Chapter Three: A Victor's Light
Alia stands before me in splendor, gleaming with what I can only describe as a victor's light.
She smiles so brightly that even under the ample lighting of the mall, she somehow manages to stand out. But it's not a friendly smile.
She twirls before me in her summer dress, holding a pair of heels she's yet to try on, as I sweat and puff with the weight and bulk of bags upon bags of new clothes... Alia's new purchases, of course, probably more clothes than I've ever owned in my life. More than I and my mum could even afford.
It is my duty to carry them. A servant's duties.
"I like our trips to the mall a lot better now," Alia says, her lips curled in a huntress' snarl. "Don't you, Zainab?"
The twist of the knife hurts me and makes me wince in pain -- which is exactly the point, I'm sure. Alia loves power, but she loves my suffering even more. Emotions crash upon one another inside me like the rolling waves of the sea: anger, indignation at her betrayal of our bond, snivelling fear that she won't show me an ounce of mercy, the profound humiliation of my defeat. The latter always wins out, and in the end, I capitulate. Like I always do, these days.
I may not be smelling Alia's feet right now, but she's made sure to massage my face with her feet at length before we embarked on this shopping trip, and as usual, my old defiance deserts me. I bow my head in surrender, and whisper, "Yes Alia, whatever you say."
She giggles, pleased with herself at winning yet another exchange, and returns to the racks of shoes behind her, looking for a new pair to try out. It's a momentary respite from her constant, sadistic assaults, and it leaves me briefly alone with my thoughts.
My life under the sisters' thumb has been a living nightmare ever since they first discovered my... unspeakable weakness to the smell of feet, for which even I have no rational explanation I can think of. Every afternoon since has been spent the same way: I visit Alia at home, let her use my face as a footrest while she titters and gossips with her friends on the phone, and then graciously accompany her to the mall.
It sounds simple enough, but in a way, it is as horrifying a torture as she could devise for me. We used to come here when we were friends, when we were equals. Hell, it's the very last thing we did together before she discovered my weakness, and pounced on me to claim me as her toy.
This used to be our visit to the mall. Now, it's a travesty, a warped version of the past, a mockery of our old friendship, cannibalised into a sick exchange of power. It almost sounds designed to drive home to me how much my life has changed.
Except I know Alia doesn't really operate that way. This isn't about me, it's about her. She genuinely did want someone to carry all the bags, and not complain. Someone to dote on her with overt enthusiasm for everything she tries on. A submissive cheerleader with no will of her own, no needs, and no boundaries. Someone who could never steal the spotlight away from the one true queen.
I am ashamed to admit I play this part well. Alia has always been prettier than me, but now, with my hair disheveled, my eyes sunken in from sleep deprivation and shock, my despondency, my face downcast at my constant humiliations... I really do look like her lackey. I disappear next to her. Attention shifts back to me only when she wants to play with me, to press her foot down until I squirm.
She enjoys it. But not merely because she likes my submission. If anything, serving Alia is proving to be highly educational as to what she actually enjoys, and the knowledge makes me shiver with anticipation, and dread.
There is a sadistic impulse in the mind of many animals, humans included. Surely you have seen it in house cats, or sometimes children. Even well-fed and looked after, a cat will toy with a lizard unlucky enough to enter the house. Lethally so.
It is an evolutionary adaptation, of course -- practice for predation. At an abstract level, it's the brain having fun with a smaller, vulnerable being until it stops responding. And this is what I am to Alia: a bug to squash for fun, to poke at and prod and manipulate. And I never stop responding, which makes me dread that Alia will keep dominating and torturing me on and on, down the years. Maybe forever.
I have to find a way to stop her, but how? Right now, she's my predator, and her foot is firmly planted on my neck -- literally and metaphorically.
Alia sits down before me, one leg crossed over the other, and hands me the heels. Snapped out of my reverie, I put down the bags with a sigh to take them from her, and gulp as she expectantly arches an eyebrow.
She's training me to act without verbal orders -- to recognise her needs from the simplest of visual cues.
The idea to devise a training regimen for me was Anbar's, of course, but a part of me is almost impressed by how masterful Alia is at carrying it out. She's programming me, I can feel it. Long afternoons spent resting on the floor, with her feet carelessly splayed out across my face, are taking a toll on me. With her toes mastering my nose, every breath empties out my brain for her to fill with instructions and new truths.
Then come activities like these. Everyday servitude at the mall, taken one step further each time. The foot smell is the anvil, and the days with Alia are the hammer. Squashed between the two, there is less and less space for me. I feel like I'm mentally growing thinner, like there's less and less of my independent self with every new subjugation.
It kills me how self-assured Alia is in her expectation of unquestioning obedience. And how methodical she is in testing new ways to hurt me.
Being her pack mule is one thing, this is quite another. Of course, I've spent a week submissively smelling her feet, much worse than putting their shoes on... but this is in public. People we know might be in this very mall at this very time, and they might happen to see me kneel before Alia like a humble servant. They might take photos, put them online.
Unfortunately, there's no arguing with the meekness. Where my outspoken rule once stood, now is a wholly different kind of rule. I belong to the sisters, and to Alia in particular. My will is theirs.
Slowly, gently, I descend to my knees, craning my neck up to look at Queen Alia, her left foot swinging and circling expectantly in the air. I hate that I'm getting used to look at her from this position. I hate that for all my internal struggles to resist, from the outside I look smooth, precise, and punctual in my obedience.
"Put it on me," Alia says with a giggle.
My hands tremble as I hold the shoe ever nearer to her proffered foot. It's weird to consider I would have never touched such a pair of heels in my life, had Alia not reduced me to this state. I'm uncomfortable on heels, and I always feel they make me look ridiculous -- the big boned, plain faced girl trying and failing to look lithe and graceful.
Perhaps more importantly, this pair costs more than our entire weekly household budget. I can feel the amazing quality of the build under my fingertips, the glossy look and feel of it, and it crushes my heart to know that I only get to touch these shoes as part of my duties to Alia.
Even still, there is just enough of me left that I still try to fight. That's part of why my fingers tremble. I really want to drop the damn shoe, if nothing else.
But Alia has given me a direct command. And so, I elegantly slip the shoe onto her foot in one move, leaving out a whimper of discomfort when my fingertips brush against Alia's foot in the process -- I fear her feet more than I do anything in this world. Hers and Anbar's, the engines of my destruction.
