Exhausted, your numbed fingers drop the file, and you collapse onto the carpet, catching your breath as you complete filing Carly’s final toenail into a smooth work of art. Your arms are beyond spent, throbbing, and you grip at them tightly in your fingers. After giving you a few minute break, you watch as Carly’s arched feet slip back onto the carpet in front of you. She then uses them to push off from the ground, sliding her chair out of the desk to get a better look at you. She grins down at you pathetically, then leans down, resting her arms on her bare knees and allowing her blond ponytail to hang limply over her shoulder.
“Looks like you’re earning your keep down there, aren’t you?” she smiles.
“Yeah…” you answer, shaking your head around and regaining your stamina.
“You look tired. Are you tired?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want to go to bed?”
“Yeah,” you respond robotically. She nods.
“Okay, that’s fine. Let’s get you tucked in, cutie,” she says, extending her hand and splaying her fingers out to wrap you up. You lay perfectly still, holding your arms up so she can tuck her fingers underneath them and give you full range of motion. However, just as she lays her smooth finger flesh around your side, about to curl you up against her somewhat damp palm, she pulls back, crossing her arms again and looking down thoughtfully at you. “You know what, Jack?”
“What?”
“I bet you could move if you tried. Can you stand?”
“Um…”
“Just try for me,” she suggests gently. You push against the ground, pulling yourself into a kneeling position. Groggily, then, you stand. She claps her hands together lightly as if congratulating you. “There you go…” she sings softly, grinning cheekily, clearly pleased with your evident success. “Good boy. Now, about these… feet here…” she says, clenching her toes against the carpet and looking down at them. “They’re pretty special feet, I’d say. Don’t you agree?”
“I think so…”
“You THINK so?”
“Yeah, they are.”
“Glad you like them so much, bro,” she snickers at you. “So, anyway… I was just thinking, maybe they deserve a little extra time…”
“Okay,” you answer neutrally, having a feeling she had made her mind up about this several minutes back. “What?”
“Oh, I was just thinking about something, little bro.”
“What?”
“Back, a long time ago. Do you remember back when I was like twelve or so… what I did to my ankle at that one basketball game?”
“Umm…” you say, trying to recall. Having never attended one of her games, it’s a little fuzzier.
“Sure you do. Someone fouled me and I tripped, twisted my ankle pretty bad. Maybe if you had ever showed up to one of my games, like any good brother would, you’d know that kind of stuff,” she says, sounding a bit irritated. At this point, you remember perfectly well what she’s talking about. The memory easily floods your brain in surprising detail.
“It’s okay, honey, it’s gonna be okay…” your mom coos to twelve-year-old Carly as she helps her hobble back inside the house after the game, tears streaking your sister’s cheeks from the pain; you sit up uncaringly from the kitchen table, where you were doing your homework. “I’m going to give Dr. Ryan a call, and we’ll take you in to see her first thing tomorrow morning, okay?” she says, helping Carly into the living room. Your sister lowers herself down into a leather armchair in the room. Your mom slides over a matching leather footrest, allowing Carly to prop her icepack-tied twisted ankle up for support. Ruffling your sister’s matted, sweaty hair from the game, your mom marches into the kitchen to talk to you. “Probably could have used those arms of yours to get her inside…” suggests your mother sarcastically to you. You shrug.
“Mom, she’s totally faking it; look at her, how often have you seen her do this?”
“Jack, can we please just cool it between you two for one measly night?” your mother snaps, looking over her shoulder at your whimpering sister as she wipes a hand across her soaked cheeks. “I’ve gotta call the doctor’s office, and it might take me a few minutes, since it’s almost nine right now… would you do me a favor and just get your sister anything if she needs it?”
You groan. “MOM…”
“Well, if not for your sister, do it for your weekend privileges,” she answers curtly, clearly not in the mood to deal with your perceived selfishness. “Because you won’t have them if you can’t bear to cooperate with me for just a few minutes here while I’m on the phone. I’ll be back in a few minutes and then I can help her myself. Just get her a drink or something, Jack. Please?” she says, although she’s not really offering you a choice so much as threatening to ground you if you don’t comply. Rolling your eyes, you sit up from your chair and take a step toward the living room. “Thanks, buddy,” your mom smiles, ruffling your hair as well before heading into the house office to schedule an appointment for Carly. Your shoulders hanging heavy, you lean against the doorframe, looking in at your softly crying sister.
“What do you want?” you ask with complete and utter disinterest and disdain. Carly looks over at you, frowning through her wet eyes.
“Get me an apple juice,” she orders. You shrug and re-enter the kitchen. Removing the jug from the fridge, you sloppily pour a cup of it out for your sister and smack it onto the counter while you put the juice away. Then, marching it into the living room, you stick it out in the air within your sister’s range to grab it.
“Here,” you say quickly. She reaches out to take it, but then wrinkles her nose in disgust.
“What, no ice?”
“Carly, this just came from the refrigerator… it’s already cold. C’mon, take it, I have stuff to do.”
“Oh, I see, so your stuff is more important than me, huh?”
You grin, taking pleasure in the question. “Well… yeah.”
Carly frowns a little harder, but then a smile creeps back over her lips as she stares intently at you before calling out. “MOM! He’s being mean!”
“Carly!” you groan. “What…”
“MOM!”
“Fine…” you growl, walking back toward the fridge. You slam the cup against the ice dispenser button on the freezer, spilling a few droplets of juice out, and fill it with as many cubes as the cup can hold before marching briskly back into the living room. “There’s your stupid ice. Now take it so I can get back to work.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” says Carly, waggling a pointer finger at you and wiping at her cheeks, her normally more authoritative and sweetly masked face returning, covering up the brief interlude of weakness and tears.
“Um, actually, yes I DO!” you say back rather sarcastically, turning to leave.
“You don’t go anywhere until I say so.”
“Watch me,” you answer, beginning to walk in the other direction.
“MOM!” she screams. You stop in your tracks, hanging your head in annoyance. The bossy brat is starting to get on your nerves, as she so often does within a fifty foot range of you, but you also have to consider your weekend. You had been thinking about asking out Laura, one of your friends but also a girl you’ve also got something of a crush on, to a movie this weekend, because you have a feeling another guy has his eye on her too. It’s killing you to have to turn back to your sister, at her beck and call, but you have to; the desire for the potential of this weekend is far too much.
“What?” you answer dryly. “Can you make it quick?”
She shakes her head. “Stop asking me when you’ll be done, all you did was get me a stupid drink,” she says, sipping thirstily at the glass.
“Well, what do you want?” you ask irritably.
“First I want you to stop sounding like a jerk to me.”
“What do you want?” you say, sounding marginally more civil.
“That’s a little better. What’s so hard about helping your cute little sister, huh, bro? I got hurt. You should be over here, ASKING me how you can help me!”
“Believe me, Carly, if I did that, you’d probably have to assume I’d been abducted by aliens and been replaced.”
“Shut up,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “Why can’t you be a nice guy for like two seconds, ever?”
“Whatever. What am I supposed to do for you, your majesty?” you ask sarcastically. She clears her throat, and then her eyes fall to her shoes.
“I want to get my shoes off, but I don’t want to reach down there so I don’t hurt my ankle more,” she says, sounding rather pathetic. You roll your eyes. “Take my shoes off, Jack.”
“Fine,” you grumble. You drop to your knees, quickly undoing the laces of Carly’s mud-stained basketball shoes and loosening the tongue of the shoe. You then slip your fingers into the opening of the back of the shoe. You’re instantly a little repulsed as your fingers meet the absolutely sopping wet rags of thin cotton Carly’s wearing as socks. You’re shocked she can even play very well in the things, because they’re so thin, you can feel every angle and curve of her foot, firm but squishy with fresh sweat. As you pry this opening up between the side of the shoe and Carly’s foot-hugging sock, an aroma begins to leak out of her shoe, smelling strongly of vaporous salt and reeking foot minerals. You quickly slip the shoe off, dropping it to the ground, before following suit with the other one. You then stand up, pinching your nose and stepping back. “Okay, there you go, your stinking shoes are off…” you mumble, stepping back toward the kitchen.
“Hold up!” she yells out defiantly. You turn back, your mood worsening by the second.
“What… is… it…” you say through gritted teeth, nice and slowly so she can understand your meaning.
“Socks too,” she orders childishly, pointing at her feet. You see her socks, dampened so heavily that gray greasy spots have formed along her toes, ball, and heel inside the shoe, the fuzz hanging oddly off of it at different angles from so many runs in the washing machine. You look at her in disbelief. “I heard Mom. Do you wanna stay inside all weekend?” she pouts at you. You give her a death glare. “I mean… if you have to stay home all weekend, you’ll just be hanging around while mom and dad are at work, and I’ll be here with a twisted ankle. I can’t do anything. You’d kinda be my slave…” she says devilishly, grinning. “Is that what you want?”
Grumbling a few choice words under your breath, you drop back to your knees. Immediately, the odor of her foot’s transudation starts fogging up your breathing. You cough, holding your head to the side (although this does little to keep your sister’s awful musk out of your lungs) and slip your fingers into her sock. The experience is absolutely revolting; you hear a soft peeling sound as the thin white socks, stuck so thoroughly to her wrinkled, excretion-soaked soles, come sliding off slowly. You pinch at the mouth of the damp socks, your fingers brushing up against Carly’s warm ankles, made much softer by the liquid soaking through every fiber of her flesh. Her heel, filled with deep crevices, comes into view and clenches as you continue sliding the white, grungy tube off of her foot. Next the ball of her foot comes out, fuzz from the filthy sock still stuck along it. Her toes take a slight extra tug, as they’ve conveniently clenched themselves around the end of the sock, making it form fit her toes. She giggles as you have to yank a bit harder to get it to come off, finally having the soaked, frayed, fuzz-covered article in your hand. Her toes wiggle, airing out, filling the air around your unfortunate face with the smell of her damp flesh. Disgustingly, you see a very large clump of wet toe jam stuck between Carly’s big and second toes.
As your hand continues sitting in range of her, Carly lifts her lithe bare foot up, pressing it against your hand. Before you can react, she’s parting her big and second toes, and wiping the toe jam clump onto your finger. You swat it off, allowing it to fall onto the stool as Carly sniggers. Annoyed, you grip at the water-logged, salty sock on her other foot, slipping it off with another sticky peel and drop both pieces of footwear on the stool.
“Well, you’re doing a lot better now. Wait for your bedside nurse to come back,” you snort at her, turning to leave.
“Ah-ah-ah!” she sings at you, mockingly but nice sounding at the same time.
“Carly, I took your stupid socks off AND your tennis shoes, AND I got you your juice.”
“But my ankle is TWISTED!” she whines. “How can you expect me to do anything by myself?”
“It’s easy. Ask MOM!” you groan at her, taking a few steps away.
“I think it would be nicer if YOU did it,” she retorts.
“Did what?” you say, now almost back into the kitchen.
“Jack, c’mon… please come back?” she asks, having actual politeness in her answer. You turn to look at her, her face pleading.
“Look… ONE more thing. One. One quick thing, I’ve got homework.”
“Thanks, big bro. I guess I CAN count on you when I really need you.”
“Yeah, whatever, what am I doing, getting you some crackers or something?”
She giggles. “Nice try, bro. No, I just want you to come back over here and sit down.” You shrug, wanting to just get this over with and return to your homework. You move back to the chair, and watch as Carly slowly takes her twisted ankle off of the stool, as well as her other foot, and sets them both on the floor. You take a quick seat on the leather stool, and suddenly find Carly swinging both legs back up and planting her stale, grimy feet in your lap. You pull back, grossed out, but you don’t really want to touch them to take them off of your lap. She smirks at you.
“You’re joking, right?” you ask, raising an eyebrow.
“Nope,” she laughs. She moves one foot over and begins tapping her toes against your stomach through your shirt, even gripping at your shirt in her toes. You look down to see a wet mark left on your clothes where her soaked digits were pawing you. You wipe it off, looking disdainfully at her feet. For a twelve year old, they’re pretty big, coming in a size seven and a half, with somewhat longer toes, and a tan complexion to match her ankles. Right now, her feet are bearing the slight indents in the soft outer layer in the shape of the fuzzy sock fibers, indicating just how tightly she was wearing them. You look on with disgust as two of her toes part. A single bead of sweat slips from the porous crevice, sliding down the hill of her foot ball, through the twisting cracks of her cream-colored sole, and finally off of her heel, where it plops directly onto your pants above your crotch and leaves a wet spot. Great. Now you get to look like you peed your pants, for all your troubles.
With your hand held out as if trying to make a point, you are snapped out of your revolted trance to find Carly has lifted her leg and is now pressing her soggy heel firmly against your palm, twising it firmly, dampening it. You try to move away, but her foot follows you, her sole scrunching wetly against your fingers.
“Moo-ooo-oooo-ooomm…” sings Carly into the hallway, dramatically, trying to get your mom’s attention. You’re disgusted beyond belief to have your little sister forcing you to do this for her, her peds so unwashed and pungent, and yet you can’t help but think of Laura. You picture Laura’s face, then look down at the large, sopping foot in your hand, the toes wiggling cutely, and then you picture Laura again. You groan to yourself. You mentally declare yourself to be a very pathetic human being, and then clench your fingers around Carly’s soft instep. “Good dog,” laughs Carly.
“Don’t push your luck,” you grunt through gritted teeth. You run your palm along the length of her sole, rubbing your fingertips into the grooves of her heel, bending it around. While her damp sole continues resting heavily in one of your hands, with your other hand you clamp the top of her foot, rubbing along the soft skin, feeling the veins of her feet popping out ever so slightly. While you work on her right foot, Carly clenches the sole of her other foot against your shirt, soaking your shirt in a damp footprint for no particular reason other than to spite you. Then, she leans back, laying her hands on the leather armrests, looking up at the ceiling and closing her eyes as you work. She murmurs in a higher pitched sound of gratitude. She’s really rubbing this in. But you of course can’t stop; you just have to keep at it. This weekend is going to be too important. You pull your hand back, sliding your fingers between all of Carly’s toes and causing her to convulse a little with pleasure as you work them, the particularly soggy toe crevices leaving her salty stink all over your hands.
After massaging both of Carly’s feet intensely for around five minutes, your sister leans her head back forward, reaching for the side coffee table next to the chair. “Thanks, Jack. That felt sooooo good.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. Now have fun not walking; I’ve got stuff to do.”
“Hey. Wait up.”
“NO.”
“Well, geez…” she says, and grasping at a small glass bottle on the table, she holds it up for you to see. It’s a red, sparkling little tube with a large cap. “I just wanted you to paint them for me.”
This is the final straw. She’s not even making requests out of necessity anymore, she’s just enjoying lording over you so completely. “No.”
“Mooooom…” she moans, grinning at you, knowing there’s no way out of it.
“I’m back! What’s wrong?” asks your mom, stepping back in. “Thanks for covering for me Jack, you can get back to your work.”
“Oh, cool. Get well… soon, Carly…” you mumble sarcastically, shaking your head with a smile at your sister, who looks at you with another death stare, gripping the bottle tightly in her hand. She squints at you, sticks out her tongue when your mom isn’t looking, and raises her foot into the air, wiggling her toes as if in a warning sign. She apparently had her heart set on you becoming her new pedicurist. No matter; you’re free. You shrug off her odd antics, wiping at the rather prominent sweaty foot print on your shirt front.
The weekend goes great. You do end up getting the date with Laura, and while things never really went anywhere after that first date, you couldn’t help but enjoy yourself even more during the movie, knowing your sister was sitting at home without a single sucker to paint her toes for her.
Your mind returns to reality, and suddenly you realize you are no longer in any position of particularly quantitative enough power to recreate a similar outcome. You gulp deeply, staring first at your sister’s long, expectant toes wriggling playfully against the carpet, before turning your face up to stare at the grinning, glistening pearly whites of your devious sibling.