Vignette #1 - Flatmate

Valerie yawned in boredom, her eyes glued to the 24-inch monitor set upon the desk in her cubicle. Even though it was well past 4pm, there were still phones ringing and agents speaking with whoever was on the other line. In her case, Valerie had already completed most of her work for the day and compiled and sent the report to her supervisor via email. All she could do then was wait for 4:30 to arrive, and she would be free to spend the rest of her day however she liked.

On that note, she already knew what she wanted to do once she got home.

Her toes flexed inside of her right flat, the sensitive digits rubbing against the small mass tucked inside. It was motionless; in fact, she had barely felt it move since soon after arriving at work for the day. She lightly nudged it with her toes, and could feel minute--very minute--movements from it. Good, she thought. It would have been a shame if it had bitten the dust before she could get back to her house.

She looked at the time in the bottom right corner of her computer screen: 4:17 PM. She sighed, and navigated to Youtube, opting to waste away the rest of her time watching random videos, whatever she came across that looked interesting. Of course, she was careful about what she brought up; the IT crew could have been monitoring her at that moment from their cave two floors down. Why her as opposed to one of the other fifty-something people in her office at the moment? Who was to say, but it was a possibility, and the wrong link could send her straight to her supervisor's office.

A bit over ten minutes later, Valerie removed her headphones from the PC and closed all open application windows, before shutting down the PC. After gathering her belongings into her leather bag, she picked up said bag and turned and exited her cubicle. Another day down, she thought.

As she headed towards the badge reader to officially swipe out, her eye's attention was caught by Stevie, one of the relatively-newer employees in her department, standing by the window and speaking with two other men. He was a young and handsome African American man, kind of a dork but otherwise a very nice person. She found herself somewhat attracted to him, though her best friends, Candace and Kyra, would say that the only reason Valerie liked him at all was due to his race. Both of them--Candace especially, due to her being Black as well--would often tease Valerie over her being a "chocolate-eater", an accusation that Valerie did not dispute. After all, her actions spoke louder than words, and luckily in her case, it seemed that more and more Black men were pursuing Asian women these days. Of course, all of said Black men who were drawn to her sweet Asian nectar had a habit of... disappearing, so to speak.

In any case, she longed for the day she would be able to make Stevie hers. ...Not romantically, of course, but physically, and in more ways than one.

"Some day..." she dreamily muttered to herself, just as she had reached the shift clock and swiped with her badge. With a ding that confirmed the end of her shift, she made her way into the hallway, called the elevator, and rode it down to the ground floor, and eventually arrived at her car, a white 2011 Toyota Camry, parked inside of the company's parking garage.

Once inside, she tossed her bag into the back, sat back in the driver's seat, and let out a sigh of relief. She then briefly looked around at her surroundings for any would-be on-lookers. The coast was clear, not that anyone would have been paying any attention to her anyway.

She popped her heel from its right flat, and then reached down to slip the shoe entirely from her foot, leaving her tired bare sole to rest for a minute on the rug beneath the pedals. She held the red flat--donned with a string bow on front of its mouth--before her, and squinted her eyes to peer inside.

The dark-skinned figure laid on the far end of her flat, against the mesh wall. She slightly shook her shoe; no response. With her other hand, she reached inside and poked at it with her index finger. Her flesh could feel weak movements, and after pulling her hand back to look closely inside once more, she could make out slight movements, its body struggling to breathe in as much clean air as it could. After all, this was the first time since morning where it was afforded the opportunity to do so.

"Hey there, you little black insect," Valerie spoke, in a rather cheery tone. "Did you enjoy hanging out with me?" She didn't want for an answer. "Yeah, I had fun, too. You kept my stress down, and God knows I needed it today. Anyway, the day's over, so it's time to go home. Hang in there for a little bit longer, okay?"

With those words said, she slid her shoe back onto its foot--her toes once again securing its tiny passenger in place--and then she started up her car. Before long, she had exited the garage and was well on the way back to her humble abode.


Fifteen minutes later, Valerie entered into her own home, an average one-story house in a quiet suburban neighborhood. Even though she had been living on her own for nearly a year by that point, she still found it a bit surreal. No longer having to deal with her family on a daily basis, she was free to do whatever she wanted in a house that she could call her own, albeit with financial help from her father. Either way, the privacy was a godsend, as it allowed her more opportunities to "play", without her parents or younger sisters getting nosy or interfering.

Her family had no idea that she even possessed her power. She intended to keep it that way.

Valerie made her way through the halls and into her bedroom, where she dropped off her bag and removed her teal blazer and tossed it onto her bed. After relieving herself in the bathroom, she then headed into the dining room, wherein its curtains were drawn, to block out not only the sunlight but also any possible overzealous eyes.

It looked like it was finally time. She had awaited this moment all day; all week, even.

Using the front of her left foot, she held down her right flat from its back as she pulled her foot out of it. She then used her one-again bare foot to push the empty flat several inches in front of her, after which said foot settled onto the cool, wooden floor.

"Alright, ride's over," Valerie announced to the shoe's inhabitant. "Time for you to get out, bug."

She watched her flat's opening in anticipation, waiting for the tiny passenger to stumble into the light and climb out onto the floor. Once that was done, she would move on to the final stage of her little game.

...However, there was no activity. Not even after two minutes had passed.

Valerie frowned in annoyance as she put her hands on her waist and kept waiting for the passenger to show himself.

"Any day now..." She said, her bare foot now tapping the floor impatiently.

Another short period of waiting yielded similar results, or lack thereof.

"I know you're not dead. I could still feel you move a little right before I took my shoe off."

Yet another two minutes passed, and still there was no response. By this point, Valerie's patience had worn thin.

"Augh, Jesus Christ..." She kneeled down and took hold of her flat with a single hand. Then, she turned it upside-down. "Out, out!"

Thanks to her efforts, the tiny inhabitant quickly tumbled out from within the red shoe, and hit the floor with a quiet-but-probably painful smack. However, even there, the young and fit Black man laid on the floor, catching his breath as best as he could. He had been reduced to two inches tall, and he was nude, his clothing removed during their bout of lust on the night they had crossed paths; once she was satisfied with the sex, she made her next move and shrunk him down to his present size. This occurred five nights ago, and Valerie made sure to keep him alive for all of that time, if only barely.

But she had fought the urge long enough.

"There," she said to the man as she stood back up. "Free at last."

The tiny man stayed on the ground, his lungs taking in more and more fresh air. Valerie prodded his body with her bare foot's big toe, tapping it on his chest softly. However, it was enough to make him yelp in pain. He truly had been spent.

"C'mon, I'm not even touching you that hard," she said as she kept her toe in place and pressed down slightly. "But if it hurts so much, I'll let go if you kiss my toe."

Perhaps it was desperation, but the man almost immediately did as she commanded, using whatever strength he had left to clutch onto her toe and plant it with several weak kisses. Her toe pushed down ever so slightly, but it was enough for the man's lipped assault to be replaced with a cry of pain.

"...Really?" Valerie was partially surprised. "You really are a weak little bug, aren't you?" Mercifully, she removed her foot from the man, leaving him there to gather his bearings. "What am I going to do with you?"

"...You..." Between breaths, the man finally spoke. "...You..."

"Hm?" Valerie listened in curiosity.

"You... 're an evil bitch," he mustered up to say.

Valerie shrugged. "Uh, thanks? What's your point? Are you trying to hurt my feelings?"

"You evil..." The man was clearly agitated; the pressure of being her tiny slave--or foot toy--had finally gotten to him.

"Well, whatever." Valerie slipped her bare foot back into its flat, the shoe now containing only her foot and nothing else. "You're pretty much useless to me now. I was hoping you would last one more day, since it's only Thursday, but I can see that you're done already." She sighed wistfully. "A shame, really."

The man kept looking up at her, hatred and fear--but mostly the former--filling the entirely of his tiny eyes shooting her a sharp glare.

"Can you get up?" She asked. "Go on, get up."

After several seconds has passed, the man started to attempt to do what she had ordered him to, but it seemed as if he was too exhausted to grant her request. He struggled to stand to his feel, but each time he tried, he fell right back onto the floor.

Valerie was disappointed. "...Oh... Damn, I was hoping you'd make this a challenge," she said. "I mean, you actually did run away from me all those times I tried to step on you before, but to be fair, I wasn't really trying all that hard."

With those last words, the fear in the man's eyes overtook the hatred, as if he knew what her intentions were. And with that, he seemed to be met with a second wind, as he pushed his body well past its already-surpassed limit and managed to stand up. Then, he quickly stumbled away from her, though at a much slower pace than he had shown her before during their earlier games.

Valerie smiled. "Very good. You see, it's always more fun when you bugs try to get away."

She moved her right foot over in the tiny man's direction, and--as it hovered only four inches from the floor--she took aim.

"But you're still too slow for me, insect." From her vantage point, the tiny man disappeared completely behind the view of her foot, poised to make the final strike upon the tiny man below. He must have known as well, as he has taken to screaming and pleading for her to spare him.

She almost had half a mind to do just that, to prolong his suffering just for a little bit longer.

Valerie giggled. The truth was, she had grown bored of him, despite this last burst of energy. And thus, he needed to die.

And die he did, once her foot came down upon him.

Beneath her flat, the tiny man's body audibly crunched as his bones broke, his entire frame being violently flattened by her size-five foot. She licked her lips as she felt through her shoe's thin sole each crack of his skeleton and the wet gurgling of his blood; it was a feeling that she truly relished, of ending the life of a man underfoot like the bug that she had reduced him to.

After twisting and grinding him into a fine paste, she finally lifted and removed her foot from its prey, exposing the once-human mess to the air. Indeed, thanks to her efforts, he had been completely shredded into a mesh of torn flesh, grounded bones, and deep red blood, the liquid almost matching the shade of her flat. The dark grey-beige bottom of her shoe held more of his remains--some worked into the treads of its sole--which would blotch the floor with each step she took if she left her shoes on.

She sighed in euphoric satisfaction. It was such a beautiful kill, transforming such a handsome man--a Black man especially, as per her own tastes--into a gruesome crimson stain on the floor. Not even sex could compare to this feeling.

"I waited all week to do that," Valerie purred to herself. "It was worth it."

Of course, now she had to clean up. After all, if she let the mess stay there for too long, it would dry and cake itself onto the wooden surface, making it even harder to clear. Plus, if company--specifically, her family--happened to come over, she would have a hard time explaining that away.

Thus, she left for the kitchen to get her cleaning utensils, not caring too much of the blood she was tracking with her flat; it'd all be cleaned up in the process.

Even then, her mind was still replaying her kill, reliving those final moments of the tiny man's life. ...That tiny man...

...Wait, what was his name again? Valerie had just simply called him "bug" or "insect", never by his actual name, and thus, this information was eluding her. She stopped in her tracks and pondered this mystery over in her head.

After a minute of thinking on it, she shrugged in indifference and continued on with preparing for her chore.

The man's name was not important.



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