Chapter 7: Double Domination
The champagne was flat and the sunset was doing nothing for Natasha’s mood. She slumped in the sleek aluminum chair, one stiletto dangling from her toes, and groaned. “I swear, Charlie, if Markov doesn’t sign off on the Leeds account by tomorrow, I’m going to throw myself off this very roof. My feet are killing me.”
Charlie took a slow sip from her flute, the bubbles prickling her tongue. She watched a cloud, tinged pink by the dying light, drift behind the skyline. Her own feet, tucked beneath her, were bare. The cool concrete of the terrace felt good. She let her gaze drop casually to the space under Natasha’s chair, to the unusual, human-shaped “cushion” she’d pointed out moments before.
“You need to unwind,” Charlie said, her voice light, conversational. “That’s what the cushion is for. Seriously, try it. Put your feet on it. The texture is… unique.”
Natasha, her mind circling the drain of spreadsheet hell, didn’t need further convincing. “God, yes. Anything.” She leaned forward, wriggling her other shoe off with a sigh. “A novelty tongue? Weird, but okay.” She planted her bare foot, still warm from the confines of the leather pump, directly onto the offered surface.
It was not silicone.
The flesh gave way, warm and surprisingly pliant. Natasha wiggled her toes, pressing down experimentally. “Huh. It’s softer than I expected. Kind of… spongy.”
Charlie bit the inside of her cheek, her eyes fixed on the point of contact. Julian’s face was turned upward, positioned perfectly by her earlier, quiet command. His eyes were squeezed shut, but his mouth was open, his tongue laid out flat and extended against the cool terrace floor. Natasha’s arch settled directly onto it. The ball of her foot rested on his lower lip, her heel dug into the concrete beside his jaw.
“See?” Charlie murmured. “Total stress relief. The… moisture is part of the design. A cooling gel effect.”
Natasha leaned back, closing her eyes, her other foot coming to join the first. Now both her soles were planted on Julian’s face, one foot fully on his tongue, the other smearing across his cheekbone and closed eyelid. She rotated her ankles, grinding slowly. “Oh, wow. That’s actually amazing. It’s like a weird, warm gel pad.”
Beneath her, Julian shuddered. A low, choked sound, barely more than a vibration, passed through him and into the soles of Natasha’s feet. She frowned, her eyes still closed. “Does yours make a noise? Like a faint whirring?”
“Mmm, sometimes,” Charlie lied smoothly, taking another drink. “It’s got a micro-vibration setting. For deep tissue.” She watched, mesmerized, as Natasha’s movements became more deliberate, more selfish. The woman was using Julian’s face, his very being, as a footstool. Her polished toes, a shade of brutalist grey, clenched and unclenched against his wet tongue. A strand of red hair had fallen across Charlie’s forehead, but she didn’t brush it away. She was too focused on the perfect, degrading tableau.
“You have no idea how tight my arches are,” Natasha mumbled, digging her heel into Julian’s cheek. A tear, fat and obvious, welled from the corner of his sealed eye and tracked through the grime now smudged there. It traced a clean path through the dust and skin oil from Natasha’s foot. Charlie watched it drip onto the concrete.
“Really work it in,” Charlie suggested, her voice hushed. “Don’t be gentle. It’s designed to take it.”
Emboldened, Natasha pressed down harder, rolling her foot from heel to toe in a brutal massage motion. The entire weight of her leg, of her upper body leaning back, was driven into Julian’s mouth. His tongue was flattened, distorted under the pressure. Charlie could see the muscles in Natasha’s calf flexing. She imagined she could feel the subtle give of muscle and flesh through her own feet, a sympathetic echo.
A soft, stifled gag rattled up from below. Natasha paused. “That was a weird noise.”
“Probably just an air bubble in the hydraulic system,” Charlie said quickly, her heart hammering. “Ignore it. Keep going. You’re looking more relaxed already.”
Shrugging, Natasha resumed, now using a scrunching motion with her toes. They curled, digging into the soft, sensitive surface of Julian’s tongue. Charlie saw his throat convulse in a hard swallow. His hands, hidden beneath the drape of the black cloth that covered the rest of him, were likely clenched into white-knuckled fists. The thought sent a thrill through her, bright and electric. This powerful man, this unseen emperor of the building they stood atop, was reduced to a trembling, tearful tool for her friend’s pedicure.
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Is the tongue part the best? I find the texture… unparalleled.”
“It’s unreal,” Natasha sighed, her head lolling back. She was fully committed now, her attention turned inward to her own comfort. “It’s so… alive feeling. Warm and wet and… yeah, it’s getting the knots out.” She dragged her foot back, the entire length of her sole scraping from the tip of his tongue back to the root, a slow, deliberate stroke.
Julian’s body gave a single, violent twitch. A muffled, wet sound escaped him. Natasha’s eyes flew open. “Okay, that was definitely a glitch. Should it be getting wetter?”
Charlie didn’t look away from Julian’s face, from the glorious, abject ruin of it under Natasha’s indifferent feet. “It’s self-lubricating,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper that was almost lost in the evening breeze. “For authenticity. The wetter it gets, the better it works.”
She finally lifted her gaze to meet Natasha’s. Her expression was one of innocent, helpful concern. “Just focus on the feeling. On the pressure. On how it molds to your foot.”
Natasha held her look for a second, then a slow, dawning confusion crept in, mixed with the haze of her relaxation. Something wasn’t adding up. The cushion was too detailed. The sounds were too organic. Her eyes flicked down, her foot still pressing down, and she saw the tear track. She saw the faint stubble on the jawline not covered by her heel. The texture was all wrong for silicone.
Her breath hitched.
Before she could speak, before she could yank her foot away and scream, Charlie gave a small, almost imperceptible nod downwards, a silent command directed at the man beneath them. Julian’s eyes opened. In the dimming light, glazed with tears and shame, they met Natasha’s. They held a universe of pleading, of silent acknowledgment. He didn’t move. He accepted her gaze, her foot on his tongue, his complete and utter exposure.
Natasha stared. Her mouth opened, then closed. The reality of the situation crashed over her, but it was filtered through Charlie’s calm, expectant silence. This wasn’t a machine. This was a person. And Charlie knew. Charlie had orchestrated it.
The moment stretched, taut and silent, broken only by the distant hum of the city. Natasha didn’t remove her foot. The shock paralyzed her, but so did a sudden, bizarre curiosity. She felt the heat. She felt the tremble. She looked from Julian’s broken, beautiful face to Charlie’s composed, watching one.
Slowly, very slowly, Natasha shifted her weight forward again. She didn’t look at Charlie anymore. She looked at the man under her foot. She pressed down, softer this time, a testing, exploring pressure. Her sole settled back onto the waiting, wet warmth of his tongue.
She didn’t say a word. She just let her foot rest there, claiming him, while the last of the sun bled out behind the skyline and the world below them dissolved into a sea of tiny, indifferent lights. The only sound was the faint, ragged pull of Julian’s breath through his nose and the soft, satisfied sigh that escaped Natasha’s lips as she finally, fully understood the game, and decided to keep playing.
The silence stretched, thick and hot, until Natasha finally spoke, her voice a hesitant whisper that nonetheless carried across the quiet terrace. “His eyes are open.”
Charlie didn’t look away from Julian’s face, from the glistening track of Natasha’s sole-grime and tears painting his cheek. “I know,” she said, her tone conversational, as if discussing the weather. “It’s better that way. You can see what you’re working with. The grit, I mean. On your feet. From the city.”
Natasha swallowed, her throat clicking. The abstract horror had crystallized into this specific, breathtaking reality: a human being, supine and used, staring up at her with unblinking wetness. The power was absolute, and terrifying, and she found she didn’t want to let it go. Her toes curled reflexively against his tongue, and she felt the corresponding flutter of his eyelashes against her arch. A shiver, one of pure dark electricity, ran up her spine.
“They look… dirty,” she murmured, more to herself than to Charlie.
“They are,” Charlie agreed, leaning forward. She rested her chin in her hand, an observer at a fascinating exhibit. “All that walking from the subway, through the lobby… it gets everywhere. Even between the toes.” Her gaze was fixed, unblinking, on Julian’s wide, staring eyes. “He can help with that.”
She didn’t command Julian. She simply stated a fact, her voice dropping into a space that was neither loud nor soft, but inevitable. “You’ll clean them. You’ll clean all five. With your eyes. Open.”
Julian’s breath hitched, a wet, desperate sound in the back of his throat. His body tensed, a fine tremor running through him from head to toe, a silent protest of muscle and nerve. But his head did not turn away. His eyes, those piercing green eyes known for breaking deals and intimidating boards, remained locked open, held by a will stronger than his own in this moment.
Natasha watched, mesmerized, as Charlie gently guided her foot.“Lift. Just a little. There.” Charlie positioned Natasha’s right foot so the grimy underside of her big toe hovered directly over Julian’s right eye. “Now. Slowly.”
Natasha lowered her foot, the rough, darkened pad of her toe coming to rest directly on Julian’s open eyeball. He flinched, a full-body spasm that rattled the chair legs, but he did not close his eye. It remained wide, the iris a shock of green swimming in sudden, reflexive tears. The grit from her skin, a fine particulate of city filth, bit into the vulnerable surface.
“Oh,” Natasha breathed, her voice a mix of shock and fascination. She didn’t pull away.
“See?” Charlie said, her tone light, instructional. “Just a little pressure. Let the moisture do the work.”
Julian’s chest hitched with silent, ragged breaths. He began to move his head, a minute, grinding rotation, rubbing his naked eye back and forth against the rough texture of her skin. The motion was deliberate, agonizingly slow. A fresh wave of tears welled, mixing with the dirt to form a thin, grayish paste that smeared across his cheekbone and her sole.
“That’s one,” Charlie murmured. “Now the next toe. Switch feet. He’ll use the other eye.”
As Natasha shifted, placing her left foot over his face, Julian’s tongue, which had lain inert beneath her right heel, suddenly tensed. It went rigid, a hard, defined ridge of muscle pressing up into her arch. Natasha jumped slightly. “Whoa. It just… tightened.”
“It’s programmable,” Charlie lied smoothly, watching Julian’s jaw clench. “Different pressure settings. A deep-tissue mode.” She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Try alternating. Tell it to go soft.”
“Um… soft?” Natasha said, looking at Charlie, not at the man beneath her.
The tension in Julian’s tongue dissolved, melting into a soft, pliant wetness that cradled her heel. A shuddering exhale escaped his nose. Then, obeying some unspoken rhythm only he understood, the muscle firmed again, pushing up with insistent pressure before softening once more. He was alternating the strength, a slow, relentless pulse of hard and soft, while simultaneously turning his head side to side.
He rubbed his left eye, now wide open and streaming, against the grime caked between Natasha’s second toe.
The duality of the action was absurd, grotesque. His face was a mess of focused agony, his features contorted in a silent grimace as he diligently worked. Tears and eye-fluids now mixed freely with the dirt from both feet, creating a streaky, pathetic sludge across his handsome face. The rhythmic hardening and softening of his tongue under her heels was a bizarre, intimate massage.
Natasha let out a giggle, high-pitched and nervous. “This is the weirdest stress relief I’ve ever had.” She looked down at his working face, at the meticulous, humiliating labor. “He looks so… serious about it.”
“He’s very thorough,” Charlie agreed, her own smile widening. She watched Julian move to the third toe, his eye movements becoming more vigorous, more frantic, as if he could scrub the very skin off her through sheer effort. His tears were flowing freely now, slick tracks cutting through the filth. “A perfectionist. Look how hard he’s trying to get you clean.”
“It’s kinda pathetic,” Natasha said, her initial shock fully morphing into a cruel, giddy enjoyment. She settled her weight more fully onto his face, her heels grinding in time with the pulsing of his tongue. “And sort of amazing. Like a human washcloth with a panic attack.”
Julian’s breath hitched audibly at her words, a wet, choked sound. His humiliation was a tangible thing in the air, thick and sweet. He continued, doggedly, toe by toe, eye by eye. For the pinkie toe, he had to strain his eye open so wide the white showed all around the iris, rolling it to reach the tiny crevice.
“Almost there,” Charlie encouraged, though it was unclear whom she was addressing. Her eyes were bright, alight with a cold, fascinated fire. “Just the little one. It’s always the dirtiest, I find.”
Natasha watched, mesmerized, as Julian’s eyelashes fluttered against the smallest toe, his tears dripping down to pool in the hollow of her instep. “He’s crying,” she observed, her voice devoid of sympathy, only clinical interest.
“Tears are a natural cleaning agent,” Charlie said, taking a final sip of her champagne. “Salty. Sterilizing.” She placed the empty flute on the table with a soft, definitive click.“See? All done. Spotless.”
Natasha lifted her feet, holding them up to the twilight. They glistened, wet and perfectly clean, every trace of the day’s grime transferred to the ruin of Julian’s face. He lay still, his eyes swollen and red, his skin streaked with a grotesque watercolor of tears, mucus, and city soot. His tongue rested limply on the concrete, a spent, pink thing.
“Wow,” Natasha said, wiggling her spotless toes. “I feel… brand new.” She looked from her feet to Julian’s broken, panting form, then to Charlie. A new understanding, dark and complicit, passed between them. “So, does this… service… come with the internship package, or is it a management perk?”
Charlie stood up, smoothing her skirt. She looked down at Julian for a long, silent moment, watching the rise and fall of his chest, the slow blink of his ruined eyes. A single, clean tear traced a new path through the mess on his cheek.
“Let’s just say it’s a mentorship opportunity,” Charlie said, her voice quiet but clear in the cooling night air. She offered a hand to help Natasha up. “Some lessons are more… hands-on. Ready to head back in? I think the real work is just beginning.”