As a rule, Remi maintained that one should never believe one’s own rationalisations.

For someone who was so adamant about such a maxim, he sure seemed to break his own damn rule a lot. Every day, in fact, by this point, because he could no longer go one full day without checking the LifeFeed profile of Marceline.

It was always the same, this little ritual. He’d tell himself he was just opening the app to engage in some good old-fashioned doomscrolling, or whatever.

But then his thumb would find its way to the search bar, and type out her name.

@Marceline_runs_ was the handle she used these days. She’d added the running bit after they split, and if he knew anything about her psychology, that was deliberate on Marceline’s part: she always liked to construct some external cue or identity shift to mark important changes in her life.

It was a little weird, being one of those changes now. Being in her past. A previous version of Marceline was his girlfriend, and she wanted to make that abundantly clear.

Remi lay sprawled across his unmade bed, the phone held above his face, and scrolled.

It wasn’t that he wanted her back. He needed to be clear with himself about that much. The relationship had ended for reasons that were good and sound. No, this was more like… an annoying habit you pick up, and by the time you realise it’s annoying, you have trouble shaking it. Certainly enough trouble that he found himself staring at her feed every evening, at this point.

Most of it was workout pics, and so it was tonight.

A photo of her in leggings, mid-stretch against a railing somewhere along the canal. He had to admit, the pose made her calves look amazing. A selfie, flushed and grinning, hair plastered to her forehead, captioned with something about how the only person you’re competing with is yesterday’s you.

She really was gorgeous, so at least in the aesthetic department this particularly dysfunctional scrolling was a superficially pleasant experience. Damn, the girl had even started lifting weights, apparently. New goals, she’d written under the gym selfie, with a little flexing-arm emoji.

Remi snorted. New goals, sure. New everything, for sure.

He zoned out a bit for the rest of his compulsive scrolling, until something caught this attention. It was a simple post that said "Might delete this later" next to a googly eyes emoji… and a shortened URL.

For a second, he entertained the notion that perhaps she’d clicked on the wrong spam link, or maybe that he was about to be rickroll’d for clicking it. He knew he shouldn’t really click either way, with the same certainty that he knew one should never believe one’s own rationalisations.

But that certainty hadn’t stopped him before, and would not stop him now.

The link apparently led to another LifeFeed profile, with an odd avatar — two nyloned feet, crossed at the ankle and propped over the armsrest of a sofa. The handle was "@marcie.soles" and the bio was sparse, though he noted it did mention "custom requests welcome".

It took him a moment to understand what he was looking at, because his brain kept trying to make it into something ordinary. But there was no ordinary explanation. The grid was full of feet. Her feet.

Some of the photos showed her bare soles, but there was a lot of variety too. Nylon stockings were much in evidence, as were pics of her washing her feet in bubbly soap. Some photos were very straightforward, others were remarkably pretentious, in terms of mood and lighting.

So weird. Four years together and their sexual life had been purely vanilla. Maybe she still was vanilla and was just doing it for the money, he supposed.

But why the hell would somebody really be willing to pay for foot pics? Sure, in memes that stuff showed up all the time, but he always assumed they were just jokes. Any browser image search would yield tons of foot pics absolutely free of charge, so just… why?

No matter how absurd it may seem to him, the numbers clearly showed that his intuition was incorrect. Each post carried hundreds of likes, sometimes more, and the comments ran long beneath every image. He scrolled through a few of them, out of morbid curiosity. Perhaps he should have expected it, but they displayed what he could only charitably describe as a symphony of simpdom.

The business model was pretty clear, at least. She posted a few freebies here, but the much more numerous galleries of photos and videos were locked behind paywalls.

Good on her, she supposed.

Still. To Remi, this felt profoundly weird. Not just for the general element of people being willing to pay for this stuff, or his surprise at his ex-girlfriend developing this unexpected side gig. It was just…

In all his time with Marceline, he’d never looked at her feet as anything other than a functional part of her body. But here were hordes of people of different genders practically salivating over her feet. Over his ex-girlfriend’s feet.

That was weird.

Even weirder was the string of epithets they were using to address her. "Queen" and "Goddess" and "Mistress" and absurdly over the top fetish stuff like that. One comment referenced her "cruel, tyrannical beauty and mastery of his heart", which really made him roll his eyes.

There had to be something to all this, though, or why would all these people be here, chomping at the bit to part with their money for Marceline’s feet?

So, against the better judgement he’d already abandoned several times tonight, he looked closer.

He studied Marceline’s photos meticulously. It occurred to him, amusingly, that at this rate he was gonna know his ex-girlfriend’s feet better than when they were together. The more he looked at these photos, the more it became apparent that there was a kind of repetition to them, almost like visual storytelling.

In a great many of the photos, her feet were pressed against something, and stretching. Other times the feet were simply crossed at the ankles and propped up on a cushion or a coffee table, toes relaxed, the entire posture suggesting some lazy, aristocratic ease.

Occasionally, the whole of Marceline’s legs would be visible. Beautiful legs. They would be crossed, one leg draped over the other. This way, one foot was firmly pressed to the floor, while the other hung in the air, curving to present a… strangely inviting arc. Like saying, with body language, come closer, and render homage. Pay your dues.

Like she was extending the foot toward someone kneeling just out of frame.

Remi was unsure why the thought entered his head.

He was also unsure about this side to Marceline. She’d always been somewhat unassuming in her behaviour, a little mousy. He guessed the gym workout pics should have told him she was becoming more outspoken, but still. It took brazenness to casually stick your feet up on furniture and ask people to pay in worship. Or to stick them in front of a camera to begin with.

Or to stick them in someone’s face.

By the time he called it in for the night, he felt he had a more intuitive grasp of why people liked this type of content, if nothing else. He wasn’t really into it to be honest, he wasn’t even sure you could really call it sex, but hey, to each their own. And if he had the tiniest suspicion that there was something to this reaction other than being weirded out, he waved it away.

After all, he wasn’t the type of guy to believe his own rationalisations.

With the same… scientific, observational spirit, Remi spent the next few weeks dutifully scrolling both of Marceline’s LifeFeed accounts. Naturally this meant that, in a strange way, she was taking more and more of his free time. She didn’t even know it, but her digital simulacrum was keeping him company almost every evening these days.

Honestly, the first time he found his right hand sneaking into his pants as he stared at Marceline’s feet pics, it felt almost natural. Why not? She was a pretty girl, a girl he used to be very attracted to when they were together. Lots of people rubbed one out thinking about an ex, at least occasionally, that was perfectly normal.

He studiously avoided reflecting on the fact that he wasn’t jerking off to her workout pics.

But there was no denying that the thoughts entering his mind were new.

His lips, which had once kissed hers, and brought her so much pleasure… now demoted to only kissing her feet. Brought low, close to the ground, where he’d be unable to even look her in the eye. It’s not like Marceline was his girlfriend anymore, right? So of course such an encounter would happen on her terms, and would involve no boyfriend privileges…

His hands, which he’d used so many times to get her off or pin her down, would have to learn how to knead the stress out of her feet in dutiful massages.

His cock, which once fucked her into submission, now literally bowing down as her foot pressed upon it, loser and victor.

The way she would smile down at him while placing one foot gently over his throat, then crossing her legs, then resting an elbow over her knee and her chin over her hand: an image of contemplative relaxation as she surveyed her new conquest, and evaluated how far he’d fallen.

She’d look so beautiful, from down there. So impossibly regal and out of reach. So cruel, as she told him the words, that he dreaded and yearned for at the same time…

Render homage. Pay your dues.

Remi climaxed in that very moment, imagining those words. He groaned and spasmed as he wrung out every bit of cum his body had to give, his wordless tribute to the ex-girlfriend who didn’t even know he was making it.

Post-nut clarity made him swear this was a one-off, and that he would never do it again.

But the next night, he found that even her public feed wasn’t enough. By this point, he was all caught up with her content, and she only posted more free stuff once every few days. And so, regretfully and hesitantly…

He found himself buying a set of pictures.

The checkout process felt… dirty, for lack of a better term. He was doing something embarrassing, even if no one could see. Remi had a secondary SpeedyPay that he was absolutely certain Marceline had never known about, so at least that mortal embarrassment could be avoided. One last click: the set was his.

It was quite pricy, but that didn’t stop him.

The link he received led to a private folder: several images and short videos. He found himself salivating.

The feet were, of course, the stars of the set. Marceline had a knack for presentation. Some of the shots were simple: her bare soles, toes splayed and clean, the camera so close you could almost feel like you were about to plant an unassuming kiss.

Other images were more elaborate. Marceline’s feet in glossy nylons, resting luxuriantly atop a footstool. In a video, she was propped on a chair with her feet up on the table, toes wiggling through the nylon, in playful anticipation.

Some photos had clearly been taken after one of Marceline’s gruelling gym sessions. He imagined the smell. He couldn’t help himself. The captions referenced it openly: "Bet you’d love to be down here, nose pressed into my soles before I shower," or "Worship means taking whatever I give you, sweat and all." Some of these post-workout photos showed her feet in old socks, no doubt drenched in sweat. Other times, the foot was jammed directly at the camera, as if she’d just kicked someone down and now held them there, beneath her power.

Every post was a dare. She was speaking to her fans, obviously, but sometimes it felt like she was speaking directly to him.

There was a recurring motif to the sets. Her feet in the bath, covered in foamy white bubbles. Sometimes she’d rest her heel on the edge of the tub, all five toes pointed straight at the camera, accompanied by the caption: "Kiss the tips. Pay your dues."

Those words made him squirm like a worm each time.

Render homage. Pay your dues.

Remi dutifully jerked his brains off to all of them. It was supposed to be weird, and it was, but also so utterly compelling that there was nothing in his life that could look away from it.

Then, toward the end of one of the newer sets, something made him pause.

A man’s face, half-visible, pressed directly beneath Marceline’s sole.

There were multiple shots: one with the sole grinding into his cheek, another with the toes wedged into his mouth. There was a trampling video in which Marceline stomped him repeatedly into the ground with her boots, and another photo where Marceline had one foot royally perched on his forehead while she painted her toenails a deep red.

He could not see the man’s face, not really. The angles were careful, to protect his privacy. Who was this person? New boyfriend? Some friend of hers?

He told himself it didn’t really matter. Marceline was no longer in his life, and could make whatever liaisons she deemed appropriate, sexual or otherwise. He believed this. But it didn’t change how it made him feel.

Remi was torn between wanting to close the phone right away and never check again… and wanting to see everything. There was a thrill there, undeniable, even as it made him so uncomfortable. It was – and he despised himself for this – hot as hell.

He stared at those pictures for a long, long time. When he finally allowed his right hand to creep back into his pants, he barely lasted five minutes before he came so hard his body arched off the bed. It felt so good to imagine Marceline, enthroned and casual, utterly unmoved by the man grovelling beneath her, smug in her superiority.

That was what pushed him to admit, reluctantly, that this was becoming a compulsion.

He tried to negotiate with himself, to at least not spend any more money, but it was fruitless. That was the thing about addictions: addicts don’t get to decide, once the hooks are in.

And there was no doubt this was an addiction: as the days turned into weeks, Remi had to admit that he’d become Marceline’s regular customer. Her feet were all he could think about. It was affecting his ability to work, and to focus on other pastimes when he was free. No matter what he was doing, he just couldn’t wait to lie back in bed, pull up her sets, and goon like a desperate addict.

There was a perverse weakness to it, as if this act of self-abasement – of getting rock hard and stroking himself raw to pictures of Marceline’s feet, day after day – was his own private, shameful admission that Marceline had won some kind of… argument between them. Even if no argument had ever taken place, when they broke up. An admission that… he needed her more, and that she had power over him.

That she was his better.

It was so fucking obvious: she was a goddess, and all the rest were grovelling worms, squirming under her thumb. And he was irrevocably among them now, one more anonymous loser in a sea of unworthy simps, paying for the right to submit to her. He both resented and adored her for it.

It got to a point where the routines of his life fell away, replaced with the empty-headed, single-minded anticipation of her next drop. The old him faded, outperformed, stomped into irrelevance beneath the heel of the new obsession.

He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d orgasmed to anything else that wasn’t Marceline’s feet, or sneakers, or sandals, or boots.

If he was honest, he was drawn to the humiliation the most. This disempowering idea of being pinned, degraded, demoted and dominated, not just by any woman, but by Marceline. By his ex-girlfriend, the one who had left him behind, who had moved on, reinvented herself, and left him here to grovel at her feet in digital exile.

She didn’t even know how much power she held over him. All she’d had to do to literally disarticulate his self-conception and get him to pay money to her was post feet online. No direct interaction necessary. His gooner brain had done the rest, and doomed him in the process.

That was a word he kept thinking about.

Doom.

It felt a little over-dramatic. Sure, his social life was suffering from his new addiction, but it wasn’t like it was destroying his life. He was a functional adult. He paid the bills and he kept his home clean. He hadn’t sought a date in a while perhaps, or played videogames, but… hobbies are interchargeable like that, so surely it was fine.

But it still felt… strangely appealing to consider this his impending doom. He guessed it was… part of the totalising fantasy. A place where to find this, this catharsis that would allow you to shed the soul-grinding reality of adult life.

A flight of fancy where you didn’t have to be an office drone trying to make ends meet until the day you die, but where you could be something profound, even if defeated. A fantasy where your ex-girlfriend wouldn’t just be a person you used to know and has now become a stranger, but someone who has proven a point and bested you in a contest of wills.

Was it really so surprising, then, that the doom was preferable to what grim daily reality had to offer?

A moment came, however, when the word doom started feeling all too real to Remi.

One evening, just before pulling out his cock for his daily tribute to Marceline, he opened the app to find out that he’d received a DM.

From Marceline.

Worse. From her second account.

He stared at the notification for a long, long time, breathing irregularly. This was impossible. He’d always used his secondary SpeedyPay account, never left a comment of his own, there was just no way that Marceline knew he was her customer.

And yet clearly she knew, right? If she’d messaged him with her main account, he could guess the event was unrelated to his new obsession, but no. This was a message from @marcie.soles.

He considered not opening it, and dropping the whole thing then and there.

But only for a moment.

With trembling fingers, he found himself opening the message, and beginning to read.

Hello, Remi. Thanks for all the purchases. Didn’t take you for such a whale. Good to know…

So. I think it’s time you and I had a chat. :)

TO BE CONTINUED…