Emma's Enthralled

Emma wasn't even sure where this thing came from. She knew for a fact that she'd grabbed a history textbook from the campus library! It was twice the size, twice the thickness-- Bit of a hard mistake to make.

Just return it and grab the right book, right? Simple. No big deal. Blame it on her finals anxiety.

Except the librarian had never heard of this book. The systems had no record of this book, meaning she couldn't return it. The Internet as a WHOLE hadn't heard of this book, which frankly, didn't seem possible!

Tomes of Exposure: Bottoms Up

A weird title for a weird book, with an equally weird subject. It seemed to be a collection of short stories featuring protagonists from all different eras, locations and walks of life... Losing their clothing. That was the hook. Stupid at best, perverted at worst. The kind of weird, fetishy book that Emma would toss out, albeit after mocking it online.

That's where the weirdest part came in.

Emma had been flipping through the pages, searching for a particularly bizarre and cringey passage to share online. And before she knew it-- She'd read the first two chapters. Not skimmed it, not flipped through dismissively. She read them, and had been so thoroughly engrossed in them, it felt like waking up from a dream!

The first chapter depicted a girl losing her favorite shoes, adamantly refusing to wear replacements, and instead walking about in her socks. Until ultimately abandoning those too in the next chapter, and... Choosing to be barefoot from then on?

It wasn't deep. Or clever, or provocative, or interesting. Maybe it could be perverse to people with... Feet kinks? But Emma wasn't one of those people. What she'd just read was frankly, objectively, bad. Bad enough that she put the book aside for the time being.

"Holy shit, it's been two hours? The chapters weren't even that long." Emma groaned, lifting her thick rimmed glasses and rubbing her eyes. She still had to get to her night class!

She fixed her lush, curly red hair, put on her favorite coat, grabbed her bag and ran outside-- Only to gasp and hop on place as she felt cold cement underfoot! She was barefoot. When had she taken off her shoes? What's more, she wasn't in the habit of relaxing without socks...

She turned back toward the door to fetch her shoes. Wherever they were, it wouldn't take more than a minute-

"There's no time!" A voice suddenly called in her head! Her voice, like a panicked thought just barged its way into the forefront of her mind. "Just go barefoot! Nobody will even notice. But they will notice if you're late, just go!"

It was a weird, but... Maybe valid point? And it only grew more valid as she stood there and time ticked by. Ultimately, Emma sighed and raced toward her class, never even realizing that she was within the tome's thrall...