Lacquered

It started - as these things always do - with a stolen phone.

Connor and Bryce had been tormenting you since freshman year. Rich kids with trust funds and cruelty that came as naturally as breathing. Connor was the ringleader - dark-haired, lacrosse captain, jaw like it was carved from his daddy's money. Bryce was the lieutenant - sandy-haired, broad-shouldered, dumb enough to follow and mean enough to enjoy it.

They'd snatched your phone right out of your hands in the hallway. A game of keep-away that ended with Connor scrolling through your browser history while Bryce held you against the lockers.

"Dude..." Connor's face split into a grin so wide it was almost surgical. "Dude, no."

He turned the screen around. Thumbnails. Arched feet in heels. Painted toes curling against silk sheets. Pedicured perfection.

Your stomach dropped through the floor.

"He's a fucking foot freak," Bryce howled, loud enough for half the corridor to hear.

And that was that. Your life was over.

For weeks, they made it hell. Showing girls your search history. Making you stare at their sneakers while they laughed. Posting memes in the group chat. Classic Connor-and-Bryce shit - cruel, relentless, and bored enough to keep going.

But then something... shifted.

---

It was Connor's idea. Obviously.

His mom - Diane, all Botox and Balenciaga - had been going to this salon on the Upper East Side since before he was born. Gilded. No sign on the door. No Yelp reviews. Just a brass buzzer and a reputation that circulated exclusively among women who spent more on their cuticles than most people spent on rent.

Every rich girl in their circle went there. Maddie Hargrove. The Ashworth twins. Sloane fucking Prescott. They'd walk in looking good and walk out looking devastating - hotter, meaner, sharper. Like the salon didn't just do your nails, it did your soul.

"My mom's friend said something once," Connor told Bryce, leaning against his Range Rover in the school parking lot. "When she was drunk. She said the salon... changes you. Like, actually changes you. That's why all these girls are so—"

"Hot?"

"I was gonna say psychotic, but yeah."

The plan was elegant in its cruelty: get pedicures at Gilded, transform into girls hot enough to make your foot fetish go nuclear, then use their perfect new feet to absolutely destroy you psychologically. Turn back after a week or two. Maximum humiliation.

Their mothers thought it was hilarious. Diane and Bryce's mom, Katrina - a blonde Pilates predator who'd been through three husbands like tissues - both called the salon that afternoon.

"Boys, you have no idea what you're in for," Katrina purred from behind her sunglasses, pulling into a parking spot that probably cost more than your car.

---

Gilded was all black marble and rose gold. The air smelled like jasmine and something underneath it - something old and sweet and wrong, like incense burned over a wound.

The woman at the reception desk didn't blink when two eighteen-year-old boys walked in with their mothers. She just smiled - slow, knowing - and gestured toward the back.

"Pedicures," Diane said, like she was ordering wine. "The full treatment."

The woman's smile widened. "Of course."

The back room was dim. Two obsidian thrones sat side by side, basins of milky water already steaming at their feet. The aesthetician was ancient - tiny, bird-boned, with eyes like wet black stones. She didn't speak. She just pointed at the chairs.

Connor and Bryce exchanged a glance. Bryce laughed nervously.

"This is so fucking weird, dude."

"Shut up and sit down."

They sat. Their mothers watched from a velvet settee, sipping champagne like they were at the opera.

The old woman knelt. She took Connor's right foot first, lowering it into the basin. The water was warm - no, hot - no, it was something else entirely. It tingled. It buzzed. Like every nerve ending in his foot had suddenly woken up and started screaming.

"Oh—" Connor gripped the armrests. "Oh, that's... that's weird."

On the other throne, Bryce hissed as his feet hit the water too. "What the fuck is in this—"

The old woman held up two bottles of polish. One white - bright, clean, expensive white, the kind you see on a brunette's toes in Positano. The other teal - electric, almost iridescent, the colour of a tropical ocean and rich-girl rebellion.

She looked at them expectantly.

Connor pointed at the white. Bryce pointed at the teal.

The old woman nodded once. Like something had been decided.

She started with Connor.

The first stroke of white polish across his big toenail was like a match striking. Heat flared up his foot, through his ankle, into his calf - and kept going.

"Oh fuck—"

His toes were changing. Shrinking. The broad, flat foot of an athlete narrowing into something delicate - arched, slender, the skin smoothing like it was being sanded by invisible hands. His toenails reshaped themselves beneath the brush - perfect little ovals, gleaming white.

Crack.

His ankles shifted. The bones restructured with a sound like knuckles popping, tapering into something feminine, something elegant. The hair on his legs dissolved - just vanished - replaced by smooth, tanned skin that seemed to glow under the dim light.

"Connor?" Bryce's voice was high. Scared.

Connor couldn't answer. The heat was climbing his legs now, reshaping his calves into tight, toned curves - the calves of a girl who did Stairmaster five days a week and Pilates on weekends. His thighs thickened, then softened, then resculpted - powerful but feminine, the kind of thighs that looked devastating in a tennis skirt.

"Mmmmmh..." The sound came out of Connor's mouth before he could stop it. It didn't sound like him anymore. It was breathy. Musical. Pretty.

His hips cracked outward - CRACK CRACK - widening, flaring, his waist cinching inward like an invisible corset was being tightened. His flat stomach tightened further, a set of faint abs appearing beneath skin that was now golden-brown and impossibly smooth.

His chest swelled. Two mounds of flesh pushing forward, filling, rounding, growing - a soft moan escaping lips that were suddenly fuller, plumper, slicked with a gloss that had appeared from nowhere.

"Oh god... oh god..."

But it wasn't horror in that voice anymore. It was wonder. Pleasure. The heat was in his head now, and his dark hair was lengthening, thickening, tumbling past shoulders that had narrowed and softened, cascading down his back in waves of rich espresso brown. His face ached, cheekbones lifting, jaw softening, nose shrinking into a perfect button, eyelashes darkening and curling.

Connor looked down at herself - at perfect white-tipped toes, at long tanned legs, at breasts that sat high and round and magnificent beneath a top that had somehow become a cropped designer cami.

"Holy shit," she whispered.

Her voice was pure velvet poison.

---

Beside her, Bryce was already screaming - and not from pain.

The teal polish hit his nails and his transformation was faster, hungrier. His feet shrank and arched violently, toes curling as the electric colour spread like liquid neon across perfect little nails. His legs lengthened, slimmed, the skin turning a sun-kissed gold as muscles redistributed into the tight, toned legs of a volleyball player.

"Oooooh fuck—"

His hips exploded outward. His waist sucked inward. The cracking of his pelvis was audible - CRACK CRACK CRACK - and he arched his back as his ass inflated behind him, round and firm and frankly obscene.

His hair came in like a waterfall - platinum blonde, silky, almost white in the light, spilling over narrowing shoulders. His face reshaped itself with a series of wet, clicking sounds - sharp cheekbones, pouty lips, big blue eyes framed by lashes that could cause traffic accidents.

His chest surged forward. Big. Bigger than Connor's. Round, heavy, perfect - the kind of tits that made other girls whisper and boys walk into walls.

"FUCK—" Bryce gasped, and her voice was a breathy soprano. "Fuck yes, oh my god—"

She looked down at her teal toenails, at her perfect feet, and wiggled her toes.

The old woman sat back. Her work was done.

On the settee, Diane and Katrina clinked their champagne glasses.

"Told you," Katrina murmured.

---

They chose names in the car. Obviously.

Connor became Camille. Dark hair, white nails, the kind of quiet, calculated mean that made you feel stupid before you even realised you'd been insulted. She crossed her legs in the back seat and studied her pedicure with a satisfaction that felt almost religious.

Bryce became Brinley. Blonde, teal nails, loud, bratty, the one who said the cruel part out loud while Camille just smirked. She couldn't stop looking at herself in the rearview mirror.

"We look insane," Brinley breathed. "Like, actually insane."

"We look correct," Camille said. Quieter. Colder. She flexed her white-tipped toes inside her new slides - Hermès, courtesy of Diane, who'd had a bag of "emergency" designer clothes in the trunk like this was a perfectly normal Tuesday. "We look like the girls we used to want to fuck."

"Better," Brinley said. "We look better than them."

They caught each other's eyes. Something dark and electric passed between them - a recognition. They'd been cruel as boys. Effective, even. But it had always been blunt-force cruelty. Locker-room shit. Brute strength and social leverage.

This was different.

This was precision.

---

They found you the next day.

You were in the library - of course you were - tucked into your usual corner, earbuds in, trying to be invisible. It wasn't working. It never worked.

The click of heels announced them.

You looked up.

Two girls you'd never seen before stood over you. One brunette, one blonde. Both impossibly, aggressively beautiful. The brunette wore a white mini dress and slides, her tanned legs crossed as she leaned against the bookshelf. The blonde wore a cropped teal top and denim cutoffs so short they should have been illegal, and she was already smiling at you with the kind of smile that promised nothing good.

"Hi," the brunette said. Soft. Almost friendly.

"Uh..." You pulled out your earbuds. "Hi?"

The blonde tilted her head. "We heard something really interesting about you."

Your blood went cold. You didn't know why yet - they were strangers, you'd never seen them - but something in the blonde's voice, in the way she looked at you...

"Who... who are you?"

The brunette uncrossed her legs. Slowly. Deliberately. She was wearing those Hermès slides, and as she shifted, one slid off her foot with a soft thwap against the carpet, revealing her perfect white pedicure - each nail pristine, gleaming, the arch of her foot like something from a Renaissance painting.

Your eyes locked onto it. You couldn't help it. It was reflexive, Pavlovian, pathetic - and both girls saw it immediately.

The blonde let out a delighted little gasp. "Oh my god, it's TRUE."

"Told you," the brunette murmured. She wiggled her white-tipped toes, just slightly, and watched your face with an expression of pure, clinical satisfaction. "He can't even help himself."

"Wh—" Your throat was dry. "What—"

The blonde kicked off her own sandal. Teal nails. Electric, vibrant, devastating teal against golden skin. She lifted her foot and pressed her toes against your knee under the table.

You nearly died.

"Remember us?" she whispered.

And then it clicked. The blonde's mean little laugh. The brunette's cold, superior stare. The way they worked in tandem - one loud, one quiet, both merciless.

"...Connor? Bryce?"

Camille smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. "It's Camille now."

"And Brinley." The blonde pressed her teal toes harder against your thigh, sliding them upward just an inch. Just enough. "And we're going to make your life so much more interesting."

---

The next three weeks were exquisite torture.

They showed up everywhere. Class. The cafeteria. Your locker. Always in open-toed shoes - always. Slides, strappy sandals, wedge heels that made their arches look absolutely architectural.

Camille was subtle about it. She'd sit across from you in study hall and slowly slip her foot out of her shoe under the table, resting her white-tipped toes on the rung of your chair, close enough that you could feel the heat of her skin but never quite touching. She'd catch your eyes darting downward and just... smile. That quiet, devastating, I-own-you smile.

Brinley was not subtle.

"Look at them," she'd demand, propping her feet on your desk, teal nails catching the fluorescent light. She'd fan her toes out and then curl them slowly, one by one, while you sat there trying to remember how breathing worked. "I said look, loser."

She'd make you hold her sandal while she inspected her pedicure in public. She'd send you photos - close-ups of her teal toes against white hotel sheets, Camille's white nails beside hers in a bubble bath - with captions like thinking of u 🖤 and wish u were here (on the floor where u belong).

And the worst part - the absolute worst part - was that it was working. Not just the humiliation. The fetish content was devastating enough. But it was them. Their confidence. The way they'd stepped into femininity like a weapon they'd always known how to wield. They were prettier than the girls they used to date. Meaner than the boys they used to be. And they knew - with a certainty that bordered on religious conviction - that they were better this way.

---

It was a Thursday night when things changed for good.

They'd planned to reverse it. That was the deal. Two weeks, maybe three. Have their fun, destroy you psychologically, then go back to the salon and return to their old bodies. Ha ha, great prank, legendary story.

But Brinley was lying on Camille's bed at the penthouse, teal toes in the air, scrolling through her own Instagram - 14,000 followers in three weeks, all from being hot and mean in crop tops - and she said it first.

"I don't want to go back."

Camille was at her vanity, applying a fresh coat of white to her toenails with the focus of a surgeon. She didn't look up. "I know."

"Like, I really don't want to go back. Being Bryce was... god, being Bryce was like wearing a costume that didn't fit. This—" She gestured at her body. At her blonde hair and her big blue eyes and her perfect tits and her teal-tipped toes. "This is me. This is who I was always supposed to be."

Camille blew on her nails. White perfection. She held her foot out, admired it, and finally looked at Brinley in the mirror.

"I called the salon today," Camille said quietly.

Brinley sat up. "And?"

"The old woman said the reversal window closes at thirty days. After that, it's... permanent."

Silence.

"That's in six days," Brinley whispered.

"Five, actually."

Their eyes met in the mirror. Camille's expression was unreadable - that cold, calculated mask she wore so naturally now. But underneath it, Brinley could see the same thing she felt in her own chest. Not fear. Not uncertainty.

Relief.

"So we just... don't go back," Brinley said.

"We just don't go back."

Brinley's lips curled into a smile - slow, wicked, radiant. She wiggled her teal toes.

"Fuck yes."

Camille returned the smile. She capped her polish and stretched her legs out - long, tanned, perfect - and admired her white pedicure one final time.

"We should tell him," she said. "He deserves to know that his tormentors are permanent now. I think that makes it hotter, don't you?"

"Mmmmmh." Brinley was already reaching for her phone. "So much hotter."

---

You got the text at midnight.

Two photos. Side by side.

On the left: Camille's feet on black silk sheets. White nails. Arched. Perfect. A tiny anklet catching the light.

On the right: Brinley's feet on the same sheets. Teal nails. Golden skin. Toes curled just slightly, like she was savouring something.

And the caption, from Brinley:

hey loser 💅 good news and bad news. bad news: we're staying like this forever. good news: that means you get to worship our perfect feet for the rest of your pathetic little life. see u monday. wear something we can wipe our soles on 😘

Then, a second message, from Camille. Just three words. No emoji. No exclamation points. Cold. Final. Devastating.

We own you.

You stared at the screen.

Your hands were shaking.

And the worst part - the absolute, soul-destroying, unforgivable worst part - was the sound that came out of your mouth when you read it.

A moan.

Soft. Helpless. Grateful.

They'd won. They'd won completely. Connor and Bryce had been cruel enough as boys, but Camille and Brinley were something else entirely - something evolved. They'd taken your deepest, most private weakness and turned themselves into its perfect embodiment. They'd become the fantasy you could never escape, and then they'd decided to stay.

Not for you. Never for you.

For themselves.

Because being a hot, mean, bratty bitch with perfect feet and zero conscience wasn't a punishment. It wasn't a sacrifice. It was an upgrade.

And they'd never, ever give it back.