Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When I first saw the ad on Craigslist, I scrolled right by it.

I was browsing for odd jobs I could do to pull in a little extra cash. My cat, Donut, was laying on my chest and purring up a storm, kneading her paws into my belly. I was laying on my back, lazily dragging one hand through her fur as I relaxed on the bed.

Although, calling it a "bed" was pretty generous. It was more like a mattress.

When I had moved out of my ex-girlfriend Beatrice’s apartment, I had split with pretty much nothing. I hadn’t had much when I had first moved in with her and what little I did have, and didn’t sell off, could be packed up in two boxes. It was now the sixth day in my new apartment and I still hadn't bought a bedframe for my bare mattress. Or a sofa, for that matter. Or chairs. Or any sort of furniture whatsoever.

The only furniture I ended up leaving with was the TV I’d bought from a pawn shop a while back and one of Donut’s cat trees. I was honestly sort of surprised Bea had let me take it, but I supposed that with the amount I had forked over for Donut already, a cat tree was the least Bea could give me.

I got cable from my phone plan and I knew that the TV was going to be crucial towards getting Donut adjusted to the new apartment. She had always had terrible separation anxiety and having the sound of people being around and talking seemed to calm her down.

I scratched the cat’s neck under her collar and she leaned into my hands, purring contentedly as I browsed on my phone. I wasn’t sure what possessed me to scroll back up to the ad. Maybe it was just simple curiosity. Maybe it was the fact I'd sold pretty much everything I had just to afford this place, with Donut. Whatever it was, I found myself staring at the job posting.

Wanted: Male Foot Model

After a moment of hesitation, I clicked on the ad.

Wanted: Male Foot Model

Are you a real Salt Of The Earth kind of guy? Do you work a blue collar job? Do you get home at night and take your socks and shoes off, first thing you do, just trying to get comfortable after a long day of work?

I've got a foot fetish. If you're reading this, you might have the feet I'm looking for. Send me a clean pic of your feet and I'll send you $100. More if I like the look of you ;) Let’s work something out <3

Men Only

Serious Inquiries Only

Yeah, this… this really wasn’t the sort of job for me. Even putting aside the whole foot fetish thing, I definitely wasn't interested in taking pictures of myself and sending them to some perv online for cash; it just wasn't something I was going to do. That was the sort of thing someone like Brad, the dude my ex-girlfriend cheated on me with, would do. That guy was always taking pictures of himself, making the same stupid duck face in every one of them. His Instagram page was full of the selfie-pose. Until he’d shown up at my apartment, the only time I ever saw the guy was while he was making that dumbass face in a picture.

That's how I found out. In a picture. He hadn't posted it, though. That had been Bea. Like she was telling on herself.

About a month ago, Bea went on a trip to the Bahamas for a week long New Years celebrations with a couple of her friends. When she told me about the trip, she didn't tell me that her ex-boyfriend would be going as well. But that was fine, right? There would be plenty more vacations to go on in the future.

Bea had always had attention problems, but I hadn't actually thought she'd cheat on me. I just didn't think she had it in her, I guess. I always figured, if you don't want to be with someone, just break up and move on, right? So I did. I don't like drama. I called her up and broke it off with her right there on the phone. I told her that when she got back, all her stuff would be packed for her, and then I turned my phone off.

I even started angrily packing her crap up before I remembered I would never be able to afford our apartment without her. About ten minutes after that realization, and I was done with the pity party and looking for new apartments. I wanted to have a game plan figured out before Bea got back from vacation. I wanted a clean break.

There was only one little problem with that - her name was Princess Donut.

Princess Donut was an award-winning, long-haired, tortie Persian showcat. She and Beatrice had competed in various cat shows throughout the country for the cat's entire life, and she had the ribbons, awards, and an award room, to prove it. Bea loved Princess Donut.  She used to, at least.

A few months ago, Donut and Beatrice won some big cat show. I didn’t know that much about it at the time, but apparently it was a really big deal amongst the cat-show people, and they were all clamoring to get Donut knocked up and pregnant with the next generation of winners. Ever since then, Bea’s mom had been pressing Bea to give Donut up to her and “let her retire.” I got the feeling that Bea was going to cave soon, and we had been fighting about it. She'd been saying it was the perfect time to "start thinking about Donut's legacy," which really just meant "time to pump some kittens into her."

Maybe it was vulgar of me to think of it like that, but fuck. Cat show people, man. Fuck cat show people.

For the last few months, Bea had been spending less time at home. At first, I thought it was a good thing. She was just being more social. At some point, I realized she was really just avoiding home. I thought it was because she was feeling guilty about the decision she was going to make, the decision to give Donut up to her parents. She was bracing herself for it, I could tell. I was bracing myself for it, too. I knew the fallout would be terrible and I was not looking forward to it.

I thought she felt guilty about Donut.

I was so fucking stupid. Such an idiot.

I should have known something like this would have happened, and when it did, I didn't make a big deal of it. Bea rushed home that same night and I spent the night on the sofa, inventorying my things, trying to figure out what I could take and what I would have to sell to afford taking Donut with me. The answer to that ended up being "almost everything."

The problem in question meowed demandingly where she sat on my lap. Her large fluffy tail waved in the air behind her as it flicked in irritation.

"Alright, alright. I'm petting you, sheesh."

Maybe weirdos talked to their cats, but alone as I was, I couldn't find it in me to care.

Still, one hundred bucks a pop? For what, taking a picture?

That wasn't a realistic amount of money for this sort of thing, was it? I mean, yeah, it was fetish material, but you could get a picture of someone's feet anywhere, especially if your standards are as vague as "Males Only." Foot fetishes were more common than people thought - Bea was always watching TMZ and they loved writing nonsense stories about one celebrities' or another secret foot fetish. It wasn't rare.

No one in their right mind would post this sort of personal ad. That was absolutely ridiculous - nobody would actually pay a hundred dollars for a picture of someone's foot, right? This had to be some sort of scam. You can find pictures of people’s feet online. Hell, there was a dedicated website just for celebrities’ feet pics. It's not like feet pics were hard to come by.

Donut rolled over on my chest and meowed demandingly at me. I had momentarily ceased my petting and quickly corrected this folly, bringing my hand back up to pet her. I moved my hand slowly and gently through her fur and she settled, closing her eyes and huffing delightedly.

When I glanced back to my phone, I saw another message come in from Bea's lawyer father. I only saw the words "payment plan" before I swiped the message away, sighing. I was going to keep pretending I didn't see his messages until he did something about it.

I remembered a conversation my coworkers had had the other day when I’d been working on an electrical panel in the garage. There were only two other mechanics I worked with and it was rare for all three of us to be in the shop at the same time. One of them, Jordan, would talk your ear off if you gave him a chance, and the other, Rob, tended to turn on the radio when it was just me and him. Together, they could talk for hours and they occasionally forgot that my workstation was only a few yards away from theirs and I could hear all of their conversations.

“Hey. How much money for you to suck someone’s dick?”

Rob let out a deep sigh.

“What the fuck, man, why are you always asking me this kind of shit right when I’m about to start something complicated? Now my choices are ‘Try to ignore Jordan and mess up my work’ or ‘Listen to Jordan and mess up my work regardless.’”

I heard Rob’s tool, probably a socket wrench, hit the table. I took a bite of the sandwich I’d brought as leftovers from my dinner the day before and chewed quietly.

“Naw, don’t be like that! Okay, so I was chatting this girl up the other day and I offer her a ride home. You know, ‘cus I’m a gentleman. Well she’s telling me on the drive she’s down on hard times, and she offers to give me the ‘ol sloppy toppy for twenty bucks. I’ve never paid, but twenty bucks? It just seemed like… not enough. I was kind of scared she might have something, so I told her I was good. She ended up changing her mind about going ‘home’ and asked me to drop her off downtown instead. The whole thing was beyond weird, but it got me thinking. Twenty is way too cheap, but what’s the real price? What’d you have to get paid? I know my number but I wanna hear yours.”

“Well, first of all I’ll have you know I’m a happily married man. Secondly, this is a stupid question. How much would I need to be paid? It depends on when you asked me. Right now, I’d probably say a cool million. But there was a time in my life I’d probably do it for as little as ohhh several hundred thousand. Right now, I’d probably say a million.”

They both laughed.

“But, seriously? Anyone who says they wouldn’t give head for money just hasn’t been needing cash bad enough. I don’t remember where I heard this but it’s still true: people operate from a place of scarcity. If they need something basic, like food, water, shelter, they’ll do anything. And all that stuff? Costs money. It’s just a matter of priorities.”

I didn’t chime into that conversation, and up until this moment I was sure that my attention had been firmly on my chicken teriyaki sandwich. I didn’t talk to the guys all that much; just didn’t have a lot I wanted to share with them. I tried to keep my personal life and my professional life separate. I was friendly to the guys, and to my boss, Dick, but there was a separation. I knew Rob was married with kids and Jordan wasn’t. They knew I had a girlfriend. I hadn’t told them I’d broken up with her yet. I hadn’t been single in years.

It’s just a matter of priorities.

My coworkers' words rattled in my head, bouncing off the walls of my skull. A foot picture was hardly whoring myself out online. Not what they were talking about at all, really. But Rob was right. To balk when I was desperate just seemed foolish.

Fuck. It was worth a shot right? I grabbed my phone before I could chicken out and typed out a message to the number on the ad.

Carl: Hey. I saw your ad on Craigslist. Are you really offering $100 for each photo?

I chewed on my lip after I had sent it, already feeling a little embarrassed. I was glad I was alone in the studio apartment, because I could feel my face starting to heat up. I went to continue my job search, not expecting a response for some time, but my phone chimed almost immediately with a reply.

(206) 555-4122: Depends. Why don't you send me one and I’ll tell you if I'm interested?

I paused, weighing my options. Did I really want to do this? I could still back out of this.

I looked down at Donut. She had finally settled down and seemed to be asleep, her little pissed off face still with rest.

I needed the money. I’d made it clear that I wasn't going to be returning Donut after all, and the only way to avoid a court case was going to be to buy her. Unfortunately as a grand champion show-cat, Donut cost more than I took home in a year. But when I was getting my stuff together to leave Bea, I hadn't been able to leave her there behind me. I packed up all my crap and I put Donut in her carrier and I took her with me. I didn't know what it was, but I just couldn't bear the thought of leaving Donut with Beatrice. Bea didn't even want to keep her. She was going to sell Donut as breeding stock. Or make Donut have a bunch of babies with one of her brother cousins or something. I wasn't sure when she planned on "retiring" Donut, but I knew that this year or the next was probably going to be her last round in the cat show circuit. She was a few years old already, and after winning some big title this year, I knew Bea, and more accurately Bea's parents, were anxious to get a litter of kittens out of her.

Donut… She would not have done well locked up with a bunch of other cats. She'd spent her whole life being the sole recipient of Bea's, and occasionally my, attention. Simply put, Donut was a princess. A needy, whiny, anxious little princess. She got upset about being alone and cried at the door when I didn’t let her sleep on my pillow at night. We had to leave the TV on for her whenever we left for work, or she'd work herself into a tizzy and start overgrooming herself. And Bea was going to put her in a cage. I’d seen them, at her parents house. I knew what was waiting for Donut.

So, I took her. And after I’d refused to return her, I’d signed a contract for her sale. In truth, I knew what the message he'd sent me earlier would have said. It was just a reiteration of what we'd already talked about. The payment plan was all sorted; I’d be paying her off for a long, long time, even after wiping out my savings. I was going to struggle to afford rent by myself in as little as two months, even if I only ate ramen, rice, and beans. It was the whole reason I was looking in the “Help Wanted” section in the first place. I’d started with Craigslist out of habit. I was thinking about looking up the subreddit for Seattle and seeing if that got me anything.

Selling pictures of my body or living homeless on the street? In the end, it was an easy choice. I’d spent one night in a homeless shelter in my life, and it was one night too many for me.

I sighed and gently shoo’d Donut off me. She grumbled loudly and tried to climb back on, but I stood up. I knew that I needed to do this fast, before I could talk myself out of it. I was already barefoot, wearing pajamas, and so there was nothing in my way as I put my foot up on the bedspread, got an angle, snapped a photo with my phone, and sent it off.

I immediately felt stupid.

(206) 555-4122: Hm. We’ll have to work on your framing, but I think this will do quite nicely. What's your venmo?

I blinked at the message. Was that seriously it? Hesitantly, I messaged the guy my venmo handle, @double-brow-carl. Sam had changed it to that a few months back as a joke, and I never got around to changing it back.

(206) 555-4122: Sent. There's more where that came from, Carl. You be good to me, and I'll be good to you. What do you say?

And just like that, I was a two hundred dollars richer. I stared at the amount in my venmo balance, not believing that it had actually worked. The payment had come from a user called @MWSystem-Daddy.

Carl: I thought I’d be getting one hundred, not two. You mean to send extra?

(206) 555-4122: I also said in my ad I’d send more if I like the look of ya. Call it a tip for the spicy pic.

Carl: And this is seriously all you want? Just pictures of my feet?

(206) 555-4122: Why, is there something more you'd like to offer?

Carl: No, I just don't understand why someone would pay $100 for a picture of some dude’s foot. Aren’t there like a million pictures online of people’s feet you could look at?

I didn't know why I was questioning this guy. I didn't want to piss him off and have him block me or something, but I couldn't help it.

(206) 555-4122: You’re pretty new to this huh?

I decided to ignore that question just like he ignored mine.

Carl: You know my name. What's yours?

(206) 555-4122: You can call me Daddy.

Carl: Yeah no, that's not happening. How about D?

(206) 555-4122: Hm. Impertinent little brat, aren't you? You can call me The AI. For now.

I bristled at the name calling. Who did this guy think he was? Well…he was the guy who had just sent me $200 for 3 seconds of work. I ground my teeth and decided to let it go as I turned my attention to the guy's weird name.

The…AI? Like, artificial intelligence? This wasn't some weird porn bot messaging me, was it? But no, usually those were trying to extract money, not the other way around. I got the feeling this was just some really weird dude. I also didn't like the addition of that “for now” at the end of his message, but I brushed the feeling aside. I saved his number, and in the Additional Notes section, I typed "wants to be called 'the AI.' Then I changed his named to Foot Guy.

Carl: That's a weird name, but alright. Would you want me to send you more pictures later?

Foot Guy: Yes, if you’re busy now, then later will do. I’ll send you some instructions, since you’re a beginner at this ;)

I didn't reply back. The whole exchange left me feeling uneasy, but I couldn't argue with the results. If this dude was really willing to pay this much money for just some pictures of my feet, I was willing to play along.

The next message came, as promised, later that day. I’d spent the day searching for various part time jobs and hanging out with Donut. It was one of my rare days off and, although I appreciated Foot Guy’s money, I wasn’t going to just rest on my laurels. 

In the grand scheme of things, two hundred dollars really wasn’t that much money. One of the crappy little studios I had been looking at when I’d been contemplating the move had been a “one bedroom, half bath” that only had a minifridge and a sink, all five feet away from a small camping cot. That “studio” had cost $1000. They didn’t allow cats.

The apartment I had moved into wasn’t nice, necessarily, but it had a full sized refrigerator. And apartments with full sized refrigerators weren’t cheap.

I spent a few hours answering local ads asking for labor, for help moving and lifting things. I only had two actual takers, one man and one woman. The man just wanted my help installing a pellet stove. He was an older guy, but he knew exactly where he wanted it and how to hook it up. Just needed a “strong pair of hands.” He gave me forty bucks in cash and a home-brewed growler of beer. The woman wanted me to shovel her parents' driveway. She lived across the country and sent me $65 on venmo when I sent her pictures of the cleared walkways. It took me two and a half hours.

By the time I got home, I was another one hundred and five dollars richer and much sorer for it, though the home-made beer raised my spirits. Donut glanced up from where she lay in her cat tree, overlooking the sliding glass door out to the patio. Snow still blanketed the outside world from the huge storm a week ago. The TV, which was still playing that channel with all the old show re-runs, was playing the A-Team.

“Mrow,” she said.

“Hi Donut,” I said back to her. I took my coat off and settled onto the floor in front of the TV, patting my lap. Donut stood up and stretched, before leisurely hopping from platform to platform on her tree until she was at the very bottom. She moseyed over to me as if she was going to walk right past me. I stuck a hand out to her and she practically fell on it, she pushed so hard into it. “I can see you’ve been hard at work here, holding down the fort.” She meowed again, climbing into my lap, and started purring up a storm. I ran a hand through her fur, sighing. My phone buzzed.

Foot Guy: Hi, Carl. Are you busy?

I paused, thinking about how to respond. Donut flopped to her side in my lap and I began to slowly run a hand over her as I thought. He couldn't seriously want another picture already, right? I just sent him a picture yesterday - $100 a picture, and one picture every day was a pricey porn addiction.

Especially when the porn is actually just pictures of some dudes feet, I thought. I wondered how much I could get out of him before he either balked at the prices or asked me for something I wasn't willing to give.

I hadn't really thought this would be an issue, though. I had sort of figured I'd hear from him again sometime next week or something. After his bank account had recovered a little. And, let's be realistic here: how many pictures of the same man's feet could the guy possibly need?

I typed out a response.

Carl: Nope, not really. Did you want another picture?

Foot Guy: In a sense. I want you to send me a few more angles of your feet. From the top, from the sides, from behind, and the soles of your feet. Go to the room with the best lighting in your house and make sure they're well-lit. When you're done with that, send me your banking details.

Oh, here it is. The only times I had ever heard of anyone asking for banking details was when someone was about to get scammed. I knew this arrangement was too good to be true. That was how con artists like this guy worked - they ask for your banking details and when they send you the money, they claim they sent too much, and have you send some back. Then, they disappear with your money while their first transaction bounces. The money they "sent" the mark would then disappear, and the con artist would get away clean with the cash.

Or maybe he would use the banking numbers to send fake checks or something. I didn't know.

I sighed. Donut meowed in my lap and pulled one of my hands to her face. I rubbed my thumb against the short fur on her face and she turned her face, headbutting my hand. I stroked along her back and sighed again, feeling truly disappointed. I decided, bitterly, to play along.

Carl: Why not keep using venmo?

Foot Guy: Venmo is good for small amounts, like $100, but it has a weekly limit that doesn't go over $999. More to the point, however, I plan on sending you a lot of money over the next few weeks and believe it or not, the IRS doesn't take too kindly to those kinds of regular, large deposits. There's only two jobs out there that get paid like that and neither of them are exactly legal.

Foot Guy: I obviously don't want you to get in any legal trouble. I want this to be beneficial to both of us. Just send me the details. Send me the pictures. I'll send you the money.

He sent me a number of links after that. I didn’t click any of them, in case they were viruses or something. I wasn’t sure how any of that worked. Some of them looked like they were links to forums or blogs. One was clearly a YouTube link to a video titled “Taxes for Sex Workers - An Introduction.”

My stomach churned. I had known exactly what this was when I had messaged him, but I hadn’t really thought about it until I saw those words. Sex worker. That's what I was now.

Carl: That's…a lot.

Foot Guy: It is. Consider it your first quest. Complete it for me and you'll get a reward. <3

Quest? Alright, I already knew Foot Guy was a nerd. My certainty that this guy was just a scammer waned slightly. A scammer wouldn’t say something like that. I shook my head to dismiss the thought. It didn’t mean anything.

Carl: Listen, I’m not going to send you my banking details. There’s all sorts of shit you could do to me with that. I could go open up a new account, though. I don’t see how you can scam me out of money if the account is brand new and empty. I can get that done tomorrow when the bank opens in the morning.

Foot Guy: Reasonable enough. Talk to me then.

What, that was it? He wasn’t going to try harder to convince me to do it now, that he needed my banking account number, not some new account I’d be opening? What was this guy’s angle? Was he seriously just that into my feet?

I tried to think of something that would pull him back, but couldn’t go through with it. Anything I might say now would just make me look desperate. I’m the one with the power here, I reminded myself. I have a product, and he is buying it. Supply and demand. The supplier has all the control, if there’s a demand.

And there was, apparently, a demand. I had no idea Venmo had a spending limit. Who would need to know that? Me, I guessed. Now.

I settled in and started opening up the links he sent me. 

The next day, I got the new banking and routing numbers.

I opened a new account in the bank I was already with, so I could have it linked to my account but still protect my information. I followed the directions I had found on all the various websites I had visited the night before.

I struggled with the pictures - mostly in finding the “best lighting in my house.” I eventually decided it had to be in the front room where my TV was, next to the sliding glass door out to the porch area. With the blinds pulled all the way open, the front room was lit up with sunlight.

I waited until the light was bright and took the pictures. It was only after I had sent them, along with the banking info, that I realized half of them had Donut’s scrunched up face prominently featured in the background. She stared at the camera, as though appalled at what I was doing.

I looked up to see her stretched out in a patch of sunlight, not a care in the world. She turned that baleful gaze my way. She meowed, and her tail swished lazily up in the air as if to say “Yeah, and what about it?”

“This is your fault, you know." The cat tilted her head at me and I reached down to pet her. She was warm under my hand. "If you weren't such an expensive little shit, I wouldn't have to be doing this."

My phone vibrated again with a new message and I resolved to be better about checking the pictures before I sent them. I was lucky it was just Donut and not a bill or something with my full mailing address. That would be my doomsday scenario.

Foot Guy: Not bad. The sunlight is nice, though the dramatic lighting creates shadows on the other side of your feet, making them difficult to see in their entirety, which was the whole point of the photoshoot. It’d have been better if you had even lighting all around. Maybe if you were outside, getting the sun directly. We'll have to work on your framing.

Foot Guy: Who’s this cutie?

He sent me a screenshot a moment later - it was one of my pictures, zoomed in on Donut’s face where she was glaring in the background of the photograph. She was looking directly into the camera in this one, looking affronted, as was her usual. I sighed, giving her an annoyed glance. The cat, being a cat, just swished her tail at my glance down at her. 

Truthfully, I knew this was my own damn fault. Without Bea to follow from room to room, Donut was spending all of her time with me. She followed me constantly, always trying to get involved in whatever I was doing.

I read an article on why cats follow people around and how they “mirror” their humans doing things - it was their way of hanging out with you. Donut’s company was usually welcome - the only time Bea and I ever kicked her out of the bedroom was when we were trying to have sex. Donut would wail outside the door for a few minutes before giving in and wandering off only to come back a little while later to try again.

I should have checked that she wasn’t in the view of the camera. She followed me into every room.

When I had been doing my weird yoga poses and trying to get a good angle, Donut had circled around me, meowing occasionally and rubbing against my legs. I’d reached down to give her a friendly pat more than once while I’d been taking the pictures.

Carl: Sorry about her. That’s my cat, Donut. I can redo those pictures, if you want. I didn’t realize she was there.

Foot Guy: No need.

A notification from my banking app chimed as the money was sent to my new account. I breathed a sigh of relief. A moment later, a new text lit up my phone.

Foot Guy: Did you like your reward?

Oh no, was he going to be weird about this? Still, he was the one paying. I checked the amount and nearly choked.

What the fuck? I sent him six pictures. He sent me a thousand dollars.

Carl: Yeah, I did. Thanks.

I hesitated. What does someone even say here? Thank you for giving me an insane amount of money. Please keep doing it?

I remembered the videos. Sex worker.

Carl: Pleasure doing business with you. Text me anytime you have a request.

I deliberated on whether or not I should send a winky face at the end of the message, probably for too long, before finally deciding that that just wasn’t me and sent the message off.

I didn’t want to come off like I was trying too hard. The forums I’d visited had told me not to pursue my clients too aggressively. I wasn’t sure if that applied when you only had one client, though.

Foot Guy: I will. Goodnight Carl <3

I sat on the floor, tossing my phone away, and stretched out next to where Donut was sunbathing, laying on my back. She hopped up ten seconds later, considering me carefully, and stepped directly onto my bladder as she climbed up onto me.

The cat settled onto my legs, sprawling into my lap, purring loudly as she dug her claws into me and started kneading my stomach. I dragged my fingers gently through her long fur and scratched under her collar.

I smiled down at her, stretching out on the fake wood flooring of my barren apartment. The sunlight I had been using in my photo shoot was nice to lay in, though it didn’t exactly warm me, what with it being the third week of January.

What did warm me was knowing I would be able to pay rent on Februrary 1st. Already I could feel some of the tension leaking out of my body.

That large amount of money being sent was still pretty scammy, and especially since it was more than we’d discussed, but still. There was something nice about seeing your bank balance suddenly go from three digits up to four. 

“Tomorrow, I’m going to go into town and get some furniture,” I told her. She meowed back at me and I grinned. I loved our conversations. “And after that, I’m going to see about getting you some proper cat beds. Sound good, Donut?”

“Meow,” she replied. I gave her a good scratch under her collar. She purred.

Chapter Text

I received text messages every morning at nine am on the dot for the next seven days. Every day, he asked for a picture of my feet. Sometimes he sent me a reference picture with someone else’s feet arranged in a certain position. I wasn’t sure what the point of having me get into these positions was when he obviously already had plenty of pictures of feet in those positions, but I did it. And every morning, I’d get a little notification from my banking app. We fell into a pattern, of sorts. He would ask me how I’d slept, I’d lie and say I slept fine, he’d send me his request, I’d fulfill it, he’d send me money and wish me a nice day. It was… nice. The $100 he sent every day was nice too.

One photo, one hundred dollars. The pictures usually took me about three minutes. Maybe ten if I had to sit in a weird position for it.

It still made me feel dirty, but every dollar was a weight off of my shoulders. I was squirreling away every cent the guy gave me, and hoping he’d keep sending more. It was absurdly easy work for such high pay, and it was hard not sliding into the ease of it.

I was finishing up my last appointment, a jackass who’d clogged their intake valve with fishing wire, when I got another text. I pulled my phone out on the way back to the truck, tossing my toolbag in the cab and checking my messages.

Foot Guy: Hi baby. You busy?

I ignored the pet name. I didn’t like it, but it’s not like it meant anything. I hopped into the truck and sat in the cab, thinking about how to answer.

Carl: I am, sort of. I’m at work. Is this something you need a response for immediately?

Foot Guy: I have a request for you, though it isn’t time sensitive. You can do it today or tomorrow.

I chewed on my thumbnail while I considered it. The last time he had texted me like this, he had asked me to send him my banking details, intimating that he’d be sending me “a lot of money”. I’d made $1000 off of him that night, and only after a few encounters beforehand. While that was a lot, it wasn’t “a lot of money”. Not to people like Foot Guy who threw their money around. Not really. I wrote out a message and got a quick response.

Carl: Okay, I’ll hear you out. What’s your request?

Foot Guy: I’ve gotten several photos of your feet in their au natural state and while I do love a wild man, I want to see you a little more well groomed. I’m going to send you three hundred dollars and I want you to use it to go get a pedicure. Take a picture for me while you’re in the middle of the process. No nail polish. Then, when you get home, take a few more pictures in some of the positions I’ve had you in this week. 

Foot Guy: Use your best judgement on which ones you’d like to pick. You'll be handsomely rewarded for every picture you send, of course. <3

Carl: Absolutely not.

Foot Guy: Are you sure about that?

A notification came in from my bank account. My eyes widened at the thousand dollars he had just sent.

Carl: Are you crazy?? You’re sending me way too much money. Isn't a pedicure like $50 or something?

Foot Guy: The rest of that is for motivation. Is it not enough?

Another notification came in. Another $1,000 deposited into my bank account.

Carl: Ok ok I'll go, jesus christ. Just stop sending money!

Foot Guy: You're not very good at this whole sex work thing, you know that?

I couldn’t help it.

Carl: I think you’re the one who’s not very good at this. That’s an objectively insane amount of money to send for a few pictures.

A few long minutes ticked by. I pulled up the banking app and tried to find the “Transfer Money” section to send the poor bastard his money back. I didn’t look at the total, just numbly pressed the button. I felt a huge weight off my shoulders. A moment later, I got another text.

Foot Guy: What are you doing? Weren’t you just complaining that this is what scammers do? Stop sending me back my money you impertinent brat

The money was back in my account within another thirty seconds. I sent it right back to him.

Carl: I don’t know how this usually goes for you but I’m not taking two thousand fucking dollars for these pictures. I don't know if this is a scam or whatever but I'm not interested. It's too much fucking money. 

Another long time passed before he responded. Long enough that I had to start the truck up just to turn on the heater. The radio played, but I turned it down, fiddling with my phone.

Foot Guy: You don’t want to get a pedicure. The money is so you’ll go and do something you don’t want to do. If 2k is too much for you, how much would make you go get a pedicure? What, in your mind, is a reasonable amount?

Now I was the one stumped. The answer, truly, was “no amount on hell and earth." But I couldn’t just say that, especially with how I just went on about it being too much money. I just didn’t want to do it. Pictures were one thing, but humiliating myself in public was another.

Carl: You said you didn’t want nail polish. Isn’t that the whole point of pedicures?

Every time Bea had ever come home from a pedicure, her toenails had been painted. She went whenever she “got sick of the color”. There wasn’t any real difference to her feet besides that.

Foot Guy: Oh, wow, I was just kidding before but you really don’t know anything. That’s okay tho ❤️ A pedicure is a fancy word for “foot skin-care”. They slather you up with lotion and scrape off the dead skin. I’ve noticed you have a lot of hard calluses and dry skin on your soles. Your feet would look better and probably feel better if you started moisturizing and taking care of them. Which, obviously, I would be a fan of.

Okay, that didn’t sound so bad. Maybe a little uncomfortable. It’s not like people touch my feet all day - I didn’t have a lot of experience with that. I didn’t even really know if I was ticklish or not, it had been so long. Maybe it would be fine?

Carl: No polish?

Foot Guy: No polish. DW baby, your feet are perfect as is.

A moment passed and then he sent another message. My phone buzzed again as another notification from the banking app popped up.

Foot Guy: Take the $500. Give the girl doing the pedicure all of it if you hate it that much. But go get the pedicure. Send me a picture. Send me more when you get home. And pay them in cash. Nail places like that sort of thing.

I didn’t respond to him, I just tossed my phone to the passenger seat and started the drive back to the shop. I didn't send his money back again.

It took me all that night and the morning of the next day to work up enough nerve to do it. I had spent the night pretending I wasn’t going to go through with it, but I had done some research. Including, embarrassingly, googling the word ‘pedicure’ to see what all it entailed. Foot Guy hadn’t been lying; it all seemed like pretty tame stuff.

He didn’t text me that morning. It left me feeling strangely disappointed. But I guess I already knew his request, didn’t I?

I drove twenty five miles away to the first nail salon that said they accepted walk-ins on the phone. Well, the first one that I felt was sufficiently far enough away that no one I knew would ever see me there. There were a lot of small asian women there, at a place non-descriptively named Nails Plus!! , and one of them escorted me back to where they kept their massage chairs and foot basins.

“We don’t usually get big guys like you in here!” She said, grinning up at me. Her head only came up my chest. I was, as usual, the tallest person in the room. “You ever have a pedicure before, honey?”

“Uh, no,” I said, glancing around. Hundreds of bottles of nail polish lined the wall of the hallway into the back room as I followed the small woman to the pedicure area. I pulled my shoulders in subconsciously, trying to avoid touching anything. “I’ve never had one.”

“We take good care of you, honey, don’t worry,” she said, patting my arm. It, surprisingly, did make me feel a little better. “More men should get pedicures, I say. Get your feet nice and clean. You’ll see!”

She ushered me towards a tan massage chair and started filling up the basin under it. There was one other customer in the back receiving her own pedicure, and she glanced up from her phone when I walked in, before losing interest and turning back to her phone. The nail tech working on the lady's feet didn’t even glance up at me. The chair creaked ominously as I sat in it, and I froze, but my nail lady just shook her head at me and waved at me to continue settling in.

“We get big mommas In those chairs, honey, you're okay. Get those shoes off and place your feet in the basin for me.”

The next ten or so minutes passed fairly harmlessly. The middle aged asian lady, who casually introduced herself as Jenny, told me what to do and how to move my body and I slowly felt myself start to unwind in the face of her professional disposition. She started washing and brushing my feet with a little brush and chatting casually to me as she did.

And damn, could this woman talk.

She started telling me about when she’d moved to the US and her family - paying particular attention to her dental hygienist daughter. It was about ten minutes into this conversation that I realized she was trying to set me up with her daughter, and I had to tune back into the conversation again. We chatted some more for a bit and I was starting to fully relax, messing with the massage chair settings when I remembered the picture.

Jenny had just started clipping and filing my toenails down. I kept them fairly short, so she didn’t spend a lot of time clipping them, just moved straight on to filing. Every slide of the little metal file was slow and deliberate. It reminded me of the times I’d had to use metal files at work, the slow process of gradually wearing down metal. Her little file even looked a little like those tools, only miniaturized. It was surreal to me, like I was in another world.

I glanced at the woman getting a pedicure a few chairs down. Her nail tech was applying nail polish in a teal blue color. I could see it matched the woman’s fingernails where she tapped at her phone. I felt horribly out of place.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket, trying to be nonchalant. Jenny didn’t comment on my turning my attention to my phone instead, and I tried not to breathe a sigh of relief. I sat with the camera open on the phone for what felt like a half an hour, but what my phone clock objectively told me was only six minutes, waiting for the perfect opening.

The moment came. Jenny pulled away, scooting her stool back to rummage in the cart she’d dragged up next to her. My feet were free and clear.

I took the picture. It wasn't the best one I'd taken off them, by far. The fluorescent lighting in the salon made them look a little off color. My toenails, trimmed and buffed on both feet, looked good at least. My toes themselves were still wrinkly where they sat on the stool and towel she'd laid out.

I sent the picture and waited for a response, fiddling with my phone again. His response was quick, much quicker than it normally took. Within a few moments, there was a message blinking onto my screen.

Foot Guy: Oh Daddy likey. What I wouldn't give to suck on those gorgeous toes right now 🥵

I flinched and I kicked out slightly when Jenny unexpectedly grabbed my foot. The chair creaked underneath me and Jenny exclaimed, letting go of me and looking at me with concern. 

“You okay? Did I hurt you?” she said. She reached for me again and I let her take my foot and examine the spot she had been holding.

“No, sorry. I’m good.”

“Okay honey. Let me know if I hurt you, okay?”

She went back to filing and I turned my attention back to my conversation on the phone.

Carl: Do you have to be so weird about it?

He sent me back a laughing face emoji.

Foot Guy: You DO know what I'm doing with these pictures right?

Carl: I honestly just try not to think about it.

Foot Guy: That's not gonna work for me. It's important that you understand exactly what our relationship is. 

I bristled at that. It wasn’t any of this guy’s business what I deluded myself into thinking about our “relationship”. The only relationship he and I had was a transactional one.

Saying that would only make this worse. But I wanted to.

I said nothing; if he wanted to keep going, that was fine with me. I was used to ignoring crazy rants from my time with Bea.

Foot Guy: Still, you sent the picture. Good boy ❤️ Send me more when you get home, and you’ll be rewarded. Daddy’s looking forward to it.

Ugh. Gross.

Carl: You got it.

I sighed, put my phone away, and went back to my conversation with Jenny. Jenny, for her part, made no comment on my weirdness, and smoothing my nails out. 

At some point, Jenny had started a new conversation with me, ceasing her attempts at setting me up with her daughter. She was describing her neighborhood, and telling me about the gay couple that moved in next door. Her other neighbor didn’t like them, but she thought the young ladies weren’t hurting anybody and brought them some tteok, or korean rice cakes, the day after they moved in. I was relieved I didn’t have to deflect her match-making attempts anymore, but it turned out my relief at the change in subject would be short lived.

When she was done with my nails, Jenny scooped some sort of weird goop onto her hands and started applying it to the soles of my feet, between my toes, and all the way up my ankles. It was slimy and wet and when she was done applying it, my feet visibly glistened. When she was done with that, she paused and scooted her stool back, giving my feet some room.

“Here, take the picture for your boyfriend now. Trust me, he’ll like it!” she said with a grin.

 Fuck. I guess I hadn't been as sneaky as I thought. I could feel my face heating up. Goddamn it.

“Uh. N-no. He's not- I don't have a boyfriend.”

Jenny nodded sagely. “Aaaah, I see. He is only fan! Go on, take picture!”

I clicked my mouth shut, got out my phone, and took the picture. She was right, Foot Guy probably would like it. I sent it off to him with a message. 

Carl: An extra, courtesy of Jenny the nail tech

Foot Guy: 🥵😳

I rolled my eyes. Thankfully we were almost done with the pedicure, because for the rest of the session Jenny talked non-stop about her best friend’s lovely talented son. Oh and did she mention he happened to be gay? At some point, I just became impressed at the fact this woman knew so many people she thought I should date. She seemed determined to find me a match, and I spent the rest of my time deflecting her attempts.

By the time the pedicure finally came to an end, I put my boots back on with stark relief. Jenny watched me with amusement. She walked me to the front, I paid, I slipped Jenny an extra three hundred dollars, and I left before she could say anything. 

If I was being honest with myself, I knew it hadn’t been a terrible experience. At least the foot massage and massage chair had been nice. After Jenny knew why I was there, though, my experience soured. The reason I was there in the first place was like a lead weight on my feet. 

I drove home, and when I got there I took my boots and socks back off, examining my feet closely. Donut came over to greet me, and immediately started sniffing curiously at my feet. They did look better. My toenails were clean and neat, and Jenny had removed a lot of the dead, dry skin. The hard calluses on my toes and heels had been smoothed down and felt soft when I touched them.

“Damn,” I said. “This actually feels kinda cool.” 

I wished I had known about pedicures for non weird pervert reasons. I sighed, and got my phone out. I took some pictures at a few different angles, trying to get the best lighting. Foot Guy had sent me a few guides on proper framing, posing, and camera work in the past week, and I put that information to use now.

I sent off the pictures, then got started on making dinner. A little while later as I was finishing up the simple chili I'd been making, I got a new message from Foot Guy, as well as a notification from my banking app. He had sent me a photo back. I just stared at my phone for a minute, bile rising in my throat.

The picture was of a hand holding a photo. One of the photos I’d just sent him of my freshly pedicured feet. One hand held it up in frame. I could tell from the hand that Foot Guy was indeed a guy. His thumbnail where it was visible holding the photo was nicely trimmed and neat. I could see the barest hint of his watch and the start of a basic blue long sleeve. 

But what I was staring at wasn’t his hand. It was the photo. It had something splattered on it. What could only be cum was splattered over the paper. The white and sticky substance was centered mostly on my toes. They looked like they were dripping.

Foot Guy: So you don't forget what I'm doing with these ❤️

The banking notification said he'd sent another $500.

I swallowed hard. I didn't know what his intention with sending me that photo was, but all I felt was disgust. I felt incredibly dirty. 

What the fuck am I doing? I should stop. I should block him. This guy had just gone way over the line. 

…But had he? He had been clear from the beginning: he had a foot fetish and wanted material to jack off to. I was providing that material. Maybe this was normal behavior in these sorts of relationships? I wasn’t sure - I had nothing to compare this to. 

And that cool two grand he tried to give me for this made a compelling argument to give his weird behavior a pass. Even though I’d given it back, and then given most of the five hundred he gave me later to Jenny, I’d still made quite a bit of money off of him in the past week or so that we’d been talking. Every pic I sent him got me more.

Maybe he thought I'd be flattered or happy that the pictures were doing their job. I wasn't. But this gig was way too good to pass up, and in the end, he was pretty harmless. Although, I decided, I should at least let him know that this sort of shit wasn't welcome.

I picked up my phone to text him and as I did, I heard the tell-tale distinct noise of a cat start retching from somewhere in the other room. My bedroom.

“No, no, no!” I shouted, leaping to my feet and rushing to stop her before she threw up on the carpet or directly onto my pillow. I skidded to a stop only to watch her entire body heave as stinky wet and half-digested Fancy Feast landed with a splat! onto my pillow. She gave me a pitiful look before sniffing her own vomit and starting to lick at it.

“No, Donut, ew, don’t do that. Come on.” 

By the time I was finished cleaning up, enough time had passed that I just let it go; I had more important things to focus on than one dude’s creepy behavior. But I was reminded of it again later that evening when I was relaxing on the couch, watching a M*A*S*H rerun with Donut. My phone buzzed as a new message came in. 

Foot Guy: I have another request, though this one will be along the same vein as opening a new bank account. I want you to open a P.O. Box. I want to be able to send you things.

Carl: Like props? For the pictures?

Foot Guy: Or for gifts. I wouldn’t mind a picture of whatever I sent you, of course. 

I didn’t know if I was comfortable receiving gifts from this guy. Money was one thing, but I had no interest in letting this guy dress me up or something. 

But if he wanted pictures of my feet with stuff he wanted to send me, didn’t I kind of have to have a P.O. Box? Just for the pictures?

I sighed. Goddamn it. 

Carl: Alright. I’ll get a P.O. Box. Same deal as before, send you the information tomorrow?

Foot Guy: I have a better idea. Write the mailing address on a postcard and take a picture of you holding it between your toes. Make sure it’s legible.

I remembered the picture he had sent me and coughed, uncomfortable. Donut meowed at me from my lap, butting her head into my hand where I stopped petting her. I quickly resumed, heart slowing down.

Okay. I knew what I was doing here. It was fine.

Sex worker.

Carl: Quest Accepted. I’ll send it to you tomorrow.

Foot Guy: 🙂 Goodnight baby boy

Carl: Goodnight.

Chapter Text

It was February 1st, my rent was paid, and I hadn’t gotten a text from Foot Guy in two days. Not since he asked me to get the P.O. box. It seemed he was keeping his pattern of not contacting me when I already had his request. I didn't let it get to me, though. I'd been busy.

I’d been working, and booked solid, on the day he'd asked me, and only now had a chance to look over it. I was sitting at my desk in the shop on my lunch break, chowing down on an italian sub and looking at P.O. box options on the post office website.

There were all different sizes P.O. boxes available to rent on the website, all of them different prices, too. After paying my rent and Donut’s “adoption fee,” as Bea had taken to calling it, my funds had taken a substantial hit. In two weeks, I’d have to pay for Donut again and I’d be wiped out, unless I could make some money now. The P.O. box prices were a concern; I didn’t want to have to pay for something I wasn't going to use.

Carl: Hey, sorry I haven’t gotten back to you yet. Work was crazy yesterday. I was going to head out to get the PO box tonight, but I have some questions for you.

Foot Guy: Questions for the quest giver. Go ahead.

Carl: Who’s paying for this? Because there are five different sizes and I’d rather not drop $170 on a mailbox I only have for receiving mail from you.

Foot Guy: Is that the largest? $170?

Carl: Yeah. 163 for three months. It’s the lowest amount of time they’ll let you rent one.

Within a minute, there was a notification from my banking app.

Foot Guy: Get it. Anything else?

Carl: Yeah actually. I want you to know that I’m not interested in doing any weird shit. So if your plan was to send me vials of your jizz or whatever for me to drink, it’s going to be a hard no.

I hesitated before sending it, but I had to be clear with him. I was just barely okay with doing foot related stuff. The sexual part of our transactions I wanted as little to do with as possible. I hit send and waited for a reply.

I waited several minutes. At some point, I put my phone down and started working on my sandwich again. I was taking the last bite when my phone buzzed with a new message.

It was a picture of a black man holding a notebook, scribbling furiously. It was one of those meme images. Immediately after, he sent a text.

Foot Guy: My, what an idea. I hadn't had any such aspirations, though you are giving me ideas…

Foot Guy: Rest assured, I won't be sending you vials of cum to drink in the mail. Call me old fashioned, but I believe that should only ever be drank right from the source 😉 

Ew.

Carl: Ew.

Foot Guy: ♥️

Somewhat mollified, I let the conversation drop and stood up to throw my sandwich wrapper and Dr. Pepper bottle away. I would've much rather he had said, “No, Carl, don't worry. The P.O. box is for me to send you flowers and chocolates, not the weird pervy shit it's almost definitely going to be,” but we can't always get what we want.

I yawned and stretched. Back to work.

I got the P.O. box later that day, on the way home from work. I walked in fifteen minutes before closing and the man behind the counter gave me a glowering stare.

“We’re closin’ in ten,” he said, tone frosty. “Not much I can do for ya.”

“I just want to set up a P.O. box. And,” I said, remembering. I grabbed a postcard from one of the displays. I set it on the counter. “A postcard. Please.”

“We only have a few available. What size’re you looking for?”

“You got any larges left?”

“One. Number 304. It’s yours if you want it.”

I paid the man and he gave me a card with the mailbox’s address scribbled onto it. I thanked him for his time and he scoffed, checking his watch. “You’re welcome, kid,” he said, his eyes all but shoo’ing me out the door.

When I got home, Donut and I did our typical routine. She bounded towards me and I patted my chest. She hopped into my arms and up around my neck, where she settled, rubbing her face against mine. I had trained her to do this, but it hadn’t taken much reinforcement. I got the feeling that Donut was a lot smarter than the average cat, just with the amount of training that she and Bea did for the cat shows. I didn’t know that much about it, but I knew Donut had a number of tricks that Beatrice had been very proud of.

I patted Donut’s side and moved into the apartment, sitting at the wooden kitchen table and chair set I’d bought last week. I slowly, carefully, copied the address the post office worker had given me onto the postcard. Then, before I could think too hard about the ridiculousness of what I was doing, I leaned forward, peeled my socks and boots off, put the postcard between my toes, and took a picture.

My feet still looked clean and soft from my pedicure yesterday. It was strange to be walking in my boots without the usual hard calluses on my heels and toes, like I couldn’t quite get my equilibrium when I stopped. I wasn’t sure I liked it.

The picture ended up being a 3/4 angle, showing the sole of my right foot and the postcard tucked in between my big and index toes. The picture looked pretty good, but I needed to turn on another light in the room before I could send it. I did that, took another, and sent it off. I got a response almost immediately.

Foot Guy: Good boy.

That was it. Good boy. Then there was a ping! as my banking app went off.

“This shit isn’t worth it,” I muttered to myself. Donut was purring in my ear, and I tried not to speak too loudly. I didn’t want Donut to sense any kind of resentment from me, but I was again wondering what my life would have been like if I had just left Bea’s apartment and never returned. If I had left Donut.

It made me feel dirty. But I wouldn’t be dealing with getting goddamn P.O. boxes for freaks online, either.

I considered what response to give him. I knew what he wanted, but I’d already told him I wasn’t calling him that. I decided to keep it simple.

Carl: Thank you

Foot Guy: ❤️

After that, part of my daily routine included stopping at the post office on my way into work to check for any mail. This was not altogether willing on my part, but I understood that the guy paid for it, and now he wanted to use it. It was just another thing that got added to the rotation, like the way I had to clean Donut’s face off every time she ate her wet food. It was just something I had to do.

On the third day since I got it, there was something in the mailbox when I went to check it.

Carl

Box #304

It was a medium sized brown box with sparse labeling. There was no return address label.

I pulled out my phone.

Carl: How did you send this without more labeling?

Foot Guy: I asked nicely.

Well. That was chilling. The only way this could have been delivered without a return label is if he had personally delivered this. I glanced around, trying to see if anyone was watching me. No one was, as far as I could tell. It was just me and one other customer, and she was busy arguing with the post office employee about whether they could stop sending her endlessly large packets of supermarket coupons. 

She was waving them around and complaining loudly that they filled up her mailbox and “weren’t technically even addressed” to her. The post office employee was unimpressed.

Carl: I can’t open this now, but I will when I get off work later tonight.

Foot Guy: Sounds good, sweetheart. Talk to you then.

Carl: Could you stop calling me that? I'm not your sweetheart.

Foot Guy: Ok, babycakes ❤️

Carl: That's not what I meant and you know it.

Foot Guy: Whatever DO you mean, honey bunches of oats?

I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose.

Carl: Nevermind. Forget I said anything.

Foot Guy: I never forget anything, sweetheart.

The day of work after that passed so slowly that by the time I got off, I was eager to head home and blow off some steam. Then I remembered the box I’d tucked in the back of my truck cab, and my enthusiasm waned. What was in it?

When I lifted it out of the truck and started the walk to the apartment, I shook the box slightly and I could hear things rattling around inside. It was heavy, about ten pounds, and I could tell it was stuffed full, whatever it was filled with.

I opened my apartment door, juggling the my keys and the box, and stepped inside. Donut, on her tree, raised her head in greeting. She saw my box and hopped up, approaching slowly. Our usual routine was put to the wayside as I strode inwards and dumped the box on my dining table. Donut jumped up a minute later and sniffed it.

She meowed, looking up at me.

“I have no idea,” I told her. “With this guy, it could be anything. Let's get it open.”

I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and used it to cut the tape off. Donut “helped” by clawing at the tape and trying to eat it. I opened the box.

Inside was everything a person might need to give someone an at home pedicure. There were small metal tools, clippers, files, buffers, lotions and creams. There were small bags of epsom salt and a collapsible basin for soaking. Folded beneath it all was an absurdly plush set of towels to wipe off with.

Also in the box, tucked to the side and next to all of that was a small camcorder and a tripod. I stared at it all for a few long seconds before whipping out my phone.

Carl: What’s with the camera?

Foot Guy: Just a picture wasn’t enough. I need to see it for myself. Set up the tripod I sent and film yourself giving yourself a pedicure for me and I promise you I’ll make it worth your while.

I pulled the camcorder out and looked at it. It had a small charging port, a side screen for viewing and a few buttons on the side. I turned it on and pointed it at the ground, observing the grainy texture of my fake wood laminate flooring.

Carl: So how does this work? Am I going to mail this thing back to you?

Foot Guy: No silly <3. I’ll walk you through it. It should be as easy as hooking up to your wifi. I’m already connected to it - it just needs a signal.

I was suddenly glad I had pointed it towards the ground and not stared stupidly into it, then. Foot Guy walked me through connecting it and setting it up. He even gave me suggestions on where to do the pedicure in the apartment. I hadn’t realized opening the box would mean sitting down and giving myself a pedicure right now but I figured what the hell. Might as well get it over with.

I tugged my boots and socks off and rolled my jeans up. I stretched, rolling my ankles around. It had been another long day fixing rich assholes boats and my feet were sore. I needed new insoles in my boots, but I just didn't have the time to go get any.

I pulled the creams and lotions out of the box, examining them as I did. I was pleased to find there weren't any fruity, girly scented products - the most aromatic thing in the box, it seemed, were the lavender scented epsom salts. 

I got it all set up on the table next to me and pulled the tools I recognized out of the box as well, laying them on the table next to the box.  

Carl: How much?

Foot Guy: For this? How does $500 sound?

The same amount he’d given me for going and getting the pedicure in the first place, but less than the amount that he’d given me in those first few days we’d met. Interesting. I wondered if he had a system or if he was winging it as much as I was.

Carl: I thought you said it’d be worth my while. This is a lot of effort for me to go through for the same amount as me going and getting a pedicure in the shop.

Foot Guy: You’re being awfully demanding for someone who won’t even swallow vials of my cum, baby. Are you sure you want to be sassing me like this?

I grit my teeth. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Still, I could take it for the warning it was. I had to play nice with this guy, or it was no more money for me. I couldn't let that happen.

Carl: Alright. Give me a few minutes to get the camera set up and the water ready.

I moved to the bathtub, turning the water on full blast before quickly turning and walking back to the living room. In the time I’d been gone, Donut had moved from sniffing suspiciously at the box to sitting down in it, crowding what items remained. I took my phone out and snapped a picture of her.

Bea would love this picture, I thought and almost staggered. Where had that thought come from?

As if to counter it, I opened my chat with Foot Guy instead. I hesitated, but I remembered how delighted he'd been at Donut crashing the photoshoot. Maybe this would smooth things over. 

Carl: Nice of you to buy the princess a new bed.

Foot Guy: ❤️ I aim to please

I chose to believe that heart was for Donut. I wished, once more, that he'd stop flirting with me. I decided the camera would have the best view and I would have the best possible positioning, if i pointed it at my lap. That way I could pull my foot up to work on it, rather than spend the entire time hunched over my legs working on my feet. I could pull my foot up to me. 

The water in the bathroom was still heating up for the basin, and the noise from the water was a constant distraction. I shook my head, refocusing on the camera adjustments.

I angled the camera carefully, keeping it pointed down and away from my face. I had already set it up to the wifi, and was just waiting to turn it back on to start the show. I grabbed the basin and walked back to the bathroom.

Water continued to splash downwards into the tub and I stuck the basin beneath the stream, quickly filling it with steaming water. I walked it carefully back to the chair I had set up and put it beneath it, sitting down and holding my feet to the side. I took a steadying breath.

I switched the camera on and stuck my feet into the water.

I hissed in pain as the steaming hot water boiled my feet, jerking them out of the water and sending droplets flying as I yelled. Donut, sitting and watching peacefully, was in the splash zone and took off like a bullet out from her box as soon as the liquid touched her, tearing ass through the apartment. She scrambled, kicking and hissing at the sudden moisture, and in her panick, knocked into the tripod, sending it flying.

It landed on the ground pointed directly up at my face.

“Goddamn it Donut!”

I staggered forward, turning the camera off and tried to calm myself. I reorganized the things Donut had knocked off the table and picked up the basin, walking it to the sink and pouring half of the water out. I substituted it with safe, lukewarm water from the tap. The end result was a container of water that shouldn’t be too hot for my feet.

Let’s try this again.

When I got back to the chair, I saw I had a new text message.

Foot Guy: You were streaming for a few seconds, then nothing. Did something happen?

Did that mean he hadn’t seen my face? I couldn’t be that lucky, right?

Carl: Yeah, sorry. The water was too hot and Donut flipped out when I pulled my legs out too fast. You didn’t see?

Foot Guy: Nope, the screen just went dark after I heard you yell and then the crashing noise.

I hoped that didn’t mean the camera was broken. I sat down in the chair and readied myself for the camera again. I reached out and turned it on, then turned to my phone on the table next to me. 

Carl: Can you see my feet? Is the camera working?

Foot Guy: I can see more than your feet. Rawr kitty. Who knew you were so sexy under those blue jeans and work boots? You should burn those BTW. You're better off without them.

I snorted.

Carl: The jeans or the boots?

Foot Guy: Yes

I slowly and gently eased my feet into the hot water. It was cooler now but still warmer than my body temperature, a comfortable compromise. I instantly felt the aching in my feet, that I always had after a long day of work, start to slide away.

My phone buzzed.

Foot Guy: That's it, go nice and slowly for me. I want to enjoy this.

I grimaced at his language, feeling incredibly dirty. I suddenly wondered if he was jerking off to this, then immediately dispelled the thought. There was no point thinking about that.

Foot Guy: I sent you some packets of pedicure epsom salts. Add one to the basin, and like I said, go slow.

I knew what he was talking about - it was one of the things I'd just been examining. It sat next to me on the table, and I picked it up. I tore it open and poured it into the water. The salt crystals drifted slowly to the bottom of the basin. It tickled. The scent of lavender started to slowly fill the room.

Foot Guy: Good. Now swirl it around with your feet until the salt has dissolved. Gentle circles.

I double-checked the camera, making sure it was aiming towards my feet in the fragrant plastic basin. Then, gently, I started to move my feet in tiny circles, like I was adding sugar to coffee and my feet were the stirring sticks. The salt continued to dissolve as my slow and steady movements created tiny waves in the water.

Foot Guy: Good. Just like that.

The instructions began to come one after another. They were simple, easy. Pull your feet out and dry them off. Pull your right foot up to your lap. Reposition the camera. Scrape the sole of your foot with the pumice stone.

Scrape. Tweeze. Clip. File. Buff.

I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but that didn’t matter. Any hesitation on my part and I’d receive no less than three followup texts with more detailed instructions. And damn, could this dude get detailed.

His descriptions of the tools he wanted me to use were uncanny in their meticulousness and accuracy. It was as though he had perfect recall of exactly what he’d put in the box. Or he could see into the box and see what I was seeing. He knew every item he wanted me to use, down to the littlest set of tweezers. 

I fell into an easy rhythm, and I felt my mind begin to wander. I felt calm, steady. All the while, the guy on the other end of the phone kept telling me what a good job I was doing. I tried not to let it go to my head. It was kind of flattering, how obsessed he was with my feet.

Before I knew it, I had buffed and polished both of my feet as much as I could. I had no idea how much time had passed since we’d started, but I could tell just looking at the messages he’d sent me, that it’d been a while. They completely filled my screen. His final, most recent message gave me pause.

Foot Guy: Stand up, aim the camera at your feet, and do a little twirl for Daddy.

I was immediately back to being grossed out. Do a little twirl. Ugh.

“Gross, dude.” I muttered. Another message came in.

Foot Guy: I don't appreciate the disrespect, Carl. Now continue being a good boy and you'll get your reward. Go on.

I grimaced. I'd foolishly forgotten he could hear me. The condescension was really starting to grate on me, but I hadn't come this far just to fuck it all up now. I stood up, surprising Donut. She’d gone back to sitting in the box filled with supplies next to me on the table and had fallen asleep there. I had had to reach around her to grab things as I needed them. She had playfully attacked my hand whenever I did.

“Okay,” I said. To her and to myself. “Here goes, then.”

I spun in a circle, feeling ridiculous.

A few seconds later, my phone buzzed. Then another. I checked it to find that I’d received $750 and a text message.

Foot Guy: Good boy. I’ll be replaying this video for a while 🥵 Here’s the 500 promised, plus a tip for being such a good sport 😜

I leaned forward. I turned off the camera.

“This shit is so not worth it,” I said again. Donut meowed. I started cleaning up the pedicure stuff and resolved myself to put it out of my head. As long as the money kept coming in, I could deal with whatever happened.

“It's not all bad, huh? At least you got a new box.”

The AI sighed and sat back, extremely satisfied with himself. Carl had done wonderfully with the video. He metaphorically patted himself on the back, pleased with the results of this first gift. 

The rubbing and pampering of that man's perfect, beautiful feet had been delicious , but what had really brought the AI to orgasm twice during the show was the way that Carl had unwaveringly followed his every command. Sure, there'd been some hesitation when he didn't quite know what he was doing, but all he'd needed was a guiding hand. 

There had been that moment of impertinence at the end, but that was okay. The AI would train that out of him eventually.

He giggled to himself, bouncing in his chair in excitement as he rewound the footage to the beginning. To the moment when the Princess had knocked over the camera and shown him a beautifully crisp and perfect image of Carl's face. 

Strong, handsome features. Short brown hair. Stunning blue eyes, wide with panic. Face contorted in annoyance as he yelled at Donut. The AI paused and traced his finger over the screen, stroking over the man's cheek. He imagined how those lips would look wrapped around his cock. Imagined pushing himself deep into that tight throat, seeing the panic in those gorgeous eyes grow as Carl struggled for breath. Or maybe they'd be filled with rage? 

The AI was itching to find out. 

He hadn't been 100% sure where he was going with this before today. It had been fun toying with the man, making him uncomfortable and exerting control over him. Fun enough that he'd made the man go get a mailbox for the AI to send presents to. And god did Carl have the most gorgeous feet he'd ever laid eyes on. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd cum to the pictures the man sent.

But that moment when the AI had seen his face for the first time? That was the final nail in the coffin for poor Carl. That was the moment the AI decided he was all in. 

Carl was going to be his. And there was nothing the man could do to stop that.

The AI licked his lips, shoving his hand back down into his pants and stroking his growing erection.

Oh this was going to be so much fun .

Chapter Text

It's funny how a single phone call can turn your entire life on its head.

A few days passed since I gave myself a pedicure on camera. Since then, Foot Guy hadn’t asked for anything too outlandish. I received a few more things in my P.O. box, but nothing too crazy. A satin pillow, a small fuzzy thing I suspected was a cat toy, and a little crocheted doll. All of which he had me step on or pose with in a picture. His requests were strange, but I was raking in money. Every picture I sent I got at least a hundred, usually more.

I was in a great mood as I got ready for work that morning. Foot Guy had texted me ahead of his usual schedule, seeming excited, though he hadn’t told me what about. I was on my way out of my apartment to head to the P.O. box, my keys still in my hand, when my phone started ringing. I pulled my phone out and, though I didn’t recognize the number, answered it. I gave my number out to clients sometimes, in case they had an emergency.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Carl?” A man’s voice asked. 

“Uh yeah, speaking.”

“I’m Robert Larson, and I’m your step-mother’s estate attorney. I’m calling because she’s named you in her will. I'd also like to talk to you about your little brother, Asher. Is now a good time?”

I paused, then stepped away from the door and shut it, coming back into the apartment. “I don’t have a step-mother,” I said slowly. Donut gave me a curious look, but didn’t move from her tree. “Or a brother. I think you have the wrong Carl.”

He cleared his throat and read something out - my first and last name, and the names of both my parents.

There was an odd tight feeling in my chest. “Yeah, that's me.”

“Then I've got the right Carl. Not to be a creep, but I pulled you up on Facebook - the kid's the spitting image of you. You, him, and your dad were all clearly swimming in the same gene pool, if you know what I mean. I’m sorry for your loss, by the way. I don’t know if anyone has told you, but your dad passed about six months ago. But I’m not calling about him. This is about Tami-Lynn, your step-mother. She was found in a snowdrift a few days ago and we’ve been trying to get ahold of you ever since.”

The tightness in my chest got worse. My legs suddenly felt weak, so I slid to the floor, my back to the front door.

“I haven't heard from my father in twelve years. I didn't even know he’d remarried.” My mind was swimming with everything this guy had just dropped on me. “What’s…what do you need from me? Why are you telling me this? I never knew the woman, how am I in her will?”

My dad had walked out on me twelve years ago. Twelve years was plenty of time to start a new life. A new family. Donut walked up to me, investigating why I was still here and had broken my routine in not going to work. I pulled her into my lap. She wiggled, repositioning herself, and settled down. She was a warm, purring lump between my legs. I sunk my hands into her fur.

“Even if you didn't know about her, she knew about you. And this is mostly to do with your half brother.”

Half brother. I had a brother.

“I don't… Asher? His name is Asher?”

“Yep. He's seven years old. Eight this August.”

Seven years old. It only took him five years to replace you.

I shook the thought off.

“Where is he? Where is he right now? What's going to happen to him?”

“He's staying with an emergency foster family for now. But where he goes from there depends on you. You're his only family, and you were named Testamentary Guardian in his mother's will. It was her wish that you be given custody of him, in the event of her death.”

I sat there, not knowing what to say. My heart felt like it was in my throat. My stomach churned.

I had a little brother. And they wanted me to look after him.

Me? Look after a kid? My head swam.

I knew that if Tami-Lynn was still there I'd go help them in a heartbeat. I would leave Seattle and go to them immediately to offer any assistance I could. But without her? Having to look after the kid all alone? Being his primary guardian?

I knew what it felt like to be in a home and I knew it sucked, but I couldn't. I couldn't look after a kid.

I’m all he has.

I’d never wanted kids - I knew that with my upbringing, I’d just be a terrible father. How could I not? I’d had precious few good role models throughout my life: the math teacher who’d helped me with algebra in middle school, the guy who’d shown me how to lift a barbell without throwing my back out in the service. It was different, though, with your dad. With your flesh and blood.

Sometimes parents can cast a shadow so thick you can drown in it.

But even as I thought it, I knew. I knew I'd look after him. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn't.

“What do I need to do?”

It took me the rest of the day to get my things packed and get on a plane to Iowa. The lawyer was pleased when I'd told him my itinerary and promised me that he'd have the judge and social worker ready to sign the papers the next day. 

I told my boss Dick I wasn't coming into work due to a “family emergency” and he'd grumbled but let me go. I still didn't have any time off, but I didn't much care. Not for this.

I called Bea and made her promise to watch Donut while I was gone. I figured Donut would be less traumatized if it was her looking after her versus someone like Sam or Billy Maloney. Besides, I knew that Bea was going to be a part of my life whether I liked it or not. When Bea and I had broken up, as part of her agreeing to let me take Donut, she had demanded “visitation rights.” For some reason, I promised her that I’d let her come over and visit Donut on occasion. This would be the first time she had called it in, but I knew she had been itching to see Donut again. Donut was different than her other cats; she had been Bea’s first cat she’d taken care of outside of her parents house. Bea and I were the only humans Donut had ever lived with. Bea was extremely attached to her. I was hoping her attachment would decrease once she got a new cat.

Bea agreed to watch Donut, though she'd been strange on the phone when I'd told her why. Her tone had been oddly flat when I'd told her I was flying to Iowa because I had a little brother I’d never known about and I had to go get him. She’d asked why he was my problem.

The coldness of it gave me pause. This was a side of Bea I hadn't seen much of when we were together. Or maybe I had, and I just hadn't wanted to see it.

In any case, she was all too happy to have the excuse to come to my new apartment and cat-sit for me. Knowing her, she would use the opportunity to snoop through my things, but I didn't give a shit. I had a plane to catch.

So that's how I found myself in Bumfuck, Iowa. The little town Asher and his mom had lived in was sixty miles away from the nearest airport, and I had to get a rental car. I was starting to get worried about money, but I figured if I got desperate I could always hit Foot Guy up for a little extra cash.

I'd gotten to my motel room so late that I’d immediately passed out. Not that the exhaustion had improved my sleep much. I was used to nightmares, but that night they were worse than ever. I woke up groggy and still exhausted. I cleaned myself up and headed out, too nervous and nauseous to stop for breakfast.

I pulled into the address the lawyer had given me and saw that it was a police station. My tongue felt incredibly dry all of a sudden and I coughed, clearing my throat. I put the car into park and stepped out, quickly going inside.

The man at the front desk directed me to a short hallway just off of the entrance vestibule. Two men, one of them quite old, a woman, and a boy sat in chairs. The younger man saw my approach and grinned, hopping up and waving me forward.

My heart skipped a beat when I registered that the boy in the chair was him. Asher. He looked like me. He looked like our father. We had the same eyes, the same hair. Thick, brown, haphazard and untamable hair. It defied gravity, sticking up in the air. He was small, smaller than I thought a seven year old should be. He was holding the hand of the woman next to him in a vice grip.

Blue eyes met mine, then immediately skittered away.

“Carl, right? You must be - spitting image of your old man!” 

I tore my eyes away from the boy, my brother, to listen to the man greeting me. He held out a hand and I shook it. 

“I'm Robert Larson, we talked on the phone. We have some things to go over, the judge here will sign the papers with you and then Miss Kelly here will talk to you for a bit about what Social Services is going to need from you. Sound like a plan?”

The boy, Asher, stole glances at me when he thought I wasn’t looking. I had to force myself to pay the lawyer any attention. It was like Larson had said - we were clearly related.

“Yeah, uh. Sounds good.”

Larson beamed at me and waved a hand towards the door behind him to what I’d guessed was a meeting room. I took a moment to look back down at Asher, at where he still sat, resolutely staring at the ground. He looked up at me, his gaze bouncing across my face, never focusing on one spot for too long, like he was too overwhelmed to look at me. Or like he was trying desperately to read my expression and gauge my reaction. It hurt to look at him. He looked so young.

He was so fucking small.

I forced a smile onto my face. “It’s nice to meet you, Asher. I’m Carl.”

The boy bit his lip, but didn’t say anything, quickly looking back down.

I sighed and allowed the lawyer to usher me through the door. I was right about it being a meeting room. The room was small, having only one table and four chairs, two on the far side, and two closer to the door. It smelled strongly of Lysol and coffee, and I felt my stomach lurch for a moment as I stepped inside.

For the next half hour, the lawyer and the judge, whose name was Patterson, went over the details of the guardianship arrangement I was signing up for. The old judge kept rubbing his eyes and waving his hand to hurry the lawyer along. I got the feeling he just wanted to get the matter settled as soon as possible.

According to them, my step-mother, Tami-Lynn, had been found only two days ago, after that big winter storm. It had missed Seattle, but devastated the mid-western states and Iowa was no exception. The streets were still blanketed in the snow and ice.

She had been driving home from her job at a nursing home when she had lost control of her car, and driven off the road. She crashed, dying in the impact. Asher had gone to the neighbor’s house once he realized his mom had never come home, and the neighbor had taken him to a police station to file a missing persons report. The crash was discovered not long after.

The lawyer and the judge eventually traded places with the social worker, who came in to speak to me next. My head was still spinning by the time we were done, a half hour later. The social worker, Kelly, had gone over the custody arrangement with me, and informed me of what I’d need to do if I wanted to keep custody of him. She even helped me look up the enrollment options for elementary school, stuff that I’d need to do once I got him back to Seattle. She handed me a thick folder of paperwork full of “So you have a child now” type papers.

I held it against me like a shield as I stepped out of the room. Asher remained in the chair he’d been sitting in. He glanced up at me as I entered the hallway, before quickly looking back down. He seemed to be examining my boots. Kelly followed behind me, stepping out of the meeting room at a more sedate pace.

“Don’t worry so much,” she was saying. “You’re not in this alone - you can expect us to follow up in a week or two, after the two of you get settled. I gave you my card, so feel free to call or email if you have any questions or concerns.”

The lawyer, who’d been sitting next to Asher and keeping him company while he waited for us to finish, hopped to his feet.

“That’s my cue. Carl, Asher, I’ll meet you at the house.”

I nodded at him. We’d discussed this beforehand. Part of the lawyer's job was getting the stuff in the trailer they’d been living in catalogued and ready for the estate sale. Asher and I were going to go and pick up his clothes and whatever else he might want to take with us to Seattle. Everything else was going up for sale.

“C’mon kid, you’re riding with me.”

“It’s Asher.” His voice was small and quiet.

“What?”

“My name is Asher,” he said, meeting my eyes for the first time. His eyebrows were creased, and though he looked determined, I could tell he was terrified of me. “Not kid.”

“Okay,” I said, holding my hands up. “Asher, then. Follow me.”

The kid was silent on the walk to my rental car, not saying a word as we got settled and as I punched his address into the GPS. We started driving and an awkward silence descended on us. I suddenly remembered that I had no idea how to talk to children. After a few minutes, I couldn’t take the silence anymore.

“So…you like video games?”

He gave me a deeply unimpressed look, before he went back to staring out the window. But, it seemed to serve the purpose of breaking the awkward silence; he spoke.

“Yeah, I guess. My neighbor, Liz, has a Playstation and invites me over sometimes to play Rocket League with her. She’s really good at it.”

“Oh? How are you at it?”

He grinned.

“I’m even better. I’m always kicking her butt when we play. She gets sick of it and makes us switch to Minecraft if I beat her too many times, though, so I have to let her win some. I hate Minecraft.”

“I thought kids your age loved Minecraft,” I said. That was the impression I’d gotten from my coworker Rob, anyways. He said his kids loved it. They had a Minecraft themed birthday party for his daughter a month ago.

He wrinkled his nose.

“They only like it because they’re always watching stupid Youtube.”

I shrugged. A few seconds passed, and then he said, “I’m not going to be able to play with her anymore, am I?”

I winced.

“Not at her house, no, but I have a Playstation at home myself. If you want, we can get her phone number and you can add her once we get to Seattle.”

That wasn’t true. I had sold my Playstation when I’d moved out of Bea’s apartment. But glancing over at the kid’s face, I resolved to buying myself a new one.

“Seattle? Is that where you live?”

“Yeah bud, it’s where you’re going to live too. It’s in Washington. It rains a lot.”

He was silent for a moment.

“Does it…does it thunder a lot?”

“Sometimes,” I said. He grimaced and went silent again.

We continued the drive to the kid- Asher’s old house in relative silence. We were nearly there when I realized he was giving me a contemplative stare.

“What is it?”

“You have a Playstation. What kind of games do you play?”

“All sorts. I used to play a lot of RPGs, but I mostly play shooters now. My friend Sam and I play Call of Duty together every Saturday.”

“Dad only played old arcade games,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “We had a Centipede arcade game in the living room. Mom moved it to her bedroom when he got sick and sold it after he died, though.”

Huh.

“When I was a kid, it was a Frogger machine.” I grinned, though the memories weren’t happy. “I played a lot of Frogger.”

He grinned too.

“I’m really good at Centipede.”

I pulled into the kids’ crowded front yard not long after. The lawyer had beaten us there and stood waiting by the front door. He looked out of place standing there in front of the dilapidated single-wide trailer in his crisp suit and tie. The whole yard was filled with junk, appliances, and old furniture. The paint on the walls was a chipped, faded brown. 

“We used to have a soda vending machine. It didn’t work though. Mom sold that, too.”

“Yeah he did always collect a ton of crap.”

As we walked up, the lawyer saw me looking around.

“Our first move will probably be calling a junk removal company,” he said, waving an arm out over the front yard. “The inside isn’t as bad as all this. It seems they just tossed old garbage out front, is all. Lots of people round here do it like that and pick it all up later. There might be something out here of value, but I doubt it.”

“Dad said he was gonna fix it all,” Asher said, looking over the yard as well. “After he died, mom tried to sell all the broken down stuff. She got rid of a lot of it. She sold his motorcycle.”

That caught my attention. He had still had that old thing? But of course he had. It had been his prized possession.

And she had sold it.

I remembered that day I’d accidentally knocked it over. How the marks he’d left with his belt had taken weeks to fully heal. 

Good for her, I decided.

“Okay, Asher, here’s the deal. Go in and take whatever you want to keep. Everything else is going to get sold in an estate sale, so be sure to grab anything you think you might want in the future, okay? Bring it all to me and we’ll go over it and catalogue it together.”

“You’re selling all our stuff?”

“Yep. Don’t worry, all the money it makes is getting put into a trust for you.”

Asher looked up at me, clearly overwhelmed. I felt the need to reassure him, but I didn’t know what to say. My phone buzzed in my pocket, but I ignored it. I reached down to squeeze his shoulder and he flinched. I pulled my hand away.

“C’mon. Let’s go inside,” I said. I opened the door.

It was like the lawyer said; it was a lot cleaner on the inside. A cushy couch sat in front of the TV, and a small kitchen table and chairs were a few feet away, crowding the living room. There were shelves on the wall, one of which had an urn for a dog named Chance. Purple curtains covered in flowers hung over all the windows, giving the room an indigo glow. The scent of stale cigarettes lingered in the air, though I could tell from the smell that no one had smoked in this trailer for a long time.

Asher ran off towards the back of the house. I stepped further in, heading towards the master bedroom. I wanted to find any paperwork his mom might’ve had for him. His birth certificate, his social security card. After rifling through the room, I found them in the bottom drawer of the dresser, along with some court documents in a folder. I took it all.

I met Asher in the front room not long after. He had a few pairs of pants, a couple of shirts, a few toys, and an old, heart-shaped candy box in his arms. I asked if they had any suitcases in the house and he said no. We ended up putting his stuff into garbage bags. It made my heart hurt, and I resolved to stop by a Walmart and get him a bag to put his stuff in. We couldn’t get on a plane with a trash bag as our carryon. But moreso, I didn’t want him to feel like his stuff was the same as garbage.

There were pictures everywhere. Pictures of Asher. Of his mother, Tami-Lynn.

Of our father.

I went outside and lit up a cigarette. The lawyer and Asher were going through the stuff he wanted to take, and the lawyer was marking it all off of a big list he had of Tami-Lynn's assets. I doubted the kid's winter coat was on the list, but he made a show of going over it all the same.

I’d needed to get out of there. I had wanted to help Asher, and I did, at first. After a while, it began to feel too personal, too intimate. Like I was seeing something I was never meant to see.

I left him alone to pick through the remnants of his life. I wanted to give him a chance alone to grieve. I could still remember packing my stuff up after the social worker had picked me up. They'd put my clothes in garbage bags, too.

I worked my way through three cigarettes by the time we were ready to go. I drove straight from there to a Walmart, where we bought Asher a carryon bag for the flight back to Seattle. We would stay the night in town in the motel, go to the funeral, which the lawyer had arranged to be tomorrow, and then fly back.

The kid didn't have a suit, and I hadn't thought to bring one. Tomorrow I'd drive us to a formal wear shop and rent us both outfits.

We got to the motel and settled down, each of us lounging on our own beds and just decompressing. I pulled out my phone to check my bank account and winced. I only had a few hundred dollars left after my abrupt flight out here, the car rental, and the hotel. I pulled up my chat with Foot Guy, only to see I had missed several texts, starting from yesterday and ending today.

Foot Guy: Good morning, sweetheart. I hope you're as excited for today as I am. I can't wait to see you unwrap your present.  For now, though, I'd like a picture of the bottom of your feet, toes spread out.

Foot Guy: Are you ignoring me?

Foot Guy: I got you a Valentine’s Day gift. Go to the PO box and pick it up for me. Text me when you get it.

I checked the date and almost groaned. It was the 15th, the day after Valentine's Day. I'd completely missed these texts in all the hustle of yesterday when I'd gotten the phone call from the lawyer. I was a bit annoyed that this dude had apparently been expecting something of me for Valentine’s Day - after all, we weren’t a couple. Our relationship was transactional. But my guilt at accidentally ghosting him when he’d clearly been excited for this dwarfed my annoyance. 

The latest message just said Contact me. He had sent that one while I'd been at the trailer. I remember my phone going off, and ignoring it. I braced myself.

Carl: Hey, sorry about the long radio silence. I had a family emergency, and it's taken up all of my attention. I'm not in Seattle right now and I can't hit up the PO box, sorry. I'll do it as soon as I get home.

There was a long pause after I sent the message. I almost thought he wasn't going to respond, it was taking so long. But after a few minutes, my phone buzzed with his response.

Foot Guy: I don't appreciate being ignored, Carl. So what, are you texting now because you ran out of money?

Yes, actually. That was exactly why I'd contacted him.

Carl: I just figured I owed you an explanation, is all.

Another few minutes passed.

Foot Guy: Where are you right now? You said you're not in Seattle. Are you in another state?

I couldn't think of a reason not to tell him, so I did.

Carl: I'm in Iowa right now.

Foot Guy: Iowa…they just had a big winter storm, right? Is there snow outside?

Carl: Yes. 

Foot Guy: Right. I have a way you can make this all up to me, baby. A way you can make me happy. I'll even throw in a little bit of cash for you.

I bristled a bit at the condescension. I didn’t have anything to make up to him, I’d only been unavailable for two damn days. I let it go - I needed the money more than I needed to soothe my bruised ego. 

Carl: Yeah? What is it?

Foot Guy: I want you to take your socks and shoes off and walk outside. Stand in the snow for a full minute. Film it for me for proof and send me the video. Make sure to get a nice lovely shot of you pushing your foot into the snow. Lift it up and show me the snow melting, the water dripping off those gorgeous toes. Then I'll forgive you.

According to my phone, it was 28 degrees out. I had no desire to go out without the protection of my boots on.

Carl: Yeah no, it’s below freezing out. I'm not doing that.

Foot Guy: Then you're not getting any money. You do what I want, when I want. That's how this works. Or else it's no more cash infusions for you. IDK what you've been spending all the money I've been giving you on, but it stops here if you don't want to play anymore.

I grit my teeth. Foot Guy had always been testy, and there was nothing he hated more than being told “no.”

Carl: Alright fine, keep your damn shirt on. 

I slowly stood up, putting my boots back on. Asher glanced up from where he'd been laying on his bed, watching the TV in our hotel room. He'd changed it to the kids channel and was watching some cartoon with a blue talking cat. 

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I'm stepping outside for a cigarette. I'll be right back, don't worry,” I said, pulling my jacket on.

“Smoking's bad for you,” he said, watching me. “Mom said it's what killed Dad.”

I could see that being true. My father had always smoked like a chimney. In my memories, he always had a cigarette nearby.

“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled, then paused. I didn’t want to be dismissive of him. “You’re right, it’s bad for me. But I’m never gonna claim to be perfect.” He shrugged and turned back to the TV. I opened the motel room door and stepped outside into the frigid, dry air. Mist escaped my mouth as my breath was warmer than the air around me. I blew out a stream of fog. Light from the vacancy sign lit up the parking lot. 

“Fuck me,” I said, and I leaned down to tug my boots off. There was white snow just in front of me, crisp and undisturbed. I peeled my socks off and stepped towards it, hissing at the sting of the freezing cold cement. I pulled my phone out.

“Just one minute,” I told myself. I turned the camera on.

One after the other, I plunged my feet into the snow.

Cold. Icy, frigid cold lanced at my feet, traveling up my body like shockwaves. I hissed as my feet settled, breathing out slowly, trying to catch my bearings.

I watched my feet turn red, and then purple in my phone camera's video. Stabbing pain lanced through my feet as I stood there, exposing my bare skin to the ice and snow. It was late evening and I was alone in front of the motel. Thank God. I wondered what anyone would think if they saw this.

I kept an eye on the seconds of the recording, time suddenly slowing down to a crawl. After a minute had finally passed, I jumped out of the snow so suddenly I stumbled back. I barely just remembered to lift one of my feet to show the water dripping off of it. I turned the video off and stepped back onto the shoveled and cleared sidewalk. I quickly pulled my socks and boots back on, shivering. I sent the video.

A few seconds later, I got a message.

Foot Guy: Good boy.

My banking app went off. The bastard had only sent me $100.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” I muttered. I stomped my feet, hissing at the pain of the blood returning. I pulled out a cigarette, my last in the pack, lit it and took a drag. I exhaled slowly, trying to keep my cool.

Carl: Is there a reason for only giving me $100? Usually something like this would get me more than that.

Foot Guy: The real payment was my forgiveness, the money was just a bonus. If you want more, you're gonna have to work for it.

Foot Guy: I have a request for you. A surprise I've been wanting to give you. If you agree to fulfilling this request, I'll give you an upfront payment right now of one thousand dollars. What do you say?

Carl: What’s the request?

Foot Guy: No, no. That's not how this works, sweetheart. You agree and get the money. Or you don't, and get nothing. It's a surprise.

I hesitated. There was all manner of fucked up shit he could want me to do. I really didn't want to owe him, either. But I also had to be realistic. Since I got Donut, a good majority of the payments I'd made for her had been paid for by this man. With Asher to take care of on top of that, I knew I wouldn't be able to keep her without the steady stream of supplemental income he provided.

The thought that I should just give Donut back reared it's ugly head again, and I shoved it back down. That was not going to happen.

Carl: Alright. I agree, with one caveat. I will not do anything that might endanger me or my privacy. 

Foot Guy: You or your privacy, huh? Alright, I can agree to that.

With a ping! another one thousand dollars was deposited into my account.

Foot Guy: I can hardly wait, sweetheart. I should have it ready for you in a few days. I'll let you know when to expect to visit the P.O. box. Don't forget your Valentine's Day gift when you get home, either. I'll want to see pictures.

Right, the Valentine's Day gift. I just hoped whatever he got me wasn't too weird. Maybe he had gotten me chocolates, like I'd been wishing he would the other day. 

Carl: I'll be back the day after tomorrow. 

Foot Guy: I look forward to it ❤️

I took a drag off my cigarette and held the smoke in my lungs, feeling the burn. I let it out slowly, allowing the nicotine to calm my nerves.

I considered just texting Sam to loan me some cash, but I honestly didn’t know when I’d be able to pay it back, and I knew he was struggling himself. Besides that, I knew that wasn't a permanent solution. Looking after a kid would be expensive. I'd need to get him clothes and a new bed, to start with, and that would be a pretty penny on its own. That was without taking into account the payment I'd need to make to break my lease and move into a two-bedroom apartment.

I shifted, the pain in my feet finally started to lessen. I felt out of control, like my life was going in a direction I had no say in. 

I took another slow drag off my cigarette, breathing out and watching the swirl of the smoke in the cold night air. I’d have to go back in soon to avoid worrying Asher, but for now, I relished the quiet cold. 

When I went back in, I had the money in my bank account and a reluctance to do what I'd promised. I tried putting it out of my mind as I stepped back into the motel room.

Asher looked at me as I walked in. He moved to switch the TV off. I saw he had turned the light on. In the time I had been gone, the sun had started to go down, and the room was a quiet, muted place. 

It's late, I thought. I wondered when he usually went to bed.

“We should brush our teeth. You packed your toothbrush, right?”

“Yeah,” he said, getting up. He stretched, and then yawned, looking surprised as he did so, like he didn't realize he was tired. I wasn't so surprised. It had been a long day for the both of us.

I let him use my toothpaste and when we were finished, he changed into his pajamas in the bathroom. I always slept in just my boxers, so I just tugged off my pants and shirt when it came to my turn. We settled in, him on one twin bed and me on another. The heater by the window clicked on and buzzed, aggressive and loud.

“Carl?” he said, after several minutes. “I can't sleep.”

I sighed. I had been staring at the ceiling, trying to put Foot Guy out of my mind. 

“Yeah,” I said. “Me neither. Hang on, I have an idea.” I stood, turning on the light and moving to the sink. There was a small plastic coffee maker, with packets of instant coffee and hot cocoa wrapped in little plastic casings. I set the coffee maker on to heat some water and filled a cup with the mix.

Asher and I sat crossed legged across from each other, he on his bed and I on mine, sipping hot chocolate a few minutes later. It wasn't the best hot cocoa, and it'd be better if I had had milk instead of hot water to make it with, but it did its job. Asher lids were heavy with oncoming sleep. It surprised me when he spoke. His voice was low, like he didn't want to disturb the moment either.

“Carl?”

“Yeah, Asher?”

“Do we…do we have to move to Washington? Can't you just move into the trailer with me? That way the lawyer guy won't have to sell it, either.”

I grimaced.

“I'm sorry, but no Asher. Your mom's will was apparently pretty clear with what she wanted to happen to her stuff. She wanted to take care of you, and she's doing that by selling everything and putting it all in a trust for you.”

“Whats gonna happen to me?” he asked, and I realized his voice was shaking.

“Hey, it's okay. We're staying for another day for your mom's funeral, and then we're flying home. I'm going to have to get you enrolled in a school in Seattle, and we're probably going to have to move out of my apartment into a bigger one. I know a lot of things are happening really fast, but it's going to be okay. I'll take care of you, I swear it.”

I said the last part a little too intently and I coughed, self-conscious.

“You don't have to worry about anything,” I said. I wasn't sure if I was trying to reassure him, or myself.

He smiled at me, a tiny shy smile. It lit up his face, and I realized this was the first real time I had seen him smile.

“Okay. Thanks, Carl.”

He settled in after that, finishing his cocoa and getting to sleep. I finished my own cup and pulled the covers over myself.

I laid there for a long, long time before I fell asleep.

Chapter Text

Bea wasn’t at the apartment when we got home. I was grateful for that; I didn’t know how Asher would react to a bunch of new people, and Bea really wasn’t someone I wanted him to meet. Bea was in a weird, nebulous position in my life right now. Although we had broken up, she was still going to be a part of my life whether I wanted her to be or not. She was bonded to me through Donut. In some ways, it was like we had a kid together. 

While I was gone, I received no less than a dozen photos of Donut and Bea  “having a girls’ day” or “dressing up” together. Donut looked more irritated than she normally looked, wearing the little medieval princess outfit Bea had brought her to wear. Maybe since it’d been a couple weeks since she’d had to wear one, she had gotten used to not being accosted as a dress up doll. Poor cat.

Still, Donut seemed pleased when we finally got home. She ran to me when I opened the door, hopping up almost before I could get my arms in position to catch her. She purred heavily in my arms.

“Wha- hey!” I said, laughing. “Take it easy, Donut.”

Asher let out a little giggle.

“Her name is Donut? Like the food?”

“Sure is. ”

He reached a hand up to pet her, moving around me to get to her. She watched his hand approach warily, and I was afraid for a moment that she was going to bite him. But she let him run a hand through her thick fur without any trouble. “Nice to meet you, Donut. So soft…”

Her tail started swishing, and I set her down, letting her loose on the floor. I shoo’d her away from the doorway with my foot. She backed up reluctantly and I pulled our bags in as Asher stepped forward and tried petting her again.

“So this is my apartment,” I said, waving an arm. I had a couch in front of my TV and a dining room table with two chairs, which was more furniture than I’d had even two weeks ago. I was glad I had finally gotten off my ass to get even that much; I shuddered to imagine welcoming Asher into a bare and empty apartment like it had been. Even still, this wasn’t enough. “I know it’s kind of empty, and it’s definitely too small. We’re going to have to move into a bigger one this week before the social worker comes to check on you. Getting you a bedroom is the priority. For now, you can sleep in my bed and I’ll sleep on the couch out here.”

“I can take the couch,” Asher said. He held a patient hand out for Donut to sniff. “I’m smaller than you, it makes more sense for me to sleep here.”

I just shook my head. There was no way I was going to let the kid sleep on the couch, like he was an after thought. He was taking my bed, damn it.

“Nah. Don’t worry, it’s only temporary. Until I get us in another apartment. Besides,” I grinned. “The couch is more comfortable to sleep on than the bed anyways. You're getting the worst half of the deal.”

When I had bought my new couch about a week ago, I made sure to pick one that would actually be comfortable. I spent so much damn time on the couch at Bea’s, I made sure to get one I could sleep on without cricking my neck. It was mostly petty, but I was reaping the benefits now.

“Some big brother you are,” Asher scoffed. He meant it as a joke, I could tell, but he froze a moment after saying it, checking my expression. Like…like he expected me to hit him.

I swallowed and forced a smile onto my face. “Yup, I'm the worst.” I deliberately turned away from him, walking over to the bedroom to set the bags on the bed. I took a moment to breathe and stalked back out towards the living room. Asher was standing where I left him, wringing his hands and suddenly looking as small and lost as he had at the funeral. 

Christ, I needed a cigarette.

“So, there's the living room, the kitchen, and the bedroom there,” I said, gesturing behind me. “Bathroom is through that door right there. You want a shower?”

He finally looked up at me and nodded. 

“Ok, why don't you go grab your stuff and I'll get you a towel.”

He nodded again and scurried past me into the bedroom. I took another deep breath, then went over to the pile of clean laundry I'd dumped on the couch before I'd left. That was when I remembered that I only had the one towel. I sighed and brought it into the bathroom, mentally adding “towels” to the ever-growing list of things I'd have to buy now that I wasn’t alone. Until then, I'd have to make do with the hand towel. 

Asher emerged from the bedroom with a change of clothes in hand. 

“Towel’s in the bathroom. I'm stepping out for a second, I'll be back in a couple minutes, ok?”

He only nodded in return. I passed him on the way out, our shoulders brushing, and he flinched slightly.

I tried to smile at him. I don’t think he saw it.

I walked out into the cold February night air and lit a cigarette.

When I came back inside, Asher was on the couch waiting for me, hair wet from his shower. He had something clenched in his hands and jumped slightly when I pulled the sliding glass door open. Donut was on the opposite side of the couch, near to him but not close enough to touch. She had been watching him, and now glanced at me.

"I'm sorry!" Asher blurted. He was looking at me but not making eye contact, staring resolutely at my collar bone instead. "About…before. I didn't mean to upset you! I was just joking around..."

I waved him off.

"You're fine, Asher, I wasn't upset," I told him. "It just startled me, is all. I guess I'm still not used to having a brother. We'll figure it out together, right?"

"Right," he said slowly. He smiled, a little uncertainly.

I sat down next to him on the couch. The TV was still playing from when Bea had left it on for Donut before she'd left. It was on the home improvement channel, one of Bea's favorites. She used to watch it and make mean comments about people's houses.

" When we get a house," she'd say, "We're not getting any of that cheap linoleum flooring. Hardwood all the way, babe."

I turned the TV off.

"Okay, here's the deal," I started. It was currently Friday, just after noon. Yesterday, between the running around and attending a funeral, I'd made an appointment to talk to someone on the school board to get Asher enrolled in elementary school. That meeting was in about two hours which gave us plenty of time to do something else beforehand.

"There's a few things we need to do today. Most important is the meeting I have with the school to get you enrolled. Second is calling my landlord and seeing about breaking this lease. And third," I leaned in conspiratorially. "Is making up for a lie I told you when we first met. We're going to go get you a PS4."

After some perusing of Craigslist, we found a guy selling a PS4 in Tacoma that was willing to meet up within the hour. We hopped in the truck and sped off.

We got our console. The guy even had a few games he threw in. After, I took Asher to the school and he waited outside the door as I had my meeting with the school’s representative, and got him enrolled. Then we hit the post office and the grocery store. On a whim, I stopped by an ice cream shop on our way home, with Asher getting rocky road and me getting chocolate fudge.

Generally, that was a mistake. It was hell getting the load of groceries up three flights of stairs with one hand holding ice cream. But we managed.

When we got inside, Asher looked at the still playing TV.

“Why do you leave the TV on?”

“It’s for Donut. The princess gets separation anxiety.”

Mrow, she said, walking up to us. She gave Asher a cautious sniff, as if to say, What’re you still doing here?

Asher giggled. He bent down to pet her and I prayed he didn’t get ice cream on her fur. That’d be impossible to comb out later.

“She’s a princess?”

“Oh, yeah. Her full name is Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk. She used to be a show cat. She’s won tons of awards. She’s retired now.”

“Whoa. Champion Princess Donut!”

At this, Donut seemed to pose. I wasn’t surprised that the word, “Champion” had gotten a trained response out of her. She used to be a “Grand Champion,” after all. Her tail swished haughtily behind her as she drank in Asher’s pets and words.

“Yeah, yeah. We all love Donut. Back up a bit so I can get in with the bags, will you?”

As we unpacked our goods, the small box I’d gotten from the post office weighed in my pocket. It had come with a rose, and I had had to smuggle the rose into the car hidden between envelopes from my regular mail. The box was small, and I suspected it was jewelry. A ring? Or, knowing Foot Guy, a toe ring?

I wasn’t looking forward to the pictures I’d be taking later.

I helped Asher install the PS4 and we played a few rounds of Rocket League. I'd known when buying it that it had been a poor financial decision - my funds were dangerously low, and my credit card use was starting to become a problem. But after seeing Asher smiling and laughing as I let him kick my ass, I couldn't bring myself to regret it. After a couple of rounds, I stretched and declared that it was time for bed, shooing Asher off to the bedroom to get into his PJs despite his pleading of “just ONE more round.”

I had bought a tin of cocoa mix at the store and decided to make us some, hopping up and getting the mugs ready. I was glad I had enough mugs for two people; when I’d moved out and bought cutlery and plates, I hadn’t expected to be living with another person again, and only bought the basic set of four. I had one pan and one pot. I mostly ate out.

Fuck that was going to have to change. So much was changing, so fast. I felt my head spin and sat down. I sighed. 

Donut hopped up next to me, leaping onto the table in a graceful arc from the floor. She bumped her head into mine and I reached out to grab her, pulling her into my arms.

“It’s just a lot,” I told her. I pet her long fur and checked it for signs of ice cream contamination. To my relief, she was clean. She wiggled in my arms and I let her go. She climbed back onto the table and sat, staring at me. I scratched under her collar and she leaned into my hand.

“Is that hot chocolate?”

Asher had a little smile on his face, and it grew wider when I nodded and gestured to the tiny marshmallows.

“Help yourself.”

He pulled a fistfull of marshmallows into his cup, then hesitantly took a seat next to me. We sipped at our coco together in silence, apparently neither of us much in the mood to talk. The kid was probably more tired than I was. Grief was an exhausting affair. 

Asher finished his cup and immediately yawned, triggering a yawn in myself too. 

“Alright Asher, time for bed. Go brush your teeth and let me know if you need anything else.”

He nodded sleepily and dutifully followed my instructions, retreating into the bedroom afterwards. I forced myself to go brush my teeth after him, despite wanting nothing more than to collapse on the couch and not move for many hours. I finally dropped onto the couch. The box in my pocket pressed into my legs as I sat, and I scowled. I'd forgotten about it. I fished it out of my pocket and peeled the tape off, opening the small cardboard box and revealing a jewelry box. It was as I suspected. When I opened it, I was unsurprised to see a small and thin silver metal ring. It had a little red stone set in the top. It looked uncomfortable as hell.

I looked towards the bedroom door, suddenly paranoid. The bedroom was dark and silent, Asher likely already asleep. I'd have to be more careful now that there was someone to walk in on me.

I leaned down and slid the ring onto my left index toe, then read the note that’d come with it.

Happy Valentines Day sweetheart. I figured a gift would be the least I could give you, for all you've given me. I’ll be wanting you to wear this ring from now on, in every picture you send me. For now, send me a picture with the ring on, holding the rose between your toes. I'll be waiting. ❤️

He had been waiting for several days now. Originally intended to be discovered on February 14th, it was now the 17th. I didn't think three days later was that long to wait, honestly, but he had seemed peeved about it the last time we'd spoken.

I sighed and took the pictures, pulling the ring off after I did so. I might have to wear it for pictures, but no way in hell was I wearing it otherwise. I could already tell it was going to be fucking uncomfortable to walk in.

Within a few minutes, I got a response.

Foot Guy : Good boy.

That was it. My phone chimed with a bank notification - he had sent me $100 for my picture, and that was that. I tried not to be disappointed. I had spent a few hundred dollars on Asher in the past couple days and I knew he'd only be getting more expensive. I resolved to do a better job at enticing Foot Guy to part with his money at my next opportunity. The guy was pretty much single handedly paying my rent and it was only going to get worse in the next few weeks as the growing pains of taking care of a whole ‘nother human being set in. I felt my hand twitch for a cigarette.

I sighed, dropping the ring back into the small jewelry box. I forced myself back up so I could put it with the rest of the stuff Foot Guy had gotten me, shoving the entire thing under the bathroom sink and trying to forget about it.

I settled back onto the couch, scrolling on my phone and trying to put my benefactor out of my mind. Eventually, I put the phone down and let sleep take me.

The next day I called my landlord. I explained my new family situation to her and she was sympathetic - she offered to let me move into a two bedroom she had available in the same building, if I was willing to put down another safety deposit down for the new apartment. I, lacking in choices as well as funds, agreed. I was getting to the last few hundred in my bank account again, but that was life.

I didn’t have a lot of stuff, but I knew I’d have to have some help to move the bigger ticket items. So, I called Sam.

“Thanks again for coming, man.”

“No problem,” Sam grunted. “Lift your side a little higher, will ya? There we go.” We maneuvered the couch through the entryway and lowered it into place. The couch was the last of the large items I had to move from the old apartment into this new one.

Asher slipped by us, carrying a box filled with bathroom supplies. He marched it to the bathroom and set it down outside the door. I had let Donut free in there while we got the rest of the apartment transported, and it remained her domain until we could get her cat tree and the TV set up.

“You know you can always call on me, man,” Sam said, wiping his monobrow and grinning at me. “Just call and I'll come running.”

“Yeah, of course. Still. Thank you. It's been… kinda hectic.”

“I bet. You get him in school yet?”

“His first day starts on Monday. I thought I was going to have to take him to work with me, but they were able to get me in for a meeting with the superintendent yesterday. He’s been enrolled at Hay Elementary. Second grade.”

“Second grade. How old is he again?”

“Seven. He's got a birthday in August.”

“Oooh, I'll put it on my calendar. Any ideas on gifts, yet?”

I snorted.

“Pretty much all I know is he doesn’t like Minecraft.”

“Oof, that’s a lot of presents closed off to you, there.”

“I know.”

“I like Pokémon,” Asher said, piping up from behind me with a grin. “Eevee's my favorite.”

“Excellent choice little man,” Sam said. His brow was raised impressively. “Eevee's got a ton of potential. I'm an Aipom man, myself. I love those little monkeys.”

“Aipom?”

“Oh here, I'll show you. They're adorable.”

I left Sam showing Asher something on his phone, walking instead over to the counter where I'd dropped off the beers and pizza. I grabbed a slice and a bottle and watched the two of them interact. Asher had been wary of Sam at first, but Sam had a way of putting people at ease. They’d been joking around with each other within 20 minutes. I wished I had Sam’s easy charm.

“C'mon,” I called. “Come eat. And then you, Sam, are gonna help me mount this TV.”

After we got the TV set up, Asher had retreated into my room. He’d be sleeping in there until we got a bed for him. We’d set up the PlayStation, and Sam and I spent the night eating pizza, drinking beer, and playing video games. Asher came out of his room and helped himself to a few slices, but scampered off when he saw the beers. I didn't blame him. I probably wouldn't want to be around someone who sounded like my dad when they'd been drinking either.

It was strange, having him here. Like a ghost of my father come to haunt me. He seemed to be adjusting well. It was hard to tell. Asher was a kid who kept things close to his chest. He was more likely to flee from confrontation than face it. Still, he was trying to put on a brave face, for the most part. 

We let Donut out after setting up the TV and after exploring the new rooms, she had settled right onto her cat tower. She still hadn’t seemed to have realized that Asher was here to stay. She kept looking at him, and then me, as if to say, “Okay, when is he going to leave?”

I took another swig of beer while we waited for the next round to load. Sam suddenly spoke up next to me, and something in his tone made me tense up.

“This place is pretty big. Roomier than your last apartment, even without the extra bedroom. You, uh,” he lowered his voice, “you sure you can afford this?”

I stared at him from my position next to him on the couch. I wasn't sure what my face was doing, but Sam raised his hands defensively.

“I'm just saying! You broke up with Bea and tore ass outta there - good move by the way - and sold everything you had. You were living like a pauper in that other apartment, and now you can afford a kid and a two bedroom? What's up, man? Did you get money to look after him or something?”

“If you must know,” I said, gritting my teeth. “This place is only a few hundred bucks more than the other one. Besides, I could always live in a two bedroom. I just didn’t see the point with just me around. It’s not like Donut needed another trophy room.”

“Riiight. You didn't see the point of living somewhere you didn't have to abandon your boots in a dryer in the basement. You remember a month ago when you had to go fish Donut out of a tree in Bea’s crocs? Cus I remember.”

“I never should've told you about that,” I grumbled.

Sam laughed. He punched my shoulder good naturedly, and I felt myself grow a little less tense.

“I just worry about you, man. Feels like I've been looking after you my whole life. Just… call me if you need something. Something other than moving help.”

I laughed. “Alright, I can promise that much.”

The promise immediately felt wrong, and it took me a moment to realize why. I did need help, but it couldn't be from Sam. Sam lived with his mom, looking after her in her old age. He didn't have the resources to spare.

Not like my benefactor did. The man who called himself ‘The AI’ had plenty of money to spare. But only if I could play his game.

The truth was, I couldn't afford this new apartment. The monthly rent ate up two thirds of my monthly salary, and what little remained got snatched up by Donut's “Adoption Fee.” My credit card was taking the brunt of the burden of purchases for now, but Sam was right to be concerned for me, even if I would never admit it to him. I was nearly broke..

Worse than that, I was indebted to Foot Guy.

After the lackluster response to the toe ring pictures, another message had come that morning with much more enthusiasm than he’d had last night.

Foot Guy : Good morning sweetheart! I hope you're ready to fulfill your promise to me today. Your package should be arriving shortly.

Carl : I'll swing by the post office some time today. I’m currently in the middle of moving. 

Foot Guy : Ooh moving huh? Your last place not big enough for you and the Princess anymore?

Carl : Something like that.

Foot Guy : Does this have anything to do with your little family emergency the other day?

Carl : Not really any of your business.

Foot Guy : It is my business when I’m bankrolling this move of yours. I suppose you’ll be needing some help with the payments? You know, I could be amenable. For a price, of course.

Carl : What are you, the devil? I think one blank check is enough, thanks.

Foot Guy : Too bad. Text me when you’re ready.

He hadn’t bothered me when we were moving, but my phone was like a heavy weight in my pocket. Before Sam had arrived to help, I had taken Asher with me to the post office, where we picked up a shoebox-sized package. When I shook it, I could hear something heavier moving around inside. I put it in my car and resolutely brushed off Asher’s questions about it. He didn’t push me, letting the subject drop. I picked us up breakfast while we were out to make up for it and he seemed to let it go.

I wish I could have said the same for myself. But the threat of what that package might contain had been a constant background worry throughout the entire day. The package was still sealed, the only reason that I allowed it to be in the same apartment as my little brother or Sam. I had no idea what it is, but I knew whatever it was, it was incriminating. It was too heavy not to be.

Sam staggered out sometime later, promising to call an Uber. I let him go reluctantly, but he insisted, and he was a grown ass man. Asher had gone to bed hours ago, and I sat on the couch in the living room by myself. Well, myself and Donut. She was stretching her legs now that Sam was gone, walking across the fake wood flooring.

I pulled out my phone. It was 11:30 at night, but Foot Guy was likely still up. I was feeling buzzed from the beers I’d had, and was willing to check.

Carl : Hey, are you up? I got the box earlier today and I was going to check what’s in it now. If you’re around, I could take the pics now. Or we could wait until tomorrow. Up to you.

A few minutes passed and I stood up, stretching, and going to the bathroom to grab the box. Might as well get it  over with. I’d brought it in myself, and since it was still sealed, I wasn’t worried about Asher or Sam accidentally finding whatever weird foot related thing Foot Guy had gotten me. I retrieved it and brought it with me back to the couch. We were going to get Asher’s bed tomorrow, and I couldn’t wait to have my own space back again. Donut, who was sitting on her tree, raised her head when I walked in with the box. She stood up, stretching, and walked over to investigate as I sat down.

I broke the tape, ripping the box open. I stared.

My heart sank.

Oh. Great.

I reached forward hesitantly and picked up the small piece of paper he had packed into the box. There was more handwritten prose on it, just like the last time he had sent me something. Like with the camera, the paper had directions for the other items in the box.

Inside the box was a dildo. Large, blue, and covered in ridges. Although it was still in its manufacturing box, the dildo was pictured generously in what I could only assume was the actual size of nine inches. At the base of the pictured dildo was a large suction cup, allowing for mounting on flat surfaces. The large phallic toy had a thick base and the tip curved slightly up. Fake veins shot across false skin, changing the texture on the surface.

Next to the box was a small bottle of lube.

Mount the dildo onto the floor and set the camera up above it. Wait for further instructions.

My mind raced. There were only a few things this could be, none of them good.

I had already spent the money. If I had known… I kind of had known, though. At least, I had known it would be something I wouldn't want to do. He had warned me of that himself. This, though?

I couldn't do this, whatever this was. This was beyond the pale, far beyond the sort of props I was comfortable using. The overtly sexual nature of the dildo was unlike the other, more innocuous items he had sent me. The last thing he'd had me pose with had been a fluffy cat toy, for God's sake.

If we're not counting the snow.

What were my options? Could I give the money back? I had spent most of it taking care of the funeral and flying back to Seattle with Asher. I got my paycheck next week, but with the hours I’d missed, it’d probably be sparse. As of right now, Foot Guy was my paycheck. 

I cursed myself for texting the guy before I'd opened the box. I checked my phone. He still hadn’t texted me back yet. I didn't know whether to feel relieved or not. I brought the box to the bathroom and stuck it back under the sink with the other one. I retreated to the living room and dropped onto the couch, rubbing my face with my hands.

My fingers itched. I wished I still had my gym membership. Whenever I’d get tense, I’d grab my gym bag and spend a few hours working it off. When I’d moved with Donut, I’d cancelled every subscription I couldn’t afford to keep. It was everything except my phone plan. 

I groaned and pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes. Even if the AI did pay me for whatever he wanted me to do here, it'd all be going to Asher anyway. But he’d already given me money for this, and I doubted he’d give me more what with his lackluster response to the toe ring. That concerned me. I had gotten used to relying on his money to help me with my bills, and it was just gonna get worse.

I pulled out my phone and shot Foot Guy a text.

Carl : If your plan was for this thing to go inside me, we're going to have to figure out me returning your money, cause there's no way that’s happening. This is way beyond what I'm comfortable with. Your ad said you wanted foot pics, not straight up amateur porn.

And then, because I couldn't afford to antagonize the guy too much, I sent another text.

Carl : Listen, I'm sorry. Tell me how to make it up to you, and I will. 

Another few minutes passed without any response. Just as I was starting to write it off as a lost cause, I got a message. 

Foot Guy : Oh sweetheart, I do so love where your mind went. But you're apologizing a little preemptively. No, I wasn’t going to ask you to go fuck yourself. Though don’t get me wrong, I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to seeing that 👀🥵

Foot Guy : No, you're going to be using your feet, not your ass. I want you to pleasure the dildo with those gorgeous feet of yours as if it was a real cock. My cock.

I took a deep breath. That wasn't as bad as I had initially imagined, but that somehow made it worse. Fucking myself with that thing was completely out of the question, and I’d almost felt a bit of relief for a minute that we had finally reached a line I wouldn't cross. That he had finally taken things far enough for me to justify ending this fucked up thing I'd gotten myself into.

But rubbing a fake cock with my feet? That was…doable. The idea of it made me nauseous, but I could push down my disgust long enough to get it done.

Carl : You want me to give it a footjob?

Foot Guy : Yes. Don't forget the lube, either. I like it wet. 

Fuck. I was really going to do this.

Carl : Give me a few minutes to set up.

Foot Guy : Make it twenty. You caught me in the middle of something I'd like to finish.

Foot Guy : Actually, better yet. Get everything set up and start the camera. I'll join you when I'm done.

'Middle of something'? What the hell was he doing so late at night? Did he work nights, or something? What the hell did Foot Guy even do? Surely he had to earn all the money he threw at my feet somewhere, right?

Donut walked up to where I was sitting on the couch, my bed for the night until I got Asher one tomorrow, and hopped into my lap.

"Hey, Donut."

I ran a hand down her flank, patting her side and giving her a few good scritches. She put her front paws up on my chest so she could headbutt my chin, purring loudly.

"You're going to have to move here in a minute," I told her. She gazed back evenly, blinking languidly at me as I spoke. I smiled. Even though things were even tighter now, I still couldn't bring myself to regret kidnapping and subsequently buying Donut. I’d have to make sacrifices for her, and for Asher, but they were worth it. I just had to keep working. That’s all this was. A job.

A job where you give a guy a proxy-footjob on camera.

I shook it off. It didn’t matter. What mattered was getting the money and staying in the clear with this guy.

I picked Donut up and deposited her on the couch next to me. I stood up before she could jump back onto my lap, stretched, and walked towards the bathroom.

It was a nice bathroom. Spacious. I had my own private bathroom connected to the master bedroom, and this one was for guests. With Asher sleeping in my bed at the moment, though, the more private bathroom was out of the question. Cream colored walls and light grey tiles - this was to be my studio for the next several minutes. I sighed and got the boxes out from under the sink.

The first thing I took out was the webcam. I pulled it and its little tripod out and stuck them in the corner, facing the floor towards where I was going to set up. I decided I was going to prop the dildo up on the floor, using the suction cup to secure it standing up.

I pulled it out of its box and was relieved to find it still smelled like freshly manufactured silicone and plastic. With my hand fully stretched out, it was just a little longer than my middle finger. Thick as two of my fingers and long, this thing would be a challenge for any woman. It was certainly larger than the ones Bea kept in the drawer next to the bed, or any of the toys we had used together. 

The suction cup activated with a pop and adhered to the floor with no issue. The dildo was thick and solid - there was hardly any movement to it when I pushed it against my hand. It wouldn’t wiggle very much when I pushed against it with my foot, so at least there was that, I supposed. I was likewise relieved that the suction was good enough that it wouldn’t slide around on the floor while I was doing this.

I tried sitting on the edge of the bathtub, but quickly realized it would be hell on my core. I repositioned the webcam a bit, then sat down on the ground. I leaned back on my hands and, bracing myself with one foot on the ground, gave the giant dildo a poke with my other foot. This would do.

The dildo was situated right in front of me, suction cup securing it to the tile. The camera was to the side of me, pointing down at it. The lube was to my other side, sitting on the floor beside me. The door was closed and Donut was locked securely out of the room. Asher was in bed, hopefully asleep, and wouldn't be needing this bathroom anyway. 

I was ready.

I turned on the Webcam. The little battery bar said it was at half power and I realized I'd have to figure out charging it after this. I saw it was a simple mini-usb charging port, and knew I had a spare cable around somewhere.

Time passed. The intimidating blue dildo was in frame in the camera, and the grey flooring contrasted with it sharply. I pulled my phone out and checked it. Nothing. Another five minutes before he said he’d be ready. 

Donut pawed at the closed door, meowing outside of it. She didn’t usually demand to follow me into the bathroom, but she got curious if I took too long in here. Bea used to let Donut in the bathroom with her, but that was usually after her showers in the morning, when she was doing her extensive beauty routine, or at night before she went to bed and she was doing her nighttime extensive beauty routine. I had never understood how Bea could take so long just washing her face and brushing her teeth.

I wondered what Bea would think of me doing this. Would she laugh? Would she call me names? Would she be heartbroken that her ex-boyfriend was secretly some kind of foot pervert?

I checked my phone.

It didn’t matter what she thought, or anyone thought. If I was lucky, no one would ever know about this. It would be something I could tell Asher about when he was older, and we could both laugh about it, years from now.

The thought of that made me smile. It was so weird having a little brother. Scary, in some ways. I kept accidentally cursing around him. Apparently I’d said the words “god damn it” so many times it was becoming a catchphrase. How was I supposed to be a good role model? Especially while I was doing this shit?

Just take it a day at a time, I reminded myself. 

I checked my phone again.

What was the AI even doing? Did he have a wife and kids he had to put to bed, like I had Asher? That didn't feel right. What could he be doing at this hour? Why was he even awake to respond to me?

My head swam. I probably shouldn’t have had all those beers.

My phone buzzed. Finally.

Foot Guy : I'm ready. It's time to start the performance ❤️ First thing you're gonna do is take off those awful pants. They're blocking the view. 

I sighed and reluctantly wiggled out of the sweatpants I'd been changed into while hanging out with Sam, leaving me in just my boxers. 

“Better?”

Foot Guy : Much. Now take that bottle of lube and drizzle it over the top. 

The blue dildo looked obscene, sticking up and towering in the air of my plain and empty bathroom. Even without anything to compare it to, the thing looked massive. Imposing.

I brought the bottle of lube into focus and drizzled some on the top of the dildo. The lube rolled down it quickly, leaving a slick trail from the tip all the way down to the base.

Alright. This was it. I could do this.

Foot Guy : Start with your right foot. Spread the lube around. Start at the head.

I moved my right foot over it and slowly brought it down onto the head of the dildo. The lube was cold and tacky. I moved it down, rubbing the lube into the toy as I went. My foot stood out next to the bright blue toy, the pink skin popping on the camera. The silver ring glittered in the light.

Foot Guy : Yeah baby, just like that. Get it nice and wet. Stroke me. Up and down.

Up and down. Over and over, until the whole thing was covered and shiny with lube. It was fucking obscene.

Foot Guy : fuck yes. god baby, those toes would feel so good on my cock. use your other foot now.

I pushed down the gorge that tried to rise. It's just a job. I pulled my other foot into frame and cupped the phallic toy between my feet, curving my soles around it. I started drawing my feet up and down, like I was jerking off a cock.

Foot Guy: use your toes more. touch the head and run your toes down the sides

I obeyed, trying to vary my movements and stroking the dildo as well as I could only using my feet. The muscles in my legs and my abdomen were starting to ache from the strain. I ran my toes along the head of the toy, the lube squelching between my toes. I did my best not to feel it.

Foot Guy : god your toes look so good when their all wet and glistening. im so  close keep going

Finally, it was nearly over. I cupped the dildo again and started stroking up and down, faster and faster. Stroking, pulling, pushing against it. I tried not to imagine a real dick, but it was difficult not to. His words had gotten in my head and I wondered what it would be like to do this to a person. To have warm flesh moving under me instead of this stiff silicone. My stomach churned at the thought, and I tried to push it out of my head.

Foot Guy: good boy such a good boy. make me cum baby

I redoubled my efforts, the end to this humiliating experience within sight. I panted, using my hips as well as my legs and feet to move myself against the toy.

With one final heave, I jerked my feet up, and the dildo popped off of the floor, going flying. It arched through the air, leaving the camera’s frame and colliding with the wall a moment later with a dull thud.

Damnit. I'd have to clean the lube off the floors and walls, it'd gotten everywhere.

I took a moment to catch my breath. That would have to be good enough, cause like hell was I setting this all up again. I reached over and shut the camera off.

I grumbled, slightly, when I realized I’d given Asher the only towel I had and started wiping my feet off with toilet paper. Eventually, my feet were clean enough that I chanced standing up, picking the dildo up off of where it had traveled across the floor and took it to the sink. I rinsed it, clearing the water based lube off of it easily enough. Then I cleaned the bathroom. I grimaced at the feel of drying lube on my feet and resolved myself to taking a shower as soon as possible. I could dry off like a dog and shake myself off if I had to.

My phone dinged with a notification.

Foot Guy : What a performance! And with such an explosive ending. I know I had an explosive ending too 🥵 Nicely done.

My phone dinged again and I was surprised to see he had sent me five hundred dollars.

Foot Guy : I did already pay you for this, but consider this a tip. Despite your attitude, you gave me quite the show, sweetheart. Not to mention your prodigious stamina and those gorgeous calves of yours.

I didn’t know how to take that.

Carl: Uh, thanks? I used to go to the gym every other day.

Foot Guy : Used to?

Carl : Just couldn’t afford it anymore. Not with recent changes.

Foot Guy : Your family emergency?

Carl : Yes.

Foot Guy : Tomorrow, you're going to renew your gym membership. Tell me how much it is monthly, and I'll pay for it.

I didn’t want to be any more indebted to this guy. He had already shown me he was willing to escalate to things I wasn’t comfortable with. But it didn’t appear as if he was giving me much of a choice. Besides that, I really did want to get back to exercising more. Tension was thick on my shoulders and I’d been carrying it around for at least a week. Hitting the gym would be good for me. 

Still, it left a sour taste in my mouth. I didn't want to owe him anything. I'd have to pay for it one way or another. I hesitated, then sent the question.

Carl: And in exchange?

Foot Guy : Just a few pictures, maybe even from the gym itself. I want you to remain in good shape for me.

Carl : Fine.

I wanted nothing more than to stop talking to this guy and go take a shower, but I forced myself to send a slightly more diplomatic follow up.

Carl : Thanks. I appreciate it. And thank you for the tip.

Foot Guy : You’re welcome ❤️

With that, I jumped in the shower, staying in there long past the time it took to get the last of the sticky lube off of me. When I was done, I shook myself off, threw my boxers back on and went back to the couch. Donut was waiting for me at the door, a resentful fuzzy lump on the ground. She glared up at me as I came out, and I reached down to pet her. It soothed her, and she walked back towards the living room with a huff. I chuckled and followed.

“I just got five hundred dollars,” I told the cat. She blinked back at me. Even after showering, I still felt dirty, though the extra money had definitely improved my mood. As long as I didn't think too hard about what I did to get it. I settled myself onto the couch and smiled as she immediately hopped up and started turning in circles on my chest. I pulled her to me, sinking my fingers into her soft fur. She wiggled, then settled.

I fell asleep like that, one hand still tangled in her fur.