A writer and performer who met a man at church now fulfils his fantasy of being tickled for £120 an hour. Melissa Todd first encountered the man when she gave a talk about kink and Christianity. He was too shy to approach her at the pulpit, but they got talking afterwards over email. In due course, she discovered what he really wanted from her wasn't a theological debate, but an hour of being tickled.
A new kind of session
This was new for Todd. She has made a few tickling videos, where she or someone else gets tied down and assailed with feathers or fingers. She describes it as quite fun, with giggling and shrieking gloriously childish, and vastly different from her usual schtick of threatening someone with a cane. But she had never tickled someone in a session before.
He arrived at her front door looking anxious, just as they all do. After a few pleasantries, she stripped him naked, tied him down and began exploratory strokes on his torso. He had sent her a list of his most tickly bits: chest, torso, armpits, legs, feet and nipples. She noted that was basically all his body, unless she planned to tickle his eyebrows.
Weekly visits and a meditative hour
Todd admits she is rubbish at bondage, using a lot of Velcro, and soon simply sat on him, which seemed to work as well as anything. He closed his eyes, squirmed very slightly, and only his quickening breath let her know she was having any effect. The hour passed fast, feeling rather zen, and she drifted off into another world, confident she was making someone as happy as he could be.
He began visiting weekly, paying £120 a time, and she found she looked forward to his visits. Unlike some of her spanking clients, he remains silent throughout, which means she can leave the windows open, a boon during recent heatwaves. She describes it as meditative, restful and oddly bonding, spending a silent hour with another human. He particularly enjoys having his nipples tickled, and tells her the sensations can linger for days afterwards.
Why tickling appeals
Todd reflects on why anyone would enjoy being tickled, noting it sits in an intriguing territory between pleasure and discomfort. The uncertainty is part of the appeal, as our brains are very good at turning anticipation into its own form of stimulation. She also notes we can't tickle ourselves effectively because our brains predict our own movements, dampening the sensation, but when someone else does it, we don't know exactly where the next touch will land.
She concludes that kink is often misunderstood because we assume pleasure must look a certain way, but human beings are gloriously odd. One person wants to be beaten until he bleeds; another wants to be tickled until he can't think straight. She is here for both.
