Pet Shop (Patreon)

After buying my first bag of feeder crickets to crush last month, I've had pet shops on the mind and fortunately one of you had been thinking about them, too. Here's a little reward fiction about a girl enjoying her new job. 

*****

“They’re cheaper than I thought.” I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the small cage with hundreds of minis, watching them crawl over each other, just trying to get some space or maybe get my attention.

“Yeah, they breed like crazy, especially in captivity, and they mature wicked fast. We always lose some to cannibalism or injury, but they’re not all that important. Selling live food keeps the reptile owners coming in regularly, so they buy the care products and other stuff, and that’s where the money is.”

K’s Pet Depot wasn’t exactly my dream job or anything--I liked cats a lot and thought bunnies were crazy cute, but it paid a dollar over minimum wage and it was close to my house.

“Dog grooming’s the serious business, though.” Hunter was really trying to teach me the ropes. It was a small business and there hardly ever was more than one person working, so I was looking forward to my first night alone.

It wasn’t that bad. The place smelled weird all the time, but it wasn’t busy by any means. Once I’d cleaned up everyone’s shit and made sure they all had some food, I could basically just sit back and stare at my phone until it was time to lock up and count the cash.

I kept glancing at that cage, though. I’d seen videos and even caught the rare mini out in the open, but having the whole box just sitting there in front of me was a different experience. When a customer actually came up to the counter and asked about them I nearly jumped out of my chair.

“You have feeder minis?”

I don’t even remember what I said, but somehow I fumbled through scooping twenty into a bag and he did the typical pet shop thing, telling me way too much about his bearded dragon.

“Hey, you dropped one.” It was just a casual observation from him, peeking over the counter while I swiped his debit card. I glanced down and saw what he did, a young male trying to pull himself together after falling several feet to the floor.

“Oh, shit.” I watched him for what must have been an awkwardly long time before lifting one of my sneakers a few inches. I imagined what it was like for him, staring at my massive black Vans, maybe screaming as my toes covered his body.

I couldn’t hear a sound, though, but I was pretty sure I felt a little crunch. I twisted my toes back and forth just a little, just to make sure, then looked back up at the guy for the first time in a long time.

“Uh, did you want a receipt?”

He pointed at my hand and I let out a nervous and unnaturally loud laugh as I handed his card back to him.

After he left I found myself sitting behind the counter, staring at the tiny red smear on the floor. I was extremely anxious about cleaning it up before someone saw, even though there was basically zero chance of anyone that mattered coming in. Still, I stared for a long time. I turned my foot across my knee and examined the bottom of my shoe, fascinated by the little dark spot on my sole’s crisscrossing tan rubber grooves.

I stretched my leg out towards the cage and showed the hundreds of captive minis the bottom of my shoe. This was what happened to anyone that dared try to escape me. I daydreamed about them staring at my colossal sneaker, trembling in terror while they whispered the name of the tiny man I stepped on.

I flexed my ankle, letting them see it from every angle. I nudged the side of their cage with my toe, just slightly rocking it back and forth, grinning ear-to-ear while I terrorized them.

I leaned forward and whispered my own message to them. “It’s so easy to crush you.” Then the phone rang and I nearly jumped out of my skin and almost knocked the entire stand over.

I didn’t know why the caller’s Pomeranian was puking so much and advised her to call her vet instead of me with questions like that. I was also a good half an hour behind schedule on closing up the store but I made sure to clean that spot on the floor with a Clorox wipe first before I wrapped things up and shut the place down.

I didn’t have another night shift until next week, but I thought about my next chance to be alone in the store every day until then. Each time I walked by that cage, or shoveled some minis into a plastic bin and sold them to someone for ten bucks, I couldn’t keep myself from giving them a sharp stare. I wanted them to fear me, even if they were just there to be sold as food anyhow. I wondered how much of that they really understood.

That Thursday I dressed up just a bit for work, and Hunter apparently thought it was a much bigger deal than I did. It was just a sort of see-through black button up over my tank top with some black skinny pants and heels.

“I can look a little more professional if I’m going to be a keyholder, right?” By the third comment I was a little irritated, and I think it came through in my voice.

“Hey, I absolutely don’t mind you looking good. I’m just saying that the lack of dress code is one of the perks I appreciate.” His seemingly decade-old Converse and fraying shorts attested to that.

“Goodnight, Hunter.” My little wave and singsongy tone was the perfect blend of warm condescension to send him away but leave him smiling. He was nice enough, but technically he was still my boss.

I made it about half an hour before I opened the cage for a sale. I’m pretty sure the way I bent over the container, the customer couldn’t really see what I was doing, but I was extremely anxious and careful anyhow. I plopped his container on the counter and then snatched a handful of minis, shivering while they wriggled and squirmed in my fist.

It was only a little awkward to finish the rest of the transaction left-handed, but my crippling fear of being discovered was totally unfounded. The guy was too busy checking out the bunnies, and after that my boobs. I forgave him the minute he left and I opened my hand to reveal three tiny men and a woman cowering and clutching each other in my palm.

“You know what I’m going to do with you?” They couldn’t have. They almost certainly couldn’t understand me, either. Talking to them was admittedly weird, but I liked how it felt.

My voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m going to squish you.”

I nodded and smiled at them, grinning ear-to-ear as I talked about it. “That’s right, I’m going to put you on the floor and all your little friends are going to watch you die under my pretty shoes. Are you ready?”

My shoes were totally pretty. The whole reason I’d dressed up was just so I could wear these black leather four-inch heels. I crouched a little and moved the mesh cage off of its stand and onto the floor so they could all get a perfect view. Then, I started to tilt my hand--slowly, so I could watch them struggle, see them desperately trying to cling to my skin, slipping further and further, until one-by-one they started to fall, flailing through the air and then bouncing on the ground.

They couldn't understand my words, but even the stupidest mini knew what my giant shoe rising over it's head meant. I didn't have time to fuck around--the store was still open, after all.

I picked the closest one, planted my heel and covered it with the ball of my foot. The others squeaked and screamed, I'm sure, but I was totally focused on my gorgeous shoe.

This felt different than stepping on them with my sneakers. I could feel the body under my shoe's hard sole, and while the others backed up and started to run, I could feel that little body break, crumpling and flattening while I pushed my toes towards the floor, then squelching and spreading as I slowly twisted my shoe.

I liked the small patch of pulverized gore I saw when I lifted my foot, and I didn’t wait a second to track down the one that had managed to run the furthest while I’d crushed his friend to a smear. I didn’t even have to take a step. My shoe was only a few inches off the ground and I tracked the tiny man easily, slamming my shoe down hard.

He had zero chance to avoid my stomp, and the loud crash of my hard shoe on the floor had to have rattled every single one of the little shits. A little crimson had spurted out from under my toes, and I stretched it into an inches-long smear by dragging my shoe back, laughing softly at the unrecognizable mess.

The woman got a late start. She’d been paralyzed, watching me squish the boys, but the second she realized my eyes had turned to her, she took off running. Stupid girl. I swept my other shoe across in front of her, the side of my leather-wrapped foot smashing into her face and probably knocking her senseless as I kicked her across the floor and sent her little body skidding and tumbling to land back in front of me.

She didn’t move. I worried that just that little kick had been enough to end her silly little life, but that wouldn’t get in the way of my plans for her. I carefully positioned my shoe--the tip of my heel was enough to almost entirely cover her lower half, and to my delight I could see her arching her back and howling in agony once my heel settled on her back.

My heel crushed through her like she was barely there. I had to lean down to see her convulsing and spurting blood. She stopped moving pretty quickly, and I thought about mashing her flat underfoot like the others, but decided to leave her half-crushed body there for all her mini friends to see.

The last one was on his knees, cowering and pleading with me. He feared me from the start and I liked that. He knew he had no chance of escaping, and I appreciated him bowing down like a good little bitch. He deserved something special.

Plucking him up off the ground was easy. He didn’t try to run, or maybe he didn’t have the chance to, but he did thrash around pathetically while I pinched him between my fingers. I crouched down and held him up in front of the cage. “Say goodbye.”

I turned to the side and leaned forward on my toes, popping my heel up out of the back of my shoe while making sure all my little captives had a perfect view. He dangled from my fingers, kicking and screaming while we all watched for a moment before I let him drop into the opening of my shoe.

"Squish, squish, motherfuckers." It was stupid the moment it left my mouth and I didn't care. I gave the cage full of minis my most vicious stare while I slowly rose, feeling the last tiny squirms under my sole before my weight settled on the tiny man who'd rolled down to just before the ball of my foot.

I couldn't tell if he was crushed. At the very least he was pinned utterly flat, but inside these leather shoes my feet were sweaty enough that I couldn't tell if any of the wetness in there were his mashed insides or not.

It was weird feeling his little body in my shoe, but I didn't mind it. My brain was still buzzing from straight up murdering a handful of minis underfoot.

I mean, they were food. They were meant to die, but there was something thrilling about torturing them just because it felt good. I was God to them, and they would live every last moment of their stupid little lives in fear.

I didn't bother cleaning up the mess. Nobody that mattered was really going to notice, and leaving the crushed bodies and bloody smears there for my helpless minis to stare at for the rest of the night while they trembled with every loud click of my heels on the floor--that was hot as fuck.