Kelly Haunts Me 2 - Chapter 3

“Mom?” 

“Yes honey?” 

“Would you like to come jogging with me today?”

“Me? Oh, hmm, you know I don’t run like you do, Kelly.” 

“I know, but, you’d get to have Mrs. Allen in your sneaker.”

“While I run?”

“Yup.”

“…Kelly… I know she likes it when you do that to her, but I am not sure she would like it if it’s me, you know, running on her.”

“She’s going to love it mom!” No…No I won’t. Kelly is still mad at me she tries to convince her own mother to torture me. If only I knew that she would still be mad after days… I would never have asked anything at all. My Kelly is being all mixed up with her emotions I believe. 

“Are you sure?” Cynthia asks. 

“Come on Mom, let’s get you in shape.” Says Kelly to her skeptical mother. I know where this is going. Kelly removes her shoe and quickly pucks me out of it. She has a grin drawn across her face, one that cannot betray her intentions. She’s punishing me something bad, and she gets some satisfaction out of it. I’ve known her for long enough now to know that maybe, just maybe, something in her life is wrong right now and she’s not telling me. There is something bigger than me asking for the impossible. Something bigger is at work, and I have to find out what it is. Graduation maybe? The milestones of life? Maybe she’s stressed by something. Maybe she needs to vent on me, she’s got some inner frustration that does not come from what I did, but she’s turning it against me for some reason. I will find out and help, this is what I have to do from now on. Investigate, and help. 

She dumps me inside her mother’s sneakers, some adidas running shoes. She grins again, her gaze is almost cruel.

“Kelly, I want to talk to you after this.”

“Sorry, busy.” She answers, and just walks away. Damn it, I’ll have to be more convincing than that next time. What I see next, is Cynthia, wearing shorts and t-shirt, her hair tied in a pony tail, walk towards her shoes. She looks down at me and waves. 

“Hmm, Hi, Mrs. Allen, I hope you have fun. Kelly says you’re going to enjoy my sweaty foot while I run.” She says to me, quickly hovering her white sock foot over the shoe. 

“Cynthia, please, don’t!” I scream. 

“Kelly! I told you she doesn’t want to do this!” says Cynthia, looking at her daughter, who is away from my field of vision. Cynthia heard me, this is good, maybe I have a chance to get out of this. 

Kelly comes into view. “Come on Mom, don’t worry about her. Let’s go.” Kelly says. 

“But Kelly! I…” starts Cynthia. But Kelly cuts her. 

“Mom! Let’s go! She always does that, she likes to feel forced to do stuff, it’s kind of a role play, just crush her already and let’s go!” Kelly is impatient. Cynthia looks at me. She also looks sorry. 

“You guys have odd ways of interacting I guess.” Says Cynthia, suddenly believing what her daughter said. This is not the Kelly I know. She’s lying… She’s creating some masquerade with her mother in order to punish me, in order to make me suffer even more. Something is definitely wrong. I have never seen Kelly do such things to me, or anyone. Sher’s just a sweet young woman, with good intentions, not an ounce of malice usually. Something did bite her, somehow. Cynthia shrugs and smiles down at me. “You like to be forced, Mrs. Allen?” She says down to me. I don’t have time to answer, her foot is already coming towards me. I stumble, fall on my back as she pushed me down the shoe depths. “Well, then, smell my foot while it crushes you!” she adds. 

“That’s the spirit mom!” says Kelly. That’s the only last thing I hear her say. I know they talk a bit more but the overwhelming sounds of Cynthia’s large foot brushing against the shoe’s inner fabric and me being sealed inside while she ties the laces make every exterior sound muffled. I am trapped under the arch of her foot, at least it won’t smell as bad as under her toes. I try to make myself comfy, I know running can be sometimes very difficult on me, especially since I started having back pain again. And I am not used to someone else than Kelly running on me. 

They walk out of the house, adjust their timers and step counter son their watch and what not, then the jogging starts. First it’s slow pace, but Kelly encourages her mother to pick it up and run a bit faster. Each and every step I am al most knocked out. Kelly’s mother’s foot arch isn’t as high as Kelly’s. The space is unforgiving, the pressure is tremendous, the air is rare, the heat is rising quickly, I feel humidity getting it’s rightful place in every little interstice and corner of the shoe. And the smell. The smell rises like a volcano, from the shoe itself, encouraged by Cynthia’s foot, which was clean by the way, now sweating like I’ve never seen before. Usually Kelly’s mom keeps me in her house mule’s or leather shoes, but never in running shoes…while she runs. This is both new, and hard, for my old body. Crushed, crushed again, and again, and again, boom, boom boom boom. 

I feel light headed. I remember…I need to breathe along with the pace of the running, little inhales when the foot is mid air, exhales in between when she crushes me. Come on I can do this, I can survive this. My back hurts. My body is soon covered in sweat, the constant crushing gives me a head ache. We’re at the end of the block, I believe this is only the beginning of my torture. I will…pass…out…I…

Ok.

This hasn’t happened to me for a while. Back when I met Kelly, it happened more often. I am out of my body. I see it being crushed inside the shoe. I see Cynthia jogging from behind. I am floating around her, invisible, like if my spirit abandoned my body down there. I don’t feel the pain anymore, I don’t feel anything. I am just flying like a bee, following mother and daughter while they jog in the neighborhood. I fly closer to Kelly. Closer to her ear. I whisper her name. She doesn’t’ hear me. “Kelly my dear, what are you doing to me?” I say. She instinctively swats the air next to her ear, like if there was a mosquito or a bee flying to close, bugging her. Her hand passes right though me. I’m not even there, this is only my imagination. I am passed out. I am only having this out of body experience again, this is bad. I hope I won’t die in there. I look at Cynthia, she’s panting, she’s not used to run like this, she’s getting tired quicker. She slows down the pace. I have to slow down my breathing. Oh…

I’m back in the shoe, my body. Ouch! I can’t feel my legs anymore. My face meets the socked flesh pressing down on it every step. I am back in the shoe. Damn it. The smell is extreme, I don’t dislike it, but it’s potent and assaulting my complete respiratory system, down deep into my lungs populating my body like spores. Each step is gets in, and out, and again. Ouch! Please, stop …running. Stop..it. Cynthia.. please.

And she slows down, to a walking pace. I can feel her way too fast heartbeat from the blood flow of her foot crushing me. She stands still, panting. I hear Kelly’s muffled voice trying to encourage her mom to keep going but Cynthia needs a break. Thanks, I do to. I hear something about me…something… Cynthia says… “not...comfortable.” She walks to a nearby bench, we’re in the park. Cool air suddenly rushes in the shoe, the smell of freshly cut grass, light pours in I roll down the spongy wet insole of Cynthia’s sneaker. 

“It’s like a hard pebble… Kelly.” Cynthia says. She looks down at me. “Sorry Mrs. Allen, we’re switching you, it’s too hard for me to run with you in there, you’re like a small pebble and it hurts my foot. Kelly is going to take you in her shoe okay?”

Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. I see Kelly into view. She looks at me and rolls her eyes. Soon the shoe I’m in is tilted upside down and I fall into Kelly’s old sneakers that are already warm and smelly. I land with a small thud on the wet insole. I love the smell. I love it. It’s a thousand million times better than her mother’s. Kelly looks down at me, she’s sitting on the bench next to her mother, ready to seal me inside with her socked foot again. She taunts me. 

“Lucky.” She says. The beads of sweat on her face are representative of her whole body. And then she shoves her foot in over me. I quickly roll, I am dragged under her foot. I end up under her arch, just like when I was with her mother, but it’s higher, there is more room for me, I’ll be less crushed. I understand why Cynthia had a hard time with me in her shoe, and why it’s so easy with Kelly. The laces are tied up. This is much better. Indeed, maybe I -am- lucky. 

Jogging resumes. 

Maybe I am lucky, like Kelly said. Maybe I am being selfish, complaining about her attitude. Maybe I should just shut up and take whatever Kelly forces up onto me. Maybe she actually needs to be angry at me. After all the years of being kind, maybe it feels good to her to get some frustration out on me. I am a punching bag…of sorts. Maybe I should shut up and take my punishment. Maybe I should not worry about her, and just let time be my ally. I just wish things were back to normal, when I had long conversations with her at bed time, when she was as sweet as a rose in blossom, and when she took care of me like if I was a treasure. 

I inhale Kelly’s magnificent smell, it replaces her mother’s into my lungs, I welcome it without any resistance. I let her crush me like I am used to. Step by step, one stomp after the other, the unforgiving pace drives me further into admiration of my goddess. I am lucky. Lucky to be her foot pet. Lucky to be crushed by her. 

She runs for another hour. She ditched her mom, decided to continue running alone, having way more endurance than her mother. She decided to actually run on me like this for longer than usual. At a faster pace. Again, I am down there in her shoe, thinking that maybe there is something frustrating her and it’S not only me. It can’t be just me. 

I am lucky. 

Lucky to be still alive.

When she’s done, back home, she removes her shoes in the garage and goes inside the house without even looking down at me or talking to me. I am left right there inside the smelly sneaker she just ran twice the usual distance in. It takes me a whole ten minutes to get my body moving again, I unplaster myself from the sticky insole surface and I roll. I curl up. My back and my hips crack. Ouch. My head ache is strong. It’ll take some time to let me go. I try to get on all fours, but it’s not easy. I stretch a bit. I’m not going anywhere, I’m just taking time to give my own body a bit of care. It hurts all over. I sit down, my back against the inner wall of the shoe, near the heel section, and I breathe. I cough out some sweat out of my lungs. A sock lint comes out. I’m not in the best of shapes. 

I wait an hour or so. Kelly comes back into the garage, she showered and she looks like a fresh rose. She looks unhappy and preoccupied. She picks up the shoe and tilts it I fall into her soft hand. Goodness I love that woman, she’s the best person on the planet. 

“I didn’t get the job.” She says, then clenches her fist around me. Ah. Here’s some piece of information. Who in their right mind wouldn’t hire Kelly for the job? Idiot. I would like to tell Kelly some comforting words but she just walks to her room with me in her fist. She places me on the bed table, sits on her bed, pouting, visibly frustrated. I don’t know what time it is, probably near noon. 

“Kelly…” I start. But she cuts me and start to rant about the guy at the interview, about them asking her to be more than she can be, about how it’s hard to deal with her constantly frustrated dad who keeps pressuring her to find a job. She rants about her friends all moving away from town to get jobs out of state, how they met the love of their lives, how they have sex all the time, and how they are happier than she is. Kelly empties. She empties what’s on her mind, and I feel like she’s going to dump it all on me. She cries too, she’s in a big emotional mess. Poor girl. I can only listen and have compassion. 

“The only person I have is you, Mrs Allen. Not that I don’t like you, but I’d like to have more. You’re just a foot pet. I want a boyfriend, I want a good job, I want to move out of my parent’s place, have my own apartment, make my own living, I don’t know. I worked so hard to get that diploma, and now that I have it, I feel like there is nothing. Nobody will hire me, I don’t know what I did wrong, I had good grades, I’m a good person… The only thing I have is a stupid foot pet.” She says. Now this makes me feel bad. Yeah…I understand what she means. 

She’s tired of me. 

She feels like it’s time to move on. 

“You’re tiny and useless, Mrs Allen. I can do whatever I want with you, you’ll never be mad, never complain, you’ll worship me like if I am whatever kind of goddess or something. You take everything without complain, you have no purpose except to smell my feet. You and I have gone a long way together, but … look at me now, Mrs. Allen. I should be getting a decent job and moving on, and I am stalled. It’s not your fault but I’m like… I don’t know…” She’s confused. I’d like to talk, but I let her talk, sometimes it’s just better to listen. “What you asked of me a few days ago opened my eyes to the fact that I am still taking care of you every day like I was when I was 17. I’ve been taking care of you every single day, and I wonder if I took enough care of myself, you understand?” she explains. 

Ironically, as small as I am, time made me a burden for her and I neglected the fact that she might want to have a life of her own, in which I am not there. She’s conflicted, confused about the fact that she likes me, loves me like if I was her own tiny best friend, but at the same time, she would like to move on. I totally neglected the fact that, before her graduation, when she talked to me about “celebrating me” maybe she wanted to put an end to our relationship. 

“Do you want me gone?” I ask. She stops and thinks. 

“It’s not that. I mean, I don’t want you gone, Mrs. Allen. Well, maybe. I don’t know. I don’t mind you, I even enjoy crushing you all the time, but… I just want to have somebody else to talk to. A shoulder to rest my head on. Someone to hug, someone that loves me, and cares for me and who will let their fingers through my hair, and kiss me on the lips. I want a handsome intelligent man to love me and care for me. I like you Mrs Allen, you’re my friend, but you’re also just a foot pet. You’re pathetic and probably the biggest loser of all times. I am sorry, I don’t want to insult you, but it’s true. My best friend is a loser. And I crush her. And I make her smell my feet all the time. Is that supposed to define me as a person?” she explains. 

“I guess not.” I say. 

“And then you ask me to ... have sex with you? You want me to….I mean, you know what you asked of me. I’d like to have sex with a real man, Mrs. Allen. Not with my foot toy. I want to be desired, loved.  I want to live some new experiences with normal sized people. I feel so alone Mrs. Allen. Everything is going fine for everyone except me. I’m stuck at my parent’s place, dreaming of meeting the love of my life, and all I have to comfort me, is a foot smelling tiny woman old enough to be my grandmother and who wants to actually have sex with me… How the fuck am I supposed to feel about that? You know, I’d like to have sex with a real person, before I get to have some with a loser like you.” She says. 

There is a silence. 

“I mean no offense Mrs. Allen, but you’re a loser for real. You … dropped your own life to smell my feet every single day of your existence. You know you’re a loser, I’m sure you even get turned on by it.” She says. 

“I don’t.” I say. Also, I notice she called me a loser twice in the last 5 minutes and I feel very obscured inside. She cannot be more right. “…but you’re right… I am a loser, and there is little I can do now to change that.”

“See, that’s what I am saying.” She continues. She’s crying, emptying all she’s got on her fragile heart. I am glad she does it. But I feel terrible now that I know I am being a burden. “What kind of loser am I Mrs. Allen? You see….I don’t want YOU to be what defines ME.” She adds. 

I understand her. 

I understand her so much. 

“I don’t want YOU to be what defines my life. I don’t want to be the girl who succeeded in life because of YOU. And I don’t want to be -the girl with the crazy woman in her shoes-. I am sorry you’re getting older and all, I am sorry Mrs Allen, I am sorry for everything, but ….” She pauses. “I need you to leave me live my life…without you, I guess.”

Ouch. 

She said it. She said what was on her mind. She wants me gone. She needs me gone, for her own sanity. I’ve been there too long. I paid for the studies, I’ve smelled her feet, she kept me, cared for me, now, all of this has to end, she has to move on and make a life of her own without me, and she’s god damn right.

“As a matter of fact, Mrs. Allen. When I asked you what you wanted me to do for you to thank you for everything, I wanted to celebrate our partnership. I was kind of hoping you to ask me to grow you back to your normal size so you could go back to your own life. But then, I realized you have no more life left. I am so confused right now, Mrs. Allen. I was hoping you to ask me to stomp you one last time and kill you, that would have been a way to end our partnership for good, you would have lived and died under my feet and I don’t know…. It felt right. Even if it’s terrible. I was hoping you would ask me to give you to someone else, or I don’t know, anything that would kind of celebrate the fact our relationship was over. But no…You asked me to ...insert you….into me… What the actual fuck, Mrs Allen? Why?”

“Because I love you, Kelly.” I say. 

“But… Gah!” She gets impatient and throws a pillow away. “Look, okay? When I accepted to have you in my shoes all the time, I was young. Much younger. I was dumb, easily influenced, and excited. You offered to pay my studies, that’s a fucking lot of money you gave me. It was a great run, you and I, Mrs. Allen, but now I grew up, and when I think about it, I find it ridiculous. Okay? And instead of accepting the fact that you and I it could be over, you asked me to have sex with you…”

“It’s a big misunderstanding, Kelly.” I say. 

“I know it is. But look at me now! I am a mess, I am confused. I want you gone, but at the same time, I can’t just throw you away. You have no life. I am everything for you. You don’t even fit in my mom’s shoe! I am so everything for you that I cannot get rid of you without feeling bad about it, or guilty. Do you understand what I am saying?”

“I do.” I say. “You want me to leave you alone, but you don’t want to get rid of me.”

“Yes.” She says with relief. 

“It’s okay, Kelly. I understand. I will leave you alone. It saddens me a lot tho, mind you, but I guess you’re right. Every good things must have an end at some point. It was foolish of me to think we could be together forever.”

“It was foolish of me to make you believe it was possible.” She says. “I’m sorry Miss Allen. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s all my fault. I had what I wanted, for longer than I thought I could. I knew at some point we would have to face the truth. I just never wanted it to happen.” I speak quickly, my heart is shattered, but I find the strength to remain in the conversation. 

“So…what do we do now?” she asks. 

“I need time to think, my dear. If you allow me. I need time.” I say.

“Okay. Well…can you clean my soccer cleats while you think? I have a friendly match tomorrow…and…”

“Yes. I will.” I say. She nods. I nod. She gently picks me up and walks to her closet, crouches and gently places me down on the floor next to her soccer cleats. They have dry mud on them. 

“Thank you, Mrs. Allen, for….. for understanding.” She says. I nod again. She stands up and goes to wipe her tears with a tissue, then, I hear her sigh and she leaves her room to go eat lunch with her family. 

Me…I crack open, and I cry my life out.