered your boss, did you consider yourself to be of completely sound mind at that moment?"

OH, FOR, GOD'S, SAKE...

"I didn't kill h—AAAAHHH!"

The scream again morphed to a shrieking laugh as the feather strode down the side of her body it hadn't visited yet. "That's not what I asked you, my little waif," Geller strictly admonished her, casting her dominant shadow over her.

Lucy couldn't begin to describe the terror of the prickly tingle jumping through her body courtesy of the feather of doom. On top of which, she felt utterly shamed and humbled, like a small child being punished. She'd never been so submissive or helpless, lying motionlessly flat on her back, virtually every spare inch of her body exposed and ripe for the torture. She thrashed and flopped the tiny amount that she could while tensing up and sucking in her tummy, just trying the escape its deadly touch.

"All right, Missy," announced Geller, "We've worked our way halfway down your body, and while I have all the time in the world..." she said, drawing it out just to terrify her even more, "I think I know how to convince you still better," she muttered, as she strutted down to the foot of the table and patted Lucy's ankle cuffs.

"You don't start talking now...you're gonna be very sorry."

She smiled, relishing the fear those two despicable final words poured over her.

The realization of what was about to happen next encased Lucy's veins in ice.

"Oh, God, no," she groaned, feeling the impending condemnation upon her. "Oh, please, you can't...oh, Heaven, save me..." poor Lucy blubbered.

"Praying can't help you now, sweetheart," declared her terrorist detective.

Playing with her mind while she was playing with her body, Geller made her think she was going to complete a full sentence. "You know, Miss Taylor, the—"

She pretended to continue talking and waggled the feather between Lucy's arches on the word "the." Lucy's face went red in a deafening guffaw.

Geller chuckled at her little mental manipulation. "Ah...damn, I love my job," she remarked. "So what's the verdict, kiddo? Still not talkin', huh?"

Lucy tried to sniffle back her heaving breaths. "I...I..." she gasped. "...I..."

Geller finished the statement for her in the form of a guess. "...Have a death wish?"

She drew the feather between each of Lucy's toes, which made her kick the quarter-inch from the table she was allowed, and made her try to grab the feather with her toes, but it swished through too quickly and kept slipping out from her toes like a bar of soap. Geller let her variation of "This Little Piggie" go on for about twenty or thirty seconds, and then lowered her voice and announced, "All right, you little worm, that's it. Play time's over. Spill it."

With that, she let her have it. She aggressively, violently swirled the evil feather all over the soles of her quivering feet. Up and down, back and forth, figure eights, zigzags, any other pattern that came to mind. Needless to say, Lucy was dying...literally...very, very slowly...literally dying, from eventual fatal shortness of breath. Neither the stimulus nor the response could be more insane. Lucy tried her best to roll herself closer to the end of the table, just to grasp for a morsel of relief. She would have preferred to roll right off the table onto the floor, cold and filthy as it was, but leaving aside the pesky little fact that the twine wouldn't allow it, even should she crash to the floor, the tickle treatment would inevitably just proceed down there, and she'd also have injured herself. Nah...bad idea.

All she could do was lie back...and laugh...uncontainably. Her face was on its way to getting stuck in this forced contortion, scrunched in perpetual laughter, tears flowing down her temples under the scarf. The word "struggling" did no justice to the erratic spasms through which her body was convulsing. The simple word "torture" didn't do the trick anymore either, a new word would have to be created to extend the magnitude of her suffering.

That infernal feather, ever so lightly but ever so devastatingly grazing the dusty, tender bottoms of her wiggling naked feet, was setting off firecrackers from those deathly sensitive nerve endings, making her entire frame spastically quake on the table, remnants of her voice evaporating in screams of laughter and tears. Her face was aching from the continuous cheek labor, and the rest of her head hurt from the crying. The sounds coming out of her were barely even human anymore.

"You can make all this stop at any time, Lucy-goose," Geller lied to her again. "Just spit it out. Just spit it right out...tell me the truth...and it'll allllll be over."

After about ten to fifteen more minutes that felt like centuries, Lucy wasn't even begging anymore. She wasn't trying to form letters or sounds. The laughter was eroding away the machinery of most of her biological systems, and was gradually turning into hacking and choking. Her feet were alternatingly curling all the way forward and flexing all the way back. The worst aspect of the horrendous foot tickling was that no matter how far down, how tightly she curled the wrinkles into her soles, folding her toes over each other, it was to no avail. There was no escape. The cursed feather was relentless. Again thinking irrational thoughts, she now even hated the pheasant from which this feather came. She wanted out of her skin. She was beyond being unable to get over how ridiculous the situation was; this interrogation had become so unbearable, so intolerable, so piercing, so agonizing...that actual, mortal death was starting to look like a not-so-bad idea.

Unfortunately, she was pretty certain Detective Geller wouldn't allow that.

She was right. Shortly after she'd lost her voice and her face had turned a nice shade of maroon, the fiendish Geller finally, finally, finally brought a stop to the agony she was drowning the poor girl in. Lucy could not even distinguish being tortured from not being tortured by this excruciating point. She fought just to get her breath back, coughing her lungs out and wheezing for life-sustaining air.

She felt like she was on life support. "He-e-e-e-elp..." she rasped out, hoping something had somehow changed and she could be released from this prison of torment.

Geller chuckled as she leaned against the table, gazing gleefully into the girl's havoc-wreaked face. Lucy couldn't think a single coherent thought. She just hissed out pleas of "He-e-elp me-e-e-e..." and "No-o-o mo-o-o-o-ore..."

Geller grinned down at her. "All right, snap out of it, kid," she ordered, taking her by the chin and giving her face a little shake. It took a few more minutes, but at last, Lucy's lucidity came all the way back.

"All right, up," said the detective, indicating her head. When Lucy lifted it as high as she could, Geller reached under her arms and untied the scarf from her eyes. Predictably, the middle of it was now drenched. She delighted in the sight of Lucy's wet, red, puffed, baggy, misery-filled eyes. Lucy tried to open them and blinked a few dozen times. Geller wanted to wait for just the right time when Lucy was brought back to life, so to speak, to continue. In the meantime, she tsk'd her.

"How ironic," said Geller, iciness dripping from her voice and her words. "Too bad; you wouldn't talk, and so you had to be punished for it...and now, you can't talk."

Lucy turned her face to the side away from her, trying to keep from slipping into another bout of stinging tears.

"Well, now I've got a little surprise for you."

Lucy wordlessly turned back to her in alarm. Geller walked away from her, to the door, and Lucy again heard the crunch and squeak of her boots. The next thing she heard was the door open.

"C'mon in!"

She heard two sets of footsteps now approaching her, on either side of the table. Lucy tried not to concentrate on anything like how vulnerable she remained in this state, or what would happen to her beyond this, or who this other person turned out to be. A moment later came a frosty voice she hadn't heard up to now, but nonetheless still recognized.

"Hello, Lucy."

Feeling something suddenly going very wrong, terrified Lucy raised her eyes to see standing above and wickedly smiling down on her, to her utter shock and awe...