The Thrill Of Defeat Ch 04

Chapter Four: A Change In Station

It does no good to stand up to dragons. This key lesson has been drilled into my subconscious with such thoroughness that my body doesn't even hesitate: as soon as I enter Anbar's room, I close the door behind me, and kneel submissively on the floor.

Alia has her rituals, but so does Anbar. The corner I'm currently kneeling in? It's the same where she first made me kneel, where the two sisters first dominated me with their feet, as they outlined my future and my enslavement.

Anbar, like always, is sitting in her gaming chair. Normally, the ritual would proceed like this: she would swivel in her chair, turning towards me, one leg crossed over the other, and tell me to "bow the fuck down" before her and beg for mercy.

Normally, but not this time. This time, Anbar swivels towards me... and immediately breaks into a shaking fit of hysterical laughter.

Oh, right. My new maid uniform.

"You... You... did my sister actually just..." Anbar stammers in-between bouts of laughter. She's laughing so hard that she's basically wheezing. If I had my free will, I could get up and leave before she even had the presence of mind to start breathing properly again.

Unfortunately, Anbar's personal grooming is less... punctual than Alia's. Her room, constantly shut to the rest of the house as she spends hours gaming in isolation, has always reeked of her sweaty feet.

That was a mild irritation, before. Now, it guarantees my compliance as soon as I step into the room. It's like a hazy cloud of dumbness has engulfed my brain, like tree sap. I am so stupid. So easily led.

"I literally can't," Anbar says, finally calming down. "Honestly, I should have thought of that. That's fucking brilliant."

I give the tiniest nod, in submissive acknowledgement. How else am I supposed to react?

"Okay, bitch. You know what. I had something planned for you today, but it can wait for a bit. Since you're in that uniform already, let's run you through your paces."

I stare at her in confusion. "What would you like me to do?"

"Address me properly," Anbar says. Her foot stomps against the ground in irritation, and her eyes narrow at me. Overcome by fear of what she might do, I bow even lower, scrambling to apologise.

"Yes, Goddess. I'm sorry, Goddess."

She picked the title herself, of course. Just to make it even more obvious that this power trip is giving her a god complex. But can I blame her? I literally have no idea what it must feel like to be in her position. If it's as thrilling for her as it's humiliating for me, then... that must be devastatingly pleasurable.

"You should be sorry, you dumb pack animal," Anbar says, stretching in her gaming chair.

The insult makes me recoil like she's lashed out at me with a whip. All my life, my brain has been my only weapon against a world seemingly hell-bent on holding me back. And now, my two captors can shut it down with nothing but the smell of their feet.

Anbar's smirk - so like her sister's - speaks volumes. She knows how humiliating it is to me to have my intelligence demeaned. She crosses one leg over the other, a foot circling mid-air. I can almost visualise the scent emanating from it, binding me to her will.

"Anyway," Anbar says, ogling my maid uniform in a way that makes my skin crawl, "I want you to clean my room."

I let out a soft whimper of agony. This is my very worst fear coming true - Alia and Anbar are maidifying me. I can't help the sob that breaks past my lips. All the years spent studying late into the night, fighting every day to be seen and treated as an equal, have led me to this moment. Standing before Anbar, a simpering broken mess of a girl, being commanded to clean her room.

Still, with Anbar's foot scent literally fucking with my head, there is no room for me to disobey. I spring to action, and with a satisfied chuckle, Anbar turns back towards her PC.

By the pristine standards of the rest of the house, Anbar's room is a pigsty. Crumpled and oily packets of crisps litter every horizontal surface. Empty cans of soft and energy drinks are lined up by the bed and the desk in neat rows. There's even the occasional banana peel here and there, wrapped in tissue but then forgotten.

Discarded clothes are piled high in a mountain on the bed - a mountain which will be moved back to the chair when she needs to sleep, and back again the next morning. I'm pretty sure the sheets haven't been changed in the week since my enslavement, nor have her socks - although the latter point plays decisively against me. The smell is inescapable.

Still, in a way, that actually makes my job easier, not harder. In fact, I have no equipment here with me - no feather duster, no vacuum cleaner, no bucket. Anbar has so little consideration for what cleaning actually means that she doesn't exactly supervise me.

It's like she's making me play-act as a maid, while performing the very basic activity of picking up after her own litter, which barely requires real effort at all. And when I think about the alternative - which would have surely involved worshiping her feet...

I shudder. I'd take this any day of the week if it meant never having to worship Anbar again.

Behind me, Anbar is playing one of her favourite games - Among Us - and shouting banter at her friends over the microphone. I'm no gamer, but through sheer exposure to Anbar I know that the game involves correctly identifying impostors aboard a starship. Anbar loves to play the impostor, as one would expect, but it looks like she's a crewmate this time.

I silently pray for the game to absorb all of her focus. In stupor, I realise I have lucked out - I'm away from Alia's scrutiny, at least for a little while, and Anbar is more focused on the game than she is on me.

A stronger girl - a smarter girl, one whose brain doesn't shut down whenever exposed to the smell of feet - would use this opportunity to plot an escape. It would be so easy to go out on to the balcony, down into the garden, and then out of the house. I would be gone before Alia knew any better, and then I could plan my next move.

But I'm no strong girl. And, like Anbar is eager to remind me, I'm not smart either. How can I claim otherwise, when I let myself be reduced to this position? With an internal sigh, I resign myself to enjoying the relative peace, while it lasts.

Which isn't very long.

"Bitch," Anbar says, without turning to face me. "In the kitchen. Snacks, now."

My response is flawlessly obedient. I stand at attention, tucking away the bag I was using to collect all of Anbar's litter, and bow - even though she can't see me. "Right away, Goddess," I say in a breathy, vulnerable voice.

And just like that, I'm outside of her room, back in the long, silent hallway.

My heart is pumping in my chest. As the enthralling scent of Anbar's feet recedes behind me, I regain a small crumb of clarity. Just a crumb: it would take hours for the intoxication to clear my mind completely. But it's enough to send my mind into overdrive.

I can hear Alia's voice, in the distance. She's locked in her own room, chittering and laughing away with her insufferable posh friend, Yasmin. She thinks I'm still with Anbar.

My body marches down the hall and descends the stairs on autopilot, executing Anbar's command. But all the while, my mind is plotting my liberation.

The palms of my hands are sweaty as they come to rest on the handle to the kitchen door. I look to my right: no one coming down from the stairs. I look to my left. The front door is right there, one short dash away. The coast is clear.

Except I can't dash. Not quite. The best I can do is shuffle ungainly in the general direction of the front door, my body unresponsive and uncooperative. It takes a genuine effort of will to disentangle my hands from the handle, and even still my traitorous fingers keep grasping towards it. My subconscious knows nothing but obedience to the sisters, now.

I need saving from myself. That's worse than being betrayed by Alia, or maidified by Anbar. This is my own brain, doing this to me.

I'm dumb. A clumsy peasant girl. I deserve to spend my life in thralldom to my betters, clean their floor, remove their shoes, kiss their feet - all the time being where I have always belonged, down on my knees.

I deserve to be enslaved.

No!! I scream internally against my self-defeating thoughts, my hands snaking back towards the handle to the kitchen. The internal struggle is so fierce I find myself shaking, mustering all my willpower to disobey, to break free.

I wasn't always like this.

I used to be a girl with a dream, with a path forward in life. I want social mobility, not just for myself, but for Mum. I want to prove to Alia that having money makes her no better than me, gives her no right to dehumanise me. A week of torture is not enough to break me, it can't be.

I used to be that girl. And with some effort, I can be that girl again.

With a sense of triumph coursing through my veins, I take one decisive step towards the front door.

And then, the door to the kitchen opens behind me.

"Oh, Zainab! Fancy seeing you here!"

A wave of dread washes over me, my limbs going heavy with sluggishness and fear. No, no, no! I was so close!

I turn around, and sure enough, the house matriarch stands before me. The queen bee, the clever psychologist, the intimidating brunette after which Alia in particular has been modelling herself all this time.

Sanae.

If she finds my new attire amusing, her expression doesn't betray it. In a way, she looks at me the way she always has: a veneer of civility, masking a subtle kind of contempt, the sneer of a bewitching predator for the prey that was foolish enough to enter its den.

In her unblemished skin and effortless beauty, she probably looks younger than I do right now. Perfume sifts around her like a cloak, whereas her daughters' foot scent is basically embedded into the tired, stretched skin of my face at this point.

"What are you up to?" She asks me, and while I can't be completely honest, I know she would see through a full lie immediately. Her brains intimidate me as much as her demeanour, and with my brain still trapped in a meek haze, I'd never stand up to her anyway.

So I settle for a technical truth.

"I was getting a snack for G - Anbar," I say in a mousy voice, remembering at the last minute not to say Goddess out loud. "Ma'am." I don't know why I tack that at the end, and it horrifies me. I've never done this before. I always matched Sanae's behaviour with my own performance of polite hostility, but now I feel like a servant girl caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

"How dutiful of you," Sanae says. It's the same term she used to describe my service to Alia at the mall. "I'm happy to see our little talk had an effect. Don't you feel happier, now that you've found your proper place in life?"

I'm absolutely mortified. I can't even match her gaze, and my eyes slowly descend to the floor, and to her slippered feet. Words tangle in my throat, and I can't come up with a coherent answer, except for a broken half-sob.

"That'll come in time," Sanae says with a tone that I think is supposed to be reassuring, but simply makes my skin crawl. "The uniform certainly suits you!"

Oh God. My life is so over.

"Now, as for the snacks..." Sanae reaches behind her, towards the kitchen counter, and hands me a packet of crisps. She frowns. "I do wish Anbar ate a bit less of the junk. But no matter, this is no concern for the hired help."

I may be the help, but I'm certainly not hired. I wonder how Sanae can feel this confident in my utter docility - I can only assume her daughters have informed her of my debasement, which is atrociously humiliating. Still, once again, I opt for silence, and reach out for the proffered snack.

With my fingers mere inches away, Sanae drops the packet. It lands to the ground, squarely between her slippered feet. I see her struggle to hold back an evil smile, and fail.

"Oops." She says. She gives a plaintive nod towards the ground.

"It's no issue, ma'am," I say. Alia's training is really paying off: my subconscious is now obeying non-verbal commands, based on social cues, and entirely against my conscious wishes.

Moulding me into a perfect servant. One for whom obedience comes as natural as breathing. For whom there can be no second-guessing.

Mere steps away from the front door that would represent my freedom, I drop to my knees before Sanae, and humbly collect the snack meant for Anbar. The matriarch gives me an approving pat on the back of the head - a clear message I'm not supposed to get up.

"Off you go now!"

And so I do, holding the snack between my teeth and climbing up the stairs on all fours like a dog, sniveling and crying all the way. My strength, my pride, my dignity, even my humanity... I'm going to lose it all, aren't I?

Nothing's going to be left. Nothing of me.

I docilely crawl back into Anbar's room, dropping the snack at her feet. I was expecting her to laugh at my predicament, but she takes it in with perfect compunction, focusing on the screen before her.

She snaps her fingers, pointing to below the desk, and once again, my obedience is perfect. I do my best to fit into the crammed space, contorting and twisting until my back and legs hurt, but eventually, my squirming stops. Anbar's socked feet descend on my face.

The stench is truly insufferable. I'm pretty sure she's worn this pair of socks all week, and they instantly make my eyes water. I struggle to find an opening for my nose, to get some clean air, to hold my breath - but Anbar's feet are relentless, and eventually, I have to yield, and breathe it in.

And of course, my higher functions shut down.

I can only think dimly that I envy Anbar's ability to handle carbs and maintain this figure, as I hear her munching above me. I'm pretty sure if I ate even a third of the crap she does, my weight would skyrocket immediately.

But these are only feeble thoughts, as if in a fever dream. It's like Anbar's foot scent is filling my skull and pushing everything else out - not just my intelligence, or my independence, but my ability to focus, as well. I passively let her feet explore every nook and cranny of my face and throat, while dimly listening to her talk to her teammates.

"I'm telling you, Giggly96 is massively sus," she says at one point. "I think they're faking tasks."

Anbar lifts one of her feet, and then returns it to my face... unsocked. I shiver as the clammy, sweaty sole adheres to my face like a mask. Now, isn't that an absurd thought? Her feet are my face mask, and her foot sweat is my skin lotion. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I see her bend forward, holding something among her fingers - it's the crumpled packet of crisps, now empty. Even in my domesticated state, I jolt in alarm, squirming and bucking under Anbar's feet.

Her still-socked foot rises in the air, and then drops sharply against my forehead. The kick slams me against the ground, and my skull is ringing. Still reeling from the pain and the humiliating lesson, I whimper as the used bag draws closer and closer to my lips.

"Be a good maid, and open up," Anbar tells me, and of course, I obey. She pushes the packet inside my mouth, and her socked foot lifts from my head. Shortly after, it returns unsocked, pressing against my lips... shutting Anbar's own human trashcan.

Her acrid foot sweat mingles with the salty, oily sheen on the packet to create a unique flavour in my mouth, one I'm sure very few people in human history must have experienced before. And yet, Anbar takes it in stride like it's the most normal thing in the world, cursing at her teammates for not voting out Giggly96.

"I'm telling you, I saw them vent!" She shouts from above. "Space them, now!"

I lose track of the conversation from there, with many overlapping voices - some laughing, some groaning in disappointment. It's clear that the impostors have won the game. If I had any doubt about that, Anbar quickly dispels it.

Suddenly and without warning, her feet are off my face, and her chair reels back, away from the desk.

"What a bunch of stupid idiots," she mutters. "Why does no one ever listen to me?" Then, her clever, bright eyes fix on me, making me shiver. "Well, you do, wimp. Foot slut. Whore."

I moan softly around the packet of crisps, begging Anbar for mercy with my eyes. But I know there is none forthcoming. She's in a mood... and she has a free victim to abuse that is guaranteed to never talk back, defend herself, or report her to anybody.

All of a sudden, I am very, very scared.

Anbar physically drags me out from under the desk, intimating me to stay still, with my back against the cold ground. Then, she stands, towering above me, the dragon contemplating her hapless victim.

Her left foot rises to obscure my vision, and once more descends against my face. I take it like a bitch, the bitch I have now become, and quiver in disgust at the sweat being passed down from her sole onto my forehead and cheek.

"I hate when people don't listen," Anbar says, her voice laced with venom. "I always know better. You'd never cost me a game like those morons just have. You're so well-behaved."

I don't feel well-behaved. I feel like a worm, squirming weakly under her feet, begging her with my eyes not to crush me. The force behind Anbar's grinding increases, and I feel my facial features flexing under her weight - a metaphor of my own will, bending and morphing beneath hers.

Her sole comes to rest above my nose, squishing it uncomfortably, and drowning my awareness in her enthralling foot scent. "That's it," she says from above. "Breathe it in. Make yourself foot-stupid for me. I like you so much better this way."

I do breathe in, and it does make me foot-stupid. She's right. I'm a pathetic freak, and I don't deserve to be treated any different. This is my life now - squashed under the sisters' feet.

As if reading my mind, Anbar flashes me a wicked smile - and then climbs atop my chest, with both feet.

She may be in surprisingly good shape considering her diet, but she's not light. She instantly drives the breath out of me, and her naked heels dig into my sternum, making me wince in pain. But I dare not ask, or even beg, for her to get off.

Anbar starts walking up and down my torso, taking great care to grind and crush my tits beneath her feet, and the symbolism isn't lost on me. It's like a fundamental demonstration that she's the better woman, that my own boobs barely qualify to act as her red carpet, that the lowest part of her still deserves to rank above every part of me.

Sharing her sister's sadism, Anbar doesn't shy away from experimenting. She moves one foot to my left hand, crushing my fingers beneath her heel, until it takes all my might - and all her intoxicating foot sweat - to keep me from screaming.

"It's over, you know," Anbar says, balancing with one foot over my squished left boob, and another squarely against my throat. "We have you. We've mastered you."

Tears well in my eyes, and not just from my difficult breathing.

"You're like a horse that's been saddle-broken. You'll never be free again. We'll keep you, Alia and I. Forever."

Her foot finally lifts from my throat... but then lands against my cheek with such violence that I spit out the packet of crisps on the floor as my head snaps sideways, her weight now pressing it into the ground.

"Look at the mess you've made on my floor," Anbar says, rubbing her foot energetically against my cheek. "You need to be punished."

I give out a soft whimper as I try to reach the packet with my lips and tongue, to get it back in my mouth, where Anbar wants it. That makes her break out in laughter, and I can't blame her. I'm horrified at my own debasement. She puts an end to my humiliating efforts when her other foot joins the one on my face.