Ticklish Duo

One evening in 1969, young musicians Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were relaxing in their luxurious hotel room still wearing the street clothes from their last performance. They were intertwined on the same bed dressed in turtleneck sweaters, jeans, and socks. Paul rested his back on the soft pillows, gently strumming the guitar on his lap. Art was stretched out, lying in the opposite direction and dangling his black-socked feet near Paul's face. He was playfully trying to get on Paul's nerves. It worked, and Paul became very annoyed – he did not appreciate this interference and pushed Art's foot away multiple times only to have it come back and taunt him again.

"Damn it, Art," Paul complained. "Keep your big feet out of my way."

Smirking, Art brought his foot up to Paul's face and booped his nose with his toe.

Paul had enough. He got off the bed and carefully put away his precious guitar. Then he came over to Art and straddled his leg, trapping his ankle under his arm.

Art became nervous. "What are you doing?"

Paul smiled impishly. He wiggled his fingers on the bottom of Art's foot, making him shriek.

"Paul! No! Don't tickle me!" Art begged, writhing on the bed as Paul continued his onslaught.

Paul scratched his sole more vigorously, tickling even faster and driving Art to hysterical laughter. Then Art kicked Paul right in the gut and forced him to release his foot.

"Oww," Paul groaned, looking at his friend like, 'why would you do that to me?'.

Art took a moment to catch his breath. "I'm sorry, Paul. But I'm not responsible for your injuries when you do that."

Paul chuckled a bit. "Yeah...I get it."

"You know I hate being tickled."

"Well, you screwed with me and you were asking for it."

Then they heard a soft knock. Both men looked towards the bolted door. "Who is it?"

"Maid," called a feminine voice.

Paul went to answer the door, leaving Art to pull himself together.

The maid was a slim, pretty woman about thirty years old wearing a black uniform and clean white apron. She had warm brown eyes and long caramel hair hanging over her shoulders.

"Hi, I'm Antonia. Your maid," she said with a polite smile.

"No autographs please," Paul told her the second she entered the room.

The attractive maid just looked at him, arching a slender eyebrow.

"Autographs?" she snorted, placing her equipment on the floor. "Why on earth would I want those?"

"Don't you know who we are?" Art asked, straightening his shirt and fluffing his hair.

"No...don't you?" she retorted, arranging some sponges in her cleaning kit.

Paul crossed his arms, frowning. "Ummm...Simon and Garfunkel," he said, assuming she would feel stupid now.

But Antonia just looked at the pair, unimpressed. "Nice names...So what?"

The two friends stared at each other in shock. They couldn't believe this woman didn't know who they were. They were a famous musical duo after all!

"Lady, we're the duo Simon and Garfunkel."

"We make beautiful music together," Art said, placing his arm around Paul. "Surely you must have heard our songs."

"Okay." Antonia put her hands on her hips and looked at Art. "Which one are you?"