Curiosity Got Tom Catt

The girl at the FlyAway Airlines check-in desk at Heathrow Airport stared at Tom Catt with a stern eye. The name tag on her red-and-white liveried uniform jacket informed Tom her name was Larissa.

"Yes, yes, I know," Tom said placatingly with a smile. "Sorry, I'm all last-minute. But my train from Guildford was delayed for thirty minutes by a points failure."

Tom was a good-looking twenty-five-year-old guy, and his warm smile usually cut him some slack with most women. But not this time.

"Mr. Catt? I thought you were a no-show. I was about to close up and go for my breakfast break," the attractive blue-eyed blonde told Tom. "Your arrival at the check-in desk needs to be more timely, Mr. Catt," chided Larissa. "You are not last-minute. For the seven-thirty departure, you should report no later than seven o'clock - and it is now five minutes past that time. As a favour to a lady passenger, I upgraded her Economy Class aisle seat ticket with your Business Class window seat." Larissa inclined her blonde head at Tom's executive briefcase. "Is it just hand luggage then, Mr. Catt?" asked Larissa, seemingly smirking at Tom's name.

Tom had to hold back a retort. Things didn't usually go well for anyone who talked down to him - and especially who made fun of his name. But this was not the time. Still, Tom couldn't keep a slight edge to his voice. "Yes, just my briefcase," Tom said. "As you see from my ticket, I am booked on a return flight from Warsaw this afternoon."

What Larissa tartly said next took Tom aback. "Yes - and as you see from the time, Mr. Catt, I would be completely within my rights to cancel your return ticket to Warsaw without a refund."

Tom was on his way to Warsaw, Poland, entrusted by his chairman to close a deal and seal a contract that was not only crucial to the prosperity but possibly the very survival of his plastics company. Tom had to be on that flight. Competition in the plastics innovations industry was cutthroat, but Tom had a jump on the opposition - including the fierce rivalry in his firm. Simon, a rookie executive, was showing a lot of early promise - but the chairman had given Tom the nod to go to Warsaw. Celebrations for a hefty bonus would surely be in order tonight - Friday.

"Miss... Larissa - can I call you Larissa? I am very, very sorry. Okay? And I promise to do my utmost to be early for my FlyAway check-ins in future. I'll get the earlier train from Guildford, okay? So, can I go now?"

"Yes, you can go now. And yes, you can call me Larissa - why not?" Larissa pulled down the security shutters of the FlyAway Airlines check-in desk and exited the self-locking door. "Here is your boarding card for your Economy Class seat. Go to Gate Two. And you had better run, Mr. Catt!"

Wow! thought Tom. This pushy Larissa could use a couple of lessons in customer relations. Tom would love to employ her as his 'secretary' - keep her run-off-her-feet busy serving refreshments to himself and the office staff and doing the real secretaries' personal, non-work related errands.

A movement below caught Tom's eye. Larissa had removed her right foot from her red three-inch heel uniform shoe and was pressing her flesh-coloured nyloned toes inside the heel, causing the toe of her shoe to point upward. Larissa's blue eyes bored blatantly into Tom's as she did so.

"Um... sore feet, Larissa? I don't know how you can have sore feet, sitting comfortably at your check-in desk."

"No, not sore feet, Mr. Catt. But I have to air them out. Mr. Catt, you would be surprised. I am not in the same league as the air hostesses - especially not those who do long-haul. But us, Check-In girls, in our uniform pumps and nylons, our feet get hot and sweaty - and stinky. And like the hosties, we do love to massage them."

Tom noticed Larissa's odd, seemingly clumsy phrasing. Massage her feet, as opposed to having them massaged. Still, no matter - and what did it matter?

"Well, thank you, Larissa. I'll be off then."

"Bear in mind my warning, Mr. Catt. You must report to the FlyAway check-in desk earlier in future. I may not be so lenient with you the next time."

Holy hell! This Larissa girl is a piece of work, thought Tom. Haughty and imperious. How old was she - about twenty? Tom watched as Larissa reinserted her right foot into her red three-inch heel uniform pump and removed her left foot to similarly 'air out' that flesh-coloured nyloned foot.

Tom Catt resolved to teach this Larissa girl a few manners. Here she was, not only lecturing him but now boldly facing him to blatantly 'air out' her 'hot and sweaty - and stinky' feet! It would be well worth it to him to pay her well over the odds to employ her as his 'secretary' - even if it meant part-paying her salary himself! Tom would approach Larissa with his offer when he returned from Warsaw if she was still on duty or return next week if she was not. And if Larissa said no, he would improve his offer.

"Didn't you hear me, Mr. Catt? I told you to run! I've told you - I could cancel your return ticket to Warsaw without a refund!"

Tom Catt was a rising star in his business sector, an up-and-coming young executive at his firm, Premier Plastics. Tom's peers, his bosses - even the company chairman - said he would go far. Rival firms had tried to headhunt him. Tom was respected and looked up to by everyone. Tom was a brilliant problem solver - he could think on his feet.

Tom didn't have time to get into it now - but he wanted to have the last word. Boarding card in hand, Tom turned on his heel and said over his shoulder, "Larissa, maybe you could relax? Let your hair down a bit?"

***

Tom Catt was hurrying to Gate 2 for the 0730 flight to Warsaw when he heard faint, muffled "Mmmm... mmmm... mmmm!" sounds from a corridor he was passing.

Deserted at present by air passengers but himself, surely these sounds would otherwise be overlaid - effectively masked - by the background noise in this generally mad-busy access area to the boarding gates.

Tom had no time to investigate the seemingly despairing, appealing, muffled utterings - but his curiosity was piqued.

Tom saw it was an air services corridor. Over the entrance to the service corridor were a main sign and several other signs. The large one depicted four air hostesses pulling their dolly trolleys behind them. The other signs signalled the way to the airline crew rooms, the airport hotels, the staff car parks, car hire, the taxi rank, and the bus and rail stations.

As if sensing Tom's presence at the entrance to the corridor, the muffled, urgent utterings broke out again and with more intensity. "Mmmm... mmmm... mmmm!"

Tom had no time to spare for this - but it would only take a minute.

Tom decided to investigate - he stepped into the air services corridor.

Tom soon discovered the sources of the muffled utterings. It was two men. At the midway point of the air services corridor, on both sides at just above floor level, the two men looked imploringly up at Tom from head-size openings in the wall, from where the airbricks should be. Tom guessed one of the guys was in his twenties and the other in his thirties. On either side of their head, recessed into the wall, were two halogen lights, the four beams angled to illuminate their faces. Tom looked from one man to the other, perplexed. Tom looked more closely at the two men's drawn, unshaved faces and saw the horrible dark bags under their eyes as if from a chronic lack of sleep. "Mmmm... mmmm... mmmm!" the two men appealed to Tom urgently.

Tom got to his haunches to speak to one of the men, the guy on the left, the one in his twenties. "What's the matter? What are you doing there? Are you stuck? And why can't you talk?"

Even more urgently than before, the two men erupted from closed lips, "Mmmm... mmmm... mmmm!" The man facing Tom looked over Tom's shoulder warningly. Tom then felt a knock on the back of his head and saw stars, and then everything went black.

***

When Tom came to, he found himself wedged fast, standing up and looking from his just above floor level, head-size opening in the wall across the smooth concrete passageway at the guy in his thirties directly opposite. The guy looked as if he had not slept for days. The four angled light beams cast from the halogens recessed into the wall, two on either side of his head, accentuated the hideous dark bags under his eyes. The bleary-eyed guy looked woefully at Tom with a 'Yes, they got you too' look.

Tom incredulously realised that he was a replacement! A replacement for the other guy - the guy in his twenties he had questioned before everything went black. What in hell's name was going on here? More importantly, he was missing his flight to Warsaw!

Tom heard footsteps come click-clacking towards him in the air services corridor. A pair of red three-inch heel pumps halted directly in front of his face. Tom looked up to see Larissa looking down at him with an expression that said she was the cat that got the cream.

"Hello again, Mr. Catt. Or can I call you Tom? Ha ha! Curiosity got the better of you then, Mr. Catt? Well, I'm glad. Because, as you suggested, I've come to relax and let my hair down a bit."

"Mmmm... mmmm... mmmm!" Tom mumbled through his inexplicably immovable lips.

"Superglue, Mr. Catt. Just superglue. To seal your lips for just as long as we need them sealed. But don't worry, we can dissolve it if need be. The adhesive will biodegrade and dissolve without leaving a trace a little after seventy-two hours. And, before we release you after those seventy-two hours with us and put you on a bus to Guildford, we will administer a memory-wiping drug that will brain-fog you first, then leave you with no recollection of your experiences during this coming seventy-two-hour period. So that your lips remain sealed, as it were. After all, we don't want our foot slaves running to the authorities, do we? And, if the cops come here enquiring after you, our records will indicate that you were a no-show - and I have cancelled your return ticket to Warsaw without a refund accordingly. The cops won't waste their time looking into your inexplicable disappearance too closely. Yes, they would find that you passed through Passport Control, but they would reasonably assume that something must have cropped up at the last minute to cause you to change your plans to fly to Warsaw. They will then inevitably conclude that the light tap I gave to your head with our lead-weighted leather cosh was a bump you sustained after you must have tripped and fallen somewhere and gone on a dazed, seventy-two-hour walkabout with your phone turned off. When you finally reappear, your befuddled state of mind, after three days with no proper rest, will support the investigators' supposition about your apparent episode of amnesia. That has been our experience. After all, people go missing all the time and, more often than not, show up after a few days. Believe me, Mr. Catt, our short-term memory-obliterating drug is one hundred per cent reliable and traceless. We have an effective, tried and tested system. A foolproof system - for the nosy fools like you who fall into our trap. The one slight imperfection to our temporary amnesia drug is a side-effect that leaves our released victims feeling hangover-like woozy - you won't feel like doing anything much for a few days."

Tom was frantic - his mind reeling. What kind of insanity was this? He was missing his flight to Warsaw! Instead of closing a vital deal and earning a big bonus, he had been kidnapped and imprisoned for seventy-two hours and for what - to be a foot slave? The company chairman would be pulling his hair out with worry. 'Where was Tom? What was he doing? Why was he not in Warsaw? And why did he not answer his damned phone?' Unobtainable to his employers for seventy-two hours would mean his ruination. There was no other word for it. It would mean losing his well-paid job, giving up his swanky bachelor pad, and returning his company-provided Mercedes to the dealer - and his professional name would be mud. And he could forget about employing Larissa as his 'secretary' to bring her down off her high horse - he was to be her foot slave! Yes - Tom had now successfully interpreted Larissa's seemingly clumsy phrasing.

"Ah... yes, Mr. Catt - I see that the penny has dropped. You know now that I have come to you to massage my feet - on your face."

Larissa then turned her back on Tom, and despite his unthinkable predicament, Tom was a leg-man, so he could not help but admire Larissa's attractive legs, ogle her well-toned thighs and shapely calves below the white-trimmed hem of her FlyAway Airlines uniform red, tight-fitting short skirt. But then Larissa eased her left flesh-coloured nyloned foot from her red three-inch heel uniform pump, the sole of her foot a mere inch from Tom's just above floor-level face. Tom tried to avert his face - but he couldn't. The head-size opening in the wall allowed him only a little sideways movement. Entrapped and immobile, his face was fixed, in position at near floor level. Tom could only stare in dreadful anticipation at the inch-away sole of Larissa's left foot, taking in every detail and noticing with distaste that the flesh-coloured nylon was sweat-darkened at the heel, the ball of the foot, and under the toes. Tom had to concede, also, that Larissa had shapely feet, but it was a concession and a compliment that he sorely wished he did not have to make. Tom watched as Larissa repeatedly scrunched her toes. Tom realised that Larissa was taunting him - gloating! Pre-face-foot-massage goading him! Tom had a disquieting insight that Larissa had performed her self-satisfied toe-scrunching give-them-the-bad-news induction many times before - it was her little ritual. With a jolt of helpless outrage, Tom realised that his dreadful anticipation was Larissa's sweet anticipation.

"Mr. Catt, you have just been cheek-slapped-revived from your little nap. And, while still dazed, made to drink sufficient water to sustain you through the coming period before your installation for foot service. After your first two hours of foot service, you can go to the basement toilet under check-in girl supervision, and then your brief rest breaks will be at ten-hour intervals. By tomorrow night, you will have little or no need to go, but you will be grateful to stretch your legs for a minute - a momentary but most welcome reprieve from the close confines of your captivity. Yes, we must keep you as silent as possible because you will be desperate to escape. But, in your selfish desperation to escape, your distant and barely heard sealed-lips mumblings would only lure any such nosy-parker would-be rescuers as yourself to share in the same seventy-two-hour foot service fate. And by denying you food and water and depriving you of sleep, we will soon drain your energy and weaken your resolve to resist your enforced foot service. In short, Mr. Catt, we will break your spirit to gain your unresisting obedience - and we will thoroughly enjoy doing so!"

Larissa then cupped the flesh-coloured nyloned toes of her left foot under Tom's nose - and Tom was surprised! The FlyAway Airlines check-in girl, Larissa, had not exaggerated. Larissa's uniform-pump-enclosed nyloned feet did get 'hot and sweaty - and stinky'!

"Mmmm... mmmm... mmmm!" mumbled Tom through his superglue-sealed lips - so Larissa toe-cupped Tom's nose and planted her heel more firmly on his forehead to still his albeit weak and ineffectual efforts of evasion.

"You will meet some of the other check-in girls from FlyAway and of most other airlines soon, Mr. Catt. That is, the check-in girls who love to massage their feet - after making you sniff them first, of course - and I will visit you as often as possible to massage my feet during your sleep-deprived seventy-two hours of foot service."

"Mmmm... mmmm... mmmm!" mumbled Tom, finding it impossible to breathe through his mouth but only through his nose and inhaling the pungent, heady scent from under and between Larissa's nyloned toes.

"It was unfortunate for you, Mr. Catt, that you happened by our special corridor when you did - when it was quiet. And, though it is quiet in this air services corridor now, it is never quiet for long. London Heathrow is one of the busiest airports in the world and has five terminals. As you will see during the seventy-two hours of your foot service enslavement, this corridor is usually busy with transient female aircrew foot traffic - short-haul and long-haul - using the hub of integrated underground walkways and Travelators to channel in from all five terminals. Ever-busy, with the hosties who especially choose this dedicated female-only passageway to an exit. You will be surprised at how many air hostesses - especially those who have arrived from long-haul flights - will stop by for a few moments to massage their tired and achy feet on your conveniently positioned floor-level face in grateful, blissful relief. And, many of them, not because they are footsore and desperate for a soothing facial footrub - but just because they can! Mr. Catt, you would be surprised to learn how many major airports worldwide have such female-dedicated foot slave-installed passageways. But, for obvious reasons, the air hostesses and the check-in girls keep their foot slave-facilitated passageways a closely guarded secret."

What kind of Down-the-rabbit-hole madness was this? Tom thought. Special corridor? Foot service enslavement?

Larissa reinserted her left foot into her red three-inch heel uniform pump - but she did not relieve Tom for long. Larissa immediately removed her right foot and similarly rested her nyloned sole on Tom's helpless face.

"Mmmm... mmmm... mmmm!" mumbled Tom from his hermetically sealed lips at this continued olfactory onslaught. Again, Tom feebly but stubbornly tried to resist - and again, Larissa put her foot down. Larissa toe-cupped Tom's nose and planted her heel on his forehead more firmly to prevent Tom's head's albeit pathetically ineffectual up-and-down movement in his bid to evade Larissa's renewed under-the-toes torment.

"Mr. Catt, you should save your energy. Don't you see it is futile to resist? And you will soon learn. Because, Mr. Catt, see what happens when you try to resist and deny an air hostess or a check-in girl her little pleasure."

Larissa reached to the dial set into the wall and turned it clockwise. The beams of the four angled halogen lights recessed into the wall, two on either side of his head, intensified to a searchlight brightness that assaulted his eyes with their searing whiteness and began to induce a migraine-like headache. Tom shut his eyes tight, but it was no use - the terrible light lanced right through his eyelids. Larissa gave it thirty seconds or so and then turned the dial back to reduce the hellish glare to the previous, just about tolerable, level. "See, Mr. Catt? Footlights!"

Tom blinked as his eyes fought to readjust. What the hell?!

"So, you see, Mr. Catt? Just how easy it is to subdue our seventy-two-hour foot slaves? We can use the footlights - or an air hostess or a check-in girl might pinch her recalcitrant foot slave's nose closed with her toes to stop him breathing until he submits and behaves." Larissa's timing was perfect: she waited until she felt that Tom had fully exhaled and was about to inhale - and pinched his nose closed with her big toe and second toe for thirty long, panic-inducing seconds to demonstrate her point. Tom then gasped for breath, unavoidably sniffing in deep lungfuls of Larissa's pungent under-the-toes foot scent, causing his head to swim madly.

"And unfortunately for you, Mr. Catt, you could not have picked a busier time to serve us: mid-summer. And you have chosen the peak period for long-haul arrivals: Friday morning to Monday morning. And because of inevitable delayed weekend arrivals, that's twenty-four hours a day. An all but constant stream of transient female aircrew foot traffic, all of them choosing this female-dedicated foot slave-facilitated air services corridor to access their airport hotel, a staff car park, a taxi rank, car hire, or the bus or rail station. In the coming two hours alone - your settling-in period, to get your head around the reality of your seventy-two-hour situation - you will be used and abused by dozens of just-landed air hostesses. Now, Mr. Catt, sniff nice and deeply under my toes - or you will get the footlights!"