Charis woke up the next morning with a groan. She had a pounding headache and stinging photosensitivity, tell-tale symptoms of a hangover. Despite her protesting body, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, but didn’t get much farther than that as she dropped her head in defeat. She had never been hungover in a video game, but she supposed there was a first for everything. She dimly recalled that the alcohol pumped directly into her veins by her VR Pod exactly replicated whatever alcohol she drank in game, but she found that hard to believe: it felt like she had been hit by a truck, and it’s not like she had never had a few rum and Cokes before.
A muffled cough broke the silence of the room, followed by what sounded like vomiting. Looking down at her feet, Charis felt a little moisture pooling at her right big toe. Her curiosity overcame her dreadful temperament and she peeled off her reeking sock and shook its contents over her palm. Out tumbled little Alicia, and one look at her face told Charis that the little woman felt just as horrible, which actually got her to smile.
It all came back to her: Vane’s little speech prompted a party of epic proportions, complete with drinking and dancing and all manner of hedonism. After Rima insisted that Charis remove Alicia from her boot, the pair had the little woman licking all kinds of feet. In fact, the first “angel” rounded up a few of her friends and took the group to a more private setting, whereupon the little woman was set upon by hordes of hungry toes. Charis had briefly and drunkenly pondered the hypocrisy of the situation: normal people, including herself, could be so easily tempted to commit malice behind the veil of online anonymity. And while she wasn’t exactly anonymous to Alicia, these serving girls certainly were (were they bots? Charis didn’t think so), but they didn’t hesitate in joining in on the malicious fun.
The evening proceeded predictably: Alicia found herself being mercilessly assaulted by the stink of multiple feet – the serving girls would come in and out of their private room to take their breaks and have their soles pampered by the little woman. Some of the serving girls reacted with surprise, but mostly, they didn’t ask questions and took it in stride. The opportunity to be deliberately cruel to a helpless person didn’t come often, and as Charis had surmised earlier, the nature of the game provided the degree of separation required to reveal the darkness in all of them.
What wasn’t so predictable was the effect of alcohol for all parties. As Alicia became more and more inebriated (Rima and Charis would periodically dunk her in shot glasses), the mood in the room actually began to lighten. Baleful hatred on Charis’s part slowly transformed into a more playful cruelty – it reminded her of how she used to haze pledges back when she actually cared about her sorority. The sisterhood never meant to actively hurt their newly inducted members: hazing was meant to be fun for both the hazers and the haze-ees so to speak. Indeed, it had become almost institutionalized, but that didn’t completely prevent an edge of sadism from creeping in.
“Hey, what’s the matter with you?” Charis’s head snapped up to see Rima standing in the door. Charis realized that she had been staring at Alicia in her palm for a while now, as if in a trance. Rima walked over to her and put a tan pill in her upheld palm next to the little woman. Charis recognized it as an anti-hangover pill.
“Thanks,” said Charis. Rima scoffed as she turned away, muttering about alcohol tolerance and responsibility. Charis grabbed up the pill with her other hand and raised it to her mouth – but then she hesitated. She brought it back down and, with Alicia still in her other hand, she used her fingers to break the pill in half. With careful deliberation, she tracked down a tiny shard that had broken off and handed it to Alicia, who groaned in response to her prodding. Without looking, the little woman reached up and grabbed the piece before munching on it like a piece of toast.
The effect was instantaneous: Alicia immediately looked much better, and Charis didn’t waste any more time following suit. She swallowed hers before setting about preparing for the day. Scooping up Alicia, she made her way to the extravagantly appointed shower. Made from the same scarlet-tinged ivory as most everything here, the shower had space enough for three of her. Wordlessly, Charis removed her clothing and stepped in with Alicia in hand (the little woman had been naked since the beginning of her captivity). She proceeded to gruffly scrub the little woman as well as herself, a luxury Alicia hadn’t had in days. Inwardly, Charis wondered why she even bothered – Alicia was destined for her boot no matter. Even if she wanted to, Charis couldn’t put the little woman anywhere else: most of their strategy was predicated on the speed boost Alicia would provide from beneath her toes.
Still, her time with Alicia last night had been almost… fun. And this was undeniably better, because try as she might, Charis couldn’t completely ignore the hollow feeling she got from tormenting her prisoner. So when the mood had subtly shifted, part of her guilt had been assuaged. Alicia’s task became “Tell me whose feet smell the worst” as opposed to simply being ground into the floor beneath someone’s gigantic sole, and somehow that made the anger of the situation drain away. The games took on a more playful tone, and while Charis couldn’t envy Alicia having to take body shots from between someone’s stinky toes, it was definitely an improvement for her, especially when the little woman actually seemed to enjoy herself.
Charis looked down at her nemesis, lying in her palm covered in suds. She actually looked content, having long since abandoned her initial wariness (Alicia would take whatever she could get, after all). “This doesn’t change anything,” announced Charis suddenly. “You’re still an awful bitch and I still despise you.” Alicia shrank back from her captor, seemingly becoming smaller in her palm where there was obviously no escape. What Alicia failed to notice was that Charis’s words lacked their usual venom. Something had definitely changed between them.
With a sigh, Charis came to a realization: she would let Alicia go after this was all said and done. Leaving the bathroom, she went back to her suite and sought out one of her truthfully rancid socks, whereupon she unceremoniously dropped Alicia inside. Charis smiled to herself as she put the sock back on before scrunching her toes around her prisoner’s tiny form.
Sure, she would her go after all of this; but she would at least have her fun until then.