Mom vs. Son at Fitness Center (PG)

I used to teach an exercise class at a local Knoxville fitness
center. It was an early morning class filled with regular people who
were devoted to staying in shape, but not necessarily the
glamorous "hardbody" types you see on the health center commercials.
One of my regular students was a woman named Kim, a pleasant blonde
in her mid-forties. Kim worked as the chief financial officer of a
local charity organization, and thus often left the fitness center
dressed in heels and wearing a business suit. When she first began
attending the class, she wore baggy t-shirts and sweatpants, but as
she became more comfortable with the other regular students, she
began wearing tight work-out shorts and would sometimes strip off her
t-shirt to her sports bra underneath. While Kim certainly wasn't
ready for fitness competitions, and never would be, she had a pretty
nice body for a non-athletic woman her age. Her hips were a little
big, but so was her chest. One thing I always noticed about her were
her nails...she kept them long and polished a dark maroon color.

One day over the Christmas break, when our classes tended to be
smaller as people traveled for the holidays, Kim brought her twenty-
year-old son to class. He was home from college and--like any mother-
-she was proud to show him off to her fitness center friends. Mark
was fairly tall and had a trim, athletic build. It was clear that he
and his mom had a great relationship, as they talked and joked during
the class. However, as the morning's class went on, he began to
become pretty annoyed at Kim's playful taunting of him. "Come on,
Markie," she kept saying. "You're SO out of shape! Can't you keep
up with your old mom?" And even though he was obviously much bigger
and stronger than his mom, it seemed that Kim had a point...he was
starting to breathe harder and harder and struggling to keep pace
with Kim, who was indeed pretty fit. He teased her back, joking that
a woman her age shouldn't wear a tight pink sports bra in public.

This tension came to a head during the class's final activity of the
morning, a timed obstacle course. Kim had been alluding to the
course the whole time, daring her son to beat her. At first she was
clearly joking, not thinking there would be any contest...after all,
an athletic man of twenty would beat a non-athletic woman twice his
age in any obstacle course, right? But after an hour of exercise,
the outcome was anything but certain, with Mark being exhausted and
his mom being as peppy as when the class began. Mark's mood turned
pretty sour as his mom kept teasing him, but she wouldn't relent.
She even upped the stakes by saying, "You know, Markie, I think if I
win you deserve a punishment; if I beat you in the obstacle course,
I'm going to give you the tickle torture."

"Get real, mom," he snapped. "There's no way you can beat me in some
obstacle course, and you haven't been strong enough to give me the
tickle torture for years."

The rest of us didn't know what "the tickle torture" was, but we were
certainly intrigued! The challenge had been made, and as the various
participants of the class ran the course one at a time, all our
attention was focused on Kim and Mark. We decided to let them be the
las two to run the course, with Kim going first, followed by Mark.

She made a good showing, beating her previous time by several
seconds. Then it was Mark's turn, and it was obvious early on that
the class had worn him out. At the halfway point his time was equal
to his mother's at the same point, but he was completely winded. She
was yelling insults and he was becoming more desperate as he
struggled through. When he finally crossed the line he collapsed in
exhaustion. "Uh-oh, Mark," I said, walking over to him. "Your
mother beat you by eight seconds."

Kim was ecstatic! She stood over her son, who lay on the exercise
mats panting. "I told you I'd beat you, Markie! Now hold still for
the tickle torture!" She began to kneel down over his prone form.

"Mom! Don't be crazy!" He sat up and grabbed her hands as she
reached out toward him.

THe next thing I knew, the mother and son were wrestling on the mats
in front of us. We stood in shock as they rolled back and forth,
struggling for supremacy, their hands locked with each other, their
legs tangled. Before long, to our surprise (not to mention Mark's!),
Kim wound up straddling her son's chest. He kicked his legs in vain
as she forced his arms to the mat above his head. She stretched his
arms out straight, and despite his frantic struggles he couldn't free
himself. He bucked and squirmed underneath her, wildly desperate,
but Kim held him down. She was laughing and giddy, while poor Mark
was clearly mortified by this turn of events. Eventually his energy
waned even more and his struggling tapered down, and Kim was able to
bring his arms together above his head. He had a look of pleading
and horror in his eyes when she crossed his wrists and then held them
with only one of her thin hands. "Guess what's coming now, Markie?"
she cooed, reaching back.

"No! No, mom, please!" He wimpered and begged, but Kim was
ruthless. Reaching back, she pulled up his shirt and exposed his
bare stomach. Slowly she ran her long, maroon fingernails over his
exposed skin and once again Mark began to kick frantically. Kim
increased the tickling speed and pressure, until she was practially
clawing her son's stomach, and he screamed his submission to her.

Somehow in his desperation he bucked Kim off. Quickly he rolled to
his stomach and tried to scramble away. But Kim was too fast; she
forced him back to the mat and managed to twist his right arm into a
hammerlock. She wrenched his wrist high in between his shoulder
blades, making him yelp. Tears trickled down his cheeks! I couldn't
believe how thoroughly she was able to dominate him. But it got even
worse: she then seized his left arm and pulled it into a hammerlock
also, and then used her thighs to hold both his arms behind his back,
leaving her with ten long fingernails to tickle him with. And tickle
she did...his neck, shoulders, behind his ears, under his arms, his
upper thighs...every exposed part of his body was subject to severe
tickling and clawing. Soon he was red with scratches. When Kim
finally let him go, there was literally a puddle of tears underneath
his face from his crying. But Kim didn't seem to mind having
humiliated him. She gave him a playful kick in the side and then
said, "See you in the lobby after I shower and change."

He lay there a few minutes and then crept into the locker
room...beaten and humbled by his own mother.