Jokes had been made every once in a while about the possibility of a group meet-up, but in reality it had never been remotely practical; most of the regulars in the online chat were either desperately poor, woefully introverted or simply had no honest desire to meet face to face. However, with the advent of a certain administrative chat member coming into an absurd amount of money all at once, the idea was suddenly brought back to the table with a more serious tinge than before.

Several polite rejections, many enthusiastic acceptances and one very large airline receipt later, the regulars were ready to meet for the first time. Emma felt no particular urge to invite a bunch of relative strangers into her home, so rather than host the entire get-together at her house she instead booked a rather pricey room at a hotel in the nearby city. It was enough to fit almost everyone quite snugly, though a few people would have to crash on the floor.

Everyone in the group had some slight reservations about the coming meeting, each quietly sure it was going to be a total disaster. And yet, in spite of every reason why the get-together could conceivably have been an absolute failure, things went remarkably well. After the proper introductions had been made and the folks had gotten used to the reality of seeing each-other in the flesh, the entire affair had pretty much instantly devolved into a cavalcade of playing cards, console gaming, junk food and terrible, terrible humour.  

There had been some minor confusion as to remembering people’s real names, which hadn’t at all been helped by ETZ’s writing “Nametag a Shit” on her own. Ultimately it was unanimously decided that calling people by their usernames was a perfectly acceptable alternative to keep things simple. In the end, at 3am, almost everyone had wound up passing out in front of the television. All the bed mattresses had been dragged out and thrown down for folks to sleep on, leaving just the couch for those who remained awake.

The only two people who still fought on into the early hours of the morning were Emma and James, sprawled across the sofa and using the unconscious Binary as a foot-rest as he snoozed on the floor in front of them. Controllers rattled in hand as James half-heartedly watched Parasoul get hurled around the on-screen stage by Filia. Despite the brutality of the beating, he got the distinct impression that Emma was still taking it easy on him.

“Yeah okay, fuck this game; any chance we could play something we’ve both played before?”

“Well sure, if you’re sick of getting stomped in Skullgirls you can put on Brawl instead.” Emma responded with an amused smirk, her bare feet still idly rubbing back and forth across Binary’s sleeping face. James hauled himself up off the couch with a groan, stumbling across the minefield of snoozing bodies to swap the games over. He glanced down at Binary as he returned to the couch, suppressing a chuckle at the sight of his face contorting under the press of Emma’s toes.

“He’d be a happy man if he was still awake.”

“If he was still awake I wouldn’t be doing it; it’s no fun if they’re willing.” A mutual grin appeared on their face as James settled back down, the Brawl logo illuminating the room as the game booted up.

“Well fair enough, at least he’s probably having some sort of wonderful foot-based dream.”

“Maybe,” Emma conceded as the light from the screen reflected off her glasses, concealing the expression in her eyes as her smile tightened into something indecipherable, “maybe he’s dreaming about being slowly compressed and crushed into a splattered mess under the feet of a rampaging giantess…” her upper lip withdrew into a wider smile, her teeth glinting beneath as she continued in a more casual tone, “or maybe he’s just trying to open a leather bag with his face. Either way.”

“Also a distinct possibility.” James agreed, picking out a character and pausing with the cursor hovering over the ‘Name’ option. “Of course, it’s a good thing for you that your thing is feet – if you were a butt person I’m pretty sure that indulging yourself would probably kill him.”

“Pfft, he’d love it. And let’s face it, if I wanted to kill him, I could.” With a subtle shift of her feet, she gently positioned her soles on the sides of Binary’s head, her toes gripping on slightly. “One quick twist with the heels and bam: neck snap.”

“That’d be such a lame way to go. At least being suffocated under a butt has some delight to it, some hint of the weight of the person who is smothering you. Having your neck snapped would be just… the worst.”

“You just don’t appreciate the subtleties of feet. If Binary was awake he would agree with me, it’s not about the neck snap, it’s about having your life ended by a pair of nice, big feet. It’s the lowest part of the body, the part that keeps the rest of you up out of the dirt and the muck. You weren’t strangled to death by something as respectable as the hands, you’re not being sat on by something as overly sexualized as a butt… you’re being ended by the most humiliating part of the body; you ARE the dirt that’s being crushed underfoot.”

The more she spoke, the tighter she pressed her soles against Binary’s face; and judging by the tone of her voice, it was taking quite a bit of effort not to press down harder. James just scoffed.

“Most humiliating? Surely you jest; why do you think the phrase ‘Kiss my Ass’ holds so much weight amongst the general cultural vocabulary? Sure, you could argue that feet hold more of a place in the arena of domination; Nazi jackboots, ‘Being brought to heel’, ‘getting stomped’ as you so eloquently said earlier. Heck, even ‘getting your ass kicked’ could help your argument. But humiliation? Butts have so much more authority in the arena of humiliation.”

“No way; history has a long, glorious history of referring to those who sucked up to Queens as ‘boot lickers’. Feet kissing has been a sign of submission for thousands of years; the physical admission by an inferior party that they are beneath someone far greater than them.”

“Ha. The way you describe it almost makes it sound like you’re implying that kissing someone’s foot is somehow more degrading than kissing their butt – the part of the body widely regarded as being one of the grossest for obvious reasons. It’s their backside, a part of the body that is ostensibly completely harmless. Feet are often used for violence and mayhem, so being forced to kiss one is more respectable than being forced to kiss a soft, pillowy mass of flesh that would need the entire weight of your body above it to do anything.”

“Well yes, but put it this way. Would you rather kiss a butt, or kiss a foot?”

“A butt, clearly. Anytime, anywhere. Butts forever.”

“Exactly; you would prefer kissing an ass because ultimately, it’s less degrading than kissing a foot.”

“… That’s not wha-“

“In today’s world, it’s far more culturally acceptable to be a lover of asses than a lover of feet. And since humiliation and domination is the name of the game, being forced to kiss a foot is much, much worse. A lot more people want to kiss butts than kiss feet.”

“Well, lucky for you you’ve found yourself in a room with a fine selection of folks who would be happy to kiss your feet for you.”

“Hehe, yeah, and that’s all well and good, but again – they’d be enjoying it just as much… and I’m not sure. I mean, it’d be great having a bunch of folks kneeling in front of me like that, no doubt, but I’d trade all of them in for a single person who genuinely didn’t want to be there – but had to anyway.”

“Good luck with that one; the troublesome thing about getting someone who doesn’t want to do it is that they won’t do it ‘cause they don’t want to.” James chuckled at the overly bloated bit of wordplay. Emma cocked her head slightly and looked over at him.

“Are you implying that you wouldn’t kiss my feet if I told you to?”

James returned her look and raised an eyebrow.

“… You serious? Of course I wouldn’t; I mean, beyond the fact that feet just aren’t my cup of tea by any stretch of the imagination… I simply wouldn’t give you the satisfaction.” He grinned at her, her own smile considerably icier as she remained silent for a few moments.

“Hm. Would you kiss my ass if I told you to?”

His entire face tingled and his smile faded slightly, a blush appearing in his cheeks as he released a faint chuckle.

“No doubt. But since we both know that butts aren’t your thing either, I’m pretty confident that that’ll never happen.”

“So you’d kiss my butt… but not my feet.”

“Correct; butts are awesome, feet are gross.”

“Interesting. Tell you what, I enjoy a spot of gambling now and then, and I’m willing to make you an offer.”

James’s heart skipped a beat as the words sank into his head. He could see where this was going and Emma knew it; the look on her face told him that the words she was about to speak were simply a confirmative formality.

“By your own admission, you’ve been playing Smash Bros for roughly as long as I have, since the days of the old Nintendo 64. So it should be a pretty fair contest… Normally I’m not one for fair contests as you well know, but if it means there’s a better chance of you accepting my terms, I’ll let that slide.”

“Let me guess.” James responded wryly, “If I beat you, then you’ll let me kiss your ass?”

“Bingo. But,” she paused with a smirk, “when I beat you, you have to kiss my feet. Not a quick peck either, a proper, submissive kiss. You will have to get right down on your knees and kiss for a full minute… and admit that I’m better than you, and…” she added as an afterthought, “you will have to admit that feet are better than butts.”

“Pfft, not happening. It’s not worth it.”

“What if I offer to pull my pants down for the butt kiss?”

The blush fully solidified as James replayed the statement in his head to make sure he hadn’t completely misheard.

“I… beg your pardon? That doesn’t sound very like you at all.”

“Normally I wouldn’t, but this is a rare opportunity. This isn’t some cheesy chatroom admission, and I know you really don’t want to do it… and that’s what will make it so very sweet when you actually do. Sure, if everyone else was awake or this was during the day I would probably just drop it here… but I’m willing to wager quite a lot. You wouldn’t be allowed to tell anyone of course, otherwise I would legitimately kill you,” she grinned wolfishly, “but to give you something of equal value to strive for, if you can actually beat me, I will stand in front of you, drop my pants – but not underwear – and sit on your face for a full minute. I’ll even bounce if you think you can handle it.”

Judging by the look on his face, James’s mind had gone to a very different place. Silence hovered in the air as he considered the proposal. After fifteen seconds, he looked Emma in the eye, a confident glint in his gaze as he held out his hand.

“Deal.”

Emma flashed a toothy smile and held out her own hand, taking James’s firmly and shaking it in agreement.

“Cool, I look forward to putting you in your place.”

“I agree; I can’t wait to see what you’ve got on under those jeans.”

Both players went silent after that. All jokes aside, once they got started they were both extremely competitive. The selected criterion was a simple game of lives, and as the match played out, the score remained fairly even on both sides. Generations of skill progression showed themselves as the two exchanged blows, sending characters flying left and right; last-second counters and precision strikes thrown back and forth.

Towards the last leg of the match, it looked like Emma was losing steam; she was two stock down below James, her character re-spawning for their final life.

“Now don’t you back out on our deal now,” James said breathlessly, relaxing slightly as he prepared to knock down that last obstacle, “I promise I won’t tell a soul, but I don’t want you playing any ‘gentleman’ cards on me to make me refuse the prize.”

An amused laugh escaped Emma’s lips as she replied with immense satisfaction, “Oh James, you really have no idea. This has been an amusing little show, but you really are just as much of an insect at this game as you were at Skullgirls; you may know the controls better, but you’re still going to get stomped.”

As she finished the sentence, she let her avatar drop down off their re-spawn platform. James chuckled at the cocky statement, but the smile quickly faded from his face as he found himself completely unable to lay a finger on her. At first he thought it was just end-game nerves, but it was more than that; every attack was foreseen, every block was met with a grapple. From the moment she started her last life to the moment the match ended, he didn’t inflict a single point of damage.

There was no reaction from James at first, his fingers squeezing the controller so tightly they’d gone white. He’d leaned forwards in the heat of the contest, and now he found himself unable to settle back onto the couch, not entirely willing to accept what had just happened.

“Crunch.”

Emma settled back onto the couch, gently placing the Wii-mote down on the arm of the chair and turning with a look of wicked anticipation on her face to look at James as he remained frozen in place.

“Down on the floor.” The tone was calm enough on the surface, but she knew how much of an impact they’d have. James didn’t move. His entire face burned with distaste for the reality of the situation as he made himself glance over at Emma’s feet. They weren’t dirty or anything, despite her walking around the hotel room barefoot the entire day, and he imagined that someone who was themselves a lover of feet would’ve found them deeply attractive… but he wasn’t one of those people - and the notion of it still repulsed him.

“Not enough room?” Emma asked with a tauntingly casual tinge, “Easily fixed.” Planting both feet against the side of Binary’s mattress, she shifted the entire thing to the side with a strength you wouldn’t have guessed just from looking at her. James’s gut felt cold, but still, he let the controlled tumble to the couch beside him as he rose from his sitting position.

He didn’t quite make it to a stand however before his knees failed him and he wound up on his hands and knees, his body trying to take control before he went through with it. Crawling over, he dared not look Emma in the face, though he could tell exactly how she looked.

The satisfaction was entirely undisguised on her as Emma’s toes wriggled in excitement, her left foot poking James in the torso as he finally arrived in front of her.

“Well?” She asked, a smirk on her lips as she let her arms rest on the back of the sofa, her feet hovering inches from her kneeling opponent.

“… Tell… no-one…”

Her eyes twinkled as she watched him move his face forwards, freeze in place as his body gave one final effort to stop him… and press his lips against the sole of her foot. A deep sigh of delight left Emma’s throat as she relished the sensation, pushing forward with her foot and feeling the contours of James’s face as he kissed her sole. Her toes gripped onto his hair and with no small amount of force, she dragged him down further and further towards the ground.

After a moment James overbalanced and tumbled onto his back, flat on the ground with both of Emma’s big, meaty feet pressing down on him. Swallowing his pride for just a minute, he closed his eyes and continued to kiss the hot flesh, the sound of Emma’s sniggers sending jolts of humiliation down his spine. She hadn’t been wrong; this did feel exceptionally degrading.

“Come on now James, you’ve read stories before, you know what you’re supposed to do; kiss the toes, lick the sole… lick between the toes.”

He was able to ignore the taunt, but not the feeling a few moments later of one of her feet pressing down on his throat. In a panic, he reached up and seized her ankle, trying to force her off him – but it was far too awkward a position, and as he opened his eyes, he saw her other foot hovering a short distance above his face.

“James, we had a deal; now do as I say or I’m going to stomp on your face until you do.”

A choked response was attempted, but the words were absolutely inaudible.

“No more chances,” she returned her feet to his face, heels on his forehead and toes drumming on his lips, “now lick.”

Trembling in genuine alarm, James opened his mouth and wrapped his lips around some of Emma’s toes. His tongue dragged along the gap between each one, sliding into the individual slots and tasting the salty, dry flavour of her foot. It was a wretched experience; he’d always drawn a fine line between reality and fantasy, and while he loved the idea of being stomped on in a purely fictitious form of domination and disdain, he could never get behind those stories where hungry little perverts submit themselves to a pair of gigantic feet. Butts he could understand, breasts he could understand, even lips he could understand… but feet? Anything else but feet would be preferable.

Yet here he was, kissing Emma’s feet… licking between her toes… and it was just as demeaning as he’d thought it would be… just as demeaning as she wanted it to be.

He was sure that well over a minute had passed by the time he elected to stop, and his assumption was confirmed when Emma didn’t immediately order him to continue. She just gazed down her nose at him, the light of the television still glinting off her glasses as James rolled onto his stomach and lifted himself to his knees.

“Okay, we done? Can we never speak of this again now?”

“Not quite – you still have one more thing you need to do first, remember?”

“… What’s that exactly?”

A malicious grin crept back onto Emma’s face as she lifted one of her feet again, scrunching her toes around the collar of James’s shirt and pulling him close enough to rest one foot on each shoulder. She pressed down hard, her heels digging into his flesh as he gritted his teeth and resisted the press.

“You have to admit that I’m better than you, remember? And that feet are the absolute best; way better than butts.”

James sighed indignantly, raising an eyebrow at the smirking girl on the couch.

“Emma, I’ll admit that you’re better than me at brawl, bu-“

“No no, better than you at everything: games, writing, wit, everything.”

“… whatever, but don’t get your hopes up if you think I’m ever going to say that feet are in any way better than butts. It’s just not happening.”

“We’ll see about that, but I suppose it will have to do for now. C’mon, let’s hear it.”

James groaned inwardly. He shouldn’t have been surprised that she was actually going to make him do it, but he might as well get it over with so he could move on and forget it ever happened.

“Okay okay… Emma, you are better than me.”

“Specifics?” She pressed down emphatically with her heels.

“… You’re better than me at video games and playing cards,” he felt an unfamiliar pulse of deep-seated humiliation surge through his body and he closed his eyes, “you’re better at writing stories than me, better at writing smut and better at creating characters.” He hated every word that came out of his mouth, partially because he hated being forced to say them, but also because he almost felt that some tiny part of his mind actually believed it.

“Go on?” James’s shoulders ached; the weight of Emma’s heels seemed to be growing with each passing moment.

“God, how much do you want me to say?!” His eyes squeezed tighter shut, too irritated to look her in the face. “You’re just generally better than me; you’re better respected by the community, people want to buy your stuff way more than mine, you get along better with pretty much everyone, and I guarantee that everyone in the chat would choose you over me.”

Finally, the ungodly weight was lifted off his shoulders and he slumped to the ground, groaning as he rolled his arms to get the circulation going again.

“Also I’m way bigger than you.”

James scoffed, opening his eyes.

“Pfft, well that’s just not tr-“

He froze. He knew it was late, but his imagination wasn’t that vivid. He shut his eyes, rubbed them and opened them once again. It wasn’t a trick of the light, and it certainly wasn’t just in his head. In front of him, mere inches away, was a row of the thickest, most colossal toes James had ever seen. The big toe, in front of which he was kneeling, was three times his standing height. He recognized them at once… after all, he’d just spent a solid two minutes kissing them. His jaw dropped in an instant as he slowly leaned back, dragging his gaze upwards.

As imposing as the row of toes were, and as titanic as the city-block-sized foot they were attached to was, they didn’t even come close to the twin skyscrapers of flesh and cloth that were Emma’s legs. There was no point pretending otherwise; this wasn’t some sleep-deprived dream or fantasy, and with one final tilt of his neck, the reality sank home.

A look of devilish delight mixed with amused contempt was plastered across Emma’s lips as she watched the gears turning in the insignificant little figure on the carpet. She could never quite tell when one of these moments was going to occur, but she had a feeling about tonight… and she was oh so glad to be right.

The silence had dragged on for quite a while, and now Emma was just wondering how he would respond. Would he question it? Would he beg? Would he turn tail and run? She did so enjoy it when they ran.

“What… how… Emma, what the fuck?!”

Of course he’d just question it.

“Honestly? I have no idea.” Emma’s voice rolled down to him like thunder off a mountain, his entire body shaking with each syllable. “I wish I knew for sure, but I suppose it’s probably a good thing that I don’t… I like to think that the universe just has my back; it knows the perfect time for something like this to happen.”

“So you don’t know how to undo it? I’m stuck like this!?”

“Well, yes and no.” Emma’s smile grew as she drummed her toes in front of him, sending him scampering back a few inches. “I don’t specifically know how to undo it, but I do know how to make sure you’re not stuck like that forever.”

“… And? Tell me! I can’t stay like this!”

“Actually you can. And you will.” Emma paused pointedly, “… unless you do something for me.”

“What?”

“All in good time. First though,” she slipped the monolithic form of her foot across the floor til his entire body was engulfed in the shadow of her toes, “weren’t you in the middle of something earlier? I’m going to be trying to find something in my bag, and I won’t really be looking out for you, so if I were you, I’d make sure I can constantly feel where you are…”

A surge of adrenaline shot through James’s body at those words, the implications horrifying him to the core. Crawling rapidly forwards between her first and second toes, he pressed his entire form against Emma’s skin, rubbing it as hard as he could and even going so far as to poke out his tongue and lick repeatedly. His body was trembling, tears welling in his eyes at the sheer overwhelming pressure of the situation. He’d written countless stories about this sort of nightmare, but never had he wanted it to become real, especially not in this way. It was so much worse than he could’ve ever imagined.

Miles above, Emma hummed wistfully to herself, idly glancing around the room to make sure the rest of the guests were still sleeping. Satisfied that they were, she pinched her toes together, hearing a terrified squeak from her miniature prisoner as she lifted him up towards her, crossing the leg over and bringing the foot to rest on her other knee.

“Now then, James, all you need to do is tell me… which is better; butts or feet?”

The tiny, squirming little figure looked up through the gap between Emma’s toes and saw the bright screen of a camera phone, a blinking red ‘record’ button visible on the screen. His gut clenched… His pride wasn’t worth his life.

“Feet!” He yelled with his feeble little voice, his lungs straining against the pressure of the vice-like toe grip, “Feet are better than butts!”

With a click, Emma stopped the recording and played it back, the faint sound of James’s voice still audible on the phone. She laughed in unbridled, undisguised glee.

“HAHA! Perfect; well, I suppose we’re all done.”

“Great, wonderful, now could you fucking grow me back already?!”

“Grow you back?” Emma cocked an eyebrow at the helpless little man, “I already said I couldn’t grow you back, I only said that I knew a way to make sure you didn’t stay like that forever.”

She lowered her foot back to the ground in silence, waiting for the inevitable moment when the penny would drop. The frantic struggling a few seconds later indicated that it had arrived, and she released James from her toes with a chuckle.

“Emma, you’re not serious right? C’mon, I mean, we’re friends!”

The begging. She was so close…

“The fact that you think we were ever friends just makes what’s about to happen so much sweeter.” She pushed herself up off the couch, her already inconceivable size seeming to double as she stood up straight; an unfathomably huge and impossibly powerful woman… towering over the absurdly weak and pathetic humanoid beetle beneath her.

“Jesus fucking Christ you’re nuts! This isn’t fiction Emma, this is real, this is really real – you can’t do thi-“

“Don’t even begin to tell me what I can and can’t do James; you are not the first and you will not be the last.”

“The others will wonder where I’ve gone!”

“Nobody will care that you’ve gone, let alone where. I’d wager that I could wake them all up right now and not a single one of them would try to stop me… they might even offer to help. But I’m not going to, because I want this moment all to myself… now, I’m going to demonstrate conclusively why my feet always win.”

Placing a hand on each hip for balance, she lifted a massive, meaty, murderous foot over the pint-sized used-to-be-person on the floor in front of her.

He ran.

“Finally…” She drank in the sight like a fine wine, relishing his miniature movements, the futility of his efforts, the stubborn inevitability to accept his own fate. “Goodbye James… you will not be missed.”

Like a plummeting pillar of flesh, Emma’s heel crashed down on the fleeing figure. She barely felt the split second of resistance and the muffled cry of quickly stifled pain and horror before his entire existence was obliterated with a single, feeble ‘crunch’. Heart still pounding in her chest, Emma twisted her heel back and forth, grinding whatever was left into an unrecognizable paste. She never got sick of that feeling… never.

“HmMmm… what’sgoingon?” The mumbling, sleepy voice of ETZ spoke, stirred briefly to wakefulness by the sound of the stomp several feet away from her head.

“Stepped on a cockroach; go back to sleep.”

“Cockroach a shit.” She breathed in response before drifting off again.

“Well,” Emma said quietly to the empty air, giving one last wipe of her foot on the floor, “I’d say this meet up has been a huge success. Might write this up as a story later, post it on James’s account… that’d be hilarious.”