Beta in an Alpha World (Chapter 4)

This time, there was more movement above. This gave me false hope that she’d heard me, and would soon notice her mistake, so she could hurriedly move away all four sources of that squalid incredibly-musky dance-earned smell, before the flavor was allowed to sink too permanently into the walls of my habitat or any of my belongings. Already I was irritated at the thought of how much lilac air-freshening I’d have to do in the morning just to clear away all traces of this especially-concentrated odor that had been freshly squeezed from Izumi’s shoes like brine in aerosol form. But a few seconds later, I realized Izumi wasn’t getting up from the couch, nor was she looking down to reply. She was only adjusting her posture. Leaning more lazily into the pillows above, my Alpha roommate also relocated both her feet, which previously only neighbored my habitat. In a flash, one foot was planted down with a leaden furniture-shaking THOOOOM, so close in front of my front door that I doubted I’d even be able to get out if I tried. Her other foot went airborne, hovering overhead of my habitat for a moment and waggling her digits, and then descending smack-dab across the open top. THUUUNK!

A second later, one of Izumi’s peds had blockaded me inside my own “dollhouse,” while the other had created a brand-new roof made entirely out of her own broad wrinkly-padded sole flesh, and still she’d done nothing to acknowledge she’d heard me. Because she hadn’t. Which was equally as unusual for my roommate, who could sometimes be scatter-brained enough to entrap me inside her flats on the table or smell-bomb my personal quarters with the heavily-perspired night-on-the-town funk of her feet, but she was at least generally attentive enough to catch the comparative-whisper of voice and respond quickly. But not this time. Not even when I raised my volume to shout her name for a third time: “IZUMI!” I refused to believe that she was doing any of this maliciously, and also deeply regretted that I hadn’t evacuated the premises while I still had the chance. Now, though, there was a massive scrunchy-toed behemoth of a foot keeping the door squashed shut, and while I could’ve probably clambered through a window, I was already getting woozy from the hotboxing effect of that mawkishly saltwatery stink being loaded into my habitat by the combined smushed-in teamwork of two internally-filthy shoes and two pale-peachy bare feet, all crowded around the spot I was just trying to get some peaceful rest. How had this happened?

I got my answer, but zero relief, when I heard Izumi start speaking with an off-key musical lilt, mumbling the lyrics to one of her favorite recent pop songs with an obviously buzzed slur in her tone. Of course. She’d gotten tipsy with her friends, danced the night away, then come home and collapsed on the couch, without much thought given to her dark surroundings or awareness of any Beta-sized sounds except the tune projected by her own lips. It was just another unfortunate error, albeit one that I couldn’t have defended myself against at all, since I was literally fast asleep when those gargantuan feet and shoes arrived to rub off their soggy effluvium into every nook and cranny of what used to be my safe haven, but which had now become yet another scuzzy-scented repository of my drunkenly distracted roommate’s ripe sole tincture.

The effect of that haze on my drowsy senses was only getting stronger by the minute. I stumbled down to my knees, coughing and wheezing, and cupped both hands around my nose and lips in hopes of filtering out the staunchest of the greasy malodors now passing in a chaotic cross breeze throughout my habitat. To my dismay, this attempt did nothing to lessen the burden of tart wet-leathery strain now slowly taking over every solid surface inside my personalized little home, like a fog machine switched onto full blast. Whether I looked out the windows at Izumi’s lost midnight-black shoes the size of sailing ships to me, through the front door to where her thick ruddy-pink bare heel was now braced hard against the frame in a way that would’ve made it literally impossible for me to slip through, or even up above to that open span where I could see the rosy-flushed sweat-shining slab of her nude sole treating my habitat like an undersized ottoman, I was reminded of the very thing I’d tried so hard to avoid. Only now was I reminded that, as a Beta, sometimes you can plan for every disaster, only for your objectively-miniscule stature and meager strength and squeaky voice to doom you into trouble anyway.

Or rather, I thought this was a disaster at first. After Izumi’s boozy singing had gone quiet and then finally turned into snoring once she fell asleep on the sofa, with her prodigious dangled-down bare feet still exactly where she’d plopped them atop and in front of my box, I had resigned myself to a sleepless night: trapped down here inside a home-turned-prison that was absolutely stuffed with the earthy oozy lint-jammed aroma of an unwitting Alpha’s unwashed soles and swollen piggies. A fat drop of sweat even plunked down from her foot and landed on the floor beside me, like a leak in the middle of a rainstorm. But to my shock (even though, in retrospect, it was eerily consistent with my unconscious opinion the last time I found myself in such near proximity to Izumi’s foot), the initial loathing and disgust I felt gradually faded to nothing within half an hour of this up-close exposure. My senses must have been numbed to it much faster than I was expecting, which was a handy trait to have – this time, at least, I had no reason yet to believe there could be any other reason for my learned immunity. In a bizarre way that I couldn’t yet clock, let alone explain, I even began to accept that there was a certain oddball comfort found in being so near to Izumi’s feet, so long as I was “securely” locked up inside my habitat. Almost an attraction. Not that I realized this yet, either. Having grown used to the stagnant fumes still vibrantly pumping through my Beta-scaled domicile, I eventually crawled back into bed and drifted back into a slightly-more-eventful slumber, now with the added room-darkening effect of a giantess’s plush arch brawn stretched across the nonexistent roof.