Underfoot

By the time she sat down, I was already in place.

Wrapped tightly from shoulders to ankles, with only my hooded face and the cage between my legs left exposed, I lay flat on the floor in front of the sofa like something that had been packaged for use.

The hood had already taken my sight, but that wasn't all it did. It took my face with it. Whatever lay at her feet now was anonymous, featureless, useful.

The room came to me only as sound and sensation: the television somewhere above and behind me, the occasional clink of a glass, the shift of her weight against the sofa cushions, and her feet.

At first, they rested across my chest, nylon against bare skin, warm already. One ankle crossed over the other while she watched whatever she'd chosen, her attention completely elsewhere. Every so often she shifted position and one foot slid across me, the fabric rasping softly against my skin.

I waited for something. A word, a hand, some acknowledgment that I was there.

None came.

After a while, her feet moved higher. One settled against my cheek, the other across the cage between my legs. I felt the pressure change as she adjusted herself on the sofa, her heel bearing down slightly harder before relaxing again.

Still nothing. The television carried on. People laughed at something. She laughed too. I couldn't tell whether she was looking at me, and eventually I stopped wondering.

That was harder than it should have been. Being ignored wasn't unfamiliar. Being made to wait wasn't unfamiliar either. But this was different.

I wasn't waiting for the scene to begin.

This was the scene.

I was exactly where she wanted me.

Her foot moved slowly across my face, the nylon catching against my lips. I breathed in. Her scent had begun to collect in the warmth of the fabric: skin, nylon, the faint remains of whatever she'd worn during the day.

I wanted to turn towards it. I couldn't.

For the first time since sitting down, she deliberately acknowledged my presence.

Not me. My mouth.

Her toes pressed against my lips and I understood. I opened them.

She pushed her foot forward. The nylon was warm and slightly damp against my tongue as she eased her toes into my mouth, not hurriedly, not aggressively, simply because she wanted them there.

Her attention never left the television. I could hear it in the dialogue, the music, the occasional sound of her taking a drink. And I lay beneath her, wrapped and helpless, holding her foot in my mouth because that was where she'd decided it belonged.

After a while she withdrew it. Her heel returned to my cheek and the other foot remained on my cage.

Nothing had changed.

That was somehow the most powerful part.

Minutes passed. Perhaps longer.

Then the television went quiet.

For a moment I thought she had turned it off, but instead I heard the sound of her phone. A few taps, then her voice.

“Hey.”

It was different immediately. Softer. Warmer. The kind of voice that was meant for someone.

I listened. There was enough of the other side of the conversation leaking through the phone for me to know someone was there, but not enough to make out who. I tried anyway. A man? A woman? Someone I knew?

There was laughter.

Her foot moved against my face, not accidentally this time. Slowly. Deliberately.

She was still talking. I heard her say something too quietly for me to catch, followed by another laugh. Then her toes found my mouth again.

I opened without being told and she pushed them inside.

The conversation continued.

I ceased to exist as an audience.

That was the strange thing. I could hear everything she gave the person on the phone: her attention, her humour, the little changes in her voice, the pauses while she listened, the intimacy of being addressed.

And none of it was for me.

What I received was nylon, pressure, use.

Her foot withdrew and moved lower. I felt it settle against the cage and the pressure increased. I couldn't see what she was doing, but I didn't need to.

Her breathing had changed. The conversation had changed too: longer silences now, a quieter voice, something said that made her inhale sharply.

The foot against my cage pressed harder and I strained uselessly inside it.

She didn't comment, didn't tease me, didn't even acknowledge the response.

Another murmur into the phone. Another pause.

Then her foot was against my mouth again.

This time there was no hesitation. Her toes pushed between my lips and she held them there while she spoke to whoever was on the other end of the call.

I could feel tension building through her. Not because she told me, but because the foot in my mouth flexed, because the pressure against my face increased, because her breathing came quicker.

I lay there and took it.

The phone conversation continued above me in fragments: words I couldn't quite follow, her voice dropping lower, then breaking.

A sharp breath. A small sound.

Her foot drove harder into my mouth while the other pressed down against my cage. For several seconds she held me there.

Then the pressure eased. Her toes relaxed and her breathing slowly steadied.

I could hear the person on the phone talking. She laughed softly and answered.

Not a word to me.

Her foot slipped from my mouth and settled against my face once more. The conversation carried on for a few minutes, ordinary again. Almost. A little softer. A little satisfied.

Then:

“Night.”

The call ended.

Silence.

I waited. Some irrational part of me expected her attention to turn towards me now.

The call was over.

Surely now—

The television came back on.

A familiar theme tune filled the room. She shifted on the sofa and her feet settled across me again, one against my chest, one resting comfortably against my face.

And that was all.

No praise. No release. No acknowledgment.

The call had ended.

The television came back on.

Her feet settled on me again.