From your very core, you feel a great chill running through into your limbs. Her words enter your eardrums and are sent rattling down into your feet and back to your dizzy head. Your brain goes into overdrive, attempting to decipher what it was she just said. And then it comes out translated, in your brain. Except your mind rejects it immediately. She didn’t say that. She didn’t just say she’s about to make you kiss her foot.
“W-What did you say?” you ask from behind her socked feet. She chuckles.
“I said you’re going to kiss my foot, little bro. I think after you do, you’ll never want to say bad words again to me or anyone else.”
“B-But I, I mean, last night… I… I apologized to you!”
She tilts her head disapprovingly at you and wags her pointer finger at you as if you just broke a rule. “Now, WAIT a second there, Jack. That wasn’t for your potty mouth. That was for all the work you made me do. And now that we’re here, I did a job for you. I did a lot of work for you, actually. And all I want you to do is respect me.”
“RESPECT you? But I do! I do respect you! A lot! You’re… you’re… (the next words are painful but necessary) you’re my big sister, and I’m your little brother, but I mean… I made a mistake! I made a really big mistake. I promise I won’t ever talk like that again, Carly, I PROMISE,” you say, going for your best performance yet. You feel the shivering returning stronger than ever. Your body is aware of what you’re being asked to do, but you just can’t quite picture it in your mind. You literally can’t formulate the necessary brain functions to carry it out.
“Do you REALLY respect me, little bro?” says Carly sarcastically.
“YES!”
“If you want me to believe that, you’re going to march up to my foot, stick your little lips onto it, and give it a kiss. And then, just maybe, I’ll start believing you respect me.”
You’re speechless. You still can’t fathom what you’re being asked to do. Your eyes fall from Carly’s face at the head of her bed down to the humanity-destroying challenge before you.
Carly’s feet sit about as far away from you as when she first flopped them down in front of you yesterday. The difference, of course, aside from the fact that she’s still wearing her work socks, being that yesterday, there was about a five hour period that passed between when she did the work and when you were subjugated underneath her feet. And even then, they were unimaginably abusive and painful, cutting to your very psych with a single big whiff.
But now, they’re fresh. Very fresh. Fresh as in Carly stepped in from her outdoor work not ten minutes ago. Your mind wanders, picturing the (relative) gallons of sweat and grime coating her feet now.
Your bladder threatens to let loose again.
Carly might be wearing socks at the moment, but with how positively ground up and saturated with her sweat and old rainwater they are, they might as well be part of her skin. On the areas where the pads of her gargantuan toes, ball of her foot, and heel are, you see thick, blackened smudges on the sock, the fuzz completely flattened from grinding her foot so heavily into the sock that she actually managed to create dirty marks in the sock itself. Every now and then, a grain of sand or dry dirt appears flecked across the fibrous wall of white cotton.
At the top, the sock clings skin-tight around her toes, allowing you to see the form of each one. She bends her toes absentmindedly backward and forward, and the sock is so tight around her toes you can actually make out the indentation where her toenail appears. Come to think of it, the graying sock clings tightly to the evil hunk of absolute muscle and meat contained within from every angle. It’s so tight, along her heel you can see the tight sock folding inward, caught in a deep foot wrinkle. The deadly force of nature that is your little sister’s foot is practically threatening to break free from the thin coat of the beat-up sock, like a body builder ripping through a shirt. You’ve seen those things in action, and you can’t help but feel in the back of your mind that a simple thin sock cannot hold on to those two enormous, beefy tanks of flesh for long.
Even from here, the noxious stink packs a skin-rending punch, the fetid odor hanging thick and clouded in the air all the way out to you like gas clouds from a nuclear waste dump. It’s all over the place, perhaps even stronger than it was last night. However, you’re far too focused to even acknowledge your nose’s painful insistence that you get as far away as possible from the source.
Your brain is still rejecting what’s happening. This is not happening. It can’t be. It can’t.
“Hey, what’s the hold-up?” says Carly finally, bouncing each foot up in the air once, then smacking it back to the bed spread. “I think I asked you to do something, Jack. Your big sissy asked you to do something, and as my little brother, you have to listen to what I say. Got it?”
“Y-Yeah…” you choke out.
“Good, I’m glad we both agree on that,” she says smartly, running her fingers through her soiled and matted hair.
But you don’t budge. You can’t. Not anymore. It’s not possible.
Carly’s eyes widen a little, along with a raised eyebrow, and she nods forward, the wordless way of telling you to get your ass in gear. It’s now or never. You choose now. You fall to your knees.
“Carly, LISTEN to me!” you shout, essentially going into a position of prayer, clasping your hands as tightly as you can to keep your arms from quivering in fear at your attempt at an ultimatum here. Although you can’t see her face over her toes now, she parts her feet ever so slightly so you can see her face, completely stoic and unchanged, save for a slight look of anticipation and expectancy. “Just… let me talk for a minute. You… you have to REALIZE what you’re doing. You… don’t realize what’s been happening here. I don’t know what’s going on, really, and neither do you, but can’t you see I need your HELP!” you say, catching your breath, your heart rate rising fast. “This isn’t real. None of what’s happened since last night is real. I’m your big brother; I’m a junior in high school! You’re my little sister; you’re just fourteen years old, for Christ’s sake.” (saying this fact out loud reminds you powerfully of just how young your twisted captor is)
You try to slow your breathing. Carly’s face is still unchanged, but she’s listening, and she hasn’t interrupted you yet. Could she be listening? With all your might, you pray that she’s actually hearing what you’re trying to say. This might be your last chance.
“You’ve got to hear me now, Carly. You’ve got to. I’m your brother. You’re my sister. We argue a lot, and we might hurt each other, but deep down, I KNOW you don’t want to do this! You don’t want to hurt me, I know it. I just know it. And you know it too, you must. Please, this is INSANE, you have to STOP what you’re doing right NOW!” you say powerfully, ending your attempt. You remain quiet for a moment. Silence hangs in the air for a moment. All you can hear is your own heavy breathing and the occasional soft scratching sound of Carly’s toe nails getting stuck in the fibers of her insufficient white socks. Finally, the silence is broken.
“Okay, Jack. Okay. Listen. I’m not going to make you kiss my foot.”
You almost collapse in relief. You’ve done it. You’ve really done it. You’ve actually managed to break through to your sister in the moment when it counts most. Now, finally, FINALLY, you think you feel that familiar feeling of hope creeping back inside you. It sure would be a welcome change to have something other than the rank stench of Carly’s peds creeping into you, anyway.
“Oh, my God, Carly… Carly…” you mutter loudly, still thanking your lucky stars that it worked. “Listen, please, listen. Thank you. Thank you. But please, please, we have to get me some help, we have to-”
“I’m not going to make you kiss my foot. You’re going to ask me.”
The silence returns. You feel your throat become detached from the back of your jaw and plunge down into your feet. A strange cold fills you again. What did she just say?
“C-Car…” you start.
“You heard me. You obviously haven’t been listening to a single thing your big sissy has said to you, little bro. I’m here, trying to make sure you learn a good life lesson about manners, and you’re just bubbling there like a weird little preschooler. So now, you’re going to show me a little more respect than you were before.”
“You want me to… to…”
“Ask me. I want you to ask me if you can kiss my foot for me.”
“Ask you to… to… k…”
“Jack, stop blubbering like that. You’re starting to get on my nerves. Get those little feet of yours going, and march up here to my feet.”
“I…”
“NOW,” she commands just short of a full-on yell.
You stare down at your feet. They don’t seem to be moving. But they have to. You’ve run out of options. There can’t be thinking anymore. No more thinking, not right now. Maybe later. Right now, your job is to move your foot. Left in front of right. Right in front of left. You’re getting it now.
GOD DAMN IT, WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING TO ME?!
Your subconscious begins screaming bloody murder at you as you start taking slow but purposeful strides across Carly’s hot pink bedspread. Another ten steps and you should be… right in front of those two titans of flesh, muscle, and earthy dreck.
Sweet Jesus, you think. They’re right there. They’re really right there. Her feet are right there.
Those gargantuan, evil things are sitting right in front of you. And you’re about to have to essentially give your heart and soul to them in an act of absolute base worship.
You’re about to worship your little sister’s vomit-inducing foot. And there’s not a thing you can do about it.
You stop in front of her right foot, but far enough to the side so that you can still see Carly through the space between her two feet. You’re in the same range you were yesterday, and for a moment your mind flits back to the fact that the raw sewage-like haze is covering you from head to foot, forcing you to practically adopt the olidous mire hanging in the air from Carly’s sweat into your own body.
But this thought, the nose-killing rank, is pushed from your mind at this point. Completely. You are focused on what lies in front of you. Somehow, you manage to keep from collapsing in utter, degraded shame.
This is not happening. Not now. It’s not. It’s not.
Dear God, human BEINGS don’t do this.
They don’t. They just don’t.
“AHEM,” coughs Carly loudly, covering her mouth with her fist. She looks at you carefully, tilting her head. Your turn. Your throat dries up instantly. You swallow hard, but you have nothing left to counter the effect. You have to speak. Now. Carly’s eyes narrow at you, her eyebrows curving downward into a frown, her lips pursing. Now. Now. Now.
“C-Carly…” you begin. “C-Can I… kiss… your… foot…” you say. With each word, it feels as if a knife is being jammed into your abdomen, drawing and quartering you. Shredding you of your humanity.
Carly’s frown disappears. Instantly, a smile spreads across her face. “Of COURSE you can, little boy. Go ahead. Kiss your big sister’s foot for her and show her how much you respect her.”
You take a step to the side, out of the range of sight of Carly. At least she won’t be able to see you when you have to do it. Before you lies the patchwork quilt of darkened white fabric and microscopic sock hairs covering every inch. Right in front of your face happens to be a brown blotch, probably a little mud spot.
You step forward, tilting your neck forward. To you, your face. Your mouth. Your mouth is just a couple inches away from the massive, muscular wall of graying fiber, inflated by the unknowable hulk of immovable human tissue covered in a thick layer of soft, soggy human flesh and a myriad of filthy natural ingredients. It’s right there. Just do it, you say to yourself. Just do it.
You move your head forward two inches, and your lips tap the graying sock. You put just the slightest amount of pressure into it. A kiss. You can taste the pure slime, the starchy tinge of freshly cut grass, the faint taste of salt from your sister’s sweat filling every last atom of this useless and thin sock, the wetness easily attaching to your lips. A simple touch causes a full (to you) drop to come loose. It creeps inside your mouth and cascades down your throat, a tiny, liquid terrorist infecting you now.
You now have a droplet of your younger sister’s foot sweat inside you.
That you asked to put inside of you.
God. Are you still human?
The mental pain of the kiss wearing on you, you step out into view of Carly. At least it’s over now. It’s over, you tell yourself. Done. We’re done.
“I RESPECT YOU!” you shout loudly as you can, quickly wiping a hand across your lips to try to wipe away the distinct feeling that your mouth just got molested. And it honestly did.
Carly’s smile disappears just as quickly as it appeared, her nose wrinkling. “THAT was a kiss, huh? ‘Cuz I didn’t feel a single thing on my foot. I have to feel it for it to count, Jack.”
Another one. You have to do it again.
“I…I… but I KISSED it!” you proclaim, in a last ditch effort. “I did what you asked me to! You can’t feel a kiss through a sock!” you yell, and suddenly, a little voice inside you says plainly “What the HELL did you just say?!”
“You know…” says Carly, leaning forward to her feet and you. “You’re absolutely right. Here, I’ll help you out, little bro. This might make it easier for you.” Her massive hand creeps over the front of her foot, snaking along down the ball of her foot, past her sole, down to her heel, and back to her ankles, where the sock ends. Hooking two fingers in, she begins to pull back.
In amazement, you watch and listen as the sock, stuck so strongly to her foot, peels off in skin-tight shape, still retaining some of its form, with a little crackling peeling sound as the sock comes disconnected from the human glue keeping it held in place.
Her foot looks the same as yesterday, perhaps even worse. There’s noticeably more dirt covering it. And this time, not even the tips of her toes are dry. Every single square inch of Carly’s foot is filled to the complete brim, absolutely sopping with gunk and sweat. You stare at it half-awake for a moment, taking in how precariously it all is held in by the porous fibers of her foot. It occurs to you that practically any contact with them would cause a release of the fluids being held in.
“Go ahead, little bro. Do it right this time. Kiss big sissy’s foot nice and hard for me. Like you mean it.”
You don’t allow yourself to think this time, you just go. You press your face against your sister’s bare, filthy, salty, disgusting, mud-ridden, creamy ped. Your face is practically swallowed by the slight give of the flesh covering Carly’s thick heel. Every inch of your face instantly becomes densely lubricated in the very essence of your sister’s spiteful hard work outside, three hours of time doing work just so she could be here, with you, at this moment, to make you do what you’re doing now. To force you to pay homage to her feet as a final show of your surrender to her will. The putrid, viscuous mineral liquid from hell, running over your shoulders and onto every part of your body, soaking directly into your face, your hair, your nose, your eyes.
Your little sister’s foot sweat is in your eyes.
And then you purse your lips, curling them into a pucker, and you kiss. You kiss hard, smushing your partially open lips into the behemoth wall of secretion-soaked, dew-soiled skin, hot and pulsing, as if Carly’s foot had become some separate, gigantic organ of its own. You smush inward until you’re running out of oxygen, until your lips can no longer press into the moist, clay-like material any further. With a loud smack of near suction, you pull back and break free from your sister’s heel.
You got a full mouthful of liquid this time, a combination of heavy sweat, mud, and stuck sock fiber residue. Flowing through your throat, down to your stomach. Becoming part of you. This inhuman filth generated by Carly’s overheated and overworked soles has just been integrated into your very being.
No, you decide. Human beings don’t do this. They can’t. They just can’t.
You begin to sympathize with Carly. Are you human any longer? Are you really?
You have to be. You’re wondering whether you are or not. You have to be. As long as your mind is still intact, you have to be.
I’m a human being, you think. I’m a human being.