by Ella Ford
Prologue
Bayonetta 2 in Wolford Satin Touch 20
“What are we playing?” she said as she stepped across the apartment’s open living space and settled down onto the sofa and handed me one of the glasses of red wine she was holding. Lana had dressed for the occasion, I noticed with a smirk. She always did. Games Night was a cherished tradition between us that was as old as our relationship itself.
“Bayonetta 2 on the Wii U,” I said, handing her the chunky Wii U touchpad controller. She frowned as she took it, the bridge of her nose crinkling up in that insanely cute entitled-little-rich-girl look that she still had, more than a decade out from her privileged upbringing in the leafy suburbs of Sycamore Heights.
“Sexist drivel,” she said and took a small sip from her wine, knowing that her words were sure to provoke me. We’d had the conversation a thousand times before.
“Bayonetta is a feminist role model!” I said, shifting around to face her.
“She’s a naked teenage boy fantasy,” she countered.
“Does the female body disgust you, honey?” I said with a smirk, trying a different approach to normal.
Lana leaned back into the corner of the sofa and swung her legs up, stretching out her long limbs and resting her feet on my lap. “You know it doesn’t,” she said with a lowered smile, eyes wide and full of innocence.
I sighed, she had me, she always did. “What are you wearing?” I asked quietly, gazing down at her soft feet, tightly wrapped in a thin gauze of pristine nylon like a gift, the pointless argument suddenly forgotten. I touched my hand to her leg.
“Wolford Satin Touch 20,” she said, sipping her wine, studying me for signs of a reaction. She bent her left knee and touched the sole of her foot against the flesh of my thigh, rubbing it slowly back and forth, teasing me.
I glanced down, captivated by the sight of her tan pantyhose against the black polka dot of my own. It never ceased to amaze me how much I loved this, the sights, the smells, the sensations of this private ritual, this intimate fetish shared by lovers.
“Fancy,” I said breathlessly, “what’s the occasion?”
She pulled back with an exaggerated gasp, drawing her legs up to her body, curling her toes into tight little balls.
“Abby! You don’t remember?” she wailed, mock childish offence, classic Lana. “Your mom’s basement?”
I thought for a second. “Not…?”
“Yes.”
“Tetris?” I said quietly, fond memories surfacing like bubbles from the deep sea.
“Yes,” said nodded excitedly. “It was fifteen years ago today!”
“Our first Games Night,” I sighed dreamily.
“Fifteen years ago since I first seduced you and…”
“Hey! Who seduced who?” I said, glaring at her.
She touched her finger to her lip and leaned her head to the side, then slowly slid her foot up my thigh to the hem of my skirt. “Don’t make me remind, you honey,” she said.
“I’m hoping you will,” I responded with what I hoped was a sultry stare, trying to be vampish and seductive, but it likely ended up looking awkward and nerdy. Of the pair of us, she was the seductress, no matter how much I might protest.
Lana smiled and I bathed in her gentle radiance as if for the first time. Her tumbles of honey blonde hair, cascading like a waterfall over her slender shoulders; her delicate features, button nose and aqua eyes, full lips painted glistening pink; the tight rise of her breasts under the clinging white of her vest top and the flowing softness of her floral print skirt, resting over the toned lines of her thighs. And her feet. Always I came back to her feet. Her painted toes - as pristine and immaculate as ever; the gentle arch of her sole, the pleasant bulge of her heel, her slender ankles.
She caught me staring and flexed her toes back, stretching her pantyhose, then she smiled.
“Shall we play?”
“Kinky…” I said, casually stroking her foot. She shuddered.
“I mean the game, silly,” she admonished with a smirk, but I knew she didn’t, at least not totally.
She picked up the controller from her lap and turned to face the ludicrously sized TV on the wall. The videogame animated at her command, gaudy colors flickering around a stylized depiction of Bayonetta, an alt-gothic princess, wielding caricature guns and hair with a life of its own. She was sexy, in her own way, but I couldn’t take my mind off the reality of Lana and the long length of her legs.
I sighed and sank back into the sofa, pulling her feet up towards my chest as I reclined, caressing her toes with tender fingertips, enjoying her velvet touch and gentle scent. Fifteen years, I could scarcely believe it. Fifteen years since that night in my mom’s basement. Fifteen years since I stopped being Abby the girl and became Abby the woman, Abby the girlfriend and eventually, Abby the wife.
I watched Lana’s face wrinkle in concentration, her slender fingers slipping around the controller in a coordinated ballet that made Bayonetta dance on the screen before us. “Shit,” she whispered as she missed a button press. The screen flashed. On my lap, her toes curled up in frustration. I watched them move, lost in my own world of sweet reminiscence.
We’d have sex later on, I knew that with a measure of granite certainty. I would worship her feet, Lana would worship mine. We’d indulge this shared passion, this accidental alignment of our desires, as we always did, the videogame long since forgotten.
I shuddered at the prospect and turned to follow the soft line of her leg to her light skirt, a path I would follow with my mouth later. She would be wearing no panties, another certainty. Her exquisite pussy would be shaved smooth with a light spray of perfume there to guide the way. But not enough to obscure the overwhelming scent of her sex. I’d protest her lack of underwear, of course, call her a shameless woman, but my mock outrage would hide the intoxicating desire that I felt as I glimpsed her perfect pussy through that exquisite weave, relishing the prospect of unwrapping my anniversary gift…
But all of that was to come. For now, the game.
For Lana and me, gaming was as much a part of our relationship as the strange fetish that brought us together, and the two were interconnected on a level that went beyond these regular “Game Nights”. Every stage of our relationship is marked in my memory with a game, every milestone with a new console or a new experience. We gamed together in the same way that other couples dined together or played racquetball together. It had always been like this with us, since that very first night, that very first touch, that very first taste, fifteen blissful years ago...
Chapter 1
Tetris in sheer black and sneakers
“Aw, shit Mom, you have got to be kidding me?” I said, crossing my arms across my chest with the sort of righteous indignation that only an eighteen year old girl can muster.
My mother turned on her heel and shot me an acid glance that told me instantly that she’d had enough of this short conversation and that repercussions would follow any further contribution from either me, myself or I. “Abby, watch your language!” she spat. “Do you think I want to have to spend a Friday night with Jocelyn Clark-Masters? Hell, I see enough of the bitch at work. The least you could do is welcome her daughter into our home and show her a little bit of hospitality. You know how protective her mother is of her! It’s not my fault she doesn’t want to leave her alone overnight while we fly to Cincinnati to wrap up this client.”
Nice exposition, Mom, I thought with a grunt. As if I didn’t already know the endlessly dull reason why I was going to be trapped in a house with the highest ranking bitch in my high school, Lana Clark-Masters. God, the thought of it appalled me. If any of my friends knew that I was going to be in the company of that haughty princess, I’d be shunned, cast out of my cherished social circle forevermore.
A car pulled up outside. I turned to the window and watched them exit the sleek, black vehicle. It looked like a barracuda, and seemed to suck the last light of day into its perfectly formed body. Jocelyn Clark-Masters ex
ited first, though it would be more accurate to say that she dismounted the vehicle, following the proper protocol for leaving a car - knees together, pivot on your bottom, perfect heels touching the pavement at once, nod to the driver and a quick look around to make sure none of your friends saw you in such a low rent neighborhood. Lana followed along, a preppy clone of her mother, identical mannerisms, identical look of distaste at her current predicament. You and me both babe, I thought with a sinking feeling.
The pair wandered up our drive with Jocelyn holding her purse close to her chest, as if to stop herself catching poor. Hell, we weren’t even poor. We were firmly, regrettably middle class, to the eternal chagrin of my non-conformist aspirations.
My mother welcomed them into the house and underwent an awkward double-kiss with Jocelyn, neither of them quite sure where to begin or where to end. It was good to see that Mom was as bad at this as I was.
“Now, honey,” said Mom, “you remember Lana from high school don’t you?”
“You know I do, Mom,” I said flippantly.
“She’s going to be staying here tonight. It’ll be like a sleepover. We’ve got some movies on DVD, you have your little games, there’s popcorn and snacks in the fridge and…”
“I got it, Mom,” I said with a snarl, wishing she would just leave so I could figure out how I was going to shake this bitch at the first opportunity.
“Okay then.”
Lana stood before me, the polar opposite of everything I stood for. While I wore a faded Nirvana t-shirt, denim shorts, my regulation black Walmart pantyhose and sneakers, Lana presented a very different facet of post-high school life. Her hair was an immaculate tumbling waterfall of honey curls, her makeup was pristine, she wore a tight, white sweater with classic plaid skirt, tan pantyhose and black ballet flats that looked as though they’d not set foot on God’s green earth a single time. Her perfume was claustrophobic and overwhelming, she smelled like every mean girl in every school in North America - confident, sassy, sure of her place in the world and the place of those around her. She was an avatar of Clueless.
“Now, you girls should get to know each other. You’ll both be starting Midtown U in September, it would be good to have a buddy to rely on, don’t you think?”
“Yes, Mom,” I said, willing her out of the door, not wanting to think about spending any precious college time with Lana Clark-Masters.
My mother nodded and frowned. She didn’t look convinced that this was a good idea, either for me or for herself. For a fleeting moment, I hoped that she might exert her Mom-authority and call of this whole stupid idea, but the Jocelyn shot her a withering ‘can we go please so that I don’t have to spend another second in your tiny home’ look and my Mom nodded again. She picked up her bags, kissed me once on the cheek and then they were gone.
I turned to Lana and she turned to me. As one, we both narrowed our eyes.
“Listen, Abby,” she said, “I don’t want to be here, you don’t want me here, let’s just keep ourselves to ourselves and get through this, okay?”
I nodded. Maybe Lana wasn’t so bad after all.
“Oh wow, what’s that?” Lana said, an hour after we’d been left alone. We were in the basement, my den, my sacred sanctuary. I’d retreated there after Mom left, leaving Lana to herself in the guest bedroom, and then settled in to play some video games. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you,” she said apologetically, almost like a human would, “I was looking for a soda.” She paused and stood beside the couch, peering at the TV with narrowed eyes. “Is that…?”
“A Nintendo Entertainment System,” I said proudly, but defensively.
“Oh wow, I haven’t seen one of those in years,” she said with a wistful air. Was Lana a gamer?
“Too ancient for you, huh?” I said sarcastically, instantly regretting it.
“No… I mean, yes, duh, no-one is playing this stuff anymore.”
“I like it. It’s retro. Pure, you know? The games are tight and focused, they don’t lead you by the tit,” I said.
Lana giggled. “Nice way to put it,” she smirked. “What are you playing? Is that Tetris?”
I unpaused the game and a rain of rotating blocks tumbled down the screen, nudged into place by my skillful hands. “Yes, Tetris is my life.”
“You’re good,” she said, lacing her hands over her knees and leaning forwards. “Two hundred and fifty lines, impressive,” she breathed.
Even in my social circle, games weren’t a big thing. A few of the nerdier boys liked them, but they were always into the shooting games, the man-games as I called them. As Lana talked, I felt a weird sense of kinship with her, a camaraderie that felt unfamiliar to a girl who’d lived on the outskirts of popularity in high school.
“I have a second controller, do you want to play?” I said without even thinking. Gamers are welcome in Maison Abby, no question. Fellow girl gamers especially.
Lana beamed and nodded enthusiastically. “I’m not very good, well, not as good as you, at least.”
She took the controller and I restarted the game, plunging using into a head to head battle that should have felt like a proxy war between high school cliques, but instead just felt… cool. Lana was okay, to my eternal surprise, a plucky amateur. Her bin of blocks didn’t fill up half as quickly as I’d have liked and on more than one occasion, she managed to pull off a string of Tetrises that unnerved even me. But her natural talent was no match for years of dingy basement dwelling and a borderline Aspergers personality. In every game we played I showed her who was the Queen of Tetris.
After the fifth game, she sat back on the couch beside me and laughed. “That was fun!” she said, and I genuinely felt as though she meant it.
“Yeah, if you like being spanked,” I said with a wink.
Suddenly, something caught her eye and she glanced across the room, sitting upright. “Say,” she said distantly, “is that computer connected to the internet?”
I followed her gesture. “I don’t know, I guess,” I said with a shrug. “It belonged to my brother, hasn’t been used since he went away to college.” I wasn’t big on the internet back then. Nowadays, I tolerate it, but I still prefer a good book.
Lana turned to me and her face wrinkled up in that peculiar look of concerned concentration that eventually I would come to love. “Abby,” she began, whispering, “can I show you something? You have to promise you won’t tell.”
“Color me intrigued,” I said, impressed by how much like Daria from the old cartoons I sounded.
Lana stood up and wandered over to the dusty old machine, tapping it with her toe and then flicking it into life with a confident stab of her slender, perfectly manicured finger. I joined her at the desk, pulling up the second chair. The ancient computer coughed and whirred into life, taking an age to boot to the desktop. It was ancient when we got it, if I remembered correctly, and the years hadn’t been kind to it. Windows finished loading and my brother’s desktop wallpaper flashed up on the screen - a revealing picture of Pamela Anderson in a red bathing suit.
“Boys,” I said, frowning apologetically.
Lana didn’t seem to mind. Instead, she leaned forwards and took the mouse in expert hands, clicking around and firing up a browser. I watched her work, faintly marvelling at how the cold light of the cathode ray tube lit her pretty face, giving her a wholly different appearance to her normal look of angelic privilege.
“Wait till you see this,” she said breathlessly. She began to type into the address bar and I watched the words appear on the screen, an unfamiliar site to be sure. Maison Du Pied dot com. “I found this in my Dad’s internet history,” she said, “it’s pretty weird.”
House of foot? I mused, remembering enough high school French to attempt a translation.
The whining computer chugged away, slowly loading the page. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what Mr. Clark-Masters was beating off to on a night, but I found myself unable to look away.
The images loaded in one by one, re
vealing a selection of painted dolls in a variety of poses and…
“Wait, is that girl…” I said, suddenly unsure of what I was seeing.
“This one?” said Lana with a smirk, clicking on the image that I was pointing to, making it fill the full screen.
“Woah. Is that… is that another girl’s foot?”
The wide-eyed mannequin on the screen was blonde and young, face thick with makeup and eyes sparkling. Her hands were holding a girl’s leg by the ankle and her full lips were wrapped around the toes of her unseen partner. Lana nodded.
“She’s wearing pantyhose or stockings or something,” I said, narrating the picture on a kind of autopilot. I’d never seen anything like this, though I’d seen pornography before - usually unsubtle shots of some pulsating cock rammed into a gaping vagina. It offended my nascent feminist sensibilities, if I was perfectly honest. But this, I couldn’t look away from. I found myself drinking in every detail - the fine weave of the pantyhose, the faint traces of red lipstick on the soft nylon material, the look of strange concentration in the eyes of the sucking girl.
Lana clicked back and returned to the homepage. “Look at this one,” she said, turning to face me, studying me with a distant expression of concentration. She clicked on another image. This time, the same foot clad in sheer black nylon was held between the legs of another woman, presumably the girl from the first photo though her face was hidden. I found myself leaning forward as I studied the myriad details that the new photo presented. The muted red of the girl’s painted toes, dimmed beneath black nylon, the smoothness of the other girl’s sex, the way her hand held the foot against her, almost forceful.
Without speaking, Lana clicked back. She seemed as mesmerized as I was. Another image filled the screen. The first girl’s tongue sweeping over the sole of the other girl’s upturned foot. The licking girl’s eyes were closed, as though savoring something forbidden and delicious. I wondered, distantly, how something so gross would taste. The hidden girl’s toes were splayed, causing her thin nylon hose to stretch out.