HOME | DD

Description
Part Two: Chuckling Chazz

One Week Later

Everything seemed to be conspiring to get on Chazz Princeton’s nerves. He’d let his mind wander and given an incorrect answer in class about Pinch Hopper’s effect. Not only had he forgotten that the monster’s search effect was optional and therefore could be disrupted by chaining, but Bastion had spotted the error and corrected him in front of the entire class. Then one of his flunkies had told him of a rumour going around the school that Chancellor Shepard was going to form a Secret Elite Dueling Club for the absolute top handful of students at the Academy. That in itself would have been a good thing, except that it was rumoured that Jaden and Alexis had already received their invitations three days previously. Chazz himself had not even known of the formation of the club. Was it possible he was going to be excluded? Some thanks he got for preventing his brothers from taking over the school.

As he entered his next class, Chazz noticed with a little frown that a small socked foot seemed to be in possession of his chair. The foot belonged to Syrus, who was busy trying to shake a stone out of his shoe. Chazz reached his chair. On a good day he might have made a noise and let Syrus move his foot unobtrusively. But it was not one of Chazz’ more charitable days. As he exclaimed, “Move it or lose it, Syrus!” Chazz grabbed the offending foot meaning to move it for him, only to be startled by an abnormally loud shriek from Duel Academy’s shortest would-be Obelisk Blue. Even Syrus’ shriek was irritating. When Chazz saw Zane an hour later, he asked him, “What’s wrong with your little brother?”

“Is something wrong with Syrus?” Zane replied.

“Something more than usual,” answered Chazz. “He’s been edgy all day, and it’s starting to get on my nerves. I moved his foot off my chair and he almost screamed down the building. Then when he was about to take one of his little naps during class, Jaden gave him a poke to wake him up and he fell out of his chair. I mean, I thought that sort of thing only happened in stories.”

Zane looked only nominally concerned. “Sy’s done that before,” he said drily. “I suppose he’s just worrying about the Obelisk entrance examination.”

Chazz wanted to ask Zane if he could at least get his brother to stop acting like a total dweeb, but thought better of it. He didn’t want Zane to turn against him, especially if the question was still open on the subject of the membership in Chancellor Shepard’s Secret Elite Dueling Club. Before he thought of anything else to say, Zane was gone. Then Chazz noticed his flunkies bringing him his mail.

“Chazz! Chazz! You’ve got an anonymous letter!” they cried.

“Junk mail,” said Chazz with a snarl. You should’ve tossed it.”

"No, Chazz, it’s handwritten, see?”

Chazz took the envelope. It was handwritten. The penmanship was good, too. That didn’t impress Chazz, who’d been brought up in that sphere of society which, having made pots of money a few generations ago instead of having had it for centuries, regarded time spent on neat handwriting as time wasted.

“Maybe it’s from a secret admirer,” breathed his flunkies. “Aren’t you gonna open it, Chazz?”

“Maybe later. I have to go now. Get me something good for lunch.” Chazz strode off , then made for the lavatory once he was alone.

After he left the bathroom, Chazz thought he might as well open the letter. What he read puzzled him. Help with something he wanted? The Sacred Dueling Room at 4:15? It sounded like a setup, like the time Jasmine and Mindy convinced Alexis to challenge him to a duel so that they could sneak into his room and steal his underwear for their collection. Then again, if there was a chance it might have something to do with getting into Chancellor Shepard’s elite duelist group, he supposed it couldn’t hurt.

The clincher was the quarter hour, 4:15. Chazz knew that sort of trick well. His brothers often used it in business. If they scheduled an appointment when they had a completely free afternoon, they always made sure to pick a quarter hour to make it seem as if they were incredibly busy. But at least it showed that whoever was behind the invitation had a fairly orderly mind. Someone like Jaden might think it would be funny to play a joke on him, but Jaden could barely cope with half hours. 4:15 was entirely beyond him. Someone like Bastion had the mind to deal with quarter hours, but Bastion wasn’t the sort of person to lure him somewhere as part of a joke.

Chazz meant to show up at about 4:22. Punctuality was so middle-class. But to be too late never did, either. Oddly, as 4:15 approached, Chazz found himself unable to waste the couple of minutes here or there that he’d planned to fritter away to be the requisite seven minutes late. He was on his way to the Sacred Dueling Room before he knew it. As the quarter struck, Chazz entered the antechamber.

Chazz was little impressed by the Sacred Dueling Room. Without thinking, he strode through the antechamber and was about to enter when a digitized voice startled him. “Not so fast, Chazz,” he heard.

“Wha...?” Chazz uttered, looking around to see who’d spoken. There was a robed and hooded
attendant (a really dorky outfit) in the corner, but that wasn’t from where the voice had issued).

“Your shoes, Chazz,” said the voice, seeming to come from all over the antechamber at once.

“Hunh? Oh, yeah... I forgot.” Chazz bent down to remove his shoes as the attendant approached. He handed them to the attendant, saying, “Watch out for these; they’re Italian. They probably cost me more than you spend on your whole wardrobe in a year.” The attendant said nothing.

Chazz stepped towards the Sacred Dueling Room, only to be halted by the digitized voice again.

“Socks too, Chazz.”

Chazz sighed, “Geez!” But he bent down and took a little time, removing his expensive dress socks carefully and placing them inside the shoes the attendant still held. He asked in a sarcastic voice, “Anything else you want me to take off before I come in?”

The voice missed his intent. “No; you’re good as you are.”

Chazz’ toes wiggled as he entered the Sacred Dueling Room. It flashed through his mind briefly that he probably hadn’t gone barefoot for more than a few second since his last duel in that place. Bare feet were so vieux riche. But these and other trivial thoughts left his head as he entered the room and saw for the first time the author of his letter of invitation. The robe and hood that had intimidated Syrus bored Chazz; he thought the outfit was like a mediocre Hallowe’en costume.

"So what’s going on here?” Chazz asked.

The other replied. “It’s simple. We duel. If you win, I give you the assistance you desire.” When Chazz did not, as Syrus had done, ask what would happen if he lost, the other continued, “If you lose, we play a little game.”

His mind on joining the elite duelist group, Chazz agreed to the conditions. besides, he wasn’t going to lose. Maybe he’d lost a few duels to Zane and Bastion and Jaden, but he wasn’t going to lose to some weirdo in a robe and a hood. He activated his duel disk and drew his opening hand.

It wasn’t a good hand. Search though he might, Chazz couldn’t find any decent offensive monster. He wasn’t sure he’d get off to a good start. As he watched his opponent begin by playing Sangan in attack mode, he wasn’t even sure if he was up against a dude or a chick.

After falling behind early, Chazz was able to equalize the duel when he drew his Ojamagic spell card. Discarding the card to pay the cost of Divine Wrath, he not only prevented his opponent from using the special summon ability of Marauding Captain and destroyed the monster, the effect of Ojamagic sent Ojama Black, Ojama Green and Ojama Yellow from his deck to his hand.

“Hey, Boss!” Chazz’ familiar Ojama Yellow greeted him. “Are you gonna use us in the duel?”

“For once you’re right,” Chazz told the annoying yellow monster. He brightened up as he played the spell card Fusion Gate. Not only did this let him play a Fusion Monster without using Polymerization, but the three Ojama cards he used to fuse into Ojama King were removed from play instead of being sent to the Graveyard. That killed two birds with one stone. It got rid of Ojama Yellow, and Ojama King’s 3000 defence points gave him time to stall until he could generate some offense.

The offense came quickly. Chazz was able to tribute Ojama King for Armed Dragon LV5. He gained control of the field for a few turns, and the life point count became even. His opponent cleared the field with Torrential Tribute and went ahead in life points, but Chazz regained the upper hand. Down to his last 250 life points while his opponent was at 2300, Chazz got out Invader of Darkness, which not only had 2900 attack points but also prevented his opponent from using Quick-play spell cards.

Chazz watched eagerly as the other his last two cards face down, one in the monster zone. Then Chazz drew just the card he wanted. “It’s time for me to Chazz you up and end this duel,” he announced. “First I’ll use Dust Tornado to destroy your face-down card in case it’s a trap.”

His opponent replied, “Oh, I can activate it anyway in a chain. Since you like Ojamas so much, I thought I’d play Ojama Trio and give you three tokens.”

“I suppose you were going to try some kind of combination play,” said Chazz. “But you won’t get the chance. I equip Invader of Darkness with Twin Swords of Flashing Light. This lowers its attack strength to 2400, but now I can attack twice. Whatever monster you set, you go bye-bye. Invader of Darkness, attack!”

The monster Chazz attacked was revealed to be Ancient Lamp. “Sorry, Chazz, but when Ancient Lamp is attacked in face-down defense mode, I can redirect the attack to one of your monsters, so I’ll switch the attack onto one of the Ojama tokens I just gave you.”

“So?” Chazz started to ask. “They’re still in defence mo...” he started to say, but then he remembered. When an Ojama Token was destroyed, the controller of the token took 300 points of damage. And he only had 250 life points left. Oops.

Oh, great, Chazz thought as he watched his life point counter reach the dreaded number zero. What a day. He might just as well have stayed in bed. Now what would he be in for?

His victorious opponent spoke. “You dueled very well, Chazz. But now, as I’ve won, we get to play another little game. Come with me.” The figure gestured to the door to the secret chamber, which had opened just after the end of the duel.

Chazz followed the other figure into the room, even as it flashed through his mind that he could probably just leave and not suffer any consequences. The figure led him to a table with straps that was exactly the right size for him. “I hope this will be good for you, as you’ll be spending a little time here, but first I’d like to give you a present.”

The other went to a small table in the corner and wheeled it over to Chazz. On the table were several black boxes with ribbons. Chazz thought it reminded him of an old movie, but he pushed the thought out of his head. Free stuff was acceptable. He picked one of the larger boxes, tore off the ribbon and opened it.

“A feather duster?” Chazz asked, holding up the contents of the box. “What’s this for? Oh, wait, don’t tell me, you want me to clean up this room or something?”

“Oh, no, Chazz, not at all,” replied the digitized voice.

But a darker suspicion entered Chazz’ brain. “You don’t have some kinky idea of making me dress up like a French maid or something, do you?” He recalled the Hallowe’en when he’d lost a bet to Alexis and her friends had convinced her it would be funny to make him wear such a costume. He’d just about finished living that one down, and didn’t need anything of the same sort again.

“Not at all. What you are wearing is fine. Now, since you’ve opened your present, perhaps you’ll do me the favour of getting on this table and putting your arms and legs through the straps.”

Chazz said, “Well, I suppose that’s all right... but let me take off my trench coat first. It’s silk, and I don’t want to damage it.”

“That’s fine,” said the stranger. “I’ll just fold it and put it on the table with the unopened boxes.” The figure did so as Chazz set down the feather duster and positioned himself on the table. The other fastened him in with the straps. Chazz noticed with a little surprise and concern that he couldn’t really move his arms or legs. Then he heard, “Now before we begin, Chazz, can you guess who I am?”

Chazz thought for a minute. “Well, the only people I can think of who’d want to do this to me would be my creepy older brothers Slade and Jagger. I’m a much better duelist than either of them, but they could always hire someone to do their dirty work for them. So you must be some professional duelist working for my brothers.”

“Sorry, Chazz, you’re wrong.” The other had begun to finger Chazz’ jumper casually with a gloved finger. “This is quite nice,” said the voice.

“Hey! Don’t touch me!” Chazz squealed.

“Oh, but this is such a nice material!” The glived hand ran back and forth lightly along Chazz’ stomach.

“Get your hands off the cashmere!” Chazz barked, squirming a little. “Do you know how much that cost?”

“Oh, I see. Yes, we wouldn’t want to damage this, especially when it goes on and off so nicely.” The other eased the jumper slowly up to expose Chazz’ stomach. “I thought you had some other reason.”

“Whaddaya mean?” Chazz was suspicious.

“Well, I understand if you don’t want me to handle your expensive clothing too much. I just thought that maybe you were thinking that I might do something like, oh, maybe... tickle you.” The gloved fingers wiggled playfully for a moment.

“Hunh? That’s ridiculous! Wh.. why would I think that? Nobody tickles Chazz Princeton!”

That had not always been strictly true. It flashed through Chazz’ mind that, before he’d gone off to Duel Prep School, he’d been tickled only too often when his brothers had been home on holiday. There had been nothing Slade and Jagger had liked better, especially when their father had been bossing them around, than exercising their power over the younger Chazz, tickling him into hysterics on a nightly basis. But, Chazz recalled, neither of them ever started with his stomach.

In the last few years, though, Chazz had hardly ever been tickled. At Duel Prep School, the intense tickle torture his brothers had inflicted on him had actually served him well, rendering him invulnerable to the occasional tickle fight or the hazings inflicted on most newcomers. Once it was clear that the sort of mild schoolboy tickling in general practice had almost no effect on Chazz, the other boys had stopped trying, and he’d never encountered any of the school’s more serious ticklers. And since he’d come to Duel Academy he really had almost never been tickled. Jaden had tried it once as part of some joke, but Chazz had flinched so violently that he’d knocked Syrus down. Thereafter Jaden had given up tickling jokes with Chazz as too dangerous.

But in the here and now was some weirdo in a robe and a hood with that eerie digitized voice speaking to him. “Nobody? But you’re in such a ticklish situation. All I have to do is just wiggle my fingers like this!”

“Hey! What are you doing, you... GAAAAAAAAHHH!!!” Chazz screamed. Instinct kicked in as he felt an intentional tickling begin. His brothers had always become twice as fiendish once they’d gotten him to start laughing, and he’d learned to hold the time off as long as he could by screaming. He writhed around as much as he could, but the straps held him securely.

The other seemed amused. “Why, this is entertaining, isn’t it? My fingers could just dance here all day. But goodness, I haven’t even put your present to any use yet. Well, we can do something about that right now!” There was a rustle as the stranger reached down to pick up the feather duster.

“You wha... huh... YAAAAAHAAAAAHH!!!” Chazz shrieked as he felt the first touch of the bunch of feathers on his exposed stomach. At least it wasn’t too terrible as long as he didn’t squirm more than he could help and the duster kept moving around. It wasn’t settling on any particularly vulnerable spots and really torturing him. Chazz wondered if it might be some kind of elaborate joke after all, and tried to look for a camera.

Then he felt his myterious torturer changing tactics slightly. Instead of brushing the feather duster back and forth across Chazz’ stomach, the other kept it in the middle and twirled it in both directions. One of the feathers kept scraping the most sensitive part of his navel in the most maddening way; it made Chazz cry out, “STOHAHAHHOP THAT!!!!!”

“Aw, don’t you like that? I’m so sorry. Here I thought you’d be pleased that I wasn’t touching the cashmere. Of course, cashmere does tend to leave behind little bits of lint. Have I cleared them all away with this useful feather duster? Let me see.” The stranger lifted the duster and inspected Chazz’ navel. I think so... well, maybe there’s just this one spot here...”

Chazz felt the wiggling of a probing gloved finger. He couldn’t hold back a high-pitched squeal, “EEEEHEEEEEHEEEE!!!”

“Yes, that’s the spot all right! But I think you’re free of lint now; yes, that looks quite all right! Service with a smile here, even though it’s supposed to be you doing the smiling. And you aren’t smiling! Oh, dear, am I doing something wrong? Why, of course! How silly of me to forget!”

“Forget?” Chazz asked before he could stop himself from talking. “Forget what?”

“Oh, Chazz, don’t pretend you don’t know. Here I’ve been having so much fun with your ticklish tummy I’ve completely neglected your feet! Can you ever forgive me?” The stranger stopped tickling Chazz’ stomach and moved down to the end of the table.

“You what? Oh no, you’re not gonna use that thing on my feet; I told you, nobody tickles Chazz Princeton, even if I am here on a scholarship nowhow - hey! Leave my FEET ALOHOHOHOHOHONE!”

As Chazz’ table had the straps arranged so that his legs were pressed togehter rather than spread apart, his torturer was able to torment both his bare feet at once with the feather duster. As Chazz instinctively pulled his feet apart as far as he could, he exposed the most vulnerable parts of his arches to the dancing feathers and it tickled more. When that made Chazz try to press his feet together, the feathers reached almost every spot on both his ticklish soles and it tickled more still. As the tickling sensations mounted, Chazz' squeals and shrieks and protests became a steady stream of continuous laughter.

“There you go, Chazz, that’s so much better, isn’t it? There’s nothing like a good long laugh, is there? Why, I wish you could see how quickly your toes are wiggling; they’re going as fast as if they were trying to play the Minute Waltz in forty-seven seconds. And I think you’ve been using that expensive new lotion to care for rough heels. It’s certainly making my task easier!”

Chazz tried holding his toes and soles completely still in an attempt to regain some semblance of control, but the twirling feathers were too much for him and his laughter grew stronger. Not that it was any better when he gave in, but at least he could devote all his energy to trying to catch the occasional breath. The whole thing was so humiliating. As he laughed and laughed he felt as if he’d gone back exactly to where he’d been that whole holiday break when his brothers had tickled him for at least an hour every evening, torturing him all over from head to toe and making him beg. Hadn’t he matured at all? He
was even shutting his eyes tight just the way he’d done years ago. Then another wave of laughter raced up from his ticklish arches and made him howl.

Soon Chazz was laughing so loudly that he didn’t even hear another table being wheeled up next to his. He did eventually feel that his feet weren’t being tickled any more. As his laughter subsided, Chazz was able to sense that there was someone else quite nearby. He turned his head and saw Syrus strapped in to an adjacent table.

“Hi, Chazz,” said Syrus.

Chazz looked at his tickler. “What’s HE doing here?” he asked.

The stranger replied, “The same thing you’re doing here. Syrus accepted my invitation.”

“I lost a duel last week, and then I got tickled too, and I have to keep coming back until someone can guess who this is,” Syrus explained.

“Oh, great!” groaned Chazz. “So I suppose we’re both supposed to come back next week?”

“That is the idea,” said the stranger. “Syrus can tell you it would be unwise to disobey. But before I let you go today, you’re both so ticklish I thought I’d have to have both of you tickled at once!”

The stranger handed Chazz’ feather duster to a robed and hooded assistant as another came forward with an exactly similar one. The assistants took places at the victims’ barefeet and began working the feather dusters in earnest, forcing the two students into what might have seemed competing bursts of laughter. Syrus was squealing, “Oh, man that really tickles... oh my TOHOHOHOHOHOES!!!!!” while Chazz was shrieking, “Get that thing OFF me! Oh no no, not the feet, NOT THE FEET, NAHAHAHOT MY FEEEEEHEEHEEHEEHEEEEET!!!!!”

When at last the stranger had the assistants end the tickling, Chazz noticed with some chagrin that it took him longer than Syrus to stop laughing. Great, not only was he going to be tickle-tortured with Syrus, but he was more ticklish than the little dweeb. Still, at least he hadn’t let on that he’d actually enjoyed it a little. As they were led back to the antechamber and instructed to return the following week, Chazz pretended to be planning not to return. He glanced at Syrus as they put on their shoes - the dude’s feet really were tiny, and Chazz thought that having a go at tickling Syrus’ little barefeet might serve as a good warning not to go spreading any talk about the Sacred Dueling Room and their adventures there. But what if Zane found out and avenged his little brother? Considering Zane’s quiet intensity, Chazz decided the risk was too great...