Before Adela broke Martin’s mind, about a year after I left them together, he was still optimistic about his future, though unhappy. He was probably never meant to be a slave, and he certainly, at least at his deepest and most private level, loathed and dreaded the tasks that Adela assigned him. Whereas with Holly, I got the feeling that she brought me into a truer relationship with myself and what I wanted and needed, that she drew desires out of me that had been latent and asleep my whole life until I met her – with Adela, Martin was constantly fighting, pitting his desires against hers, though he might not have known it. He failed, of course – there was no possible way he could have beaten her. But now I feel like I won, I feel like there’s a reason for everything in this world, and everything is beginning to make sense for me in a way I never would have expected before I met Holly and Chloe and everyone else. I feel like I was meant to be here, like I belong.

Anyway, before Adela broke him, and just before Jennifer took me away, he said something to me (he had a philosophical bent, and maybe in another life he would have come to something). He said that the prospect of a year, much less a lifetime, underfoot inspires even the most well-adjusted of slaves with horror, were he or she to think of it once or twice, in the dark, close, dank confines of their prison. So don’t think about it! he said. Before you know it, a day has passed, and then a month, the springtime, the year, the decade, and your (or, less likely, her) life. Don’t think at all! Or, think only of what you can do for your mistress, and you’ll find plenty, more than enough, to occupy all your spare time. People are always discontent (Adela was, particularly) – after one pain or sorrow is cured, we find another one hiding below it. It’s not our incapacity for absolute happiness that makes us discontent, but a faulty and imprecise understanding of the complex nature of our state of unhappiness. Once the most urgent cause of worry or stress is removed, to our amazement we always find another lying just beneath.

I thought of this, in Chloe’s shoe. It was very true. After my hunger was satisfied with the half-chewed pieces Chloe laid out for me in the sweaty, rubbery smudge at the heel of her house flats, I began to feel another kind of emptiness and discontent. It’s incredible how many desires seem to sleep inside us dormant, until someone draws them out. Like Holly, and her feet, and being her slave. Embarrassing as it is to admit, even now, I missed her, and everything.

But there wasn’t time for me to dwell on this: Chloe nudged me back under her toes, still pungent from her heels, warm and rather sweaty from the shoe’s heat, and played with me for a while. She wriggled her toes, squeezing me absently, as her muffled voice talked with Jennifer and Abigail above. It was a friendly kind of play, a friendliness that made me feel guilty for my deception earlier. I felt the need to apologize to her, to make it up to her somehow, and little by little began to lick her flushed skin, in the little hollow between her first and second toe. After the first several licks, I tasted her toejam and sweat on my tongue, and felt the bile rise abruptly in my throat. But I kept it down, and continued to lick until she stood up and walked away from the table.



Chloe gently wiped the film from my eyes, and smiled at me: “Who taught you that, Meredith?”

“Holly did,” I said. I gagged again, thinking of the smell and taste and dampness and heat of Chloe’s feet.

“It’s okay. Let it out, if you have to. Take it slowly.” She eyed me keenly, and then sat down next to me on the bed. I slipped down the little declivity formed between us by her weight, and collided into her panties – feeling very awkward and helpless. She stood up, and I fell farther down, into the vacant space she’d just left. Stripping off her panties and bra, she hunted around the room for a towel, and then prepared herself in front of the mirror, tossing up her hair in the back, and binding it with a pin.

“I’ll be back in a minute, my little girl,” she said to me, turning around. “Wait for me.”

I was restless. Did I “come on too strong”? I should have struggled and refused to oblige her. I shouldn’t have fought against my disgust – I shouldn’t have tried to overcome my nausea. I thought, “She’ll despise me for being overeager, overanxious to make her happy, just like Holly did.” For the five minutes, while the shower ran, I curled myself up into a ball, in the deep hollow in the comforter where Chloe had just taken a seat, and rubbed my hands against my cold legs, up and down. All of a sudden I felt exposed, unsafe in the open air and sunlight. Chloe was loudly humming some melody. I listened to her sing.

“Meredith,” Chloe called to me, as she slid back the shower door. “Meredith, how would you like to meet someone new today?” Her wet feet pattered about on the floor, and then she started to towel herself. “Her name is Emma.” She turned on the water, and I heard her brushing her teeth.

She spat, and then walked back in the room, wearing only her smile, and maybe a hairpin or two (she had it pulled up in a loose, braided bun).  “Well?” she asked.

I swallowed. “Emma?”

She turned to her dresser, an old hardwood piece, and rummaged around until she found a pair of panties. The intimacy of the moment, and her nonchalance, threw me off my guard. She slipped on the panties, and then picked up her used bra, and quickly snapped it in place.

“What time is it? Nine?” I nodded, though I wasn’t sure. “Then we’ll meet her at twelve, for lunch.”

I nodded again, and waited for instructions.

“Meredith, I’m going to paint until twelve, and then we’ll join Abigail and Emma together. Where are my shoes?”

I looked around the room. In the closet, my eye caught a pair of paint-encrusted ballet flats, tossed devil-may-care in a pile of other shoes. She found them at the same time.

“Remember your promise,” she said, as she snatched up in her right hand. “And if you’re very good, we might have some fun later.”
 
Chloe seemed genuinely pleased with me, and I for one trusted her. Crafty and intelligent she might be, but she seemed to me, at bottom, remarkably sane and well-adjusted to the world, and in total control not only of her household but her body. (Compared to Adela – with whom I never knew how I stood, because she was a girl who’d change demands and moods on the turn of a dime, perhaps impossible to satisfy. I didn’t envy Martin.) I only wondered: was she married once? What did this woman do?

“Okay,” I said. “I just want to make you happy.”

“I know you do. You're a little doll, aren't you? Very interesting.” There was hard little glint in her eye, that suggested there was something else, something more, behind the infantilizing speech and friendly tone of voice. Maybe she was genuinely interested in my reaction, in how much I could take. I wouldn’t disappoint her. I was determined not only not to let her down, but to exceed her expectations (though not too much, that inner voice said, again – you must not do too much – or she’ll hate you, she’ll really hate you).

So there was for the next two hours, underneath her foot one more. Her flat reeked with a sharp, mind-altering stench beyond all description. Crushed under her toes, dewy at first from the shower, and smelling like spring grass, I had little air to breathe in that asphyxial space, and found myself going light-headed. A half-hour passed, and her curling, fidgeting toes began to heat up and sweat. Every time her toes curled over my head, I made some movement in response. What was she thinking about, I wondered. Was she biting her lip, her brush suspended in her hand, as she considered where and how to apply it, or pondered over the expression on a face, the movement of a wing, or a leg? I felt very close to her, almost as close as one person can be to another – and was very happy, despite the fact I felt myself passing out.

After an hour, the sharp vinegary odor began to dissipate, and soon I no longer smelled it at all. Time passed more quickly, and I continued to lick, and swallow – and there were times, in my delirium, I went too far and hugged one of her toes, or tried to play with her by trying to push them off me, to roll myself under them or in between them, punching them half-roughly. But this kind of play quickly exhausted me, and I went back to rubbing, licking, and swallowing. Life underfoot, in the dark heat of a woman’s shoe, always seems to move in cycles. I always knew what Holly or Adela were doing, and could almost determine what they were thinking, how they were feeling, by the way their feet moved and felt, smelled or tasted, inside their shoes: whether they were nervous, angry, horny, sleepy, thoughtful, moody, and so on. There was a special kind of closeness, of oneness with a woman that I could never find elsewhere. I cherished it, and wanted more than anything to have it with Chloe.

I don’t know exactly when it ended. But I heard a loud, wet sound like a suction cup, and felt Chloe’s fingers around me, bringing me back into the bright, late morning sunshine. Little by little, my eyes opened up, adjusting to the brightness. I was on the bed again, and Chloe was sifting out clothes again in her dresser. The painting was covered, and the shoes were still underneath the wooden easel, shucked off until next time.

“What’s your destiny?” Chloe asked me, while twisting her way into a close-fitting blouse. “What are you here for?”

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully.

“I didn’t think so. Then I’ll tell you what I think.” She turned around and faced me. “You’re a domestic. You don’t leave the house alone. You’re a survivor, but only because you’re a slave to someone who can lead you – you found me, and you’ll stay with me now. I know that. And that’s why Holly sold you to me. Do you know that?”

“I’ll stay with you, Chloe,” I heard myself say.

“Good. And I want you to stay with me. You’ll make a splendid foot-slave, Meredith. I know you will.”



Abigail was seated at the table, in the dining room. And I will never forget what I saw there, seated in the head place. A tiny woman, about six inches tall, was stretched out on a miniature chaise longue, in full armor. Two women my own height, two inches high each, waited on her with warm dishes. And, if it can be believed, on one of those dishes , I counted four miniscule men, each one as large as my hand.

“’Bout time, bimbos. I’m starving.” One of the men approached her, and her bejeweled hand swept across the tray with indifference, and snatched up two of the little men. One she popped into her mouth immediately, and the other she fingered for a while, watching him curiously as she chewed open-mouthed.

Quickly, I glanced over at Abigail – who returned my look – and vomited.