“Swallow it slowly. I want you to taste everything I walked through.”
He can still see the croissant—what's left of it.
Flattened. Smeared. Warmed by the soles of her feet until it was no longer food, just submission disguised as calories. He stares up through the glass as her toes lift off the last scrap. A glistening streak remains where her heel dragged across the yolk.
“You’re not full, are you?” she says.
He shakes his head, careful not to move too fast. The table is low. He’s still lying beneath it like furniture with a face.
“Good. Because I’m not done feeding you.”
She moves now—slowly, deliberately—crouching beside the table. One foot remains on the glass, heel smudged with pastry grease. The other rests flat beside the ruin. She reaches beneath and plucks a torn, crumpled scrap between her fingertips. It’s warm. Damp. Pressed flat with sweat and weight.
“Mouth open.”
He obeys.
She doesn’t place it gently. She lets it fall, watching it land crooked against his tongue, where the taste spreads like shame. Cold egg. Old cheese. Her. He swallows it without chewing, like a pill designed to make him worse.
“You’ll finish all of it.”
She collects another piece. This time with her toes. She pinches a bit of yolk between them, lifts her foot, and lets it dangle—then lowers it slowly to his mouth.
He doesn’t resist. Not because he’s trained. Not because he’s brave. But because her feet are clean now. And the croissant isn’t.
He wraps his lips around her toes. He tastes the food. He tastes the sweat beneath it. And then he feels her toes curl slightly… and press the bite deeper in.
“There’s dirt on the bottom of that piece,” she says casually. “From outside. From before. Eat it anyway.”
He does.
His stomach turns and tightens. Not from disgust. From obedience. From the raw, dizzying truth of what it means to be fed only what she gives… and nothing more.
“Good boy,” she says, wiping her arch against his cheek. “Check my sole.”
He lifts his head. Scans the heel. Scans the ball. Barely a smear remains. It’s clean now—because his breakfast took it all. Because his hunger allowed it.
She crouches lower, eye to eye, her breath fogging the glass for a moment before she speaks.
“Food is a privilege,” she says. “But not for you. Not anymore. You’ll eat what I ruin. And you’ll thank me with every bite.”
She takes the final piece—unrecognizable now, a crushed sponge of heat and grease—and presses it to his lips. Slowly. Not feeding him. Marking him.
“Swallow it slowly,” she whispers. “I want you to taste everything I walked through.”
He closes his mouth. Swallows. And tastes the truth.