Jelex’s eyes searched the darkened room carefully. This latest lesson assigned by her master and instructor in the art of kuu’sai’gu was proving to be very difficult to pass successfully. “You must know your weakness,” Jelex’s instructor, a beautiful woman with the grace of a cat and the strength of a tiger, had told her before abruptly disappearing and turning out the lights.
Jelex was churning over her weaknesses as she worked to anticipate the attack. Sensitive bare feet, made more so by the warm, soft material of the floor… sides that would turn her muscles to jelly if properly stroked… Worst of all, an accustomization to being tickled that encroached very far into the realm of enjoyment… this was, perhaps, Jelex’s greatest weakness of all, and one that had been taught to her, not one she had started with fully developed –
A gentle stream of air teased her ear for a brief moment, sending a shiver through her body. Jelex turned suddenly and extended two fingers in a quick yet gentle probe designed to land beneath her instructor’s arm, her most sensitive place. Jelex was rewarded with her fingers sliding across smooth skin which quivered and caused an arm to trap her fingers, but Jelex realized in the back of her mind that an odd, warm pleasant tingling feeling was spreading throughout her body.
There was a sound like a puff of air, and another gentle stream of wind teased Jelex’s ear tip. The warm, tingling feeling grew stronger, felt nicer, and became more distracting. The distraction held Jelex’s mind in check long enough for her instructor to slip away before she could think to employ a hold that would take advantage of Jelex’s landing the first blow, as it was. Shaking her head in a vain attempt to clear it and her body of that strangely warm tingling, Jelex again tried to focus.
This time there was no warning as fingertips caressed the lengths of her ears and tweaked the tips. “Ohhhhh….” Jelex groaned softly, without meaning to. Reacting to the sudden, pleasant sensation that washed through her body, Jelex went up on her toes, which proved to be her undoing. Swiftly she felt a finger trace up the soles she had exposed. Jelex only giggled a slight bit, but she had to shift her feet, and her arms spread for balance by instinct. Even as her arms moved, Jelex knew that she’d been beaten.
Her instructor’s hands found Jelex’s sides and began to gently stroke up and down, tickling softly with her fingers. At the same time, Jelex felt a soft stream of air directed over her ears once again. The warmth and tingling, combined with the gentle pleasantness of the tickling, along with the giggling that bubbled from her throat, engaged in a multidirectional tug-of-war on her mind and crippled Jelex’s ability to act.
This was, of course, the central tenet of the kuu’sai’gu style. Pain was a sensation which the body and mind could be taught to control and ignore, since the sensation failed to vary very much and enabled one to build resistance to it, much like one could build resistance to an illness. Pleasurable sensations, when used properly, circumvented such training, especially as the bodies of most sentient organisms were not equipped to fight pleasure as they were pain.
However, as Jelex well knew and reflected upon as she felt her body give way and collapse into the arms of her instructor, with training in such an art came the point of “dangerous seduction”, or when a student had learned to begin dealing with the techniques of the art, but in acceptance came enjoyment, which could be more disabling than trying to fight the sensations and lose. Jelex still needed to learn how to accept the warmth and tingling and tickling she felt without being consumed by them.
She felt her instructor’s breath caress her ear as the day’s lesson was taught to her in a very effective manner: “Know your weaknesses, Jelex. Know your weakness, and know your opponent’s weakness. And never ever assume that there is only one weakness.” She chuckled richly, the sound making Jelex’s ear twitch and driving her further into warmth, tingling, and confusion.
“My point, Jelex, is that weaknesses exist everywhere… Most beings are a collection of weakness waiting to be exploited. I’m sure you know by now your people’s weakness in their ears, and your own weakness on your sides and your feet, and your weakness of the mind… Or perhaps the Nyan, then? Extremely sensitive skin, debilitating weaknesses in their tails and ears… Humans, they’re everywhere… humans can have so many weaknesses, and most often they’re weaknesses of the mind… you just have to learn how to exploit… each… weakness.” Her fingers gave Jelex’s ears one final tweak before the light returned and Jelex turned to face her instructor, body trembling slightly. The distracting tingling feeling hadn’t gone away at all.
“You can barely move, can you?” Jelex’s instructor chuckled, stretching and showing off her own shapely body with the training clothes. Like Jelex, her clothing covered just the chest, leaving the lower ribs and midriff bare, as well as the underarms, and the pants little more than thigh-length shorts, skintight to allow movement.
“I can move,” Jelex said, standing up straighter to prove that she could. But the tremble in her knees was obvious to anyone who happened to look at her, and she blushed.
“Barely,”
her instructor repeated with a smile on her face. “Go back to your room
and
rest awhile. We’ll continue the lesson in a short while. I think you
need the
respite.” Jelex wasn’t sure how much those teasingly piercing eyes
knew, but
she flushed again and ran off.
On to Castle
Saga: Kiri's Creation
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