Nina, at the center of this machine of teamwork, experienced a rippling tingle up from her lowest extremities as her best friend shoved her juicy digits over his teeth and sucked with all his life; meanwhile, her own lips were turning raw, robbed of sensation, as she endeavored to press her face ever-deeper into the triangular canyon of Ariel’s sloppy toes.
The giant woman’s skin had sponged layer after layer of sweat into Nina’s face, leaving her cheeks an ashen smear of Goth-lite makeup and lubricated secretion. She moaned, uselessly, pleading with the universe itself to intervene and sever her invisible binds to Ariel’s writhing toes.
But of course, no help was forthcoming. Not from the universe, and certainly not from the radiant, cackling redhead at the center of all this silent carnage, who was having more fun today than she’d had in all other previous days of her life combined.
The joyful group activity carried on for more than an hour. Occasionally Ariel offered another encouraging comment as she languished in the soothing, empowering gift of it all. Nina and David, each with their tongues and teeth wrapped around firm, slimy foot flesh, had no other resistance except exasperated tears.
At last, Nina paused of her own volition, and rose up in stark shock. It was almost a novel feeling, after so long, to not have her tongue pressed hard into the greasy wall of Ariel’s toe crevice. Curiously, she looked up to see the colossal redhead leaning over the side of the bed, her fingers steepled together.
“Wow, you’re not exactly on top of things, are you, Nina? I cut off the spell at least half an hour ago. You could’ve stopped any time between then,” Ariel explained. “But hey, who am I to deny you the pleasure, if you’re that into it, after all?”
Nina hunched over and retched. She vomited thinly into the carpet fibers. This reaction owed only partially to the lingering tastes of sweaty skin and foot grit on her palette; the very idea that she’d spent thirty minutes, at least, licking and nibbling Ariel’s titanic toes of her own technical free will was more than enough to force a stomach evacuation in Nina.
David required almost another full minute before he even noticed the trio had cut off the toe-sucking train. He still remained faithfully latched onto Nina’s foot, with the full bulb of her toe jammed inside his undulating cheeks. Some prying was required to extract her supple digit from his mouth, as it had only swollen larger from the loving attention of his cheeks and tongue.
At this point, David couldn’t possibly say which of his emotions and impulses were guided by Ariel’s magic, and which weren’t. He decided he didn’t want to know.
“That was a lot of fun, you guys. Thanks so much,” Ariel crooned with diabolical sugar-sweetness. “But like I said, I don’t want you to think I’m being selfish here, hogging you two all to myself. Maybe there’s somebody else like me, who also gets tired feet after a long, hard day? Or maybe even somebody who’s having a long, hard day right now? Say… a certain Applebee’s waitress who understands what it’s like to be on your toes all night, never allowed to relax?”
David blinked. She couldn’t mean…
“Don’t do anything to Mary!” Nina cried out, pointing an accusing finger up at their giant ginger warden. “Don’t you dare! I’ll fuck you up, Ariel, I swear I will.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Ariel said. “Nobody’s going to hurt Mary. Mary didn’t laugh at me, after all. You two on the other hand, well…”
“W-What?”
“You might want to take a nice deep breath before this next part. Also, I haven’t practiced this spell very much, so you might end up in the center of the earth instead of where I want you. Now, hold very still, and try to think fresh, clean thoughts,” Ariel explained. “Cuz thoughts are the only thing you’re going to have, for the rest of your dumb little lives.”
Heaving the book down from the dresser, David’s sister thumbed through the pages. When at last she discovered the right one, her emerald eyes crackled. Her lips moved with supernatural speed. Palms dovetailed together at the spine, she slammed the magic book closed.
In the same instant, both David and Nina’s worlds went dark. They were tumbling, devoid of compass direction or gravity, yet falling nonetheless. Hard as it was to see in the smoky void, David couldn’t help but realize he seemed to be the same size as Nina again. Were it not for the rippling atmosphere they were currently entrapped within, he might’ve guessed they were returned to their normal sizes. But he knew better than to be so optimistic.
He reached out for his best friend’s hand. Nina shouted, the sound echoing through the darkness like an empty cathedral. Still, she managed to snatch his fingers in her own. Then reality melted upwards into being, or at least some semblance of it.
David and Nina landed upon mesh, moon-like terrain. It appeared they were in some sort of subterranean cave; only a pale halo of light from dizzingly high above made its way into this mysterious open space. They threw themselves into a hug; despite the fact that David still lacked clothes, they were too relieved at their apparent survival of Ariel’s spell to care.
“What do we do?” Nina sobbed, her arms shaking as she held him close for support.
“I don’t know,” he said, honestly out of answers now.
“I’m scared, David.”
“Me too.”
“Why is she doing this?”
“Because she’s fucking crazy and has a magic book,” David sighed. “Let’s just start moving. We have to do something.”
“What the hell is this place?” Nina demanded. She squinted, attempting to formulate a mental model of their environment. It was nearly unthinkable. The nearest approximation of dark, flaking-rock walls might well have existed miles in the distance. Nothing, except the ground they stood directly upon, was clearly discernible.
“Hey, I did it, again!” Ariel boomed from the ether. Her voice flooded the anonymous, high-arched hall. “You’re welcome, you two, for not messing it up. But I guess I’d be fooling myself to assume you two would actually say “thank-you” for not killing you. Whatever. You may want to get comfy, cuz you’re about to learn about the real pressures of waitressing. And I’m not just talking responsibility, I’m talking about pressure.”
“ARIEL!” David called. “How long can we do this?”
“As long as it takes you to learn,” Ariel said gravely. “I’ll check back on you two in a while. Enjoy yourselves!”
“What is this, David?” Nina asked. She stooped down, prodding a finger at the woolen, thickly knitted tapestry which made up the ground. “It almost looks like a net.”
“Could be,” he said. “Didn’t… she say we were going to see Mary?”
“Yeah,” Nina said. She cast her gaze up to the hopelessly high cylindrical curve of the ceiling, like the inverted hold of a battleship meant for celestial beings. No object in this place was conceivably close enough to touch or reach out for. “But this doesn’t look like anywhere I’ve seen before. There’s no one here, big or small.”
“Nina.” David’s lips quivered.
“What?”
“Nina.”
“Just say it!”
“Turn around.”
Nina, only just now noticing the sudden eclipsing of the solar glow from above, looked over her shoulder and up to the shadowing heavens. In concert, every molecule of her body was paralyzed with shock.
A shape, more massive than anything either of them believed could exist on planet Earth, was descending. Ovular at first, its violent rotations and revolutions as its forced its way inside the opening of light revealed it to be of a far more complex, softly oblong frame. Five island-sized objects in space, affixed to the front of the incoming giant meteor, rose and fell against the motion of its host. It wasn’t a falling star, though it was just about the size of one.
“Jesus fucking Christ…” Nina choked.
“That’s…”
“…Mary. That’s Mary’s foot…”