Commission in discord for  theobserver14 and  hcliffordmcbride <3
Story by  hcliffordmcbride

Their bare paws paved my path
“So, it’s been a minute since the opening of the asylum.” Roy wheeled the newest patient down the lengthy corridor. “We have had a lot of changes since, as you can see. Since we could only find a fraction of people interested in working as orderlies, as opposed to people wanting to check themselves in, I had to go a little bit utilitarian and adapt it to the new reality. Lucky me that I already had something in mind for this kind of surplus of patients.”

The “newest patient” was a German Shepherd named Richard Collins. His build was like that of most of the men currently admitted here: large, muscular, and tough-looking. His records stated he was a 32 year-old football coach, gay and had a size 12 feet. One would think that information was weirdly minimal and useless for an asylum, but then, this was no ordinary sanatorium. All one had to do was look at the hallway Richard was passing through.

The “something” Roy had in mind was a way to automatize the treatment of the patients. Since most of the men required constant stimulation and the staff was minimal, the polar bear simply bought machines to do the treatment for them. It was surprisingly affordable too, Roy would’ve never imagined that he could have so little issue finding machines designed to tickle people. But the automation didn’t stop there, of course. “I met this guy through our mutual acquaintance, you see. A machinist or something. Cute tiger. Anyway, he taught me how to integrate the machines into the doors of the rooms. So all I had to do was cut a hole in the doors for the ankles, and boom, never gonna have to spend a dime on paw bondage. Clever, innit?”
And the result could be seen as the corridor spotted numerous doors with a horizontal ‘8’ cut on them. It seemed that the ergonomics of running a tickle asylum weren’t very interesting to Richard, however. Bound to the wheelchair by the straitjacket he was wearing, the coach was struggling to get rid of that piece of clothing. “Alright, good for ya, pal, now why am I in this crap? I didn’t volunteer for this stuff! Get me out of this now!”, yelled Richard. “Oh, true. But we don’t take just volunteers.” Roy lowers his head and whispers on the Shep’s ear. “We also take those who are volunteered. Like you.”

“WHAT? WHO THE HELL DID THAT? I’M GONNA FIND THEM AND STRANGLE THEM!” The coach threatened. “Oh, don’t fret, mr. Collins. You’ll see them soon. They’re just down the corridor in fact.” Roy answered puzzlingly. Did he mean that whoever admitted him was also a patient? But whatever theory Richard was baking soon got interrupted by the sight of the first pair of paws he had seen so far. And boy, were they big. “Tom Carter, 32, electrician” said Roy. “The first patient since the change in protocol. He’s been here for a few months now, heh.” “Shit, that’s gotta be a roo, right? Never seen feet those wait, months?” Richard’s eyes went wide.

“Size 18 roo feet. Lovely, no?” Roy only answered the first inquiry. Tom’s feet were beige, with two large brown pads on his soles. Richard could also finally see what the machines used to tickle their victims: an assortment of brushes of all types, going all over the kangaroo’s wide soles, as well as small rollers between each of his toes gaps. The coach flexed his toes hard. He couldn’t imagine handling all that much tickling. From the way Tom’s feet were squirming and trying to get away from the tools, the roo couldn’t either.

Neighbor to Tom, was a pair of paws Richard could somewhat recognize. Bears were gifted with beautiful fully-padded soles, but few feet could be as big as what looked to be- “Ben Davis, 26, football player, size 16. Bet you recognize this cutie. He and Tom both volunteered as soon as I advertised my new set up. Small world that he’d be from your team, huh?” Richard growled. “Sick bastard. That’s why he’s been missing practice. I’m gonna tickle the shit out of him when I leave here.” “I… feel like that wouldn’t really be a punishment, hah.”

“Oh, and talking about punishment, look who it is! The guy you said you wanted to strangle.” The football coach took a look at the next door and saw a most curious scene: a border collie wearing only boxers, crouched on the ground, tickling the large soles of another man. So distracted was he, that he didn’t even notice the two men passing by. “MAX?!” yells Richard in anger. “Yes, indeed. Max here has been helping me as a temporary orderly. Besides treating the patients manually, he has also admitted quite a number of men here, including the next two and, well, you, heh.”

Richard was forming large revenge plans on the border collie before his thoughts are interrupted by another whisper from the polar. “When you get your revenge, be sure to call me. Been wanting to have at those paws for a while now, heh.” He returns to the exposition. “Oh, that’s Alex Delgado. Lion, 39, psychology professor. Size 12. Max has been at his paws for a little too long now. Not that I can blame him, but the other men need attention too.” Indeed, the lion’s sheer-socked soles looked very matted, both from his sweat and the oil that had been applied by Max. To make matters worse, there were plenty of tools in the ground, seemingly unused so far. The poor feline was gonna have a long day of laughter.

“And our latest addition, and the absolute worst guy when it came to cooperating, Bubba Anderson. Rottweiler, 31, bi, boxer, size 14. Took me 3 guys to hold him down and he somehow managed to destroy 2 straitjackets. I’m gonna make sure he stays here for a long while before he calms down.” Bubba’s fighting spirit was apparent by how much his feet, brown soled with a big brown pad on his feet balls and smaller ones on his toes, struggled, or maybe that was because he was more ticklish than the others, Richard couldn’t tell. But no matter how much the Rottweiler attempted to move, the tools just kept working and working on his hefty, muscular soles.

At this point, Richard had all but accepted he was doomed to the same fate as those other men. For his feet to be a mere decoration on the hallway, a big and sweaty toy for the orderlies to play with. He was usually dominant, but even he liked to be tickled every now and then. But this was too much. The next door was empty, unlike the last 4. Roy stops and opens it using his keycard. “We’re here, mr. Collins! This is your cell.” Richard gulped.

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“Richard Collins, 32, German Shepherd, gay, football coach, size 12.” Roy read the file out loud. He looks at his watch, seeing that it was pretty early in the day. “Eh, whatever. I’ll pass the time with you beauties.” He looked at the cream colored soles and brown, tasty paw pads in front of him, grabbed a hairbrush and started scrubbing them. The coach’s laughter could be heard through the metal wall.