I remember clear as day the first time TJ rolled into town. Big ol’ covered wagon with red wheels came to a halt by the side of the blacksmiths – there's a wide enough alley there that doesn't get much use; the ground's all parched grass, stones and dog turds – the kinda place tumbleweeds would go to die. And down climbed this fella – fit-lookin’, short beard. He fed and watered his moth-eaten horse (name of Steamer, I learned later) then he ducked into the back of the wagon.
Us kids were glued to the spot, eyes big as silver dollars. One side of the wagon swung down real smooth, and a long black cloth came down with it. There was some rattlin' and thumps, and then the cloth moved like poles were goin’ up inside it, like tent supports. Took a minute, but soon enough that wall had turned into a floor – made a whole extra room off the side.
We didn’t have the first clue what it was for. Was he sellin’ cure-alls? Gonna do some kind of circus show? We weren’t sure. Then he steps out again, this time with a scraggy ol' dog at his heels. He crouched under that new floor and swung some wooden braces out to hold it steady, then both him and the dog crossed the street and went straight into the saloon.
Me and Barney were all set to sneak over and have a peek, but Ma put a stop to that right quick – hauled us back inside to peel potatoes.
That was a few years back. Now TJ and his dog show up every fall like clockwork, and same as most of the boys 'round here, I get real antsy waitin’ on that red-wheeled wagon and that chestnut nag. Joe – turns out that’s TJ’s name – he’s a regular sight now, and I know just what that black tent on the wagon’s for.
Only boys, and you've got to be old enough; he won't take kids who are too young, and that's why I never found out what went on until well after I'd started producin' spunk. Joe seemed to know just by layin' a hand on your head if you were ready or not. And he won't invite you into the wagon if you're too old neither. Joe's picky.
He’s a fine-lookin’ man, long dark hair, short beard, always smilin’ like he’s in on some joke the rest of us don’t know. I couldn’t guess his age—could be anywhere from twenty to fifty, far as I can tell. I’ve asked him once or twice where he comes from, what he used to be before this, but he just gives me that sparkle-eyed grin and lets the question drift away.
The first time he asked if I wanted to come inside the wagon, I near about tripped over myself sayin’ yes. The mutt went in first, then I followed Joe up the three creaky steps. Inside, he shut the door behind us. The dog flopped down on a mat under the window like he owned the place.
Looked like any other living space in there: couple of chairs, stove, bed, shelves lined with food and odds ‘n ends. Neat as a pin.
“Well, boy. First time, huh? What they call you?” He grinned, teeth white as bleached bone. "Dean, huh? Fine name." He swept an arm toward the black curtain that stretched the length of the room. "Shall we…?"
I gave a nervous nod and pushed on through. He came right behind me.
Pitch black. Couldn’t see nothin’, not even my own hand. The floor had a bit of give to it, like it was padded. Gave me the shivers, in an exciting way.
I knew he was close to me, 'cos I could hear him breathing. Then, without warnin', his hands were on me. They were ticklin' me.
I jumped, and started to try to get him off of me, 'cos, let me tell you, I am exceedin' ticklish – me and the other boys sometimes lark around and tickle each other and I really can't take it. He started with my armpits. Now my armpits are very high up on the list of worst places on my body for bein' tickled. I remember his hands were in there, his fingers ticklin', and I was squeezin' my arms tight to my sides and I was movin' all over the place (and probably squealin' like a stuck pig at a pie-eatin' contest, too) but I couldn't get away from them.
It was a while before it dawned on me that this was different to any ticklin' I'd experienced before. It was very different. Oh, it was ticklin' all right, but not the kind of thing I sometimes suffered at the hands of the other boys. The got-to-get-away and the for-fuck's-sake-stop things were still there, up to a point, but somehow mixed in with the pure ticklin' was a lot of somethin' that felt wonderful. And once I realised this, I kind of tried to let myself get into it. It wasn't easy – bein' tickled sends me into panic mode – but very gradually the mix started to veer more to the pleasure than anything else. He moved on to my chest, then my stomach and thighs, and everywhere his fingers went they seemed to leave trails of pure, glowin' pleasure behind them. It felt plumb peculiar, like steppin' into a place that wasn't quite real.
Even with all that, I couldn't stop myself from writhin' around and thrashin' about – it just felt like the thing a body was meant to do right then. His hands ran everywhere over me. I was still gigglin' and squirmin', but I felt like I didn't want it to stop.
"Take your clothes off," his voice whispered.
Now truth be told, this ain't the kinda thing I'd normally do, and I surely did hesitate.
"Trust me, you'll like it a heap more," he said, like he knew somethin' I didn't.
Well then, why the hell not, I thought. I stripped off by feel and threw my clothes into what I hoped was a corner. Probably because we were in complete blackness, I didn't feel embarrassed about bein' naked at all. Then his hands were back.
And fuck, he was right. It felt even better. In fact I started to moan with pleasure as his hands stroked over my naked body. And I realised that I was gettin' a hard-on. I didn't rightly know if this was allowed, and I tried to hide it from him, but when one hand started to tickle my balls – and then my cock – I reckoned it weren't a problem after all.
He tickled me all over. My tackle was included, but he didn't concentrate on them, he just tickled them along with everywhere else. And it was fuckin' amazin'. My entire body had started to tingle. And it was makin' me very horny indeed.
So much so, in fact, that I moved my hand, intendin' to grab my cock to wank myself off. But it never got there. Strong fingers enclosed it and pulled it away. Next thing I knew, he'd grabbed my other wrist and yanked it behind me too. He pinned both of 'em there with his left like he'd done it a hundred times. Then started ticklin' me again with his right.
Somewhere in that tusslin' I'd ended up on the floor, sittin' on that soft padding. He was behind me, to the right. Lord above, he had strength in him – I pulled my hands to get them to my increasingly-desperate cock but it was as if they were bein' held in solid steel: I couldn't move them at all.
But I could move my legs. I didn't really want to struggle to get his hand off me – what his fingers were doin' felt wonderful – but I just knew somehow that fightin' would make it feel all the better. So I did.
I heard a low chuckle. His hand began to stroke my chest lightly, not ticklin' now. "Don't struggle. It ain't necessary."
Might have been his words, or just the way he'd said 'em, I don't know, but whatever it was, somethin' in me settled and I quit strugglin'. I relaxed and let him do what he wanted to me.
Over the next half-hour he got me in several different positions and held me there while he was ticklin' me. It was kinda odd: didn't feel the need to struggle any more, but somethin' inside me still itched for it.
It was as if the guy had read my mind. "Hmm," he drawled. "Looks like you're a boy who likes to fight after all. Ok then, we'll do it that way. Go ahead – give it a try."
So I did struggle. But then somethin' downright peculiar happened: felt like I was floatin' in mid-air. Couldn't feel the ground beneath me. I tried to get away from his hands but every movement came slow, like I was driftin' through molasses. As I thrashed about I seemed to turn in the air, and he took advantage of it, ticklin' me in places that had been out of reach until that moment. In the pitch-black room I couldn't tell up from down – but he sure could: his aim was dead-on every time.
This strugglin' was gettin' me nowhere, but it felt so good. That, and what he was doin' to me, was gettin' me even more horny. Even though he'd only tickled my cock and my balls in passing, I'd been gettin' gradually more and more worked up, and I knew that I wasn't far from cummin'.
What he was doin' felt wonderful, but I knew that there was no way I would be able to shoot unless one of us grabbed my cock and wanked it. Didn't make a lick of sense, but if and when I did cum, I knew somehow that I wanted to be fightin' against it when I did. Felt like that was what'd make the whole thing come together.
He got an arm around my ankles and held them tight so I couldn't move them, and I knew he was intendin' to work on my feet. He hadn't touched them yet, but now he did.
Up to that moment no-one had tickled my feet before, not in any kind of way. I hadn't even known whether they were ticklish or not. They were. Oh fuck, they were. It was even more intense than anywhere else on the rest of my body had been so far. I know now that if the boys had tickled my feet when we'd been playin' around, I'd have screamed so loud that the whole fuckin' town would have turned out to see who was bein' murdered. I tried to move, to twist, to get my hands there to protect my bare feet, but it was like I was swimmin' through somethin' thick that slowed me down until it brought me to a complete stop, just short. Weren't nothin' I could do but grit my teeth and tough it out.
But although this was nigh-on unbearable, as his fingers stroked over the tops of my feet, between my toes and around the sides, and especially when his nails scratched over my bare soles, it was darned erotic. It was makin' me need to cum very badly indeed.
I was havin' great difficulty not grabbin' my cock and finishin' myself off, but I'd have had to move quite a bit to be able to get to it, and I was just far enough away from the point of no return that I could let the intense ticklishness / pleasure wash over me. Truth is, I didn't have no choice anyhow.
But I was gettin' closer all the time.
He let go of my feet, there was a short pause, and then he suddenly started to tickle me all over my body. This was, in a way, even worse – I didn't know where his hands were gonna go next. His fingers were in my armpits, massagin' my abs, ticklin' my ribs, squeezin' my thighs, my knees. I was givin' it everythin' I had – turnin', jerkin' and cussin', but I just couldn't shake loose from him. And wherever I moved, new spots that would make a mule kick if you touched 'em, became accessible to him.
Then, like they'd been bidin' their time, both his hands hit my sides, fingers stiff, and workin' their way in like they meant business. He tickled me mercilessly there. This was worse than anythin' he'd done so far – even my feet. It hit so fierce that my head snapped back from the sheer rush of it.
Nothin' was touchin' my cock – in fact it hadn't been touched for ages – but I felt a tingle stir in it. It started small, then spread like a prairie fire, takin' over more and more of me until I felt like my whole body was buzzin' and I was charged up with lightnin'. Somethin' lit up in me and next thing I knew I was buckin' and twistin' like a colt in a rope. But his hands followed me, his fingers continuin' to probe deep into my sides, ticklin' me mercilessly, like he knew all along that those were the places that got me the worst. My cock started to jerk, and then my spunk was shootin' out uncontrollably.
Oh fuck. Oh shit. I had never cum like that before, and I have never cum like that since (except once every fall, and in his hands). It was the first full-body orgasm I'd ever had, the first time I'd ever cum with nothin' touchin' my cock, and it was fuckin' amazin ' . I reckon I must've hollered 'cos he went and gagged me again – he'd been ready for it too. It seemed like it was never gonna quit. Just kept on rollin'. I surrendered myself to the most intense pleasure I'd ever felt.
Next thing I knew I was lyin' on the floor, pantin' hard and recoverin'. He was strokin' my chest gently.
"Reckon I'll be lookin' for you next fall, boy," he said. "And I'll bring along some nice strong straps."
"Next year? Ain't there a way you can do it to me again before then?" I asked, soundin' more desperate than I meant to.
I could hear him smile. "Nope, not this year. Only once. Once for each boy," he replied, like it was some old rule.
The lads say that TJ stands for Ticklin' Joe . Don't know if that's gospel, but it fits. What I did find out for sure, though, is that the guy's blind. As blind as a bat. Might explain how he always seems to have a handle on things in that black room of his.
I don't rightly know where he comes from, or where he heads off to when he leaves, but when the trees start turnin' brown, me and the boys start watchin' that road, hopin' every day that we'll see the wagon with the red wheels comin' our way. Can't speak for the other boys, but as soon as I see that first leaf hit the ground, I stop wankin'.
That way, I'm ready as a coiled snake when TJ comes to town.