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Afternoon light poured through the window, a solid beam of light centered right on me.  The metal grating of my cage was getting uncomfortably warm, and I began pacing so that my shoes would not melt to the bars.  In about an hour the sun should sink back down far enough that a corner was in shade, and I could stand in there to cool down.  Until then it was non-stop movement around the middle, trying not to touch anything to avoid a serious burn.

 

My two fellow inmates watched me, growing increasingly agitated from my pacing.  They were both new, with less than a week in the cage, and had not yet figured out how to make the worst part of the day alone bearable.  I had explained it to them, of course, since I would end up smelling their sweaty clothes and doing my best to tend to their wounds, but they simply did not listen.  They knew better than me, obviously, and insisted it was better to conserve energy and soak up some rays, slowly getting grilled out of their stubbornness.

 

“Will you sit the fuck down, dude?” one of them finally shouted.  “You’re making me nervous!”

 

“I’ve already explained it to you twice, I’m not doing it again,” I shot back.  “If you want to stay there and get cooked, that’s on you.”  He grumbled and shifted uncomfortably on the warming grate behind him, but he shut his trap.  The cage calmed down again, the only sound the steady clanking of my feet on the fine metal grating below us, joined by the occasional moan from my cellmates as their discomfort grew.

 

The door downstairs slammed, making fixtures on the walls around us shake.  I glanced at the clock on the far side of the room, its hands easily visible despite the long distance.  It was a little early for someone to be coming home, but hardly unusual to have a visitor; one or two of the girls sometimes came home to hang out and kill time between classes in the middle of the day.  We still ought to have a bit to ourselves, not that we had anything to do with it.

 

Footsteps began pounding on the stairs, drawing my attention.  They generally only came up to their rooms when they were settling in to study, which included fucking around on their phones for hours at a time.  One of them turning in for the day so early could only mean a schedule change, or some other significant event in her life.  The sheer force of the footfalls, strong enough to make the cage rattle, told me that she was having a bad time.  For my sake I hoped it was one of the other girls and not our keeper, as it were.

 

Just my luck the doorknob turned and the door flew inward, driven by the shoulder of a very distressed mountain of a woman.  She threw the door back, slamming it hard enough that thumbtacks fell out of the wall, and let out a loud growl.  Her all-white, high-top Converse All-Stars stomped angrily at the carpet, heavily disturbing us inside the mesh metal cage, and her fingers tore at her long blond hair.  With each stomp she let out a loud grunt, adding to the calamity already being raised by the fury unleashed by her feet.

 

Of all the people to have a bad day, it had to be Helen.  She had been keeping me in a cage for about a month, though it was difficult to be sure since the passage of time had largely lost its meaning, and I only paid attention to the specific times I could expect to see her.  If I could only look at her that would have been fine: she was a typical sorority girl in that she was hot and knew how to have fun, that was how she lured me into her trap to begin with.  Unfortunately, also like most other sorority girls, she was moody and cruel, and liked to take it out on those less fortunate than her.  My present company was not the only two cellmates I had ever had.

 

I enjoyed looking at Helen, to be sure, but only from a distance.  She had long, solidly-built legs that she kept silky smooth and soft, with defined calves and developed quads that she enjoyed showing off – the longest pants I had ever seen her wear were tight white jean shorts that only came a few inches down her thighs.  Her tight, plain white T-shirt was not quite long enough, leaving a little of her lightly browned midriff exposed, and outlining a pair of breasts that were large even for someone with her large frame.  A curtain of blond hair hung down past her shoulder in curls and waves, and her light blue eyes shined particularly brightly with the help of a thick ring of black eyeliner around each eye.  Everything about her screamed power and beauty, but unfortunately for every guy who got involved with her she preferred her men on a short leash, kept in a cage and shorter than her pinky finger.

 

Helen continued having her tantrum, stomping her huge feet and pulling at her face and hair.  “Shit, shit, shit, shit, fuck!” she yelled repeatedly.  She paced back and forth, breathing in and out deeply while trying to get control of herself, but kept lapsing back into a string of profanity.  “Shit, I’m never going to get all this done in time.”  Finally, some hint as to what was wrong.  “Fuck, there’s just- just too much to read and write, and too little time.”  Her huge body collapsed on the bed and she grabbed a pillow, shoved it onto her face and let out a great, muffled scream.

 

“What’s eating her?” my obstinate cellmate asked, then smiled as though it was funny.

 

“Shit dude, don’t –“ I began, but Helen had already raised her head from the pillow.  We were fucked.

 

Her head snapped around, and she glared at the three tiny inmates in the cage pushed up against the wall.  “What did you say, shrink?” she demanded, practically spitting the derogatory, dehumanizing term the sorority came up with for us.  No one answered, and springs compressed while Helen pushed herself off the bed.  The floor trembled when she landed, and the rumbling footsteps while she approached were like aftershocks.  She loomed over us, rattling the cage when she placed the toe of an enormous Converse at each end.  I looked up her bare legs and towering body, her large hands resting on her hips, while she glared down at us scornfully.  “I asked you a question, shrink, and you’re going to answer me.  What did you say?”

 

“He… he said…” the quiet one began nervously, his voice quivering out of fear.  I motioned for him to can it, but Helen had already turned her attention to him.  It was too late.

 

“Yes?” Helen pressed, her powerful voice shaking our insides.  That could not have been helping his terror.  “He said what?”

 

Sweat poured down his forehead while he tried to find his words, and he looked like he was going to have a stroke.  He swallowed hard, but still had trouble making his idiotic impulses into words.  “He… uh… um, well, you see, he said…”

 

Helen lifted her foot from the ground and brought it to her waist, then stomped it down on the cage.  Metal squealed as the weak, pliable mesh gave way beneath her tremendous shoe, but fortunately it did not buckle.  Her foot remained in the deep dent she made though, and we found ourselves gazing in morbid curiosity at the orangish-brown diamond pattern of her sole.  The only upside was that her colossal shadow blocked the sunlight.  “Spit it the fuck out, shrink,” Helen growled.  “I don’t have time for your shit.”

 

“I asked ‘What’s eating her?’ okay?” the problematic inmate admitted, finally owning up to his mistake.  “It was supposed to be a joke, there’s no need to make a federal case out of it.”

 

Helen pressed her shoe down onto the cage, making its joints creak under her weight before removing it from the roof and setting it back down beside the cage.  I wished it was still there, since now I could see her manic smile while she looked down at us.  “What’s eating me?  Really?” she asked, without a hint of humor in her voice.  Finally sensing the gravity of the situation he gravely nodded, knowing there was no way he could back out of this now.

 

In a flash Helen bent over, reaching her arms down for us.  Her hands seized the cage and tore it off the ground, throwing us around the cage and holding us to the floor during its rapid ascent.  It came to a sudden halt, tossing us into the air as momentum made us continue upward, slamming into the ceiling hard enough to put small dents in the metal.  We dropped back down to the floor with a trio of bangs, followed by groans.  I had several new bruises and probably at least one fracture, but one glance out the side put that out of my mind.  Something much worse was about to happen.

 

Helen’s gigantic face dominated the view, her huge blue eyes narrowed in fury, while her fingers dug into the cage on both ends.  Whoever cautioned about a woman scorned had clearly never seen a woman mocked.  “What’s eating me?” she repeated through gritted teeth.  Her fingers squeezed, crushing the cage inward until it looked like a hand-rolled cigar.  “Is that supposed to be funny?”  None of us said anything, but that would not slow her rant.  “Do you see me laughing, you little shits?”  Fuck, we were all implicated in this now.  “The life of a shrink must be so great.  You never have to worry about deadlines, or assignments, or projects, and you get to make snide-ass, shitty remarks to people who work their asses off!”  The longer she went the louder her voice became until she was yelling at us, flecking spittle against the narrow mesh between us.  “It’s time I laid down the law with you little bastards and taught you what happens to shrinks who are assholes to their owners!”

 

She quickly swiveled around, throwing our prone bodies to one end of the cage.  We hit hard, scraping against the fraying metal strands that were buckling under the stress from her fingers before we slammed back into the floor.  Helen stomped her away across the room, shaking the cage and tossing us around violently while she showed not a single whit for our safety.  On the far end of the room she flopped down in her chair, making us roll up the sides before dropping back down in a heap. 

 

Helen set the cage down in her lap, the skin from her thighs poking through the small gaps in the mesh.  She gazed intently down at us and released her death grip with one hand, using the other to keep it steady.  “Fuck, I can’t tell you shrinks apart,” she declared, “you’re too damn small.”  She worked the cage’s latch for a moment before becoming frustrated and simply tearing it off now that it was too damaged to open properly.  With a grunt that drowned out the scream of metal she crushed it into a ball then tossed it to the side.

 

“You all look shitty, so I’ll settle this the old-fashioned way,” she boomed.  “Eenie, meenie, miney, moe…” Helen began, pointing a finger at us in turn.  While she selected which of us would die first I gazed up at her in abject terror.  It took considerable strain to look up the colossal torso looming over us, the great white sheet clinging to it spotless.  Her enormous chest commanded the most attention, bobbing slightly each time she jabbed a finger down at us, but something about her face drew my gaze.  Helen was completely stoic while she randomly selected the first victim, her lips mechanically spitting out the syllables while her eyes obediently followed her fingertip. 

 

“I… choose… you,” she slowly finished, pointing at her selection with a sense of grim finality.  By coincidence Helen had picked the guilty party.  It was too much to hope for, but maybe she would spare the rest of us once he was gone.  Her manic smile came back, and I knew that dream was dead before it could even take flight.  We were all guilty in her eyes, and she was our judge, jury, and executioner.

 

Helen’s fingers poked through the opening, her knuckles making it wider as they forced their way through.  In a futile effort to stay alive the most annoying inmate I ever had the misfortune of sharing my cell with began kicking himself backward, begging Helen to spare him.  Her hand easily caught up to him and her fingers engulfed him, two white fingernails replacing him in our view.  He screamed bloody murder while her hand removed him and he tried to grab onto the pliable metal rods for support, but Helen’s fingers alone were stronger than him and he was never able to get a grip.

 

She held her tiny prey up to her lips, keeping him just far enough away that he could not touch them.  We could hear him pleading for his life, but thankfully Helen’s voice soon overpowered his.  “What’s eating me?” she repeated with a chuckle.  “I think you should be more worried about what’s eating you.”  Her lips parted, and he let out a final incoherent scream, then she tossed him insider her mouth to silence him forever.  Helen’s lips sealed behind him, and her jaw worked up and down while she tossed him around in her mouth.  While she battered him with her tongue she loudly smacked her lips, trying to inspire even more fear in us.  Suddenly she tilted her chin back, and with an audible gulp we saw a small lump slide down her throat.

 

Helen opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue, showing us there were no foreign objects inside.  She made an overwrought sound to show us she felt refreshed, then looked at us with renewed curiosity.  “Now that there are fewer of you shitting up my cage I can tell you apart,” she said, while her eyes darted hungrily between us.  I followed her gaze with trepidation, hoping to escape again.  Over my time in the cage I had survived several purges and I hoped to make it through this one, though I had never seen her this frustrated before.

 

Her eyes settled on the other guy, and I let out a sigh of relief.  “You!” Helen said, managing to sound both cheerful and accusatory.  “Learned how to speak yet, or cat still got your tongue?”  He stammered, trying to give her a reply, but was unable to make his tongue and brain work in concert.  “Tell you what, shrink.  If you can beg for your life in a single, coherent sentence, I’ll let you live!”

 

His eyes widened, and his brain kicked into overtime trying to sync with his voice.  “Please… kill… please don’t… bluh… don’t…”  He began to dry heave, covering his hands with his mouth.  I wanted to encourage him, but as he continued trying to violently expel nothing from his stomach it became clear he was beyond help.

 

“Aw, sorry!” Helen said, trying to make her terrifying voice sound cutesy.  “I put you under too much pressure and you got all stressed out!  I can relate, I’ve got a mountain of work to do and a bunch of little shits wasting my time!”  She slid her fingers into the cage, easily catching the man trying to wretch on the floor.  “Maybe we can help each other out, hmm?”  Her fingers withdrew him from the confinement and slid him into her palm.  “I could use a stress ball right about now, and you’d be perfect for one!”

 

Helen covered him with her fingers, covering whatever screams he might have been making.  Her fingertips turned white while she clenched her fist and her brow furrowed in concentration.  She curled her lips outward while her face contorted into a grimace, deep lines forming along her features.  A growl began to escape her throat, growing louder as she squeezed harder.  Soon she was shouting, a long, sustained groan of frustration.  I heard a small crack from her hand, just barely audible beneath her voice, and her cry reached its crescendo with a small drop of blood dribbling out her fist.

 

She closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath, then opened her lids and locked her enormous blue orbs on me.  “Ooh, I feel better already,” she said with a shiver.  Helen placed the heel of her palm on the cage’s corner and dragged it along the mesh, scraping the ruined, mangled corpse of her victim off her hand.  “Hey, you look familiar, how long have you been in this cage?”

 

“A while, Helen,” I answered, hoping I could inspire sympathy with her.  “We met at the opening party of the year.”

 

“Oh yeah!” she exclaimed, drumming her fingers on the loose, ruined metal.  “You were the guy who tried to go drink for drink with me but lost when the cup got too big for his hand, I remember you!”  She tilted her head down and pouted.  “You should really know better than to let the other shrinks pop off by now.”

 

“I know, but they wouldn’t listen to me!” I complained, hoping she would sympathize.  “I promise, it won’t happen again.  I’ll keep the next batch in line.”

 

Helen raised her chin sharply and winced, sucking in air through her teeth.  “I’m sorry, that’s not good enough!” she said, sliding her fingers into the cage again.  “See, you had a job, and you fucked it up royally!  I know you shrinks are a bunch of ungrateful lazy shits, but when your owner gives you a job, she expects you to do it!”  I tried to scoot away from her encroaching fingers, but there was simply nowhere to go.  Her fingers pinched around my legs, holding me still.  With a firm yank she pulled me out of the cage, bashing my head on the frame of the ruined door on my way out.

 

Slowly Helen lifted me to her face, holding me upside down while she looked me over with her stunning eyes.  “Aw, and I was just starting to like you, too!” she said, puffing out her cheeks.  “But you couldn’t even keep other shrinks in line, so I really have no use for you.”  She began moving me to the side, dangling me over her beautiful legs on my way to the floor.

 

“Wait!” I shouted, and she gave me a brief pause.  “Is there anything I can do to change your mind?”

 

“Hmm.  You can try begging for your life!” she suggested cheerily.  “I always love hearing shrinks pleading with me.  ‘No Helen, please don’t kill me!’ they always say.”  Her voice slipped into falsetto while she impersonated a tiny person, then she laughed.  “If you come up with a novel way of begging for your life, I’ll spare you, how’s that sound?”

 

“Deal!” I exclaimed, confident that I could come up with something.

 

“Whatever, I don’t really care!” she replied with a smile.  Helen opened her fingers, releasing me from her grip.  In an instant I plummeted past her knee and down her shin to land on the soft carpet below.  I bounced and rolled, finally coming to a stop against the midsole of her enormous Converse.  With a grunt I grabbed onto the rubber, pulling myself up.  My ankle screamed in pain when I tried to put weight on it, so I leaned against Helen’s shoe while I shook out some of the soreness from my rough trip in captivity.  “I don’t hear begging!”

 

Leaning hard against the black stripe of Helen’s midsole I looked up at her, trying to find some new way to ask for my life.  The smooth skin of her shin reached for the sky like an obelisk, and past the rounded corner of her knee I saw her remarkable face staring down at me.  Her shoe alone was taller than me, even discounting the walls of canvas going up to her ankles.  How the hell was I going to convince her of my worth?  “Time’s running out, shrink!” Helen warned, and I decided to go with whatever spilled out of my mouth first.

 

“Helen, please let me live!” I began.  “I only want to bask in your beauty and radiance for as long as we live, and nothing more!  If you spare me, I’ll do whatever you want and serve you faithfully until the end of my days.  My only desire is to live at your feet as your favored servant, and you can do whatever else you wish with me.”

 

Helen looked at me wide-eyed, and I cheered internally.  It had worked.  “Did you fucking hear yourself just then?” she asked disdainfully.  “You’re pathetic!  I’m pretty sure if I let you live I’ll wake up to you smelling my hair one day or something.  No, you’re too damn creepy to live, bye shrink.”

 

She raised the shoe I was leaning against, causing me to topple forward with a loud cry of pain.  I landed on the carpet and rolled onto my back, giving myself a clear view of Helen’s Converse looming over me.  Her toe twitched back and forth as though she was dancing in her seat, keeping the rhythm as it slowly descended toward me.  I wanted to get up and run but I was exhausted from her abuse, and my ankle would never support me anyway.  Instead I simply resigned myself to my death, glad I could face it head-on.

 

Helen set her shoe down on me with a boom that shook the ground, the dark rubber covering my whole body.  Instead of pressing down she began tapping her toes, slowly beating me into the thick carpet below.  Each time the long diamond pattern of her colossal Converse hit me was accompanied with a thus and sharp pain as I was pushed down further.  There was not even any chance to push back against her shoe, since every tap lasted only an instant and the gigantic sole was gone long before I could muster the strength to bring my arms up.

 

Slowly my ribs began to give way, cracking underneath the constant blows.  I gasped for breath between each strike, but it came in ragged and labored.  Helen accelerated her tapping, hitting me harder and more frequently, and I tried to cry out in pain.  Each blow made me wince and moan from a new wave of pain spreading over my body, and I never had the breath to do anything more significant.  Her blows came faster still, mashing me down into the carpet, and my skin was rubbed raw from the pummeling.  A final attempt to cry out died in a gurgle in my throat, though it was doubtful Helen would care anyway.

 

She lifted her shoe high, presenting the titanic orange-brown sole that would be the harbinger of my destruction.  It lingered above me for a moment while Helen traced circles in the air with her toe, then she brought it screaming down toward me.  I barely even had time to gasp before it was upon me, and with a sudden brilliant flash of agony my body turned to mush beneath her foot.  My body collapsed, softened by the dozens of strikes she had heaped on me before, and easily splattered beneath the sole of her size 15 Converse.

 

Helen ground the toe of her shoe over the mashed corpse of the idiotic shrink.  Did he really think she would let him live under any circumstances?  She had heard every imaginable way someone could beg for their lives by now, and they were all boring.  She stomped on his remains for good measure, making sure there would be nothing even recognizably human left of him, as he had stopped being a person the moment he became tiny.  When she was satisfied she turned her chair toward her desk and turned the computer on.  Now that she had gotten all that stress out, she could get to work on those papers.

Chapter End Notes:

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