“Good to see ya!” Hailee cheered to Alyssa as they approached. She waved a stryofoam cup. “We got you a smoothie.”

            “Sweet. Gimme,” Alyssa joked as she slid into a seat at the court next to the others. She wound the leash around her fist, forcing Cameron to stop and kneel to avoid choking. As her brother bowed on the filthy floor and crawled beneath the table, the blonde sucked down a mouthful of the icy beverage. “Thanks for meeting me, guys. I just felt the urge to treat myself, you know?”

            “Heck yes,” Olive concurred. The athletic tower of a girl crossed her thick thigh over her knee beneath the table, grew a devilish grin, and leveled her age-weathered Chuck shoe against the side of Cameron’s head. The rubbery sole and grit-knitted laces teased a bitter aroma as the young man’s neck endured the pressure of the star rower casually controlling the movement of his head with her foot.

            “Well, how are we supposed to know what looks good, if we aren’t all here to tell each other?” Hailee giggled. Beneath the table, she idly kicked off one of her white flip-flops. Her peachy foot, with toes wriggling wildly, crested forward until it found Cameron’s cheek. For an instant she caressed his skin with her squishy sole. Then her little digits pinched around his nose, forcing him to breathe through his mouth and savor the silty, summer air of her hovering heel. The smell was humid and light, flavored with flowery lotion and grass roots. Hailee’s opposite foot glided expectantly along Cameron’s arm, and so he was obliged to awkwardly attempt a massage while her ped was still encased in the flip-flop: he squeezed and stroked her giddily bucking toes. To top it off, Alyssa’s sandals tapped in rhythm on Cameron’s inner thigh.

            “Thanks for inviting me, too, Alyssa,” Tess sighed. “I was in the mood to get out of the house.” She alone refrained from inching her shoes toward Cameron.

            Of course, Alyssa’s friends all understood the new rules when he was around: any game was a fair game, particularly when it came to their feet and reinstating Cameron’s status as a personal bitch.

            However, he hadn’t seen Tess, nor spoken to her, since beginning his enslavement. While Olive’s dirty Chuck cranked his neck from side to side, and Hailee’s toes restricted his oxygen, his vision alone drifted to Tess’s skinny-jeanned legs and her Ugg-boot concealed peds. He supposed it was just as well.

            “Don’t mention it, Tess. You know I love ya, even if my loser brother prefers being under me and my mom than you. So, are we gonna shop, or aren’t we?” Alyssa said. She yanked Cameron’s leash again, withdrawing him from the curious shoes of her friends; both Hailee and Olive looked disappointed. Tess only smiled winsomely.

            The group of five slowly trailed down the first wing of the mall: Alyssa, Hailee, Olive, and Tess in a line, while the leash hung behind and Cameron bringing up the caboose. As they all strolled, he was paid almost no mind by anyone, especially his ex-girlfriend. Somehow this was almost as embarrassing as her pressing the hard sole of her boot against his jaw under a table, if not more so. It was as if he didn’t exist.

            An hour passed, then another. Cameron was appointed the official pack mule of their purchases. He didn’t mind this at all, and in fact enjoyed the idea of being of actual use to them beyond his clear and primary utility as a foot soother. The first several stores were just clothing stores, boutiques, make-up shops: all of great fascination to the young women, of course, but Cameron was waiting for a very particular place. At last, after a meal of waffle fries Cameron ate hands-free from his sister’s sandal sole, the group approached a large site with a poster of an empowering black-leather heel on the side. All four girls except Tessa turned around and gawked at him, suppressing laughter.

            Alyssa ruffled her brother’s hair. “Almost to your favorite part, Cam. Just hang on.”

            The quintet set up shop around an unoccupied circle of chairs. Cameron was left alone with his leash in his own hands. Ironically, he almost felt like a lost child missing his guardian, while they dispersed to search for potential buys and, more importantly, tools with which to mercilessly tease him. Cameron was relieved when the four, especially his sister, returned with multiple boxes in hand.

            “What are you waiting for, Cam? These babies aren’t gonna try themselves on,” Alyssa taunted affectionately as she and the other three took seats at compass-direction points around the circle, leaving her brother in the middle.

            Goose bumps prickled over Cameron’s skin. They couldn’t have planned a more dreamlike scenario, simultaneously heavenly in the possibility of four young women waiting to have their shoes tried on, and also latently nightmarish at the prospect of it all being made public.

            “I want to go first!” Hailee piped up, ever-enthusiastic.

            “I’m second,” Olive chuckled.

            “Oh, fine. I’ll be a good host and let you all use him first,” Alyssa groaned sarcastically. “Tess? You want to have a go, too?”

            “I’ll think about it,” the dark-haired beauty agreed, resting her chin on her upturned fist and at last granting Cameron a lengthy, blank gaze”

            “Cool. All right, big bro, let’s see if you’ve got what it takes to be in this business,” Alyssa said, to a chorus of laughs from her friends. She whipped out her cell phone as Cameron delicately approached Hailee on his knees. “Try to tilt toward me a little bit, you guys. I’m gonna document this for my new Facebook album, and I want to make sure people can see how good of a job Cam’s doing at being our little foot slut.”

            More giggles sounded, but Cameron was already too entranced by the sight of Hailee’s petite, pink little feet in her dangling flip-flops. He cradled the first one with great reverence and slid the thong of it over the redhead’s ever-squirming toes. Then he did the other, leaving her pale, naked feet resting lithely in his open palms. Warm but not wet with sweat. Her digits gently grazed his wrists, curling and uncurling themselves. Tickled by a fresh round of goose bumps, Cameron reached for the cream-white flat she’d chosen to try on.

            While he’d wondered as he picked up her foot if her mind was in the same place as his, there was little guesswork involved. Her eyes twinkled.

            “Thank you, sir,” she snickered. “Here’s your tip.”

            While he balanced Hailee’s soft heel in one hand, her opposite foot rose to his chin. The girl’s big toe traced from one corner of his lips to the other, but didn’t push, as if merely saying a password; he gratefully opened his mouth and let Hailee’s precious cherried digits into his mouth.

            Meanwhile, he set about carefully guiding her opposite ped into the luxurious new flat. It was a diverting and uniquely stirring experience for Cameron, partaking in the platonic yet intimate act of gently helping Hailee’s foot into her new shoe, feeling the soft heft of her ped and her toes bunching through the leather; simultaneously, his nerve endings came alive as her pastry-like, bell-ended toes massaged over his tongue and gripped his bottom teeth.

            Flavors reminiscent of mall-sample soaps and summer campfires washed down his throat, and more were unveiled as Hailee’s toes reached for the walls of his cheeks. Already he felt his previously blue-balled crotch springing to life. From behind, Cameron heard multiple clicks of Alyssa’s camera; of course she had the volume on so he’d know just how many images were being saved. While he had the redhead’s earnest toes warming in his mouth, there were about ten taken.

            “I think these flats are winners,” Hailee declared, sliding her toes from the mouth of her friend’s older brother. Her peers golf-clapped. “What do you think, Cameron?”

            “I, uh…” he stammered. “I think they’re… nice.”

            The circle laughed again.

            “Now me,” Olive declared. The nearly six-foot-tall athlete shifted in her seat, straightening her back as though sitting in a throne. She snapped her fingers. “Get over here, little dude.”

            Deciding not to linger on the fact that he was technically taller than the girl, Cameron obeyed. He was practically magnetized over toward Olive, whose mere gaze demanded his compliance more than Hailee’s quiet, sugar-sweet exterior. As he neared, she lifted a broad leg and flexed her impressive calf. The hexagonal-celled rubber underside of her Chuck loomed ahead.

            “Off. Come on, now,” she demanded in a lower octave. The other girls went quiet, observing the commanding brunette’s handiwork. Cameron, of course, listened. He let her rest her heavy, earth-scented shoe upon his chest while he undid the laces. One than the other.

            Setting the storied Chucks aside on the carpet, Cameron looked to the open box of Olive’s chosen new footwear: a pair of impressive golden-hued gladiator sandals with crisscrossing straps nearly up to her knee. And then, looking to Olive and the socks she wore, stained gray and ratty from use and greasy sweat soaking, he realized there was another step first.

            “Take them off,” Olive purred.

            Cameron reached out and pinched the damp fabric in his fingertips, but she slapped him sportingly across the cheek with her thick sole.

            “Ah-ah,” she corrected. “Use your teeth.”