Remi's thumb hovered over the screen as his eyes raced through the words a second time, and then a third, as if rereading might change what was there. It didn’t.

A reply bubble appeared before he could even think of what to type back.

Don’t bother denying it btw. I checked the receipts. I know it’s you.

His mouth had gone dry. He swallowed, set the phone face-down on his chest, but his willpower lasted mere seconds before he picked it up again. The little three dots showed that she was typing another message.

Honestly Remi. Foot pics? You? lol

Never would have guessed you’d be paying actual money to look at my feet. Multiple sets, too! Shame I never discovered this side of you when we were still together.

Spineless little foot addict. Who knew.

He typed something, deleted it, and tried again, but his ability to form coherent arguments was deserting him. It’s not like that, he wrote, and then stared at the words for a long time before sending them. They looked pitiful even before he hit the button. He hit it anyway.

Lmao. Sure it isn’t.

Don’t insult my intelligence Remi. I have your purchase history.

You jerk off to my feet don’t you

His thumbs froze. The phone felt slick in his hands. He could feel his pulse in his throat and a weakness in his limbs, and the bedroom ceiling had started to tilt a little, the way it did sometimes when he stood up too fast.

Don’t lie. I can see how often you log in.

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t bring himself to. The cursor blinked at him from the empty text field.

That’s what I thought.

God. It really is a shame you know. If I’d known you had this little submissive streak when we were still together we could’ve had so much more fun. You’d have been on your knees so fast for me.

He read the line over and over until the words started to blur together in his eyes, and the vertigo got even worse. Never in his life had he experienced such a pure, uncontrollable spike of adrenaline. He shifted onto his side, then onto his back again, unable to stay still from the sheer waterfall of chemical reactions popping off like fireworks in his head. None of this was real. Or it was, but not in the way she was framing it. He wasn’t — he didn’t have a submissive streak, he was just curious, he was working through some weird residual thing about the breakup, that was all. Plenty of guys did this. It didn’t mean anything.

That was what he told himself. He told himself this even as his free hand had drifted, almost without his permission, to rest against his stomach, and even as his cock had started to stir at the words on your knees so fast for me.

Anyway. Listen.

If you’re going to be one of my whales you need to start acting like a proper one. Pics are entry level Remi. The real ones buy more.

I have a pair of old sandals. Black, strappy, you’d probably recognise them actually. I was going to put them up for one of my regulars but you know what, I think they should go to you instead.

A price followed. It was, frankly, absurd. More than he’d spent on any single set, and insultingly, probably a higher price than the original selling tag of the damn pair. He stared at the number.

Think about it. Or don’t, honestly I don’t care that much. Night Remi.

And just like that, the little green dot beside her name vanished.

He stayed where he was for a long time, the phone propped on his chest, the screen going dark and then coming back to life every time he tapped it to make sure she hadn’t written again. She hadn’t. Remi spent some time staring at nothing in particular, struggling with his pride and his common sense… but eventually, he found himself visiting her store, and to his mortifying humiliation, he was doing so one-handed.

Turned out, he did recognise the sandals, just as she’d guessed. She’d used them extensively one summer during their holidays. He remembered a restaurant patio by the river, on a very hot day. The photo now showed the sandals placed atop a wooden floor, their insole clearly darkened from all the female foot sweat accumulated over hours of walking in such sandals in the heat of summer. Hours spent breaking them in until they conformed to the shape and comfort of Marceline’s feet. Hours spent irreparably drenching them in her sweat, before they were inevitably tossed away, discarded to some lowly supplicant. It was… such a beautiful metaphor. It was making him teeter on the edge of orgasm as his free hand edged closer and closer to pressing BUY NOW.

He imagined what Marceline might want of him in such a situation. She would not want him to cum before… well…

Render homage. Pay your dues.

He bought Marceline’s used sandals, while simultaneously experiencing the most soul-rending, pride-ending, thought-destroying orgasm he’d ever had in his pathetic, miserable life.

As the orgasm subsided, though, post-nut clarity did not creep in. Instead, he realised he was really screwed, because all his brain was telling him was that he wanted more…

***

Over the coming days, as he awaited the arrival of his new package, Remi was barely able to focus on anything else. He was completely absent-minded at work, and had virtually no time for any of his mates or hobbies. That was really worrying, but he didn’t care. His heart pounded as he anticipated the delivery with bated breath. All he could think about was the idea of shoving his face against the insole and breathing his ex-girlfriend’s sweat in – while paying for the privilege.

What did that say about him? What did it say about her?

He recognised, on some level, that the sandals had a semiotic power to them, even more so than they would have had for any other simp buying them from Marceline. Her other fans had no personal connection to her, after all, they were just there for the fetish. Remi had never been one such fetishist though, and he’d bought the sandals because Marceline found him out and told him to.

It was… an admission that she had won the breakup. That somehow, she really was superior to him, in a way that was impossible to quantify or define.

Clearly, she saw it that way too, because over the next few days, she kept dropping the occasional message in his inbox. None of them kind.

Honestly Remi I’m impressed. I half thought you’d chicken out. Guess I really did underestimate how bad you have it huh

How could he deny that, when in the privacy of his own mind, he’d already labelled his activities as a silent tribute to Marceline?

Hope you’ve got plans for them btw. Would be a shame if my whale just put them in a drawer.

He considered politely asking her to stop. It was getting hard enough to function as it was. But if he was being realistic, he didn’t have the willpower to do something like that. If he had, he wouldn’t have ended up in this situation to begin with.

Naturally, given his lack of pushback, the messages kept on coming.

Bet you check your tracking page like twenty times a day lol

You probably do don’t you

Was he really that transparent? That easy to read?

Imagine if our old mutuals could see this. Remi the simp. Paying his ex for her used shoes.

He could feel her words searing themselves into his brain. Somehow, he knew they were… doing something to his neurochemistry. That he would never be able to forget them… especially not while being horny.

Aw. Nothing to say? Cat got your tongue or are you just too busy getting yourself worked up

Be honest Remi when’s the last time you got hard for something that wasn’t me

The honest answer was that he couldn’t remember. But if he gave her that victory… well, that didn’t bear thinking about.

Out for delivery today btw. Try not to embarrass yourself in front of the poor postman.

When he did get the package, Remi felt more excited than he’d been in so long. It was funny to think he’d barely spared a second glance to these sandals when Marceline had them on, but now… now…

He pressed his face against the insole, and breathed her in.

The psychological effect was nothing short of nullifying.

He knew smells were a powerful trigger of memories, but this was something else. Yes, this was the smell of Marceline’s sweat, and it did potently remind him of her, but it was also a particular smell that he’d never experienced first-hand, much less eroticised to such an unhealthy degree. It was the smell of her athletic body, sweating into a pair of sandals until they were imbued with the presence of her feet. And of course, it was the smell of her victory over him.

Before he knew what he was doing, he started rubbing every inch of his face against the insole of the sandals, coating his skin and facial hair in the smell of Marceline’s foot sweat… an appropriate admission of the state of things between them. He was already rock-hard, and soon, he just abandoned all pretense of pride and lay down on the ground, cock in hand, pressing one of the sandals into his face or against his throat to pretend that Marceline was standing triumphant over him, proud and smug in her victory pose. He started making out with the sandals, then, licking and lapping and sucking, trying to coax every drop of her sweat out of them with nothing but the sheer intensity of his devotion.

It took him mere minutes to cum.

The refractory period should have kicked in, then, but the addictive power of this humiliation was just too much, he wanted more. The friction was uncomfortable, but he just had to go again, and his fate was sealed when he told himself that the physical discomfort was just another little tax Marceline got to extract from him without even being in the same room.

The second orgasm took longer, and was somehow more devastating for it. By the time he came, his thighs were shaking and his cock was tender enough that the last few strokes made him hiss through his teeth.

He gave himself longer breaks after that… but it didn’t change the basic reality: he was spending his evening gooning to Marceline’s sandals.

He pulled up her feed again, somewhere around the second hour, because the sandals weren’t enough on their own — he needed her face too, that smug little half-smile in the selfies, the captions, the way she addressed her followers like a queen tossing scraps.

He needed her.

When at last he’d gooned his brains out to the fullest possible extent, he didn’t have the strength to get up. He rolled onto his side, sandals cradled to his chest, and started absent-mindedly scrolling on his phone.

There was something wrong with him. He could admit that much now, at least, even if he doubted he had the willpower to do anything about that.

It seemed to have been siphoned out of his cock along with his cum.

While he recovered, Marceline sent him a few messages. He supposed he should count his blessings that she was doing so now. If she had messaged him while he was gooning, there was no guessing what he would have told her… what he would have agreed to, if pushed. That didn’t entirely banish his sense of foreboding, though.

Got them did you

He stared at the words, seriously contemplating whether he should just ghost her forever. Instead, he typed yes and hit send before he could think himself out of it.

The reply came almost instantly.

Good boy

Ohh, the tug that made him feel, an invisible leash being yanked. Two words from her, and his cock, spent and softening, twitched as if it had been called by name.

Sniffed them yet?

He typed yes.

Did you cum

A longer pause this time, on his end. To admit to his depravity would be another surrender, another piece of himself being shaved off and handed over to the girl who broke up with him. But there was, by now, a kind of momentum to all of this, and he was not going to be the one to break it.
Once again, he typed yes.

There was a long silence after that. Long enough that he started to worry he’d weirded her out, or that this had only ever been a passing entertainment for her and now she was done. He found that the prospect of her being done was much more frightening than the prospect of her continuing.

Then, finally, she responded:

Pathetic. In that case, I have something new for you to buy. You’re gonna be a good boy and purchase the item I’m about to send you, won’t you?

As he readied himself to type yes for a third time, Remi found himself thinking of the literary trope known as the rule of three. Was there a special significance to this third acquiescence? Was he crossing a threshold that he could no longer walk back from? Unfortunately, he believed he was.

He could feel the slow, inexorable approach of his doom… and knew that he was seeking it.

TO BE CONTINUED…