I woke with a short, sharp yelp as my body crashed to the floor. It took me a moment to blink away the fog of my suddenly interrupted sleep, grumbling under my breath as I did so, but when I finally opened my eyes enough to see I realized I was back to my normal size, staring up at Chloe from the ground.
“I allowed you to rest last night,” she began, the faintest hint of terrifying impatience mingling with the honeyed tones of her voice, “but this is a big day for us, and if you want to replace that girl you crushed…”
For some reason I moaned softly at that point, but Chloe continued on without seeming to have noticed. “...You’ll have several new responsibilities to consider. First on your list is our morning run.”
Her outfit made a bit more sense now. My addled brain hadn’t quite pieced together how unexpected (and strangely exciting) it was to see her wearing so little. Her sports bra was white with crimson straps and trim, and her tiny shorts were of the same bright red hue. "Come on," she entreated with relatively firm nudge at my side with the bottom of her bare foot. I started to pull myself up from the floor and her foot gave my backside a bit of further encouragement, nudging me towards a little table beside her bedroom chair.
A long pair of brilliant white tube socks were laid across it, and a pair of lightly worn or perhaps just immaculately cared for running sneakers that matched the same blazing red of her shorts sat in front. The fact that Chloe had dressed herself but left the footwear to me didn't escape me for a moment, but I well knew by now how such things satisfied her, and that alone was enough to make the task more than pleasing.
With the socks draped over my bare shoulder and my fingers hooked inside the heels of the shoes, I scooted back across the floor to their owner, who was already settling back onto the side of her bed in preparation for my services. I noticed the familiar, pleasing scent of her soles mingling with the materials of her shoes before I set them back on the floor, and as I stretched her socks out across my lap I found myself marvelling at how quickly I had learned her fragrance and how reassuring I seemed to find it.
Her toes stretched towards me expectantly, and I scrunched the cuff down and started to slide the first sock up over her heel and toned, smooth and slender leg, thoroughly enjoying the feel of the soft, stretchy fabric slowly encompassing its fantastically firm curves.
Two bands of that same blazing red interrupted the smooth expanse of plush pure white wrapped around that thigh, the stripes perfectly bringing together her outfit. I let my fingertips slide over those stripes for a moment with a happy sigh, but when I risked a glance up I immediately ceased my somewhat indulgent behavior.
True, I expected Chloe would have enjoyed it as well, but when I met her eyes, even though it wasn’t like she was frowning or glaring at me, but the simple lack of her persistent self-satisfied smile was enough to startle me.
“We have a busy day ahead of us,” she gently scolded, pushing her other foot towards my face. This time I was far more efficient with slipping on her tall sock, and was equally swift with fitting her running shoes to her feet, letting her use my fingers as a guide to push her heels into the back. The little bit of pain was well worth it, and I set to work tightening and firmly tying the laces.
The moment I pulled the second bow taut she rose to her feet and pushed past me. I had to reach back and brace myself to keep from tumbling over from my position on my knees, and by the time I turned she was already picking up a little strappy white athletic bag. “Carry this,” she flatly instructed, tossing it towards my face. I think I only managed to catch it as a defensive reaction, but before I could even make a sound of protest she had already left the room on the way to the door.
“What… what am I going to wear?” I timidly called out after her while I pulled myself up from the floor.
“No time for that,” she replied, and I heard the latch clicking open and the creak of the hinges as the front door swung wide.
I hesitated, clutching the little bag to my chest and fretting as I glanced around for anything to throw on, but Chloe’s room, like everything in her life, was immaculately maintained. The sound of the door clicking shut spurred me to action, though, and with a little whimper of frustrated protest I scampered along after her.
I caught a glimpse of Malva as I opened the door. She was still fast asleep, sprawled out and snoring on the couch, and once again I envied her as I slipped out into the hallway with nothing but my underwear and a little bag to hide behind. I hustled to catch up to Chloe, matching her stride once I'd scuttled down the hall and obediently following at her heels with that bag tightly clutched to my chest like some sort of shield. If I focused on my task, carrying that bag and following Chloe to wherever it was she was heading.
We popped into the elevator and thankfully, much as my the last time coming through the building’s hallways, no other people were around. I realized that the two times I’d been outside of Chloe’s apartment since I met her were yesterday, when I stumbled through in a delirious fog after… mm, crushing Shauna… and the day that I met her, when she carried my tiny and terrified form home in her bag.
There was a soft chime as the elevator slowed to a halt, but Chloe showed no signs of moving so I stayed rigidly still at her side. The door slid open and revealed a lovely dark-haired woman wearing a blazer of the same brilliant red that accented Chloe’s running outfit, a pair of dark, painted-on jeans and towering platform stilettos that perfectly matched her blazer’s shade.
She glanced up from the papers she carried and took a long pause once she noticed us, her blank expression quickly twisting to a tremendously amused grin before she noisily stepped onto the elevator with us.
Chloe greeted her with a nod. “Helen,” she uttered while giving the approaching woman a warm smile.
“Hello, Madame Leader,” she murmured in this low, sultry voice. Was everyone in the new Team Flare some sort of stylish goddess? I started to look Helen over a little, but when she failed to turn back towards the door like I’d expect most people to do in an elevator and instead took a step in my direction, turning her full attention to me, I made this little muffled abbreviated whimpering sound as I swallowed, my eyes widening with my shock and shame.
“Who’s your new little friend?” she inquired, slipping a finger underneath my chin and encouraging me to meet her gaze. Between her towering heels and the fact that I was sort of recoiling from her, wishing I could coil into a ball and hide, I had to somewhat crane my neck to look up at her. I stared into her eyes and in them I saw traces of the same exquisite confidence and power that helped make Chloe so spectacular, but there was also this… hunger, this terrifying hunger in her that made me want to sprint through those elevator doors and find someplace to hide.
“You don’t recognize our League Champion? That’s Lucy,” Chloe casually replied, seemingly unaware of the danger and discomfort I was in, continuing to watch the blinking numbers above the door.
“I guess I didn’t recognize her without one of those dingy outfits and stupid hats,” the other woman murmured in that same low voice that just dripped with dark sensuality. The backs of her fingers started to graze along my neck and cheek, and her thumb gently pressed against my jaw, turning my head slightly so she could get a better look at me. “She’s cuter than I remember,” she continued, the two of them talking about me like some sort of inanimate object, like this subhuman thing that wasn’t even there. I shuddered and tried to pull away, feeling as small and helpless and exposed as if I was trapped in my tiny Flare Ball, but the wall was behind me. There was nowhere for me to go. “You should let her come and visit, maybe spend the night,” she added, and the way she bit her lower lip dragged another tiny, timid whimper from me.
“Helen!” Chloe turned to look at her now, though there was this playful undertone to her rebuke that somehow tainted my relief. “You’ll have plenty of girls to play with when we’ve completed our mission, now leave mine alone.”
The elevator dinged again and the door slid open, but Helen’s eyes stayed locked with mine as she responded, patting my cheek as she did so. “And boys, Leader. I want some boys, too. They’re almost as fun.” With that she turned and left, leaving me to catch my breath as I watched her stroll away, her hips swaying with each crisscrossing, clomping step.
I wanted to crawl into the corner and disappear. I wanted… I wanted Chloe to put me back in my Ball and shove me somewhere deep in this bag I was carrying and not let me out until we were back in her bedroom. I wanted the chance to curl up somewhere and cry, but the elevator dinged again, and Chloe was stepping through the doors. The thought of not following closely at her heels never crossed my mind, it wasn’t even a choice. I could take some small comfort in the fact that she’d at least called me hers, and if nothing else I found a little pride in that public declaration of possession.
I belong to you, I thought as we moved into a wide open space. I kept myself fully focused on Chloe, though I could tell from the sounds of equipment and the faint, lingering smells of sweat that we were in some sort of gym. I’m your girl I mentally declared as we climbed the stairs to the running track, trying to overcome the oppressive feeling of dozens of eyes watching my nearly naked body.
We reached the top of the stairs and I followed Chloe to a little bench positioned alongside the rounded running track. She settled onto it and turned back towards me, leaving me to stand before her and nervously fidget with one of the straps on her bag while I listened to the increasingly frequent whispers mingling with the otherwise uncommon silence. Yours. I tried to comfort myself again with my mantra, blocking out anything that wasn’t her. Hearing her voice giving me instruction only helped me focus.
“Have a seat,” she directed me, and I took a relieved breath along with a step towards the bench. I didn’t make it any further than that first step, though, as her leg shot out and the bottom of her sneaker buried itself in the bare flesh of my belly, keeping me from any more forward movement. What was I thinking? She hadn’t even let me wear clothes, so why did I think I’d be allowed to sit with her on the bench? Maybe just since we were here, with all these other people, she’d let me be treated like a normal person…
“Sit.” Her voice was a touch more firm, but she hadn’t lost that warm, casual smile. Obviously I dropped to the floor like a ton of rocks, almost as embarrassed by my presumption as I was by my nakedness. Her outstretched leg remained extended towards me, coming to rest across her knee, I could feel the color draining from my face as her shoe’s mostly white sole stretched closer to it.
“Lick,” she instructed, leaving me to finish completely blanching as I was faced with a reality I probably should have expected. I didn’t even know how many other people were here, but of course I would be the only one mortified by their presence. Chloe was superior and separate from anyone else, and I wanted to please her and fulfill her expectations, but I just hadn’t been prepared for all this. Of course she would expect to be treated with the same level of deference whether we were in the privacy of her home or not. I opened my mouth, ready to try and stammer some explanation about all of these things, but Chloe’s own voice cut me off.
“I’ll have better traction with the dust removed from my soles,” she sighed, her smile fading almost completely as I forced her to inconvenience herself by spelling things out for me. “I’m sure you don’t want me slipping, hmm?”
A little color returned to my face now, and all of it was red. I was going to apologize before she added one more thing, leaving me to fully flush and stare at the ground in my shame.
“Shauna never would have hesitated.”
I stewed in a sea of swirling, conflicting emotions, but Chloe didn’t want me to think and she didn’t want me to feel. “Lick,” she repeated, but I was already leaning towards her foot. My tongue met her heel and she helped me with my task, dragging the rubber sole of her sneaker down across my tongue as I lapped at it. I heard the whispers even more clearly now, and even a passing chuckle from somewhere around, but I was so overwhelmed with my multiple layers of shame that I didn’t dare let myself so much as glance anywhere else besides the bottom of Chloe’s shoe. In fact, I mostly kept my eyes shut, only opening them here and there to check my position and my progress.
She seemed satisfied that her first shoe was appropriately cleaned and slowly recrossed her legs, letting me start licking its underside as well. I still trembled a little to hear the strange voices around us, and some small part of me wished I could be anywhere but here, but there was also an element of security in knowing I was doing exactly what I was supposed to. I allowed myself to offer a tiny kiss at the tip of her shoe once I’d reached the top, and the subtle murmur of approval I heard encouraged me tremendously as I bent down to let my tongue start again at her heel.
A couple of voices much closer than the rest tempered my encouragement a little bit. They were either close enough or noisy enough that I could even make out some of the conversation. I made out the phrase “training a new house pet” from the man before the woman broke into laughter loud enough to be jarring against the background of hushed whispers.
I felt Chloe’s shoe slowly pulling away from me, and this time when I opened my eyes I felt secure enough to glance up at her, watching her head slowly turn to regard the two, a young man and woman dressed for running as well. “Come here, grunt,” she ordered.
The two stopped dead and stared at each other briefly before the woman gave the man a little shove forward and beat a hasty retreat back down the stairs. I watched him take a deep breath and swallow hard as he timidly approached.
“Leader?” he asked, his voice breaking a bit as he did so.
“I think you owe the Kalos League Champion an apology, grunt,” she flatly declared, keeping her legs crossed and wrapping her hands around her knee. “Stand up, Lucy,” she added, not bothering to turn back to me and allow the intimidated man a moment’s reprieve from her withering gaze.
I slowly pulled myself back up off of the ground, still giving most of my attention to Chloe. Now that she was focused elsewhere and now that I’d done as she asked neither of us were really lingering on my earlier failings, but if I turned and looked at this other guy that meant I’d have to deal with the fact that he was looking back at me.
I did steal a brief glance, though. He was a few years younger than Chloe, but maybe not quite as young as I was. Close, perhaps. He turned towards me and I instantly looked away, but as he began to stammer, “I’m… very sorry, Miss,” I felt compelled to turn and face him. My arms wrapped awkwardly around my body, one across my breasts as I rubbed my shoulder and the other at my waist, instinctively trying to cover up as best I could.
I started to nod, but Chloe wasn’t about to be satisfied with that. She slowly rose to her feet, taking an easy step towards us. She drew up alongside me, folding her arms across her chest and shaking her head once. “No. No, I don’t think that’s quite good enough.”
He looked back at her, twitching and blinking, but she wasn’t going to leave him without instructions. “I think you should get down on your knees and beg for her forgiveness.”
His lips parted, perhaps in surprise or perhaps he originally thought he might say something in reply, but either way he made the only decision a person can make when Chloe gives an order.
He obeyed.
I watched as he slowly knelt before me, and when I took a moment to glance over at Chloe I took a little reassurance from her confident smirk. “I’m sorry, Miss Lucy,” he carefully repeated. “Please forgive me.”
I took a deep breath, watching the nervous man kneeling for me and anxiously awaiting some sort of absolution, but again Chloe spoke first. “Sweetheart,” she began, immediately drawing my attention with the uncommon affection in her voice. I turned to her as she smiled, relaxing her posture a bit before she continued. “It wouldn’t hurt to have your soles cleaned as well before we take the track.”
“Huh?” I responded in unison with the kneeling grunt.
“Provided you think his rude tongue’s not too undeserving of your feet,” she continued without missing a beat. Her eyes shifted to look him over, though she stayed turned towards me. “This little nothing needs to be reminded of his place,” she finished with the barest hint of a sneer.
Her words resonated with me as I looked back at him, this semi-attractive and athletic but wholly vacant man staring back at me with his brow furrowed, so obnoxiously perplexed. Nothing, I silently rolled the word through my mind, letting the idea really sink in. Who was he to get off with making comments about me, anyhow? I mean, I was the Champion. I’d beaten everyone I’d ever come up against except for Chloe. I was the best and most famous trainer in all of Kalos, but even more than that, I was Chloe’s. He was probably just some doofus who’d paid his five million with his family’s money and bought his membership like the other dumb saps that Chloe used like financial livestock. Disrespecting me was the same as disrespecting her, and if he or anyone else thought they could get away with that, they had another thing coming.
I narrowed my eyes and took a step towards him. “Lay down,” I demanded, sounding more polite than I meant to. He still seemed to not quite understand what was going on, but I was more than happy to help clear up the confusion. I raised my foot and heavily planted it on his shoulder, forcing him to awkwardly tumble back from his knees. “Down,” I firmly enunciated when he caught himself on his elbow. He was already starting to do as I said anyhow, but I slammed my heel down on his chest for good measure, helping force him to the floor.
I felt the eyes on me still, but I’d quickly moved past caring about them. In fact, it was good if they watched, since they probably deserved the same sort of treatment. Now that I had this idiot pinned beneath my heel, I started to feel a little more than just anger driving me. There was some hint of those feelings I’d had with Malva, in the bathtub or at the boutique, they started to seep into me.
I looked into his eyes and saw that he was afraid. Did he just not expect this from me? Or was it Chloe that frightened him so? Either way, I was hers. I was her instrument and if he was afraid of her, he should damn well be afraid of me. I gradually pushed my bare foot along his high-performance exercise shirt, along his throat and across his chin, keeping my weight on it as it moved. “You heard her. Lick it,” I growled as my toes ground against his mouth and slid further forward, mashing his nose beneath them. I was surprised by how low and throaty my voice sounded as I spoke, but it didn’t bother me. Nothing bothered me right now.
His tongue pushed forward as best as it could, dragging along whatever part of my wrinkled sole he could reach. It was warm and exhilarating, but it also tickled a lot more than I expected it to. Every time I had the urge to chuckle and pull my foot away, though, I just stepped down harder, bringing these pained little moans out of him. I knew I was hurting him and suddenly I was more than fine with that. Let the little jerk suffer for once in his life. Besides, it felt good. Suddenly I wasn’t afraid or ashamed, I had an outlet for all of that emotion, and if someone was going to pay for making me feel that way and for everything that had been taken from me and for Calen and Shauna and… and…
I’d stopped caring about him licking my foot at some point, and now I was just smashing him underneath it, grinding his own saliva into his eyes and twisting the ball of my foot into his skull. I didn’t remember feeling his nose crunch, but there was enough blood on his face that I guessed it might have broken. Chloe had stepped around him and taken my hand, and when I glanced up at her I found some serenity again in her warm, approving and seemingly delighted smile. I looked down at the man beneath my foot, and before I let him go I raised it a little, giving his head one short and swift firm stomp. “Remember this next time you think about so much as looking at me,” I called back to him as Chloe pulled me away, but as we headed for the track I matched her easy and confident stride, wearing my own little grin.
“Ready?” she asked, doing a few stretches before we took off, and I nodded while doing my best to imitate her. A moment later, we were on our way, neither of us noticing or caring about the battered man scooping himself up off of the ground and clutching his face as he scurried away.