Chapter Six: A Gift Of Weakness
I'm back to the mall, and I no longer feel like myself.
I look around with big, terrified eyes. This place has, in a way, become a metronome of my downfall.
It's the before place, where Alia and I spent so many hours as friends. It's the very last place where we ever interacted as friends, before she proceeded to enslave me. The thought alone is enough to make me tear up. Oh Alia, what have I ever done to you to deserve this...?
It's the during place. Alia made me submit to her here, in public. She forced me into the slutty maid outfit I'm also wearing today. She clearly demonstrated the extent to which she didn't really consider me her equal.
And now...
Now, it's going to be the after place. Because what I'm about to do is going to have real, catastrophic consequences for the rest of my life.
The sisters flank me, my Queen and my Goddess.
They laugh, trade jokes, and walk on either side of me, almost like I'm a prisoner they intend to escort to her doom. I keep my gaze low, like they want me to, and shuffle ungainly half-a-step behind them. They draw eyes, like they always do.
I do, too... but for how ridiculous I look in my slutty maid outfit, with my boxy peasant-girl looks and my hair that reeks of foot sweat.
"Why the long face, Zainab?" Alia asks me, with an evil glint in her eye. Don't you want to buy Yasmin a nice gift? Something that shows how grateful you are for being invited to her birthday party?"
The sisters giggle, while my chest tightens with anxiety and fear. God, the absolute sadism and mockery. Invited? I'll be there as the literal servant to all of the invitees. And as for the gift, the gift...
My head spins. I'm racing towards a precipice, and I don't know how to stop it. Alia and Anbar have so much control over me that I blink in stupefied confusion as they lead me into the store of their choice.
This is the perfect Alia place, in so many ways. The sizes on offer are all ridiculously small, meant for lithe girls with legs that go on for days. I'm not even sure the quality's very good, but the labels and the minor seasonal variations in design guarantee that the hefty pricetag will always find willing buyers.
It's not just that I can't afford anything in this store. It's that it represents everything I hate about female fashion today, a market deliberately designed to exclude girls like me.
As I look at my two conquerors glide effortlessly through the store, though, I tell myself that maybe there are no girls like me. Girls who get enslaved by the smell of feet. Girls whose IQ drools out of their mouth when in the presence of foot scent.
They don't even let me choose the gift. But of course, why would I? I'm a joke of a person at this point.
Of course they've gone for a pair of shoes. The symbol of my new status in life, not just beneath both of them, but underneath Yasmin as well. The symbology of gifting shoes to the latest girl to stamp her will on me is unmistakable.
Alia holds them aloft like some kind of trophy, presenting them to me with a smile and a twirl. I'm just trying to sink into the floor and disappear forever, but all I do is stand and stare at the ground.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the shoes are sneakers, a pair of a frankly disgusting bubble-pink colour. Positively thrashy. But what worries me is that they're Balenciaga. With dread, I suddenly remember that I'm supposed to pay these with my own life savings, what little I've been able to steadily accumulate through my student years, one dime at a time.
"Your Majesty," I tell Alia, my lips trembling. "How much... please, don't, I... I can't..."
My heart sinks as I realise that I will meet no mercy here. Alia smiles cruelly.
"Oh, about one grand, I think-"
It's all I can do not to faint.
I break down in the store. Really break down this time, foot scent or not.
My body trembles like a leaf as I cry and sob and wail, loudly, to the evident embarassment of the staff, who glance my way and then pointedly look away. I feel like a child, so pathetic, but.. the raw emotion coming out of me cannot be contained. Weeks of abuse, of treason from my own best friend, of... reduction... all channel out through my tears and my sobs.
Anbar takes a step back, as if she wasn't expecting the outburst, but Alia simply pouts. Even through the haze of my own tears, I recognise the pout -- my emotional outburst is ruining the moment.
"That's so annoying," she says. "Stop bawling like a fucking baby, god. It's not like we're sawing your limbs off."
Unfortunately for me, the decisiveness of her tone cuts through my emotions like a scythe. I begin to calm down. Tears still stream down my face in rivulets, but my breathing begins to slow.
"God, what a fucking bitch," Alia mutters. "Come on, you're buying this gift for Yasmin. No arguments. I won't let you embarrass me at the birthday party of a fellow princess."
I gulp. Alia is talking to me like I'm her accessory, a pet dog to show off to her friends, or... a part of her estate. And the sad truth is, I'm letting her do it, and so that means I am. She's won.
I stare dully ahead as my card swipes against the reader, evaporating all my savings. Numbness begins to set in, where pain was before. What used to be a fear of the future is now a complete and utter certainty: Alia is really going to destroy my life for fun. There will be nothing left.
The girls giggle and titter as we head out of the mall.
"You must really like Yasmin!" Alia says, an evil glint in her eyes. "No wonder, though, she's totally my best friend!"
Anbar is not to be outdone, and elbows me in the ribs. "I was wrong about you, Zainab. You never struck me as the financially irresponsible type!"
Alia laughs out loud, as if finding the idea of me continuing my education ridiculous. Defeated, I simply lower my head, and sink into my own mind.
It is no use. By the time we make it back to her home, Yasmin's gift wrapped and in my hands, I feel like the empty shell of the person I once used to be.
I leave the gift on the mantelpiece by the front door, and then immediately kneel before the sisters for the ritual.