In the House of Spite Ch. 02

Mr. B came home soon. She saw him using his toes to force his shoes off. The dogs were too busy playing in the backyard to greet him.

The man's well shaped lips had transformed into a grimace. His teeth were almost feral.

Her brow wrinkling, Pearl took out her earbuds, tucked them in with her phone, and asked Mr. B what was wrong, but he didn't answer. He didn't even look at her. He was too busy looking down.

Both of his white socks had large spots of blood.

Alarm and something close to frenzy popped in her heart. She cried out, "Oh my god!" She ran up to him. Despite her smaller size, her feet pounded quite loudly. She grabbed the man's wrist, and she tugged. "Sit down!" She looked to the archway to the living room. "Please! Pleeeeeease!!"

"Huh? What are you doing?"

Time for the big guns. The last time Pearl had used them was back when she was a teenager and wanted wifi access. Daddy had difficulty resisting the big guns. Mama too.

Pearl gazed up at Mr. B's now bewildered face. She let her lower lip stick out in a childish pout. Melodramatic and ridiculous, Pearl made a big sniffing noise and widened her dark blue eyes. Her voice turned weak and distressed as she puled, "You're hurt. I don't like it." She shook her head. "I don't like it at all."

His face ... softened, eyelids lowering, cheeks rising with a little smile. His voice was mellow. "I'm fine. Don't worry about it."

Again, she shook her head, but she did it much more firmly. "Sit down. I'll take care of you."

Her hand slid down his wrist. She threaded her fingers with his.

He walked with her.

She could feel his fingers bending, tapping her knuckles.

Mr. Booker sat down on the couch, and Pearl knelt on the carpet, right at his feet. She rolled his pants up and peeled his socks away.

"Wahhhhhhhhh ...?!" Pearl put her had over her mouth.

Blisters that had been aggravated. Harsh scrapes. Despite being free, the toes looked cramped. Several nails had bruising. There were some calluses but they might have been there for a long time. Pearl had calluses on her feet too, mostly because she usually forgot to deal with it whenever the opportunity came. She was surprised that Mr. Booker didn't have bunions or corns.

A palm one of his insteps, Pearl made a puppy-like whine and tried not to weep. "What in the world happened?"

The man made a coarse sound in his chest and throat, definitely some kind of growl. His toes wiggled. "I guess I need to break my shoes in."

"What?!" Pearl shot up to her feet and ran to the foyer. A brief comparison of the newer shoes against the older ones mixed some fresh anger into her worry.

This man had been wearing shoes that were too small for him.

"Why would you wear those?!" she mewled out as she went off to get supplies. Some rags, a bowl of warm water, a first-aid kit, even a bit of lotion. Mr. Booker must've been in a lot of pain. "On your feet all day," she continued as she put her supplies near the man and knelt back down. "This can't be the first time you've done this." She set the bowl of water under the feet and starting rinsing them off. "You should go online. It'll be easier to find shoes in your size than going to a store."

One of the feet curled. "You don't have to doctor me up, you know." The bottoms were like his palms, a little bit paler than the rest of of his flesh.

"Oh yes Sir I do." She didn't put much of any pauses between the words in that retort. "You're my source of income. If something happened to you, and you couldn't work anymore, how would I live?"

Another odd little growl rose in his breath, but Pearl couldn't imagine that he sounded angry. "I have really good managers, and I'm good at finding more. I'll be fine even if I end up in a wheelchair."

Patting the water off his feet, she sighed and said, "Seeing this really hurts me. I can feel the pain in the back of my throat." She sprayed hydrogen peroxide on all the broken skin. For a second or more, the long toes pressed down on the balls of the feet. Then, when Pearl was certain that the antiseptic had dried out, she applied a some dots of Neosporin. "Actually, I can feel it in my own feet."

Pat, pat, pat!

She blinked, silently trying to calm down her panicking little heart.

He'd just patted the top of her head! Hand to crown. Hot and broad. The hand didn't linger, but Pearl almost felt like it had.

"You're so sweet," Mr. Booker said with so much tenderness that Pearl thought she could hear his smile. "You should be a nurse."

Pearl tried to shrug her feelings away as she put waterproof bandages on the man's feet. Holding his feet really made her hands look so pale and tiny. "No, I can't be a nurse. I don't have time for school. Don't have the patience either."

She pumped a small amount of lotion onto her fingers.

"Hey," the man said, "what's that for?"

"Lubrication," she said little thought.

Her next move was to take one foot with her hands and press into the arch with her thumbs.

She didn't need to look up to know he had an expression of pure bliss on his face. What made her gasp, made her lips part, was the deep, almost thunder-like groan that burst out of him. He could be such a loud and intimidating guy, even when he was as happy as a newborn kitten kneading milk out of its mother's belly.

The startled feeling was swept away as Pearl continued massaging. She pressed and squeezed the balls, rubbed on the heel, even sunk her fingers between the toes. Mr. B purred and moaned all the while. The other foot was soon given the same regimen.

When Pearl was satisfied that the poor, abused feet had been properly indulged, she started packing up all the supplies. "Now you take good care of your feet," she practically chided, sounding like a mother. Then, after she had all the supplies put away, she went to clock out.

It wasn't until she'd taken her time card out that the ball of cold horror and dread finally dropped in her stomach.

She'd just done something rather inappropriate.

She might as well have squeezed his ass!

Pearl flopped onto a dining chair and put her cheek on the cold tabletop. She hid her eyes behind her arm.

A few moments passed in what felt like very uncomfortable silence. Then there was the light slapping of bare feet on the kitchen floor. "Are you okay?"

She whimpered out, "Mm hmm."

"Uh ... you don't look like you're okay."

Blindly, Pearl held out her time card.

He took it. "Be right back."

His feet kept on making fleshy noises as he walked off.

Pearl got to her feet, but when Mr. Booker came back with cash she couldn't scratch up the bravery needed to meet his eyes. The worst part was that he knew something was wrong with her. He even asked, "Why are you acting so weird?"

"I have a headache." She reached up to touch her brow. "Sorry. Thanks for everything."

She made a step, but he actually gripped her little wrist!

Pearl made a surprised noise, a combination of No and ehhhhhhhh. Basically, she said, "Nehhhhhhhhh!" She looked up to his chest, and she would've screamed/asked what in the world he thought he was doing. His next words distracted her.

"I'm supposed to thank you, right?" His right hand was the one that had her. His long fingernails grazed her delicate skin. She used lotion regularly. "Thanks for looking out for me."

"Sure, but," here, her nose heated up and her typically hidden fury floated up to her throat, but she managed to keep it from escaping, "would you mind letting me go?"

"Oh!" His hand jerked away as if he suddenly thought she was poisonous. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean make you feel uncomfortable." He'd seemingly tried to restrain her, after all, but at least he apologized for it.

Still, Pearl didn't think it was a good sign.

Coldly, bitterly, she inhaled through her nose, then exhaled. Her head turned to one side. Her words fell out like a waterfall. "I shouldn't have touched your feet the way I did. I was only trying to make you feel better, but it was wasn't appropriate. So I'm sorry. I won't do that again. And now that I've said that, don't grab me like that again. It's not right."

All of that was the firmest, strictest set of words she'd ever used with him. Civility and light tones were still there. She hadn't yelled, hadn't even cursed, but her mood wasn't very accommodating.

Mr. Booker's broad shoulders slumped. "I ... know. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that, but I'm not trying to be mean. I don't want to be mean." He folded his long arms. "I overreacted. But, but don't beat yourself up over rubbing on my feet. You didn't do anything wrong, or I don't think so."

"Doesn't matter," she nearly hissed out. "I shouldn't have done it, and I won't do it again. Goodbye." Curt, hasty, Pearl left the house. Mr. Booker didn't follow her.

***