CHAPTER IV

The next few days, things were going well for Ella. She continued being tortured by her stepsisters, but she snuck some Foot Odor Vanquished powder on their socks when washing them, as well as sprinkled some on their bare feet while they slept at night. She made sure to use Ultra Extreme Level-10 Stink.

The next afternoon, Driz kept smelling one of her socks, incredulous.

"Hey, Carly, are these your socks or mine?"

"I don't know. If they're stinky, they're probably mine."

"They don't smell at all."

"What?!"

Carly was so shocked that she grabbed the socks and started sniffing them. Driz had been right; she couldn't smell anything.

"I can't remember the last time one of our socks didn't smell. We've both had stinky feet for years!"

"Ella!" Driz screamed at the top of her lungs, even though their trailer was tiny enough that everyone could hear everyone else at all times. Ella walked over.

"Yes, Driz?"

"Smell these socks."

Ella sniffed them.

"I don't smell anything."

Driz was in disbelief. She sat down and took off her shoes, and Ella caught the familiar smell of Driz's feet. Yes, the powder had worked its magic on their socks, but it could only do so much on a foot that had been inside a sweaty shoe all day.

Driz asked Ella to sniff her feet. Ella did so.

"They don't stink as much as they normally do, but they still have a scent."

And being around all these socks gave Ella an idea.

The next day, she met Kitty at her secret trailer. As soon as she walked in, Kitty greeted her with a kiss.

"Hey, babe," she said, and Ella smiled. Ever since they had started dating, Ella's world had magically come alive.

"How's the distilling process going?"

"Great," Kitty said, "I've been producing buckets of laundra all night. And I think I might have my first customer. There's a woman in Texas who wants to try it out."

"How'd you advertise?"

"Just searched online. Nothing too public, but there's always folks who want to try something new."

"Well, before you ship it out, I had an idea for an experimental batch."

Ella pulled out one of Driz's stinky socks. Kitty immediately held her nose.

"Whoa! Those are the socks your stepsisters make you sleep on?"

"Yep," Ella said, "But watch this."

She wrung the sock out over the alcohol. No sooner did the drops of foot-sweat make contact with the alcohol than it made a large chemical reaction, nearly exploding. The two girls now drank the laundra, and were amazed.

"Wow!" Kitty said, "It's so much better now! Something about that extra few drops of foot-sweat makes it a lot stronger."

"I like it too," Ella said, "It's got a lot more kick. And the taste-well, it's a bit foul, but in a good way. This is a real tequila now!"

Kitty took Driz's sock and sniffed it.

"It smells really bad. But there's something about your stepsister's foot that's very unique. Her foot-sweat contains an extra potency than a normal foot. If you could provide me with a steady supply of her sweaty socks, I could distill each sock and mix it with the laundra."

Ella sighed; she didn't like suffering her stepsisters' feet, and now she would have to for as long as laundra was in business. But she would do it, because it made Kitty happy.

"Wow, here we are, making our very own moonshine alcohol out of a trailer, using a hybrid plant and sweaty socks; this is all highly illegal."

"No one will find out, as long as we keep a low-profile inside the trailer."

The two made out, and the very next day, the first bottle of laundra was shipped out to its very first customer.

Ella and Kitty watched the sunset together from Kitty's garden, staring out at the Kentucky sky. Ella was proud. Kitty's ingenuity for creating something mixed with Ella's knowledge of ecology mixed with the mountain of sweaty socks at their disposal had allowed them to create the right product that truly felt like an accomplishment of their labor.

Kitty smiled at Ella and said:

"Happy 4th of July!"

"Happy 4th!"

"Listen, things have been moving pretty fast between us."

"I know."

"I think it's time I introduced you to my mom."

And Ella grew nervous. She had never met a partner's parents before. Would she approve of her?