Chapter 11: Cheer Squad's New Mascot
The video of the cafeteria played on a loop in Ben’s mind. He’d watched it once, the private story Patricia had tagged him in, and then deleted the app entirely. It didn’t matter. The scenes were etched onto his eyelids. The feeling of cold linoleum under his palms, the sour-sweet tang of condiments and cleaner on his tongue, the sound of his own voice barking on command. It followed him like a smell.
He avoided the dining hall. He ate protein bars in his car. He skipped the gym, using the campus track at dawn when it was empty. Texts from his brother Sean went unanswered; explaining the unexplainable was a canyon he couldn’t cross. His world had shrunk to a tunnel of avoidance, and Patricia was the glaring light at the end he kept retreating from.
She, however, was expanding.
A text arrived on Thursday afternoon as Ben was hiding in a carrel in the library stacks. Unknown number. The preview made his stomach liquefy.
Practice gym. 5 PM. Be useful. Bring a towel.
He knew what it meant. He also knew, with a cold, sedimentary certainty, what would happen if he didn’t go. The video existed. Her narrative to Sean existed. His absence would be framed as cowardice, as delinquency, and the punishment would be more creative, more public. The cafeteria was just an appital view. This was a server request.
At 4:55 PM, he stood outside the side door of the cheerleading practice gym, a thin gym towel folded in his hands. The thump of bass-heavy music pulsed through the wall. He could hear the sharp, synchronized shouts, the slap of hands on thighs, the coach’s whistle. He pushed the door open.
The air was warm and thick with the smell of vinyl mats, perfumed body spray, and female sweat. The squad was in the middle of a pyramid drill, a buzzing hive of athleticism in matching crimson crop tops and shorts. Patricia was at the apex, held aloft by two bases, her body perfectly straight in a liberty pose, a look of fierce concentration on her face. She didn’t look at him.
He lingered by the bleachers, a ghost in the glare of the fluorescent lights. A few girls stretching on the mats glanced his way, their expressions flickering between curiosity and recognition. The whispers started. He heard the word “cafeteria.”
The coach blew her whistle. “Water break! Five minutes, then we run the full routine from the top!”
The pyramid disassembled with practiced grace. Patricia dropped down, landing softly, and finally turned her gaze to him. She smiled, not mischievously, but with the calm efficiency of a foreman on a worksite. She strode over, a light sheen of sweat glistening on her toned arms and neck.
“You’re late,” she said, though he wasn’t. She plucked the towel from his numb fingers. “Follow me.”
She led him to the center of the practice mat, turning to address the squad, who were sipping from water bottles and watching with rapt attention. “Ladies! You’ve all been working so hard. Those basket tosses are looking savage, but your footwork is still sticky. We need to be lighter. Quicker.” She put a hand on Ben’s shoulder. He flinched. “This is Ben. He’s here to help with proprioceptive grounding. He’s going to be our… living footrest. And our cleaner.”
A few girls giggled. One, a tiny blonde flyer named Chloe, looked uneasy. “Um, how does that work, Pat?”
“Simple.” Patricia sat down on the mat with a sigh, extending her long legs. She wore no shoes; her feet were bare, the soles slightly darkened from the mat, gleaming with sweat. “After a run, your feet get sweaty, they lose grip. Ben is going to help us… reset. By cleaning them. With his tongue. It’s about humility for him, and hygiene for us. Win-win.”
Ben stood frozen, the heat of two dozen eyes burning into his skin. The music had been turned down to a low throb. The earlier chatter was gone, replaced by a tense, anticipatory silence.
“Remember when you used to challenge me for valedictorian, Ben?” Patricia’s voice was loud, conversational, for the whole gym to hear. “All those late nights in the library, arguing over chem formulas? Look at you now.” She wiggled her toes. “You’re just a tongue for my squad’s feet. That’s your function today. Now, crawl here and get to work. My soles are slipping.”
A low, sympathetic murmur came from Chloe. “Pat, that’s kinda…”
“Kinda what?” Patricia cut her off, her eyes never leaving Ben’s. “He agreed to it. Didn’t you, Ben? You want to be useful.”
The memory of Sean’s unanswered texts, the phantom taste of ketchup, the echoing ‘woof’ in the dining hall—they all coalesced into a single, impenetrable prison. His jaw ached from clenching. Slowly, as if his joints were rusted shut, he lowered himself to his hands and knees. The mat was rough against his palms.
He crawled the few feet to her. The smell of her sweat was stronger here, salty and human. He stared at her foot, the arch high, the tendons flexed. A small, silver ring adorned her second toe.
“Lick,” she commanded, leaning back on her hands as if sunbathing. “Properly. Get between the toes. We don’t want any moisture compromising our stunts.”
He closed his eyes and leaned forward. The first contact was a shock—warm, damp, slightly gritty with resin from the mat. He tried to detach, to think of anything else, but the sensation was overwhelming. The sour-salty taste flooded his mouth as he dragged his tongue roughly across her sole.
“See?” Patricia announced. “A natural. Did you guys know he has a 3.9 GPA? And yet, here he is.”
A wave of nervous laughter washed over him. He moved to her other foot, his movements mechanical.
After a minute, Patricia lifted her foot, inspected it with a critic’s eye, and nodded. “Adequate. Okay, squad! Who’s next? Think of it as a team-building exercise. Chloe, you’re up. Your landings were tentative.”
The tiny flyer bit her lip. She looked from Patricia’s expectant face to Ben, kneeling on the mat, his head bowed. “I… I don’t…”
“It’s fine,” Patricia said, her voice softening into a fake reassurance. “He doesn’t mind. Do you, Ben?”
He shook his head, a tiny, defeated motion.
Hesitantly, Chloe sat down and put her small, slender foot in front of him. Her soles were almost clean, just a faint dusting of chalk. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, so low only he could hear it.
Her apology was a thousand times worse than Patricia’s cruelty. It acknowledged the horror, made it real, and did nothing to stop it. He cleaned her foot quickly, the task now feeling even more vile.
One by one, they came. Some, like Mara who had been in the cafeteria, did it with a smirk, wiggling their toes in his face. Others were businesslike, avoiding his eyes. A tall base named Alicia thrust her foot forward challengingly. “Make it shine, bookworm,” she muttered, and a few of her friends laughed.
The gym’s heat became a soup of shame. The taste—a cocktail of salt, synthetic cotton from socks, rubber, and perfumed lotion—coated his mouth and throat. His knees ached. His hands were numb. Patricia orchestrated it all, calling out orders, making commentary.
“Trent in Econ 101 would lose his mind if he could see this,” she mused as Ben attended to a girl with a butterfly tattoo on her ankle. “He always said you were the smarter one. Looks can be deceiving.”
The coach watched from the sidelines, her arms crossed, a frown on her face. But she said nothing. The whistle stayed around her neck.
The final girl was Jess, Patricia’s steadfast friend from the cafeteria. She sat down heavily, her foot, wide and strong, planted firmly. “Make sure you get the arch, Ben. That’s where I hold all my tension.”
He was drifting now, a ghost in the machine of his own body. He obeyed.
When he was done, Patricia stood up, clapping her hands. “Excellent! You all look lighter on your feet already. Ben, you can go now. You served your purpose.” She tossed the now-damp towel at him. It hit his chest and fell to the mat. “Oh, and your brother texted me. Again. He’s really worried. I told him you’ve been helping me with a special project, that you’re finally learning some humility. He said that sounds healthy.”
Ben got to his feet, his body feeling like it belonged to someone else. He didn’t look at anyone. He just walked toward the door, the towel forgotten on the floor.
As he pushed out into the cool evening air, he heard Patricia’s voice ring out clearly behind him, already moving on to the next thing. “Okay, places everybody! We’re running the full routine. And remember—light on your feet! You know what dirty soles cost you!”
The door swung shut, muting the music and the shouts. Ben stood on the concrete step, breathing in the clean, indifferent air. He rubbed his mouth violently with the back of his hand, but the taste wouldn’t leave. It was inside him now. He looked down at his own hands, then back at the glowing rectangle of the gym door.
A single, clear thought finally pierced the numbness, cold and sharp as a shard of glass: there was no bottom. She would always find a new floor beneath the one she’d just broken through. And everyone else would just keep watching.