please hold my hand im scared

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“Don’t you fuckin' dare!”

The pub was busy, raucous, and we were tucked into a small booth in the back corner, but that fact didn’t appear to placate him at all. His usually green skin was bright red to the tips of his long floppy ears, and he squirmed and thrashed on my lap.

The rope binding his arms still held tight.

“Calm down, nobody’s paying attention to a tiny little thing like you,” I admonished him gently, taking a sip of my drink. “No need to get so embarrassed…”

He glared up at me, furious and mortified.

“You’re such a fucking bitch—”

I cut him off, pinching his little hip firmly but gently— he was so small and fragile.

“Hey! You think that sort of talk is going to help your situation?” I didn’t have to expend much energy to hold him in place, even with his thrashing; the difference in sheer size and strength between orcs and goblins was simply indomitable. He knew that, of course, had to, but he was such a little fireball that he didn’t seem to care. He’d wear himself out with useless thrashing if it meant not admitting I’d bested him.

Case in point, he responded to my warning by jabbing his heel into my thigh.

“Fuck off, let me go!” He barked, his harsh voice nevertheless nearly drowned out by the din of the pub.

I smiled, bowed my head down closer to his red little face.

“Not until you’ve repaid me for what you stole, Gob,” I said softly in his big batty ear, and I felt a shiver run through him. “You remember our deal, don’t you? Until I’ve decided you’ve paid off your debt, you’re my little tickle toy to do with as I please.”

His breathing hitched, and for a split second he froze— presumably in utter, paralyzing mortification at being reminded of the full scope of his predicament.

“Not here,” He blurted, his voice betraying a little bit of his desperation. “Fuck’s sake, not in front of all of these people—”

“Aw, why not?” I readied a hand over his naked tummy, and he tried to thrash away. “You hear everybody laughing and carrying on? You’ll blend right in.”

“I swear, if you touch me— I’ll— when I get free—”

“You’ll do what, little Gob?” I teased him, softly tracing my fingertip around his soft belly. “Are you gonna beat me up? Gonna teach me to mind you, little Gob?”

His face scrunched up, somehow getting even redder as he held his breath, tried to resist the urge to smile.

A group at a table nearby erupted into whooping and hollering, loud animated conversation about who knows what.

“Aww, nothing to say now?” I took another sip of my drink, lackadaisically wandered my finger around to his side. His body jerked away.

“I’ll— I’m gonna k-kill you,” He seethed, squeezing his eyes shut and grimacing.

“Will you, now? I guess that gives me a little more incentive to keep you as my helpless little plaything forever, now doesn’t it?”

With that I increased my fingers’ lazy wanderings to a quick scribbling, one hand on either side of his little belly, and his resolve instantly broke. His flailing and loud screechy laughter drew a bit of attention at first, but quickly blended into the surrounding din.

I couldn’t help but grin; in spite of his harsh words, he was so cute.

My big clumsy orc hands did a serviceable job, but they weren’t the most effective tools for tickling his tiny delicate little goblin body; earlier, in the solitude of the forest, I’d had the time and space to stretch him out over the spokes of my caravan’s wheel, tickle every inch of his sensitive body with the help of my wide selection of quill pens. The soft plumes for especially fragile spots like his tender armpits, the sharp tips for the callused soles of his feet.

I’d fantasized about taking a cute little prisoner for years, never thought I’d actually find myself in a position to follow through.

I was a reformed orc, you see; abandoned my peoples’ brutish reputation as pillaging barbarians. No, I was a respectable distributor of stationery and related goods. Paper and ink, in large quantities, are actually quite heavy. Require someone with muscle or magic or machinery.

To cut a long, annoying story short, while attempting to rob me the goblin managed to destroy about a quarter of my inventory. Callously, seemingly just out of frustration that I had nothing ‘good’ to make off with. I’d caught him red-handed— or, rather deep purple handed, as he’d emptied a bottle of my most expensive indigo ink all over the caravan floor— and was initially overcome with rage.

He was unapologetic, disrespectful, foolishly antagonistic. Taunted me— “I don’t have any money to pay it off anyways, lady, so looks like you’re shit out of luck!”

Surely no reasonable person would blame me for letting my inner barbarian re-emerge, tying him up, keeping him for my own.

It didn’t take him long to realize that he was in over his head, that he’d robbed the wrong traveller. Perhaps he’d expected that as a lady— orc or not— I’d go easy on him.

I suppose, in a way, I was. A crueler Orc may have just eaten him.

That had been nearly a week ago, and in a way I was surprised he still had so much spunk in him. I’d already tickled him to tears four or five times, reduced him to a begging, sobbing puddle, but as soon as he was allowed to sleep and eat he seemed reinvigorated to be an annoying little pill once more.

In truth I didn’t hate it; the fouler he acted, the more I wanted to punish him. If he’d sadly resigned himself to his fate, I may start feeling badly for him.

I tickled him ruthlessly for a while in the back of the pub, not letting up even as his eyes got soggy with laughter-induced tears and his babbling gradually transformed from furious profanity to broken pleading. I had the barmaid refill my drink once, chortled to myself at the way he buried his laughing face in my clothing in a pitiful attempt to hide his shame from her.

She didn’t seem to notice or care, but that evidently didn’t matter to him.

I let my fingers wander between his belly, his sides, his back and his ribs. As soon as he seemed to acclimate to one spot I knew to quickly switch to another; at this point I nearly had it down to a science, knew exactly how to make him scream and wheeze and thrash for as long as I needed.

I only finally relented when it started to get late— or, rather, early— and the pub began to quiet down.

He panted in a heap on my lap, too exhausted to thrash or wriggle or rebel anymore.

“There, now that wasn’t so bad now was it?” I stroked his wild black hair, and he cracked open one kohl smeared eye just to glare at me. “Oh, my… If my eyes don’t deceive me you may have even liked it just a smidgen…”