The Thrill of Defeat

Chapter Five: A Display Of Royalty

My back is against the wall.

I'm not speaking metaphorically here. I sit in the most ungainly way possible, my aching back pressed against the corner of Anbar's room, my stockinged legs splayed out before me in a mildly obscene pose.

My maid's uniform clings to my sweaty, clammy skin. It's been a long afternoon. So long that it's making me dissociate from the horrible reality of my own situation.

The mall, Anbar's domination of me, Sanae making it clear she thinks this is where I belong, and now.. Yasmin.

The thought alone makes me want to crawl even deeper into the room's corner.

I say the corner, because it's the one that will forever be seared in my memory. The one where Alia and Anbar first systematically put their feet on me, as they proclaimed my subjugation to them.

The one Anbar likes to ritually expose me to, over and over, in a quasi-spiritual repetition of my original change in station. More and more, she sees herself as the Goddess, and me as the supplicant.

Alia doesn't share that penchant for the melodramatic - she just wants to get her way and see me suffer, always - but she understands the value of psychological devastation the way a fish understands water.

So here I am, back where my life came crashing down. With my back to the wall, Alia's left foot resting luxuriatingly atop my head, and Anbar's own foot pressed against my chin.

Alia's toes run gently through my hair. It's a false kindness, a mockery of affection, designed to make me feel like property for her to revel in as she wishes.

Anbar's toes tickle my lips, exploring every crevice, every feature. Occasionally, they slip through, silently commanding me to suck like an obedient girl.

The two imperious sisters loom above me, impossibly distant. Their foot scent has me in a daze: foot-stupid, as Anbar called me. They're talking about me, about my future, but I have no spare brain capacity to partake in this conversation among superiors.

I simply do not feature.

"I don't even get what you see in Yasmin," Anbar says, while lightly fucking the entrance to my mouth with her big toe. It barely slips in, of course, just past my lips, but it's the symbolism that counts. The casual way in which she's doing it - even without thinking - is making me feel so worthless that I can barely remember why I ever tried to resist her.

The soft, wet sounds as the toe batters my lips into slutty submission fill the gaps in between conversations.

"What do you mean?" Alia asks, rubbing the sweaty sole of her foot a bit more energetically into my hair. Cleaning it. Massaging the sweat off her sole, and into my scalp.

"She's not the sharpest tool in the shed," Anbar says, her eyebrows raised. "I don't think I've ever met a bigger idiot in my entire lifetime. And coming from someone who plays Among Us on a daily basis, trust me, that's saying something."

Absurdly, I feel a pang of gratitude towards Anbar. Is she trying to... protect me? The thought is absurd, and completely at odds with the sexual harassment she's subjecting me to right as she speaks.

But... she's right about Yasmin. Like, unequivocally so. Literally the only reason she's even at our college is that her dad plays golf with the head of the admissions' office.

And yet, my traitorous brain doesn't allow me to feel smug about it. Yasmin might be a shallow bimbo, but at least her brain doesn't shut down when smelling feet. My cheeks redden with that humiliating realization, and I return to my humble task.

I take more of Anbar's toes into my mouth. With a jolt of surprise I realize this is the first time I'm going out of my way to serve the sisters, as opposed to obeying their instructions to the letter.

Have I really fallen so low in an entire week that a bit of misplaced gratitude is enough to make me snog Anbar's toes? Is that what gratitude means now in my slavish vocabulary?

What would I think of a girl that sucks an abusive man's cock in thanks for not being even meaner to her? Because that girl, right now, is me. I might be at a girl's mercy, and it might be a toe I'm fellating...

But, as I delicately circle my tongue around said toe, stretching my lips into a tiny little O to welcome it inside, I fail to see the difference.

Alia giggles above me. "Come on, sis, we can't all be rocket scientists. She has... other qualities."

"Like?"

"Well, she's in our league. I'm starting to see why you shouldn't befriend people who are lower in station," Alia says with a cruel giggle, as her foot descends to press against my cheek.

It still hurts, and I hate that it does.

Alia has been doing terrible things to me ever since I first gave her a foot massage, but somehow the one thing that overshadows them all is that she openly considers our friendship a thing of the past.

It's like I'm so inadequate - too poor, too plain, too boring, too fot-stupid - that she had no choice but to demote me from friend to maid.

It's like every single time I felt that pang of jealousy and unfairness, whenever Alia got something or got to do something I couldn't because I was poor, has retroactively been validated.

Of course she has money and I don't. Look at us now, with my own hair being used as a doormat and sweat rug for the soles of her feet.

People like me exist so people like Alia don't have to clean their own feet.

No. I mustn't think that way. I mustn't yield. What Alia is doing to me is a betrayal, it's abuse, it's...

It's just so hard to think, with the scent of feet emptying my brain of all thoughts, all independence...

"Besides," Alia continues obliviously, rubbing more of her sweat into my skin pores like it's a lotion, "she throws the best parties. Her birthday's next month, and we're celebrating here! You'll see!"

Anbar shrugs. "I'll be in here anyway." Then, almost as if adding an afterthought, "Having the bitch serve Yasmin is poor genius, though. Good on ya, sis!"

And just like that, my goodwill towards Anbar shatters into a million pieces - as does my last glimmer of hope. The fact that she dislikes Yasmin is completely inconsequential. What matters is the role she could play in breaking me down even further.

I would take my lips off her toes in protest, if I could. But of course, my foot-ditzy brain can't muster defiance against an order, even an unspoken one. So I keep sucking demurely at the tip of Anbar's toes, with Alia giggling above me.

"So delicious, I can't wait!"

It's like I'm not even in the room. I wish that were literally true. I want to sink into the floor and disappear off the face of the Earth.

Yasmin. Why did it have to be fucking Yasmin? The one insufferable bimbo who embodies everything I despise? Will I really have to bow and scrape before her, too?

Each time I've told myself that surely this is where Alia will stop, I've been proven wrong. So far, she's crossed every line she's encountered. I have no reason to believe this time will be any different.

Then, the doorbell rings, making my heart sink inside me. I throw Alia one long, desperate pleading look as she retracts her foot from my face. She's so excited she's literally hopping in place.

"Oh oh, that must be her!" She says, giggling, a hand against her lips. "Come with me, peasant girl." Then, the smile disappears from her face, as quickly as it had appeared. The sternness in her gaze makes me flinch, intimidated and spineless.

God, I'm so pathetic.

"You better be on your best behavior," Alia says, admonishingly. "You wouldn't want to embarass me in front of my friend."

Again, the implication isn't lost on me. I don't qualify for the hallowed circle of Alia's friends. I'm something less than that - admittedly, something less than a person, and more like a towel girl, or perhaps a pet.

I'm trying to keep my mind intact, I swear I'm trying. But the constant physical abuse, the psychological battering, the foot scent enthralling me... my sanity is starting to buckle under the strain.

It's becoming harder and harder for me to escape the thought that on some level, I deserve all of this. That if I truly go ditzy and dumb at the mere scent of feet, that means Alia deserves to subjugate me.

That this is how things should be between us.

"I wouldn't worry," Anbar says with a chuckle as she returns to her gaming chair. "You have a surefire way of making her all docile and pliant anyway."

"That I do!" Alia says with a giggle, before turning back to me. "Crawl behind me. Don't worry if you get lost. Just follow my foot scent. No matter where you are in life, it will lead you back to where you should be! Haha!"

Alia seems endlessly amused by her own witticism, but to me, this is just another nail in the coffin of my self-esteem. I don't even try to will my body to resist any longer. I know it won't work, and I'm not sure I really want it to work anymore.

I know this level of resignation is dangerous, but the sisters have truly stamped resistance out of me with their feet. It seems that my lot in life is to submit.

So I crawl on all fours like a dog - a position I am humiliatingly more familiar with day after day - and scamper behind Alia, to the sound of Anbar's roaring laughter.

Alia's right, isn't she? Her foot scent is like an invisible leash, firmly clasped around my neck, tugging me in a direction of her choosing. It's certainly working now.

She feels I'm so dumb, I might get lost without her foot scent to guide me.

The manipulative cruelty behind the words makes my head spin so hard that it's a miracle I don't fall down the stairs and break my neck.

"There you are!" I hear Yasmin say as Alia opens the door. "Took your sweet time!"

Alia giggles. "Sorry, had to make sure my new slave was coming along."

I can't see Alia's face - she has her back to me - but I can picture the victorious glint in her eyes. My face drops. How could I ever think she wouldn't go through with this?

Alia firmly believes that the best part of victory is the gloating.

She's been doing plenty of gloating to my face. But it was foolish of me not to fully anticipate she would be gloating to her friends about my enslavement, eventually.

"Yah, still not buying it," Yasmin says in a sing-song voice, loudly and obnoxiously chewing gum while Alia shuts the front door behind her.

Then, Yasmin turns towards the hallway, and spots me.

She freezes in her tracks, her eyes travelling up and down my body, taking in my prostrate position, my ridiculous kinky maid outfit, and my mortified expression.

I hate staring at Yasmin from down on the floor. It feels so diminishing. This person - her only qualities are literally having a rich dad and being pretty. Neither of which are personal merits.

Yet here she is, standing in the hallway as Alia's friend, while I kneel submissively on the floor like a trained bitch.

Yasmin herself looks the opposite to me. She's lithe and graceful - less so than Alia, with a more round-ish face and wide eyes. One look at her expression is enough to tell there isn't much going on inside there.

She is pretty, though, I have to admit that much - even if in a wide-eyed bimbo sort of way. Her chestnut locks are beautiful, particularly next to my umkempt hair, which literally reek of Alia and Anbar's foot sweat.

Her legs go on for days, unlike my short, stubby legs that now fold beneath me in a slutty display of submissive availability. Her lips never had to kiss a foot. Her hands and feet are pampered, not calloused from having to work.

I really do feel like a peasant girl.

Her loud gum-chewing stops. Uncertainty flickers across Yasmin's face. Her eyes dart from Alia to me, then back to Alia - who's struggling mightily to contain a fit of laughter.

Yasmin isn't good with the unexpected. As you might guess, flexibility isn't her strongest suit.

But this is actually more specific than that.

Now that I'm away from Anbar's room, and Alia is standing a few steps away from me, the foot scent is less overwhelming.

In turn, I have regained at least a small crumb of clarity. Not much - nowhere near close to the autonomy I once had before Alia put me in my place - but enough to see things without the permanent foot-fog trapping my brain like quicksand.

And I see that Yasmin is afraid we're trying to make her look like an idiot.

Yasmin immediately confirms my suspicions.

"Is this a prank?" She asks, the question half directed at Alia, and half at me. "If it's a prank, I swear to God, Alia..."

Yasmin hates mockery. Rich or not, pretty or not, popular or not, she's been the butt end of more than enough jokes about her intelligence, and college students can be cruel.

I think one of her biggest fears is being made fun of, and not realizing that the joke is on her. That must have happened to her more than once.

If I can make the connection, I'm sure Alia can, too. She has a better eye for cruelty than I do, and besides, she's smarter than me.

No, she isn't. Stop that.

But she doesn't go foot-stupid, like I do. And to that observation, I have no counter-argument.

Still... a sadist or not, Alia clearly sees Yasmin as a friend, so she doesn't exploit the opening. "No prank," she says. "I've simply enslaved her with my feet! Haha!"

That destroys me even further. The moment - the very moment I show one small weakness, one chink in my armor, Alia pounces upon it like a tiger, driving my face into the mud under the heel of her shoes. But Yasmin gets a pass, because she's a friend.

And I'm not.

Clearly, I never was. Every interaction between Alia and me, ever since we were kids up to now, has been leading to this moment.

Yasmin seems unconvinced. "That a weird fetish thing you got going on?" She steps away from the hallway and towards the living room, at Alia's invitation, and I follow on all fours, without even needing a verbal order. "Congrats, I guess. Not interested."

That's a transparent lie. Of course Yasmin is interested. She's just hedging in case this is a prank.

"No, that's the best part!" Alia says, giggling. "This isn't a fetish at all! The scent of feet just... hypnotises her, or something."

The word hypnotises sends an electric shock coursing through me.

For a heartbeat, images flash past my eyelids with such speed I can barely make them out. I see a spoon, swirling in a mug of tea - gently, irresistibly. I see Sanae, smiling in victory, and one of Alia's slippers, descending above my face.

"So it makes her dumb?" Yasmin asks, snapping me out of the reverie. My breath is a little short, and I wonder what the hell that was all about. Exhaustion is playing tricks on my mind.

I hope I get to go home soon. I hope I can rest. There's no hope I'll be doing any studying for tomorrow's classes, but I need to sleep...

"She was always dumb," Alia says with her eyes on me, then smiling in satisfaction as she notices my pained reaction to her words. "Nah, feet just makes her meek and mellow. Big improvement on the original bitch. Now, she's my utterly defeated slave."

That I am, without a doubt. I hang my head in shame, defeated, while Yasmin thoughtfully taps her sneakers against the marble floors. I can basically hear the gears turning inside her simple head.

"Well, let's see then," she says at last.

Yasmin steps towards me with a long-practiced bratty girl's strut, the kind of strut girls like her and Alia can do unconsciously. She might be dumb, but she is graceful. That makes me feel a little smaller, and I fidget on my knees, as if trying to hide from Yasmin's shadow.

She stops in front of me, and I look up to meet her gaze.

Were this any other combination of people, this moment would be hugely significant. But in this case, it's actually pretty mundane. There is no victory or dominance in Yasmin's gaze, just the curiosity and fear that all this might be too good to be true.

Suddenly, Yasmin stops chewing her gum. Then, she reaches into her mouth.

Uggh!!! That's disgusting!

Yasmin holds the gum, sticky with saliva and misshapen by her chewing, between thumb and forefinger. She leans closer to me, and for once, my body responds to my nervous system - I inch backwards, still on my knees, flailing my arms to keep balance.

"Stop."

Alia's voice cuts through the air. I look in her direction, hoping, praying that the order was meant for Yasmin - but her gaze is unmistakable.

It's fixed on me.

"Peasant girl," Alia says, in the harshest tone she's ever used with me yet, "Yasmin is a fellow princess." She raises an eyebrow, plaintively. "Submit."

God, no. This is so mortifying. So utterly devastating. First Anbar got to use me as a living trashcan, and now, Yasmin?

Tears form in my eyes, and I close them, shivering in disgust while bracing myself for what is about to happen.

"Eyes open, maid," Alia commands me. So I open them, only to find Yasmin's eyes meeting my own. She is being very deliberate in her movements, slowly bringing her hand closer and closer to my head.

As the gum makes contact with my hair, Yasmin's face unfurls into a feral smirk, one that stretches more and more as she sees the utter submission in my eyes. And absurdly, my first thought is that she looks so beautiful.

Yasmin's long, slender fingers begin massaging the gum into my greasy hair, her eyes never once leaving mine, her teeth glimmering brightly like the fangs of a predator.

She's loving this.

"I can't believe you were ever friends with this loser," she tells Alia, with a weird edge to her voice.

"That has been permanently rectified! Haha!"

Yasmin breaks into a chuckle. That's very bad news for me. She's now confident that the joke isn't directed at her, and is in fact on me. I know Yasmin won't be able to shut up about this.

I wonder how long it takes before the whole of college knows I've become a slave.

Yasmin steps lithely away from me, sitting on the sofa, draping one leg above the other.

"So, can I make her do it too?" She asks Alia. "If she smells my feet, will she obey me too?"

A flicker of doubt crosses Alia's face. She doesn't really like to share her toys. Making me obey Yasmin is one thing, she still has control over that situation. Would she be willing to dilute that?

In case of a conflict of orders, which one of the two would I obey? Would I be free to choose, or would my brain pick one for me? Or would I go crazy, trying to follow both orders at once and failing?

I idly wonder. This phenomenon must have some explanation. It must have rules, mechanics I've yet to uncover.

Alia's next words snap me out of the philosophical questions, though.

"Works with me and Anbar," she says with a shrug. "Peasant girl, go sniff Yasmin's feet."

Alia has spoken the words, so there is no room for struggle in my obedience. My execution is flawless.

I notice, with growing dismay, that when before I simply followed the letter of Alia and Anbar's orders, increasingly I am modelling my behavior on their unspoken expectations.

I don't just walk to Yasmin, plop down, and give her foot a sniff. I stay on my knees, ungainly shuffling towards her. I keep my eyes downcast as I do it, my posture available and unassuming.

I know the sisters want submission oozing out of my very pore. And so, the execution is flawless. From body language alone, I look like a willing slave, or at least, a perfectly trained one. They have literally drilled a change into me.

My shameful shuffle completed, I lie prostrate before Yasmin, hating every second of it. She's done nothing but coast through life. I've done nothing but work hard. And now here we are, the princess and the supplicant.

"Take my shoes off," Yasmin says, her voice pitched like she's unsure whether she should be giving orders, or asking questions. Unfortunately, Alia wants me to sniff Yasmin's feet, and removing the shoes is a necessary prerequisite, so my body responds to the letter.