"So how about it, Ashley? One to ten, how much 'fun' did you have down there?"

There was no chance to answer, of course. The probing finger that had been accosting her since just a few moments ago, spurred into action by a word from Jenna, found her face at that moment. The tanned pad forced itself into the side of her face, turned and mashed her head into the palm flesh on which she sat. As with Melody, Claire seemed to be taking great care not to hurt her beyond whatever force was required to halt her movement. They seemed to be content in simply humiliating her, in driving in her helplessness. That would change, though. She knew it.

Ashley had been given almost no time to recuperate after her time with Melody had ended, that merciful call from Claire finally releasing her from the hungry grasp of her big sister's toes. That awful appendage had promptly distanced itself from her, scooting as close to couch as it could, leaving Ashley alone for just a moment to quietly sob to herself, to catch a breath of fresher air. A shadow had soon overcome her, and Ashley couldn't bring herself to resist as a massive hand enclosed around her.

When it opened, she had been before Claire, still sitting on the couch. The pitying look that she had caught on her larger friend's face as her big sister had her way with her, the one that had inspired her to desperately and futilely cry out for her help, had vanished. The young woman had held a more stoic expression then, one that had made her gulp. She knew Claire's game face when she saw it.

Melody had come to mind then, and Ashley had eagerly looked to the left for her. She had needed to see her sister, to look at her. She needed to be looked at. And for just a moment, the two had made eye contact. Only a moment though, as Melody had quickly turned away, but not before Ashley had noted her sister's own wet eyes.

She had had no time to think that over, though. Claire's finger had promptly intervened, gingerly turning her head to meet it's owners gaze, demanding her attention. A robotic "Start" from Jenna had renewed her humiliation, and Ashley had soon been on her back, that finger mashing into her stomach and causing her to squirm in an instinctual but futile attempt to escape from it, eventually leading into her current position.

"I asked you a question," Claire stated. Her voice, as it had been when she had first asked that demeaning question, was surprisingly lacking in condescension, opting instead for a certain moroseness that was uncommon for the soccer queen. Claire was an arrogant person, and that arrogance typically pervaded her speech. It was rare for her to sound so gloomy.

Nevertheless, Ashley didn't want to antagonize her given the temper she knew she had. She attempted to provide an answer, only for the finger to glider over her mouth, mashing into her lips and making her words indecipherable.

"Whoops," Claire casually exclaimed, pulling her finger away, "sorry about that. Try again, Ash."

"A...a one," she sputtered out, catching her breath and enjoying the brief pause. A light, almost imperceptible smile began to tug at a corner of Claire's lips.

"I had a feeling that would be the case."

The fingers on the hand Ashley occupied rose up at her side then, looming as one collective wall for just a moment above her before they began to curl downwards, driving their tips down along the length of her body and once more smothering her face with the pad of an index finger. Asserting their dominance over her, just as Melody had done.

"As crass as it sounds, Ashley, I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad you didn't enjoy it," she stated in that same low tone. "It would have been a serious mistake on our part if you had. The lesson would kind of be lost if if you enjoyed what he didn't, don't you think?"

Ashley's eyes widened under the smothering pad. What was she talking about? The little guy had told her he did, did they...did they not believe her? Was that why they were doing this? Treating her like some...some toy? Because they thought she was lying?

"Or," Claire continued, lifting the fingertips that ground her body into her friend's palm in slow succession, starting with the one mashing into her face, "do you still want to cite that little lie he told you after you had your fun?"

"He wasn-"

Ashley's frantic yell was snuffed out by the return of that fingertip, it's friends each impacting her with the same deliberate succession with which they had left.

"He was the one who filed the report, y'know," Claire noted with a frown, and if it hadn't meant getting a mouthful of finger flesh, Ashley was certain her mouth would be agape. Why?

"I told you earlier, Ashley, that there's one important difference between what I do to Sean and what you did to that boy. Do you have another idea as to what that might be yet? One that isn't an answer a child would give?"

The fingers lifted from her once more, allowing her to meet Claire's gaze again. Those brown eyes were narrowed, focused squarely on her with a frightening intensity, demanding a response.

"No," Ashley whined with a shake of her head. She didn't. A sigh escaped Claire's lips, washing Ashley in her hot breath, tinged with the myriad scents of the day's food and drink.

"Consent, Ashley. Simple, attainable consent. Something you didn't bother to get, did you?"

"B-but I kn-"

"There's no 'but' involved in this, Ashley. Did you or did you not receive actual permission from him? It's a yes or no question."

Ashley couldn't help but wrap her arms around herself. She needed some level of comfort, looking into Claire's eyes. Watching those horrid pupils contract, studying her as if she were under a microscope. Daring her to answer with anything other than what their owner and, as the pieces began to click into place in her mind, Ashley herself knew to be the only right answer.

She hadn't. She hadn't even asked.

"I didn't," she answered blankly, still processing. Still piecing things together, as a creeping shudder shook her - that slow realization of what that meant. What she had done.

"That's right," Claire deadpanned as her eyes softened once more, "you didn't."

Those fingers returned again, successively driving into her body. There was no lingering this time, though. No sooner had her titanic friend's pinkie pressed into her lower leg than the finger pressing into her face removed itself, the others following suite...only for the index finger to return once more as the pinkie left, it's friends following behind. This motion continued, repeatedly kneading Ashley into the skin below with a constant barrage, her friend treating her body like a flute.

"That report was something else to read, Ash. To watch," Claire commented as she continued her casual oscillations. "Reading...listening to him talk about how he didn't even know what was going on when you plucked him up, when you dropped him in your shoe. When you tilted it to send him to the toe. The fear in his eyes...in his voice, when he talked about how scared he was when your foot came to join him."

Ashley shuddered amidst Claire's steady kneading. God, she had fucked up. Badly. She had been so very, very stupid, and Jack...he had suffered for that, even while she had happily gone on her way. Moreover, the gears were starting to really turn in her head, as she thought about what she had done. About the way her big sister had utterly subjugated her with her own foot. About how Claire was currently toying with her, as if she were a little doll. How effortless that domination had been, both for them...and for her.

"Did you know that he was begging you to let him out?" Claire asked, eliciting a whimper from Ashley between presses. No, no she didn't. She hadn't heard a peep from him. She wanted to yell up to Claire, to tell her that, to let her know she'd have taken him out if she had. "I want to believe that you didn't, Ashley. That between your toes dropping down on him and the shoe itself, his voice simply couldn't reach. I do believe that, really. All three of us do. You were stupid here, Ashley, but you're not malicious. Not that there was much difference in the end result."

Ashley sniffled, and couldn't help but curl her toes within her sneakers as Claire's bouncing fingers continued their work. He had been in there....begging her to stop, and she...she hadn't even heard him. Like...like Melody, she had functionally ignored the mewling creature...the mewling person tormented underneath her feet. Those gears continued to rotate, her thoughts continued to process. It suddenly struck her, then, just how easy it had been to ignore those pleas. How horrifyingly easy it had been, to the point that she hadn't even been aware that she had done it.

"And of course, he mentioned the moment when you let him out. When you asked him that little question of yours...well, I think you can guess why he lied by now, can't you?"

Ashley's face happened to be free of confinement at that moment, of the pressure brought forth by that superior digit. She met Claire's downcast gaze, and managed a small nod before face was once again compressed under the tanned pad. He must have been terrified of her, of how the monster that had...had kidnapped him might have reacted if he displeased her.

"Not really 'harmless fun' now, is it?" Claire asked as her pinkie once more lifted from her leg. To Ashley's surprise, the fingers didn't return this time, instead opting to curl away and flatten, leaving the girl on a now perfectly straight plain of comfortable flesh.

"No," Ashley replied apologetically, "no it wasn't." Even without the bruises she had left. that was all far too much. Claire gave her a soft smile then, and for the first time since she got home, Ashley felt slightly at ease. Still humiliated, embarrassed, and degraded. Still hurt over how her sister had treated her, how Claire was treating her...

Still terrified at how Jenna likely would treat her.

But it was something. A small sign that at least one of them still viewed her with some level of their previous affection, and not the little...the little toy she had been treated as. She didn't want that. Anything would be better that being thought of as...as that.

"Turn over on your side, Ashley," Claire gently commanded. "And face to your left." Ashley nodded slowly, turning as instructed.

By chance, she once again caught site of her sister, still sitting where she had been but angled slightly to face Claire. Those powerful legs were pulled up into her chest and encircled by Melody's toned arms. Beyond the twin towers of her knees, Melody's eyes peeked over at her, red and apparently still wet. Her big sister apparently noticed the attention, and weakly raised a hand, giving her a pitiful wave.

"Mellie..." Ashley found herself muttering, that earlier desperation for her attention still peeking through. She wondered how her sister saw her now, after shaming her beneath her foot. After her pathetic, futile cries. Could she really go back to treating Ashley as she had been after all this? After exerting that much power over her little sister while expending so little actual effort in the process? Could she ever take her seriously as a person again?

And she wondered, too, how she herself should view Melody. Her big sister had finally done it, after all - exerted her dominance as the older, bigger sibling. The better sibling. She had shown Ashley a side of her that had only ever existed in her nightmares. Once this was over, and assuming that Melody was even willing to return to their former pretenses of equality, that feeling would still linger, stronger than ever. That feeling of absolute inferiority in the face of her truly god-like sibling, one she could never hope to compare to.

Two fingers suddenly closed around her then, Claire's free hand going to work. She was lifted slightly, gently, but kept in the same position. She quickly found herself deposited slightly above her previous position, her head now suspended off the edge of Claire's hand, close to the thumb. Before she could really settle, that free hand suddenly blanketed over her, sandwiching her softly between the two appendages with her head popping out as her friend brought them before her face, as if in prayer. The joined hands began to tilt forward, halting once they were pointing straight behind Ashley. In front of her, Claire's intimidating thumbs rose up and pointed toward the ceiling as a large, brown eye looked between them, focused squarely on her. To Claire, it most have appeared as if she were looking down the sights of a firearm.

"You know, Ash," Claire started, "a few years ago, I almost made the same mistake you did."

"What?" Ashley muttered. She had? And why did Claire look so....sad mentioning this?

"Not in the same context, really," Claire softly exclaimed, "I didn't find some little Alpha or Beta cute or anything. No, it was a bit different for me, but the same overall principle was at work."

Claire slid her right hand forward then, while still keeping it in contact with its partner. The effect on Ashley was nauseating: Every inch it moved forward spun Ashley's form within the flesh vice, rotating her several times until the movement eventually halted and left Ashley dizzy and disoriented, pinned near the wrist of the right hand by the fingers of the left and still facing Claire.

"What you did, Ashley, and what I almost did...what it essentially boiled down to is the power we had in our situations. The power to force our own desires upon someone else, because it made us happy."

The left hand began to slide forward then, as the right slid backward. Ashley's world spun once again, eventually coming to a halt in a similar position as before. The only difference being that the fingers and the wrist had switched places.

"We both became enamored with the neat little fantasies in our heads," Claire continued, and if it weren't for the dizziness, Ashley could swear that the larger woman was looking right past her. "You, with the idea of a little guy you found cute being in your shoe and loving every second of it. Me...well, I'll just say that I had the bright idea that I could run someone's life better than they could while I was barely a teenager."

There was a bitterness attached to that last bit, an innate sense of disgust. Ashley opened her mouth, about to ask about what had actually happened, but once more Claire's monolithic hands were in motion, sending Ashley spinning along for a moment.

"And the thing is,Ashley, when you're as big as I am to you...even more-so when you're as large as I am compared to a Beta; When you yourself tower over that boy and every other member of his species...it becomes easy, to force your desires upon them. To ignore their agency, to replace it with your own. To assign thoughts and goals to them. And then they aren't really the same person anymore, are they? When we take over."

Another slide of the palms, another several seconds careening against them. Ashley found herself deeply hoping this would come to an end soon. One more of those, and she felt she would throw up. She was getting very nauseous.

"Ultimately, the only difference between the two of us is that I managed to talk to the right person before I made my move. I realized the mistake I was about to make before I made it, and put my br-...put that person before my own wants. So if there's any one lesson I hope you take from this Ashley, it's that one. To be careful, to not allow yourself to attribute what you want to someone else's desires again. To let them make their own decisions. Because you never know, Ashley. The little guy might have been up for some fun afterall, if you had just asked."

The hands sandwiching Ashley tilted to the right then, the left parting as the right leveled off into much the same position it had been in prior to that little escapade. Ashley shook her head and sat up. She needed to regain her bearings from all that spinning.

"With that said, though," Claire started again, her voice resuming its normal level, "I believe we have the matter of some bruises to-"

The black-haired woman had no chance to finish her statement, though. A single word rang out from behind Ashley, its cheeriness contrasting sharply with the oppressive mood that had been the hallmark of the past twenty minutes. The same cheeriness sent a shiver down her spine, inflicted her with an immediate tremble that would not subside.

"Time," Jenna practically sang.