Alice’s cheek brushed the rafters of the White Rabbit’s cottage as her head, along with the rest of her, bloomed in size, filling the animated fantasy space with her increasingly massive frame. Her white-stockinged leg stretched and crashed through the rabbit’s furniture like paper cutouts. Her black mary-jane led the charge just as her furry host opened his door, only to be catapulted back down the hall by the incoming sole of Alice’s shoe.

            “Oh, no, no, not again!”

            Paul shuddered. His cheeks flushed, with eyes glued to the computer screen, while his hand worked feverishly beneath the bedsheets. He’d seen this video, and its companion sequences of the cartoon lass growing to astonishing heights, countless times. He’d memorized every syllable of dialogue and every twitch in the animation. Hours of his childhood were spent in front of the television, rewinding the video tape over and over, and only those scenes; he had it to a science.

            Still, seeing Alice grow again drew him in just as fervently as ever. Holding his breath, Paul waited through the boring intervening seconds, until the young Englishwoman plucked up the puny white rabbit between her fingers.

            “Paul!” boomed the singsong voice of his mother Patricia through the wall. Her knuckles rapped on his bedroom door. “Oh, Paul, dear, could you come out and join us, please? We’ve got company, after all, and I wouldn’t want the family to think you’ve holed up like a little oyster in there!”

            Startled, Paul slammed his computer closed and shoved it under the covers. He stood, waiting out his lingering half-mast after the intensity of the viewing experience. His cheeks were still flushed red. The boy had entirely forgotten the family get-together luncheon arranged for today. His extended family was liable to be just a room away now. Giant Alice and the rabbit’s tiny house would have to wait.

            Adequately composed at last, Paul pulled up his slacks, tucked his plaid shirt into the belt, and shuffled out into the hall.

            “Oh, there you are, sweetie!” Patricia said. She cupped her hands together, smiling tenderly at him as he shambled into the living room. “Are your ears burning?”

            “Why? Are… are they red?” he muttered.

            “Yeah, they are!” his older sister Nettie giggled from where she sat in the big living room armchair. Her palms bounced daintily on the opened fan of her pink skirt, the hem of her petticoats just teased at the edge. “Look! They’re all red, like he’s outta breath or something.”

            “Now, now…” Patricia laughed. She stood, smoothing out the apron wrinkles on her own low-hanging skirt in her favorite wild violet hue. Hands spread wide in welcome, she approached her only son where he stood in the door frame. “I meant, we were all just talking about you, Paul.”
            “Oh?” the boy croaked. He cast a glance over the rest of the crowded living room. Past where his mother now stood, and where his older sister was still laughing in her chair, and into the broader space. More than a dozen female family members of all ages greeted him with bright eyes and waving hands. It was definitely a larger turnout than he’d first guessed when his mother said “family luncheon.”

            There were his Aunts Kathleen and Debra; his cousins Betsy, Britta, and Barb; a few second cousins, a great aunt or two. It was a full house of dishwater blondes and toothpaste grins, everyone dressed in their rainbow-colored Sunday best dresses and accompanying paraphernalia. Paul was only glad he’d waited to cool down before emerging from his room.
            An index finger prodded hard at his shoulder blade from behind. Surprised yet again, Paul turned around, and felt his esophagus wrap into double knots.

            There stood his oldest sister Elise, decked in a spotless baby-blue skirt, white apron, petticoats like that of a certain fictional character, complete with long cream stockings and spit-shined mary-janes on her feet. That bombshell blonde hair of hers was crowned by an adorable black bow, and her beaming, victorious smile was the cap of the ensemble.

            And right now, she was Paul’s every fantasy and nightmare, rolled into one.

            “Whatever’s the matter, Paul?” Elise asked. She frowned, even as she couldn’t help but crack a smile. “You don’t like my new outfit?”

            “N-No, no… it’s, um…” he stuttered. He could feel the sweat on his neck. “It’s nice.”

            “Come sit with us, Paul,” Patricia said. Her hand wrapped around her son’s thin shoulder, embracing him into her much more ample frame as they waltzed toward the nearest open couch cushions. Obediently, Paul plopped down on the plush seat beside his mother, while Elise settled into a chair just across from her younger brother. In that instant, then, Paul realized every eye in the room was still upon him. Every smile just as full.

            He tugged at the neck of his shirt collar.

            “I’m glad you’re here now, Paul,” Patricia said. She gave her high-fastened hairdo a plumping pat-down. “We’ve been having a very productive conversation out here, all of us, you see.”

            “Y-Yeah?”

            “Yes indeed. You see, after we put our heads together… me, your sisters, your aunts, cousins… we’ve all come to a few troubling conclusions which, ultimately, we believe can come to a happy solution which benefits everyone equally.”

            Paul bit his lip. What kind of nonsense was this?

            His main issue at this moment was just trying to pry his eyes away from his older sister in her Alice in Wonderland get-up. Especially while she eyed him just as meaningfully, a cheeky glint in her eye. Already, the cooldown from earlier was for nothing. He leaned forward, hoping to conceal his pants tent.

            “Dear?” Patricia snapped cheerily, though her tone was instantly steeled. “Are you listening to me?”

            “Huh?”

            A few anonymous giggles rang out from further back in the room.

            “How… well, how should I put this delicately?” Patricia pondered aloud.

            “We know ALL ABOUT your freaky little Alice in Wonderland fetish!” blurted Nettie from her chair, subtle as ever.

The room went silent, save for a few stifled bursts of laughter from younger cousins. Paul had gone so red he was almost sure the pressure might cause his head to lift off and fly up the chimney. His hands were drenched from the bracing shock of the moment. Was this for real? She couldn’t possibly have just said what she said, with all those eyes on him?

            “I suppose that’s the most straightforward way to put it!” his Aunt Kathleen tittered from nearby. Mumbles of agreement circled the room.

            “Oh, so that’s why he’s got all the funny cartoons of Alice saved on his computer that you showed me, Nettie!” one of the cousins said, enlightened. “That makes sense now.”

            “So gross…” another of the cousins spat. “I don’t get it.”

            “Maybe it’s the skirts and petticoats,” Aunt Debra offered helpfully. “Perhaps they light a fire in our little nephew.”

            “W-Wait, wait, time out. I…” Paul said about the chatter. He didn’t have a game plan, but he knew he had to protest before this went south any further. “T-That’s… I mean, come on, Mom. Did you hear what Nettie just said? What kind of joke-”

            “It’s true, though,” Nettie cut in innocently. She rose from chair and sauntered with hands behind her back, one foot in front of the other, toward the epicenter of the room. The girl stood beside her blue-bedecked sister and smarmed at their younger sibling. “Why the heck would I need to lie about something so weird and gross?”

            “Because you two like to embarrass me, and you know it!” Paul retorted.

            “Well, that is true,” Elise admitted.

            “Only in this case, you deserve it,” Nettie said. “On account of how you get turned on by dresses and petticoats from Alice in Wonderland.”

            “No!” he huffed. “That’s a lie.”

            “I’ve seen how many times you used to rewind that movie. Over and over again. Nothing but Alice and her big poofy dress,” she rambled. “You used to not even blink while you watched it.”

            “Shut up, Nettie!” he groaned.

            Deep inside, Paul knew he had precisely zero moral ground to stand on here. Of course they were one hundred percent correct. But he was ready to fight tooth and nail to prevent that information coming out now, in this room, surrounded by a crowd of women. How could he possibly be seen by any of them again, let alone look in a mirror, if that casual tidbit was hanging in the air like rot?

            “Now kids,” Patricia murmured soothingly. She waved her hand between the opposing factions of her offspring. “Let’s not bicker in front of the company. I don’t think we’re getting anywhere like this.”

            Paul breathed a sigh of relief. Good. His mother would shut this nonsense down and make his sisters apologize.

            “Because, really…” Patricia continued with a flourish. “…the only way to solve an issue such as this is tangible, physical proof. Not just speculation and rumors.”

            The boy’s blood turned right back to ice. His heart was in his throat. What was she saying?

            “That sounds very logical to me, sis,” Aunt Debra agreed. Her thick fingers gingerly played with the variety of studded and jeweled rings she wore on her opposite hand. All the while, though, her smirking countenance stayed trained to Paul on the center cushion of the couch.

            “If someone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, it seems only natural we should keep up the same rules,” Aunt Kathleen said. She threaded her long, silver-blonde hair between the formed loop of her thumb and index finger as she, too, narrowed her attention to her increasingly anxious nephew. Her fingernails plucked caramel-colored nylons over the knee.

            “Thank you, Kathleen. That’s very true,” Patricia said, obviously concurring with her two sisters completely. She laid her palm against her son’s cheek, her cooler fingers caressing down to his neck.

            Paul could actually feel a pit forming like a black hole in his stomach. His own two siblings were grinning encouragingly at him now. Baiting him.

            “Yeah, Paul,” Nettie said. “If you want us to believe you so bad, why don’t you prove it?”

            “You could do that, couldn’t you, little brother?” Elise challenged. Her fingers knitted together. “Couldn’t you stand to look at someone… like me… all gussied up, and not get hard from it?”

            “I… what kind q-question is that? I…” Paul sputtered. “Mom!”

            “It does seem like a reasonable request, sweetie,” Patricia whispered into his ear. Her hand still cupped his warm cheek, sampling his temperature. “We have our perfect trigger right here. Now why don’t you go ahead and get those handsome pants of yours down?”

            “WHAT?” Paul almost fell off the couch, but by grace of his mother’s firm embrace, he stayed where he was.

            “It’s no matter to us,” Aunt Kathleen said helpfully. “And who can you trust to keep a secret better than family?”

            “Some of us changed your dirty diapers way back when. Believe us, we’ve seen it all down there,” Aunt Debra said, earning a few potent chuckles from the back. “Really, the only boy in the family? How could we have forgotten?”

            “Don’t be shy, hon,” Patricia slurred into her son’s ear again. “C’mon. If you’re so sure you’re right, go ahead and show us.”

            “Do it!” one of the cousins shrilled.

            “FINE!” Paul didn’t mean to shout his answer, but he was tense and rosy now with nervous despair. Mad as this all was, he wasn’t getting out of this sticky situation without some proof, or things would never be the same. He had to snuff this filthy truth out now before it could plague him for the rest of his life. Gulping, he fumbled with his belt and tugged his trousers down to his ankles.

            “We can’t even see it,” Nettie commented obviously. “I can’t see his wiener.”

            “Almost there,” Patricia encouraged. “Paul, your…”

            “All right, all right,” he groaned through gritted teeth. He moved with a purpose now, yanking his underwear over his thankfully dormant member and casting it on the floor. It wasn’t that he was exactly on board with this turn, but he’d come this far now; there was no way he wasn’t going to get some satisfaction at his family for putting him through such wretched embarrassment.

            A hush fell on the room. Paul heard some immature snorts and whispered gags from the cousins, but that aside, everyone was simply focused on him and his unfortunately exposed lower half. The boy blinked. He slumped his head back against the couch, painfully aware that he was currently half-naked before more than a dozen of his almost-entirely female kin. His mother’s hand was still flush to his cheek.

            At the very least, he thought in the hollow of this surreal moment, he was in absolutely no danger of an erection now.

            “Good boy,” Patricia congratulated. Her fingers thrummed on her son’s chin. “Now, Elise? Would you do the honors?”

            Honors? What more was there to do? Paul lifted his head to see his oldest sister, billowing blue dress elegantly clutched in either hand, was marching toward him. With frightening authority, she planted one mary-jane up on the couch by his leg, then stepped fully up onto the furniture, leaving her brother to face the opened, alabaster void of her petticoats.

            “W-What?” he managed dumbly. She smiled.

            As the full train of the outfit was hoisted up and over Paul’s head, he was able to truly appreciate the sheer mass of it for the first time. He disappeared into the snowy layers of fabric while they bristled about his cheeks and ears. Elise’s stockinged thighs fastened themselves around his head. And then it occurred to him that he was literally experiencing the physical form of Alice herself, “growing” right before his eyes. Right above him, in fact. The very instant he had that thought, he tried to force his focus elsewhere, but it was too late; the image was in his brain like a virus.

            “Huh,” he heard Nettie say. “Looks like something’s happening downstairs.”

            No. Impossible. With all these people around, there was no way he could manage to get it up, no matter the circumstances.

            The boy felt the familiar tingle in his crotch. Sure enough, his penis was growing.

            Paul went to move his arm in a bid to bat the wedding cake-like geometry of Elise’s dress away. However, he found his mother had a strong grip on his wrist now. He was kept subdued between the combined effort of his parent and a scissor-hold from his sister. It was also at this moment Paul found he had to inhale and was only doubly drawn into the lacy portal of his sister’s undercarriage. The smell. So sweet and satiny, suggestive of daffodils, yet with all the inherent warmth of human skin. His half-mast was quickly approaching full mast.

            “Well, my, oh, my,” he heard Aunt Debra remark.

            “Would you look at that…” Aunt Kathleen laughed.

            Red in the face, dry in the throat, Paul remained frozen. He tried diverting his arousal in every philosophical direction: dying animals, world hunger, pulpy gore. None of it was any match for the existential joy of being here, right now, inside the fluffy snowstorm of Elise’s petticoats. She curtsied, dipping her brother’s head ever higher in the swirling folds.

            The boy quivered, his erection now complete and aching for attention, especially after he was forced to cut his earlier session short. Unable to help it, he panted for release.

            With a start, then, Paul flinched as a firm yet articulately controlled shape landed squarely on his nethers. By the warmth and contraction of soft flesh, not to mention distinctive thready terrain of nylon, the boy realized someone was pressing her foot into his cock. Not content to merely squash down on his junk, the foot began stroking up and down along his shaft with surprisingly practiced motion. It was jacking him.

            Every single muscle, nerve, and tendon in Paul’s body screamed at him to act. Thrash, fight, jump away. Do anything to prevent what was coming. But he didn’t. Couldn’t.

            “So much for proof, hmm, Paul?” Aunt Kathleen remarked as she kneaded her nyloned sole on her nephew’s penis. “I can’t say I’m seeing a convincing case here. Can you, Debra?”

            “Not at all.”

            “What about you, Patricia?”

            “I’m afraid we’re getting answers to all of our questions right now, just as we suspected we might,” Patricia sighed, obviously let down. Her lips returned to her son’s ear. “Aren’t we, dear?”

            Abrasive as the nylon material was, it didn’t take more than a minute of the swooshing sole and scrunching toes to put Paul over the edge. He sucked in the stuffy air of his sister’s petticoats and convulsed as he ejaculated onto the silky sole of his aggressive aunt. A collective gasp enveloped the room.

            Elise gathered up her dress again. She stepped royally down from the couch. Paul was left exposed once again, still half-clothed but more naked than ever before.

            “Well,” Aunt Kathleen murmured with a broad smile. She wiped her damp foot along her nephew’s rumpled pants to dry off. “I suppose the prosecution rests, doesn’t it?”

            “That didn’t even take very long!” Nettie sneered.

“Soooooo gross! These are just our clothes! It’s what I wear all the time!” one of the cousins griped. “You’re saying he gets turned on, like that, just by seeing us in a dress and petticoats. What, so it’s like he’s just looking at us naked whenever he stares?”

            “Pretty much,” Elise said, grinning broader than ever. She steepled her fingers together above her brother again. After this whole incriminating and not to mention humiliating display, Paul was now too paralyzed to budge. “So see, Paul? It’s a BIG problem. And one Mom’s got a real good way to fix!”

            “Huh?” Paul sputtered, still weak in the afterglow. He pulled his pants back up as soon as was humanly possible, but he knew the damage was already done tenfold. “H-How…”

            “Just have a nice, cool drink of this, sweetie,” Patricia said. She reached to the coffee table for a waiting glass bottle which might’ve once held a fizzy soft drink, but now contained a still purple liquid. Around the neck of the glass was a paper tag simply labeled DRINK ME.

            Paul’s lethal curiosity got the better of him. What did he have to lose now, anyway, after he’d just been stripped bare emotionally and physically in front of the family? Now with blood still pumping to every corner of his body, he was hardly able to tear his eyes away from Elise and her exposed petticoats. With trembling hands, he accepted his mother’s gift, and wordlessly guzzled down half the bottle in one gulp.

            “What’s… what’s going to h-”

            The first syllable didn’t even make it out. In a near-magical flash, much like Alice herself, Paul was diminishing down in size. Except, he wasn’t granted the mercy of keeping his attire. Naked as the day he was born, the boy plunged down into the billowing folds of clothing. When the polyester heaps were finally drawn back by monstrous fingers, Paul could hardly conceive of what he saw.

            His entire family, enormously titanic, like beings of legendary myth, now all crowded around the place where he’d shrunk down to (if he made a generous guess) a mere half an inch tall. He was a speck.

            “He almost went out like a candle!” Nettie cackled, clapping her hands.

            “And just about time, too,” Aunt Debra said. “More to the point, nephew…”

            “…we also know you don’t just like poor Alice in her Wonderland for her dress and petticoats…” Patricia said.

            “…you like her much, much bigger than you,” Elise finished with a triumphant smack of her heel on the floor. She bowed, looming overhead like the fairy tale figure crammed into the Queen of Hearts’ tiny witness stand. “And really, what kind of person actually likes that?”

            “Not a human boy, that’s for certain,” Aunt Kathleen chuckled. Heads nodded in agreement. Even his mother Patricia, much to the boy’s dismay.

            “Contrariwise…” Elise said, “…maybe he’s actually just some kind of tiny, perverted little species of insect. Quite curious, really.”

            “And unfortunately, my dear, sweet little Paul…” Patricia said. Her fingers descended, pinching her scrawny naked son between the pads of her thumb and forefinger. “…you know I simply will not tolerate any infestation under this roof.”

            Overcome with terror, yet unable to move between his mother’s iron fingertips, Paul awaited helplessly as he was lowered toward the ground and placed beside his parent’s building-sized pump. He trembled like a leaf on the floor, surrounded on all sides by a veritable forest of giant humanity comprising his mother, sisters, aunts, and cousins. All of them huddled in closer to gawk and glimpse his misfortune. Dresses and petticoats abounded in unthinkable measure above like colored clouds, and at the center of them, of course, was Elise, flaring the ends of her sky-blue dress out for her brother to appreciate.

            “Yes, it’s definitely curiouser and curiouser now…” Elise sighed contentedly, hands on her hips. “So what are you waiting for, you dodo?”

            “RUN!” Nettie squealed, too excited to keep it in longer.

            His brain at last choosing to obey his panicking muscles, Paul took off at a sprint. He ignored the endless godlike polished shoes and heels tapping happily as he passed. It was tough work getting anywhere fast at half an inch tall, but when he truly needed to, as he did now, the boy could move. The entire giant family behind him cheered and golf-clapped, though somehow he suspected not for him to succeed.

            “We all know the rules, ladies, like we discussed…” Patricia said from somewhere beyond. Consent hummed over the room. “We’ll give a certain someone a nice, fair head start before we go hunting. And then… well, it would be a great favor to me and my daughters if you could just… squish any bugs you happen upon while you’re here for lunch.”

            “But if you don’t want to do it, just call for me!” Elise said. She wrung her hands together, watching her dust mite of a brother sprint away in the nude. “I’ll be glad to handle it myself.” Her mary-jane slammed to the floor with another deafening crack.

            What? Paul didn’t pause to consider, but he was pretty sure he was understanding correctly. They wanted to squash him under their shoes.

            They… they were actually going to kill him. For his Alice in Wonderland fetish. Paul picked up the pace.

            Exiting the living space, the boy darted for the dining room. There were few hiding places here, but he was taking too much of a chance running anywhere further. He galloped for the glassware cabinet along the wall, with its low-crested carvings providing plenty of cover, and dove under. In the darkness, he could catch his breath, and wait in silent horror. Even then, though, he noticed his skin wasn’t warm simply from the speed or adrenaline.

            The image of his sister Elise in her costume lingered in his mind, even though she… no, especially because her shoe crashed back to the earth in demonstration of what she could enact on his frail half-inch body.

            What the hell was wrong with him?

            “Now if I were a shrunken little boy, where would I keep myself?” Nettie giggled from yonder. The cousins laughed in unison at her reference. Shoes clomped ominously from the hall and through the walls, ringing in Paul’s miniature ears. The family was on the move.

            “Remember, no cheating, ladies!” Patricia reminded everyone with her traditional lilt. “No rearranging the furniture. Use some creativity instead!”

            Well, that was a start. At least they couldn’t topple his defense barrier. Paul wondered if he could simply live under this cabinet for the rest of his life. That was the most attractive possibility right now.

            “Come ooooout, Paul! Come see the peeeetticoats!” bellowed one of the cousins. He heard the sound of a dress aggressively fluttering and flapping, displaying the snowy folds beneath. “C’mon, Paul! Don’t you want to get a good look? I’ll let you get lost in them if you wanna try and climb up!”

            “You think he’ll fall for that?” whispered another cousin.

            “Sure he might! His brain’s like a pea now. Plus, he only really thinks with that funny little nub between his legs, anyway,” Nettie explained.

            Colossal shoes clattered past Paul’s narrow view through the opening of the low crest. High heels like space needles stabbed the carpet. Buckled mary-janes stampeded by. Every footfall was another seismic rattle in Paul’s bones. He lay against the floor’s fibers, baffled at what move he could possibly make next.

            “FEE, FI, FO-” sang one of the younger cousins.

            “Wrong storybook, dummy,” her sister groaned.

            Shadow flooded Paul’s limited source of light. A big, bright blue eye filled in the opening, discovering the boy’s hiding place under the cabinet.

            “Found him!” his giant cousin cheered. Shoes pounded behind, growing louder and quaking the ground with greater strength as everyone converged. “Who’s got small fingers? We gotta fish him out.”

“He’s cheating,” Nettie sneered as she stared in at her puny brother. “Hiding like that, where we can’t get him!”

            Paul stumbled backward just as long, slender fingers shoved their way inside his shelter. He tripped through dust and dirt and clambered back into void. The worming digits beyond gave way to an entire hand pushed through the opening. Panic reignited, the boy only just dodged the clamping feminine fingers. Instead he darted toward an opening on the opposite side of the cabinet’s underhang.

            Paul crept back into light. His eye snagged on a wall vent just a hop, skip, and a jump away from where he stood now. Unfortunately, all three of those methods of motion weren’t much help for one so small. He sprinted again, careful not to gasp too loudly for air.

            “HEY!” one of his second cousins remarked. “He’s getting away!”

            “Quit pushing! I want to do it!”

            “No, I’m gonna skoosh him!”

            “In your dreams!”

            There was a mad scramble of enormous beings somewhere behind Paul, though he dared not look over his shoulder. The ground rumbled and bounced beneath him. Petticoats like white flowers the size of mountains flared and ruffled above and all around. Spotless saddle shoes worn by his cousins crash-landed with the force of falling school buses, mere inches away, as they made their attempts to crush him. Behind the crowd were several pairs of long pumps, plowing down into the carpet with concussive force, belonging to his aunts and mother.

            “Hey! Mom, Nettie shoved me before I could stomp her brother!” one second cousin whined.

            “Got to say, that little shrinking violet sure does want to live, doesn’t he?” a great aunt chuckled.

            “Move! Ergghh! Come BACK, Paul, so Alice can show you a world all her own!” The voice of Elise carried easily above the other yapping brats.

            Only by the miracle of his family’s awkward wrestling over who’d actually get to commit the deed, did Paul escape the typhoon of clomping hard-soled shoes. Hands over his head, he swan-dove into the wall vent.

            Paul ran again, with slight hope renewed in his heart. He couldn’t remain in this tunnel forever, but it was his best route to another room less occupied by his family. If he could survive that encounter, he could survive another.

            Did this game even have an end, though? Was there an objective for him? Or did it simply end when someone stamped him?

            As he sprinted, Paul had to slow to a jog when he realized a growing problem between his legs yet again diverting blood flow. He was almost more exasperated with the continuation of his sad primal urges than the joyous murder hunt taking place in his very own home. What kind of creature was he?

            Blooming light fixtures through the vent cracks guided Paul into his next battleground. He crept through the opening in the wall and set foot on the spotless kitchen floor. The sunflower-yellow space resembled a modern castle foyer now for its sheen and cleanliness, not to mention towering table leg pillars which reminded the boy he was a speck in a hall of the gods.

            But he knew it was suicide to simply marvel at the insanity of his scale. On the hard floor of the adjoining hall, Paul could make out the insistent clack of pump heels, echoing in all directions. They were coming this way. Multiple pairs, in fact. At least two and possibly three.

            His gaze darted wildly. Paul caught sight of the pantry door, cracked just ajar, off to his left. It was the nearest and best hope. Shaking off the cramps, he sprinted through the partition just as the three pairs of prodigious footwear clapped thunderously into the kitchen.

            Paul sidled between stacked metal cans of condensed soup and canned peaches. A box of dusty oatmeal rested in the back, the top perforated. It was enough of a hiding place for now. His legs trembled from the staggering rumble sent through the floor as the three heel-wearing women spread out over the kitchen. Without turning to peek, Paul burrowed into the opening of the oatmeal box.

            This time, the pounding of feet wasn’t in the fired-up fashion of a stampede. This wasn’t the giddy scampering of young girls jumping and skittering about. Those heels were placed down with thoughtful purpose; no rush, no fuss. No giggling and hand-clapping as they argued over him. Just the hard-soled, shotgun-like thump of a heel and its spear meeting the earth beneath a being of greater, more mature form and figure.

            Even without line of sight, Paul knew the three pairs of pumps belonged to his mother and two aunts.

            “Oh, Paul! Paul, dear!” Aunt Debra crooned.

            “Your favorite aunties would like a word!” Aunt Kathleen added.

            “It’s really all right to come out now, Paul,” his mother Patricia chimed in. “We’d only like to demonstrate for you how we as a family feel about your misguided hobbies.”

            The voices rose above what sounded to the boy like kitchen cabinets being lovingly unlatched, opened, then shut again. Chairs scraped along the tile floor. Pots and pans were rummaged by hands careful not to make too much noise and risk missing the boy’s trail.

            Unlike his previous family encounter, these particular middle-aged hunters knew how to stalk prey without getting in their own way. Despite there being fewer feminine threats to contend with in this room than the last, Paul couldn’t help but feel he was in greater danger now. His stomach churned.

            “Paul, don’t you want to play footsy again with your auntie again?” Aunt Kathleen called out. “I’m ready if you are.”

            “I don’t think he’ll like the kind of “end” he comes to if you try that again,” Aunt Debra added.

            “Oh, you ladies are incorrigible!” Patricia said, though she couldn’t help but giggle as well.

            The deadly rummage continued. Paul’s pulse was skyrocketing. He watched the pantry door pried open on squeaking hinges. Burrowing down deeper into the clustered oats didn’t make him feel much safer. Both of his aunts crouched in front of the shelves, rotating cans and parting cereal boxes. The soft rustling of their long fingernails drawing ever-closer on the wood encouraged Paul to bury himself even deeper.

            “You know, this really has been a lovely visit, Patricia,” Aunt Debra remarked. “The lunch was delicious, as always, and you certainly know how to put together a good group activity for everyone.”

            “Why, thank you!”

            “It’s been so long since we all did something this much fun as a family, hasn’t it?” Aunt Kathleen said. “At least since the scavenger hunt last fall.”

            “Oh, but this is so much better than that!” Debra said.

            “I couldn’t agree more,” Patricia said. “Now, did anyone check the oatmeal?”

            Paul went rigid again. Maybe there was more than one box of oatmeal?

            His cardboard shelter was turned on its head. A stream of dry grain came pouring out of the box, followed by the tumbling half-inch body of Paul. Dumbfounded, he looked up to find his mother and both of his aunts now standing above him like sentinels, the leather pyramids of each of their heel tips pointed directly at him.

            “Why Mary-Anne! What are you doing down here?” Debra joked. She clasped her hands together in mock-swoon. “Aren’t you just sharp as a tack, Patricia!”

            “Now let’s see if he’s as happy with my foot on his body now,” Kathleen purred, licking her lips. Her heel arched up.

            “Not so fast,” Patricia said slyly. She curled her fingers at her sides. “I found my little boy. Seems only right I’m the one to tag him “it.”

            Paul’s mother did just that. Her shoe, anchored by the spike, wrested from the floor and draped over her son’s body. Then, with precision only a mother could possess while dealing with her children, the woman pressed. Crushing weight distributed itself by the ton across the shadowy surface of Patricia’s worn sole. Paul was pinned spread-eagle to the floor in a blink.

            If this game had changed to Tag, nobody told Paul.

            He managed only a peep before the weight made it hardly possible to inflate his lungs, let alone level a verbal protest. His head was swimming. Maybe they’d known where he was as soon as they entered the room and only delayed to toy with his brain. So they could then also toy with his very breakable frame like a moth trapped in flypaper. Patricia’s leg twisted.

            Just when the boy was certain his organs would pop out the sides of his body from the assault, though, the pressure relented. By some miracle unknown, his mother’s shoe was lifting off of her half-inch son. It came to rest back on the oat-flecked tile where it stood before as though nothing had happened.

            “What do you say, ladies?” Patricia questioned. “For the sake of the game? Ten second head start?”

            “I knew he had to be a mama’s boy,” Debra sighed with obvious disappointment. “You truly do spoil him, Patricia. Honestly.”

            “It would be unfortunate to end the fun so soon…” Kathleen admitted.

            “Are you waiting for something, sweetie?” Patricia asked of her son. She tucked both hands under her apron, raising the cushy flap up in her palms, then flattened it back down. “Next time, Mummy will use just a little bit more oomf. So you’d best be running along.”

            Paul didn’t need to be told twice. Tail between his legs, he darted under the majestic archway of his mother’s meaty legs and cascading petticoats beneath her ample purple dress. Spirits wounded and erection only hardened, the boy made for the vent again unmolested. They allowed him to re-enter the relative safety of the walls.

Remaining inside the walls permanently was still a defeatist option for Paul. There were any number of methods his family could utilize to smoke him out of the tunnels. Thus he selected his next room with greater care this time. The sprint was a tough one, but when Paul finally emerged through the grate again at the exact opposite corner of the house, he was rewarded with a deserted room.

            Nettie’s room. Not a soul in sight.

            Paul ducked behind the carved post of his older sister’s lilac-painted bedframe. He watched her shut the door behind, then take a stand in the center of the room: hand to her hip, chin held high, and a swell of confidence on her face.

            “Now where, oh where, could my little brother have gone?” Nettie wondered loudly. She rested her chin upon a softly closed fist and tapped her foot. Despite the gentility of this motion, Paul still shook from the vibration.

            The boy watched his sister commence her hunt. Like their mother and aunts, she seemed to be in no major hurry. She even checked in places she had to know were physical impossibilities. Inside her jewelry box, on the top bookshelf, and the upper drawer of her dresser. Her fingers petted everything she touched, barely bothering to move any laid objects to properly search.

            “I’ll bet wherever he is, though, he’s just trying not to get crushed. And that’s all. There’s no way he could be hiding somewhere and trying not to rub himself at the thought of his big family stamping him into the rug,” Nettie continued with the same lilting, sarcastic naiveté. “Cuz that would make him awfully messed up. That would make him… well, obviously it would make him not a person. But it would also make him a creep. An itty, bitty, weird little creep.”

            Guiltily, cheeks aflame despite there being no witnesses no, Paul looked down. She wasn’t wrong. About any of it. He wanted to strike his erection just as much as he wanted to stroke it.

            “I know you can hear me,” Nettie said at last. The musical chastity of her tone was dispensed now. This was the sister he knew better. “I know you’re under my bed. So come out, Paul. Come out where I can see you. If you come out, I promise not to crush you right away. But you have to do it now.”

            Paul was surprised and angry to find his feet cooperating. One leg and then the other. So much for escape. He soon stood out in the open in the shadow of his sister.

            “Wow. Looks like somebody is liking this even more than us,” Nettie commented as she glared down at him. She tsked, shaking her head. “Admit it, Paul. This is what you’ve been dreaming about for a long time. Years, probably. You wanted this. Don’t try and fake out of it anymore. Not after we all saw you ejaculate on Aunt Kathleen’s foot.”

            Drooping his shoulders, Paul shrugged.

            “Answer me, buggy,” Nettie demanded.

            “I don’t know.”

            “I can literally see your erection, Paul. I mean, I have to squint, but I can see it. Who are you trying to fool? Why are you pretending you don’t get hard over the idea of big ladies in pretty dresses coming to squish you?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “Wrong answer.” In a single bound, the girl was upon him. The shockwave of her slammed shoe toppled Paul over. And her hands were just as quick. A slender thumb and forefinger fastened around Paul’s left ankle and lifted him up in a rush of wind. They rose back to her full height.

            “Let go! Let go, Nettie!” Paul screeched with fresh panic. His voice was higher-pitched than he thought it capable. He squirmed and swung like an upside-down pendulum, from the pivot point of his sister’s pinched fingers. The world spun below. “Please, let go. HELP!”

            “Well, I’m sorry…” Nettie drawled with a moony innocence. She rolled her big eyes and chewed every syllable for all it was worth. “But I must… eat… something!”

            The sickness he’d felt before tripled and metastasized to every skin cell.

            Was she actually doing “the scene” right now?

            Paul’s chin quivered as he witnessed his sister’s cherry lips purse and pucker in consideration. Then, at last, her tongue emerged: a slimy instrument to drive home this humiliating re-enactment.

            “Go ahead,” Nettie dared him in whisper. Her eyes narrowed. “You know you wanna. Say the part from the movie that you’re supposed to say. Say it to me.”

            “N-N-Not… n-not m-me, you… you…” he sputtered on autopilot. Just as when he was being drowned in petticoats and masturbated by his aunt’s toes earlier, Paul’s entire body ached for him to resist. And just as it was then, he had no choice but to obey instinct. “…you barbarian!”

            A guttural chuckle erupted from the darkness of Nettie’s throat. Irises crackled with victorious joy. Her lips parted again, her glistening pearly whites displayed like medieval weaponry. Hot breath poured in seeping fog over Paul’s dangling half-inch body.

            And then, true to the story, she clamped her teeth around his carrot.

            Paul actually screamed this time, though in anticipation rather than pain. With admirable dexterity, Nettie had fastened two rows of sharp ivories in a vice around her brother’s pathetically tiny penis. His erect member just managed to squeeze into the narrow gap between her front teeth and lower incisors.

            Nettie’s burly fingertips pulled away, yanking Paul and his dick from the narrow porthole between the girl’s teeth. He was suspended in space a mere inch from the girl’s lips. Her teeth clacked then parted. The bulbous pink mass of her tongue emerged between her jaws again.

            Flat, sopping with saliva, the slab of Nettie’s tongue oozed itself up the entire length of Paul’s body. She lapped from his head and up to his legs, caking him easily in a grimy coating of spit. The boy couldn’t help but moan in teased ecstasy.

            “Just kidding, perv,” Nettie accused. “You think I’d eat your gross little body? There’s no way I’m getting rid of you in any way I can’t just wash off with the hose outside.”

            Paul flinched as the ground spiraled near again. His sister’s fingers released their grip on his leg and he met the floor, unharmed, for now. This seemed a temporary state, though, as a sole-shaped darkness had blossomed around his body.

            “If you’re still planning on creaming yourself again, little brother…” Nettie taunted as she lifted her leg high above her half-inch sibling. “…I suggest you do it real quick!”

            Despite a subconscious curiosity to remain still and attempt exactly this, Paul finally retook control of his selfish brain. He sprinted to the side. Mercifully, Nettie’s foot was raised so pompously high, her balance was thrown off, and by the time she’d slammed her shoe back to earth, the boy was already running toward the wall.

            “You really can’t keep yourself from cheating, can you, you little freak?” Nettie scowled. “I can’t believe I licked you and that I still… felt your ridiculous little penis, all hard for me about to eat you. Unbelievable.” Her shoes thumped somewhere behind Paul, though she didn’t run. Perhaps to create the illusion of a chance.

            Paul sprinted nonetheless. He was shocked to discover he wasn’t yet a stain on his sister’s shoe when he reached the vent and clambered over the metal lip.

            “Fine, run away! See if I care. I just want you to think about how you’re never going to get away from all of us. Us, the smarter, bigger, better ones than you,” Nettie called after him. She cupped her hands around her lips as she bellowed into the vent. “I mean, seriously. Who are YOU?”

            The boy quaked with latent disgrace and arousal as he ran. He wiped his hands of the sticky saliva now painted and dried over his whole body. There was no good answer to his sister’s question.

After a long stretch, Paul emerged through the grate in the front parlor across the hall from the living room where he’d shrunk. Nobody to be seen, at least not yet, although there were an awful lot of giant family members charging around in search of his shrimpy body to mulch into paste. He was bound to find yet another sooner or later.

            The boy ran again across the floor, bypassing the expansive bookshelves which stretched into oblivion above, and slid under the flaps overhanging the base. Less coverage than the glassware cabinet, but the best he’d have in this room.

            When next Paul heard the shuffle of pounding feet and stifled laughter, this time, it wasn’t accompanied by pestering voices. No jokes or loud strategies being planned. There were people in the room, but no thumping of knees dropping to the carpet to search for their half-inch prize. No eyes filling the gaps between the couch legs.

            Maybe, just maybe, he was finally winning?

            That was when a stack of almanacs came crashing down on the far side of the couch, shoved hard against the surface, entirely blotting out that escape route. Then another on the opposite side, and still more musty tomes in tactical succession, narrowing the exits on the broad side of the furniture. In almost no time, Paul was blocked into the stuffy space beneath the couch. The laughter had returned in gale force.

            Where once he’d found sanctuary here, now Paul realized he’d built himself a prison as a result of his family’s quick teamwork. Stealthily, he turned, backing toward the wall, where he spied a smaller ventilation opening: his last remaining play.

            A thick coffee table book slid down the back wall, blocking off the vent. Giant fingers drummed possessively against the cover as the hand reached down from above on the cushions, extinguishing Paul’s chance.

            “Uh-uh-UH! No cheating a third time,” Nettie scolded with a wagging finger. She continued shoveling books inside, blocking her puny younger brother in ever-closer to the last remaining opening in his embankment. With a sinking heart, Paul realized there was no getting out of here except the way which was now crowded by every gorgeous amazonian attendee of the family luncheon.

            “Well, what now?” Aunt Kathleen questioned from above.

            “I do believe the end of the game is nigh,” Aunt Debra snickered. “And somebody just might lose a head.”

            “Who’s gonna do it?” one of the cousins piped excitedly, clomping her shoe on the floor in anticipation.

            “I think since Elise thought up this whole game once we stumbled on poor little Paul’s silly fantasies, she deserves the final honors,” Patricia said with pride only a mother could have for her daughter.

            The aunts and great aunts nodded, and even Nettie, deflated of gusto that she might be the lucky winner, shook her head. There was some mumbled dissent from the cousins, who were clearly itching to get stomping. However, everyone present seemed at least content to witness the entertainment up close. All of them stooped, fluffing petticoats out from under blooms of skirts. The towering women crouched with hands on knees, wide-eyed and eager for the spectacle.

            “Oh, don’t mind if I do!” Elise announced regally. “But first, let’s get you out of there, you funny little perv.”

            She crouched, fingers pinched around her left mary-jane buckle, and unlatched it. Her foot tugged from the shoe, and then came her white stocking, achingly unpeeled along the full length of her leg. When at last she plucked the mealy fabric from the ends of her toes, even from this distance, Paul had an idea where her intentions lay. His stomach gurgled.

            The odor arrived like a punch to the face, and for someone of Paul’s size, it was a considerable wallop. Her foot’s scent, pungent leaking from between her writhing toes, was strong from outside the couch-prison, but then it was getting closer. The air soured almost instantly. Paul coughed, wiping his brow, and tried to ignore both his erection and the grip of terror as he watched his sister’s giant limb approaching.

            Much like the oblivious White Rabbit, Paul watched the miniature doorway filling up with an enormous foot. He drank in the sight, dumbly, only for an instant, before he was absorbed into its ramming force.

            Elise’s newly freed bare foot, sticky and slick from summer heat, surged forth with Paul’s helpless naked body adhered to her sole. When Elise had stretched her leg as far under the couch as she could, her heel came to rest on the carpet, and Paul crumpled against his sister’s rank, toejam-smeared heel, still in one piece, but dizzy from the fumes.

            “Wow, I can actually feel his creepy little prick standing up!” Elise erupted with laughter. Her relatives joined her in the commiserating cackles at Paul’s inexplicable hard-on, even as his end rapidly approached. “How embarrassing. Seriously, though, this must feel like the best birthday party ever for you, huh, Paul? All the pretty giant ladies and skirts and petticoats and big ol’ stomping FEET you could ever want. And it’s all about you.”

            “Too bad it’s not his real birthday,” a cousin giggled.

            “At least it’s his UN-birthday!” her sister shrieked.

            “Hey, you got the right storybook this time!”

            Paul hacked for oxygen. Their trap had worked all too well. No fresh air could seep inside; all he was breathing now was the vile, vinegary essence which steamed by the gallon from Elise’s greasy foot flesh. Her toes flicked and crossed together. They popped from the lubricant of sweat, releasing fresh bursts of flavor into the air.

            The half-inch boy was on the verge of passing out. He could feel his lungs caving, his stomach rotating end-over-end. Even as he tried to crawl in the dark away from his big sister’s nuclear warhead of a naked foot, he somehow accidentally just moved back toward it in his delirium. At least, that’s what he told himself with what little coherence remained. Odds were, his subconscious was acting as a foolish compass now in the absence of logic, and he was coming back toward her because, in all the worst ways possible, this game, right now, was the greatest thing that had ever happened to Paul.

            He huffed and puffed, nearly depleted as his sister continued gassing him out by mere proximity to this foot, which had spent most of the day cooking in stockings and mary-janes: the very outfit, in fact, he’d spent so many days and mostly nights fantasizing over. Though it was a tough call in the blackness, he was pretty sure more of his family members were following Elise’s example. Nyloned toes and bare soles, all freshly marinated in tight shoes, were being wedged between the stacks of books for an all-out assault on his olfactory senses.

            Maybe, Paul decided, with his half-melted brain, it made all the sense in the world now to have just one more peek at the full ensemble. One last chance to take in the curious sights of a dozen gigantic women simultaneously indulging his madness and punishing him for it.

            After all, they were all clearly just a little bit mad at this party.

            Paul lumbered lazily out from beneath the opening, hand to the squishy wall of his sister’s tall foot, using it as a guide while she helpfully dragged him toward doom. Even as he emerged back into the blaring parlor glow and a chorus of family applause, he was solely focused on his sister now.

            The life and color of Elise’s billowing blue dress, her unblemished apron, the lacy delicacy of her petticoats tantalizingly dripping from beneath. Her graceful hands, her precious bow, the strength and power of those slender legs rising higher and higher into the air, beyond imagining: like Alice, fresh off an EAT ME cake. She was more beautiful than anything he’d seen in his life. Paul’s mind raced hotly with the unwholesome promise of it all. Goose bumps rising, cock begging for climax, the boy let himself be transported down the rabbit hole, into the fantasy his gorgeous Alice and the rest of the family had devised, just for him.

            He could see her now. Alice, or was it Elise? It didn’t matter now. Her body was framed by the Wonderland sunlight behind. A girl who could rip through the sturdiest cottage with finger and foot, stamp an entire living garden into nonexistence, stand up to a crazed Queen in her own dominion to threaten her with an unhappy end. The plucky Englishwoman in the simplest armor of bow and blue dress who would make all of his dreams come true by growing one last time. He took hold of his member.

            One last look now. Drunk on hazy air, skin flushed, body aquiver with perfect fear, and pathetic erection at full mast.

            Paul felt himself smile. So did his Alice, in answer.

            Elise’s upheld none of the mercy of Patricia nor the theatricality of Nettie. She, Paul’s personal Alice, was already late for the end of this game. And she was sick of bringing involuntary elation to her sick insect of a sibling. Her mary-jane shoe crashed down to earth with the promised aplomb. The boom of her foot echoed through the house.

            She dug her heel into the ground, twisting and turning, just for good measure. Then Elise lifted her foot again and smashed it back to the carpet with the same enthusiasm and muscular coordination. Another house-rattling crash. The sole rammed to and fro with tap-dancing ferocity. Figure-eights were scraped into the floor with Paul’s mushy remains. The sound of the liquid squish was soft, almost too insignificant hear. The boy’s body had burst humbly on impact with his sister’s shoe, then smeared from one end to the other from her efforts.

            Even so, the entire family heard the finish, and broke into the requisite cheers and laughter again for the success of the game. When the blue-clad young lady sunk with a sigh back into the nearest armchair, she gave her black bow a little twirl, then cast it aside as she propped her shoe over her knee.

            A crimson smudge painted across her sole was the only memento of Paul now. The younger cousins and Nettie all gathered around to poke curious fingers at the remains, simultaneously giggling and grossing themselves out.

            “Oh, my,” Elise sighed. “It’s so nice for something to make sense for a change!”