Feet

"NO, NO, NO! NO MORE, PLEASE, NO MORE, I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! SISTER, PLEASE, I BEG OF YOU, FORGIVE ME!"

The shrill cry of the girl who suddenly screamed out of nowhere sends nothing but fear all over my already distraught psyche. Hearing this, Jimmy started to furrow her eyebrows as he started shaking his head with an expression filled with nothing but disappointment. With a soft grunt that shows how annoyed he is, he took his phone from his pocket and started dialing someone with an expression filled with apprehension.

Jimmy waited for the caller to pick up the phone, but he never raised his body from the floor. He was still kneeling in front of me, albeit he doesn't look as gentle as compared to how he looked like earlier.

"Hello," Jimmy mumbled under his breath, showing that the person he's calling had already picked up his call. "Our guest is awake now, and he hears those loud noises you're doing back there in Room 6. You need to stop, or I have to take drastic measures." After a fleeting moment of silence, Jimmy started speaking again. "Yes, thank you." He uttered those words before hanging up the phone and placing his phone back to his pockets again.

Then, the woman who's been screaming continuously even while Jimmy was on the phone finally shushed for good. I heaved a sigh of relief as I looked down at Jimmy with a streak of gentleness plastered over my face.

"They're quite crazy out there, huh?" I mumbled to myself to break the ice. It pleased me to see that Jimmy huffed a silent laugh after hearing that.

"Yes. There's a lot of weird people in this mall, I'm afraid to say." Jimmy muttered quietly as he started shifting his legs to sit on the floor. His knees probably hurt a bit after kneeling on the ground for too long, can't blame him. "As much as I liked visiting this mall for the sake of our group, I also have to put up with a bunch of weird members, and it can really be tiring sometimes."

I found it weird that he's sitting in front of me instead of just going back to his chair that he was sitting on earlier. However, I'm not quite sure if it's really polite of me to say that to a person I had just met right now. I mean, I guess since the floor is soft, I really can't blame him, so I just decided to ignore it altogether.

"Yeah, I know. Crazy." I then remembered what had happened on the first floor, which made me chuckle bitterly to brush off the fear that's suddenly creeping through me after remembering that aggressive mob.

Jimmy just chuckled back at me, not giving any bit of reply, which created a dead air around us after a while. I also noticed that Jimmy had started to hang his head low but was still trying to maintain firm eye contact with me. However, every now and then, his eyes would fall onto the floor in a very brief moment.

"Oh yeah," I decided to utter once more to break this suffocating silence between this stranger and I. "I didn't recognize you because you weren't wearing a black polo shirt and navy blue pants."

"Oh!" Jimmy's eyes lit up in embarrassment as he replied with an equally baffled-looking smile. "I was actually wearing that earlier, but my clothes got stained when um... some minor inconvenience occurred when I arrived at the store. I managed to ask my friends there at Clockwork if they can lend me some clothes. Luckily, they have some extra clothes for me, and they happily allowed me to wear them. I just wished they had had something less extravagant than this." He then chuckled while looking down at the clothes that he's wearing.

I laughed heartily, which eased both of us, further removing us away from our tension earlier when we heard that screaming woman. "I was even memorizing it before coming here. I kept saying 'black clothes, navy blue pants' over and over again, so I wouldn't forget about it!"

"I see, I'm sorry to hear that then, sir." He spoke in a sorrowful tone, but his face remained relaxed with a graceful smile.

"It's okay, it's okay." I gestured to him not to feel so bad about it with both my hands. "Although a lot of things happened before I got here, I am still happy that I came. This place is really cozy and just... magnificent! Nothing like my apartment, for sure."

"I am glad you liked it, sir," Jimmy mumbled while hanging his head down once again. I started to realize that his eyes are directed somewhere below me, but I really don't want to peek if there's something down there. "Just tell me if you have anything else you want, sir."

Sir? Why is he addressing me like that? This is the third time he called me with that today. When we were talking earlier, he was calling me 'brother,' so I'm not quite used to it yet. I'm not really against him calling me 'sir,' but I guess there's just something weird with the way he says it. Every time he utters that form of address, he would explicitly put emphasis on it subtly. Again, I don't mind, but... Argh! Why am I even overthinking this?

"Nah, I'm good," I replied, which elicited another gentle smile from Jimmy.

"If you don't mind, sir," Jimmy mumbled with a polite tone that one would hear from a professional salesman, it's filled with artificial joy. "Would you mind if I ask a question?"

"Shoot."

"Did something..." Jimmy hesitated for a while, but he decided to go on with it anyway. "Did something happen to you on the first floor, sir?"

Oh. Damn, I think Jimmy's talking about those psychos around that groto. If he knows about it, then it must have been a regular occurence around here. I mean, Jimmy is not from this state, after all, but he still knows about those crazy people on the first floor.

I am not really sure if I should say it, but since Jimmy is asking about it, then maybe he already knows about the wacky shit happening around there. I decided not to withhold any information since it wouldn't really make sense if I did so.

"Yeah. I got chased by a bunch of sick people when I was about to get up the escalator. It was crazy!" I said jokingly, but I tried to express how distraught I am by raising my voice until it echoed throughout the room.

"I'm sorry, sir." Jimmy once again said as he stared at the ground beneath me; he was once again emphasizing on using the word 'sir.' "They didn't do anything bad to you, did they?"

"Well, bad?" I said with a raised eyebrow. "Not really bad, per se. It was just weird. Oh, but they did chase me hard until I reached the second floor."

"I can't believe this... Unbelievable." Justin said with the same stressed expression that he had when he was on the phone earlier. He then bit his lower lip, but I noticed that he didn't do so because of frustration. "If they chased you, then... Your feet must have hurt a lot."

"Well, kinda, but not really. I didn't really run that far." I replied with a confused look hanging on my face.

Jimmy shook his head as he shifted his legs to kneel in front of me again with bloodshot eyes. "Your feet need to be massaged, sir. Just in case."

"Nah, I'm really aight, no pressure. Plus, I'd be embarrassed to have you do something like that to me."

"I wouldn't mind, sir," Jimmy said with much more vigor in his eyes. "I'm really good at it, so I really would be delighted if you would allow me to serve your feet, sir."

"It's really—"

He then started to crawl towards me with his eyes fixed on my feet like some deranged moron, hell-bent on doing something no matter what happens. I wanted to pull my legs away from him, but I wasn't fast enough. Before long, he was already gently caressing the top of my feet and my soles. Oddly enough, I wanted to protest against whatever he was saying, but my words remained on my throat, like a lump, trapped there through an insuperable barrier.

As disgust started to circulate throughout my already muddled head, Jimmy began to press on my toes, which sent a weird kind of helplessness all over my body, but I also cannot deny the pleasure I feel as he allowed me to experience more of his delicate touch. Gently, like a slithering snake, venturing the outline of my feet, Jimmy's hands moved to the balls of my feet, relieving myself with all the stored stress hidden within the nerves on my soles with his palms and knuckles alternately.

I got to admit, it was not necessarily something that I signed up for, but I cannot fool myself into believing that I wasn't feeling good with how superbly he moved his hands in all kinds of ways to please me voluntarily. Strangely, it felt as if he knew exactly what I needed, where I needed it, and how I wanted it to be performed. He would move his fingers in a delicate, circular motion before it traveled towards my ankles, giving it the pleasure, so unbelievable, that I'm starting to ask myself if I deserve it.

"God, that's..." I groaned a bit, which embarrassed me a lot, so I tried to strike up a conversation with Jimmy to make this massage thing less awkward. "Hey, you doing okay there? I really don't need it, so you shouldn't tire yourself."

"I'm doing well here, sir." He said with a gentle smile, which differed significantly from the smile that he had earlier. This time, his eyes were filled with so much meaning to it, embedded with immense power and charged with desire. "Are you enjoying it, sir?"

"Yeah..." I said weakly with a sigh. "You're doing great down there, Jimmy," I said as I wiggled my toes with a sneer creeping through my face.

"Thank you, sir," Jimmy said with a playful chuckle.

The two of us remained that way for a few minutes. At this time, I was already so relaxed that my eyes were getting drowsy while I spread my arms around the sofa.

"You must be that man in everyone's lips right now."