oneortheother
TMF Expert
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2008
- Messages
- 375
- Points
- 18
A Medicinal Tickling:
It was not uncommon for doctors to develop an oversensitive mind, a willingness to see disease and disorder where there wasn’t any, but 1st year Medical Student Mason Stride really worried that he had exhibiting far too many symptoms of obsession for it to be ignored.
He was struggling to sleep, he found himself tense all the time, and his concentration ability, which he had been famed for in the past, had waned to the point where even five minutes of listening to a lecture talk about antibiotics or something might be enough for his brain to switch off and his lustful imagination to take over.
And he knew exactly what dangerous, pervasive, crazy environmental factor was the cause—a girl.
Her name was Charie and she was the star of the class. Like many of Asian descent, she was thin, petite, and pale-skinned. Her face was heart-shaped, her eyes were small, brown, and easy to lose yourself in, and her long, straight black hair cascaded past her shoulders. Depending on if she wore glasses or not, she oscillated between the sexy-smart secretary look and the effortlessly graceful and elegant beauty.
Also like many of Asian descent, she was a tremendously hardworker and overall, an incredibly responsible young lady. She was the student council officer and the current number one in both classwork and physical practice. There was no question her future was as bright as a lighthouse. That didn’t mean she wasn’t sociable however. She was also a very friendly young woman with an easy, ready smile, and a gentle, melodious laugh that was so very easy on the ears, yet breathy and husky enough that Mason couldn’t help but wonder if she would laugh like when tickled out of her mind.
But that was not what drove Mason mad with longing. Like many others who had this very common fetish, Mason had a predilection for feet, especially small, cute, shapely ones that that Charie possessed. And the thing was, Charie must have lived a past life as a professional foot tease, because she knew exactly how to drive him insane without even saying a word or looking at him.
While Charie’s upper body remained still and focused, her legs and lower body were more than a little fidgety, so once everyone had settled into the lecturer, she would often slip her feet out of her shoes and began wiggling and them as she made notes.
Sometimes, she would arch her feet so the pale white flesh of her heels and hints of her wrinkly arch were visible. Other times, she would pull her feet out of her shoes entirely so Mason’s view of her slender feet was unobstructed, though she rarely did it for long before feeling self-conscious about being too casual and slipping them back in. Worst of all was when she could slip her feet out of her footwear and put her small toes behind the bars on the stool to stretch her sole out right in front of him—the perfect position for tickling.
It was nearly the end of the first year now, and Mason was well-acquainted with her fashion sense, at least in terms of shoes, since most med students were required to wear uniforms. She usually wore a pair of loose white sports shoes, and she always combo-ed them with short thin socks or black nylon stockings when it was colder. And through the thin fabric, Mason could see how every tendon and joint of those shapely feet worked. He saw them when they walked with long, confident strides. He saw the way they would move up and down and jiggle when her legs were crossed. He saw the way she would stamp them down in adorable frustration when she got an answer incorrect in lecture. He saw the way he would adjust her elegant shoes by lifting her foot back and hitting it on the floor with her toes. He saw everything, saw all these teases within teases, and the sinuous flexing of those pale, thin ankles woke something wild in his loins.
Yet it didn’t matter what she was wearing—if she was sitting down for any extended period of time, those socked feet would be coming out for some fresh air. Whenever this happened, Mason would rub his eyes, lightly slap his cheeks, and try to adjust his seating, but his eyes could never fixate on the lecturer, video, demonstration, etc, for more than a few seconds before they were drawn back to those magic, marvellous feet once again. But those small, slender feet always felt like they were almost waving at him, though he knew he was just imagining things.
To make matters worse, she had made very clear to a number of her suitors that her only love was medicine and doctoring, and she would not even consider dating until she had graduated, which meant that even possibly dating her was out of the question. Meanwhile, Mason could do nothing but endure and be her friend as her feet danced and wiggled in every lecture.
They were seatmates and internmates in the same hospital, so Mason would always see her, always get entranced by her easy-going nature, and always most of all be hypnotised by those supple, splendid feet of hers.
He only ever saw her bare feet on the rarest of occasions, and each one of those had burned in his mind. These moments were invariably few and far between, and the most recent one was several weeks ago. During a day in the local hospital, there had been news of a typhoon come in late in the afternoon, and Mason had overheard Charie conversing with her friends about how she had brought a pair of flip flops so her white sneakers wouldn’t get soaked by the rain. Oh, how his heart had leapt at the sight of seeing those dainty, pale things uncovered by anything! With this in mind, Mason had made his excuses to hang around her till they were to be dismissed. She had sat down in a chair, removed her left sneaker, and was halfway through stripping off her left sock when one of her pesky, infuriating friends had returned to say it wasn’t raining anymore. Mason had only glimpsed a tiny bit of that pale, wrinkled arch and most of that rosy heel, but even that small glimpse was enough to drive him nuts.
And, of course, her social media was devoid of any good pictures of her bare feet. His other attempts to satisfy his need were also far from successful.
“Hey, Charie, can you help my brother out on a little project?” he had once tried during the lecture intermission.
“Sure, what kind of help does he need?”
“Well, he’s doing a photography project on the human body, so do you mind taking a few pictures of your feet? He’s doing a whole compare and contrast thing. It’s really good.”
“Sorry, I think my feet are ugly,” she had said, not knowing how utterly, absolutely, unequivocally wrong she was. “I’m gonna have to pass.”
Another day, he had tried something else:
“Hey, have you decided on an investigation project yet? I’m thinking of doing something where we research whether spas affect sensitivity regarding the Babinski Reflex. You in?”
“Sure, who would be the test subjects?”
“I was, uh, thinking we could be! It’ll be fun, I promise.”
“Uh, no thanks. I think I’m way too ticklish on my feet for anything like that.” She had said it so casually, so nonchalantly, yet those words had stuck in poor Mason’s mind for months as he tried to comprehend in delicious detail exactly what she meant.
But one day, an opportunity presented itself.
A surgery patient having a heart bypass had passed away due to unforeseen complications of a critical allergic to anaesthesia. At least, everyone had thought it was unforeseen. The interns had been in charge of getting the medical history, but no one could quite remember what, and everyone later agreed it was a great tragedy and the patient must simply have forgotten to report the allergy. That was the story that everyone had believed. Mason had believed it too, until one day after the unfortunate death, Mason had seen something he had never meant to.
He had been focusing on something he was trying to see—the same thing he was always trying to see, really, glimpses of those heavenly feet. Charie was wearing her usual white sporty shoes, but today, she was wearing a pair of tight, thin black socks that hugged the feet so magnificently he could admire her Achilles tendon with every flex of those petite feet. Mason had been following her (from a discrete distance, of course) without paying much attention to where she was going, but his brow furrowed when he saw her return to the office where the interning records were kept. It wasn’t a very securely area, just where the students kept the sign-in forms about attendance and other miscellaneous documents. It was besides the pantry and the lockers for them.
Charie was armed with a pencil and eraser, and she was flicking through the attendance logs. Mason squinted and recognised the picture on the personnel file—it was the same obese patient who had just died. Had she been involved in it? Had she been the one to make the mistake of not asking about the medical history and allergies? His eyes grew wide at this revelation, and he took a step back, his shoe thumping into the wall. Charie’s head turned, her long black hair swirling, and Mason beat a quick retreat.
That night, his mind wandered in circles for hours as he thought about what to do. Charie was forging the records because she was guilty. That was the only possible explanation. He supposed it made sense that she would do such a thing—a mistake that had cost the life of a patient would be quite the blemish on her otherwise sparkling career. That must have been why she tried to cover it up.
A few days later, after a particularly long and gruelling afternoon of being teased by her shoeplaying, he mustered up the courage to do this daring thing, he sent her an email to meet up in a rarely used hospital room at midnight after the internship.
Mason watched Charie’s expression when she checked her email on her phone. Her pretty dark eyes went wide, her hand went to her mouth, and she turned very pale, though she tried to shake off her concerns in the next few minutes. In fact, she was fiddling around with her shoes again within thirty seconds, though he couldn’t help but notice they had a certain nervous energy to them now.
The rest of the day was full of weary anxiety. Would she even show up? Would the email be dismissed as some kind of prank? Maybe he was wrong about her. Then again, Mason didn’t really think so.
That night, Charie’s jaw dropped when she went to seldomly used room and found Mason waiting for her. He was seated in a plastic chair with his legs crossed.
“You! Mase, what’s the meaning of this?” Charie was dressed in a black t-shirt, jeans, and white shoes. She was also dressed in shock and outrage, and she shook a little as she spoke.
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Mason said. “I thought you were little miss perfect, after all. But you’ve been bad, haven’t you?”
“What are you talking about?” Charie put her hand on the door and made to leave. “This is some kind of sick joke, isn’t it? I never knew you had such a twisted sense of humour.”
“I hope to make you laugh later, but that’s something different.” Mason cleared his throat and spoke the lines he had been rehearsing for hours. “I’m the intern in charge of submitting the papers to the doctor in charge. I checked the forms of that deceased patient, and I was curious to notice how there was a change from the original?”
“T-the original? What original?”
“I photocopied the original right after the patient died, because well, I remembered you acting really strangely that day, and I wondered if that was the reason why. I guess I turned out to be right.”
Charie scrunched up her little hands in tight, white fists and chewed on her lower lip, saying nothing.
“I want to say, hey, everyone makes mistakes. But trying to cover it up as if it never happened? Forging documents? That could get you thrown out of med school, Char. I mean, that’s serious malpractice.”
Charie gave a great groan. “You think I don’t know that? God, why are you doing this to me, Mason? You want to ruin my life?”
“Well, I think that’s only fair considering what you did to me.”
Her jaw dropped. “I’ve done nothing to you! I don’t understand… Please don’t report me.”
“Well, that’s entirely up to you. I hope we can come to some kind of arrangement.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What do you want? Money? Me to sleep with you? Honestly, I always thought you were an okay guy… I never imagined you’d do something like this.”
“Nothing like that. I only want what’s fair.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean? You want me to cover for you next time you make a big mistake?”
He chuckled. “Not quite. You have been driving me mad these past few months. I’ll be shocked if you haven’t noticed.”
“What? I, I seriously don’t get what you’re talking about, Mase. What have I eben doing?”
“You genuinely don’t know how much of a tease you are when you play with your shoes every day?”
“I, er, I didn’t even know you were a foot guy…”
“Well, now you know,” Mason said, shrugging. “And here we are. Here’s the deal. Every day, your feet are mine. You know we’re both very busy people, so I don’t think we’ll be spending too many hours a day on this stuff.”
“What are you gonna do to them?”
“Nothing too outrageous. Massaging them, kissing them, tickling them, that kind of thing. Nothing too lewd, I promise.” He smiled at her, but he had a feeling she didn’t find his grin reassuring.
“I thought we were good friends, Mason. Why are you blackmailing me like this?”
“I’m not saying we can’t still be friends after this. It’ll almost be like friends with benefits.” He laughed. “I have my innocent fun, and you get the benefit of not getting kicked out of med school.”
She sighed. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”
He shrugged again and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to accept the deal.” He tried to sound casual, though his heart was pounding hard in his chest. “But after we finish med school, the deal expires. It’s a small thing, isn’t it? A small sacrifice for being the doctor you always wanted to be? It won’t be that bad, I promise.”
She gave a small, reluctant nod. “Fine. I agree to this deal.” She stood up. “But now, I’m outta here.”
“Not quite yet.” Mason pointed to a chair. “We start tonight. Sit on that chair opposite me and give me your feet.”
Charie rubbed her eyes. “Oh, come on, it’s late.”
“I’ve been waiting for this moment for months. We’re starting now.” He pointed at his lap and glared at her.
She frowned and nodded, before sitting on the chair opposite him. She slowly extended her legs into his lap. Mason felt a shiver of expectation as those demure, dainty things were lowered into his lap. He pulled off her shoes—they were loosely laced as always. The chalk-white shoes were from Nike with a slight heel. He put it took his nose and took a quick sniff before dropping them to the floor.
The socks were next, those tight, thin black socks. For the first foot, her left, he slowly rolled it up from the heel, enjoying the feeling of the slightly damp material as more and more of her creamy sole was exposed. When he had the foot fully exposed, he admired did in all its sheer majesty. The foot was pale, with patches of plush pinkness around the ball of the foot. The arch was high and wrinkly, and the toes were bubble-like with neatly trimmed toenails.
“What size are your feet?” Mason asked, playing with her cute little toes.
Charie chewed on her lower lip as if the toe touching tickled terribly. “Size seven.”
“I thought so. They’re every bit as pretty as I thought they would be.” He smiled, cooing at the sight of a little birth mark under her big toe. “It’s amazing how soft they are considering how much time you spend walking on your feet.”
“Thanks, I guess?”
Mason began stroking the still socked foot, taking his time with it as always. The contrast between the black sock and the ivory flesh made them astonishingly beautiful. He started working the other sock off too. He tugged it by the toe of the sock, pinching it gently, and slowly edged it off, marvelling in its beauty. He placed both feet side by side of each other and closed his eyes, enjoying their warmth on his lap. With their rounded toes and prominent balls of the foot, they were almost heart-shaped. He smiled again at that, a grin that was ever-present since she put her feet on his lap.
“About time we get started, eh?” Just using his index fingers, he began gliding his nails down those divinely soft sole. He smirked at the way she shook when he ran through that supple, sensitive skin of hers.
After a few strokes, just four or five, the ticklish teasing already proved to be too much, and she pulled her ankles away from him.
“Put them back,” he said, pointing at his lap. “Or the deal’s off, and I spill everything.”
She pouted a bit at that, but she returned her milky-white feet to his lap quickly enough. From then on, her reactions were even more delicious. Oh, how her feet danced and wiggled for him! It was just like in class during her shoeplaying. His fingers went all around the length and perimeter of the sole, brushing from those perfect toes down to that pink heel.
He tore his gaze away from Charie’s feet to her face to see how she was doing. Her figners were clenched, her eyes were closed, and her lips were pursed into a thin line. It was clear she was trying so hard not to laugh or move. Well, let’s see how long she can last in the former, Mason thought with malevolent glee.
He began pressing his fingers in harder, really using what little fingernails he had. He’d have to remember to grow them out later, despite the sanitary concern of getting microbes underneath your fingernails. He pressed his fingers in deeper around the velvety-soft sole, tracing circles, shapes, numbers all over her feet. His nails were insistent when they scratched need into her arches, and Charie started to whimper and splutter with forced giggles.
“Awww, is this too much for you already?” Mason asked, his fingers probing under and between her flexing, curling toes.
Charie’s feet continued to shiver and she gave a reluctant nod.
“Maybe I’ll be nice then. This is our first night together, after all.” Mason stopped, his fingers no longer scratching but caressing instead. Her petite, pale toes were squeezed, her high arches had thumbs swirl and rub within them, and fingers slid across her rosy heels and rubbed firmly into the balls. A gentle moan escaped Charie’s lips after a bit of this massage, the contrast clearly demonstrating itself to having wonders on those oh-so-sensitive feet of hers. Mason had a knowing smile on his face as he leaned in and licked his lips. He leaned his head down to those goddess feet and began to suck each toe, one by one.
“Damn, these taste so nice,” Mason whispered, looking up at Charie’s flushed face. She was chewing on her lower lip, her brow wrinkled up as she tried to rein in her reactions. He grinned at the fact he was living his dream of many months and began swirling his tongue all over the pads of those soft toes as if he were savouring a popsicle. Every now and then, he would introduce his teeth to the mix, gently nibbling and biting. This tickled much more than the soft sensuality of the foot worship, and his teeth scrabbling against the ball of her feet coaxed a few adorable squeals and squeaks from her. Other times, when he was sated with tasting her toes, he used long, slow drags of his tongues down her arches. It felt the best when her toes scrunched from the teasing, as he could feel all the wrinkles and ridges of his silky soft-skin. It didn’t take long for her feet to be coated in his saliva.
For his grand finale, he popped in her two smallest toes and closed his eyes and sucked while his fingers scribbled down that same slick sole to get her digits wiggling and squirming again. Oh, he could have done it for hours, savouring the succulent flavour of her feet, inhaling her aroma, and hearing her gentle giggles. The thought occurred to him in fact, though his eyes were starting to feel tired and he was stifling yawns despite the inherent excitement of the situation.
“Having a good time? I’ll be keeping these, by the way” he said, winking as he pocketed her socks. As he put them into his bag, he pulled out a pack of tissues and began wiping her damp feet down.
“A-are we done?” Charie was panting a little, and her cheeks were red. She pulled her feet away as soon as he was done cleaning.
He laughed. “See you tomorrow.”
O-O-O
Back at her dorm, Charie’s heart was pounding and her knees were weak. She collapsed in her bed, ignoring the complaints of her roommate. What had just happened? It felt like such a bad, ridiculously dream. Filled to the brim with stress and confusion, she closed her eyes, kicked off her shoes, and was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.
She was almost ready to believe the whole thing was a dream when she woke up. She laid in bed, staring up at the ceiling, before her cheeky roommate casually flicked her nails across Charie’s bare feet and told her she should hurry up or she’d be late for class. That light touch on her feet was enough to remind her of everything that had happened the night before. She groaned and screamed into her pillow. What exactly had she got herself into?
When she checked her phone, she got her answer. As a fun wake-up present this morning, Mason had sent her a list of his demands. After lecture, they would need to go shopping together for some daily foot products, which Mason had offered to pay (oh, how kind of him), and in addition, he shamelessly reminded of her of how she was indebted to him. She would need to pay him back every day by giving him her socks at the end of every day (wouldn’t she run out of socks within two weeks? Mason seemed to not have considered that fact, or if he had, he didn’t care). Not to mention, in the morning or evening, she would need to submit herself to another foot session. As if that first one hadn’t been bad enough! Oh, it was simple so outrageously unfair! But she supposed there was nothing that could be done about it.
In lecture, Mason gave her a knowing smile when she arrived in lecture a little tardier than usual. Charie sat beside him, sighing quietly. When she opened her notepad and began taking notes, she noticed him staring at her shoes. How had she never noticed it before? She sighed and tried to concentrate on what the professor was saying.
After the two-hour talk on the cheerful subject of chemotherapy, the rest of Charie’s day didn’t get any better. Instead of an hour she could spend unwinding with a cheesy romance novel, funny cat videos, or even having a refreshing siesta, she got dragged to the nearby shopping centre to stock up on skincare products. It must have seemed so incongruous, such a strange role reversal to any of the shop assistants there, for Mason, the male, was the one being super interested and into all the dermatologist products. Mason asked question after question about which products were the best reviewed, any possible side-effects, sensitivity enhancers, etc, while the woman who was ostensibly purchasing the products, Charie, said little to nothing at all. They must have made quite the odd couple. The only positive to the whole thing was when a jovial, peppy Mason took out his wallet and paid for the entire trolley of products. She was relieved at least she wasn’t the one spending all her cash, and well, it was never bad to have more moisturisers lying around.
Mason walked her back to her dorm after the lesson. He was nattering on and on about lecture, gossip, and their internship. It really was as if nothing had happened. Charie crossed her arms and resolved not to say much, but it was a long walk back, and after a while, she grew grateful for his company and banter. She did like Mason, after all. That’s why they were friends in the first place! It was fine when he wasn’t being… weird about things.
Unfortunately, things did not stay normal for long. When they returned to the dorm, Charie sat down on her bed as Mason helped put all the new beauty products on her night stand. After that was all done, he coughed and gave her an impatient, insistent look. He stared at her for a while, his eyes darting down to her feet, before it dawned when he wanted. Muttering with resolute defeat, she stripped off her socks and gave them to him, still uncomprehending exactly why he wanted them or what he might do with them. Then again, perhaps some things were better off not knowing.
“Thanks very much,” he said, pocketing the damp, thin white socks she had worn all day. “Don’t forget to use that stuff, eh? Don’t waste my money.”
For a second, Charie considered dumping all the stuff. Why shouldn’t she? Would he even know?
Something in her expression must have given her away, because when he spoke again, his voice was a low, angry rumble. “I’ll know if you don’t use that stuff. And you’ll be punished for tricking me, one way or another.” Then, his expression lightened. “But I know you’re too honest and upright to do anything like that. We came to an agreement, right?”
“Right,” she murmured.
“Anyway, good night!” he said, leaning down and giving her foot a kiss.
When the door closed behind him, Charie sighed again, before standing up and rifling through the dozens of products that had been bought for her. Well, she might as well try to make the best of her situation… She started applying some expensive cream to soften her smooth soles. After that, she cracked open a textbook and began her revision.
O-O-O
In the next few weeks, things fell into a queer new norm. Charie supposed it was a testament to the adaptability of humanity, how they were able to adjust to any new situation, no matter how savage or outlandish it was.
There were morning sessions, where Mason would let himself in (he had made her give him a key, and he knew exactly when her roommate would be away) and have his way with her feet, which always seemed especially tender and receptive when she had just woken up. Part of her was also embarrassed at the thought of seeing him in her cartoon pajamas, but like all things, such feelings faded over time and repeated episodes. The first morning session was the day after Mason had bought all those foot pampering products for her, and Charie had gone to bed wearing a pair of black furry socks that Mason had chosen.
“Keeping your promise, I see,” Mason said in that low, husky voice of his. “Very well. I’ll be nice today.” And nice he was, for lack of a better word. With Charie lying on her stomach, he rubbed and stroked her feet with his gentle, nimble hands till she felt ecstasy radiating from her soles. She would never have imagined it could have felt quite so nice. She closed her eyes, hugged her pillow, and suppressed little moans of pleasure. If she closed her eyes, she could almost convince herself she was in some massage parlour instead of being forced into something against her will. That fantasy had not survived the tongue licking session and foot tickling session that followed, especially when Mason decided to be a cruel and grab her hairbrush in order to scrub her bare, hypersensitised soles with the hundreds of plastic-tipped bristles, but at least it had been okay for the most part.
There were some mornings where Mason was just in a black, bleak mood, and he would eschew the massage and foot worship entirely, opting instead to smear baby oil across her soles and then tickle the shit out of them with either fingers or whatever tool he had decided to bring, such as toothbrush, comb, forks, or whatever.
The night sessions were a little better, though they were all spicy, similar flavours of agony, for the most part. The biggest downside to the morning sessions was how they might exhaust her for the whole day, but the night sessions at least meant she could look forward to a restful sleep when Mason finally decided he was finished.
After a bit of month of her crazy new routine, Charie was starting to see all kind of worrying side-effects. Her feet were really starting to get quite sensitive from all her regular foot treatments and pampering. Sometimes, even walking around on a soft carpet would give her a fit of giggles. Feet started creeping into her dreams as well, as sometimes she’d have nightmares of slobbering tickle monsters that were all tongues and feathers which would engulf her feet. She’d wake up sweating and scared and rubbed her feet to reassure herself that they were all okay.
The worst part was how these annoying ‘chores’ with Mason was really messing with her energy. The massage and tongue-baths would always make her want to nap, which wasn’t exactly ideal when she had so much studying she needed to do. And the tickling? That always fatigued her so much, especially her throat and stomach from all that forced laughter. Her grades were starting to slip, too, and she had only got top three in the last exam instead of the unquestioned number one spot that had always been hers since the very first test.
And naturally, Mason had offered to ‘help’ her study, though she didn’t really have the option of declining. He devised quite the devious studying method for her. She would be given twenty-five minutes to finish a chapter, but while she was trying to memorise every minute detail, Mason would be toying with her feet. He wouldn’t go all out, not yet, but he would tease them every so slightly. A lick here, a little stroke there, that kind of thing. It was just enough to frazzle her brain for a few seconds and disrupt her revision.
After those twenty-five minutes had flown past, Mason would test her knowledge. All her nerves would be on edge after all that teasing, and she had to try to answer his questions while her quivering, shaking feet remained in his lap. He would massage her feet as he asked the questions and Charie would get three chances to get the right answer. If she squandered them, Mason would grab a pen and scrawl notes and bulletpoints into her bare soles to “help her remember.” Oh, it had been so terrible! Charie remember the feeling of pounding her mattress, spluttering with laughter as Mason drew long and complicated diagrams on her tremendously ticklish feet. The worst part was how she had to try so hard to stay still, for if she moved too much and messed up his drawing, Mason would get out the brushes, clean the surface of her soles with some water, and start his note-taking all over again.
But that all paled in comparison to the public stuff Mason did. All the other stuff was bad, but at least it was in the privacy of one’s dorm. The craziest stuff was when mason would do things to her feet when there were loads of people around. When they were seatmates in tables that were only good for two, Mason would occasionally pass her notes with some variation on the message of ‘want ur feet now plz ☹’ But there was nothing that could be done, was there? It was just another thing that had to be done. Sighing and cursing as whatever deity had put her in this situation, she would cross her legs and nudge her foot towards them. Mason usually forced her to sit in the back away from curious eyes, but still, it struck her as such a risky thing to be doing. If someone caught them, what possible explanation could she give for why her shoe and sock was off? At least that hadn’t happened yet, thankfully. But still, it was only a mater of time, wasn’t it?
At the onset of this extortion, Charie would never have imagined that one iota of her being could have enjoyed the trauma of it all. Yet after an exhausting day of internship where she had been running around the emergency rooms all day, the idea of putting her feet up, closing her eyes, and just enjoying the pampering done to them suddenly seemed downright pleasant. They didn’t share a morning session that day because of needing to be at the hospital very early, so it really was the thought of so much blissful attention done to her sore feet that kept her going. It was almost like an indulgent chocolatey treat at the end of an intense workout at the gym.
As they walked home together, with Mason nattering on about the recklessness of some patients, the arrogance of some doctors, and the blandness of some hospital food, Charie interrupted him and said, “Do you think you could give me a good massage and not just run off with my socks today?”
Mason’s eyebrows shot up, and his confused frown curled into a smile. “Sure, that trade sounds good.” He grinned at her and then changed the subject back to bitching about the administration at the hospital.
In her dorm, Charie changed into her pajamas, brushed her teeth, climbed into bed, and let him take off her shoes and socks. It felt good to let someone else do it, as if she were some queen with peons to worship her. She cuddled her pillow and giggled, trying not to move her feet away as she sensations of fingers and tongue washed over her tired feet. For once, Mason was kind. No hairbrushes, feathers, or other villainous implements made an appearance. Mainly, he lightly traced his fingers up and down her soles with the very edges of his nails, the gentle grazing filling up her up with dopamine and smiles. As he played with her toes, Charie found sleep beckoning to her more and more strongly. Her eyes were heavy when she felt that familiar friendly touch of soft, warm tongue on her soles.
Maybe this wasn’t that bad after all…
It was not uncommon for doctors to develop an oversensitive mind, a willingness to see disease and disorder where there wasn’t any, but 1st year Medical Student Mason Stride really worried that he had exhibiting far too many symptoms of obsession for it to be ignored.
He was struggling to sleep, he found himself tense all the time, and his concentration ability, which he had been famed for in the past, had waned to the point where even five minutes of listening to a lecture talk about antibiotics or something might be enough for his brain to switch off and his lustful imagination to take over.
And he knew exactly what dangerous, pervasive, crazy environmental factor was the cause—a girl.
Her name was Charie and she was the star of the class. Like many of Asian descent, she was thin, petite, and pale-skinned. Her face was heart-shaped, her eyes were small, brown, and easy to lose yourself in, and her long, straight black hair cascaded past her shoulders. Depending on if she wore glasses or not, she oscillated between the sexy-smart secretary look and the effortlessly graceful and elegant beauty.
Also like many of Asian descent, she was a tremendously hardworker and overall, an incredibly responsible young lady. She was the student council officer and the current number one in both classwork and physical practice. There was no question her future was as bright as a lighthouse. That didn’t mean she wasn’t sociable however. She was also a very friendly young woman with an easy, ready smile, and a gentle, melodious laugh that was so very easy on the ears, yet breathy and husky enough that Mason couldn’t help but wonder if she would laugh like when tickled out of her mind.
But that was not what drove Mason mad with longing. Like many others who had this very common fetish, Mason had a predilection for feet, especially small, cute, shapely ones that that Charie possessed. And the thing was, Charie must have lived a past life as a professional foot tease, because she knew exactly how to drive him insane without even saying a word or looking at him.
While Charie’s upper body remained still and focused, her legs and lower body were more than a little fidgety, so once everyone had settled into the lecturer, she would often slip her feet out of her shoes and began wiggling and them as she made notes.
Sometimes, she would arch her feet so the pale white flesh of her heels and hints of her wrinkly arch were visible. Other times, she would pull her feet out of her shoes entirely so Mason’s view of her slender feet was unobstructed, though she rarely did it for long before feeling self-conscious about being too casual and slipping them back in. Worst of all was when she could slip her feet out of her footwear and put her small toes behind the bars on the stool to stretch her sole out right in front of him—the perfect position for tickling.
It was nearly the end of the first year now, and Mason was well-acquainted with her fashion sense, at least in terms of shoes, since most med students were required to wear uniforms. She usually wore a pair of loose white sports shoes, and she always combo-ed them with short thin socks or black nylon stockings when it was colder. And through the thin fabric, Mason could see how every tendon and joint of those shapely feet worked. He saw them when they walked with long, confident strides. He saw the way they would move up and down and jiggle when her legs were crossed. He saw the way she would stamp them down in adorable frustration when she got an answer incorrect in lecture. He saw the way he would adjust her elegant shoes by lifting her foot back and hitting it on the floor with her toes. He saw everything, saw all these teases within teases, and the sinuous flexing of those pale, thin ankles woke something wild in his loins.
Yet it didn’t matter what she was wearing—if she was sitting down for any extended period of time, those socked feet would be coming out for some fresh air. Whenever this happened, Mason would rub his eyes, lightly slap his cheeks, and try to adjust his seating, but his eyes could never fixate on the lecturer, video, demonstration, etc, for more than a few seconds before they were drawn back to those magic, marvellous feet once again. But those small, slender feet always felt like they were almost waving at him, though he knew he was just imagining things.
To make matters worse, she had made very clear to a number of her suitors that her only love was medicine and doctoring, and she would not even consider dating until she had graduated, which meant that even possibly dating her was out of the question. Meanwhile, Mason could do nothing but endure and be her friend as her feet danced and wiggled in every lecture.
They were seatmates and internmates in the same hospital, so Mason would always see her, always get entranced by her easy-going nature, and always most of all be hypnotised by those supple, splendid feet of hers.
He only ever saw her bare feet on the rarest of occasions, and each one of those had burned in his mind. These moments were invariably few and far between, and the most recent one was several weeks ago. During a day in the local hospital, there had been news of a typhoon come in late in the afternoon, and Mason had overheard Charie conversing with her friends about how she had brought a pair of flip flops so her white sneakers wouldn’t get soaked by the rain. Oh, how his heart had leapt at the sight of seeing those dainty, pale things uncovered by anything! With this in mind, Mason had made his excuses to hang around her till they were to be dismissed. She had sat down in a chair, removed her left sneaker, and was halfway through stripping off her left sock when one of her pesky, infuriating friends had returned to say it wasn’t raining anymore. Mason had only glimpsed a tiny bit of that pale, wrinkled arch and most of that rosy heel, but even that small glimpse was enough to drive him nuts.
And, of course, her social media was devoid of any good pictures of her bare feet. His other attempts to satisfy his need were also far from successful.
“Hey, Charie, can you help my brother out on a little project?” he had once tried during the lecture intermission.
“Sure, what kind of help does he need?”
“Well, he’s doing a photography project on the human body, so do you mind taking a few pictures of your feet? He’s doing a whole compare and contrast thing. It’s really good.”
“Sorry, I think my feet are ugly,” she had said, not knowing how utterly, absolutely, unequivocally wrong she was. “I’m gonna have to pass.”
Another day, he had tried something else:
“Hey, have you decided on an investigation project yet? I’m thinking of doing something where we research whether spas affect sensitivity regarding the Babinski Reflex. You in?”
“Sure, who would be the test subjects?”
“I was, uh, thinking we could be! It’ll be fun, I promise.”
“Uh, no thanks. I think I’m way too ticklish on my feet for anything like that.” She had said it so casually, so nonchalantly, yet those words had stuck in poor Mason’s mind for months as he tried to comprehend in delicious detail exactly what she meant.
But one day, an opportunity presented itself.
A surgery patient having a heart bypass had passed away due to unforeseen complications of a critical allergic to anaesthesia. At least, everyone had thought it was unforeseen. The interns had been in charge of getting the medical history, but no one could quite remember what, and everyone later agreed it was a great tragedy and the patient must simply have forgotten to report the allergy. That was the story that everyone had believed. Mason had believed it too, until one day after the unfortunate death, Mason had seen something he had never meant to.
He had been focusing on something he was trying to see—the same thing he was always trying to see, really, glimpses of those heavenly feet. Charie was wearing her usual white sporty shoes, but today, she was wearing a pair of tight, thin black socks that hugged the feet so magnificently he could admire her Achilles tendon with every flex of those petite feet. Mason had been following her (from a discrete distance, of course) without paying much attention to where she was going, but his brow furrowed when he saw her return to the office where the interning records were kept. It wasn’t a very securely area, just where the students kept the sign-in forms about attendance and other miscellaneous documents. It was besides the pantry and the lockers for them.
Charie was armed with a pencil and eraser, and she was flicking through the attendance logs. Mason squinted and recognised the picture on the personnel file—it was the same obese patient who had just died. Had she been involved in it? Had she been the one to make the mistake of not asking about the medical history and allergies? His eyes grew wide at this revelation, and he took a step back, his shoe thumping into the wall. Charie’s head turned, her long black hair swirling, and Mason beat a quick retreat.
That night, his mind wandered in circles for hours as he thought about what to do. Charie was forging the records because she was guilty. That was the only possible explanation. He supposed it made sense that she would do such a thing—a mistake that had cost the life of a patient would be quite the blemish on her otherwise sparkling career. That must have been why she tried to cover it up.
A few days later, after a particularly long and gruelling afternoon of being teased by her shoeplaying, he mustered up the courage to do this daring thing, he sent her an email to meet up in a rarely used hospital room at midnight after the internship.
Mason watched Charie’s expression when she checked her email on her phone. Her pretty dark eyes went wide, her hand went to her mouth, and she turned very pale, though she tried to shake off her concerns in the next few minutes. In fact, she was fiddling around with her shoes again within thirty seconds, though he couldn’t help but notice they had a certain nervous energy to them now.
The rest of the day was full of weary anxiety. Would she even show up? Would the email be dismissed as some kind of prank? Maybe he was wrong about her. Then again, Mason didn’t really think so.
That night, Charie’s jaw dropped when she went to seldomly used room and found Mason waiting for her. He was seated in a plastic chair with his legs crossed.
“You! Mase, what’s the meaning of this?” Charie was dressed in a black t-shirt, jeans, and white shoes. She was also dressed in shock and outrage, and she shook a little as she spoke.
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Mason said. “I thought you were little miss perfect, after all. But you’ve been bad, haven’t you?”
“What are you talking about?” Charie put her hand on the door and made to leave. “This is some kind of sick joke, isn’t it? I never knew you had such a twisted sense of humour.”
“I hope to make you laugh later, but that’s something different.” Mason cleared his throat and spoke the lines he had been rehearsing for hours. “I’m the intern in charge of submitting the papers to the doctor in charge. I checked the forms of that deceased patient, and I was curious to notice how there was a change from the original?”
“T-the original? What original?”
“I photocopied the original right after the patient died, because well, I remembered you acting really strangely that day, and I wondered if that was the reason why. I guess I turned out to be right.”
Charie scrunched up her little hands in tight, white fists and chewed on her lower lip, saying nothing.
“I want to say, hey, everyone makes mistakes. But trying to cover it up as if it never happened? Forging documents? That could get you thrown out of med school, Char. I mean, that’s serious malpractice.”
Charie gave a great groan. “You think I don’t know that? God, why are you doing this to me, Mason? You want to ruin my life?”
“Well, I think that’s only fair considering what you did to me.”
Her jaw dropped. “I’ve done nothing to you! I don’t understand… Please don’t report me.”
“Well, that’s entirely up to you. I hope we can come to some kind of arrangement.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What do you want? Money? Me to sleep with you? Honestly, I always thought you were an okay guy… I never imagined you’d do something like this.”
“Nothing like that. I only want what’s fair.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean? You want me to cover for you next time you make a big mistake?”
He chuckled. “Not quite. You have been driving me mad these past few months. I’ll be shocked if you haven’t noticed.”
“What? I, I seriously don’t get what you’re talking about, Mase. What have I eben doing?”
“You genuinely don’t know how much of a tease you are when you play with your shoes every day?”
“I, er, I didn’t even know you were a foot guy…”
“Well, now you know,” Mason said, shrugging. “And here we are. Here’s the deal. Every day, your feet are mine. You know we’re both very busy people, so I don’t think we’ll be spending too many hours a day on this stuff.”
“What are you gonna do to them?”
“Nothing too outrageous. Massaging them, kissing them, tickling them, that kind of thing. Nothing too lewd, I promise.” He smiled at her, but he had a feeling she didn’t find his grin reassuring.
“I thought we were good friends, Mason. Why are you blackmailing me like this?”
“I’m not saying we can’t still be friends after this. It’ll almost be like friends with benefits.” He laughed. “I have my innocent fun, and you get the benefit of not getting kicked out of med school.”
She sighed. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”
He shrugged again and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to accept the deal.” He tried to sound casual, though his heart was pounding hard in his chest. “But after we finish med school, the deal expires. It’s a small thing, isn’t it? A small sacrifice for being the doctor you always wanted to be? It won’t be that bad, I promise.”
She gave a small, reluctant nod. “Fine. I agree to this deal.” She stood up. “But now, I’m outta here.”
“Not quite yet.” Mason pointed to a chair. “We start tonight. Sit on that chair opposite me and give me your feet.”
Charie rubbed her eyes. “Oh, come on, it’s late.”
“I’ve been waiting for this moment for months. We’re starting now.” He pointed at his lap and glared at her.
She frowned and nodded, before sitting on the chair opposite him. She slowly extended her legs into his lap. Mason felt a shiver of expectation as those demure, dainty things were lowered into his lap. He pulled off her shoes—they were loosely laced as always. The chalk-white shoes were from Nike with a slight heel. He put it took his nose and took a quick sniff before dropping them to the floor.
The socks were next, those tight, thin black socks. For the first foot, her left, he slowly rolled it up from the heel, enjoying the feeling of the slightly damp material as more and more of her creamy sole was exposed. When he had the foot fully exposed, he admired did in all its sheer majesty. The foot was pale, with patches of plush pinkness around the ball of the foot. The arch was high and wrinkly, and the toes were bubble-like with neatly trimmed toenails.
“What size are your feet?” Mason asked, playing with her cute little toes.
Charie chewed on her lower lip as if the toe touching tickled terribly. “Size seven.”
“I thought so. They’re every bit as pretty as I thought they would be.” He smiled, cooing at the sight of a little birth mark under her big toe. “It’s amazing how soft they are considering how much time you spend walking on your feet.”
“Thanks, I guess?”
Mason began stroking the still socked foot, taking his time with it as always. The contrast between the black sock and the ivory flesh made them astonishingly beautiful. He started working the other sock off too. He tugged it by the toe of the sock, pinching it gently, and slowly edged it off, marvelling in its beauty. He placed both feet side by side of each other and closed his eyes, enjoying their warmth on his lap. With their rounded toes and prominent balls of the foot, they were almost heart-shaped. He smiled again at that, a grin that was ever-present since she put her feet on his lap.
“About time we get started, eh?” Just using his index fingers, he began gliding his nails down those divinely soft sole. He smirked at the way she shook when he ran through that supple, sensitive skin of hers.
After a few strokes, just four or five, the ticklish teasing already proved to be too much, and she pulled her ankles away from him.
“Put them back,” he said, pointing at his lap. “Or the deal’s off, and I spill everything.”
She pouted a bit at that, but she returned her milky-white feet to his lap quickly enough. From then on, her reactions were even more delicious. Oh, how her feet danced and wiggled for him! It was just like in class during her shoeplaying. His fingers went all around the length and perimeter of the sole, brushing from those perfect toes down to that pink heel.
He tore his gaze away from Charie’s feet to her face to see how she was doing. Her figners were clenched, her eyes were closed, and her lips were pursed into a thin line. It was clear she was trying so hard not to laugh or move. Well, let’s see how long she can last in the former, Mason thought with malevolent glee.
He began pressing his fingers in harder, really using what little fingernails he had. He’d have to remember to grow them out later, despite the sanitary concern of getting microbes underneath your fingernails. He pressed his fingers in deeper around the velvety-soft sole, tracing circles, shapes, numbers all over her feet. His nails were insistent when they scratched need into her arches, and Charie started to whimper and splutter with forced giggles.
“Awww, is this too much for you already?” Mason asked, his fingers probing under and between her flexing, curling toes.
Charie’s feet continued to shiver and she gave a reluctant nod.
“Maybe I’ll be nice then. This is our first night together, after all.” Mason stopped, his fingers no longer scratching but caressing instead. Her petite, pale toes were squeezed, her high arches had thumbs swirl and rub within them, and fingers slid across her rosy heels and rubbed firmly into the balls. A gentle moan escaped Charie’s lips after a bit of this massage, the contrast clearly demonstrating itself to having wonders on those oh-so-sensitive feet of hers. Mason had a knowing smile on his face as he leaned in and licked his lips. He leaned his head down to those goddess feet and began to suck each toe, one by one.
“Damn, these taste so nice,” Mason whispered, looking up at Charie’s flushed face. She was chewing on her lower lip, her brow wrinkled up as she tried to rein in her reactions. He grinned at the fact he was living his dream of many months and began swirling his tongue all over the pads of those soft toes as if he were savouring a popsicle. Every now and then, he would introduce his teeth to the mix, gently nibbling and biting. This tickled much more than the soft sensuality of the foot worship, and his teeth scrabbling against the ball of her feet coaxed a few adorable squeals and squeaks from her. Other times, when he was sated with tasting her toes, he used long, slow drags of his tongues down her arches. It felt the best when her toes scrunched from the teasing, as he could feel all the wrinkles and ridges of his silky soft-skin. It didn’t take long for her feet to be coated in his saliva.
For his grand finale, he popped in her two smallest toes and closed his eyes and sucked while his fingers scribbled down that same slick sole to get her digits wiggling and squirming again. Oh, he could have done it for hours, savouring the succulent flavour of her feet, inhaling her aroma, and hearing her gentle giggles. The thought occurred to him in fact, though his eyes were starting to feel tired and he was stifling yawns despite the inherent excitement of the situation.
“Having a good time? I’ll be keeping these, by the way” he said, winking as he pocketed her socks. As he put them into his bag, he pulled out a pack of tissues and began wiping her damp feet down.
“A-are we done?” Charie was panting a little, and her cheeks were red. She pulled her feet away as soon as he was done cleaning.
He laughed. “See you tomorrow.”
O-O-O
Back at her dorm, Charie’s heart was pounding and her knees were weak. She collapsed in her bed, ignoring the complaints of her roommate. What had just happened? It felt like such a bad, ridiculously dream. Filled to the brim with stress and confusion, she closed her eyes, kicked off her shoes, and was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.
She was almost ready to believe the whole thing was a dream when she woke up. She laid in bed, staring up at the ceiling, before her cheeky roommate casually flicked her nails across Charie’s bare feet and told her she should hurry up or she’d be late for class. That light touch on her feet was enough to remind her of everything that had happened the night before. She groaned and screamed into her pillow. What exactly had she got herself into?
When she checked her phone, she got her answer. As a fun wake-up present this morning, Mason had sent her a list of his demands. After lecture, they would need to go shopping together for some daily foot products, which Mason had offered to pay (oh, how kind of him), and in addition, he shamelessly reminded of her of how she was indebted to him. She would need to pay him back every day by giving him her socks at the end of every day (wouldn’t she run out of socks within two weeks? Mason seemed to not have considered that fact, or if he had, he didn’t care). Not to mention, in the morning or evening, she would need to submit herself to another foot session. As if that first one hadn’t been bad enough! Oh, it was simple so outrageously unfair! But she supposed there was nothing that could be done about it.
In lecture, Mason gave her a knowing smile when she arrived in lecture a little tardier than usual. Charie sat beside him, sighing quietly. When she opened her notepad and began taking notes, she noticed him staring at her shoes. How had she never noticed it before? She sighed and tried to concentrate on what the professor was saying.
After the two-hour talk on the cheerful subject of chemotherapy, the rest of Charie’s day didn’t get any better. Instead of an hour she could spend unwinding with a cheesy romance novel, funny cat videos, or even having a refreshing siesta, she got dragged to the nearby shopping centre to stock up on skincare products. It must have seemed so incongruous, such a strange role reversal to any of the shop assistants there, for Mason, the male, was the one being super interested and into all the dermatologist products. Mason asked question after question about which products were the best reviewed, any possible side-effects, sensitivity enhancers, etc, while the woman who was ostensibly purchasing the products, Charie, said little to nothing at all. They must have made quite the odd couple. The only positive to the whole thing was when a jovial, peppy Mason took out his wallet and paid for the entire trolley of products. She was relieved at least she wasn’t the one spending all her cash, and well, it was never bad to have more moisturisers lying around.
Mason walked her back to her dorm after the lesson. He was nattering on and on about lecture, gossip, and their internship. It really was as if nothing had happened. Charie crossed her arms and resolved not to say much, but it was a long walk back, and after a while, she grew grateful for his company and banter. She did like Mason, after all. That’s why they were friends in the first place! It was fine when he wasn’t being… weird about things.
Unfortunately, things did not stay normal for long. When they returned to the dorm, Charie sat down on her bed as Mason helped put all the new beauty products on her night stand. After that was all done, he coughed and gave her an impatient, insistent look. He stared at her for a while, his eyes darting down to her feet, before it dawned when he wanted. Muttering with resolute defeat, she stripped off her socks and gave them to him, still uncomprehending exactly why he wanted them or what he might do with them. Then again, perhaps some things were better off not knowing.
“Thanks very much,” he said, pocketing the damp, thin white socks she had worn all day. “Don’t forget to use that stuff, eh? Don’t waste my money.”
For a second, Charie considered dumping all the stuff. Why shouldn’t she? Would he even know?
Something in her expression must have given her away, because when he spoke again, his voice was a low, angry rumble. “I’ll know if you don’t use that stuff. And you’ll be punished for tricking me, one way or another.” Then, his expression lightened. “But I know you’re too honest and upright to do anything like that. We came to an agreement, right?”
“Right,” she murmured.
“Anyway, good night!” he said, leaning down and giving her foot a kiss.
When the door closed behind him, Charie sighed again, before standing up and rifling through the dozens of products that had been bought for her. Well, she might as well try to make the best of her situation… She started applying some expensive cream to soften her smooth soles. After that, she cracked open a textbook and began her revision.
O-O-O
In the next few weeks, things fell into a queer new norm. Charie supposed it was a testament to the adaptability of humanity, how they were able to adjust to any new situation, no matter how savage or outlandish it was.
There were morning sessions, where Mason would let himself in (he had made her give him a key, and he knew exactly when her roommate would be away) and have his way with her feet, which always seemed especially tender and receptive when she had just woken up. Part of her was also embarrassed at the thought of seeing him in her cartoon pajamas, but like all things, such feelings faded over time and repeated episodes. The first morning session was the day after Mason had bought all those foot pampering products for her, and Charie had gone to bed wearing a pair of black furry socks that Mason had chosen.
“Keeping your promise, I see,” Mason said in that low, husky voice of his. “Very well. I’ll be nice today.” And nice he was, for lack of a better word. With Charie lying on her stomach, he rubbed and stroked her feet with his gentle, nimble hands till she felt ecstasy radiating from her soles. She would never have imagined it could have felt quite so nice. She closed her eyes, hugged her pillow, and suppressed little moans of pleasure. If she closed her eyes, she could almost convince herself she was in some massage parlour instead of being forced into something against her will. That fantasy had not survived the tongue licking session and foot tickling session that followed, especially when Mason decided to be a cruel and grab her hairbrush in order to scrub her bare, hypersensitised soles with the hundreds of plastic-tipped bristles, but at least it had been okay for the most part.
There were some mornings where Mason was just in a black, bleak mood, and he would eschew the massage and foot worship entirely, opting instead to smear baby oil across her soles and then tickle the shit out of them with either fingers or whatever tool he had decided to bring, such as toothbrush, comb, forks, or whatever.
The night sessions were a little better, though they were all spicy, similar flavours of agony, for the most part. The biggest downside to the morning sessions was how they might exhaust her for the whole day, but the night sessions at least meant she could look forward to a restful sleep when Mason finally decided he was finished.
After a bit of month of her crazy new routine, Charie was starting to see all kind of worrying side-effects. Her feet were really starting to get quite sensitive from all her regular foot treatments and pampering. Sometimes, even walking around on a soft carpet would give her a fit of giggles. Feet started creeping into her dreams as well, as sometimes she’d have nightmares of slobbering tickle monsters that were all tongues and feathers which would engulf her feet. She’d wake up sweating and scared and rubbed her feet to reassure herself that they were all okay.
The worst part was how these annoying ‘chores’ with Mason was really messing with her energy. The massage and tongue-baths would always make her want to nap, which wasn’t exactly ideal when she had so much studying she needed to do. And the tickling? That always fatigued her so much, especially her throat and stomach from all that forced laughter. Her grades were starting to slip, too, and she had only got top three in the last exam instead of the unquestioned number one spot that had always been hers since the very first test.
And naturally, Mason had offered to ‘help’ her study, though she didn’t really have the option of declining. He devised quite the devious studying method for her. She would be given twenty-five minutes to finish a chapter, but while she was trying to memorise every minute detail, Mason would be toying with her feet. He wouldn’t go all out, not yet, but he would tease them every so slightly. A lick here, a little stroke there, that kind of thing. It was just enough to frazzle her brain for a few seconds and disrupt her revision.
After those twenty-five minutes had flown past, Mason would test her knowledge. All her nerves would be on edge after all that teasing, and she had to try to answer his questions while her quivering, shaking feet remained in his lap. He would massage her feet as he asked the questions and Charie would get three chances to get the right answer. If she squandered them, Mason would grab a pen and scrawl notes and bulletpoints into her bare soles to “help her remember.” Oh, it had been so terrible! Charie remember the feeling of pounding her mattress, spluttering with laughter as Mason drew long and complicated diagrams on her tremendously ticklish feet. The worst part was how she had to try so hard to stay still, for if she moved too much and messed up his drawing, Mason would get out the brushes, clean the surface of her soles with some water, and start his note-taking all over again.
But that all paled in comparison to the public stuff Mason did. All the other stuff was bad, but at least it was in the privacy of one’s dorm. The craziest stuff was when mason would do things to her feet when there were loads of people around. When they were seatmates in tables that were only good for two, Mason would occasionally pass her notes with some variation on the message of ‘want ur feet now plz ☹’ But there was nothing that could be done, was there? It was just another thing that had to be done. Sighing and cursing as whatever deity had put her in this situation, she would cross her legs and nudge her foot towards them. Mason usually forced her to sit in the back away from curious eyes, but still, it struck her as such a risky thing to be doing. If someone caught them, what possible explanation could she give for why her shoe and sock was off? At least that hadn’t happened yet, thankfully. But still, it was only a mater of time, wasn’t it?
At the onset of this extortion, Charie would never have imagined that one iota of her being could have enjoyed the trauma of it all. Yet after an exhausting day of internship where she had been running around the emergency rooms all day, the idea of putting her feet up, closing her eyes, and just enjoying the pampering done to them suddenly seemed downright pleasant. They didn’t share a morning session that day because of needing to be at the hospital very early, so it really was the thought of so much blissful attention done to her sore feet that kept her going. It was almost like an indulgent chocolatey treat at the end of an intense workout at the gym.
As they walked home together, with Mason nattering on about the recklessness of some patients, the arrogance of some doctors, and the blandness of some hospital food, Charie interrupted him and said, “Do you think you could give me a good massage and not just run off with my socks today?”
Mason’s eyebrows shot up, and his confused frown curled into a smile. “Sure, that trade sounds good.” He grinned at her and then changed the subject back to bitching about the administration at the hospital.
In her dorm, Charie changed into her pajamas, brushed her teeth, climbed into bed, and let him take off her shoes and socks. It felt good to let someone else do it, as if she were some queen with peons to worship her. She cuddled her pillow and giggled, trying not to move her feet away as she sensations of fingers and tongue washed over her tired feet. For once, Mason was kind. No hairbrushes, feathers, or other villainous implements made an appearance. Mainly, he lightly traced his fingers up and down her soles with the very edges of his nails, the gentle grazing filling up her up with dopamine and smiles. As he played with her toes, Charie found sleep beckoning to her more and more strongly. Her eyes were heavy when she felt that familiar friendly touch of soft, warm tongue on her soles.
Maybe this wasn’t that bad after all…
