In October during my senior year in high school, my mom's friend Claire had knee surgery and was hospitalized for a week. The hospital was just a couple of blocks from school One day I told Mom that instead of coming right home after football practice, I would go over and visit Claire for a while. When I got to her room, the only light came from the television set. She had to turn an overhead light on to see that it was me. She was really happy to have a visitor. No one else had been able to come by that day. I gave her a few cooking magazines I picked up on the way. Something to read was much appreciated because the boredom of being in the hospital was starting to get to her.

She wanted to know about school and practice and I laughed at her comments on the hospital's food. One of the first things I noticed once I entered the building was how cold it was in that place. Claire agreed. She kept the covers up to her neck. Remembering the fun I had while playing with her feet once before when she was staying over with me and my family during a tropical disturbance, 1 couldn't help but reach towards the front end of her bed and ask if her feet were cold.

"My feet are freezing." She replied. "They've felt like ice cubes ever since I got in here." I rolled the stool I was sitting on closer to the front of the bed and slowly began to pull the covers back. "Oh please no." She said with a giggle. "You wouldn't start tickling my feet here in a hospital? No, don't do that! Please don't tickle my feet!" I cupped my hands around her feet and started breathing on them to get some warm air on them. "O-o-o-o-oh." She responded. "Hey, that's nice. That's really good."

Her toes began wiggling and that's what really got me started. I gave a light kiss to each of her big toes. "You may want to use your pillow to laugh in again." I said. I went on to put both big toes in my mouth and started passing my tongue slowly around and in between them. Her other toes automatically curled up, prompting me to go on and place each of them in, one at a time and circle them with my tongue a few times. She started to rock around and 1 decided to lighten up for a minute. I didn't want to cause too much movement of her bandaged-up leg.

After a couple of minutes of massaging her lovely bare feet, I held her ankles firmly together with my left hand and began sliding my fingers of my right hand up and down her shuffling soles. "Oh, I knew it." She said while grabbing the pillow again. "You can't resist. You just gotta tickle my feet." She quickly covered her head to keep the noise down. As I would tickle her left instep, she would try to protect it by sticking the right foot in the way. That would have me starting to tickle her right foot which she would try to protect by sticking her left foot in the way, and on and on and on.

It was fun for me and 1 assumed fun for her because she never told me to stop. I could hear the hospital workers starting to pass out the dinner trays and I figured it was time for me to start heading home. "I guess I'll be going and let you eat in peace." I said. "It will be hard to have dinner with the pillow over your mouth because I'm tickling away at your feet."

She laughed and thanked me for coming and for the magazines. I should be in this place for another three or four days." She mentioned. "You'll try to come by again, won't you?"

Knowing I could have this kind of fun, there was no question. "You better believe it." I answered.