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A story about gay foot worship, humiliation, enslavement and psychological control.
The following is not your
ordinary erotic fetish story.
Every single word of this one is true … Honest!
1. How to Win By Losing
I can’t say exactly when it was that I became a foot fetishist. Or even when I became gay. All I know is that neither was a choice for me.
I have very early memories of fancying my older brother’s feet when I was very young. Tom is only about 2 years older than me but when we used to get into play-fights etc I would always very quickly try and go for his feet - to bite them or whatever. He always screamed at this and found it really sensitive so I had a good excuse for doing it again and again - having found his ‘weak spot.’
But secretly of course I had another motive. I wonder if he ever did notice the effect it was having between my legs!
Before you start thinking I’m seriously weird, let me say I never fancied my brother or anything like that. I mean I never wanted to fuck him or blow him. I never looked at his cock and arse and no other part of him turned me on at all – it was just his feet. They always fascinated me. Usually in white socks (at the beginning of this story at least), they were very beautifully shaped, masculine, well-proportioned with lovely long toes, not too skinny, just very ‘kissable,’ but not chubby either. You could see the nice outline of his veins when he flexed his toes, which I think is really sexy in a guy.
As he got older of course they grew bigger and became even more attractive. By the time he turned 18 they were size 10, little hairs sprouting from his ankles. I should mention that Tom was a bit of a local hero. I was always in his shadow a little bit in the town we lived in. Handsome, popular and a wizard on the football pitch, he always had a girl on his arm. Usually a different one from the previous week!
He was a bit of a lad, was Tom: cock-sure, cheeky at times, but basically very likeable. And everybody did like him. He is fair-haired, a lot taller than me, about 6ft I suppose, with a lean, slim build and a smooth, tanned chest. But his feet are simply divine - oh and they smell like over-ripe peaches: Beautiful!
Me? As I say, I’m a lot shorter, about 5 foot 8 (5 foot 9 when I really try and stretch up, for photos and things like that!) I have Mum’s darker hair, whereas Tom has the fair hair of our Dad. I therefore look more hairy, with a good covering on my chest and legs. I’m quite thin: not skinny, just not toned and lean like my brother - and I like to think I’m OK-looking. But I know I’m not as sexy as he is - and so does everyone else!
Growing up, Tom and I got on pretty well, on the whole. Our ages were close enough and we had no other siblings. We lived with Mum and Dad in a fairly modest two-bedroomed house on the edge of a small town. So he and I had shared a room for the whole of my life. We would fight and argue and laugh and play together - just like any brothers. He was basically a good brother, and I hope I was too.
Well anyway, as I got older I started looking also at other feet, apart from his. You’d see stuff on the TV and so on. I remember one advert for something that was all about feet - just a lot of feet walking past the camera - some bare, some with different types of socks and shoes on. Male and female feet. It was only the male ones I liked - but God did I like them? I was mesmerised by that ad. I used to wait for it to come on and secretly videotaped it a few times so I could watch it on my own later (I can’t even remember now what it was for - must have been a very strange product!)
So my brother’s ever-present feet, things on TV, And other stuff - boys at school, people just walking down the street or at the swimming pool or on holiday at the beach. There are plenty of opportunities for the foot-fetishist to see feet - but maddeningly few to actually do anything about it.
So came the day when I decided to try and force the issue.
I was about 16 - and had just read a horny story online about how a guy who secretly fancies his straight friend tricks him into letting him give him a blow job by pretending to lose a bet, I actually tried a version of this out on my brother - not about a blow job I hasten to add, but about kissing his feet! And as you will see, it was to change my whole life - but not quite in the way I had expected.
It was the day of a Celtic/Aberdeen football match, which was due to be on TV very late. I phoned up a relative in Glasgow in the afternoon and found out the score - then I set out to bet Tom that Celtic would win (which I knew they hadn’t). He and I were sitting on our beds in our room later that evening: he was texting his mates and I was reading a magazine. And I started a conversation about it.
“ I want to watch the football on TV tonight, yeah? I want to see Celtic thrash Aberdeen.”
Well Tom’s a big Aberdeen fan, so he wasn’t going to let that pass. “OK we’ll watch it. But the thrashing will be the other way - you’ll be disappointed.”
“ Don’t be stupid. Of course it won’t.”
Now, calling him stupid is guaranteed to really wind him up. As a matter of fact he isn’t at all stupid - he’s as bright as I am. But he is the only one in the family who didn’t really apply himself at school, and so as a result he never got any qualifications or went on to college or university, and now he hates that.
So I said stuff like, “Yeah if you think Aberdeen are going to win it really will confirm your status as the number 1 stupid daft thicko in this family. Not that it needs confirmation - not for the rest of us anyway. Mind you, you’re that bit slower so maybe you need more proof before you can properly understand.”
I went on like that for ages, really ladling it on, you know? Like brothers do. So when he accepted the bet and it came to naming the stake he was really wound up, and I used this.
He started to suggest different amounts of money for the bet, but I said, “Nah, not money. Why don’t we make it a bit more interesting?“
Playing it all cocky (just like the guy in the internet story) I went on, “Look if I win you have to go to Mum and Dad and tell them officially that you’re the stupidest one in the family. They will probably try to argue with it but you have to say, ‘No, it’s definite.’
“ Then we’ll get a T-shirt printed with the words ‘I’m Tom and I’m STUPID’ and you have to wear it all week, wherever I say and whenever I tell you. And when people ask you about it you have to shrug and tell them it’s just the truth, and from then on whenever I tell you you’re stupid you have to agree with me. In fact if I ever say you’re not stupid you have to argue the point and insist that you are. OK?”
Well he went really quiet at this, and sat thinking about it for a moment. Clearly it was the moment of truth. I had chosen well - it was something he would really hate to have to do so he’d be well motivated to rub my nose in it in return. The only question was, had I gone too far? Would he risk it? I upped the ante.
“ Oh yeah I see - backing out already. Just a bit too real for you is it? Well of course I understand bro. I know you’re sensitive about your stupidity - and Mum and Dad have always told me how important it is that we all keep up this pretence that you are actually quite intelligent. Obviously you’re as certain as I am that Aberdeen are crap and you’re basically a coward. You don’t need to explain anything to me - I’m your brother. I understand.”
This mock sympathy had exactly the desired effect. “All right you little fucker,” he said “So what do I get if - I mean when - Aberdeen win?”
“ Well nothing - because they’re not going to.”
“ Oh yes of course. But just say for arguments sake, what would you have to do? The same thing?”
I feigned total indifference, as if I was getting a bit bored with it all. “Oh I really don’t care Tom. Make it anything you like. It’s almost not worth thinking about - it’s so not going to happen that I really can’t get myself to even consider it as a possibility - so you can have something much worse than that if you want. Something really outrageous, like…… Oh I dunno…… I will get down on my knees and worship you - bow down to you and tell you how brilliant you are and how stupid I am and how I’m so thick I don’t even deserve to have a great intelligent brother like you.”
A big sly smile spread across his face as he visualised this. (Yesssss! I thought. Got him!)
“ Hmmmmmm. I like it,” he said, “Would be good to see you down there on your knees where you belong. I reckon it’s about time I got a bit of respect from you.”
I seized on the word, “Respect - yeah exactly. I will pay you total respect. In fact I’ll tell you what - here you go. While I am down there, begging your forgiveness and grovelling to you, I will actually kiss your feet. How’s that?”
“ Mmmmmmmm.” A huge smile now, turning into a grin. He lay back in his bed, arms folded behind his head and crossed his socked feet over one another - which of course had my cock gently twitching already.
Tom is, sexually, as straight as a die, incidentally. There is no way he saw any appeal in this scenario beyond that of an older brother exerting a bit of humiliation on his cocky younger sibling. And thankfully it wouldn’t cross his mind that I had any ulterior motives either. He didn’t even know I was gay - nobody did.
“ So - if I have to wear your T-shirt for a week if I lose - how many times do you have to do this if I win?”
“ Up to you,” I shrugged, “I’d have to do it whenever you tell me to, I suppose.”
“ Yeah but - over how long a time?”
“ Whatever. A week. 2 weeks. A month if you want - or like a hundred years. I can say all this because I know fine well I won’t have to do it. I’m not chicken, like you are.”
Anyone reading this who has a brother will recognise this kind of conversation. It’s all bravado and ‘tough guy.’ But sometimes, the tone changes slightly and becomes a bit more ‘real’ for a moment - you know, as one of you checks out whether this is all a big joke or not. That’s what happened now. Still grinning, Tom looked over at me, narrowed his eyes and said: “Are you serious about this?” It was a sure sign that he was really tempted.
I grinned back, and shrugged again. “Sure - why not?”
He squinted at me, sideways, “And you haven’t been online or anything like that to find out the score, so you know that Celtic have won?”
I put my hand on my heart. “Tom, I haven’t checked the score to make sure Celtic have won. God’s honest truth. Count on it.” Well if you consider the form of words I used, it wasn’t really a lie, was it? And we had a sort of unspoken moral code - which we both trusted completely - that if one of us said something like that, hand on heart, we wouldn’t be lying.
He thought again for a moment, looked at the TV that sat at the end of our beds, then nodded again. It was back to the bravado. “OK you little twat. Game on.” He put his hand out and I reached over and grasped it. We shook on the deal.
“ Oh Thomas Thomas Thomas,” I sighed, shaking my head sadly, “You never ever learn do you?” See, there was now a job to be done in winding him up enough to make him really pissed off at me - otherwise there was a danger that when the result came through he would take pity on me and not make me go through with it. That would be the worst of all worlds - I would have to endure him being totally insufferable but not even get to kiss his feet!
We agreed to set the timer so that the TV in our room would switch itself on when the highlights programme started, then we’d watch it together.
So the next few hours were taken up with more of that classic brother talk as I wound him up more and more. And he fell for it - hook, line and sinker.
“ So I was thinking,” I said as I was reading my magazine, “Obviously you’ll be the one paying for this T-shirt but I think I will go and get it printed myself because I want to supervise the design. I will make it a nice bright pink one, with really garish purple for the writing, and maybe some glitter? It will look really gay. Is that going to be alright for you?”
“ Oh sorry - were you saying something?” he said. “I wasn’t really listening - I was just thinking about how sweaty my feet get sometimes. Remember that girl I was going out with? Kate? Well the reason she dumped me in the end was because she said my feet smelled so bad. Did you know that? Apparently after I was round at hers once her Mum complained that the smell had upset the dog!”
“…… And I was thinking about where you should wear it,” I continued, unabashed. “We’ve talked about you wearing it here in the house, and of course you’ll have to go round all the rest of the family - uncles, cousins etc. That’s a given. But then there’s your work. I’m sure the guys at the factory would love to see you in it. Oh and the pub - at least one night in there. And I also thought maybe you could take a walk down to our old school in it one day. What d’you think? Oh silly me it doesn’t matter what you think does it? It only matters what I tell you to do.”
Ignoring me, Tom was getting into his stride as well. “….And of course I read somewhere that there are things you can do to make your feet smell even worse - should a person want to do that. They say certain foods for example affect the way you sweat. And also, my feet are always particularly stinking and wet after football practice. It would be kind of appropriate to make you do a bit of this worshiping then, since it’s a footie match that is starting this whole thing off. Hey maybe I should take up jogging again…”
“… .Football practice - that’s a good point.” I jabbed the air with my finger. “You should wear it there. Maybe I should make a list. Yeah - that’s what I’ll do,“ I said, grabbing a pen from the bedside table and scribbling on the back of the magazine I was reading. As I wrote I muttered the words out loud, “List …of …places …and …people …that …should …see …Stupid …Tom’s …T-Shirt.”
“ Hey have we still got the Guinness Book of Records anywhere?” he was saying. “I wonder what the world record is for the longest number of days someone has worn the same pair of socks….”
And on that tantalising note, the TV sprung on. The recorded highlights show of the match was beginning.
What should happen in Chapter 2?
Who do you identify with in this story?
Is Jamie being too clever by half?
2. A Bet’s A Bet
As the match came on I could scarcely believe my luck at what was about to happen. It was like a dream.
So just what is it about feet that gets me going? Fuck knows, really.
For one thing it’s the look of them. There is nothing quite so sexy as a well-toned foot. At one level I think it is very simple. Some guys like women’s tits, some like arses, some like legs. Well some of us like feet in the same way. But then again it’s something more than that.
I remember once when I was a kid I was sitting in church one Sunday with my family trying not to fall asleep in the middle of the reading of the lesson. I was about 6 I suppose. Tom would have been 8. I had already started having thoughts about feet - mainly his, but also other stuff I’d seen on TV and so on.
Anyway, the Minister was mumbling through the readings as usual, and suddenly for the first time ever I was actually touched by something he said. Because he was reading the Book of Psalms, where out of the blue you suddenly get the words, "And the Lord said, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’”
I just froze. I had never felt anything quite like it. I looked aside me at Tom. He was staring blandly at the eaves - clearly quite unmoved. Around us there was the usual sniffling of colds and fidgeting of children, adults trying to pretend they too weren’t bored rigid and desperate for the off. Life going on.
Could this be right? Could my dirty horrible fetish that I was so ashamed of, could it actually be something that God was involved in? And that thought, of God’s human enemies cowering on their hands and knees with the good guys resting their feet on their backs, was for me just like a glimpse of heaven itself.
Later of course I was to find that foot-worship references are only too common in the bible. There is the story, for example, of when Jesus gets down on his knees and washes the feet of his Disciples (acted out farcically by our local Minister one year with his curate and altar boys in a ludicrous effort to convey the moment). "No," Simon Peter is supposed to have protested, "you will never wash my feet Lord.” Jesus replied, "But if I don't wash you, you won't belong to me," at which Simon Peter came back with, "Then you must wash my hands and head as well, Lord, not just my feet." (Nice one SP!)
And of course as any foot fetishist knows, many of the best ‘Get down on your knees at my feet!’ kind of scenes in movies and plays are from biblical and Roman movies and dramas. I once saw a great scene in a gladiator movie where the winning gladiator threw his opponent to the ground, stuck his spear tip in the guy’s chest and clamped his foot over the prone guys face as he waited for the emperor in the crowd to signal thumbs up or thumbs down.
One of my favourite foot stories in legend is about the Roman Emperor Valerian in the 3rd century AD. He was a bloodthirsty bastard who massacred thousands, and was eventually captured in battle by the Persian ruler Sapor who made him his slave for the rest of his life and - with commendable style, it has to be said - used him as his personal footstool, particularly when mounting his horse! Accounts seem to vary as to whether Valerian was still alive during this humiliation or whether in fact his skin was flayed and moulded into this ‘footstep’ after his death. But I know which version I prefer!
The truth is that foot-worship stories - and particularly examples like this where there is a grudge between the Master and the foot-slave - have always been powerful imagery. It is understood in any language in any age (and I think probably across a number of species) that to be down at the feet of another is degrading and humiliating and a gesture of total capitulation and submission. And you cannot tell me the power of the image has only taken on its sexual connotations in recent times.
Thus it was right up to the present, as my brother and I leaned forward avidly to watch the TV screen as the football match coverage got underway, that another grudge was about to be settled via the application of face to foot. Mine to his, to be exact (though he didn’t yet know it).
The TV commentator was saying something about the last time the two teams had met and how this promised to be an ‘unpredictable tussle’ or some such rubbish that they always come out with at the start of these matches.
For me, there was no tension at all associated with the play on the field. Thankfully it was only a highlights programme so we wouldn’t have to wait the full 90 minutes before the result.
Tom on the other hand was in a deeply nervous state. And he is the kind of guy who fidgets a lot when he is nervous - twiddles his thumbs, his fingers and of course his toes. Our TV sat at the bottom of his bed, across the room from mine, so when he was fully outstretched on the bed and on top of the duvet like he was this night his legs and white-socked feet were always in my field of vision as I watched the screen. On this occasion (and on many others, to be honest) it wasn’t the TV I was watching - but those twitching toes.
The match was pretty dull. Maybe that was just because I knew what was going to happen. But I tried to liven it up a bit and keep the tension in the air, keep his resentment towards me bubbling away nicely, by dropping in my own caustic commentary every time Aberdeen missed a pass or did something stupid.
And then suddenly after 10 minutes, they scored. The crowd went wild as the commentator screamed the obvious into his microphone. My big brother punched the air and jumped up and down on his bed - threatening the springs and laughing out loud. “Yessss! - here we go now. You better be getting ready to worship me, footboy!”
“ God you really are stupid aren’t you? Of course they’ve got to score sometime. Law of averages. I didn’t say it would be a whitewash.”
“ You’re the one that’s goin’ to be whitewashed mate. You’ll be washing my white socks with your tongue!” It wasn’t exactly the best of comebacks. But I let it go. Already the balance of power between us was asserting itself. My cockiness had gone somewhat limp (which was more than could be said for my cock!)
This power shift was reflected by the performance of our respective teams on the field. It was just one of those matches where it was obvious that the first goal had completely unsettled one side. Celtic became loose and ill-disciplined, missing a number of key chances to equalize. Then just before half time, they conceded a penalty - a clear case of hand-ball which of course I and the Celtic fans objected to in the most strident of terms - and it was 2-0.
Tom was up out of his bed this time doing a victory run round the room between our beds and back again, his T-shirt pulled up over his head to reveal his tanned washboard stomach.
“ Oh yesss! I can’t believe this. I’m actually going to have you kissing my feet! This is going to be in-fucking-credible!” His victory yelling brought Dad into play - sticking his head round the door to tell us to keep the noise down as it was getting late. That was the least of my worries.
I busied myself with my magazine, trying to affect a couldn’t-care-less attitude. Truth was, even in my state of arousal, I was really beginning to feel a bit nervous about all this. His half-time triumphalism was just a bit excessive for my taste and I realised how much power he was going to have over me by the end of the game. I found myself hitting on a strategy of sour grapes.
“ Well Tom if you need cheating and bad refereeing decisions to win then I feel a bit sorry for you.”
“ Oh yeah?”
“ I just hope you’ve learned your lesson, that’s all. You were really crapping yourself there at one point. Don’t deny it.”
“ What do you mean ‘learned my lesson’?”
“ Well I hope it made you think. I mean - I’ll tell you this - I obviously wouldn’t have made you go through with any of it, the T-shirt thing. But I just wanted you to see how dangerous it is making bets like that.”
“ You wouldn’t have made me go through with it?”
I glared at him, open-mouthed. “Well of course not.” I said, as though incredulous - no, slightly insulted in fact - that he would even think such a thing. “Christ I’m your brother - I’m not going to humiliate you like that. You really should learn to separate fun from reality, man.”
“ Oh Jay,” he said, now subdued and quite touched - all his earlier celebration gone. “I don’t know what to say mate.” He sat down on his bed again. “I really thought you were serious. And yeah. I’ll be honest before the game started I was crapping myself and - you know - wondering how to get out of the whole thing.”
“ Well you needn’t have worried. What kind of brother do you think I am?”
“ No. No I see that now. Oh by the way, Jay?”
“ Mmm?”
“ About the worship thing and the foot-kissing and all that.” He chuckled, amiably.
“ Yeah?” I smiled.
“ Well. It seems only fair now that I should say this.”
“ What?”
He leaned forward, “You better go into town tomorrow and get some lip-salve because your lips are going to be pure raw before the end of the week!”
A few seconds later Dad was back in again to read the rest of the Riot Act, Tom’s laughter having been even louder this time than before.
The match resumed with a disgraceful Celtic tackle which resulted in their striker being red-carded. Again I claimed refereeing myopia but my heart wasn’t really in it. With all tension gone, and interim celebrations seeming no longer necessary, Tom was content this time just to look across at me, point quizzically at my face and say, “Hey Jamie, remember that T-shirt you were going to get printed: was that the colour of pink you were talking about?”
It was clear there was to be no on-field miracle. The pattern of play was even more one-sided in the second half as the green and white shirts struggled to plug the gap left by their man off, their bungled attempts to create something met with satisfied snorts and chortling from my room-mate, abject silence from me. At one point I caught sight of him fiddling again with his mobile phone. I thought at first he was texting his mates to tell them. Then I realised it was even worse than that: he was checking his phone cam was working!
As the match trundled on, Tom got up. Seemingly wanting to pass the time, whistling nonchalantly, he went to the open area of the room at the end of the beds and started to move bits of furniture around - pushing desks and tables against the wall as though he was clearing space to make room for something.
Then he left the room and came back a few seconds later carrying one of the big high-backed chairs we kept in our hallway. These were sort of antique chairs Mum had been bequeathed by some aunt years ago. They weren’t very comfortable to sit on, but the best thing about them was that they looked really grand - we used to call them the ‘thrones’ when we were kids. He set it down grandly at the head of this area of space he had cleared, positioned it very precisely to his liking, and then without a word, settled back down on his bed to watch the dying minutes of the game.
Celtic did actually steal a goal back in the last few moments - leading to a momentary revival of excitement. Was it possible that there might be a draw? Had I phoned through too early and got the latest score of the match rather than the final one?
The thing is, by now I wasn’t really sure how I would have reacted if there had been a draw. You see, though I had been craving this moment for years, and though I had been working to engineer it all night, it was suddenly all seeming very real. I was about to have to get down on my knees, worship my brother and then kiss his feet. I won’t say I didn’t want to do it - but there was a part of me that seemed to be just waking up to the reality. Though my cock was gnawing at my jeans with anticipation, there was also an uncomfortable feeling now in my stomach that was very similar to dread.
It was almost as if my dignity, which had been asleep for the whole process, was waking up and confronting my sexuality, going, ‘Are you out of your fucking mind???!!!’
It was soon out of my hands anyway. The final whistle blew. It was 2-1. We were spared the hyperbole of the commentator and the excuses of the vanquished players as Tom bounced up his bed and switched off the TV. He seemed to be in a hurry to get on with things.
He swung round to look at me - grinning from ear to ear - the grin of the victorious, then lifted the hem of his jeans from one foot and ran his forefinger down the inside of his blue-topped white sock. Then he stopped and looked over at me. “Tell you what bro - just for this first time, I’ll give you the choice: socks on or socks off?”
Before I even had a chance to answer he took the power right back again. “Yes you’re right - socks on, I think. After all they’ve been on me for about three days now, haven’t even taken them off to sleep in and haven’t showered either. Shame to abandon them now, eh?”
Right. I quickly decided there was only one way to play this, and that was to indulge him totally. The honourable little brother routine. Everything about me in the next few minutes was going to say, ‘OK then, hands up - you win - fair’s fair, I’ll get down and worship you. No hard feelings. A bet’s a bet,” and just hope that if I could keep a smile on my face throughout, somehow a dignity and maturity would emerge from me that would make him feel ashamed for his excitement.
And in that moment, when it was all suddenly official and real, I realised that of course I wasn’t going to be getting anywhere near kissing his feet.
I knew my brother. He would be as embarrassed about that as I would. Nah, he wanted to make me squirm a bit - and that was fair enough, so I’d get on my knees and say whatever he wanted. But kissing his feet? What had I been thinking? There was no way he was going to make me do that. It would almost certainly have been a disappointment anyway. No. I’d keep my fantasies in my head, where they belonged.
So I smiled, sighed, put down my magazine, swung my legs off the bed and stood up. “Right then,” I said. ”A bet’s a bet. Never let it be said that I‘m not a man of honour.“ I bowed my head very formally and held my hand out towards where he had set the chair, inviting him to make his way over there, with exaggerated submissiveness. I was still hoping that by keeping the tone light it wouldn’t be so bad.
Tom nodded graciously and stood up, strolled calmly to his chair and sat down. Again he stretched his arms out wide before folding them behind his head to lean back, and stretched his legs out in front of him, shuffling his buttocks so he was quite comfortable and then crossing his ankles over each other so that the toes of both feet were pointing up at me. He gave them a wriggle as he emitted a loud sigh of contentment. The anticipation, for him, was obviously one of the best things about this, and he was loving every second of it.
My dignity and my lust, battling within me, agreed on one thing: it was best to get this done now as quickly as possible. I got down on my knees. I tried to make this move as casual as possible, but there is no doubt that when you kneel in front of somebody - especially somebody who is grinning smugly at you - it is one of the most humiliating things you can ever do.
But again, I decided there was no point doing this by half measures - that would only piss him off. So I bent my upper body forward so I was crouching before him, and put my hands together as if in prayer, bowing my head slightly, training my eyes on a fixed spot on the carpet.
“ Good,” he said, quite satisfied so far. “Now - In your own time.”
I took a deep breath. “Great Tom,” I said, my eyes never leaving that spot on the floor just in front of my head. “I just want to say that I am really very sorry for all the times I have called you stupid, and that I only ever do this because I am jealous of your great intelligence. Everybody knows that you are much superior to me in every way, and it’s time I realised that and behaved accordingly, so that’s what I’m doing now.”
“ Go on,” he said, still satisfied enough, but milking it - wanting more. (I couldn’t blame him - this was exactly what I would do in his position).
“ Erm…. Well, like I say, I am really really sorry and I can only grovel at your feet like this and beg you to forgive me. I will certainly try to make it up to you and will worship you like this whenever you want, just to thank you for letting me be your brother, and in the hope that one day some of your brilliance might rub off on me or something. Because the truth is that you are the greatest and I’m just a sad little stupid loser. So, once again, I am so sorry, and Thank You very much for putting up with me.”
Where I had got all that from I really can’t tell you. All I know is that once I had started it just seemed to flow out of me. It seemed to come disturbingly naturally to me.
Then, still on my knees, I held my hands up above my head, palms towards him, and bowed my upper body down to the floor, and up again a few times, like the famous scene from Wayne’s World. “I am not worthy,” I intoned each time, just to make sure he understood the reference!
I glanced up to see in his face a picture of pure ecstasy. I couldn’t help but smile, going with the moment. Yep, he had really got me. And our eyes connected on that shared smile. Quite pleased in a way with my performance - which let’s face it was a bit of a class act - I started to get up. As I did so, the look of smug glee on his face changed to one of confusion.
“ Er - what are you doing?” he said.
“ Well - I think I’ve more than fulfilled my obligations, don’t you?” I laughed. “I’m getting up now.”
“ No - I think you’ve forgotten something,” he said, and I caught sight of his toes wiggling again.
“ Oh God you’re not serious,” I said.
“ A bet’s a bet,” he grinned.
“ But - “
“ Look,” he was giggling freely now. “This wasn’t my idea. You were the one who was so keen. Oh - unless you want to back out?”
“ Tom -“
I mean, I know you’re just a kid and children shouldn’t have to stick to honour like real adults do.“
Ouch!
And then he added, with great emphasis: “After all Jay, You don’t have to explain anything to me - I’m your brother. I understand.”
Clever. Very clever. Not only was he playing the ‘you’re just a child’ card - always a devastating move by any older sibling - but quoting back my own words to me to make sure I really had no way out. For the first time in the evening I became aware, not without a touch of admiration, that our little situation here had strengthened my brother’s character a bit. He was more confident, and with it more creative - and he was relishing it.
I stared at him for a moment - unable to believe that he was actually going to make me go through with this. Then I looked down at his feet. They seemed bigger than ever, sexier too, and I noticed as he stretched and flexed them that the socks he was wearing were not so much white as off-white grey. They had that look of socks that had been worn so often that no amount of washing could take the wear out of them. His remark about having worn them for days was also fresh in my mind. I could see from the ground-in stains on them that they were not dry - or clean.
Wearily I got back down on my knees and bent forward so my face was over his feet. But just as I got close to them, Tom shifted his position, uncrossing his legs and moving his feet back so they were now under his chair. I paused at this new humiliation - decided I could live without exchanging eye contact at that moment - and moved slowly forward on all fours (Oh My God I was actually crawling to my brother!)
When my face was just above his feet again, resting now side by side as they were on the floor just under the chair, I lowered myself down so my upper body was now resting on my elbows, not my hands.
“ OK bro,” said Tom cheerfully, “Once again, whenever you’re ready.”
His voice seemed deeper, more timbred with authority, coming as it did now from directly above me. Somehow it was even more humiliating, being this much closer to Tom. I’d learned another lesson about submission. The closer you are to the person you are submitting to, the smaller you seem. And the more humiliating it is.
I focused on his right foot One more reality check - I shook my head to make sure I wasn’t dreaming - as I had been the previous million times I had found myself in this position with my face inches from Tom’s feet. But no - I was still there - and so were they. It really was happening. I still didn’t know how I felt about it. My heart was pounding hard in my chest - was that anger? Or lust?
Picking my spot right in the middle of his toes, with one more deep breath I closed my eyes and pressed my lips to the cloth.
Now, I had kissed Tom’s socks many times - hundreds or even thousands in my dreams. And even a few hundred times in reality, when I had secretly taken them from under his bed or the wash basket when he had discarded them. Once - and only once - I had even dared to creep up and have a bit of a sniff of them when he was asleep on the sofa after a drinking session. He had stirred as I got near and, terrified, I backed away and knocked over a lamp-stand. I never tried it again.
The point I’m making is that the smell and taste of my brother’s socks should have held no great surprises for me.
But oh they did.
Actually on his feet, they somehow seemed alive. They had the warmth of his feet and of course the shape, and somehow they just gave off an aura of being so much more vibrant than the fragrant but lifeless empty cotton bags they were when they were off him. I suppose it was like the difference between having a wank and having sex. One is great but the other is just out of this world!
But I had to catch myself. I was in danger of giving the game away by lingering too long in my kiss - so I dragged my reluctant lips away from this divine socked foot and moved to the other one.
This time I chose my spot on the top of the foot - an inch or so further up than his toes. Again I sunk my lips down, this time parting them just slightly so I could try and get a better taste. When my tongue touched that sock its cloth instantly sucked up the excess saliva and left me with a dry tongue. But enough of the gritty surface of the sock had also been transferred to my taste buds for me to be able to detect the fantastic bittersweet taste version of the same pungent aroma that was now invading my nostrils.
Like I said earlier the smell was like over-ripe fruit. And they had a sort of ‘smoky’ taste, like wet bark. There was perhaps a tiny hint of vinegar in there as well - oh it is indescribable in fact because these are all earthly elements and really Tom’s feet are like nothing on earth. Bowing to them is truly like inhaling the breath of God!
My joy was interrupted by Tom’s voice from above: “I hope we’re kissing these feet properly and not just touching our lips to them.”
Chastened, I took my lips off his foot and kissed again several times, each time making an exaggerated kissing sound (“Mwah mwah mwah”) to emphasise that I was doing what I should be.
“ That’s better. But I’m not sure you did that with the other one did you?” Since when had my brother’s voice had so much authority?
Without a word I moved my head across and planted one single huge ‘mmmmmwwwaaaaaaah’ right on the big toe of his right foot. He stretched his toes out just as I did this - causing a little ripple along his foot that just made my heart stop.
“ Good boy!” he said. Good boy? Who the fuck did the patronising bastard think he was? Didn’t he realise that he was the one that was being played here? Fantastic though it was to be breathing his feet air like this, it was maddening that I couldn’t tell him who was really master-minding the whole thing, and even gloat at the trap I had made him fall into.
“ Now then,” said Tom, as though moving on to the next part of some kind of process. “We’ve got…“ Then he laughed “Sorry. I’ve got some decisions to make.” And as he said this - as I crouched there like a dog - he was casually lifting his feet from in front of me. First his left, then his right, they rose up past my face, over my head and came to rest, one crossed over the other, on my back.
What the hell was he doing? This wasn’t in the deal. Get down on my knees? Yes; Grovel and worship him? Yes; Kiss his scabby feet? Yes; but nothing - NOTHING about being his fucking footstool!
And yet I just crouched there, taking it. In fact I was actually making an effort to keep exactly still so his feet didn’t slip off my back. Why? I ought to just straighten right up, buck his stinking feet off my back and punch the leery bastard right in the balls.
But then Tom himself explained exactly why I wasn’t doing that. “You see bro,” he said, with supreme control (God he was loving this!) “The thing about making bets is you have to be precise with what you promise - otherwise when you lose the other guy has got lots of scope for interpretation. The more grey areas you leave, the worst it could be for you. Right?”
His patronising tone was driving me crazy - but something deep down was holding me back, telling me to play along for the moment, just to see what he had.
“ Er….. right,” I managed to say through barely gritted teeth. Where was he going with this?
“ Now, you’ve said you’re going to perform this little…. this little…..“ he searched for the right word.
“ Ritual?” I suggested
“ Tribute,” he preferred. “…perform this little tribute whenever I want, at my command, for the next - er - hundred years I think it was you said.” (Oh fuck I did, didn’t I?). “But what you didn’t say was whether there were any limits about where I could make you do it.”
Oh-oh!
“ I suppose your assumption was that we’d just do it in here, in the privacy of our own room. Just me and you, right?”
“ Yeah, of course.”
“ Yeah but see you didn’t actually specify that. All you said was that I could make you do this anytime I wanted.”
I tried a friendly laugh. It sounded more like a choke. “Yeah, but Tom -“
“ Now, had I lost the bet, you were going to make me wear that T-shirt at work, in the bar and all over the fucking town weren’t you? Public humiliation was the order of the day.
Oh fuckity fuck fuck fuckingtons, NO!
“ Well -“ I stammered.
“ So you know what I’m thinking now? I’m wondering whether this little display of yours - once you’ve had a bit more practice of course - deserves a wider audience. Like I say, decisions decisions decisions to be made.”
I trembled. This was not in the script at all. But he was right. He was totally in control. Backing out of a bet just wasn’t the done thing - not in our world. I was trapped - not just physically by his feet, resting on my back as I crouched there under him, but in the situation as a whole, by my own scheming.
What a predicament. It wasn’t that his feet were heavy or anything (though I had now been grovelling for a few minutes and my knees and arms were beginning to ache a little) but my back isn’t all that broad and the effort of balancing his feet on there without them sliding off was all being made by me. It was like he had just plonked them there and was now totally resting, expecting me to do all the work to keep them there.
“ So what do you say to that, our James?”
For a moment I didn’t say, or do, anything. Then, slowly, I shuffled on all fours round a sort of 90 degree angle, so I was broad-side in front of him now, rather than long.
His feet stayed on my back the whole time - it was me who did the moving. My new position merely presented my back as a more convenient ledge for his feet to rest on - increasing as it did the surface area on which he could easily place them.
This manoeuvre said everything my voice was incapable of saying at that moment about how completely I accepted my position.
Well look, I had to do it - I had to keep him sweet. I couldn’t be sure that playing ball and catering for his every foot-related desire would definitely keep him from making me kiss his feet in the town square. But I was pretty sure that refusing to do so would make it damn near certain he would.
Anyway - I’m not kidding you any more than I was kidding myself. The truth is there was another very good reason why I wasn’t fighting back about being enslaved by my brother’s feet.
And that is that, deep down, when I got past my raging self-esteem and my deep-seated fear of public humiliation, I was loving every second of it.
Because let’s face it. Tom might have had me just where he wanted me. But it was just where I wanted me as well!
What should happen in Chapter 3?
Should Tom make the worship go public?
Should Jay find a way of turning the tables?
