"See ya later man."
Brett parted ways with his friend Marco who was TAing in the guidance counselor's office for third period. Friday was dragging.
On his way out, he saw a list posted on the bulletin board that he hadn't seen before - each teacher in the school had a handful of lines underneath them, with the text at the top reading "VOLUNTEER SIGN-UP FOR SHRINK DISCIPLINARY CERTIFICATION"
Brett briefly paused and felt his heart leap a little bit. Normally they had plenty of real criminals, or at least kids from juvie, to do that with, right? He had known that the discipline was getting stricter, maybe they weren't finding as many bad apples?


Shrinking of humans was first part of correctional institutions, and now part of some school districts, particularly those which had previously had problems with discipline. The technology was deemed safe over the past few years after being experimented with in laboratories for a decade before. Educational administrators grasped upon it as a way to reduce the logistical challenges of overcrowded schools, but parents generally balked when their students had to be shrunk regularly for class. They worried about the safety. There was ultimately a compromise made - teachers would only shrink students as punishment for their actions or for emergencies, such as stopping fights. In practice, at Westwood High School, it meant that disrespecting a teacher could get you shrunk and then placed in an unpleasant place. It might be a box at the front of the class so that others could see you and laugh at your expense, or it might be inside a desk drawer, or if you pissed her off, maybe a mini desk under the teacher's desk where she could slip off her shoes and harrass you with her feet.

But now they wanted volunteers for certification? He saw that the teacher would be empowered to offer extra credit on satisfactory completion of volunteer work, but it was vague enough that he didn't know what to expect there. Could it really be enough of an incentive to motivate anyone except those who had some kink to be shrunken? Brett reckoned not, and was therefore heartened that at least some other students put their names down. He wasn't going to be the only one.
It wasn't to be taken lightly. He knew that the training for certification would be the most intense part. "Detention of a shrunken student on the person of the teacher" was taught during certification - and the district did not adequately elaborate what this meant. He knew that it required real people to be shrunken and handled, and typically the district made do with younger men sentenced to community service. Rumor had it that a teacher would place you in their shoes, if not in other places.

Brett swallowed and looked around the office furtively. He did not want it to be seen that he was about to put his name down. This would be seen as profoundly lame; you didn't want a reputation as a brown-noser in Westwood.
There were some students who had joked that they'd enjoy being shrunk and picked up by some of the hotter teachers. Ms. Issakinen, a giggly Finnish knockout in her late 20s, unsurprisingly had some names under hers. Some students were also perhaps drawn to those with gentle, bubbly personalities. One name under Mrs. Gomez, the Spanish teacher, even though she was a plump woman pushing middle age, but she would certainly never hurt anyone and probably was just taking the certification because she had to.
But he was drawn toward the imposing demeanor of Ms. Olivier, an intense, tall and heavyset Haitian woman who taught 9th grade English. There was a slight warmth in him as he thought of her big feet propped up on her desk during a lazy day towards the end of 9th grade, and he had asked her before what her shoe size was. She looked amused and then quietly said size 13, which he already knew was very large for a woman. But Ms. Olivier was a private woman who probably never would have even dignified the question with an answer if he'd been an 11th grader like he was now. As a 9th grader, he'd still been a little bit of an innocent clown and she had been kindly to him, belying her reputation of being cold as ice to students who displeased her.

He signed his name under Ms. Olivier, heart pounding at this point. Then turned and lunged out of the office.
At the end of the day, after the Principal had announced on the PA how much extra credit it was worth to sign up, he saw a handful of students at the entrance to the office talking to other students, who were quietly but urgently warning the other students that it would involve being shoved into a shoe. Most of the kids asked to have their names removed; the laughter of other students who couldn't believe they'd volunteered helped seal the deal. The counselor came out and admonished the jokers, then excused all the students. Then he took down the sign-up sheet down and said that the registrations were closed.

He had no idea how many slots had been filled. For all he knew, he could be the only one left.

Mrs. Lee-Reilly, the school principal since 2018, had since become kind of an institution at the school. She was known for being a strict disciplinarian and distant from almost everyone. A tough woman who grew up in the projects in East New York, she wanted to make an impact in her troubled district as it grappled with poverty, particularly among immigrant children. It was probably her idea that she put in the superintendent's ear to start the required certification of shrink discipline. Many of the teachers thought it was a little weird and excessive, where corporal punishment was long out of favor and yet here they were being obliged to physically pick up students and carry them places they didn't want to go. But Lee-Reilly did not settle for difference of opinion on this. She wanted to make a name for herself; maybe there was a promotion out of the school into the district pending, but rolling out the shrink training and demonstrating it to other districts still had to proceed. It had to be three things: (1) done with volunteers, as the courts no longer freed people for community service to the schools; (2) done for all teachers, whether or not they wanted to; (3) done with students who were perceived to be reliable in not complaining about it afterward and creating difficulties with local news or legal threats. This in spite of the fact that some physical contact between teachers and students was part of the certification.
In practice, this last requirement made the selection pointless. It meant screening out truly rambunctious students and finding meek students who likely never would have faced the full wrath of the punishment to begin with, and whose parents were not vocal about anything. To many of her staff, the whole project was asinine, but the volunteer portion was especially ridiculous. She had heretofore outflanked such criticism, but it was getting tough.

So she was a bit chagrined as she saw only one name left on the sheet: "Brett Jonlee? He is the only one??!" she muttered to the counselor.
Mr. Bose said with a shrug "Yeah. There were a couple others but I came by to check and would you believe, one of the students whose older brother had done it for community service told the other students stories about how bad it was, and all but one of them acted surprised and scared as though they had no idea what it entailed. I spoke to the five who were previously on the list and I couldn't persuade them to stay. So I released them."
Mrs. Lee-Reilly sighed. Bose was right, even if she didn't like it. They had to identify students who were self-selecting voluntarily, even if it made it training far more inefficient. But she had one more question: "Was Brett there in the group?"
"Yeah, actually I saw him standing around. He must have heard what the training was like, but he didn't seem bothered."
The principal smiled, "Hah, that's great. We can probably rely on him then, right?"
Mr. Bose shrugged a little "Yeah, I guess."
"Who did he sign up for? Sondra??? Oh my, I'm impressed. He must really like her." Lee-Reilly said. She was actually embarrassed that she'd shown surprise, but she found it strangely funny that a handsome but shy, slightly-built white boy would want to undertake training with Sondra Olivier, a large intimidating Black woman who was known among the teaching staff for being tough with discipline. Coming from the Carribbean, Sondra had to be told once very sternly that corporal punishment was NOT allowed in public schools in the US anymore.
"I'll have to tell Sondra to be very thorough with Brett. Go through all the scenarios if he's still game. If he deals OK, we might be able to convince him to help other teachers with their training."
Mr. Bose seemed resigned and just nodded. He wasn't thrilled with the whole program and thankfully did not have to participate in it, as he had already received a certification in shrinking students from outside the district, which dealt with far more humane methods. Frankly, Mrs. Lee-Reilly's methods scared Bose, but he was dealing with his own problems at home and decided not to rock the boat in this new school.

Ms. Sondra Olivier was not elated at the prospect of what she was about to do. She was kind of taken aback by the conversation she'd had yesterday evening when finishing grading. Oh, the program itself was fine with Sondra. That disciplinary training that the district wanted her to do - it would be useful, she thought, to teach some of the rough boys some discipline, but she learned that it was going to be a student who really did not deserve it, which made her unhappy, particularly as Lee-Reilly made it seem like an experiment in pushing the limits.
And Mrs. Lee-Reilly had told her to prepare for Brett's first session tomorrow - she joked that Sondra shouldn't wash her feet tonight and let Brett be humbled. (Yikes, her feet already have a pretty strong odor.) Oh, and did she have any old flats that were kind of dingy? (Well, yes, but all of her flats were that way. Sondra didn't go shoe shopping much or care how they looked) Can you join me for a walk during lunch? (Sure, I can, but it's going to be 90 degrees. Poor Brett.)
With all these puzzlingly specific instructions completed, and after a brisk walk during lunchtime out in the hot sun talking about the English curriculum with her boss, Mrs. Olivier was ready to call in Brett to her classroom at the end of fourth period.

"Brett, how have you been? I haven't spoken with you since the end of 9th grade. You were a fine student."
"Th-thanks Miss Olivier. Yeah I have seen you in the halls sometimes but I didn't really know what to say."
"Well, I hope you're enjoying 11th grade now. How're your grades?"
"They're pretty okay.... but always could be better, y'know?"
She knew. She had had a chance to see his transcript. Did okay in 9th and 10th grade but he was getting sloppy now.
"Way too early for senioritis Brett!" she laughed.
"Haha I know Miss Olivier, I'm trying!"
Her face hardened very slightly. She had to work into this training, and this was the perfect moment. "Please call me MIZ Olivier Brett. It's true I'm not married anymore, but I don't want to be addressed as Miss like a young woman."
"Oh sorry! My mistake, Ms. Olivier."
"That's fine Brett. Do you understand what we're going to do today and what you've signed up for?"

Brett was silent for a couple seconds - he had somehow expected it would be less awkward or that he'd somehow able to be both show that he was enthusiastic while still being cool about it. In the end, he couldn't quite do it - he had never been told by Mrs. Lee-Reilly what would happen, as they seem to have kept the details secret.
"No, I'm sorry but I don't know. I know you are going to shrink me but I don't know what happens then. I am willing to help you get your certification though."
Sondra was touched slightly but she had to get sterner to get into the mood for discipline. "Well, I think you should have understood what you were signing up for before you signed up for it. You're going to be part of detention on the person of the teacher, just as training for me to have you on my body. I am authorized to tell you what to do while you are shrunk, and you must obey it. I really need you to obey me for your safety since if I expect you to move and you do not, you could be hurt. This is the first of three sessions, and it will be considered "passive" as I will be expecting you to do most of the motion yourself. Do you understand?"
Brett stood up straight. "Yes, I understand."
Ms. Olivier. "Very well. I am ready to begin. Did you wear the approved undergarments, or do you need to change first?"
Brett said "I'm wearing them." He remembered in previous shrinking lessons that you needed to wear fabric which the beam was capable of shrinking alongside your body, or else you'd wind up naked.
With no further warning, Ms. Olivier pulled out the shrink beam and held it up to Brett, pressed the button. There was a quick whoosh, and he disappeared onto the floor in a heap of clothes. After a few seconds she saw a wriggling bit of his own clothes and he emerged wearing the leotard-like shrinkable undergarment. He waved up to her to show he was ready. He was about 1.5 to 2 inches tall, a normal size which was actually somewhat large to fit into her shoe, but it would make him feel more comfortable at least.

"Okay Brett. Now I'm punishing you for what you've done. (That part was hard to say. She really did have an innate sense of justice.) Get into my left shoe." Ms. Olivier said, her voice booming a bit even though she lowered it for him. She removed a titanic-sized foot from her flat and then placed it upright so he could walk along the back of the heel.
Brett's heart pounded. He tried to take it all in. Ms. Olivier's toes were not painted as he had somehow thought they would be. The nails looked healthy but slightly long. But then he walked quickly, not wanting to seem to eager but hardly able to help himself. When he reached the edge of the heel, he started to smell that it was a well-used flat.
Ms. Olivier saw he was there, then she gradually flipped it onto the floor at a rate that would not cause him to fall over. Finally she said "Walk all the way to the toe of the shoe."
Brett started walking, but he saw the foot start to move before he could make it.

The sole was creamy with some dark marks, very different from the color of her perfectly ebony skin on the tops of her feet. Her sole was not especially crusty, but nor had she been pedicured in a long time, if ever.
The stink was increasing as he kept going. Finally he was about 3/4 of the way along the shoe, and he felt a force behind him.
Far above, in a louder tone of voice, Ms. Olivier said "You weren't moving fast enough, so my toes are going to help you get into position."
With astonishing deftness he felt her big toe and second toe wrap around him and pull him into the darkness and stench of the toe of the shoe. Her foot was clammy and smelled very strongly, but he was taken aback by the moist feeling that surrounded him. This woman had a lot of toe jam and grime between her toes, and it was being smeared on his body.
"Brett, I know you can still hear me inside the flat. I'm sorry that my feet smell bad, but this is part of your punishment and you should be eager to avoid it in the future. I did not wash them last night and I went on a jog this morning and a walk over lunchtime. You're going to be experiencing the result of that."
Brett was surrounded by the toes. They carried on pressing forward into the very tip and he fell forward slightly and felt his ankles fall underneath the ball of her foot, enabling the toes to come over the top of his head. Ms. Olivier gripped his head with her toes gently and wriggled slightly. She could feel him writhing as though it was intolerable.
"Brett, stop wiggling. Stay still."
Ms. Olivier did not feel him stay still. She squeezed and he finally stopped.
"Very good Brett. I have papers to grade now. I would like for you to remain as still as you can."


For the next half hour, he was surrounded by her toes, allowed himself to be rubbed by them, and felt the toejam cover his whole body. He felt like he was being submerged in a vat of smelly cheese, and he'd have sworn she enjoyed doing this.
Then a slight hum. What was that? He focused on the sound of what it made and felt a subtle wave of heat building in the shoe. Was she going somewhere, is that what motion felt like inside a shoe? What was he hearing?
Finally it hit him- a space heater. She was pointing a heater at her feet, and it was almost June. This had to be calculated to make it more unpleasant. Seriously?
Sweat began to form of his own origin and hers. Her foot smelled so strong it was starting to make him light-headed. It was going to be a long afternoon.

After what felt like an eternity getting lubricated by the teacher's foot sweat, he felt the meaty toes grasp him again and lift him off the ground. Looks like he was leaving the flat. Whoa, the ground was so far away! Be careful!
Sondra set him down finally on the ground. She struggled to do it smoothly, so he tripped on landing, but he wasn't hurt and waved up to say so. Her right foot remained in the shoe and she kind of tapped it expectantly...
"Now Brett, thank you for complying so far. But I really need to test your obedience to commands, so I'm going to ask you to do something unpleasant. Are you ready?"
Brett waved and did an exaggerated thumb's up. He had mixed feelings about the intensity of it, but Ms. Olivier couldn't imagine how much he enjoyed the visceral feeling of being clobbered by her big toes.

"Okay Brett I'm taking my other shoe out of my flat now. You'll see that this foot was facing the heater directly." The dark foot was ominously glistening with sweat and he could see evidence that it had as much if not more toejam than the other foot he'd been fondled by.
She paused, then proceeded.
"Brett, I want you to use your hands and mouth to scrape away and eat all of the toejam on my right foot. This is not my idea but the principal thinks it is a good test of the limits of discipline. It is a lot of mass to eat, but I feel that you can do it as you haven't eaten since lunch."
Brett was bewildered. He stood agape and shook his head. That was too far, it was going to make him sick.
"Brett, you may not refuse. I know it's going to be gross, but we are in training now. I need you to obey my orders. If you don't do it, I will hand you over to Mrs. Lee-Reilly and she will find a punishment for you, probably shrunken detention for several days."
Oh shit he thought, this isn't a joke. He was really going to have to do it. It was scary and yet he was unaccountably thrilled at the prospect that she was making him do it.

Each of the four toe gaps had something to consume. He started on the smallest toes and worked his way inward. At first it was only like one mouthful, but there was a huge wad of it between the first and second toes which took him time to eat. He was basically eating a whole meal comprised of salty, cheesy foot funk from his English teacher. If he had put it all out on a plate, it would be like a large dinner, all of it made of the foot sweat and skin cells of this middle-aged prim Haitian woman whom he ultimately realized he'd had a crush on for 2 years.

When he was nearing the end of the job, he saw her face looking blankly down at him. Ms. Olivier was still in a disciplinary mode. But then she softened. "Brett.. Wow, I almost can't believe you did it. I know it must be disgusting. Well, now I need you to finish off with one final foot punishment."
"You will repeat this and clean between the toes on my left foot, eating all of the matter you find. If you do not complete this for both of my feet, I will force you to try again tomorrow - and I will try to make it worse by not cleaning them in the meantime and shrinking you to half the size. Before you try to scream up to me that tomorrow is Saturday, please remember that I am empowered to use your services on the weekends if required - you have so agreed when volunteering."

With no alternative, Brett started on the other foot. Somehow it was worse the second time around. Some of the packets of toejam were very dry in his mouth and he found himself licking some of the sweat beads off her feet just to lubricate his mouth enough to do the job. He looked up at her and saw her close her eyes and grin when he licked, as though it was some extra bonus and she didn't notice he was looking.

But she snapped out of it. This wasn't for fun, although she could hardly believe he was doing it. I guess the shrinking really does change the mindset of the person, she thought. Would that any misbehaving asshole in her senior class could be subjected to a bit of foot detention.


The foot detention was over and Ms. Olivier had resized Brett back to normal size. She finally allowed herself to be open and friendly, which greatly put at ease the embarrassed student. She got Brett a bottle of water which he gratefully grabbed, still in the shrinkable leotard. He was going to sit down for a minute and then reclothe fully before leaving. It was only 4:30pm - he would be able to skateboard home in plenty of time for dinner, but he doubted he would have much of an appetite by then. His stomach felt stuffed with foot gunk.
Ms. Olivier spoke while shaking her head. "You were a trooper. I'm sorry Brett. This program wasn't my idea. When we're in the training mode I have to practice being a disciplinarian - maybe it comes more naturally to me than some people."
Brett didn't speak but he nodded while swigging the water.
"Will you be able to continue? You are of course allowed to stop the training, but you'll only get part of the extra credit offer."
Brett then steeled himself and said as calmly as he could: "Uh, It wasn't *that* bad I guess. I don't ever want to do that again, but I still, y'know, wanna get the extra credit. I'll be back for the next round. What day are we doing it on?"
Ms. Olivier narrowed her eyes and smiled thankfully. Despite what she'd just put him through, he thought she looked positively beautiful in that moment. "What day works for you next week?"
Brett legit had to think... what was happening Monday? It seemed like a million years from now. He suggested it.
"We're out of school Monday" Ms. Olivier said amusedly.
Brett, slightly more red-faced, then hastily proposed Tuesday and they agreed to continue after school Tuesday.

The weekend went by too fast. Brett tried not to think about what had happened Friday afternoon, and when he could muster some thoughts he was torn in how he felt about the treatment. He knew that there were limits to his fantasies, and this had probably blown them away, but he was curious if he'd ever end up under Ms. Olivier's feet again. Likely not; there were many other things that they had to undertake as part of training.

After class Tuesday, he faithfully returned to Ms. Olivier's room and saw her wearing open-toed shoes. He discerned quickly that today would involve different shrinking activities, none of which were nearly as invasive. Ms. Olivier picked up Brett while shrunk in his leotard. She gave him a little walkie-talkie this time - it strapped to his wrist and he could push a button to talk. Soon they had a communication protocol going, and she worked out how much pressure she could apply with her finger before it began to hurt when she picked him up.
Other activities followed - She told him to hide somewhere in a cluttered corner and timed herself while finding him hiding. She spoke in hushed terms and discerned the right volume to communicate with him so her loud voice wouldn't be painful. She told him to walk or run away from her and found an effective way to gently pick him up while moving. Far from testing his limits today, it seemed like there was a genuine concern for safety this time.
But after she had done these activities and taken her notes, she asked Brett if he could take a rain check for their next session which would have him confined to a "different space" - she looked down as she said it and seemed slightly embarrassed, as though she wasn't in the mood for being a domineering strict teacher now.

But it made Brett curious, so he asked: "Why do we need to stop early? Do you have to go somewhere?"
Sondra didn't come up with a lie, she just sighed: "No, but I'd rather not tell you why - are you sure you want to do this today?"
Brett was so intrigued by her reticence, and he felt like it might be simply designed to spare him something. "No, I'd rather not wait. Most other days after school this week I don't have as much free time." He felt very grown-up saying it.
"Alright Brett. We're going to proceed with our next round of confinement on the teacher's person. And this time you are going to pick your poison."
Brett's heartrate started to rise. He waited to hear what she had to offer.
"You're going to either go into my mouth or under my butt. You might have to do the other one later, though. Which do you prefer?"

Brett's heart pounded and he probably turned a bit red at that point. He dwelled on the surroundings as time seemed to stop for a moment. Could she really just say that to him? What purpose did this serve? (Did it serve any purpose last week either? Maybe the shoe part alone, but the caressing with a sweaty foot and forced consumption of toe gunk?) Would anyone else hear? (No, probably not, she was able to talk in a bare whisper to him at his size). And in that moment he realized she was chewing gum. It smelled faintly minty. So clearly she wasn't all worried about him taking a dive in her mouth unless she was worried that his body would taste bad. It had to be self-serving, right?
On the other hand, being smushed under her ass... It was appealing in a sense. He wondered if she didn't want to do it just because of modesty. But he would have to do it eventually for the training, right? Why not today?

Brett sputtered a few words, and he said "W-w-we can put me under your butt."
Ms. Olivier's face dropped slightly. She winced. "Okay Brett. I have a little undergarment with a zipper pocket on the inside (Should keep you from seeing anything, she thought). My chair is highly padded so I think you'll be fine. I'm going to sit at my desk for 45 minutes to an hour."

He saw her left hand reach behind her and a very slight zipping sound emerge. It was so faint. He wondered how small this compartment was.
Then in one fluid motion, she picked him up with her right hand and pulled out the waist of her skirt with her left. She dangled him in front of the gap expectantly. In front of him was a breathtakingly large ass crack, with rich dark skin and healthy, round, bulbous shape.
Then she released him into the zipper pocket. He had a very minor impact, as it was all mesh. For Sondra's part, she didn't realize that it was basically see-through mesh and he could still see where he was. Not bad, he thought.
Then with her right hand free she tried to zip up the pocket. The damn thing got stuck so easily, she thought. Yanking with irritation immediately, she eventually had to admit defeat and start the punishment. She said "well, it will at least give you an extra hole for ventilation. See you in an hour."
He had thought she said 45 minutes, but now could not remember. This was going to be a long while.

As the waistband came back, he lost his light. He could no longer see where he was, but he could feel the immmense warmth of her booty. As she sat down, he felt as though a big pillow was weighing down on him, but he didn't mind. It still did feel nice at that stage.

But then... he felt something. There was a bit of a groan around him. Her bowels were starting to sound like the plumbing on an old house.
Then he was hit by a fart. Ms. Olivier had farted on top of his body. He felt the air become electric with sulfurous smell. It had been brief but it seemed like a large volume of gas. He coughed slightly and asked Ms. Olivier why she had farted on him.

"Brett... you were warned that that we should do this another day. I've been eating these sugar-free gummy bears today and they give me such foul gas that I've never had before. That was only a tiny toot compared to what I was doing during lunch. Unfortunately, I can't quite hold them back, so you're going to get farted on. Possibly many times during your captivity. At least you'll have the pocket to shield you somewhat."
Brett didn't have that even, it had a hole in the top when she couldn't zip it shut! In fact, it was a big enough gap that he could fall out if she stood up and shifted her weight a certain way.

"Brett, I have to also tell you that I'm disappointed. You were ordered previously to not speak to me on the walkie talkie during the confinement training unless you seriously needed help. Because of this, I'm going to punish you by shrinking you a little more. And I am going to make no attempt to save you from my farts. I think there are still a few of those gummy bears left."
She abruptly stood up, and Brett was hurled toward the hole of the pocket due to the motion. His arm snagged in the hole, but he dared not speak up to complain again.
But then he suddenly saw his surroundings grow. As Ms. Olivier grew even bigger and passed in front of a light fixture on the wall, he could see the giant ass in front of him ever so slightly. Except there was no longer a fabric layer in between them: he had slipped out of the pocket during the extra shrink activity.

The big ass was now warmer than ever and completely surrounding him. He felt the smooth skin all around him. But there was now nothing shielding him from the farts at all, and he felt them all. Some felt dry and hot, some felt long and mercifully weak. The most amazing experience was the first wet fart, which felt much like a bubble being popped and smelled awful, but worst of all seemed to coat him in a film of musty ass sweat. The odor was intoxicatingly present everywhere.

The pace of the farts was increasing. Someone entering her room would now be able to smell it from 20 feet away, he was certain. He could hear Ms. Olivier become restless as her bowels continued to bother her. They wouldn't make it an hour at this rate. He might pass out from a lack of oxygen. It felt like his head was breathing from a scuba tank connected directly to her anus, that everything he could take in came from his damn teacher's asshole.
But it turned out to be Ms. Olivier who cracked first. She stood up and half-ran out of the classroom to the ladies' room. Brett was in her underwear getting jostled around by her walking, and she let out one more toot before crashing into a stall and pulling down her underwear. Brett scrambled to stay entangled with the underwear and not fall in the toilet. He managed to stay connected to it, but he couldn't find his way back to the pocket or see where he was. The underwear had all rolled up as she pulled them off her.

The sounds he heard were definitely not making him look forward to returning to the ass. Ms. Olivier was groaning slightly as she pushed out a combination of solid and liquid matter interspersed with more toots. She was not sounding happy about it but seemed to keep her composure. There was nobody else in the bathroom with them but she didn't want to groan too loudly.

Brett waited. Then he heard the door open. Someone else was now in the ladies' room with them.

Brett still tried to dig himself out of the coiled-up underwear around Ms. Olvier's ankles. It was like crawling through the inside of a cloth snake that was pressing on him by all sides - the path was dimly lit, constricted by the elastic of the underwear, and he had no idea how close he was to falling out. How far away was the floor? Hopefully not far, as he was likely going to fall out. The tile was no doubt going to be hard on impact.

What a ridiculous situation, he thought. Why the heck didn't I pick up on her humanitarian warning? Clearly she didn't want to sit on me with this upset stomach and she was chewing gum to make it more comfortable for me in her mouth. But why didn't she just tell me? What was up with this tight-lipped disciplinarian streak of hers?

Far above him, Sondra Olivier was grimacing as she had finished her bowel movement. The contents of the toilet smelled quite bad, so she did a courtesy flush for whoever had just entered. And thank goodness that woman had entered, since Ms. Olivier just noticed - There was no toilet paper loaded into the stall dispenser. Normally she would have her purse if it was any old public bathroom, and obviously she kept some tissues in there, but this was work and she had just run out of her classroom only 20 feet away, and ugh - what a mess.

CLINK. The other lady locked the stall door and Ms. Olivier could hear a stream of urine flowing into the adjacent toilet. Ms. Olivier was embarrassed but managed to ask calmly:
"Hello there, sorry but would you happen to have any TP in that side?"
A curious singsong "hmmmmm" from the other stall, and a little bit of shuffling as this mysery person reached for the roll. Then the cheerful voice of Mrs. Gu came back in her carefree musical tone: "Sorry Sondra! None in here either. I think janitor is out today. You'll be okay?"
Sondra screamed in her mind - what a godawful mess when she had a student in her disciplinary undergarment! But it was not going to work to keep him held here forever while she went in search of TP. And it was going to look really compromising if she were found to be taking a shrunken student into the bathroom, this would be embarrassing to explain to such a gentle soul as Wendy Gu, who had been against the shrinking entirely and had already told Lee-Reilly as much.
"No it's okay Wendy, I have some tissues in my purse." she lied. "I'll get some new rolls from the cleaning closet after."
"OK Sondra! Have a good night." Mrs. Gu called back. She finished peeing and flushed, then washed her hands and clicked the hand dryer.

Brett listened intently and tried to understand what was happening. He knew that Ms. Olivier had not taken enough time to grab her purse as she ran to the bathroom. His heart skipped a beat as he realized what he was about to be subjected to.
Oh pleeeease don't let her put me back under her butt without wiping. This could be very bad indeed. He was about to get himself a nice big skid mark all over his leotard.

As Ms. Olivier heard Mrs. Gu close the door behind her, she made her move and grabbed the panties and straightened them out. This instantly inverted Brett's world and he clung to the edge of the middle of the panties between the legs. He saw the tile floor get smaller as he was jerked upwards, and then some lateral movement as his teacher jiggled them up her meaty thighs. But it was just too much for Brett, who was already nearly winded trying to climb out earlier.
"aaCHOOO" Sondra sneezed above. A little lunge forward by her body did the trick, as Brett could no longer hang on.
His eyes widened as he lost his grip and fell. There was no thought, just terror as he waited to break his legs on the hard tile floor.

But then there was a splash as he fell in the toilet bowl. Unfortunately for Brett, Ms. Olivier seemed not to notice as she had sneezed at the same moment.
NO! Brett could not believe his luck. He could die in here, the sides of the bowl were far too slippery for him to climb out! Surely she would notice he wasn't in there anymore, right?
"MIZ OLIVIER! LOOK DOWN! I'M IN THE TOILET!!!!!!" He yelled as loudly as he could, but at his extra-reduced size it was very unlikely that Ms. Olivier would hear him. But surely she would check out the pocket he was in right??? She had to know he wasn't here right?!?!?!
He frantically pressed the push-to-talk button on his walkie-talkie, but the water had shorted it out. She couldn't hear him!
Brett was a good swimmer, but in a state of panic he knew he wouldn't last as long. Was he going to drown in a toilet?


Up above, Sondra had finished pulling up the underwear and then reached for the pocket with her finger to verify Brett was okay.
Nothing. She felt no body in it.
Wait, what? Ms. Olivier pulled the underwear away from her waist, yanked the zipper top open, and reached her finger into the pocket. It was indeed empty.
The teacher's heart sank. Oh my God, she wailed under her breath. "Brett, where are you?" She hissed in the highest tone she could fathom saying in the public bathroom. She pulled down the underwear and frantically probed the folds and creases for his body, finding nothing.
Ms. Olivier sat back on the toilet seat. She leaned back and pulled up her legs, careful that he might have fallen on the floor and she could accidentally step on him.
God, she thought, he might be hurt! The shrinking process did make people stronger pound-for-pound, but he could still be hurt by a big fall. Poor Brett, she cursed herself for this stupid hardcore training and cursed Lee-Reilly for this idiotic certification.
Then it hit her, she still had the shrinking control in her pocket! Thank God for small miracles! She mashed the button to immediately unshrink him - gradually, in case he was pinned somewhere - even though the unshrinking, she knew, had a roll-off gradient if he were exposed to too much stress as it happened in case the shrinkee was confined to a smaller space, to avoid crushing them.


Brett was thrilled. He was starting to grow! He had to be 3 inches tall now! Ms. Olivier was unshrinking him. He would be tall enough to escape in no time. Thank God!
He became tall enough to stand on the bottom of the toilet bowl, and continued to grow.
But then it hit him. He was still under his teacher. He was maybe going to get to be a foot tall before he reached her ass above. And when he reached that height, he was still going to be a Barbie-doll sized person whose head would still be swallowed by her ass. She was sitting on the toilet seat expecting him to be on the floor. Her buttocks were spread wide open by the toilet seat. This is it, he thought, he was about to become a skid mark.
As he screamed, he impacted her asshole directly. His wide open mouth was stuffed full of moist anal residue which she had not had the means to wipe earlier. He was struggling to get free as he heard a loud sound and felt the walls of flesh close around him and darkness surround him. The bitter flavor of her fecal matter was filling his taste buds, and he was firmly held in place by a great weight as she stood up.

"EEEEAAAH!" Ms. Olivier screamed and dropped the shrink control as she felt a force up her bottom. It moved and wiggled! She jumped to her feet instantly forgetting about Brett. As she stood up she felt something lodged between her cheeks. "WHAT IS THIS GET IT OFF ME!!!" she yelped.
"MMMSSSMSMSSOHHLM!" she heard a faint muffled voice behind her.
"OH MY GOD IS THAT YOU BRETT???" She wheeled her arm around and grabbed what felt like a child's doll. There was a little plop as his head was yanked out; it had been held in place by her buttocks. She saw his small face and neck streaked with brown and he looked utterly bewildered.
Ms. Olivier dressed in one motion and acted as a woman possessed to clean him up in the sink wordlesly, unable to look at him directly. She had never been so embarrassed in her life, and Brett was likely traumatized for life. HOW THE HELL could this have happened?

Brett on his end was a bit nauseous, but it was mostly from the wild ride of falling and swimming for his life and growing and then being dragged into the sink. And the adrenaline of nearly falling to his death and drowning were overcoming any serious contemplation. The adrenaline spoke for him, and he was incredibly, unspeakably thankful that he hadn't suffered any serious injuries. It would take some moments until he realized that his teacher had unintentionally used him as toilet paper. In the most bizarre way he felt sorry for HER, because she was crying and so obviously scared that this had gone way too far.

It hadn't really been her fault. He had picked her ass rather than her minty fresh mouth with straight white teeth. He hadn't really tried to get back into the pocket when he'd had the chance because he secretly wanted to be hugged by a giant woman's ass. He made up his mind that when she grew him back he would have to somehow break the ice and convince her that all of it hadn't been that bad without making her think he was an utter lunatic and somehow planned this because he had wanted to be shoved up her shit-soaked anus.

But maybe he had liked it. He wasn't sure, honestly.

Mrs. Lee-Reilly paced the thickly carpeted floor in her office for a moment. She was annoyed by the necessity of what she was about to do and irritated that it had come to this.

Nobody was backing her at the district level in terms of continuing a volunteer drive for shrinkees. The administrators agreed in principle with the goal of getting all teachers certified to have experience with shrunken students but they wouldn't empower her to recruit them. They were too worried about parent backlash and lawsuits and frankly were amazed that her single volunteer had not complained. To make matters worse, they wouldn't send her juvenile delinquents anymore either, there had been too many complaints about rough handling from the mothers of those little brats. She seethed as she recounted the opposition to get this task done.

There was a timetable in place here. Her goal of getting the whole staff certified in order to accept students from a special state-run disciplinary program would give the district a noticeable bump in funding from the state, and would be a feather in her cap that would certainly guarantee she would move upward, but the district wouldn't give her enough money to hire a consultant to oversee the training or to hire shrinkee subjects, so Lee-Reilly had to do it herself with what she had onhand - and with exactly one volunteer. Not too much money, but she thought she could make a scholarship offer right out of the competitive scholarship fund without violating any bylaws if it was made contingent on the specific "learning achievement" that the shrinkee would be doing. Most of the district administrators were skeptical of her plan, but the superintendent was pleased at the deft financial maneuvering and had okayed it. Lee-Reilly had been thrilled at the last minute support, and was up all night trying to get the paperwork finalized to get the volunteer's role set in stone, and now it was time to execute it.

The plan was to give Brett some more serious inducement than extra credit to get him to repeat the process he went through with Ms. Olivier among all the other remaining uncertified teachers. And it would be in he form of an enforceable contract that would give them the right to extract anything given if he failed to deliver. She'd had most of the teachers ceritifed before the supply of unwilling participants dried up, but there were still 7 teachers who weren't. That meant they needed many one-on-one sessions with students, but only one current volunteer.

She had the teachers' names on an Excel sheet on her tablet:

1. Mrs. Wendy Gu, art, 35

2. Miss Fatimah Erenli, history and social studies, 29

3. Ms. Loren Issakinen, computer science, 28

4. Mrs. Alicia Gomez, Spanish, 43

5. Mrs. Katie Samson, chemistry and statistics, 47

6. Ms. Nancy Henderson, physical education, 49

7. Mrs. Alka Padmanabhan, algebra/pre-calculus/geometry, 32

Why had they had to make it so hard on her? Some of them had excuses for being unavailable for the training sessions like Katie and Nancy, but, why couldn't they just get the damn training and certification done before they ran out of their old supply of shrinkees? Why did some of them pretend this was unfair or cruel? Lee-Reilly's mind boggled - being a naturally cynical person, she found it hard to imagine that anyone would make sincere stands against discipline like this.

Shaking her head, she reached for the mouse on her PC and put on her headset. The headset was clunky and she had to brush her hair around it and adjust her glasses. The PA app was already open on her desktop - good, because it could take 2 minutes to sync with the obsolescent speaker system they still had installed.

She clicked through a menu as she did every morning for announcements, but this time had a speciifc short message to deliver:

"Mr. Brett Henderson, please report to the front office. Repeat, Mr. Brett Henderson to the front office." No sense in embarrassing him about mentioning the P-word, was there? She snickered slightly.

The young man had been in chemistry lab, but Katie Samson never talked over announcements, so he would have heard her. As she expected, he was only a short walk from the front office. The school secretary directed him to the back of the front offices, to the principal's office itself. That would be new and intimidating for him, she thought. Perfect.

-----

"Come in Brett, please pull the door shut, and have a seat."

The boy did as he was told, he looked around a bit nervously.

"Now Brett, do you know why I'm calling you into my office?" she said sternly.

Brett twiddled his fingers - "ehhhh no, I don't ma'am."

She immediately softened and smiled at him. "Of course you don't! You've never been in my office before Brett. You haven't caused a lot of problems from what I've heard. And I want to thank you."

"Th...th..thank me?" Brett stammered. He was confused but appeared to be less worried now.

"Yes, I want to thank you for helping Ms. Olivier get her certification. Thanks to your five evenings including two where you agreed to perform physical constrainment, Sondra was able to get her shrinkee handling certification from the certifying body."

Yes, Brett remembered, those two fateful nights. The third enumerated test, in-mouth constrainment, they had skipped, as the rules of certification only stipulated two of the three were required.

"Oh! You're welcome Mrs. Lee-Reillly. I guess it was way more serious than I thought but I liked Ms. Olivier so I didn't mind helping her out." Brett said quietly, not wanting to talk about the particulars much.

"That's great! And I admire your attitude. Would you believe, Brett... that we actually find it quite hard to recruit volunteers to do the shrinkee training with us from among the student body? Even though many of the students do like their teachers here, I'm told..."

Brett could 100% see why that was difficult, given that he had been up a teacher's butt and stuffed in her smelly shoes, but he played dumb. "No ma'am I did not realize that."

"Oh I'm afraid so - we still have 6 teachers left actually, who won't be able to get certified without the help of another volunteer..." Lee-Reilly said expectantly.

Sensing the shift, Brett tried to play dumb even more. "Oh um that sounds bad I guess. Do they need to be certified, uh, for, like, their careers?"

Lee-Reilly feigned sadness and told him, "yes they do unfortunately - the disciplinary measures for some of the worst-behaving students mean that we need to have every teacher capable of shrinking students and confining them if needed."

Brett nodded. "Okay I guess that sounds like it will be a problem." Silence from the principal, who still had this look on her face like she expected him to say something. "Are you like, asking me to help again? Because I really, y'know, need my evenings and weekends for eh eh socializing and living life and of course homework heh. And that is with 6 teachers and I may not even, y'know, love those teachers all that much. Is that weird?"

Lee-Reilly smiled sweetly again, starting to soften even moreso. It was time to employ the stick and carrot. Carrot first.

"Brett, I'm going to level with you - I would like for you to help us with all the remaining 6 teachers. There are no other volunteers still in the program and we have had to postpone recruiting for it for the moment. Your extra credit for just Ms. Olivier helped a lot, didn't it?"

"Yes ma'am it did. But if I did even one more of those uh certifications, I would already have more than enough for an A in most of my classes. I don't really need that much extra credit, y'know?"

"Oh I know it Brett. You weren't a bad student - you don't need 100% of your grade in extra credit. You earned a C average in general. I'm not offering extra credit alone- I am offering you a scholarship when you graduate. You do want to go to college, right?"

Of course he did. Brett nodded vigorously "yeah of course. But how are you doing this?"

"We have already discussed it at the district meeting. Simply put: I feel perfectly happy to offer you a scholarship from the school's competitive assistance fund... and I think we can make sure you get A's in your classes this year and senior year provided the teachers tell me you're still trying as hard as you always have done. I am happy doing this because you are saving us a lot of work. Saving the district money on bringing in last-minute consultants to help us get certified, and you yourself are learning a good deal about professional working relationships by doing this for your teachers. Go home and talk about it with your family tonight and tell me tomorrow. I think you deserve it if you help us and give a little testimonial in the end."

She saw him starting to get that triumphant look in his eyes, and then proudly presented him with a tablet that showed two tabs on the browser: one was what appeared to be a legal document containing a scholarship award page for decent sum of money. That would pay for his first fall semester tuition at a state school, he thought. But the second tab in the browser said "NOT CERTIFIED" in the tab heading. He switched to the tab and it looked like some kind of report with multiple fields in each row, showing 6 teachers by name, courses taught, and age. So this was the list, he thought.

Pretending to consider the details of the scholarship agreement, he furtively read the second tab, and it had the list of the 6 teachers on it. He kept his facial expression blank but was reacting to them all in his mind. Thankfully for him, they all were women (about 70% of the faculty at Westwood was).

Mrs. Gu was a very nice, pretty Chinese lady with a big smile and he'd had her in freshman art class, that was a long time ago (she was 35? Looked younger than that to Brett)... Miss Erenli he had never taken a class with and he had not seen her too much in the halls (she was pencil thin, wore a hijab, and had a friendly face).... Ms. Issakinen was a blonde, tall Finnish woman, a strongly-built Midwest expat who had movie-star good looks, but wore thick glasses and was purportedly an excellent programmer who had decided to stop working at a big tech company to teach. He looked forward to her CS class next year. Mrs. Gomez was the Spanish teacher, raucous, laughed a lot, and had a little bubble butt. He had some misgivings about Mrs. Samson, who was his current chemistry teacher. The woman was capable of tremendous charm, but a little bit strict and demanding in how she instucted students to talk. A Southerner by birth, she was also very obese, somewhat pear-shaped, and had somewhat of a cackle when she laughed. The students enjoyed hearing her Alabama tongue say the names of elements, and they found it amusing when she told students how punishment happened in the South when she was younger, as though she was nostalgic for it, but she laughed it off so they weren't sure she was serious. Mrs. Padmanabhan was a quiet Indian lady whom he'd had for algebra II and he might have for pre-calc next semester, hopefully calculus if he made it - math was his worst subject and she did not seem to like him all that much, showing no patience with his sense of humor.

So there was some trepidation. What guarantee would he have that something like the bathroom incident with Ms. Olivier wouldn't happen again? Did he really trust teachers he'd never studied with like Miss Erenli? Was Mrs. Samson going to be brutal with him?

Some strange thing stood out to him on the sheet - the indices by each of the teachers names went 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7. The last number was 7 and it should have been 6. A data entry error?

-----

Lee-Reilly cleared her throat, bringing Brett back to reality. Now it was time for the stick.

"So Brett, I hope you understand what we're trying to do here with this program. It would be very bad for us to lose the ability to accept students in the special disciplinary programs next year because the teachers here aren't trained with shrinkees. You agree that would be bad, right?"

Brett nodded, interested in what she was now about to say.

"It would be very bad for the school and the community - there would be these students who would be stuck without a place to get educated safely. I personally don't want to risk that happening, so I would really appreciate your positive decision and signing this agreement to do it. If you can't sign it by tomorrow, I'm afraid we're going to have to remove the extra credit we've given you so far - but the possibilities are limitless for what we're offering you here. You could be the first of your siblings to go to college - Don is still one of our janitors here and, well, he might not be able to make it long term.

Brett stared. Was she really threatening his older brother Don's job? He used to drive for Uber and did odd jobs and this was a step up for him. Brett really didn't want to have to share his room with Don if he lost his job and had to come back home. But then there was a second angle to this blackmail in taking back the extra credit. Already he had bragged to his mom that his grades were up. If he didn't follow through, he wouldn't get to inherit the old Honda CR-V as he'd been promised.

The principal had cornered him and he knew it.

He said "I'll do it. I could really use the help with college - my mom was talking about a lot of sacrifices we'd have to make for me to make it." It was only partly true - he had expected to take on student loans, and this would at least give him some breathing room before he had to do that. But the GPA assistance through the end of this year and senior year would give him much-needed help on getting into a university and not settling for community college, which steeled his nerve as he confidently signed the document sign-off sheet.

Mrs. Lee-Reilly said happily "I knew we could count on you Brett!"

-----

After he left the office, he wondered about that stupid numbering error. What if there was a seventh teacher, and if so, who was the seventh teacher? He cursed himself for forgetting to check if there were filters on the list he was seeing, even though he had taken an intro computer class which taught Excel and knew how that stuff worked. He audibly gasped after a thought appeared while walking through the empty commons back to chemistry lab.

What if it was mom?

Brett's mother Nancy was the PE teacher at Westwood. She had a big heart and a foul mouth; though not a tremendously gifted educator, she could hustle with the best of the boys on the gym track in spite of being a bit overweight. She coached the girls softball, volleyball, and track teams. When she came home and took off her shoes and socks Brett could smell it a mile away. She did sweat a lot on her job. Not only did he not want the awkwardness of being confined on his mom's person, but his skin got goosebumps at the horrible thought of being shrunk and underneath those sweaty feet. Ms. Olivier's feet were big but not super stinky in general; even so the smell had been magnified by 100x time when he was shrunk down under them, so how much worse would mom's be?
Brett shuddered. He had not heard mom mention anything about the shrink training. She had been coaching multiple teams during several away tournaments over the past few months, and had had a sub cover her classes a few times. With very little spare time, she might have not done the shrink certification yet. But he knew her position on discipline and she likely would not have any problem with shrinking students. If Lee-Reilly told his mom to make her socks extra stinky, he knew for sure that mom would oblige for her younger son.

Brett was again livid with himself. The document he had signed in the principal's office probably specifically named the teachers who he would be assisting with certification, but he didn't have it with him anymore, and he had been too dumb to read the details of what he had just signed.

As the chemistry class dragged on, all he could do was hope that the index 7 was just a data entry error and there were only 6 teachers. He was comforted somewhat by Lee-Reilly's specific statement of "SIX teachers" but still had a nagging feeling that would only slowly dissipate. Surely now that he had volunteered with Lee-Reilly and shown good faith, he could ask her about it and she would not force his mother to punish him to the extents of human endurance.

In what was becoming a common theme for her, Wendy Gu's cheerful disposition evaporated under pressure by Lee-Reilly. There was always some way that the principal could belittle others, and Mrs. Gu was especially vulnerable to cutting sarcasm.
This time it didn't have to do with policies or class changes or getting thrown under the bus in the presence of a parent, this time it was the way that Wendy had had to learn how they'd be somehow continuing their plan for shrink certification.

The topic of shrinking certification came up toward the end of the staff meeting.
"Wendy you're up next. We've only got the one volunteer, Brett. I'll be handling the scheduling of his time." the principal had explained.
"Brett who?" she'd asked.
"Brett Henderson. You know, Nancy's younger son. I think you had him in your class a few years back."
"Oh of course I remember him, we've just had several Bretts haha. I will try not to be too hard to him. He isn't a big strong boy like the juvie kids, he was kinda little."
Mrs. Lee-Reilly rolled her eyes a bit at the five-foot tall art teacher. "Well, even so, you might need to shrink him down a little smaller than the others if it helps you fit him."
Wendy's slight smile straightened. It was weird to have a tall, dominating female boss like Lee-Reilly, but still weirder for her boss to make casual, unfriendly jabs at her for being petite. As though height mattered in the classroom. It wasn't in a joking tone either, so it left Wendy sort of defensive.
"I'll be fine K."
The principal narrowed her eyes as she focused on the last word. She didn't know if Wendy had sincerely uttered an abbreviated form of OK or if she was slyly invoking the detested nickname "Special K". Lee-Reilly's first name was Kelly, and she learned recently that some teachers contemptuously called her "Special K" behind her back. Whether it was a reference to Lee-Reilly's former weight (which had since come down due to an intense workout regimen) or to Lee-Reilly's ongoing clumsy speeches at PTO meetings where she invariably referred to some new idea or project as "super special," she was intensely suspicious of this kind of mocking, and it caused her to be extra sarcastic and defensive with the rest of her staff.
By the time they had finished with their staff meeting, Wendy was in a foul mood.


The operation of a shrinking machine was new to Wendy and she practiced on a chair before Brett was due to arrive. When he did show up, she was surprised to find him very easygoing and laughing as he waved goodbye to another student at her door. He shut the door behind him without being prompted to. He saw his old teacher looking about the same as she always had, wearing a white sweater and black skirt, and black patent leather heels to try and make up a height deficit.
Still slightly vexed but not wanting to show it to her student, Mrs. Gu said "Brett, Happy to see you again. You doing well?"
"Yes Mrs. Gu. I am glad to see your room hasn't changed too much. I think I still recognize those posters..." he said, with some confidence in his voice.
"Hah yes, still same room. So we need to get started if we are going to get the first part done tonight. I need some experience holding shrunk students. I'm totally new at it. You are going to go in my mouth and in my shoe. I don't know why we have to do this since if I have to shrink a student to punish I definitely would try to just put him in a safe container first. You already did part of this with Sondra, so it won't be too new for you. Oh well, we'll still do it all."

Brett was a bit disarmed by how blunt she was. He had remembered that she was super easygoing generally, but this time she appeared a little upset by something else. Oh well, he thought, time to get down to business.

"I'm dressed for the shrinking Mrs. Gu. Just tell me how you want to do this." He said as he walked to the other side of the classroom.
She nodded and hit the button. As he shrank down to the floor, he felt the familiar feeling of clothes piling on top of him. But to his surprise, the teacher didn't wait for him to emerge - the clacking of her heels came rapidly over to his position and he suddenly felt some fingers reaching into his pile.

Roller coaster ride time. As he was yanked up to her eye level, he could see his utterly enormous art teacher crouching on the floor to pick him up.
"Are you hurt Brett? That was faster than I thought."
Brett talked into his walkie-talkie wristwatch - "No Mrs. Gu I'm fine. The shrinking down at first is pretty gradual. It's mostly the quick movements that can make me a little airsick."
"OK Brett I hear you! Sorry."
She held him almost nervously in her two hands together and walked back to the desk, setting him on the desktop. Next to him was a lunch bag the size of a double wide trailer.

In the woman's mind this bizarre next step made sense, but it made the boy laugh: "OK Brett... (slight singsong in her voice) ... I have a strawberry to eat now. I want to eat something sweet so it's better for you in my mouth OK?"
Brett waved up to say he agreed, still laughing a bit.
He saw her grab one very large strawberry and eat it in a few mouthfuls, chewing deliberately and almost sensually. He had never paid so much attention to a person's mouth before. It was somewhat captivating to see the mouth tear apart a strawberry much bigger than he was.
Somewhat ominously she said: "Now I don't want you to try to stay still in there. If this was for real, I have to be able to control you in my mouth even if you're resisting. Help me train OK?"

Then she grabbed for him and pulled him up to her face. It was far more terrifying than anything he'd seen with Ms. Olivier- this woman was still being uncharacteristically rough with him. No precursor exercise? No practice to build up to this kind of treatment like Ms. Olivier had done with him? No game plan on where he was to go and how to avoid drowning in her spit?
Nope, none of that. After less than 5 minutes in her office, the teacher was now staring directly at him with eyes the size of airplane hanger doors. They blinked slowly and she actually smiled just before opening her mouth.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh" she said as though she were at the dentist. Brett could not stop himself from gasping at the monumental sight of the mouth opening all around him.
He could see that she had slightly crooked teeth, but that wasn't noticeable at normal classroom distance.
He could see that she had salivated a great deal from eating the strawberry, and there was still tiny bits of chewed fruit and a few seeds stuck in her teeth.
He could see that she had not had the presence of mind to set him in an immoveable place but began to set him down on the tongue itself.
The last thing he could see was the tongue coming up and surrounding him as he was set down, and then the mouth clamped shut.

Darkness. Wetness and darkness. The smell of strawberry was there, yes, but also of a woman's breath who had been at her desk for the past few hours without drinking any water or chewing any gum or breath mints. It was a somewhat stale smell of thick saliva.
And there was so much of it. He was instantly dampened with spit on her tongue, but try as she might she could not hold it perfectly still, and he went rolling forward into the base of her two bottom incisors. The tongue, free of its burden, moved upward. He was now in the bottom under her tongue and it was starting to get really wet. The spit pooled around him and soaked his body, getting all over his hair and face. Humid air surrounded him. It was like a human sauna for him. Contrary to orders, he just wanted to stay as still as possible and take it all in. This was a staggering experience, to be so close to becoming his teacher's food.

Buzz on his wrist. "brett how are you doing? i use the text app to your walkie talkie since i cant talk"
He was a little bit unnerved by this. Was she going to hold her mouth shut this whole time and not talk to him? She had better be paying close attention to the texts he was sending back. The touchscreen on his walkie-talkie was wet now, but it still functioned similarly to his old Android phone, even down to the predictive keyboard which made his response surprisingly polished for someone trapped in a person's mouth.
"Yes I'm fine Mrs. Gu. It is a little wet here but my leotard is OK with that."
"actually to talk about that i need to take you out" the message came back.

Back came the fingers, and he was pulled out and back onto the desk surface. This time he was set on a plastic lid from her lunch bag. He smelled more strawberries. Mrs. Gu wiped her hands of her spit and then looked over to him as he shivered in the cold air, soaking wet.
Mrs. Gu said "OK Brett we aren't done I just had to stop. Your special leotard has some chemicals or something in it, it tastes very bad. I don't want it in my mouth. Can you please take it off."
Oh man, he thought. How to play this? Brett's heart was pounding. He pushed the talk button and blended both resigned acceptance and feigned concern for her. "Uh, you want me to take it off? I can do that, but I will be naked underneath."
Mrs. Gu actually reddened slightly as though she hadn't thought of it or hadn't expected him to be modest, but tried to sputter an explanation. "No no no I don't want you naked if it makes you uncomfortable but maybe we could use a little cloth covering or something it just tastes really bad, you should try licking it yourself hehe."
Brett replied back "No I don't feel uncomfortable. You can't really see parts of me too clearly at my size anyway."
Mrs. Gu giggled very briefly at his choice of words "You right Brett, you're very small right now so no worries."
He disrobed with some clumsy haste and stood up facing her naked. He was very self-conscious and held the leotard in front of him for cove, even though he knew his dick was indistinguishable from the rest of him at this height... unless he got hard, which was so easy to cause at his teenage maturity level that he had already been so for several minutes.

"OK Mrs. Gu I'm ready. Close your eyes as you put me in OK?" he hollered into the wrist device.
She complied. He saw the aircraft hangar door eyes close completely as he dropped the leotard and she picked him up. It was even more frightening to him that she couldn't see him as she did this.
The lips parted again. A huge, slightly smiling mouth.
But the clearance seemed tighter this time. With Mrs. Gu closing her eyes she did not see how wide to open and how much space to give him as she moved him in, and his face brushed against her upper lip. It was intensely smooth and as he glided over it, he covered the top half of his face with her fruity lip gloss, yet another intensely cutesy feminine smell to match the strawberries.

Darkness and wetness again. There was even more saliva. He felt that he could actually hear the sound of her mouth's microscopic plumbing secreting fresh spit in response to his taste. As more spit touched him and as he brushed the edge of the tongue and the bottom of her mouth, it seemed to increase. Like the saltiness of his body was somehow driving more of it. As though her body was telling her to digest this boy forthwith, and the saliva glands would get the job started for her. But he was unmoving and the mouth rewarded him with calm at least.

After holding his position for a while, he remembered that she had told him to try moving around, so he walked around the edge of the bottom row of teeth, running his hands over the rough tongue and on the tips of the teeth. This got a reaction and the mouth pulsated as he felt the shriek of a suppressed laugh. The tongue came down on him hard and pinned him to the bottom of her mouth.
Buzz. "brett omg that tickles so much" He could barely make out the text as he was submerged in spit and had to cough and gag his way back to the humid air supply above. Working his way upward, he shook his head in wonder as he was trying to work out exactly how she expected him or any student to resist her when any little thing he did caused her to react with 100x more force.

One more wrist buzz that sealed his fate.
"brett im going back to work now. try to relax. i am also going to move you around a little bit let me know if it hurts"

Those words were as much of an understatement as he'd ever heard. Mrs. Gu used her tongue to pick him up and roll him back towards her throat then save him at the last moment, move him into the pocket between her gums and the inside of her cheek, sucked on him gently, pried him out with the tongue, wrapped him up with her tongue. One time she just squeezed him gently with her tongue while salivating, and felt the moisture build up and the boy start to flail a little bit as she realized he must be fighting not to drown. She was a bit more careful after that, but still subjected him to constant playtime in her mouth for the next half hour. He never raised any messages on the walkie-talkie and at times struggled to even reach it, although at least this time it hadn't shorted out.
Brett had made out with a girl one time before. Sure, it was fun. And he had always thought Mrs. Gu was pretty. This though? Holy crap he was not ready. He was going to end up swallowing more of his teacher's spit in the next half hour than her husband had in 8 years.
And somehow she seemed to like it more as it went on. The tongue playing got truly intense at times, especially every time he neared her throat, as though she forgot that he was a human being and thought he was a candy in her mouth. The periodic "mmm" sound around him which she may have uttered subconsciously with no intention or meaning, was like the sound of a lion's roar and chilled him to his bones. Any time he thought she might lose memory of what was in her mouth, she had to be thought of as a predator ready to devour him. Did she know that this was scary, did she like making him feel like he could be swallowed? Was this all part of the game too? Brett was unsure, but the little sounds from Wendy made it clear she was enjoying this somewhat.

Pruny and beaten, the boy was eventually released from his mouth prison and put onto the desk surface to dry off on a tissue, which also gave his naked body cover again until he could put on the leotard. The first checkbox for her certification was ticked off and she wanted to get this done in short order.

Mrs Gu said playfully: "Brett you did good on that test. You were sweet but a little salty too hehe."
He was dumbfounded at her casualness. Clearly she couldn't imagine what it was like to be sucked on... but somehow he found her ignorance and happiness somehow adorable.

"Now clean yourself up. Next you go in my shoe." Mrs Gu said matter-of-factly.

With little time to recover, Brett quickly put on his shrink-proof leotard. He was happy to see that his wrist-mounted walkie-talkie still worked - the new model they gave him after the original one was dunked in the toilet seemed to be more water-resistant.
There was still the problem of saliva residue all over him. He rolled around in the tissue paper, which was a bit like unfolding a roll of polyester attic insulation and falling into it. It wasn't drying him off that much, but the bits that were getting dry were also clinging to him. Soon he was covered in tissue tatters and stood up looking at the teacher. He reached for his walkie-talkie but he looked up and saw Mrs. Gu laughing at his predicament.
"Haha Brett sorry, that didn't work too well I guess. Let me take you to the sink to clean up." Brett figured she meant the little utility sink at the back of the classroom, where students cleaned off brushes and other art equipment they were using. He pressed the button on his wrist and said "OK Mrs. Gu I would appreciate the cleanup."

The boy braced for his teacher's hands again. They appeared on both sides of his body, and as they neared he sort of climbed up the sides of the fingers and they splayed out into a flat platform for him to ride on. Not bad choreography, he thought. As she rose from her seat, this time she was very smooth in her motion, and did not move him too quickly. He enjoyed this part - the delicate handling and the softness of her hands.
But then they went out of the classroom and she placed him on the surface of the drinking fountain, which was near her door. She dropped the world's tiniest swatch of cloth which was a large washcloth at his size.
"Hey Mrs. Gu, why can't we use the utility sink?" he asked to his wrist. He was worried that it would be too cold.
"It's not working right now Brett. They had to turn off some of the water for fixing plumbing. We could go to the ladies room if you want, and wash you in the sink there."
Brett thought for a moment. That place did have hot and cold running water so he could at least have a bath at a comfortable temperature, but he didn't really want to go in there after the last time.
"No this is fine. Give me a splash please."

The water arced out of the fountain and he stood ready to get hit by the edge of the splash. He thought he was ready. But it was like getting hit by a geyser of ice water. He immediately regretted saying yes to this.
"AAAA COLD!" he yelled loudly. It still just registered as a squeak to Mrs. Gu so she didn't pay any notice. To finish quickly, Brett just immediately rubbed himself all over with the cold washcloth. He was winded and shivering as he said "M-m-m-m-misus G-gu, I'm d-d-done now" into his wrist.
"Oh my Brett! I guess it was too cold. You're shaking!"
She grabbed him in a small paper towel in her hands. This one did not come apart on his wet body. After she patted him dry in the towel between her palms, he was picked up by one very warm hand and very gently laid out in her palm. Then she placed her other palm across him, as though cupping Brett between them. She applied a small amount of force, as though trying to press the cold out of the student.
This was a welcome change for Brett - he hadn't expected the skin of her creamy hands to be so soft and warm. It was slightly sensual for him as she rubbed his whole body in her two palms trying to get some more warmth into them.
"You were really cold. Hope that helps Brett. Sorry about the fountain, I should have thought about it."
"It feels nice, thank you Mrs. Gu."

----


Now cleaned up and back in the office, it was getting late but Mrs. Gu still hoped to get the next part done in the same day. Brett was tired after his stay in her mouth, but he was amenable in theory - he just didn't know what to expect.
She prompted Brett: "I guess it's time for you to go in my shoe."
Brett said into his wrist "Yeah, OK. What all did the principal tell you we'd be doing?" He wondered if there was any "extras" planned this time.
Wendy bit her lip and sighed slightly... "She can be a little mean, y'know? Well, she wanted me to tell you to lick my feet and between all the toes. I don't really get why. That's something I'd never make a student do, no matter how they behaved."
Brett interrupted to prevent her from changing the plan "Yeah, that sounds familiar. That is what she wanted Ms. Olivier to do with me too."
Mrs. Gu gaped a little bit. "Sondra made you do that? And you actually did it? Her feet are huge!"
Brett said "Yep. She told me to do it, so I did."
The teacher got a little red, and started looking away for a moment. She did seem a little surprised by Brett's response but also intrigued.
"Well um... I kinda want to know what that feels like. Would you also be willing to do that for me?" she said, reddening a little more.

Brett had to take a moment to cover his astonishment that she'd request it as a personal favor. Did Ms. Olivier also have him do this just for her enjoyment?
But to him, there was no doubt what he'd say. Turning to his wrist, he said "Sure, I guess. If you want I will do what you say."
"Great!" Mrs. Gu said almost instantly. She seemed intensely relieved that Brett hadn't rebuffed her, as this was all clearly ridiculous. In her mind, Wendy was wondering why she was so bold - but something about this shrinking training, the mindset that the principal instilled in the training, was getting to her.

Returning to the moment, she said. "We'll do that after your shoe time, OK?" She leaned down and he heard her shuffling her shoes under the desk.. "Normally I wear high heels, but I think that it'll be too much pressure on you under my foot. Most of my shoes are heels or they are open toed. So I brought some old sneakers. They are kind of stinky because they are old and I only use them for house projects. In fact I even let my sister borrow them sometimes hah. Come take a look."
Standing close to the edge of the desk, Brett looked down to the floor and saw some dirty Converse in what was probably a tiny size - her feet couldn't be more than a size 3. He saw some flawless, very soft looking feet with red-painted toenails.
Brett had been prepared to be in his teacher's heels, but she had a point that it would probably be a painful amount of pressure with him at the bottom of the heel. He replied "That's fine with me I guess."
She smiled at him and then brought her hand forward to grab him by the leotard. He was going to be dropped into the shoe from above. Moving with great care, she slowly placed him in the middle of the sole and asked "OK now please go forward to the toe section."
Remembering his last experience, he moved promptly, unfortunately not getting a good look at the large foot coming into the shoe before it went dark. The toes came in wriggling, and he darted to his left to get between the big and second toes.

Clammy was the word Brett would have used to describe the feeling of the foot around him. Her feet were not warm like her hands, but slightly cold, and a bit moist. They did not have the strong smell that Ms. Olivier's feet had, but the shoe itself smelled very strongly of sweaty feet that had previously been in there. In fact, there was something almost seawater-like about the smell. And as she wore the shoes, the smell would impart to them, including whatever funk was already in them that he had already agreed he was going to eat off.
But he didn't have too much time just to sample the smell. The teacher was moving her toes almost rythmically, moving each one up in succession as though she was trying to twiddle him between all her toes. The rubbing Brett underwent was accompanied by distant, occasional humming by Mrs. Gu as she continued doing grading.
He settled in for the long time-out in the shoe. At least the skin was very smooth and the nails neatly trimmed - she probably had had a pedicure recently. With just a bit of moisture from her feet, he was tossed around gently but vigorously by the toes, as though Mrs. Gu was trying to sample how he felt in various positions. Finally the teacher settled on laying him down flat face-up across the width of the shoe so that almost all of her toes could wrap around him. Kneading him. It was a possessive feeling. Whenever he got used to her pattern, she changed it up. But with gentle pressure and such soft skin, Brett wasn't all that irritated by the motions.

After she had been working for a long time on her laptop, Brett heard a sudden cessation of typing. He heard her sigh softly and said "30 minutes up Brett. Thanks for that. I should get myself a shrinkee for relaxing after work more often hahaha! Of course not you, you've had enough already."
Brett had to chuckle to himself at that.
Then the foot moved and he was freed. He stood up and walked back to the opening, where he saw the distant shape of Mrs. Gu's smiling face waiting to pull him out. The hand came slowly and gently placed him on the floor between the two feet.
"OK Brett... I know I asked you to lick my feet, but I think you can say no if you don't want to. My feet are probably pretty salty after work, and these shoes are real stinky."
Brett slightly panicked. He didn't want to lose the opportunity but didn't want to present as an obvious foot fetishist. He cleared his throat and said into his wrist "Actually Mrs. Gu, your feet are not that bad, especially compared to Ms. Olivier's or my mom's feet."
"Really?" Mrs. Gu seemed pleasantly surprised at his words.
"Yeah, they're much smaller and don't smell as strong. Your shoe is pretty stinky though. I wonder if it's just that your sister has stinky feet because you said you let her wear them."
"Haha yeah, that's probably it Brett. She has much stinkier feet than me. But you got two for the price of one haha."
A slightly awkward silence and then Mrs. Gu said: "OK Brett, now I want you to lick my toes and between them. Please get all the pieces that came off the shoes."

Brett got to work. The feet were so smooth that his tongue kind of glided over the surface, picking up detritus and dead skin and sweat. It was not as cheesy as Ms. Olivier's feet, but it was about as salty. The sheer area was going to take a long time to lick, even though she didn't have much in the way of grime or toe jam.

The difference this time was that Mrs. Gu seemed fascinated and wanted to keep talking to the student.
"Mmm that is quite a feeling Brett. It feels like when you put your feet in water and the fishes nip at them."
Brett kept licking, trying to cover large patches without getting a dry mouth.
"So you say your mom also has stinky feet?"
Brett said "mmhmm" into his wrist while still carrying on his work.
"Has she ever shrank you at home? I hope she hasn't punished you with her feet."
Brett stopped briefly. "No, she hasn't. I have never been shrank outside of school. I didn't even know that private individuals could get shrinking devices."
"Oh of course they can Brett hah. Rental services. My sister Yuan has a son and she shrank him sometimes. When he got bad grades sometimes he would get to go into her shoe when she went to the gym. Not this pair of shoes haha."
Brett returned to licking and wondered why she was telling him this.
"But she never made him lick her feet. Her feet are more stinky so that would really be hard haha. But once I tell her how good it feels I think she might try to get my nephew to lick her feet too."
Brett stopped to say "Hah I doubt he'd do that willingly if her feet are as bad as you claim."
Mrs. Gu laughed again "Yeah, probably... maybe you'd have to volunteer to lick her feet too!"
Brett pressed in the button on his wrist. "Hahaha Mrs. Gu, but she isn't giving me any extra credit, what do I get out of it?"
"Hmm maybe she could pay you. Like a foot massage."
Brett laughed again. "OK, maybe we could do that." He didn't think she was serious and expected her to laugh.
Instead she just gaped for a moment and her face twisted into a surprised smile. "WOW! You are so nice Brett. I have to tell Yuan about it tonight. She will be excited that you have volunteered."
With some trepidation, he wondered what he might now be in for. He had never met Yuan Gu and didn't even know what she did. Why would Wendy Gu assume a student would possibly be willing to come to her sister's place to shrink and be under her feet? Being shrunk at someone else's house sounded dangerous even without that aspect. But maybe it was still just a joke.
Heart pounding, Brett said into his wrist "Haha jeez.... anyone else you want me to 'volunteer' for?"
Mrs. Gu put her finger on her chin and said "hmmmmm maybe some of the ladies at my church. I'll let you know!"


----


After the foot service was done, Brett stood on the other side of the classroom and Mrs. Gu unshrunk him. It was so bizarre to see this lady so short now, when she had been so massive and dominating just a moment before. He had not expected her to be this playful with him nor to actually have him do the full foot procedure that Ms. Olivier had done - all of that banter about involving other random ladies hopefully wouldn't come back to bite him later.
With him at normal height, Mrs. Gu was again pleasant and talkative with him. How were his grades. (getting a lot better recently heheh.) What he liked studying (eh favorite is probably computers). What he liked to do (same things every teenager liked, Brett guessed). If he still enjoyed drawing. (yes, but he didn't do it as much.) Did he need a ride home at this hour? (no, he could skateboard, it wasn't far.)
Mrs. Gu's earlier comment about his mom made Brett suddenly think about her. He really needed to tell her what was going on with his volunteering. He'd now been with two teachers and they'd both done things with him that would probably make his mom uncomfortable unless he put it in the right context. He knew mom didn't have any love for Lee-Reilly and sometimes they'd both complained about the principal at home, and this whole certification volunteering was kind of a half-baked idea as it is. Maybe mom wouldn't be in love with that idea.
But Brett chose not to worry much. He had an agreement in writing that his grades would be salvaged, and some college money to boot. Why would mom have any problems with that?

Next on the list would be a total unknown: Miss Fatima Erenli. He'd have to reach out to Lee-Reilly about scheduling.

Brett rounded the corner into Mrs. Lee-Reilly's office after fourth period, feeling a little triumphant. One more teacher down. He was going in to make a few demands and he felt very entitled to them. This time, he wouldn't be caught unprepared for the meeting. After all, he was really doing the principal a favor, right? Surely he could play hardball here.

First, he wanted the agreement he had signed printed out, or in PDF form. Emailed to his personal email, not his school email since his mom could read that one. What a sucker he'd been not to read the whole thing.

Second, he wanted to ensure that there would be no multi-day sessions anymore. He'd had to work with Ms. Olivier for five evenings total and it was somewhat grueling. Three of them were spent working out how they would even approach the certification process, and with no formalized procedure Ms. Olivier had wanted to be thorough. They had basically worked together to develop a document that would serve as a template for the rest of the faculty. Then there were the two days of "practical exercises". He wanted the paperwork process streamlined and immediately to follow or precede the practical - so that it could be done in one evening. The primary goal here was to get done before the end of school in June. He only had ten days left before the last day and he really didn't want to come to an empty school on his free time to do it. Surely the principal would share his haste because she wanted to get the certifications filed with the state before they had to marshal the special disciplinary needs students. He had good reason to believe the time demand would be acceptable. The legwork that Ms. Olivier did had paid dividends. This morning, the day just after his single constrainment training session with Mrs. Gu, he had shown up at Mrs. Gu's classroom and asked her if she could do the paperwork with him over lunchtime. Not only was she prepared to do it, she had already read it over and did it with him in 30 minutes, so he figured he could make the case to demand that all of the remaining 5 teachers work with his schedule to get wrapped up in a single school day evening apiece, at most.

Third, he wanted to broach the question of his mom. Was she already certified? Was she in the document? He still had not told her, so he felt he had to clearly request that Lee-Reilly should not tell her for him. His mom probably wouldn't be happy that he was doing this with her coworkers, because it could make her feel weird in her professional relationships with them. He had to confront her with it himself or it would be even worse for him. He could see his mom getting pissed off and he really didn't want that if she was going to be training with him.

Lastly, he wanted to talk more formally about the GPA assistance. He had choked slightly on his last chemistry test and had barely passed it. Chemistry and math were tough subjects for him, but he did seem to have a good relationship with Mrs. Samson, he just hadn't had time to see her after school due to the certification volunteering. He had to ask Mrs. Lee-Reilly to tell Samson about the deal and plead for a little bit of leeway. He still intended his final project to be a decent effort, but there was not much grading content left in the semester.

With this in mind, he went in primed for a battle.

---

He found his principal at her desk waiting for him and she looked up, smiled a tiny bit, and gestured for him to come in and close the door. Lee-Reilly had bags under her eyes and looked a little tired. "Brett. How are you doing? Glad that you came to see me."
"Well, y'see, I really need-" he started, expectantly.
"Oh sorry to interrupt, before I forget, here's your agreement printed out." She reached behind her desk and grabbed it from the top of a filing cabinet. He heard a little slam as she spun around and dropped it on the desk in front of him - there had to be at least 100 pages in that stack, and it was bound with a gargantuan 1.5-inch binder clip.
Brett took it with a look of triumph on his face. "Thanks, I was just going to ask. I really should read everything."
"Of course you should young man!" she chided him. "Always best to read every agreement you sign."

Brett thumbed through the pages idly and whistled. "This is a hefty document. I had no idea."
"Yes it is Brett. But if you're worried, I promise it's 90% boilerplate. I simply have to make sure that our agreement is up to the standards needed to get the certification training needed for our timelines."
Brett tried to regain control of the conversation and blurted out abruptly: "Speaking of timelines. I think we can only do 1 day per training session."
Lee-Reilly sighed. "I know you do, and it's something I want too. I want you to get out of here and enjoy your summer. I want all the loose ends tied up so we don't need you again over the summer. You planned to go to the city with your dad, right?
Brett nodded. Apparently the principal knew that his sometimes-distant dad, a New York City hedge fund business analyst, was going to take him for the summer. This was going to be a big deal and he was hoping to get the equivalent of an internship by learning from his dad on the job. He had never told the principal that, so evidently his mom had let it slip out among the faculty at some point.
Lee-Reilly continued "... but if you review the training documents closely it really does stipulate 4 hours of training per teacher, which we don't have to pedantic on but we can't simply dismiss out of hand. Several hours can be tough to fit into one day at the end of school. I think you did way more than that with Sondra, and maybe just a bit less than that with Wendy technically. Though I went over it with Wendy and she seemed to have retained it very well. But some of the other teachers you'll be helping have kids at home, or they need to get out of the school at a certain hour for different reasons. It's been very tough to arrange a schedule like you've done so far.
Brett sighed and looked down. What was she proposing?
"I think we can get all the teachers trained in time as long as you agree to one thing." Lee-Reilly said, hanging on the pause.
"You would need to either go home with them or do it on a weekend day."

Lee-Reilly continued while Brett looked suspicious. "There's just no other way. They are mostly agreed that as we approach the final weeks, they just can't spend 4 hours after school with you, but they could possibly do it in pieces from home or from their other after-school job sites. Fatima and Loren also teach evening classes at the community college, for example.
"How am I going to get home if we do it at their places? The community college is completely in the other direction of my house."
"I know. It's hard for them too to consider taking you back to the school or home on a school night. I've asked them to try to do this with you and take you back home if you need to be, but it would be a lot easier to get the faculty to go along if you would spend the night. I asked all the remaining ladies and they seemed more amenable to setting up a small quarters for you overnight."
Brett processed the idea. It turned out that, quite apart from the requests of Mrs. Gu on behalf of her sister, he was going to very soon see exactly what it was like to go to strangers' houses as a shrinkee.

Brett asked somewhat plaintively, "How do I know it will be safe?"
Lee-Reilly continued on in a somber tone. "Your safety is the number one priority. These conditions are basically exactly what we're putting to the test in real world school conditions. Think about it - if a teacher is faced with unruly student who has to be shrunk for the safety of the student, the other students, or the faculty, the number one thing that we want to ensure is that she can get the shrinkee to a safe place of isolation as rapidly as possible, where no accidents are going to happen. Ensuring that the conditions are enforcing discipline by making them unpleasant is always a secondary priority, even though I want to see it done."
Brett nodded as she spoke. She basically had a speech planned for when he finally stopped trusting her, and he realized he was just going to have to listen to it in silence. "So don't worry. We've asked and made sure that cats and dogs are restrained and kids in the house know what they're dealing with. You will have a safe shelter wherever you go. I promise you - I have specifically told each teacher how serious it is to take care of shrinkees. It is more than their careers on the line if they actually let anything happen to you." At this point, she changed tone to sound a bit sweeter. "I know this is another wrinkle on top of what we've orally discussed, but the alternative is that you continue to come in on the summer days to get us done by the end of the obligated date. We absolutely have to get all the certification paperwork notarized and mailed to the state office by June 25 or we won't meet the deadline for the new transfers for the next semester. That deadline cannot be allowed to happen. I would really really rather you did this by June 9, the last day of school - the teachers are also looking forward to a little break. I might have to add some extra time to your program if you make some of us change vacation plans to get this done."

Brett pounced on the pause in her sentence. "Extra time to my program? What do you mean?"
Lee-Reilly cleared her throat. "If you'll look at page 6, it describes what the terms are. You have agreed to get these certifications done for us. You are functioning as a student volunteer worker with specific privileges and responsibilities. We have set nominal hour levels for how long you need to commit to getting us across the finish line. I have no doubt in my mind that we will get everything done in time, but if you make it harder for us - we can make it harder for you too. We can obviously revoke your extra credit and scholarship award if you fail to complete the requirements, but there are other milestone requirements. If you don't get done with your part by the last day of school, we are also permitted to shrink you and detain you for extra periods of time."
Brett flipped to the page and it said explicitly that. Ugh, he thought. That sounded dangerous.

"Look I want to make sure everything goes off without a hitch, but if we have scheduling conflicts how can I avoid delays? I can't control teachers' schedules." Brett said, somewhat despondent.
Lee-Reilly went back into a pleasant tone. "You're in luck! We've already had all the discussions. I have a schedule laid out for you to consider - the teachers involved were obviously a little miffed that we had to squeeze all this in at the very end, but I think everyone will uphold this if you do."

She handed him another piece of paper. Starting from tomorrow, which was Tuesday, it went like this:
Tuesday - Fatima Erenli, overnight
Wednesday - break (no teachers available)
Thursday - Alicia Gomez, in-school or overnight
Friday - Loren Issakinen,in-school or overnight
Saturday - break (Samson alternative, or Gomez/Issakinen available if catch-up needed)
Sunday - break (Issakinen available if catch-up needed)
Monday - Katie Samson, overnight
Tuesday - break (no teachers available)
Wednesday - Alka Padmanabhan, overnight (also day of pep rally and staff relay)
Thursday - break (no teachers available)
Friday - break (Brett has 3 finals)
Saturday - Nancy Henderson, overnight
Sunday - break (emergency catch-up day)
Monday - last day of school! (June 9)

"WAIT! You have listed my mom on Saturday June 7?" Brett exclaimed.
Mrs. Lee-Reilly looked puzzled. "Yes.... is that a problem for you? I would think you could easily resolve it since you live with her haha!" She spoke as though this were a joke, as though she didn't remember not mentioning Nancy's name!
Brett just started shaking his head angrily. "You don't understand! I didn't... tell her about any of this yet."

Lee-Reilly widened her eyes and then looked off to the side thoughfully. "I guess that would explain why she was a little upset when I broached the subject with her. I thought she knew already. Truthfully, she didn't want to give me a date and said quietly under her breath that she'd figure it out with you on the side, but I penciled in a day just to keep you aware of the fact that we had thought of it."
Brett took a leap back into the past "But but you said that there were only 6 teachers last time we talked. I'm sure of it. You showed me a spreadsheet without her name on it! I would have been totally different on this idea if I knew I was going to be used for my mom's training."
Lee-Reilly shrugged. He heard the sliminess of her lie as she said noncommittally: "I may have misspoken, or you may have misheard. But you should have read what you signed. The document you signed clearly shows the name of all 7 women you will be assisting.
Brett whined "Are you going to, y'know, ask my mom to do the same things with me as all the other teachers?"
Lee-Reilly scoffed, "Of course. Who better than she to know how to interact with you?"
"But she has the most terrible smelling feet and I don't think I'll survive being under them. Can you please do it some other way.... jeez, that is the same day as the girls' softball and track teams meet."
Lee-Reilly was silent for a moment and shook her head. She then said in a low voice filled with barely-disguised contempt: "I would think, Brett, that if you have a problem with your mom disciplining you, you should work that out with her. I told her what you did with Ms. Olivier and Mrs. Gu, and told her simply to push the boundaries as she thought appropriate given the purpose of the training. It gets to a more personal level if I try to tell her to go easy on you just because you are her son. She might be insulted that I would even suggest doing that, as though she were too harsh with you. Surely you can understand how that sort of decision making should stay in the family and not come as an order from a boss, right?"

Brett couldn't say anything. He just sat there. He felt defeated. This schedule looked horrendous. He was really going to need those extra credit points as he was going to lose so much time to staying overnight at other places. His books and laptop wouldn't shrink with him, so he couldn't really do any studying.
Brett gave up. "Fine. FINE. I can't believe this but I will go through with it."
Lee-Reilly looked ecstatic, as though she expected more resistance. "I knew we could count on you, Brett!"
"And you will help me get the extra credit right away, right? I think I need a boost in chemistry. My mind was not in the right place after I was doing the training with Ms. Olivier."
"I'll email Katie and see what I can do - she will tell you how it's going to work out on Monday when you do training with her, if not sooner."
"And you'll be able to help me with other teachers too? Can I get a little boost in statistics? Mr. Lendman is not on the list."
"I'll talk to Chris and I'm sure he can help. I meant it when I said we'd be able to get things done for you. Please try to stop worrying and just focus on completing the program as we have laid it out."
Brett started to alternate between calming down and going into a panic attack. "Ok. I'm ok. I can do this. It's scary but I can do it. Boy is it scary. I, uh, I did not expect this conversation, I did not expect it to be so tight on time, I did not expect my mom to be involved."
Lee-Reilly said in almost a whisper, "I know you can do it Brett. We have plenty of second chances in the schedule if you need to skip a day for studying. There is enough time to get it done by Jun 9 if you work with us, I promise."

But then she slightly raised her voice. "I want to reiterate the stakes, as you may find them motivational. If you can't do this by Jun 9 as we've scheduled, it's going to make everything a lot harder. I am going to try and motivate you by saying - if you push past June 10, the last day I'm planning to be in town, I am going to have to reschedule a flight, and I'm going to penalize you with one full day of shrinking detention for every day you are late until the deadline of June 25. This is not a 4-hour training session, it's a full 24-hours of tedious confinement, dull shrinkee-friendly food, and any other random punishments we can devise. You will spend over 2 weeks shrunk in this state if you push us to the last minute. I can do this myself or enlist any other teachers who want to assist me. In fact, I can bring in anyone from the state who is certified."
Brett just stared. That would mean he'd miss the chance to spend the summer with his dad.
"If you make us later than June 25, I may not be able to get the state Board of Education controller to make an exception for me and this whole thing will be for naught. You will not get your scholarship, you will not get your extra credit, and you will undoubtedly be spending the rest of your program term shrunken. Your worker agreement lasts until the day before the first day of school, August 24. Again, I can hold you myself, or enlist any others in the faculty to help me find ways to punish you. Again, that includes *anybody* who is certified - I can call my friend in the corrections department and get her to send some buff ladies from the convict-shrinkee penitentiary to help me. Theoretically I could even have you sent on a tour of other schools in the state or any states which are reciprocal with New York State, which is most of them. Some countries like Canada or Mexico also have reciprocity in these rules with our state. I could take you to a new school every day in multiple states or countries, where I could have you penalized by any of the teachers there who want in, as long as you're always present with someone who is certified. You won't be harmed per se, but we can make it veerrrrry miserable and unpleasant for you. That is the nuclear option and I really do not want to have to do it. But I am telling you so you know - it's really really important that we get this done on time."

Brett started to tear up a little bit as he looked down in the chair. The room was silent for a full half a minute. He started to question the future, wonder if he'd ever get a shot at his dad's hedge fund. Started to wonder how his mom could protect him from this new reality and if he could escape.
Lee-Reilly's authoritative voice brought him back to reality. "But if you do let us get this done on time, you will have all of the privileges in that document. And you will have recourse if we don't deliver."
"The future is very bright for you young man. Now please go home and get rested up."

Brett wiped his face and, as he walked out the door, started to mentally prepare for tomorrow. He had to learn something about Miss Erenli before he spent the night at her place doing whatever she wanted to do with him.

And he would tell mom tonight for sure.

Skateboarding to school under the strong morning sun, Brett shuffled under the abnormally heavy weight of his backpack. Rather than being loaded with books, today it contained a change of clothes and an overnight setup for him.

He had prepared last night after he got a 9pm email to his personal email account from Miss Erenli.

    Subject:Shrink training today!
    From: Fatima Erenli (fatima.erenli@wwhs.edu)
    To: brett (brettttank@gmail.com)

    Dear Brett,
    I'm sorry that we are doing this without actually knowing each other. I have heard from Sondra and Wendy that you're a nice kid, but you didn't sign up for my history or social studies in 9th or 10 grades. You picked Mr. Berringer instead. What's up with that? :P just joking.
   
    You and Sondra did a great job describing the process we need to undergo and I'll make sure I've reviewed the paperwork before we meet after class.
   
    As for our schedule, unfortunately it is packed - after class gets out I take a sort of long bus ride to the community college across town, and then after class I walk to my apartment since it's under 1km away. We will do the first part on the way, and I will then finish up with you after I get home and we eat dinner. Unfortunately I probably can't spare the time to take you back home today, but I hope that Nancy is able to pick you up.
   
    If you can't get a ride back home, I have set up a shrinkee-friendly space for you in my closet. Unfortunately I do not have a spare room. My mother from Syria lives with me. She does not speak English well, but I have explained to her that I might have a shrunken student visitor for a special project so you need not worry about her.
   
    Please come by my classroom at 3:30 after last period.
   
    Best,
    Miss Erenli
   
Very good that she thought to sync up, he thought. It was hard to find out much about Miss Erenli from the school website, as it revealed nothing he didn't know already. She was young, but not new to the district, being hired about 4 years back. She came to the the US when she was younger. According to Marco, who had taken her in 10th grade, she was soft-spoken and had a nice sense of humor, but she had had a fairly raucous class and had barely been able to keep discipline intact. For halfway-decent students it was an easy A, and she seemed to enjoy going on tangents about historical parallels between cultures, and was especially spirited about women's issues. Even if few students paid attention to these digressions.

But his late-night research from the living room couch had been cut short as his mom finally demanded an answer about the shrinking training he was doing.
"Brett, fold up your laptop. We need to talk."
He groaned and closed the chromebook. Obviously he had to confront this now.
"Mom, I was going to tell you-"
"Stop. I'm the one talking here. Now. Your principal, my boss, Mrs. Lee-Reilly, told me today that you were basically working for the school now. Is that correct?"
Brett nodded. "That is sort of it, but-"
"Well, at first I thought I was going to come home and congratulate you. You had told me you were studying more and I saw your last 9-weeks report card and it was better, so I was happy. Brett, I was actually happy for you. I was thinking that my little man was getting better grades and making some money too. That's awesome, Brett. You used to make fun of Don for working as a janitor and you made fun of me for working as a gym teacher, but I felt momentarily proud that you had overcome that. I was looking forward to giving you the CR-V."
Brett smiled wearily. He knew there was a bombshell coming when she started like this.
"But honey, then I caught the first glimpse of the contract. I'm furious that you agreed to do this without telling me. I would have told you no way. Do you remember how I've always told you that Lee-Reilly is a snake? Do you remember what she did to the last assistant principal? Do you realize that you've basically just given her exactly what she needed to gain complete control over this school and start influencing the district's policies?"
"N-no." Brett said pitifully.
"Well you did! You really screwed up this time, Brett! This contract is a mess - you are liable for big money changing hands, do you know that? Education isn't immune to crummy rackets, you know! And if you think that Lee-Reilly wouldn't torture you all summer long if you mess with her plans, you're going to have a rude awakening!"
Brett clamored to his defense, angry at his mom's judgment. "But MOM! Look at what they are giving me! A lot of money for college! Help with my grades! Aren't you happy for me??"
"NO Brett. I failed. I failed to teach you in some way that this was wrong. You are not supposed to get better grades by doing sly deals. You didn't earn those grades Brett! You are supposed to work hard and be smart. I don't know if it's me or your *father*, but we failed you if you think this is OK."
Brett was still angry. He said "I don't care! It's going to help me AND the school, and the teachers so far have been cool with it. And who cares about the grades. You've seen how smart Dad is - he learned it in real business, not school, and he makes great money and does well enough for himself!" All the feelings that Brett had lately been simmering came to the surface. The anger of a divorced mom and a son with torn loyalties came colliding together with fury.
"DON'T YOU-" his mom started to yell, but then composed herself "don't you go there, hon. He left us high and dry when we needed him. You have clearly forgotten that."
Brett sulked. "Whatever. I'm going through with the rest of the program."
"Rest of the program? Who else do you still have to do this with?" his mom demanded.
"Miss Erenli, Ms. Samson-"
"UGh, not Katie. She's one of my friends."
"-Mrs. Gomez, Ms. Padmanabhan, and-" he paused as she just continued to shake her head.
"-and Ms. Issakinen. And it's all gotta be done before the end of school so mom I'm sorry but I'm busy and you need to get out of my space."
Then silence. His mom gestured impatiently for him to go on, but he didn't pick up the cue. So she cleared her throat.
"You sure you're not forgetting someone, bud?"
".... and you, mom."
"That's right, and me." his mom said, seething. "And you're to blame. I don't want to do this shrink training, but Mrs. Lee-Reilly is making me do it. I think you are helping her change our school for the worse. I think we can keep students learning and behaving themselves without turning them into dolls or specks of dirt. This is just barbaric."

Brett just looked around. He was annoyed with this diatribe.

"You are making this awkward as hell for me, Brett. I work with these people almost every day. I like nearly all of them. But because of what you're doing, they got totally the wrong idea about the kind of people we are. I have already had to hear as though it's no big deal that they found it enjoyable to wear you in their goddamn shoes. That's already a little embarrassing. But what I'm REALLY burned about is thinking about my son getting pervy with his teachers. You BETTER not be enjoying this, I swear to God."
Brett stood up and walked to his bedroom.
"I can promise you one thing my boy - if you're enjoying this, I am going to make it so bad for you when it's my turn that you'd never think of pulling a scam like this again. I will make what Mrs. Lee-Reilly threatened you with seem like a picnic. I will amp up the punishment to the highest and most creative level I am allowed to. I am going to put this mistake right no matter what it takes, Brett. Do you understand me? You might get some money out of it, you might get some undeserved GPA boost, but I'm going to make sure you learn that it's wrong and don't do it again."
On that line, Brett slammed the door and locked it behind him. He wouldn't emerge for the rest of the night.


----


The day was dragging. He found it hard to focus on the last class periods, even though he had his first final tomorrow. Was gonna have to just wing it and hope for the Lee-Reilly boost, he thought smugly. But he wasn't out of the woods yet, so he played it cool and tried to show that he was paying attention in the lectures.

But then, suddenly, the final bell rang at 3:30 and he felt like his feet were anchors on the ocean floor. He wanted to get over to Miss Erenli's office and get going, but he absolutely had to wait until everybody of consequence was gone before he ventured that way. There would be no explanation for why he was in another teacher's office that he didn't study with. There was gossip (perhaps planted by teachers) that a student was cheerfully volunteering to be a foot servant and he was worried he would be found out and what the consequences would be if he were. He drank a water bottle and just hung out on his phone outside his locker.

The coast was mostly clear by 3:45 and he ventured away from his locker. Through the commons and on to the other side of the school to Miss Erenli's room, he rounded the corner blindly, and then almost bumped into her. For a split second they made eye contact and then she darted out of the way.
"OOH!" She shrieked involuntarily, then began to redden. "Brett, it's you! Haha you need to be more careful."

Brett also felt extremely awkward in that moment, but not just for the reason that he'd nearly knocked her over. He'd simply never noticed how pretty she was. Close-up, her dark brown eyes had a piercing quality. She was tall and graceful, probably an inch taller than he was. She was wearing a light blue dress and a white hijab, with black flats.
"Oh I'm so sorry, I should have been more careful, I didn't mean to."
"It's okay, it's fine. Now - is your mom going to pick you up tonight?"
Brett shook his head, "No, I'm afraid she can't do it tonight."
"Okay... that's fine, we can do this like I planned. Do you have everything? Are you ready to go?"
"Wait, go?" Brett asked, confused.
"Yes... I told you 3:30, as we do need to catch the next bus at 4. We're going to have to rush a little bit. Do you have bus fare?"
Brett had to think... "No... I don't usually." He looked up to see her smiling.
"It's okay Brett, you should have prepared!" She laughed at him. "OK we'll have to do this differently. Come back to my classroom. Hand me your bag there. Oof, it's heavy."
They turned back into her classroom, and she closed the door.
"Brett, are you dressed for shrinking? You wore the leotard, right?"
"Yes, it's under my clothes... why?"
"Stand over there. Put on this walkie talkie on your wrist. I'm going to shrink you right now, ok?"
Brett winced. "Wait, now? How are you going to transport me?"
"We can take care of two things at once. You'll go in my shoe. Now stay still, let me work this thing..."

WHOOSH and he was again in a pile of clothes on the floor. Rapid but soft taps on the floor indicated she was approaching. He saw the clothes swooped up as she grabbed them and put them in a plastic bag, then looked straight up to see a veritable giantess looking down at him. "Are you okay?" she said sweetly.
Brett reached down to his wrist "Yeah I'm okay. Am I going straight into your shoe while you walk to the bus stop?"
Miss Erenli furrowed her brow and tilted her head to one side. "Well, yes - we are running late and don't really have much time. You don't have fare and won't have time to get a ticket since the machine at the stop is broken and lines are always long. Sorry Brett, but into my shoe you're going!" she said finally.
She lifted a soft, creamy white foot with long toes out of her right flat and then picked him up by the leotard, dropping him into the toe section. The foot came down around him gingerly but firmly, ultimately pinning him between her big and second toes.

"OK Brett I feel you in there. How are you feeling?" she asked authoritatively.
Brett considered how to respond. He felt reasonably secure like he wouldn't slip under her sole and get crushed, but it was hard to tell what would happen if she started to walk fast. He just decided to say "I'm fine Miss Erenli."
She tried to put him at ease with some humor. "How are the accomodations heheh?"
Brett smiled in his foot prison. "Oh they're delightful Miss Erenli. I need to find an air freshener that smells like the scent of this hotel room!"
As he heard Miss Erenli laugh heartily above, she involuntarily flexed her toes and Brett was squeezed gently.
Finally, Brett took a whiff to see what he was in for. There was just the faintest of foot odor, and her foot was cool and dry, but she had been inside an air-conditioned school all day. And he was about to be held in this flat as she speed-walked to the bus stop in the June heat wave and then on the bus for nearly an hour. Would she even remove him in time for her next class? He had plenty of time to ponder.
"Okay, off we go!" she said, as she locked up her room and headed out. "I'm going to keep the app open on my phone and put in my airpods, so you can talk to me if you need to, right?"

The next few blocks were a blur for Brett. He had the slightly disorienting sensation of being dragged upward and then slammed downward over and over again, but it had this delicate rhythm which he could adapt to. The squeezing of the toes was on, then off, on then off - but as it continued he fought a battle against airsickness.
He had only the presence of mind to marvel that this new teacher to him, who had never worked with him before, felt so confident in his bodily strength that she would run with him pressed under her toes in her flat. She had never handled a shrinkee before. But even though she had told him he could talk to her on the walkie-talkie, he felt secure enough that he didn't really bother yet.
There was some heat build-up and he felt her foot start to perspire, but with the airflow of moving it didn't really hit him yet.
After almost 15 minutes of quickly walking, he heard the sound of her footfalls change - she was climbing the steps into a bus. It was noisy with people talking, and he didn't feel any pressure depart so evidently she was still standing.

"hey brett i just saw this app could text. how r u doin. no ac in here 2day"
Brett felt the buzz and looked at his wrist. Clearly she texted like a teenager, maybe she was less mature than he thought? Or maybe she was just struggling to text with one hand as she held onto the bar during stops. Yeah, that was more likely, he thought.
"fine and dandy" he texted back.

He was a bit restless, but yielded to the pressure around him as the surface of the foot and shoe started to get a little moist. It was a hot June day, that's for sure. Stop after stop, she still remained standing, and he started to smell the pungent, earthy smell of her feet. Finally, after what seemed like 20 minutes, he felt her weight shift and she sat down.
"OK Brett sorry for that walk. I'm sitting now. It is hot in here and your bookbag was heavy!"
Brett did not reply down below. He was savoring the minor airflow of her holding her foot in the air and tapping it a bit.
She texted again. "I hope you're not drowning down there. Like I said, the bus's AC seems to be broken. They got the windows open."
Brett waited for a moment and texted back "Not drowning but I think I have my daily supply of sodium that's for sure."

Silence for a few minutes and then replies shot back.
"sodium? What do you mean"
"Gross!"
"You drank my foot sweat? SERious?"
Brett pondered how to respond.... he wanted to see how she'd react. "Yes, I thought that was your idea. The other teachers made me lick their feet and said it was part of the training."
"OMG"
"WHAT"
"No I didn't plan for that. They didn't tell me they did that. That is gross! Why would I order you do that?"
Brett decided to push it more. "It's not as gross as it sounds. Also your feet really don't have much taste. Very mild. You seem to take decent care of them."
"LOL you're funny, Brett. Cut it out, I know that's a lie. I have smelly feet."
Brett said "Well I've been under a few lately and they are the least smelly so far." This was actually a lie - Mrs. Gu's feet were less smelly. Miss Erenli had bigger feet with more sweat glands, and they were only somewhat less pungent than Ms. Olivier's. If he had to keep this up in the heat of summer all evening, he'd be getting quite the smorgasbord of foot flavor.

As if she was considering the sincerity of what he'd written, Miss Erenli took a couple minutes to reply. "OK if you say so. You are permitted to lick my feet if you want to. But I'm not going to make you do it just because it feels nice to get princess treatment. I still think it's kinda gross for you."
He latched onto the changed message. "Thanks for your concern for me. You are nice about it. I thought Lee-Reilly wanted to get every teacher to punish me hardcore."
"Oh Brett, she is just a little misguided. I didn't follow what she said because it is mean. I did not demand you to clean my feet because that is mean. She can be mean sometimes. But you still should respect her as your principal, she is just misguided."
Brett saw the opening. "Well thank you for your kindness. For you I don't mind giving you 'princess treatment.' if you like it."
She said "OK... but only if you really don't mind. And thanks for it. I am sure I will be even more tired at the end of my evening classes so this is nice."

He heard Fatima far above humming some song he couldn't quite make out, while far below he licked her toes, taking care to get into all the crevices. He really did feel foolishly ennobled by her use of the word "princess," as though this was tapping into some girly fantasy, but it was probably a throwaway line. Something silly to think about as he worked on her long, thin, princess-ly toes.

The bus ride had gone on for quite a while, and Brett couldn't really keep up with keeping Miss Erenli's feet clean of sweat given the heat. At a certain point he threw in the towel and quit. He was just too thirsty and had a salty mouth that he could not keep salivating into.
He reckoned that she was on her laptop given the soft sound of clicking above. The texting stopped while she worked to prepare for her next class. Despite the setting, the humid environment and lowered oxygen was making him sleepy and he laid back down in the sole.
Miss Erenli probably didn't notice anymore as she didn't react. He still occasionally saw a faint glimmer of light from above at the top of her flat, focused through the gap between her big and second toe. The gap narrowed and widened slowly, as she fidgeted with her toes while typing.
It was too hot to fall asleep, but Brett settled in for a rest.

After what seemed like a very short time laying in the slightly damp sole of the shoe, he felt his world shuffle. Miss Erenli was putting her feet on the floor and packing up her laptop.
He saw a text on his wrist. "We're here. I have a little time. I'll unshrink you once I get to my office. Would you mind hanging out there?"
Another blur of motion. He barely could keep up with the changes in direction as he could tell she was shuffling as quick as she could to get to her office in time. The footfalls slowed as she neared the office, as she evidently wanted to compose herself. Was there someone there waiting for her?

There was. Brett heard Miss Erenli evidently talking with one of her students, whom Miss Erenli enthusiastically addressed as Melissa, about something related to the class.
Oh boy, he hoped that this wasn't going to do take long. But he didn't have a way to tell the time here, without his phone!
Duh. The wrist walkie talkie! Like people used to do before smartphones...
He touched it and saw a very small clock display. It was 4:56. He figured that if Miss Erenli had been rushing, the class started at 5. That left very little time.
If he missed this window, it would be a long time before he'd be free...
As they wrapped up their convo above, he felt the shoe loosen and his world tilted. Whoa! His body slid down at a sickening angle into the back of the flat. Scrambling to his feet after what felt like a giant water slide, he saw the shoe further tilt until he could walk straight off the edge of the flat to the linoleum below. With a final leap, he was free and stood triumphantly.

WHOOSH! And then, all of a sudden, he was full size again. He smelled like a giant 5'10" tall foot.

Miss Erenli giggled a bit. Always a history nerd, she jestfully said "You look like a Victorian boxer in that thing." gesturing to his flat brown-colored scientifically manufactured shrink-proof leotard that hugged his legs halfway to the knees and was almost skintight against his torso.
But he couldn't tell if that pronouncement was sarcastic, because he knew his body was scrawny. Miss Erenli had this talent for keeping him guessing with these jokes.
"Now I have to go teach. Your clothes are in the plastic shopping bag. I'd invite you to sit in on my women's studies or world history classes, but I believe you have a final tomorrow so you'd better be studying for that. I'll be back at about 6:50."
"OK Miss Erenli. See you after you're done teaching."


-----


He sat down on her office chair after putting on his shirt and jeans and tried to crack open a textbook. No good. The adrenaline of the shrinking and the unfamiliar place were distracting, and the accumulated sweat on his body was starting to become uncomfortable. He peeked out the door and didn't see anyone in either direction. After finding a close-by restroom and washing his face and hands, he couldn't help but explore for a moment. Venturing out of the instructors' office area, he saw a much newer and more inviting building than his high school. They had an imposing glass atrium in the front, which caught the brilliance of the late afternoon sun. He saw a few boys just a couple years older than him chatting and laughing, a custodian pushing a yellow cleaning cart, a young woman sitting at a table and studying alone, and a digital clock on the wall reading 5:05. It looked nice. Maybe this was what college was like.

Then, returning in the direction of Miss Erenli's office, he had to pass into the suite of cubicles and small offices by a woman sitting at a desk which had been empty as he had walked by last time. This time there was an older woman sitting at a computer, and from this direction he saw the name "MRS MILLER" embossed on a name tag on her desk. She was plump, red-faced, and had round old-fashioned glasses. Mrs. Miller looked irritable in that moment.
"Hi. Do you have an appointment with someone?" she asked blankly.
"Uhm I'm with Miss Erenli." Brett said sheepishly.
"Fatima is in class right now hon. You can wait here if you'd like."
"Well, uh, y'see I came in with her. The door to her office is actually open because I left it slightly open. I can show you." He said, starting to get nervous.
"Well... I didn't see you. She came in here alone and chatted with Melissa for two minutes then went to class, I was sitting right here and saw it all."
Brett's heart raced. He didn't want to have to explain this in full.
"Well, I did come out from her office a few minutes ago. I walked back this way. I didn't see you then."
"I was away for a moment. In fact I saw you walking out toward the atrium as I left the ladies' room." she said, still unyielding.
"Look, if you'll just let me go to her office, I can show you that the door is slightly open and my backpack is in there and she brought me with her. Just please let me get my bag and wait there for her." Brett pleaded.
Mrs. Miller softened her tone, but still was untrusting. She thought he was some 18-year-old dweeb who was too shy to ask what he was really after, and decided to gently let him know that she knew. "Honey, you don't have to make up a story about coming in with her if you just lost your backpack. We all lose stuff. What color is the backpack?" she asked. "I can go check for you. If you didn't leave it in her office, we can go to the lost and found at the main department office."
He gave up. There was no winning this. "It's black with some blue." he said meekly, sitting down on a couch near the woman's desk.
The plump woman rose to her feet with some effort, jiggling slightly as she got into motion. The white and pink floral pattern dress she was wearing seemed to just barely contain her - he could just see flabs of fat jutting out of the bottom of her thighs where the dress ended near the knee, and she had some meaty calves.


Returning a moment later, she came bearing the backpack. "I guess this is yours, young man?" she hollered across the hallway.
Standing up and taking the bookbag, Brett was relieved. "Thanks! Can I sit here and study?"
"Oh yeah, suuuure" said Mrs. Miller lazily as she sat down, her wide hips getting wider when coming to rest on the hardwood chair. "But ooooone more question first, honey."
He looked up, surprised at the jaunty way she asked, and looked at her questioningly. "Yes?"

The double-chinned woman smiled broadly, slightly crooked. She locked eyes with him as he nervously squirmed. Her straight reddish-brown hair had patches of gray, and she just shook her head slightly as if to say, you're in for it now kid. He had no idea what she was about to ask him, but he could tell just by the look on her face that she had dropped any pretense of treating him like any other student.

"Are you one of those Westwood kids?" she finally asked.
Brett froze. What did that question mean? What was Westwood known for? Think! Did he talk a certain way? No, that couldn't be it. Why would she expect him to be a high school student from the other side of town? Think, goddamn it, think! What about him was making this woman so suspicious?
But faced with no explanation, he decided that it really was going to be worse for him to explain himself fully. "No, what makes you think that?" He lied.
Mrs. Miller leaned over from her desk, a bit higher than Brett on the couch, and lowered her voice as she spoke less than a foot from him. "Weelll, I know the Westwood principal's, shall we say.... notoriety. And I saw a shrinkee control in Miss Erenli's office. And you're wearing one of the shrinkee communicators on your wrist. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but... you smell like feet. (hehe) So you're a shrinkee, sure as I'm sitting here."
Brett was stunned and started to sputter ineffectually. Why was this happening to him? What did she want?

"And there are only two kinds of shrinkees in this area: Westwood students, and criminals serving their sentences. And you've already told me you're not a Westwood student. So that makes you an escapee."

Brett tried to walk back his last statement. "But wait, I was lying! I AM a Wes-"
She shushed him indignantly, continuing in a harsh drawl. "You said the opposite a few seconds ago, young man. Now are you going to tell me how Fatima came to get you as a shrinkee, and how you got free? If you don't tell me I'll have to hold onto you until we can get Miss Erenli back and all this explained. You have to know I won't hesitate to shrink you. With this control, I could put you in my shoe, and I bet my rough, big feet will give you a tougher time than Fatima's.
Brett said "No! Please don't. I'm telling the truth now. I'm sorry I lied. I am a Westwood student and not a criminal, and I'm not shrunk for punishment. I volunteered to be shrunk!"
The woman laughed. "You volunteered??! Nobody volunteers to be shrunk." She cackled.
Brett insisted "I did volunteer! I swear. I've volunteered for three teachers so far. Teachers have sat on me and put me in their shoes already."
Mrs. Miller's smile faded. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"Yes! It's the principal's orders that every teacher has to have the shrink training."
"Hmmmmm" said Mrs. Miller, thinking intensely. "Okay. I'm not quite sure I believe you yet, but we can wait until Fatima gets back to straighten this out."
Brett agreed hastily. "Yes ma'am." He was about to breath a sigh of relief.
"Good boy. Now would you mind going into my shoe for the time being? We don't get shrinkee training here, but I've always wanted to try it."
Wait, what? Did she misundertand him that thoroughly? Brett sputterd "Oh um... I'd rather not go in your shoe if you don't mind haha." He laughed awkwardly as though it had been a joke.
She looked surprised but pleased at this. "Wow really? Okay.... you'd prefer to be under my big ol' booty? That would be sweet of you, never thought I'd get a cutie like you to volunteer for it, but it is so big you might get lost hehe!"
Brett said quietly but firmly: "Mrs. Miller, I meant that I don't want you to shrink me."
Mrs. Miller looked genuinely saddened. "Okay.... sorry hon. But you told me you volunteered to be under your teachers, and I guessed you liked it. Not calling you a perv, it's fine with me..." her voice trailed off as she seemed to be coping with major embarrassment at his rebuff.
Brett sighed and tried to be as earnest as possible. "No, that's not it. It's a long story.... I didn't tell you why I volunteered. There was extra credit and I actually am helping them with training. It's basically a part-time job. I have never been shrunk except as part of this arrangement, ma'am, it's not like you think."
Mrs. Miller put her hand on her voluminous chest and said sorrowfully "Oh my, I'm sorry child. You are just an ordinary kid after all, a good kid."
Brett said "Yes ma'am, that's me." He wasn't sure if that was true, but felt that he had to believe it. "Well, I'm really sorry that I'm just not able to help you out right now. Maybe our paths will cross in the future. But for now I'm with Miss Erenli for her training and I really do need to study, so I-"
"Honey, I get it. I'm really sorry for the misunderstanding. I think you should get back to Fatima's office now." The boy obediently walked back.

Brett would have to watch himself; this was a whole different world to adapt to. The outing with Miss Erenli was only to be the first and he had to hope that it wouldn't end worse than a simple misunderstanding. Some antisocial types felt entitled to casually abuse shrinkees, and some crazies were known to get off on abducting them. Whenever he showed up with this shrinkee control and wrist monitor outside of his own school in a controlled environment, it was a risky place where strangers may notice the small clues and immediately judge him as a forcibly-detained shrinkee who unshrunk himself and was probably up to no good, who could be taken advantage of. Many would not even think of him as a normal person who had accepted the fate of shrinking voluntarily, because why would someone do that?
In fact, rather than faulting her, he found the lady's initial skepticism and desire to detain him sensible. It was merely her subsequent hope that his voluntary shrinking condition could be exploited with his own tacit approval that he found noteworthy, though it was still hard to judge poorly of her because there was something primitively, subconsciously exciting to him about the gentle, idle threats she wielded, even thouh she was an almost complete stranger.
Thinking over the past few weeks, the simulated shrinking punishment by teachers had exposed him to many diverse reactions, none of them inherently malevolent so far, although all had surprised him in how far they had gone with him. Both they and he showed varying degrees of self-control, and the outcomes were not well explained by purely didactic or business motivations, even though he outwardly pretended that nothing else influenced him.
But Brett was still fundamentally immature, and found it hard to accept that he had actual attraction to teachers who did this to him. His mom's words rang out in his head and he angrily dismissed them- he wasn't a perv, there was nothing wrong with what he was doing, and he would continue to do it as long as he was treated well and reimbursed accordingly. That was that.


---


The remaining time passed far more quickly than Brett had intended. He had barely gotten through half of the review for his final tomorrow when he heard the door click open behind him and the familiar graceful figure of Miss Erenli enter the small office.
"How's it coming Brett? Did you get enough work done for one day?"
"I think so Miss Erenli. Still a little nervous about my final tomorrow but I prepared about as much as I'm going to tonight."
She looked tired and didn't protest. "Okay if you say so. I'm ready to go too. My mother is cooking dinner already. It's not a long walk to my place. But it's time for you to make a decision now."
Brett asked "What is it?" with anticipation.
"You can't walk home with me. Around my apartment some of my neighbors are other Syrian people, many of them older people, strong Muslims with traditional beliefs. I wish it were different, but I can't let them see me coming home with a male student to stay the night, or they will talk unkindly about me. I'm pretty sure my mother understands what I'm doing because I explained to her, but it would be a lot easier if none of my neighbors saw you."
"So, your decision is how you want to go with me. If you want a break, I've got a comfy spot for you in my purse. But if you want to start the second confinement, I can put you back under my feet for the walk home, or I can carry you in my mouth, and that should technically conclude it." She flashed a brief, goofy grin. "I don't know how Lee-Reilly comes up with this stuff..."

Brett felt like some levity. "Oh they both sound so great I just can't pick. How about both?"
Miss Erenli rolled her eyes. "You keep up the joking and maybe I'll actually start following those time periods in the document. Could be a long night for you Brett!"
"Haha okay okay, sorry sorry. But I do want a break. Please carry me in your purse."


As promised, the ride home was gentle. While Miss Erenli shlepped his overnight bag yet again, he was embedded in a travel pack of Puffs tissues near the top of her purse. The lotion-infused smell was permeating all around him. He felt like he smelled better afterward, as though his body had been lightly rubbed all over with some fragrant lotion.
He heard her walking across streets, waiting at crosswalks, and finally up a set of stairs to her apartment. The door creaked open and he immediately heard Miss Erenli talking with another woman in some language that he didn't understand. Probably Turkish or Arabic.
The conversation was getting animated and was punctuated periodically by the strongly accented voice of the other woman asking in English "Where is he?" It must be Miss Erenli's mother. He started to feel self-conscious and hoped that he was not an unwelcome intruder. This hadn't been his idea in the first place.
The voices disengaged and he heard the sound of Miss Erenli's footfalls change, as though she was now on a hard surface floor.

"Sorry Brett, I know you didn't understand any of that. My mother didn't think you'd actually come and is a little embarrassed that you're a guest of ours under these circumstances. I had to assure her very strongly that she didn't need to do anything special, that you were a student and only here for a scheduled training session for dealing with shrinkees, and that I wasn't bringing home a suitor."
Chuckling, she added "Mother is always telling me to find a good man, but she is so picky with them."
Feeling the tissue world around him shift, he realized he was being lifted out and saw the enormously tall teacher set him down on the ground very gingerly. When he was unshrunk with a WHOOSH, he perceived his surroundings to be a small bathroom and saw a shorter, older woman watching from a distance outside with fascination. Miss Erenli was barely two feet away from Brett in the small bathroom, and she stepped out closing the door behind her, glaring at her mother. Through the door, Miss Erenli suggested to him to put on his old clothes after cleaning up the remaining foot residue on him, and then come out and eat dinner. Working quickly in the sink, he could smell food, and was eager to eat.

Brett stepped out of the bathroom and was immediately sized up by her mother, who spoke slightly stilted English.
"You're a student at Westwood?" (yes)
"You study under Fatima?" (no)
"You have girlfriend?" (no)
"Why you doing this for Fatima?" (long story...)
"How old are you?" (17) "17 only! You are just a boy."
Finally recognizing that Fatima was getting irritated with this, the mother asked (by way of Fatima) if the boy would eat mujaddara, as she hadn't prepared any American food. Miss Erenli informed Brett that it contained lentils and rice and onions. Brett had no complaints and told her it smelled delicious, which seemed to please her mother. Sitting down at a small table, she continued to pepper Brett with probing questions while they ate, while Miss Erenli just sat amused and rescued Brett if any questions veered too far into the inappropriate.
Brett tried to avoid talking with his mouth full, but found it hard with the pace of questions by Miss Erenli's mother. She seemed very interested in the shrinking program, and was astonished that he had chosen to do it. She wanted to watch when Miss Erenli would finish her shrink training, which Brett found strange but he didn't protest.

With night falling, after dinner he agreed to be shrunk down and put into Miss Erenli's mouth.
With a WHOOSH, he disappeared into a pile of clothes. Miss Erenli's mother yelped and seemed to panic, as though he had disappeared. As the teacher fished Brett's clothes out of the bin and hovered over his wiggling body, she handed over to Brett a very tiny engineered cloth garment that could replace the leotard and keep him decent. The school had given this to Brett as part of the shrinking package following feedback from Wendy that the leotard itself was so bitter with its chemicals that it impaired the ability of the teacher to perform mouth containment.

After he dressed his shhrunken body, she held up Brett in her fingers to show her mother that it had actually shrunk him without harming him. Brett saw the older woman eye him very closely at a range of about eight inches. Her look was somewhat inquisitorial, and didn't make Brett feel comfortable.
But there was a job to do now.
"OK Brett, now I'm going to put you in my mouth. Thanks for choosing to be my dessert heheh. I'll still be able to text with you on the app, OK? I'm going to set a timer for one hour. I'll be grading during this time, but message me if you want."
He saw the white rows of teeth come open. Fatima Erenli closed her eyes, displaying her cute eyeshadow and long lashes, as she slowly lowered Brett into the tip of her extended tongue and let him fall backwards.
His world was bombarded with the same scents he had just sampled in the food they'd eaten. She had salivated heavily, as thouh she thought that the saliva would cushion his entry, but it actually ended up all over him and nearly drowned him. He immediately fell off the tongue on the right side, into a virtual pool of spit under her tongue and came up gasping.
Yep, this was going to be another case where he'd be drinking gallons of his teacher's saliva. Hers did not have the somewhat stale taste of Wendy's spit, but was somehow fresher, less viscous, and obviously tinged with the residual flavor of coriander and cumin from dinner.

He heard talking from outside the mouth. The teacher texted him "Thanks for putting up with my mother. She is asking me over here what it's like to have you in my mouth. I'm going to see if I can move my jaw with you in my mouth."
He chortled and texted back "No problem."
She sucked down and swallowed some of the pooled spit to open her mouth to speak, while Brett was wedged between the right edge of her tongue and her bottom row of teeth. The jaw opened and he felt the pressure from the tongue momentarily increase to hold him in place, but what she said was unintelligible.
"Actually Brett, it's pretty hard to talk while keeping you in the same place in my mouth. I'll whatsapp her instead nevermind."
Then, after she said something to her mother, Brett heard some laughter from Fatima's mother.
"What was funny?" he asked inquisitively.
Some more delay as evidently she was switching messaging apps. "Oh I just said 'he is very sweet'." back to her.
Brett playfully retorted "Lol I didn't volunteer to be your dessert for real. Don't swallow me!"
He heard a very loud snort which was evidently coming from his giantess host. "But that was in your contract to be swallowed right? :P Lee-Reilly wants to see how shrinkees cope with teacher digestion."
Brett smirked and responded "Lol sounds painful. what purpose does this research serve?"
Another buzz. "To see if any of the troublemakers at Westwood would make good snacks for hungry teachers. You aren't a troublemaker but thank you for your sacrifice. :P"

Some more outside conversation ensued, and then both Fatima and her mother laughed. The laughing opened the mouth to light and air, and shook him up.
"What is so funny this time?"
"sorry Brett. My mom asked if she could try you out, if you are so sweet. I don't know why she feels so entitled to you."
Brett asked "Is she being serious?"
"Well, maybe. But she is just not used to this kind of shrinking situation. She finds it hard to think of you as a normal student. Obviously you don't have to do that, or any other weird thing she asks."
"Well, if she really wants a quick taste later, and it would make her happy, I would let her do it. I guess this is something that the average woman never gets to experience, right? Some people pay big money for shrinkees in other countries."
"Wow Brett."
"That is.... veeerry kind of you. Are you sure?"
Brett reddened but tried to be casual. "Sure why not? I'm in your mouth now, is it really that different?"
He heard Fatima's mother's phone ding, and then a bit more laughter. Then in her mother's stilted English he heard "Thankyou Brett!"

The spit was building up again. He felt his way to higher ground, sweeping his fingers around the outline of her teeth and gums. He incidentally felt and broke off something wedged in her gum. It was a particle of rice as big as his forearm.
"Lol Brett that tickles. And are you flossing me with your fingers???"
"Sorry Miss Erenli. Not trying to."
"I think I'm going to just have to put you somewhere to be less distracting."
The tongue swept him impatiently over the surface of the tooth and into the pocket of her cheek underneath her lower left canine.
From here she sucked him with the greatest of care, slowing increasing and decreasing the air pressure and saliva flow in her mouth. It was done so carefully he felt like she was a researcher testing his properties.
Pinned in place by the soft wet flesh of his teacher's mouth, Brett spent the remainder of his mouth period pressed on almost all sides. It was like being in a shallow, warm pool wrapped in a weighted blanket. Surprisingly pleasant, in fact relaxingly so. He could almost drift off in here, and awaken as a fluid, reduced to a lower form by the waves of saliva...


----


The timer went off and Brett realized he actually had drifted off inside Miss Erenli's mouth, as she had remained incredibly still. Miss Erenli pulled him out and set him down. Adjusting to the light and fresh air, he saw a shoebox with a pile of tissues, a medicine cup filled with an ounce of warm soapy water, and a flat, squat metal cylinder which he knew to be the charging device for his wrist control.
His skin was wrinkly everywhere and he felt like it was almost peeling in places. He thought back to previous biology lectures. As it turned out, digestion started in the mouth, so it was not inaccurate to say that Miss Erenli had begun to digest him in just the span of an hour.

"Thanks for being so compliant Brett. I hope I didn't hurt you in my mouth.
Brett walkie-talkied up to her "No, I'm fine Miss Erenli. You were very careful the whole time."
"Great. Well, this is your overnight home Brett. Unfortunately I don't have enough space to give you your own room, so you'll need to stay shrunk overnight, but this will give you privacy. Your box is on a closet shelf out of the way. I figured I'd give you a chance to get cleaned up and comfortable before my mother takes her turn. If you need me text please. I'm going to go prepare for bed myself."
"OK Miss Erenli. Thanks."

He removed the cloth undergarment and slipped into the tiny bath she'd drawn for him. It was soothing to wash off the day. He had been sweated on and coated in spit for a sizable portion of his day.
But it seemed very shortly after, as he was drying off on a swatch of paper towel, that the mother came and looked into his box.

Brett's heartrate shot up. She didn't know anything about handling a shrinkee and he had wanted Miss Erenli present for this.
"Call me Umaima" she said in a whisper.
How could he? She didn't have the app on her phone or the other end of the walkie-talkie. He yelled up "WHERE IS FATIMA" but she heard it as a low squeak and giggled at him.
"Oh I cannot hear. You OK?"
Brett nodded very exaggeratedly, so much so that even at his small size she could see. But how would this work with no communication?
"OK we go now. Thank you ~~ Brett"
She picked him up, even though he was naked, and walked out of the room with his body cupped in her left palm. In the far distance he heard a shower running and assumed it to be Miss Erenli.

Umaima sat down in a chair in the small living room and said to him "Now I put you on floor. Lick." Oi, he hadn't agreed to do the foot licking again. Just the mouth containment, and he had said just a little taste. What had Miss Erenli told her? Was this another miscommunication or had Miss Erenli told her mother that she was allowed to demand that he lick her feet too?

She pulled some big, craggy looking feet out of house shoes. The toes were stubby and her toenails slightly yellowed. Her feet weren't black on the bottom, so at least she didn't walk around the house barefoot, but he could smell the house shoes from here. Very old and worn-in, with years of accumulated sweat and grime. Her feet were dirty and he was being asked to lick them clean at the end of the day.
But he obeyed.
The foot was salty and a bit cheesy, which he expected, but it was also rough, unlike previous teachers. When he caught a larger fleck of something on the surface of the foot in his mouth it required some chewing.
Up above the woman was smiling grandly and haughtily. She gave him commands like "move to next toe", "eat faster" and "be thorough".
When he had appropriately masticated the tops of her toes and the surrounding foot area, she commanded "Between!", her voice rising. He saw her spread all her toes and expose very smelly regions with a bit of grime between.
This woman really didn't take care of her feet at all. Why should she, he thought? That was now the shrinkee's job. He had to move faster than usual or he saw her get impatient. This was a frantic pace. He was eating a massive dessert of middle-aged Syrian woman toe jam.
"Now under nails." The woman lifted up her feet exposing some detritus under her yellowed nailbeds. He wondered if she had some kind of fungus. Did she really expect him to eat that too?
"Go!" she repeated, her toes wiggling.
So he went for it, leaning under her slightly raised toes and grabbing clumps of everything underneath her toenails. They tasted intensely sour and salty, worse than the rest of the foot gunk.
"Good boy," he heard her say above. Umaima closed her eyes and felt pampered in a way she never had before. What a strange, delightful thing to have a willing shrinkee.
After finishing the first foot, he heard the shower turn off. Umaima reacted as though her party was about to end. She told him to finish up quickly, so he basically bolted the remainder of the foot gunk on the right foot.
Standing between her feet, catching his breath, she said down to him. "Now let me taste you. OK?"
Brett couldn't say anything to her anyway, so he just stood there silent.

The lady reached down and pulled him up. He saw her slightly weathered face, brown eyes just like Fatima's, and her teeth were a bit yellowed. She kept her eyes open as she opened her mouth. Instead of putting him straight in, she tilted her head back and stuck out her tongue slightly, then tilted her palm so that Brett would slide in.
Oh boy, Brett thought.
It felt like a big fall, a few seconds of sheer airtime as he saw the mouth get larger. The woman didn't close her eyes but tried to see everything. She wanted to somehow register his feelings of fear or dread as he fell into her mouth.
But no pain on impact. The tongue was so cushy it absorbed it. Although he could tell it was rougher than the younger women who had previously put him in their mouths. What followed thereafter was like a sloppy, stomach-churning roller coaster ride.
She was intensely fidgety with him, even worse then Mrs. Gu had been. He was slurped and sucked like a candy, pressed against the roof of her mouth, pressed into cheek pockets, held under her tongue with the full force she could muster.
"Mmm sweet boy" he heard her mumur without opening her mouth too much.
This felt like eternity as she probed him in every corner of her mouth. Again, he was basically pickled in spit, soaked to the marrow, with great volumes of it forced into his nose and mouth. But her breath was a little more sour, the saliva fairly viscous, and the environment shifting so constantly that it felt nothing like the previous cases.

After what seemed like forever, she finally pulled him out of her mouth. "I eat you now?" asked the woman innocently.
He said "NO!" and shook his head as exaggeratedly as possible.
"No? Why no? You don't want?"
Brett was dumbfounded. How could she think he wanted to be eaten by her? Where did she get such utterly unrealistic preconceptions about shrinkees? Did she not even consider them human?
"But I want to eat you." she said very flatly, as though it mattered. "Will you let me eat you? You are sweet and young shrinkee," she added for extra motivation.
Brett continued to say no as loudly as he could and shake his head until he got dizzy.
"OK I stop joke. Thank you, letting me taste you. Thank you, cleaning my feet." Umaima said. "Many women would be very thankful. I wish you would stay tomorrow and go with me to see my friends. But Fatima tell me you go to school with her."

As if he was still considering it, she added in a chipper tone "If you change mind, I always be happy to eat you."

With Brett's heart still pounding, she carried him back to his box and laid him back in his bath, as he had new filth to wash off. He was very tired, and despite some fear that Umaima would come back in the night, he assured himself that Miss Erenli wouldn't let her mom eat him. Once he was assured of this, he immediately fell asleep on the pillow of tissues.

Wednesday morning came suddenly. Last night he had dumbly staggered out of the bath and slept soundly, naked in a bed of fragrant-smelling tissues. But the wrist device set off an alarm at 6am, a bit earlier than he usually got up. He did not remember setting it and wondered if the teacher could actually control the alarm using her phone app.
The extra time would make sense on a city bus, which would be slow going compared to how he usually got to school riding with his mom or on the school bus, but he was still groggy and moving slowly. Doing his morning business into a plastic-wrapped bottle cap and washing his hands in the medicine cup of bathwater from last night, he lazily got moving.
With no real haste, he pulled his leotard on. But the next steps for getting unshrunk, dressed, and to school had not been discussed, so he texted Miss Erenli. "I'm up. Can you unshrink me?" and waited for a response.
The seconds and minutes seemed to be dragging. He still had to wash his face, put on some deodorant, and shave the miniscule stubble his teenage face generated in a day. It ws a good thing he awoke early, as he couldn't be late with his first period final exam today.

Then he heard a voice above him. "Brett, I'm going to take you shrunken back to school. I'm sorry, I just don't want you to be seen. I'll unshrink you in the gym and you can shower and get ready in the boys' locker room, okay? Do you want any breakfast?"
Brett nodded up and said "Yes" into the walkie-talkie. She had a tiny corner of toast and a bottle cap of juice for him, more than enough for a filling breakfast at his size.
The bus ride back was uneventful. He rode in the same pack of Puffs as yesterday night. No other options were presented to him. "You've done enough foot time, Brett," she had laughed.

The gym was already in use at 7am. His mom was already there with some of her most hardcore athletes doing some morning workouts. He heard isolated shouting and grunting in the distance. Listening through the purse, he wondered if Ada was there- she was absolute dynamite and to his mind possibly the hottest girl in 11th grade. But he had tried to talk to her before and it had ended awkwardly. Though Ada wasn't mean to him relatively speaking - some of the other girls, particularly the dominant athlete, the redheaded, freckled "Amazing Amber" O'Brien, had bullied him, with the tacit approval of his mom who told him privately to be more assertive. With all that history, it would be extremely embarrassing and possibly dangerous if his mom's girls had discovered he was there, shrunk by a teacher.
But thankfully for Brett, Miss Erenli had deftly managed to unshrink him in an inconspicuous corner and scoot him into the boys' locker room with his bag, without any attention paid to them.

He showered, shaved, and prepared for the day still ahead of schedule, using the remaining time to try and finish his study review. At least he'd have a chance to unwind Wednesday night, with no shrink training scheduled. Thursday would be another exam, and then it would get a little easier until next week's last final - but he'd have a packed shrink schedule over the following days.


---


Brett hadn't taken Spanish (he intended to satisfy the "language" requirement of his high school by taking computer science), but he knew of Mrs. Alicia Gomez. An experienced educator and second-generation American, she had transferred from south Texas to this district at the beginning of the school year when her husband got a sort of secretive government contracting job up north. She had an 8-year-old daughter, 10-year-old son, and 13-year-old daughter. The move and the frequent absence of her husband at his job had caused her more stress than she had had to experience in a long time, but had not outwardly dampened her vibrant spirit to those who knew her from before. She had a piercing laugh that was sometimes infectious, and an enormous smile, with her full lips always tipped with bright red lipstick. She had an indomitably cheerful but sometimes absent-minded personality. On the first day, her class was instructed in no uncertain terms to call her "Ah-lee-see-uh" and not "Ah-lee-shuh" as pronounced in American English - if someone started pronouncing her name as "Ah-lee-shuh", she would join in on the "shhhh" part and hold the shush until they remembered and corrected themselves. If this rigamarole was too complex for a Spanish student, they could fall back on Mrs. Gomez, but the best and most favored students definitely called her Ah-lee-see-uh without fail. She was hammy but it was popular with students. Maybe the pubescent boys just enjoyed the swaying of her massive breasts and wriggling of her titanic ass as she did exaggerated acting out in her class of new words and concepts.

Now he was walking towards her classroom. Yet again, dealing with a new teacher, he had been disarmed and slightly unnerved by the novelty of being so close to this woman as a shrinkee with no previous teacher-student relationship. The classroom door was closed and he slowly, gingerly pulled down the knob and opened it up. The teacher did not look up from her desk, where she was furiously typing on her laptop with long, groomed fingernails. She was sitting on a chair and tapping her feet in a steady rhythm. She had large feet and was wearing some patent leather flats which were inexplicably paired with some thick socks that didn't match well. Her hips were so massively wide that he could see the bulge halfway up her back extending behind the edge of the desk, with a dark red skirt covering her bottom half with some difficulty.

Brett finally walked a few steps and spoke: "Mrs. Gomez?"
She looked up and the focused, detached person he saw typing away vanished. She flashed a big toothy smile. "Buenos dias Brett! You're right on time!"
"Yes, I'm glad that we're finally getting to meet. How are you doing Mrs. Gomez?"
"Call me 'Ah-lee-see-uh' if you please, Brett?"
"Very well - Alicia."
"Oh thank you! It has been very busy this week... Lots of classes to grade, my daughter needed to get braces, my husband is so busy, my car had a flat tire! But I'm doing pretty good now. How are you Brett?" she said rapid-fire without really thinking. Brett got the distinct impression that she was a bit flustered and had very little filter to what she was saying to him."

Pausing just briefly, Brett replied "Oh... pretty good. Just finals... and this shrink training thing."
"OH yes, of course, it's why you're here. So let me say first, I did not really want to make a student shrink to train me, and I told Principal Lee-Reilly. But she insisted. She told me yesterday that we'd have to do it today as planned. I told her maybe I could do it at school but I had to leave at 5 because my husband works so late and I can't leave my daughter in charge of the house for too long you know hehe? She's only 13. The move has been hard on them."

He looked at the clock. It was already 3:30, even though he had headed straight here after his last period. They would not get done in that amount of time unless she agreed to cut corners, and he didn't know if she would be willing to do that- they had no previous rapport, after all.

"Sooooo... she told me if I had to take you home to do the training it would be okay. I can drive you home after we are done. Is that still.. okay with you? I asked your mom this morning and she said she was fine with it."
Brett gulped. He knew that his mom was okay with it, as in she was still pissed from when he stayed over at Miss Erenli's apartment, and she probably wanted him to get the hell out and avoid coming home or he'd get another lecture. He sheepishly said, "Yes, Alicia, if you have to it's okay.. I'll do what you need to do. I had to go home with Miss Erenli Tuesday night, so it wasn't the first time. In fact I had to stay overnight."
"Oh wow! You won't need to spend the night with me Brett, I can drive you back to your house. Nancy told me your address. We first have to start with training here. I'm sorry Brett but I had no time so I am not super prepared. I haven't read our paperwork yet. Lee-Reilly just gave me some weird instructions yesterday, they were very weird..."

Brett gulped. "What instructions?"
"Well, she told me to wear socks today. I so rarely wear them except when it's cold in the winter. So I just put on some thick wool winter socks. A student thought I was dressed weird hehe."
Brett could guess that the point was to make her feet smellier but he didn't point it out. After all, it was June and her classroom had some of the worst, least efficient air conditioning. He gritted his teeth at Lee-Reilly's sneakiness. And of course, Alicia's animated movements that she made, and her tendency to stand and walk around all day, meant that she would sweat more than almost any other teacher. Those puppies were probably nice and ripe for him. She always talked about how the heat wasn't that bad, it was worse in the south, but it still made her and anybody else sweat.
"Hmm, I think I know why. Any other tips?"
"Well, she gave me a supplement to take today. That was super weird! She said it was because of body chemistry with contact with the shrinkee and the special chemicals on their clothes. The weird thing is, it made my stomach hurt."
Brett wondered what that would be. Some kind of fiber pill, some dietary pill, something to give her gas? The principal just loved getting him farted on, he was sure of it.
"Okay so Brett... I could read this but you're already here and it will go faster this way. Why don't you just tell me how this has gone before with other teachers, since they said it only took a couple hours."

Brett looked down and licked his dry lips, reaching for a water bottle in his bag. After taking a long swig, he started "Well, first of all, the whole thing needs to take about 4 hours - the principal has told me you'll get a one-on-one review if it's not the full length of expected training. I was told it was a legal requirement. So I guess you'll want to do that or spend the time with Lee-Reilly tomorrow."
She nodded. He knew that she wouldn't want to do that. Who would?
"The training is done in two sections. The first one is kind of the main learning part that I understand. First there is typically some reading which takes a long while. It took Miss Erenli about an hour to get all the background-"
Alicia interrupted cheerfully "I'm glad you're condensing it for me, thank you Brett!" holding her hand to her massive chest as if clutching her heart.
Brett reddened slightly at the way she gestured toward him. "Eheh yes of course... then you follow the exercises. It's where you act out situations where a student might be shrunk and practice it with me. You learn how to safely handle me and communicate with me when shrunk. For example, understand how much pressure to use, how quickly you can safely move me, how to raise me slowly without making me nauseous."
Alicia nodded, still with rapt attention, still happy that he was just going to explain it orally to her rather than her reading the legalese-like training document.
"To shrink me, you have a little shrinkee control, that's the thing that looks like a remote control for a TV. You use that with a slider switch to gradually put me to a height of a couple inches. It can go smaller but it gets riskier for me, since I'm easier to lose or get hurt. And when I'm much bigger, like a foot tall, it is harder for you to safely hold onto me. The shrinking process gives more extra strength to my body structure at smaller sizes, so I'm much tougher at 2 inches than I am at 2 feet. That's a margin of safety thing, you still need to be careful with me."
He continued as she looked off dreamily in the distance, perhaps calculating how small she wanted to make him. "My normal clothes won't shrink properly, but I'm wearing a special leotard underneath that can shrink with me."
He continued, clearing his throat to make sure he had her attention, which she dutifully returned. "After you've done those basic things, the second part of the training is you have to do what's called 'constrainment' or 'confinement' on the body of the teacher. They have a few predefined things they do. Typically teachers do two of them. The first one is confining in the mouth- so you would put me in your mouth for a predefined time."
He continued on as Mrs. Gomez started to gape unbelievingly at him.
"The second thing would be under your butt - I did this with a teacher before and she put me inside her underwear and sat on me." Brett left out the part where Ms. Olivier had a special pair designed to hold him, which had a separate shrinkee compartment.
"The other thing would be under one of your feet. I am guessing that Ms. Lee-Reilly told you to wear socks so that you'd be able to put me inside of it. She has also shown some interest in making the shrinking training less, er... pleasant for the subject, so she may have wanted your feet to be more sweaty to put them on me."

Brett paused as she was still just shaking her head in disbelief at him. "Whew~~~! I can't believe it! This is really how you did it with other teachers? You volunteered to do all those things? It must be really bad - and very smelly!"
"Didn't Mrs. Lee-Reilly explain any of this to you? Didn't she give you any directives?" Brett said, incredulous.
"No Brett, she did not."
"Well I haven't even gone into it all - most of the teachers were asked to force me to clean their feet with my tongue."
"Ooooh dios mio, Brett! I can't believe it! You actually did it? At a shrunken size? Huge feet!!"
Brett started to lose patience explaining himself. "Yes, I did it. It's open season on me, hah. Seeing as how I've volunteered and I'm getting compensated, I think that it's really down to the individual teacher and how the principal prepared them that decide how it goes for me. Only thing is, I don't know why the principal wants to make it more uncomfortable for me by creating worse conditions."
"OH I didnt know you were actually paid Brett. Now I get it! She wants you to work for the money!" Alicia roared with laughter.
"Well actually it's a scholarship-"
"Same thing Brett, you still get money. Now I feel better about this whole thing, I felt so bad for you at first! I thought you were just doing it to help us out and be nice. But you must know what to expect by now if you've been through it with Sondra and Wendy and Fatima. I can't believe Fatima put you in her pants, she is so modest!" She said with more raucous laughter.
Brett piped up ineffectually "well, actually, she didn't do that one-"
Cutting him off, Mrs. Gomez continued "Buuuut I still think it's going to be really really bad for you under my butt. I mean, have you seen how big it is???" She said jokingly, patting her hip. It was indeed enormous and he didn't know how to react. Biting the corner of her lip, she added "And I'm worried that those supplement might give me gas, my stomach is still in knots."
Had he somehow failed to explain that only two of the three methods were required? He hd mentioned that right?
She squinched her face slightly and pinched her chin, looking up in thought. "Wellll, we can deal with that later. I don't need to talk for a while as I finish up these papers so I wonder if you'd mind going in my mouth first? I'm out of gum today so I'd like something to swirl around in my mouth and you'll do fine!" She flashed a giant set of teeth.
Brett stared. "um... Do you want to do the basic training part first?"
Alicia paused, slightly deflated. "I mean, if you think it's necessary... I just want to make sure we finish up in the 4 hour timetable and get you home on time." He started to perceive that she was trying to get out of it.
Brett got hopeful that this meant she would go easy on him. "well it's not technically required upfront, we can skip it if you feel really confident-"
"OH I'm alllllways confident Brett!" She said lustily. Brett resigned himself to his fate for this.

"Okay Alicia. I'll walk to the corner of your room here and you shrink me on the count of 3. Please do it gently. And please pick up my clothes afterward, they will sort of collapse on top of me."
"I get it Brett! Thank you for helping us with training again. Good luck!"
"-One more thing!" Brett blurted out. "You have a special app to download to your phone called ShrinkLink. You won't be able to hear my voice when shrunken, it's too quiet and high-pitched. The app lets us talk together like a walkie-talkie or send messages. I have a special shrinkable electronic device on my wrist that lets me communicate with you."
"Ohhh that is very smart. I download it now. It's for Android or iOS?"
"Yes, either. Please do it, it's very important."
He waited to see her pull the app up, download it, and tie it together with the shrink control device. The pairing worked.
"OK I do it Brett, but I'll have to really try to pay attention to it, I am not on my phone too much! OK Brett, now let's get started!"

"Three.. two.. one--"
A very loud WHOOSH from the corner of the room. The boy disappeared and his clothes fell into a pile. Brett was slightly startled as he'd never been shrunken so fast, but he was basically unharmed.
Alicia screeched in alarm.... "aIEE! Brett, you ok? That was too fast?"
Her phone buzzed. She read his message: "I'm fine. Can you come get me from under my clothes?"
He heard heavy footfalls as the large woman approached him. Looking up he saw her crouched over him, her massive mammaries dominating his view. The low neckline would have given a great view of her cleavage at full size, but now it looked like it could literally be a mile long.
She smiled and removed the clothes from around him. "OH you are so small Brett! I cant believe how it works! It's amazing!" She said with another big grin.
He texted back from his vantage point "Yes indeed it is..."

She lifted him with surprisingly measured movements, considering she had skipped basic training. He felt the gentle touch of her fingertips around his body as she maneuvered her long fingernails around his body, trying to avoid his coming into contact with them. After lifting him ever so gently with her right hand's fingers just high enough off the ground to get her hand underneath, she released the pudgy digits and he plopped down into her outstretched left palm.
The surface was warm. He felt immediately overheated in her palm, and it felt somewhat clammy like she had a resting sweating state. How could this woman work in such a warm room, with her desk in a corner with no ventilation, without complaining? It was like she was accustomed to sweating and didn't mind it at all.

He felt himself lifted up to her face's height, and turned to make eye contact with her enormous pupils.
"Good luck!~~" she said one more time. It was a whisper for her, but close to her face he heard it very clearly.
She had a chubby face, and a few wrinkles, but her long natural lashes and full, luscious lips were indeed inviting. The lips opened and she pulled the same trick as Umaima did the other day - she angled her palm down and tried to catch him on her tongue as though it were a game." His last thought before falling was that her tongue was so perfectly pink it looked like bubble gum.
"Ahhhh" she intoned, as he fell in. "Gotcha!" she shouted messily as he was wrapped up in her tongue.


Brett learned that Alicia wasn't joking about not having gum. Her mouth felt like fly paper inside, it was the most bizarre sensation to be getting stuck to the surfaces all around him. All the skin surfaces were very sparsely coated in saliva, and what was there was congealed into a thicker, stickier state, due to her talking all day and not drinking much water. There was a very stale, sour smell all around him. It was also stiflingly hot, somehow hotter than any of the previous mouths.
But it started to change as he squirmed around on her tongue, touched the roof of her mouth, the insides of her cheeks. The saliva started to flow rapidly, as though it was reacting to his flavor. But there was a bellow coming from her throat, a kind of muted groan, and then as rapidly as he was inserted, the mouth reopened and he felt himself yanked out by the same warm fingers and realized that she was gagging.
"Yuuuck! Brett, your clothes taste like caca. Can I get you out of that thing?"
"The leotard?" He yelled into the mic on his wrist.
"Yes, if you call it that. The brown thing. Do you have something else to wear?"
"Yes, there's an alternative outfit made of pre-shrunk cloth. You can find it in my bag."
She put him down on her desk, setting him onto a plastic tray. Rifling through the bag below, she found the white cloth garment and tossed it down to him. "Here you can change behind this cup, ok?" She set a coffee cup between her line of sight and Brett, thankfully without needing to ask him.

"OK Brett we lost some time. I need to get back to grading. I like having something in my mouth to fidget with. Ready?"
He nodded hard enough that she could interpret it.
Much like before, she held eye contact with him until the very last moment, her lips curling into a smile as she opened them and prepared for his body's ingress.  This time, though, she just hurled him through the air as though she were throwing a piece of popcorn in her mouth.

The interior of the mouth was more ready for him this time. Reacting to the earlier stimulation of his entry, it had gotten wet with fresh new saliva, dilluting the somewhat sour odor of before. She took advantage of his texture and pushed him around all the corners of her mouth with her tongue. He felt himself squeezed against the bones on the roof of her mouth, and allowed to slide ever so slightly backward toward the throat into the full darkness of the entry to her esophagus before being sucked forward again.

This was it. Brett was going to have to get used to being an everlasting gobstopper for a little while.
"brett i see how to text you now. you doin ok?" he saw a message appear on his wrist.
"please don't get me close to your throat. I don't wanna be swallowed mkay?"
Slight rumbling. She was suppressing a laugh. Must be hard for her, given how much she loved to laugh.
"ohhhh don' worry brett, i wouldn't do that. your mom would kill me!" she texted after a minute.
"Don't be too sure. :P she has a temper and I bet she could get mad enough to feed me to someone!"
"ahahaha you funny brett. well, I gotta work c u later!"

During the next hour, she continued to have her way with his body in her mouth. He saw her original aimless fidgeting give way to a new tic that she seemed to never tire of: she rolled her tongue up around him, as though making a tongue taco with him as the filling. She maneuvered him into the middle of her tongue, and curled the edges around him as far as the flexibility of the muscular organ woud permit. Her tongue couldn't fully encompass his body, but it was enough to hold his arms and legs in place as she coiled her saliva and mucus-soaked muscle around his body. She never did cease the activity, perhaps trying to make the tongue a perfectly circle with his body inside, as though she were trying to shoot him straight down her throat at high velocity like those vacuum-powered ATM tubes at the bank.

He kept up with the attacks. He felt his skin get pruny and the gentle sucking periodically got hard enough to make his ears pop. Boy, this woman seemed unabashedly enthralled with having a mouth shrinkee - he just wondered what else was in store.


---


It was almost 5pm when he heard an iPhone alarm go off. Unbelievably, Alicia Gomez had kept Brett in her mouth for almost an hour and a half. He hoped that she would realize that this was tiring and start to go easier on him. She gave him a cloth handkerchief to dry off on, which felt downright luxurious compared to the setting he'd come from.
"Brett! You did a great job. Thanks for keeping my jaw company. I don't need a pack of gum if I've got a pack of Brett!" she roared with laughter.
"Just don't share me with the rest of the class..." he said, a bit numb from the sucking but enjoying the levity.
This made her laugh even more. There was that slight shriek at the high end that he could hear from clear outside her room at times.

She asked him then abruptly "Are you ready for unshrinking?"
He felt his heart leap. Noooo that would be bad. Pressing the walkie talkie he said "Er no! You have to let me put the leotard back on first. Or else I'll tear this cloth to shreds when I grow."
"Ohhh right. OK you dress again. I'm going to get my stuff ready. Your clothes are behind you on the chair." She sounded tired. Maybe there was a reason she was so absent-minded.
He put them back on and then without warning felt a WHOOOSH and saw his legs and feet propelling him high in the air toward the ceiling. She had unshrunk him on her desk. With as much force as if he had been trying to kick a field goal, his rapidly unshrunk foot contacted a a paperback book, which flew off the corner of the desk.
"Oh Brett I'm sorry, I forgot to take that book off the desk! You okay?"
He felt a slight pain in his toes because he had reached a size large enough to kick the book when it was still a sturdy encyclopedia.
"I'm okay... but this is a good exercise for how you should be careful when shrinking and unshrinking Alicia!"
She touched her bosom and reddened a bit at the playful rebuke. "You're right Brett, I'm sorry. I need to be more careful with that. Thank you for teaching me."


The two moved out of the classroom together. Brett felt the humid, windless evening air hit him like a sledgehammer. Boy was this a muggy night.
Alicia led him to the back lot, with many teacher cars still present. Her car, a somewhat beat up gray Nissan Sentra, beeped as she unlocked it.
"Get in the front seat Brett. We have to get you started on the next part or we won't ever get done with the 4 hours of shrink time!"
4 hours of shrink time! That wasn't in the rules, he thought. What was up with her not paying attention to him? What was up with HIM the way he let her keep doing that?

He put his backpack in the backseat, shaking his head with a smile and then sat down in the passenger front seat. Turning to his left, he saw the vast posterior of his obese Spanish teacher pointing toward the seat. Her bottom slightly shook the car when she sat down. She buckled up and then looked toward him with a slightly weary smile. It was hot enough that he could make out a glimmer of sweat on her forehead even just walking from the school backdoor.
"Now Brett this is probably the worst time of day to do it, it is still really hot and my AC is busted, but I think you need to be in my sock now or we won't have time."
Brett said "Okay if you say so Alicia."
"How long do you need?" she asked.
"How long to do what?" he replied, confused.
She looked kind of teasingly at him. "How long do you need to clean my feet with your tongue? You said you did it for Sondra and Wendy and Fatima, I am not going to let you go without giving me the same treatment. I bet they didn't even want it, they are so sweet, but I do want it!" she said proudly.
"Ehhmm well it depends... I have never seen your feet, I don't know how much work I've got to do."
She took off her left sock and showed him a massive, pudgy, pale foot. "What do you think, about the same size as Sondra?" She added. He could see dark pockets of grime between her toes and in every crevice. It was sobering to consider. Brett nodded and continued, hoping to make her somewhat more sympathetic. "You're also wearing thick socks and you've been sweating a lot so it will be plenty of toejam for me to eat and sweat to rinse off. When I did this with Ms. Olivier, it took me about 20 minutes to do both feet. At a height of 2 inches."
"Oh that's great. With an hour then, you should be able to do my feet just fine at a height of one-half inch, right?"
He was dumbfounded. He had never been that small in a shoe before. Her toes would be 15 feet tall to him. Not only did she want to make him eat everything, but she wanted to give him sixteen times the mass of toejam to eat that he'd had from Ms. Olivier? And do it over the course of an hour?
As though she sensed his thoughts, she added. "It's about half an hour to my house. I will change you shoes when I get home. On the way I'll pick up some dinner for me and my kids, and something for you to eat after you're done."
Brett thought, I'm not going to have room in my stomach because it will be full of your foot detritus, Mrs. Gomez!
He meekly said. "OK."
She beamed. "You're the best Brett! Wow, I am so lucky tonight!"

Then she shrank him without warning. He slid backward on the seat cushion and she caught his body with two fingers of her right hand and placed his body in her left palm. Then looking down at him she said. "Okay, now I'll make you half an inch." He saw the world grow insanely large. Her foot would doubtless be the size of a bus.
The sock that she had removed was upturned and he was tossed casually inside. Then came her giant, fat, stinking foot that had been stewing in a poorly air-conditioned classroom in wool socks for the whole day. It was her left foot, since it would be harder for her to drive with him under her right foot.

This would be one for the Labors of Hercules. Cleaning the Augean stables with his teeth and tongue in an hour.
Of course she wasn't serious, right? Right?
As the toes clamped around him, he saw the first pocket to work on, and it was a duesy. He could smell an intense stinky cheese smell, as she had clearly seasoned her feet in these socks and shoes today. But it was nothing compared to the stomach-churning, eye-watering gunk that he was expected to eat.
The first mouthful made her gasp above. He knew that she noticed when his tongue met her feet, and she probably again unabashedly loved it. Very few limits with her. She was unlike previous teachers. She just wanted him to "work for the money", Brett guessed, but there was a definite element of enjoyment for her. Unmistakably so. She was setting him up with an impossible challenge and just wanted to see how he'd react.
Well, he tried his hardest. He ate mouthful after mouthful, like this was an all-you-can-eat buffet serving middle-aged Mexican teacher toejam baked in the hot sun fresh for him. Except the scale was even more impossible than that. It was like if Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was Alicia Gomez and the Foot Gunk Factory, with larger-than-life edible supplies of foot-related things.
Far above, she started the car and turned on the radio. She felt him and gasped again, and uttered a strange sound that was kind of a mix between a moan and a sigh, as she felt him pry another wad of toejam free, and then came a text message which, compared to previous texts, had painstakingly perfect punctuation.

"Brett omg I really thought you were joking. I thought it was a long joke. I can't believe you're doing this. This must be terrible. Please don't keep licking my toes, it must be terrible for you down there just smelling them. You proved already you're a sweet young man."

And with that, Brett had a decision to make - did he want to react?
If she really, truly, wanted him to stop, like if it was bothering her or if she didn't want any way for him to miss the message, she could say it aloud and he would have to hear it. He knew without any doubt that she had to know this.
But she still texted him and stayed silent above as he continued. That told him one thing: she was going to be okay with the result if he kept licking her feet for the next half hour at least. This wasn't a true rescue attempt. She was trying to actually grasp what his feelings were.
Did he want to react?
Did all these ladies have the monopoly on coy, flirtatious ambiguity of intention? Couldn't he turn the tables?
Did he want to react?
He didn't. He ignored the buzz on his wrist and slurped some more of her stinky foot sweat down.
If, afterward, she demanded to know why he continued to give her the foot pampering of the century, if she thought it meant something more, if she thought he was taking the joke too far, well, he would have the same defense to fall back on - it was all a joke, and she had been the one to make him do it, and he hadn't seen the message, sometimes the connection was bad on the shrunken electronics... but hey, don't feel bad, it wasn't *that* bad I guess...

---


As the teacher started her Sentra and drove off, a very tall redheaded girl reclining against the railing, waiting for her stepdad's Silverado to show up, tried clumsily to process what she'd seen.
That had been Shithead Brett, hadn't it? His own mom had called him a shithead once, which had them rolling about in laughter.
Shithead Brett was in a car with tubby old Mrs. Gomez? Didn't he even want to try for a woman less than twice his age? What a loser he was. Jeez.
But then she had seen him disappear. It was like something out of a Tiktok prank only more seamless. What the hell, she thought. Was that real life? It had been a long arduous day which had kicked her ass, but was she daydreaming?
How did that even happen? There was no way to make people disappear like that.
But then it hit her.
It could only mean one thing. Holy shit, this was going to be good. Nobody else was around. Nobody else knew. She alone had figured it out.
Brett Henderson, the coach's son, was the shrinkee! Why hadn't she thought of his lame ass before?! Nevermind, here she had stumbled on the single brown-nosing loser who had volunteered to get all the teachers trained up for shrinking kids. He was going to single-handedly ruin their lives, and they had to do something about it. That fucking bitch was going to pay for this.
The "Amazing Amber" O'Brien, captain of the basketball team and track team, holder of many state high school athletic records, a teenager as petty as she was light on her feet, smirked as she considered the possibilities.

After what seemed like an hour, they were still driving. They hadn't reached their destination yet, but they had stopped en route to pick up some Burger King, which was reportedly a favorite of Alicia's 8-year-old daughter, who was in bed sick today.
Brett's tongue was beat. He finally had to give up and just lay in the stifling sock, letting her knead him with her toes. It wasn't that the wicked-strong baked foot flavor had overpowered him, it was just so dry and salty for him, and he couldn't salivate any more. The saltiness just permeated him. He felt like he'd just driven a Ford Super Duty through the Bonneville Salt Flats and tried to lick the giant vehicle from bumper to bumper. The boy's stomach felt very full. He reckoned that if you scaled up the foot funk he'd consumed to his regular size, he must have had a 5-lb bucket of it. He had no hunger, he had eaten a dinner of sweat, dead skin cells, and little particles of wool from her sock.
Alicia was humming for most of the trip and seemed to be in high spirits, but things took a turn for the worse as she got a call from her husband, who was evidently leaving for work. She had seen him sleeping and not woken him up as she left for school; he disappointed her by saying that he had gotten home at 6 in the morning, slept in parts during the day while he tended to their daughter Sonia, and he would be working overnight today as well. Brett could hear the conversation on her car stereo as she was using her phone hands-free, but her husband had not divulged enough details for Brett to divine what kind of job this guy had - he was secretive.

And then came another call. He was astonished to hear that it was his own mother.

"Hi Alicia, can you talk now?"
"Fancy Nancy! Anytime for you! How are you honey?!" she all but yelled into the speakerphone, dripping with sincere enthusiasm and affection. Nancy Henderson was one of Alicia's best friends on the teaching staff, a fact Brett hadn't really realized until now.
His mother didn't sound too happy on the other end. She spoke tentatively. "Sorry to intrude. Is Brett with you?"
"Yes honey. He and I are going to do the shrink training today. I'm sorry I have to take him with me, I just didn't have time at school-"
"It's fine Alicia. I have a favor to ask.... can you look after him tonight?"
Brett couldn't see it, but Alicia looked both excited and puzzled above. "Definitely Nancy, but why? Everything ok?"
Sighing from the other end of the line. "Don got himself.... in trouble again. This time he called me from the police station. I know you were going to drop off Brett, but I probably won't be home until very late and he seems to have left his keys in my car, so you won't be able to get in."
"OH goodness Nancy! I'm sorry. Do you need me to come by and help you?" Alicia said, concerned.
"You're a great friend Alicia, but I think I'd better handle it myself. He's had me pick him up from some seedy places before, but this is a first. I just don't know how long it will take to get this ironed out, y'know? Don can't keep missing work or he'll lose his job at the school- I've got to get him bailed out and somehow convince him to come in to work in the morning." she murmured softly.
"Of course honey. You know you and your family is welcome in my home. Brett is welcome. You call me later and tell me how things are going OK?"
His mom agreed.

It seemed no sooner that the call ended than that the car stopped and she turned off the engine.
"O Brett, did you hear all that?" she said in a concerned tone.
He walkie-talkied back "Yes, I heard it. Don can be a real piece of work. I wonder what he did."
"Don't dwell on it Brett. Your mom is going to take care of him. She is a very strong and caring woman. Anyway you aren't the same at all - you're going to graduate with good grades, go to college, and make your mom proud!"
"I guess, " he said weakly.

"Brett your voice sounds like chalk! Let me give you a drink."
He felt the world shift around as the foot was lifted from the shoe and his flailing body dropped onto the passenger seat. As she unshrunk him, she thrust a plastic cup of Diet Coke in his hands. He drank greedily.
She continued talking, shaking her head slightly. "You are so thirsty because you cleaned my salty foot with your tongue! You got almost the whole thing done even at half an inch! Yuck, silly Brett, you shouldn't have done that. It's a long way to go for a joke!"
Brett grinned and began to belch as he struggled to consume enough of the fizzy drink. "Excuse me."
The teacher rolled her eyes animatedly.
Finishing the burp, he said with mock indignation: "But it was your idea, you said you wanted it!"
"I did say it Brett, but I thought it was a joke. Didn't you see my text??"
He touched the wrist device and scrolled through messages, pretending to have missed it.
"Oh wow, I missed this! So you didn't want me to do it after all?"
"NO Brett! Of course not!" she said, getting heated. Despite her occasionally domineering attitude, she very much didn't want to make him feel miserable without his consent, and it was inconceivable to her that he was enjoying this.
"Wait, it wasn't enjoyable at all for you?" He said, puzzled. "The other teachers seemed to like it at least a little bit."
She kind of sighed in saying "Yes of course it's nice, Brett, but I don't think I should make a good kid lick my feet. You're a good kid."

He paused,  "It wasn't *that* bad Alicia... don't be embarrassed. And you're not making me do it, remember? I'm 'volunteering' to do it, and I'm getting paid for it. I told you I was already used to it from the others. And we only spent a half-hour in there. In fact, as you know, the rules require that I do the confinement with you for 4 hours." He lied. 4 hours was never a requirement anywhere, but she had said so earlier and he was going to now countersign the lie.

She shook her head somewhat unbelievingly but with a growing smile on her face ultimately said, "Okay Brett, round two. You're a sweet kid."
Out came the shrink control again as he finished his drink.
"Now I expect you to do just as good a job eating my foot gunk this time again!" she added jokingly.


---


So the next round of shrinking began. He got to work on the second foot as she walked in the front door of her house, bearing dinner for her kids. He was on another planet, Planet Foot, but he heard the happenings on Planet Earth.
In the distance, he could hear the TV going and three distinct children's voices. It seemed to be a thoroughly bilingual household, as he heard everyone speaking in both English and Spanish at various points. A deep, husky female voice that sounded like a mini Mrs. Gomez must have been her oldest daughter Isabel. A frenetic younger boy's voice - that was eventually revealed to be Raphael. Sonia was the youngest daughter, and she spoke hoarsely as though she was sick, and coughed frequently.
Mrs. Gomez, on entering, immediately told Sonia to go to bed and that she'd be bringing dinner to her, but she shouldn't be out of bed playing a game. The small girl complied with some whining.
Mrs. Gomez then addressed Isabel, and asked her if she'd started her homework. The request prompted some snarky equivocation from Isabel.
Mrs. Gomez then grabbed something that Raphael was working on. He cried out "MOM! Isabel said I could fix it!"
"I did not! You are such a brat Raph."
"No you are!"
"Silencio!" yelled Mrs. Gomez formidably. She said something admonishing in Spanish, a crescendo of rapid language that he could only guess was meant to inform her kids that her patience was momentarily gone. The room was silent for a moment, and they sat down to eat their meal quietly, with conversation only slowly resuming. She asked each of them a few questions in Spanish, probably prosaic ones about how their day at school had gone. Brett, from inside Mrs. Gomez's sock, had wished that he had taken at least a little Spanish to understand.

Mrs. Gomez had recovered her composure and was joking with Isabel about something. He thought he heard his name spoken and the daughter laugh while she asked something else. The words from Mrs. Gomez were fast and impossible for him to deduce based on only tangential exposure to Spanish, but he thought he heard his name spoken again, and later heard the words "bajo mis pies!" triumphantly uttered with a tinge of cackling from Mrs. Gomez. This immediately caused her kids to all shout "Eww!" in unison, then talk about how gross that was, some in Spanish and some in English.

Cleanup after dinner and Brett was still in the sock as Alicia went about, washed dishes, and unpacked her bag at her desk. He had to do his work while she did hers. This was strange to do while she was standing at the sink, but despite her being mostly occupied, she seemed to react positively to his licking between her toes and he'd have sworn she made some approving noises again a few times.

After he'd made roughly the same headway as he'd done on the other foot, he felt her finally click the door shut to her room, and address him.
"Brett, you're a brave soldier! But the war with my feet is over heheh. Time for you to take a break."
With now-familiar dizzying speed, Alicia tipped him out of her sock onto a plastic coffee can lid. Then WHOOOSH and he was all of a sudden full-size, wearing his leotard in a room he recognized to be her bedroom, with an adjoining bathroom door open. She was sitting a short distance away at a small writing desk with her laptop open. The miniature office chair was no match for her massive booty, which creaked and spilled out over the sides.
He noticed her attention was below the desk. He watched her thoughtfully massage her feet into the thick bedroom carpet, seemingly admiring his handiwork in cleaning up her toes.

"Oh time's up already? But it was just getting good!" He joked.
Alicia guffawed loudly. She replied "You're crazy, I need to toss these socks in a biohazard container!" as she tossed them into an adjacent hamper.


Brett laughed in response. Then as he fell silent, he didn't really realize what was supposed to come next. Based on the call with Brett's mom, Brett could tell that Mrs. Gomez had not planned for him to come home with her for the whole night. She also had not reckoned for her husband to not be home. She had all three of her kids at home and probably was going to want to keep him close to keep him safe while shrunken, unless she somehow had a spare room. But somehow he doubted it.

"I was just thinking where we're gonna put you up for the night, Brett. I think you could be in here. I can find a little box for you to get privacy."
She sighed, "My kids are very curious and wanted to see a shrinkee, as they've never seen them before. But I don't want them to get their hands on you, because they might be rough. They see cartoons with shrunken people and assume that it's safe to do things, but it's not safe."
Brett nodded in agreement. "I'll stay shrunken overnight if you need me to. Did my mom call back?"
Mrs. Gomez frowned and shook her head. "She hasn't. I bet it takes hours to make bail. It's probably a long night for her. You should plan to stay here overnight."
Brett said, "Well, I can just study for now. You brought in my backpack so I'll get back to it. Where can I plug my phone in?"
She gestured to the bedside table as she got up. "I'm going to let you work for a while then. You can use this desk. Then I'll come by again after I'm done with my work for the night. Would you mind washing up and meeting me in the living room then? I at least wanted you to meet my kids at full size so they know you're real. And I have something... special planned!"

As she closed the door behind her, he went into the large master bathroom and washed his face, hands, arms, and exposed parts of his legs, but he didn't want to strip completely yet. He started to figure that there would still be a butt confinement, although Alicia hadn't mentioned it.
Pulling on his jeans and shirt again, Brett then spread out his books and papers on the desk, wondering what she meant by "something special."

---

After about 2 hours of prepping for his next final, she returned and beckoned for him to come with her. She said under her breath "Just play along, okay?"
He barely registered what she said, and set aside his books and stepped out the door. Mrs Gomez was waiting for him across the hall. He followed, his footfalls quiet on the carpeted floor.
"OK Isabel and Raphael, this is Brett. He is the boy I told you about from the high school." Brett could not understand what she then said in Spanish, but she was telling them to speak only in English now, as that was all that Brett understood.
Isabel was interested. "Why did you get shrunk Brett? Are you being punished?"
Brett looked over at Mrs Gomez. Did she expect him to explain himself?
"Well no, this isn't punishment. I volunteered to help the school."
Mrs Gomez chimed in, "That's right, he agreed to help me and other teachers learn how to handle shrinkees. Once I'm certified, you better be good or I can shrink you too! Haha" she joked.
Some snarky retorts from the kids.
Isabel said scornfully "I'm almost in 8th grade and you're telling me the high school teachers are going to shrink us? Why would you help them punish us Brett?" He didn't respond to that one, but he could see the frustration on her face.
Raphael said loudly "No way I'm going in your shoe mom, your feet are always smelly!"
"Don't be so sure young man... maybe if you're really bad I'll have no choice but to do it!" She said, smiling. Brett could not tell if he was being used as a prop to frighten her kids or if she actually meant it.
"Well, we didn't even see you shrink Brett! This could be all fake!" cried the dubious Raphael.
Brett replied. "You didn't see your mom come in with me, did you? How else did I get here?"
The kid was silent.

"So actually Brett and I were not quite done..." she said to the two kids. "I'm going to demonstrate for you that the shrinking is real."
"Brett still has one more step to undertake. He is going to go under my butt for confinement. We have at least an hour to go. It is the final step and then I will have all the experience to be certified."

Both kids were grossed out. "But mom, you can't be serious!" "We can smell your farts from here, you're going to kill him!" "How are you going to keep him from going *inside* your butt???"
She ignored the questions and looked at Brett to take over.
He was reddened but realized he was being asked to show enthusiastic participation. "It's perfectly normal for the safety training. She won't hurt me and it's not as bad as it sounds."
"You see kids? Brett is not scared to be under my butt. He can smell my farts too. He is not afraid if I fart on him, right?" Looking at him, she winked.
Brett finally comprehended that she was only trying to scare her kids, and he played along. Nodding, he laid it on thick. "No ma'am, I'm ready for whatever comes out of your booty. Your farts smell very bad tonight, but you're expressly allowed to directly fart on my shrunken body. As many times as you want, no matter how bad it smells. And sorry to correct you, but we have 2 hours remaining, not 1."
Mrs. Gomez grinned to her kids as she let loose a little toot. Brett, standing next to her, immediately smelled the sulfurous and noxious fumes. Wow, she was going to smell so much worse than Ms. Olivier down there, he thought. He hoped that the rapid-fire farts were entirely a joke and she was almost out of ammo.
"You hear that? He's right about all of it. Raphael, Isabel, someday you might have to do the same thing unless you're always good!" She said pridefully.
Isabel still looked dubious of their plans. She challenged, "Okay, then do it to him. See if I care."
Brett stood in place in the living room dealing with their stares while Mrs. Gomez stomped back to her bedroom to fetch the remote. He heard them talking furtively to each other in Spanish. The boy giggled slightly but straightened his face when his mom returned.
Alicia looked at Brett with fake admonishment. "OK Brett, time for you to shrink and go under my booty now. I tried to save as much gas for you as possible. You haven't smelled anything yet. I hope that you inhale every last fart, and I don't smell any of it."

With that, they all heard a loud WHOOSH as he shrank. She was so close she nearly was able to catch him as he fell under his clothes.
Handling him gently with her left hand, he saw that he was relatively large, about 2-3 inches tall. At this size, he would definitely not be crammed into her butthole, which was at least some relief.
Then with her right hand, she pulled out the waistband of her skirt and panties underneath. He could see an asscrack that looked as tall as a two story building. It was tall enough that he ominously worried what would happen if he fell straight in.

Time seemed to stand still as she dangled him over her butt. He saw still-rippling cellulite in the mammoth buttocks from the motion of storming back into the living room and getting Brett into position. Each cheek was the size of a house, and relatively pale skin compared to her mostly-tanned legs and arms. Her ass cheeks were separated by a gap large enough that he could imagine slipping completely inside if he was in the wrong position when she sat down. Emanating from the crack was an extremely strong odor of flatulence and sweat from the day. She had done nothing to clean herself down there since they'd been home. Thankfully, Mrs. Gomez let him go against the surface of the panties, rather than on the crack itself. Falling down a soft slide of cotton, he saw the curvature of the ass growing larger and larger as he slid in, and then darkness as she released the waistband and it clamped shut. Both Isabel and Raphael were aghast, their mouths open.

Alicia was satisified that her display of force had worked, so she sat down on the couch and wordlessly began watching some television. It would be time for both of her kids to go to bed in about an hour, so she figured at that point she'd be able to let Brett go quietly. Hopefully she could hold her farts in and not put him through too much suffering, she thought. But those pills were really doing a number on her stomach, which made it less enjoyable for her - there was some excitement in the notion that Brett was under her ass, especially since he had gone above and beyond in his performative enthusiasm. It almost made her believe that he wanted to be there, smushed under the great weight of her bottom.


But as the minutes ticked by, as her kids appeared to be chastened by the display and slowly disengaged from the living room and went back to their rooms, she felt restless. She had been motionless, then slightly wriggled her hips, trying to get more comfortable.

Brett felt the asscheeks slightly slide apart, his body moving upward into the gap by the friction of the flesh surrounding him. The ass sweat was seeping all around him, he felt the great stale odor of her asshole, but so far she hadn't passed gas directly on him.
But the adjustment had not made it any easier to hold in the gas. She groaned as the next wave of gas hit her.

Finally, she gave up.
PPFFFFFURT was the sound Brett heard, as his air supply was violated with the biggest fart he'd ever been present for.
Alicia felt bad for Brett, but it had been so good to let go of some of the gas! The first tiny bit of relief for her poor tummy after hours of these pills making her feel worse! And her stomach was still hurting! Surely, Brett could deal with another one? He had said he was prepared for anything, right?
PPPPPPFFFFUUUUUUUURTTTTT. This one was even bigger and longer. Brett coughed, felt like the fart was being forced directly into his nose and mouth simultaneously. Fresh air was almost nonexistent and he struggled to catch his breath.

His wriggling below was sort of distracting to Alicia. She felt like he was trying to make her even more distracted, and she responded by sort of grinding her butt downward and then clenching, almost sandwiching Brett's torso.
Until she suddenly felt his presence almost vanish. She noticed with fascination as he shrank smaller underneath her. She was a bit confused and then guessed that he could also shrink himself down to the same range as the remote shrink control if he wanted to. Maybe he wanted to get into a more comfortable position, she rationalized. Or maybe he was just that nice that he voluntarily shrunk himself further to make her more comfortable. But her phone wasn't nearby and she didn't really want to go find it until this pain passed, so she didn't contact Brett.

But Brett hadn't shrunk himself. He saw the unexpected message "enjoy your stay loser. you're about to get even smaller." on his wrist device as it buzzed.
What the hell, Brett thought.
Suddenly he started to shrink more.
It must be Mrs Gomez's kids. Isabel and Raphael, driven to fury by the threat of shrinking entering the repertoire of household punishments, had gotten her phone and were evidently using the secondary control to shrink him to the smallest they could get him, half an inch. That was the only explanation. Of course that's what they were plotting when she had stepped away. He braced himself for the fullest ass embrace he would ever have. Alicia's ass was about to become his world.

Brett screamed involuntarily as the ass grew ever bigger. He started to worry that he could suffocate in here if he was clenched completely in the ass.
As his size dipped to a half inch, he was almost totally swallowed up inside her ass, being pressed close to her sphincter. There was no light anymore, but he felt the shocking sensation of the slimy walls of the ass closing around his arms, his neck, and his face, coating every part of him with the salty, sweaty, stale, greasy film of her farts.
And whether or not she realized it, she was reacting to his shrinking by grabbing him even further in. She clenched her butthole more and more, sucking him closer to it, until he was close enough that she seemed satisfied.
But then the farts continued to come. Each one was expelled so close to his face that it made an echoing sound inside his throat as it gusted through. He felt that he could taste everything, that he was both breathing and swallowing his teacher's farts, that her ass was going to absorb him, and she did not react with anything like attentiveness. It was just too much.

PFURT. PFFFUUUURT. PFURURURRTTTTTTTTTTTTT.

Alicia Gomez felt intense relief, as she continually passed gas and squeezed Brett as hard as she could against her butthole and got him into a comfortably immobile place where he was blocking almost all of her gas.
She frankly marveled at how little of it she was smelling. The little bit she did smell was terrible, like broccoli and old cheese and eggs and sulfur. The acrid, sour cloud behind her became Brett's breathing supply and she would have to find her phone to give him her thanks for doing such an amazing job.

Could she ever get Brett again for this job? She wondered boldly. This was better than having him as a sweet in her mouth, better than having her feet licked. It felt like he was vacuuming farts out of her ass and swallowing them whole while at the same time making her stomach feel better. What an amazing young man.

Mrs. Gomez swooned as she thought of it. Yes, she would have to find some way to convince him to do this again - as intense as those farts were for him. It just felt so great. Even if she wouldn't have the ability to shrink him outside school again for extra-curricular activities, she wanted somehow to get him to put his lips around her asshole and suck out her farts. She didn't want to force him either, she wanted to somehow get him to volunteer, and then tell her afterward that the farts were delicious, even if it was a pretend joke. He must like it or he wouldn't have shrunk himself down to half-inch, she knew it.

Brett awoke with a start. He fumbled in total darkness, rubbed his forehead and tried to gather his surroundings. Faintly, in the back of his nose, he still felt like he could smell his teacher's sweaty ass.
Working backward, he'd remembered being washed in a bathroom sink in his leotard, weary, cradled in Mrs. Gomez's ever-warm hands while she quietly murmured supportive, appreciative words to him. This had been her mood as she put her kids to bed and completed her threatened full 2-hour ass session with Brett. She still thought, with not a little selfish equivocation, that he'd voluntarily shrunk himself down to near minimum size and let himself be squished very near her anus. The feeling had been unexpectedly delightful for her, but on his end the experience was decidedly more extreme. He'd gotten so short of fresh oxygen crammed near the source of the unremitting flatulence that he'd felt he could pass out. But mercifully for him, the gas tapered off after the vicious salvo at the outset.
And then, of course, there was the fact that he hadn't initiated it. Even though he may have secretly felt a desire for the presence of that rotund, monumental ass, he was still aghast that Mrs. Gomez's kids had done this intending to have him consumed by their mother's anus, despite his pleading in a series of texts. He would make sure that he didn't fall in completely, but it took some doing. When in the full embrace of her butt, he grimly spread his limbs outward and tried to keep his distance from the fearsome black hole. The movements seemed to make his captor react even more, and she wriggled her booty whenever he was especially forceful pressing against the flabby buttocks surrounding him. He got frustrated in the apparent observation that she was doing nothing to save him from being engulfed in her ass, and was in fact using her posterior muscles to orient him close to the hole.
Slowly, the world he was in returned to him as he pushed past the memory of last night. He didn't have long to wait before Mrs. Gomez came to retrieve him. She gently pried off the lid to his confinement and he realized he was in a box by her bedside. As she cheerfully greeted him in Spanish, he noticed that she looked a bit disheveled, but he realized that this was the first time he'd ever seen her without makeup. Despite what could be achieved with cosmetics, real-life 43-year-olds did not have perfect skin and perfectly red lips and their eyes don't captivate as much anymore.

The disconnect between last night and this morning was puzzling to Brett. She woke him up early to give him plenty of time to prep, and she herself made ready rapidly, did her hair and makeup with the deftness of 30 years practice, and was then in her element as super-mom, extremely solicitous of him. She started cooking him breakfast before her kids woke up, which he ate eagerly. But he couldn't help but feel she was now treating him uncharacteristically like a kid, as though making amends for her behavior yesterday. The feeling continued as he got a strange look in asking for a cup of coffee, as she held a freshly brewed pot in hand. To Alicia, kids didn't drink coffee yet, and coffee was for adults. But Brett felt like he ought to be treated as an adult given what he was going through.

Finally, as she and Brett finished their coffee, Alicia picked up her phone. It had died last night as she'd forgotten to charge it, and she'd had to recharge it this morning. She scrolled through the notifications first. Brett watched her tap out a text response and then look over to him.
"Brett your mom had a long night, but she told me she got Don out and he is okay. She offered to give you a ride. I could give you a ride too but my kids aren't up yet and I thought you'd want to go in earlier."
Brett merely nodded. This was what he basically expected, and he was glad that he'd be going into school with his mom and not back with Mrs. Gomez. But he was expectng some other reaction from her as she continued to catch up on her phone's messages. Then, almost on cue, he saw the reaction. She tensed up when she reached the messages passed on the shrinking app.
What she was reading was:
"enjoy your stay loser. you're about to get even smaller." Alicia at first did not know who sent that, but she could contextually piece together that it was one of her kids.
"what kind of joke is this?" Brett had responded after a few minutes.
"what do you think lol."
Ten minutes later, she saw the following.
"please just give your phone to your mom. I wont tell on you. I can hardly breathe and her farts are so strong. she doesn't seem to be noticing my struggles."
"tooooo bad brett. you should have thought about it first."
After a few more minutes, she saw Brett try again.
"please just help. I could suffocate in here."
"No way. You signed up for it. I hope mom invites you over all the time."
"if you unshrink me I will tell your mom that she shouldn't do this to you because it's worse than I thought."
Alicia saw that a few minutes had elapsed while Isabel had evidently considered the trade.
"Nice try but no. You won't change a thing. You're staying right where you are until my mom moves you."
And then the next message came a half hour later. As she recalled, that was when most of the stomach difficulty had passed and Brett's movement had died down a bit. She noted that Brett was no longer pleading, and was making threats of his own.
"Nevermind. I'm going to tell your mom that it was fine and she should do exactly the same butt confinement to both of you."
"lol try it, see if I care."

She looked up at Brett, who was looking at her already. Her expression was that of regret.
"Brett I'm so sorry. It was too much, wasn't it?"
The boy across the table couldn't bring himself to blame her, and shook his head slightly as he was hedging again. "You really did a number on me, but I got used to it. I was just worried you didn't realize I was falling in that's all."
"Oh honey, of course I felt "your struggles." I wouldn't let you fall in. I wouldn't crush you. I was paying attention."
"But you really followed through on that threat of farting, eh?" he said, a little grin spreading on his reddening face. As Alicia parsed hidden affection from the boy, she again had to sample that forbidden glee, though this time, she was resisting.
"Yes I'm sorry, I gave you everything I had hehe.... but you know, you really made me feel better. I kept doing it because I liked the way it felt."
Brett looked down, a bit frightened at her frankness. Why was she telling him this? How should he respond?
She sighed, and then lowered her voice to barely above a whisper. "Brett... I think I need to be honest, ok? I really thought you also enjoyed being in my big butt. I thought you shrunk yourself and tried to get closer. I didn't realize it was my kids who did it." She paused as she noticed that Brett was kind of looking downward awkwardly. "Now I don't know why I tell you this. It was a mistake. I guess I'm just telling you why I did it, why I played with you in my ass - it wasn't because I thought I was actually doing it to punish you, it wasn't something I would do with any random fighting teenager, but I did it because it turned me on and I thought it turned you on too."

Brett struggled to respond. He was desperate to not say something he'd regret, but his inner desires momentarily took the upper hand. "I guess I did." He said, marvelling briefly at his boldness.

But to his surprise, this relevation didn't please Alicia to hear. Not at all. She wrinkled her brow and looked at him as though he had made her job all the harder. The words came emotionlessly afterward. "This is all a silly mistake. I am sorry Brett. I said in the beginning I did not want to shrink anybody, and I think my shrinking days are over. I don't want to deal with this kind of punishment with a young student. It brings bad feelings. We did the shrink training and now I can get certified. Thank you for helping me. Now, I'm going to delete my app and clear the chat history on your wrist control. Don't worry about Isabel and Raph, I'll deal with them. For you, I think you can just tell Mrs. Lee-Reilly and your mom that we did the training and that's that, nothing of interest to discuss."
He nodded vigorously and grasped onto the proposed conclusion with the all-consuming relief of a teenager pardoned of an awkward situation. Sputtering, he added "Yeah yeah of course, I get it. Of course. This was all basically for school."
And then seamlessly, Mrs. Gomez moved back into super-mom mode.
His mind was racing. Perhaps he had erred in admitting his thrill even in an equivocal sense, putting her on the spot of deciding the course of action, but it couldn't be helped now. For fuck's sake, what was wrong with him for even broaching the thought that he liked being in her ass and letting it happen this way. She may have a fine ass, but she was old enough to be his mom, and she was married goddamn it. She had been visibly nervous as she had told him all of that. Maybe she was telling the truth and had enjoyed shrinking him, but without a good pretense like this once-in-a-lifetime shrink training opportunity, there was no way she'd ever organize something like this again and that therefore meant it may as well never have happened.

But he had to get out of here now. Mom couldn't arrive soon enough.


---


The rest of the day was uneventful for Brett. If Mom was weary from picking up Don last night and picking him up this morning, she didn't seem to show it and seemed to be in decent spirits. Don rode with them to get to work. What awaited him was a load of nothing in all his classes. As it was the second-to-last week of school for Brett and he hadn't got any exams today, there was only token effort to keep students engaged.

He had next year to look forward to while absorbed in his thoughts. All of the shrinking training was occupying his mind, but when he could distance himself from it, he felt energized by the hope of the work advancing his career goals.
Career-wise, Brett had very recently (in just the past few months) gotten to know his dad a lot better. Jason Henderson, 51, business analyst at a hedge fund, had divorced acrimoniously from his wife when Brett was very young. Though Brett hadn't seen much of him growing up, he had finally heard enough to have a good idea that this line of work was for him, and that dad was willing to show him the ropes and help him make connections. Compared to the upstate prospects, financial jobs in the city were still much better-paying, the environment was more exciting, and as dad pointed out, the intense volatility in markets expected in coming years would always be an opportunity for the ambitious and smart. Yet Brett wasn't quite as interested in the business itself as becoming a technologist for the business, a decision which greatly pleased his father, who was not tech-savvy by any means. Brett wanted to become a guru who would be treated with respect and well-paid for his knowledge. A key assumption was that Brett would be able to get the CS degree no sweat, and the very first step in his plan was now: Brett would need to parlay his computer interests into kicking butt in Ms. Issakinen's AP CS class next year and lean on her for extra steps to take to maximize his prospects. His dad could do part of the networking, but he had to take advantage of every opportunity he currently had.
Loren Issakinen, he reckoned, was one of those opportunities.
Ms. Issakinen's story was kind of legendary among both the boys and girls of Westwood. Born in Minnesota to a working-class family of Scandinavian descent, she had early on been a prodigy with math and computer science. That she was utterly unflappable and deeply experienced in what she taught was one thing, and it would not have been unprecedented to see these characteristics in an older teacher who had retired from a previous industry, but it was quite another to see in a woman still in her 20s, and both intimidatingly beautiful and feminine. This condition led to many amusing occurrences as masculine gamer bros who would belittle women outside class swallowed their tongues or heard their voices falter awkwardly when they tried to address the tall Nordic teacher's towering intellect and intolerance for fools. She was seemingly as principled as she was intelligent, having started with a big tech company in Silicon Valley, to moving to a senior quantitative analyst role at Morgan Stanley at the youngest age ever in the history of that firm, before concluding in her humble Midwestern way that the clash of motives was impossible, that big money on either coast corrupted the world around her and she needed to take a big pay cut and start pouring her energy into teaching and volunteering. But rather than going back to the Midwest, she acknowledged the necessity of money, and stayed within a half-day's commute of New York City, going back to visit her former colleagues in the city when she wanted to solicit their donations for tech education and sometimes trading them speaking slots and teaching seminars on diversity and inclusiveness and outreach to women in tech. There was some element of horse-trading tht she found distasteful, but she was ostensibly a true believer in getting women into tech in a big way. Despite this, she seemed to have a true friendship with Principal Lee-Reilly of all people. Issakinen approved of the principal's no-prisoners approach to expanding their high-stakes, high-discipline, tough educational program that was envisaged to turn Westwood students into the envy of the state and nation. The CS teacher was aware that there would be bureaucratic obstacles and, having a general distaste for dealing with them, freely allowed her prestigious background to be used for Lee-Reilly to steamroll opposition. Lee-Reilly for her part had considered Issakinen a tremendous asset, and carved out a protected niche for her, getting strong participation and support by parents for her girl coder clubs, hack-a-thons, and presentations by both industry and open-source people.
In trying to make her intellect and persuasiveness an asset of his own, Brett wanted to handle this relationship with Ms. Issakinen with the greatest of care. That meant three things to Brett.
Firstly, based on her history, she was known to have a profound distaste for boorish financial types. He reckoned she probably would not sympathize greatly if Brett told her he wanted to work on Wall Street, but he didn't have to tell her that precisely.
Secondly, he knew nothing of what Ms. Issakinen might know about him. His mom being a gym teacher, she had some friendships among the staff, but he reckoned that the much younger Loren Issakinen was not among them. At least, he hoped that much. His mom's involvement could only make this worse. He would have to debrief his mom on whatever communications she'd had with Ms. Issakinen if the latter told him that they'd known each other.
But, finally, and most worryingly, he felt that the shrinking training may limit the scope of her estimation of him. He would have a chance to show he was a team player and a decent person, but the experience of treating him like a shrinkee may dampen Ms. Issakinen's appreciation of his actual potential in the future. Unless he somehow impressed her.

But he had then gotten a terse school email from Ms. Issakinen at the end of final period.
"Hiya Brett - don't come by my afternoon classroom, I won't be there. Come to the computer lab by the library, I was just finishing up an experiment."
He got a knot in his stomach. Trepidation overcame his legs as he tried to rise from the bench. He couldn't afford to blow this and the pressure was making him nauseous. But he steeled himself. He drank a big bottle of water and zipped up his bag, venturing toward the computer lab.


---


Brett knew who to look for, but he didn't see her at first. The lab was poorly lit as though she enjoyed working in the dark. Brett did not know where the light switch was as he'd rarely been in this lab. Most of the student PCs were off, while against the back wall he saw a dizzying array of peripherals attached to a few new specialized workstations. There were Raspberry Pi boards, incomplete chassis for wheeled robots, a 3D printer, and some larger boards which he had heard were called FPGAs.
Then he saw her actually on the floor, evidently wiring something up. She start to sit up and nearly hit her head on the desk above.
"Brett, welcome. I didn't hear you come in. Just finishing up my new cable management." she said messily, gripping a screwdriver in her teeth, which was getting slightly smeared with her bright cotton-candy pink lip gloss.
Grasping the edge of the desk above her, the young teacher climbed effortlessly to her feet, which were clad in some beat-up black and white Converse. She was even younger-looking in this environment than he expected. The natural blonde hair color that he'd seen a few months ago was gone, replaced with a mostly aquamarine dye job, which was currently gathered in a hasty ponytail. She had a multi-colored tattoo of some sort on the side and back of her neck. As she righted herself, she brushed off the dust on her oversized-neck tee and leggings. Her body was fantastically trim, excepting her large chest which was said to be especially breathtaking whenever she leaned over a seated student to help him or her with something on their computer. Normally smart boys seemed to be much dumber on any days she wore a particularly low neckline. But none of this made her self-conscious per se; clearly she had no intention of hiding her figure. Unwanted, impolite attention by students or adults would be met by Ms. Issakinen with withering sarcasm and creative insults.
Taking the screwdriver out of her mouth and putting it in her left hand, she extended her right hand and smiled at Brett with an eye contact that made his heart leap a little. "Call me Loren please, but if you must use my last name I pronounce it EES-ah-kai-nen."
This was the first time he got this kind of treatment. A handshake was a good sign. He shook her hand with as much force as he thought he should given her soft, well manicured hand. It seemed to be just the right amount, as her grip matched his. Perhaps she was screening him for excessive masculinity, a test he would doubtlessly pass as he had fairly weak hands and no desire to project power. That was not going to get him anywhere today.
"By the way Brett, our IT department here is brain-dead. Jim is so stupid and still hasn't patched our email server vulnerabilities. I told him so many times. So I only sent you an email earlier as I had no side channel option with you. Have you heard of Signal?"
Brett replied no, he hadn't.
"It's a secure messaging app. Get the app and look me up by my phone number. We'll communicate through that method except when you are shrunk, in which case you will have to use the wrist control's embedded Android app as before."
Then without warning she walked quickly to her office in the back and closed the door behind Brett. It was, as in the main lab, fairly dark.
"Have a seat Brett." She asked robotically. He sat down on one of the black leather chairs and peered around. She had an eclectic array of equipment in here, including what appeared to be a small-scale wind turbine against the wall. He caught a whiff of chalk dust, like he was back in kindergarten, and saw a chalkboard covering one of the walls, absolutely festooned with scary equations and poorly scaled diagrams, with a half full box of Hagoromo chalk perched underneath the board.

"I want to get to know you, but first I want to thank you for doing this shrinking business. I'm sure it has not all been fun and games. I heard you had to stay overnight with Fatima and Alicia. You must be having a tough week and I want to let you know that I'm already impressed with what I hear."
Brett responded with a certain sense of pride, "It's definitely been a challenge to fit in all the sessions. But most of the legwork I did with Miss Olivier the week before last. I'm just trying to help out the faculty and do what Mrs. Lee-Reilly needs me to do. I do think that-" he paused with hesitation.
Loren nodded in silence. She had a piercing gaze and with the vaguest motion of her eyes implored Brett to go on.
"I do think that Mrs. Lee-Reilly does not like me and wants me to be shrunk under the worst possible conditions."
Loren then started to speak. "I appreciate your candor, and Kelly wanted me to talk about this with you. Kelly Lee-Reilly is my boss and friend, and I want to state frankly - I don't want to shrink kids in general. I'm not a disciplinarian. I tend to think it's a lazy way to educate. I use my wits to keep students in their place and engaged. That's enough, don't you think?"
Brett nodded intently in approval.
"But she uses all of this as a way to get attention from the public. She has larger purposes. She wants to revitalize the educational system of this country and make our kids better at math, better at logic, better at algorithms than any other kids in the world. She doesn't want teachers to be shrinking and humiliating students for no reason, but she does want a system where students are appropriately humbled and teachers understand the awesome responsibility they have. You've seen that the faculty of this school has held your life in their hands this week - but candidly, you have figuratively had your life in their hands long before that. The abilities of a child, and their ultimate destiny, can be squandered or grown by the efforts of teachers. We have several research papers in progress on the results of this study. I personally am involved not just in the analysis of pedagogy where shrinking can be involved, but also in improving the technology itself. I am part of a regular working group with all three of the world's bioengineering firms that are producing shrinking machines."
Then silence. Did she think he needed a pep speech or some kind of ideological basis for this? Was THIS kind of coaching supposed to put him at ease?
"I'll be honest Brett, you've been astonishing. I have debriefed every teacher after their experience with you. I wanted to know all the details, and they have told me. You have great patience for some fairly extreme scenarios. Lee-Reilly was trying to give us new experimental data, and we have learned a lot from this already. But, ugh, I'm getting ahead of myself. Why don't you tell me about yourself, Brett?"

Brett cleared his throat and tried to begin. "Well, I'm a pretty asocial kid. I have always liked computers. I wasn't taking school too seriously until last year or so, but now I'm really sure that I want to get involved in designing computers and hardware and stuff."
"Why did you sign up for the volunteer program in the first place?" She asked as though she hadn't heard a word he'd said.
"Well... I figured that there'd be extra credit or something-"
The woman looked disappointed and interrupted him. "C'mon Brett, don't make up lies. I need you to be totally honest to help me with this project, ok?" Softening, she took off her glasses and looked at him. "Let me be clear. I am interacting with you at this moment in confidence except for the results of the research itself. I won't tell your mom anything you tell me if you don't want her to hear it. I won't judge you unfairly. Your name is never going to be revealed in any publication. You will NEVER be known to be the shrinkee for this program by anyone outside of the program itself. Are you with me Brett?"
Her eyes, beautiful globes of blue, locked with his and caught him. "Yyy-yes, Loren." Brett finally stammered out.
"So I just need to confirm the origins. I have verified that the first sign-up was very vague. It didn't say what you'd be doing and it did not specify what kind of credit you'd be getting. All the other students who signed up at first, except you, seem to have voiced their concern with the rumors about what the shrinking involved, and dropped out. Now, were you aware of the rumors?"
Brett sighed and removed all shame from his mind. "Yes. I heard that shrunken students were put into teacher's shoes."
"Fascinating. And you chose to sign up?"
"Yes I did."
"You did all this in the first place because you wanted to be in Sondra's shoes?"
Brett paused, reddening, and then said "I suppose yes, although I would never have asked her outright and I don't like to say it aloud-"
"Fascinating. Now, would you have signed up to do the same with any male teachers?"
Brett said "No way!" with great finality and no delay. Dear God, he thought, Loren was going to confront him with his fetish right here and now. He could only hope she wouldn't make it that awkward.
But she reacted as though she expected the answer. The next question came in a monotone. "Are there any female teachers on the faculty that you know of with whom you very definitely wouldn't want to do this shrinking?"
Brett thought for a second and said "Definitely. My mom for sure.... eh, I'm a little worried that Mrs. Samson would be really strict and harsh with me, but I'm still going to go through with her. Also I really don't like Mrs. Sweeney, because she has always been mean to me, but she is already certified, so I didn't have to do her. Others already certified, like Mrs. Moore and Mrs. Iqbal, are a lot older and sort of distant; I guess I don't have anything against them but it just doesn't sound appealing to me. Most of the rest of the ladies in the faculty have been good to me in the past and I don't, uh, mind the idea necessarily."
Nodding, Loren Issakinen bit her lip, raised her eyebrows, and then tried to sum up what she was hearing. "So to sum up: there is a subset of female faculty at this school whose feet you'd be prepared to be underneath, whose butts you'd be prepared to be underneath, whose mouths you'd be willing to enter, along with possibly other yet-to-be-determined punishment simulations - even under particularly gross conditions artificially created, even with the knowledge that some of the teachers may be less than completely neutral in their feelings. This is a group with whom generally you'd place complete trust with your safety in a shrunken state. And it comes down to your perception of their niceness and likeability, perhaps mingled with some other intangible feelings?"
There was the fig leaf. He exhaled and said nervously: "Yep, I guess that describes it."
"Fascinating." She said finally, looking away and continuing to read the document in her hand. "That is all that I need for now."

Minutes seemed to pass as she continued reading. Brett stewed. He hadn't been asked to be quiet, but he was simply being ignored.
Brett continued to silently balk at the finality of her response. His mind was going into deep rabbit holes, pleading with itself for relief from this awkwardness, and he was deeply distressed with her coldness. Obviously he'd have no chance getting her favor and the whole idea of using Loren as a mentor was falling apart. Why did she want to dwell on his motivations? Why couldn't they talk together like normal people talk, with pleasantries? Why was this happening to him? He had a silent emotional implosion as she continued to look away to finish reading the rest of her packet, then the implosion flared up as he started sputtering rapid-fire questions.
"Well, wait a minute. What is going to happen now? Why did you want to know all that? Why are you treating me so coldly, like some kind of scientific subject? Why did you ask me to explain myself to you if you didn't care about my answer? You gave me your thanks but do you care about anything outside of this research of yours? I'm trying to help the principal get done on her schedule and I'm not trying to give you a hard time but this is just nuts-"

Putting her glasses back on, she actually laughed for the first time, stopping Brett in his tracks. She shook her head. "You are right Brett. The teacher has failed the student in this case. I sometimes have communication difficulties. I am on the spectrum. I reacted with hidden hostility at your earlier intention to impress me. You did not have to state it, I perceived it. It was such a routine response that I must have misjudged you in my application of it. I'm gratified that you know how to be honest, and even moreso, that you know when to admit that you're scared or feel insecure. That's a healthy kind of masculinity, Brett, which I find rare among young men. I'm sorry that I sort of slip into a kind of mode - my mind is inherently and violently scientific and analyzing, but it is fallible, and sometimes it leads me to communicate in a brusque and transactional way. I may have given the wrong impression, but I beg your forgiveness. I will try to be more earnest and emotive with you since it is important to me that you feel happy with me."
She actually placed her hand on top of Brett's when saying the final sentence, slightly wrapping her fingers around his. It astonished Brett, who could barely hold his mouth shut. The room seemed to be stuck in time. Again, her effortlessly entrancing eyes, now squinching from her uncharacteristically wide smile, were disarming him and holding him in stasis. From one hateful moment to one loving moment, he wished that the warm feeling he now had could be hermetically sealed and preserved for all time. Loren was holding his hand as though she had just needed an excuse to do it, and he'd evidently found that the key to her friendly side, almost never witnessed by students in one-on-one settings, was to be utterly sincere and expose your weaknesses pitifully.

"And now, Brett, can we continue my shrinking training from my house? I'll give you a ride. I don't really want to do it here in the school. I know that you value your secrecy and I believe it will be better there."
Brett didn't need to even hear the justification, he said yes.

Ms. Issakinen walked wordlessly with Brett toward the exit. She had a kind of determined, graceless gait as though her mind was in a different place as she walked. Brett was surprised as the CS teacher decided to take a detour on their way out of the school. He could see she was going to swung by the gym, to Brett's embarrassment, probably hoping to catch Mrs. Henderson in the athletic office. Mercifully, the gym had no after-school stragglers today who would know Brett who could identify him.
As always, the air in the gym was musty and stale, with a pervading odor of sweat. Rapping on the glass of the athletic office door, Loren let herself in and found Brett's mom going over some paperwork on her ancient PC.
She said monotonously "Hello Nancy. Today I am taking Brett for my training. Do you want him back by a certain hour?"
The other woman lifted her head and swerved to identify the intruder. She narrowed her eyes a bit, somewhat taken off-balance by Loren's robotic tone and strange wording. She peered around the corner and saw Brett sheepishly trying to stay out of view.
"No time in particular. You take him for the whole weekend and give me a break!" his mom laughed, trying to get a smile out of the other teacher.
It didn't work. She remained stone-faced. "I'll bring him back sometime tonight then."
The pair then promptly left, leaving Nancy to shake her head in bewilderment. What a strange lady.
It was barely 4, and there were still a lot of cars in the lot. He didn't need her to direct him to her car, as he already knew she drove a blue Tesla Model S. There were a few Benzes and BMWs owned by faculty and a couple of rich kids, but the Tesla was unique to his eyes, and owning an EV conferred her the added advantage of being able to charge right up front, by one of the two chargers.


"Brett, get in the passenger seat please."
He didn't need instructions and was already opening the door. As he hoped, he plopped himself into the seat with enough time to see her open the door and slide over her pert butt into the seat while her head was turned.
But when she turned her head around, she looked again unamused. "Eager, aren't we?"
The drive to her place was even more awkwardness. She didn't want to make much conversation with him. The longest string of words that they put together happened towards the beginning of the drive.
"Nice car," Brett had noted with alacrity.
"Thanks." She sounded glum as she replied.
"Did you buy it when you came to the east coast?" Brett tried again.
Thinking for a second as they went around a right bend, she finally said "No, I already had it in Cali. Little bit of a present to myself after getting bought out of a self-driving startup."
"What ever happened to those guys?"
"Those guys? Can you evolve your language Brett? That firm was over 50% women, a rarity in this industry." said Loren, as she peered bitterly through the windshield.
He sat silently, chastened and threw up his hands. She seemed to notice and finally softened a bit.
"Well, to tell the truth... I hated the culture. Very hand-wavy. Very little thought put into their ideas, a triumph of marketing over real work. It sounded great to be changing the world, but there were so many fake people and idiots that we were never going to do that."
"So why did you come to New York?"
"After the startup, I went to Apple, which was a nice place, but I was poached by MS who flew me out to New York on a whim."
Brett knew that she meant Morgan Stanley, not Microsoft, as his dad had taught him the names of all the big investment banks.
Continuing, Loren added "The money was great and there were very smart people there. One corporation is as good as another, right?" she said questioningly.
Brett said nothing, but he didn't think so. Some corporations, some start-ups, some managers, some people were better than others, at least from a point of view. He wanted to say something, but as he parsed her sentence compressing several years of her professional life, he realized that there a tinge of desire for approval, so he decided to hold his tongue and not disagree. Before he could make the decision, though, she followed up.
"Brett, I did ask you a question. Are all corporations the same basically?" she said with more insistence.

Yikes. The importuning tone was unmistakable in that one. He resented the pushiness of it. "No I don't think that Ms. Issakinen."
"Hmm. And why not?"
"Well, some companies dump toxic waste, and some don't-"
"That's an inane counterargument, but if you must. They all do if they are in the business of generating toxic waste, Brett. Obviously if they don't have it, they don't dump it. But human nature being what it is, the profit motive leads to some pretty terrible results for ordinary people and the environment." His teacher was starting to take this conversation way too personally.
"Fine. All corporations are the same. I bet you're glad you are working for the state now." Brett murmured, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"I am. And I am trying to work as hard as I did when I made ten times the money. There is value in striving for others. I just wish you appreciated it more than things like cars."
How had he wounded her this much by pointing out that she had a nice car? Why was she this cold? Again he felt the pain of seeing no future to his professional or personal relationship with her, feeling stupid and embarrassed in her presence. He couldn't bear it any more and dramatically pulled down his ballcap around his face and sat there quietly with his arms crossed, trying to squeeze himself into the smallest, most unobtrusive shape he could think of. He just focused on not saying anything, on not tearing up as a younger boy would, though there was so much that he wanted to say and ask.


---


The ride home would have been long enough if he weren't stewing in silence. She lived a bit further out than he expected, in a community of fairly large houses whcih each had their own electric gates. Her home was one of the smaller ones in the neighborhood from what he could see, but hers was a particularly modern design with a minimalist but handsome exterior that had a lot of very thick, dark glass. The photovoltaic panels on the roof were seamlessly integrated with the large panes of glass.
As she swung open the front door wide and beckoned for him to enter, he got his first taste of the rules.
"Shoes off, please," she commanded, pointing down to a shoe rack at the entrance. She herself peeled off her Converse and set down her purse on a small table by the door.
Looking around, it was starkly modern in the wide open great room, flowing from the front door to the living room to the dining room and kitchen, with a very high roof. It was also fastidiously clean. Of course, Brett, thought. She had a housekeeper and lived alone. This stuff was probably hardly even used.
Brett could smell curry and garlic and fresh vegetables. Something was already cooking and caused his mouth to water. There was a person already in the kitchen. Loren turned away from him and smiled slightly as she greeted her housekeeper in Spanish, addressing her as Maria. Maria was a very short, older woman who smiled big with some fake teeth. Again, Brett couldn't understand what they were saying, but he heard his name spoken. Loren handed Maria an envelope and the older lady resisted slightly, clearly surprised at the gesture. But Loren, with some cajoling, persuaded the woman to take off the apron and disengage from the cooking and head home. She smiled very broadly to Brett as she slipped on some battered crocs and left out the front door, with Brett barely having moved from the entrance.
"That wass my housekeeper Maria, Brett. It's her birthday tomorrow so I wanted to give her a little something and let me take care of myself for the next couple days."
"That's nice of you." Brett said in a bored monotone. He was still hurt from her previous tongue lashing.
"She's a very nice lady and she has a nice family. She makes living here better for me. I don't have many friends these days, too busy in the lab."
Brett still stood awkwardly in the doorway. He was eager not to make assumptions of her hospitality given how frigid she had been so far.
"Brett, where are my manners. I am sorry. Please come sit down at my table."
Brett just shrugged as he came towards her.
The suddenly solicitous teacher looked concerned. "Are you upset about what we said in the car, Brett?" He nodded noncommittally.
"I am sorry. I sometimes get too heated in arguments. It was a coping skill when everyone around me had very strong personalities and, well... they often acted like arrogant assholes. I shall try to be more reasonable as I know that is not you. Now please eat something with me. It's not too spicy, don't worry.
She lowered her head at the table in what looked like prayer before eating. Brett did not know her to be involved any particular church, and there was no obvious religious imagery in her home, so if she was religious, it was in a very private way.

The two then ate with mostly decent conversation. He sparked some genuine enthusiasm in her by asking what she meant by the lab- if she meant the computer lab at the school.
"Oh some of the time yes, and I am trying to get all kinds of software and hardware development mini-labs built there for the students. But I also do a lot of work from home. Nobody else lives with me and I've got all this space to myself, so I have purposed most of it for projects." She then proceeded to list some of the bioengineering experiments she was involved in, how she had herself made improvements to the tiny shrinkable wrist control that he used after the first one was destroyed by submerging in water, and how she was working with major industry players to get improvements to the biological containment field used in shrinking - so far they had only had success shrinking organic material (and had the very best results with living things, it seemed), but they had less success with metals and most inorganic materials, which was why the freight transportation revolution, except for foodstuffs, had eluded them so far. It was a lot of background to take in. Brett perceived Loren had some strong opinions about technology to empower common people, espoused some socialist sympathies, and  he had to dance his way around the hypocrisy of her working with big corporations while not working for them directly, as though they somehow didn't benefit even if they didn't pay her directly. Happily, he did not betray his thoughts by giving any indication of them to her.

Meanwhile, Loren stood up, put the dishes in the dishwasher, and then reclined on the couch and exhaled. She gestured for Brett to sit on the other end. As Loren removed her socks, Brett passed by and sat down, with utter incredulity at the situation of being at Ms. Issakinen's house on her couch, with his heart starting to pound as he pondered what was about to happen.
"Now Brett, now that we've had dinner, let's talk about the rest of the evening. I typically do any of a few things in the evening. If I'm feeling motivated, and I am not at the moment, I go straight to the lab. If I'm not, I go work out for a bit. I try to get a full night's sleep every night and I will take a shower before bed. Of course, I am going to shrink you now. I would like to work with you to incorporate you in my activities during the time you have to spend with me."
Brett was momentarily stunned as he looked into the face of who he had always thought of as a brainy supermodel, the Hedy Lamarr of his time, and realized she had absolutely no plans for this particular Friday night - she, who most of the boys at Westwood lusted after more than any girls their own age, who would have had a captivating presence in the trendiest club or lounge in the city, who also had all the money she needed to do anything she wanted..... she was just going to stay home with Brett, and go to bed early.
She hadn't said ANYTHING about taking him home tonight. He was off. Holy shit, was she going to keep him overnight? Through the weekend? Had he died and gone to heaven?
Shaking it off, mind racing he asked "So I take it you're ready to shrink me and start your workout?" Brett asked. "Do you want to do any of the training or theory first?"
She scoffed and continued monotonously. "Brett. I have already read the paperwork thoroughly and I know the theory quite well. I don't really need you to tell me what it's about. I have already learned how much pressure to apply, how far you can safely fall, how much air you need per minute and what you need to live. I have an idea how you'll react to being scooped up, as I've done VR simulations already. You're probably going to be surprised at how sturdy your body is, in fact, and I could push you harder than any of your previous teachers because I grok the physics. I understand how shrinkees are. But I imagine you are in some sense different from the simulations, in an interesting way, because you have shown a willingness to undergo this procedure several times, and most shrinkees are presumed to be hostile."
What was she getting at? Brett got nervous.
She added a slightly seductive inflection, narrowing her eyes as she looked at him. "Where do you want to be shrunk on my body?"
Brett gaped slightly. "Um.. why are you asking me? Most of the teachers here told me what they wanted to do and made me do it."
She nodded and showed some concern. Speaking in a lower tone, she started.
"That is true, but they thought that they were just doing some strange training procedures or at least pretending to. You know that you're doing things that you find erotic. Because I know this, I think it's very important to get consent when such feelings are involved. Maybe some of your teachers feel the same way and simply did not suspect your feelings, but I know it, Brett, so I do not have an excuse. You might be hiding it well from some people, but I can tell."
He was gobsmacked. What was there to say to that? She was reading him from top to bottom, like she would a microcontroller datasheet.

"Do you find me attractive?" she demanded with a smile on her face.
His eyes widened. "Um... are you really asking me this?" he said with his face beet red, looking off into space.
She squinched her face a bit. "Yes, I am. Don't lie to me Brett. Despite what you may think, it isn't the easiest thing in the world to confront you like this."
He paused for a moment and then replied. "Um... of course I do. I think most of the boys in the school find you friggin' gorgeous."
She frowned. "I can imagine some of them do, Brett, but I did not ask them. I asked you. You ought to have your own opinions. Now, how do you want me to shrink you?"
Brett's mind paced. It was so confrontational, so direct. So obvious that she couldn't be attracted to him and was disappointed with him. It must be a trap. It must be. Somehow he was absolutely sure. He talked himself down from getting too excited and then cleared his throat and delivered the most dispassionate, least-leading reply he could think of.
"Ms. Issakinen, I'm here to help you learn whatever it is you want to learn from this experience. I am not trying to use the fact that you've been obliged by Principal Lee-Reilly to get shrink training, to get you to do anything inappropriate with me. I honestly answered your previous question, which may have been a mistake, but I don't want to tell you how to shrink me as I think you should decide. If you don't have any idea, then maybe you should stop and think for a bit so we make the most of the time we have during training."

The teacher closed her eyes for a moment and slightly shuddered, with a very muted exhalation that was not quite a sigh. He wondered if this was profound rage, or if she was just intoxicated with relief that he wasn't trying to take advantage crudely. She seemed to have a lot of anger in her, but perhaps there was some more fundamental reason for it. She probably had to deal with ogling and propositioning constantly. There were scores of disrespectful boys that made lewd remarks about her practically within earshot, that told each other that they wanted to gag her and fuck her until she cried. And he'd heard more violent acts envisaged by the embittered boys who had been rebuffed by her in a way that they found personal. Perhaps he had failed to distinguish himself from those boys until this moment. Perhaps she was projecting experiences onto this interaction.
The response from Loren finally came. She had a slight smirk on her face but he was startled by the hesitancy she had in her reply. As though finally, for once, he'd said something she hadn't thought of or prepared for.
"OK Brett. I... would like for you to ride along in my shoe while I work out. And, uh, I want to feel your tongue between my toes. And, uh, if you enjoy it, I want you to know that you are permitted to enjoy yourself and release, so to speak, against my foot as well." At this, she actually lifted her right leg onto the couch and laid her foot on his lap, wiggling her painted toes. Holy shit, Brett thought. This was like some kind of weird dream. Surely she wasn't actually doing this. He bit his tongue and tried to avoid a visible erection emerging on the spot. Thankfully she didn't keep her foot there long enough. She spun around adroitly and placed her feet on the floor. The shrink remote control emerged and she pointed it at him and shrunk him.

Whooooooooooooooosh. She shrunk him very gradually and gently, with a deftness that bolstered the claim that she knew how to use the technology well. He emerged at a 1 inch height, surrounded by a sea of soft suede cushion that used to be his seat on the couch.
Loren picked him up with two fingers and cupped him in her palms with inquisitive delight. Her hands were soft and warm. No calluses or blemishes, well moisturized. She was a 20-something with the skin of a pampered teenager. This woman did not do anything more damaging with her hands than type code and occasionally install servers, but those soft hands had written recognition software in self-driving cars, cutting-edge market-making algorithms, embedded IoT software, and contributions to countless FOSS projects.


---



He felt himself lowered to the floor. She released him into one of the same yellow ankle-length socks she'd been wearing all day long. It was a fairly long fall, but she was holding the sock off the ground and when he hit the bottom of the toe section, it felt like falling into a stinky hammock.
Then came her right foot into the sock. He was able to see the light from the ceiling shining across the toe gaps as she wiggled the foot into the sock, then the light was banished as it came to rest on his body. She tweaked his body so it was perched horizontally underneath her toes.

The bottom of her foot was not warm like her hands, as it had been pressed against the cold hardwood floor. It was a strange feeling for Brett to be squeezed by this cold, clammy, sweaty foot, with the toes possesssively wrapping around his body. Compared to Ms. Olivier's and Mrs. Gomez's feet, Loren Issakinen's were not quite as strong-smelling, but as she had been wearing these socks all day, there was a subtle odor of musky sweat surrounding him. She hummed tunelessly to herself while lacing up her shoes, which tightened the foot's grip on Brett.

As Brett had seen when he was escorted in, she had a decent gym setup in her garage, which was not air conditioned. Remembering this as she walked in, he knew that soon the relative lack of sweat around him would be remedied by the hot, humid June night coupled with Loren's workout. She took close care of her body, evidenced by some pretty formidable thighs and calves, and he knew she probably wouldn't be going for a little stroll.

The running was the worst part, as he was slammed into the bottom of the sole and then bounced up into the toes above, although the soft flesh of her feet dampened the impact somewhat. He could see why she had cupped him in the gap between her toes and the ball of her foot, as it offered the most protection. Yet he could barely stay in place enough to react to anything around him. But at a certain point he adapted to the rhythm and grew to prepare for and enjoy the weightlessness of flying upward into her soft sole, and tried to use the mechanical energy of his flight to climb his way around all of toe crevices, counteracting the accumulation of sweat and grime between them, which she seemed to appreciate.
 
He didn't mind the lifting and squatting and reps on the machines nearly as much. These activities were not relatively high impact from his perspective, even though he could feel veins and tendons in the foot pulsing as she exerted herself, and could hear grunting above. But it did certainly get the sweat flowing more than ever, giving Brett a veritable briny sea to slurp up. He tried to swallow it all obediently, failing miserably to keep up. She would sometimes miss a half-step and giggle when he took a lick between her toes, as it was so easy for him to tickle her. At times he heard her timidly and cautiously singing along to something she was listening to in her headphones. Brett found it amusing that Ms. Issakinen didn't want him to hear her singing as though it would somehow be embarrassing.

Brett was busy enough during his captivity in the shoe during his teacher's workout that he didn't think to try to message her or send a voice transmission on the wrist device. It was probably an hour or more, but he didn't really check the time. As she promised, he was physically uninjured by the whole ordeal, but it did feel a bit like he'd been steamrolled by her foot afterward, and, of course, he had plenty of feminine foot taste swirling in his mouth.

As the footfalls of his teacher slowed and her fast breathing way above subsided, he realized she was done with the workout, and was walking away from the gym and back to the house. "OK Brett. That was a good workout. Thanks for the good work you did on my foot. I am impressed. I hope you also had fun. I need a shower. Maybe we'll see my lab afterward. My other foot is jealous!"
Brett used the wrist control to speak. "Well, you can put me in with the other foot then and spread the love!" he said with a chuckle.
"Drop the joke, Brett. Do you really want to do that?"
"Yes, if you are willing, I do. But only if you want me to as well. If you think I'm disgusting or if you are still thinking I'm a science experiment, then I don't want to."
He couldn't have been less prepared for the tenderness of her response.
"Aw Brett. I do not think you're disgusting, nor do I think of you as a science experiment. I think I have most definitely misjudged you. You're one of the gentlest people I've me in some time."

With a careful hand, Loren transferred him to her other sock, and as she sat down to take a breather, she rubbed him thankfully with her toes. There was still more to do tonight.

From the sound of stilted, energetic keystrokes on a low-travel Macbook Pro keyboard, Loren was evidently working on a laptop far above Brett. He remembered how she had once groused about that particular laptop, with her old-school clicky tastes clashing with modern thin profile butterfly keyboards, but she found no recourse with the ThinkPad either, being an agitator against Lenovo at least since the Superfish debacle in 2015.

Brett hungrily wolfed down his opinionated CS teacher's foot crud, making room for it in spite of the tasty dinner he'd already eaten. Effortlessly she held her foot slightly aloft, as though her foot was in "service mode" and Brett was the technician and expected to scurry around the underside. Indeed, he was maneuvering underneath her sole in the dark, dank shoe with the grace of a skilled mechanic rolling around on a creeper. He'd had some experience at this point with the other teachers, and had managed to overcome initial hesitance and enjoy himself for the most part, but he felt a special attraction to this particular woman, which made the musky taste and swampy smell in her shoe somehow even more appetizing. Loren was fidgety in general, but in her desire to show self-discipline, she acknowledged the feeling of his tongue on her foot with only the faintest of giggles, and no particular movements.

He texted her finally, starting to feel like he was no longer noticed.
"Check the weather channel, I want to know what the humidity is down here."
He heard an audible grunt as she seemed startled by the tone on her phone. After an unlock sound, he heard a little groan and then some tapping.
"Very funny Brett. I take it you are not lodging any serious complaints about your present setting?"
He decided to take the bait. She seemed to have worked herself into a bad mood again. "What are you working on, Loren?"
With no vocalization from above, he heard the unmistakable sound of a reply tapped back with the methodical speed of a woodpecker. Loren was evidently a very skilled texter in spite of her long, candy-colored nails. A moment later, he then read it on his wrist device.
"I'm grading and it's depressing, Brett. A lot of these kids really tried to slack off the last few weeks. I have very little sympathy for seniors who try to skate through as though I should respect their 'seniority.' They will have a tough time in college. Sometimes I wonder why I bother with these kids. Your friend Marco is one lazy dude even though he's a junior like you. Makes me wonder about the company you keep."
Seeing it appear line by line, Brett almost recoiled physically from the vitriol in those words. In one moment, it felt again like he'd lost the favor of his future benefactress and would likely be used as a punching bag until she calmed down. She continued.
"Hopefully you do a better job when you're in my class. I want to see a student do a better final project than he did in the first third of the class for a regular assignment, k? Surely that isn't too much to ask?"
He swallowed and wondered if she actually expected an answer. An arrogant sigh above and more tapping.
"Brett, I don't know if you are just so enamored with being surrounded by my gorgeous foot that you can't take your attention away from it, but by your relative lack of movement I would say that is unlikely. Cat got your tongue?"
Brett started to send a reply on his wrist device. It did take him a bit longer with the tiny screen, and he tried not to cave like a wimp to misdirected anger.
"Loren, it is a little scary when you start to rant. Do you actually like teaching? Why do you do it if it makes you so angry?"
Her response was furiously typed out above. By the sound of it, she'd set down her phone and was now using a laptop app to send the text to the wrist device. Maybe a new piece of software she was working on?
"To find the diamond in the rough, Brett. The kids who really have no limits, who are in need of society not failing them at the critical moment of development. Who became good kids in spite of the world's agonies. It doesn't happen very often, but every so often you encounter a bona fide nucleus of brilliance in your class and it makes the whole year worthwhile. Anyway. I think it's time to grow you back."
The comfortable and stable reclining position she'd held him in was suddenly overturned. He felt himself sliding forward, then back. She was finagling the shoe off her foot, and then removing the sock underneath. Brett was unceremoniously deposited onto the cold hardwood floor.
She unshrunk him gradually, as before, and then inspected his handiwork but not touching her own feet, leaving bits of fluff and small rivulets of sweat unperturbed. Brett remained sitting on the floor in front of her, slightly disoriented, but looked up at her creamy soles and tanned legs warily of what she was thinking.

"Not a bad job Brett. You missed a few spots though. You'll help me with those, won't you Brett? Say ahhhh."
Brett opened his mouth, partly in astonishment and partly following her orders. He could guess what she was about to do, and it was far more overt in flirtatious energy than any of the prior teachers had dared. Gracefully, Loren lifted her leg, flexed her foot, and placed the first three toes of her foot in his mouth and wriggled on top of his tongue. She tilted her head off to one side, leaving him unable to read her expression. As she looked away, he saw her drop her hair down from the tie it was previously in, letting the multicolored mass fall against her shoulders dramatically. He felt the scratchy texture of her toenails rubbing against the roof of his mouth, the sandy texture of her sole's skin, the remaining salty residue in every crevice, and sucked it obediently. As he did, he looked along her deployed leg to make eye contact with her. He couldn't tell if she was ashamed of his eagerness and amaze-repulsed by the situation, or seriously thought that crude dominance was the essence of sexual charisma. Either case could be true with her pridefulness and poor people skills. Either case would led him to a staunchly different appraisal of the likability and trustworthiness of his charge. Of course she'd ordered him about when he was shrunken, but that felt somehow different.

An audible pop sounded as she removed her foot from the boy's mouth, breaking the slobbery seal of his lips. He instinctively swallowed the foot-tinged saliva in his mouth, and got off the floor with no further instructions, unwilling to let the uncertain situation fester.
"There, that's better. Thank you Brett. You've done a bang-up job on my feet." She beamed with the first bit of positivity he'd heard in a while. It seemed basically sincere, but there was a barb hidden as her face slid slowly into a neutral, robotic expression as she looked over to her laptop again. He could see it was no longer projects she was grading.

"Brett, I want to ask you - why did you just suck on my toes?"
Brett just had to laugh. He was starting to get annoyed at all the awkward situations she was creating for him. "I don't know why you want to know, as it wasn't important to you when you asked me to do it."
"You weren't shrunk anymore. You had a choice. There wasn't even the pretense of doing this stupid training thing."
Oh, that did it. A switch flicked in Brett's mind. He went on the offensive, refusing to admit his undying attraction to her.
"I don't get why you think it's stupid if you're doing it with me. We could both sign the paper and say we did it without doing it. You don't have to make shit up. And you are so damn full of yourself. Don't flatter yourself by suggesting I'd come in your goddamn shoe. Who does that anyway?"

There was a flash of fury in his teacher's eyes, which ignited with the immediacy and energy of thermite. He felt exposed, like he'd just seen a flamethrower squad in the distance approaching his pillbox. But he just stood his ground. Feelings were getting hurt on both sides. It was time to stop this childishness.
She stood up, eyes widening, and stormed to his position. She stood just six inches from his face. She put her hands on his face, and leaned in. He could smell a fruity perfume, and some of her hair fell across his shoulder, which smelled like a different fruit with only the slight odor of sweat. It felt like a dream.
She licked his cheek and paused with her mouth almost embedded in his ear.
"You'd rather come in my mouth, wouldn't you? I look forward to it." she growled in his ear animalistically.
This time she shrunk him in a big hurry, not bothering to use the gradual settings she'd previously done. He was plucked off the ground with all the force of being lifted by a Saturn V rocket to the moon.
Then he felt another escalation as she ripped away his leotard, finding the weak link in the back section and splitting it with two unimaginably strong giantess fingers. He was now naked in her palm.

She glared as though appraising him judgingly, then gave the slightest perceptible wink, and threw his body into her mouth with a moan.

It was a very slightly minty mouth, as she'd evidently had a stick of gum after dinner. But underneath it the scent and flavor was pungent. It was a mixture of both fresh saliva and an earlier crust of hardened, mucus-y spit clinging to the back of her mouth from her rapid-pace sweating in the garage.
Her tongue was softer and more malleable than that of previous mouths. He felt himself cradled by it, pressed on all sides. Unlike Mrs. Gomez's thick muscular tongue, this thinner, lither tongue of Ms. Issakinen's could actually completely wrap around him, and was still strong enough to dominate his body. He was the filling of a tongue burrito this time, totally surrounded by the wall of wet flesh, which probed and tasted him. But there was an added violence to the tasting, as though she enjoyed squeezing and pressuring him and feeling him flail and punch around as he couldn't breathe. Thankfully he was a good swimmer and experienced in holding his breath, or these moments would have induced him to panic.
Finally she settled into a brutally efficient mastication procedure where he was positioned on top of her tongue and was pressed against the roof of her mouth. She rhythmically sucked him and churned and agitated the saliva to circulate the fluid around her mouth and cause greater flow over Brett, while ratcheting up the pressure she put on him as she sucked. It felt like his teacher's mouth was a giant washing machine and vacuum cleaner in one. She mixed in a gradual, inexorable drop towards the back of her throat until he felt himself at an angle and his feet were practically able to kick her tonsils.
He knew that she could feel if he had an erection in her mouth, given that he had no clothing layers anymore, but he was far too scared to be aroused. Sometimes the pressure was so strong that the air was forced out of his lungs and he'd emerge coughing and gagging for air while swimming in deposited spit. The real possibiltiies of drowning in his teacher's mouth, or falling to his death down her throat, was producing overwhelming fear that overrode such feelings.

It started to feel like she was just sucking the life out of him. He couldn't find comfort or purchase, nor even a regular supply of airflow.
But adapt he would have to, as the minutes dragged by. He swore he would tell her everything afterward. This was going too far.

He could feel more movement as she went off to her bathroom and started running the shower. He barely got a few moments of daylight at all as Loren kept her lips mostly sealed, so she knew there would be nothing for him to see as she stripped off her dirty workout clothes.

---

The pressure faded as he felt Loren's anger melt away. Her tongue became a tender, soft mattress that no longer brutalized him. Her saliva production was reduced to normal levels. And the involuntary movements in her mouth were muted. He was removed straight into a cloth towel and cleaned up, then placed on her bed.

Whooooooooooooooooosh. He felt himself unshrunk with some care this time. His body was naked under an expansive, slightly sheer blanket. He had seen a pattern of light from the ceiling above through a vast continental shelf of cotton, and the blanket was still big enough to cover his fully-regrown body. Pulling the blanket against his body to ensure he was not indecent, he noted how fine the material was. He felt like he was on silk sheets on a featherbed. Groping for the corners, Brett finally tore the blanket off his face, looked around and saw to his right Ms. Issakinen wearing a bathrobe, lounging to one side as though waiting for his gaze to meet hers.
She whispered to him, with unbroken eye contact and a slight smile, "Did you enjoy yourself?"
"No, Loren, I didn't! Listen to me."
She laid back, the smile vanishing and replaced with a look of panic and embarrassment. He saw her face redden and her eyes dart around like a cornered animal searching for an exit.
"You would not let me breathe. You wrapped me up in your tongue with no air. You kept nearly throwing me off the cliff down your gullet. I've done a little of this before but you were rough and careless and I felt like I was barely able to make it through that. You hurt-" his voice cracked on the last sentence as a tear fell from his right eye. "-hurt me."
"And I don't know if you really believe this is supposed to be fun but it isn't. This isn't sexy anymore when it hurts. And it hurts so much for YOU to do it as opposed to someone else who I don't care that much for. I've been in love with you ever since I first met you. I WANTED you to shrink me. I've always thought you were super hot. I love that you do so much cool stuff. I want to be a tech person like you. I want to be smart and accomplished and build stuff. I want to figure out who you are, and know why you are so hot and cold. Why you are so unknowable. But you make it hurt to figure you out!"

It barely registered to Brett that the other person in the bed with him was crying too. At least, until she grabbed him with both her arms.

"I'm sorry Brett. I'm so sorry." she said plaintively.
"I didn't know I was hurting you. I thought you wanted this. I thought you were eager for this feeling. I didn't want to hurt you, I never did!"
"You don't know what you're doing! You didn't ask me if I wanted this!" Brett sputtered while she hugged him.

The teacher sobbed quietly into Brett's shoulder. He said more quietly "Why didn't you care if you hurt me, Loren?"
"I swear I never did. I know how much you thought of me. I haven't been... with a man... since a while ago... Of all people I should know what consent is, but I failed to extract it properly Brett. I am sorry, this was cruel of me."

She continued in a bare whisper. "The truth is, I was raped when I was a little kid. It was my cousin, who was about your age at the time. I had always had communication deficits, particularly terrible in those days but he was a nice, handsome 18-year-old who claimed he just liked his little weird-girl cousin even though nobody else did. That last part may have been true at the time, as I found it really really hard to make friends. He was tender at first, but he soon became brutal and was always finding horrible things to do to me and then gaslighting me about what he had done. And my uncle protected him, Brett. He-" her voice fell lower "-he lied on my cousin's behalf and he continued to allow this to happen. My parents supported me when I was a smart little obedient quiet girl, but when I showed the intense anger in me they never tried to figure me out, they ostracized me, they didn't help and didn't believe me. They were smart adults and I was just a kid who couldn't prove stuff I said if they wanted to lie against me. So I learned. I tried to make myself smarter. I was ashamed and had nothing else to turn to but the primitive power of making myself better. I used technology to prove my testimony, to put my uncle and cousin in precise locations at precise times, to hack into their own communication with each other, to outsmart them and get my freedom. I wanted to get so good that I could be a prosecutor myself and make the case all by myself. I confided everything to one of my teachers, who helped me get justice. And I found that it wasn't really necessary to do everything that I'd done, to suffer as long as I had, to seek help. The court didn't need my detective work. My cousin and uncle went to prison without it. My parents tried to win me back but I didn't want to see them anymore. I was emancipated at age 15. My teacher had become my guardian and she took very good care of me. A good teacher can do so much, and I knew I wanted to be one when I grew up."
"But I was apparently really smart. Tests said so, anyway. And people told me to aim higher than teaching. Like rocket science and AI. So I did. I got research grants and really talented mentors. And when I was on Wall Street and Silicon Valley there were so many older men, bosses and directors and other assholes who wanted to keep me. To groom me, win me over, and fuck me. And there were nice men too, tall handsome men my own age, confident and charming men, mostly men who seemed to not want to take advantage of me, but whose touch I felt was repulsive just the same. None of them would I trust, even though I was attracted to some of them. Except for my rapes, I am a virgin."

Brett did not dare speak as she paused slightly. He was stunned, and had to hear everything she would tell him.

"...And then I thought of a man much smaller. A guy who not only wouldn't want to hurt me, who didn't have vast financial resources or manipulation skills, but was physically unable to hurt me even if all of his persona had been a lie. I thought of a shrinkee and hoped that I could... win him over, somehow, when it was foreordained that he could not overpower me in any way. Even though men in general love to overpower me and get very confounded when they find that I can be smart and powerful too."
Sighing, she added "It felt... liberating and empowering to have you as a shrinkee. It has been amazing to be excited by the touch of a young man. Not only were you tiny so you couldn't hurt me, you weren't cynical as so many of my suitors have been. You expected me to take care of you and that is what hurts most of all. I'm really sorry Brett. I really love that you let me shrink you and try to please you and I'm sorry that I was too hard, too rough, too cruel. I'm sorry I seem to be untrustworthy with the power to inflict punishments like this."

Brett was motionless. He felt the surge of energy in her arms as she held fast to him, squeezing him with the greatest of urgency. He had never been touched like this by anyone before.
"I don't blame you for wanting to leave now Brett. But if it means anything to you.... holding you here in my own home, in my own bed, in my arms, though you are now full size and probably weigh more than me, I should be frightened or repulsed, but I am not. I feel safe. I never thought it would be the case in this situation, but it is the truth."
Speaking more quickly, as though she sensed the conflict within him, she continued: "And I meant it earlier, I have always wanted you to be happy with me, to be happy with your time with me. So I invited you to enjoy yourself. To come on my foot. Or to come in my mouth. There is no shame to it when you're freely invited to do so. I gave you consent and I meant it, although if parts of my body really turned you on that much when shrunk, I might have dreaded unshrinking you and dealing with the after-effects of this experiment, when you were back to normal size, if I felt you would take unfair advantage. Still, you didn't seem like that, so I continued. I just had to figure out for myself what this would be like."

"Loren." Brett finally spoke.
"Yes Brett?" she looked at him with eyes flickering in the low light, the traces of tears still present. She wiped them away with the back of her hand.
"You should have let out that emotion so much sooner. You should have been honest with me. You should have asked me things and let this develop more naturally."
Ms. Issakinen nodded penitently.
And then Brett added "But I don't want to leave. I like being with you. And sometimes I like being shrunk by you."
She looked down. "Are you really serious Brett?"
"Hundred percent."
A slight smile started to spread on Loren's face. "You're an amazing young man, Brett. I wish I weren't too old to be your girlfriend."
Brett scoffed with the sureness that it was a joke, and emphatically stumbled and stuttered his way to a retort. "You-you're not. No wayyyyy. You, you... look like the college girl I want to be dating once I'm outta here."
Loren returned the scoff with a little eye roll and reply that betrayed her own insecurity. "Well, you probably wouldn't want to date me for other reasons too. You don't know all of the real me yet."
"To tell the truth, I don't know what will happen between us, Brett. I hadn't expected to feel this way. But now that I am, and now that I know how you feel, I want to ask of you one more thing."
Brett looked into her eyes expectantly.
"Can I shrink you again, for our mutual pleasure, if I promise to be gentle and we agree exactly what I'm going to do with you?"
Brett replied yes, his fear diminishing in proportion to hers. Had they met in the middle? His heart was pounding as he saw what she did next.
"Well, Brett..." she said, taking his hand in hers and placing it on one of her ample breasts. Loren then pulled his pliant, wavering hand down across her chest, across her waist, and shyly laid it to rest atop her crotch.
"...I want to put you in my pussy and give us both a little ride. I want you to be the first man inside me whom I've ever voluntarily let in. I'm going to keep you big enough that you need not worry. And I want you to push the button on your wrist and alert me if I start to hurt you. Will you go there with me?" she asked with a tinge of both nervousness and playfulness.

So much had just been learned, with so many questions lingering. He now felt a surprisingly great bond with her, a great protective instinct for her weaknesses based on her past, and he forgave her transgression with finality. Was this experience transformative to her too, or would she be compelled to hurt him every so often just to get pleasure? Was he starting a relationship with her? If so, could theirs be a healthy relationship?

But all those feelings were for the future Brett to ponder. For now he couldn't think of anything he wanted more. He responded affirmatively, with the haste of unequalled anticipation. It was the first thing akin to real, honest intimacy that had ever happened to him.

Friday's incredible energy was not sustainable. Brett settled into a near-comatose state of exhaustion in a petri dish filled with sudsy water on the bathroom sink. He had looked up with weary amusement as Loren had dispensed a thin, minty soap with an eye dropper and flowed water at very precise increments and measured the temperature with an infrared thermometer. He half-expected to see her in a labcoat and goggles.
With a smile she looked over him and said "103. That should be comfortable Brett. Sorry, it is hard to run a bath this small properly! If it's too hot for you, just wait a few minutes." But Brett was in no mood to wait, his body caked with dried vaginal fluid. He jumped into the hot bath with enthusiasm.

He had enjoyed himself with Loren. Just twenty minutes ago, he had felt his lower extremities and much of his torso shoved against Loren's salty, slippery, moist pussy, as she toyed with his size and got him to a level which was pleasing to her. With Brett wedged inside her and a few fingers of her right hand grasping his shoulders, he could guide the rubbing of his own cock against the wall as his whole body was shoved in and jerked out. His body's movements made a juicy sound, as though he were stirring a giant vat of jelly. Yet the movements she took were cautious, quiet, and slight in their power. He could not tell if the restraint was due to her own nature, as it was likely still hard for her to feel comfortable during intimacy, or if she was simply worried that she'd hurt him with any application of real force. But aside from that, he could tell she was taking pains to emote openly, and treat him more as a partner than a sex toy, which turned him on tremendously. In the low light, he could see two of her fingers above him starting to massage her clit.
He wasn't sure he'd be able to detect if and when Loren had an orgasm, as there were many mysteries in the minds of 17-year-old boys. But ultimately she made it easy to identify by freeing a few pitiful, stilted yelps, and emitting a relatively larger quantity of fluid around him, then a sudden cessation of her quivering. The fluid began to leak out around him, coating his shoulders and neck, stopping short of his face. Both during and after this, he ramped up his own self-stimulation as she whispered to him to let go on his own, which he ultimately did. He came inside her. Never had Brett imagined that this would be how he'd get laid the first time.
As Loren remained motionless, Brett pulled out his arms from inside her and pulled himself out with the greatest of ease. The viscous lubrication that her body had deposited on him made his egress almost effortless. He felt deeply satisfied but very tired, and took a few steps away, his feet clinging slightly to the sheets on every footfall due to the stickiness on his soles. He sat down to rest a few feet to Loren's side. Loren moved her legs to the side and scooted over to speak to him, still in a whisper.
"Not that you were probably worried about the effect of what is likely a few microliters of semen at your size, but to be clear, I also have an IUD emplaced."
Brett furrowed his brow. He didn't know what an IUD was. If her question was if he was he worried that he'd impregnate her at a few inches tall, the thought had not crossed his mind even perfunctorily, but from her tone he just assumed that the effect was nothing to worry about.


After Brett's bath, he was unshrunk, and slowly dressed in his clothes from earlier in the day. He could hardly believe it was still the same day, it had felt like so much had taken place. He drifted off in search of Loren. His wrist control buzzed as he peered around the corner.
"I'm in my lab, Brett. Come on by. :-)"
He found she had dressed and was no longer wearing the bathrobe, clattering away on a mechanical keyboard connected to an iMac. She looked over and smiled at him.
"What are you working on, Loren?" Brett asked with as much energy as he could muster. He saw her typing rapidly on a mechanical keyboard connected to an iMac, in a program called Xcode, which he'd have to ask her about later.
"A little something in the interest of safety as I'm starting to do more with shrinkee infrastructure. We are seeing very little of this in the media, but there are unlicensed shrinking devices around which have a lot of the normal safety measures disabled and they could be used for kidnappings. Let me see your phone. Unlock it for me por favor."
The boy grabbed his iPhone from his pocket, waved it across his face, and handed it over to Loren.
She quickly went into his email app, opened some email he'd been sent by some service called TestFlight, and then she proceeded to install an app on his phone with fairly minimal user interface. He watched curiously.
"Now Brett, this is what I'll call the 'shrinkee protection' app. You don't have to actually interact with it and the interface is only for calibration and logging details. No need to ever open it, just keep it installed and if it asks for a new permission, grant the permission. I want you to have it on your phone for beta testing, but there may be bugs as I've not put that much time into it until recently. When it's on, your phone will use the mic to determine if there is a shrinking in its presence due to the characteristic air pressure wave generated by the shrinking process. You hear it as a kind of pulsating whoosh."
Brett nodded. He knew what she meant.
"Now a lot of that is unresearched and we don't know if the sound generated by the air pressure wave is characteristic enough to give high confidence. It also cross-checks against the phone's accelerometer. Using the same kind of detection technique as you might do to find out if your phone was dropped, I'm checking if the phone is crumpling to the ground in a pile of clothes during a shrinking process. Including this extra feature increases the confidence that the user her/himself has been shrunk, but it relies on the person carrying the phone at the moment it happens. GPS is also valuable, as a shrink detection event will then poll the phone's location and send it to a remote server periodically until the battery dies or data connection is lost. During this limited beta testing, I am going to be receiving all the shrink detection events and logs here on my own server and checking them whenever I get notifications. There's probably going to be a whole lot of false positives at first, but we have to start somewhere and I think it's reasonably feature-complete given my testing abilities. Try to help me test this by being available to confirm on your phone if you shrunk or not, okay? You'll have to use a PIN, which I will default to your birthdate. I'll be contacting you on the app if I think I've detected an event, and you can then obviously confirm if it actually happened or not."
Brett strained under the pressure of all these technical terms and tried to just use a humorous exit. "Loren, you can call me anytime without coming up with such an elaborate excuse!" He put an arm around her and gave her a side hug.
She was not altogether unresponsive to his touch, but the flirt barriers had come back in force. "Brett, I'm being serious. There are not a lot of people who have been voluntarily shrunk under conditions like yours. Very often it's unpredictable. I still think it could prove beneficial for humankind to let shrinking continue, but we really need to make sure there are safeguards to using it. I have seen firsthand now how a shrinking can be dangerous to a shrinkee even when the shrinker doesn't realize this and doesn't intend to hurt the shrinkee. Imagine how a lot of badly conceived pranks could go between friends. I want to work on protecting against unauthorized shrinking.

He just nodded energetically, like a bobble-head. He didn't know what to say. Of course he'd use the app but he was too dang tired to think about all this stuff. It was past 1am. How much coffee did this woman drink?
"Brett, are you ready to go home?"
"No, no, no, I'm just tired."
"Well, if you're tired, we need to get you home."
"Do we, Loren? um... I'm sorry, I kinda thought... you wouldn't mind letting me... s-s-stay over for the rest of the night." he stammered out.
The woman sighed and looked down, shaking her head. She turned back to Brett.
"I know you do. I don't know why I'm suddenly feeling constricted and frightened. But you need to give me time to process my emotions and understand how I feel about this. Frankly, I think you need to do the same."
Nodding with hidden disappointment, he added "I'm not that tired anyway. Show me more about how you're detecting the shrink events before I go." But despite listening attentively, he could not help but feel crushed flat. Perhaps the words were hard for her to say, but she said them with such finality. He felt sure that she wasn't really capable of seeing him as a romantic equal. Perhaps to her this was a strangely pragmatic friendship with a mere boy, which both allowed her to explore her sexuality and expand her research. He proceeded to continue listening to her explanation of the technology and trying to stay alert and responsive. Where he could sound halfway intelligent he tried to ask questions and absorb the response.
Loren was gratified that Brett was interested in her projects. She was impressed that he seemed to be asking good skeptical questions. Clearly the guy didn't know much about technology beyond the products he'd used as a consumer, and he didn't understand the feasibility of what needed to be measured, but he had a mind that was fairly scientific, which was not a bad starting place. Best of all, he was very unassuming, and didn't fail to acknowledge when he didn't know something, even though he sometimes hammed up his response with derpy humor. It was after an hour of taking him around her lab and showing him a half dozen projects that had interested her over the past year that she noticed the time. A Nixie tube clock, a gift from one of her nerdy friends, showed 2:00am.

"Brett, my gosh. I did not realize it was so late. We need to get going now." she said, grabbing his arm in surprise. Brett took the pronouncement with sadness, but he complied.
There was a wave of two competing feelings in her as they gathered near the door and put on their shoes.
She felt a strong sense of dread as she didn't know Mrs. Henderson well and was going to have a very tough time explaining why he was coming home so late. She had said probably 10pm, and could probably have gotten by with midnight, but this was getting very embarrassing. Perhaps she should just let him stay here, she thought. But lateness of the hour would make returning him harder and harder without having a lingering effect on his weekend and on his future memory of this encounter. She gulped as she considered what effect that may have. Given her past as the target of traumatic abuse, she had heard and digested and rebuffed all the excuses that abusers made, and had placed on her the most solemn restriction on forcing her will upon a younger person, particularly for sexual gratification.
The other feeling, which tended to make everything more complex, was her sincere pleasure at talking and hanging out with Brett. He wasn't an ordinary high school junior; he was wide-eyed and curious as they made their way into the depths of her lab, and he had grown in confidence and was treating her as an equal, knowing better how to dismantle her sometimes cold, forbidding mannerisms. He was also a regular jokester, devising some elaborate puns that sometimes even elicited a laugh from her. With the bitterness of perceiving this happiness vanishing, she inhaled strenuously as though the air were heavy as a boat anchor, as she again reconsidered the demands of his future: he still had a few more years to go before he was mature enough to be making decisions that mattered. She was not going to have this young man, who made her happy on an intellectual and geeky social level, who had no interest in impressing his way into her pants, who had self-selected in the most unfakeable way his sexual compatibility with her by showing acceptance of a shrinkee role, was experienced in the role, and could even enjoy it himself.


Rain fell in massive torrents as Ms. Issakinen backed her Tesla out of the garage. Brett was covering up his disappointment at leaving her home, both performatively and practically, by crossing his arms and falling asleep. It was made easier by the slow pace that Loren was driving in the storm, and the rhythmic drumming of heavy raindrops on the roof and glass of the car.
Then he was awakened with a start. He looked out the window. It was his mom's house. His mom's car and Don's bike were in the driveway, but all lights in the house were off. The Tesla's dash helpfully indicated that the time was 2:19am. He saw no lights on anywhere in the house. Even Don was asleep.
Loren was looking at Brett as he awoke, subued by seeing him hurt by her rebuff this evening. The flashes of lightning and faint glimmer of streetlight caught her eyes as he looked toward them.
"Brett, time for you to go home. I am sorry that you can't stay overnight with me. I am sorry that I kept you this late. I enjoyed our evening, and I am looking forward to having you as a student next year. Keep in touch, okay?"
As he sat there unmoving, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, then shooed him away. The lingering was breaking both of their hearts, though neither of them knew for sure the feeling was mutual.

At 2:24am, Brett fell into bed mostly still wearing his wet clothes, teeth unbrushed, socks on, and tried to fall asleep. His brain was trying to figure out if he should file the day's events as one big dream.
He felt the familiar feel of his own sheets, smelled his own lame Walmart cologne on his nightstand and saw a half-drunk can of energy drink, and it was as though the thoughts and feelings he had were all fake. They had to be. He cursed his own name and dismissed his memories. Crying silently, heavy hot tears, he cursed the vividness of his visions. Why did he, a massive introvert loser, have to imagine and fixate on a world where Loren Issakinen secretly loved him? Why did he imagine things that were so painful when they did not happen? Why and how did he have such a perfectly realistic fantasy of making love to her? No! It must have happened! He knew that he had actually experienced those things. But even if it was real, why was it ending now? Why would he torment himself by dwelling on them?
In a moment of clarity, it occurred to him that these were the hurt feelings that Loren must have been trying to spare him, he thought. She wasn't ready for this yet, or at least she wasn't ready to be hurt by some thoughtless kid. She wanted him to leave until he could make proper adult decisions, or something like that. She was so wrong about him. He wasn't immature. He'd show her somehow...
Brett drifted into sleep with a million thoughts still on his mind.

---


At 10:06am, the sun streaming through the blinds in Brett's bedroom, he was awoken by the faintest but most persistent phone buzzing.
He pulled out his phone, wiped the sleep from his eyes, and saw who it was. There were a few new notifications.
The first was two missed calls, and no voicemails, from Mrs Samson. Perhaps she was reaching out to him to congratulate him on his chemistry final project?
The second was an email from Principal Lee-Reilly. Whew, here we go, he thought.
Opening it, he saw her formal style jump off the page as though she were really there next to him.

    Hello Brett,
       
    I would like to thank you for your consistent performance so far in your shrink certification support. I can confirm that as of this morning, Ms. Olivier and Mrs. Gu are certified, and the applications for Miss Erenli, Mrs. Gomez, and Ms. Issakinen have been reviewed by me and submitted to the state. Well done Brett - we're halfway there!
    
    I have spoken with all of your teachers and I think that we can get you the 4.0 GPA for this semester. I stressed the value you were adding to this program and how much time you were spending on it. However, in one case where I was told your performance was worse than expected, you may have to perform remedial studywork - your teachers will individually reach out to you to clarify.
    
    I do have unfortunate news that Mrs. Samson has had a death in her family which requires her to leave town on Monday. She has told me that she will need to move up her shrink training with you to today - if you remember from your original schedule that you accepted, this was an alternative day for her, so I told her on your behalf that you would be able to make the time free. Please do work with her however she needs.
    
    Best,
    Mrs. Lee-Reilly, Principal, Westwood High School
    
As he read this, he realized he would have to call Mrs. Samson back. He was about to do so when she called him a third time.
"Hi Brett, ya there?" she said in her singsong, deeply Southern drawl. The way she said "Brett" ended up sounding someting like "Bray-ett", which never ceased to amuse him.
"Hi yes ma'am Mrs. Samson." He knew she liked being addressed as ma'am.
"Brett ma boy, I'm sorry f'I woke ya up. Did ya read Lee-Reilly's email?"
He replied that he had. He was not assumed that she went straight to business.
"Yeah, it's kinda last minute, but my dad died yesterday and I need to go back to Alabama this week to take care a'things."
"I'm sorry to hear that ma'am. Were you close to him?"
"Nah Brett, wadn't close to him. He was a mean, stupid man who drank too much. But he hated my mama even more, and a lawyer called and said I was the only one he took care of in the will. I don't really want the old man's land but I still gotta straighten out the particulars."
Brett wasn't sure how to respond. This was far more personal than the notoriously private, prim and proper Mrs. Samson had typically been. "I'm sorry to hear it anyway. Hope your trip goes well."
"Thank ya, hun. Well, I was gonna pick you up and take you over to my place today. But we had 'nother piece of bad luck last night in the storm. Turns out a bolt a'lightning struck my tree in my front yard and knocked off a branch, which broke my window. Lots of water all over the living room. My husband is talkin' to the insurance adjuster right now. We're going to have a big mess here with contractors comin' too. So as you know, Nancy and I are friends. I was gonna ask Nancy if it would be okay if we did the thing over at your place today. She said it would be right fine, that she was plannin' on bringin' over some friends to hang out and have brunch anyway."
Brett heard that last line with horror. Turning his head and sniffing, he could smell the luscious smell of brisket emanating from downstairs, which had been slow cooking overnight. His mom was going to make breakfast tacos and she often invited her girlfriends over to unwind together, where they'd also imbibe in fruity boozy drinks. These brunches were understood by Don and Brett, without the need to explain, to be events purely for ladies, and the men of the house avoided it, which the ladies were normally fine with. Somehow, he'd forgotten that the brunch was planned for this Saturday, today. His mom had definitely told him about it, but he had planned to go out today and didn't really remember it until now.
"Brett, are ya still there?"
"Y-yes ma'am. I'm still here."
"Well, does that sound okay with you? Your mama okayed it, and you're under her roof, so I don't really *need* your approval, but I wanna be sure."
There, that was the kind of harsh logic that he expected from Mrs. Samson. He had no choice but he was being asked to show enthusiasm for her last-minute decision to perform his shrinking punishment in front of his mom and a few of her friends. So he did what had always worked for him in the past, and gotten him through her chemistry class. He buttered her up.
"Yes ma'am Mrs. Samson, that is fine by me. You are in charge of the training, so you can do it as you want."
"Good to hear it, ma boy. Glad you're onboard, glad you got a good attitude 'bout it. I should be over there in about 40 minutes, still takin' care of stuff before I go. Talk to you later, hun. Buh-bye!"

---

In the intervening time, Brett stayed scarce, all but barricaded in his room as he heard another lady arrive and greet his mom. It was Cindy Wells, an old friend who had known Nancy since they were both freshmen in college. Cindy now worked for the city government and had a thin frame and sandy blonde hair cut short. She had a mischievous sense of humor which was sometimes too much for Nancy, but they got along well most of the time. Brett had grown up knowing Nancy and basically thought of her as a slightly crazy aunt. By the sound of glasses and ice chinking below, they were already starting their first drink of the day. Here we go, he thought.

But he didn't need to wait much longer. Mrs. Samson arrived a few moments later, greeting both of the ladies cheerfully. This wouldn't have been the first time that Katie Samson had come to Nancy's house, not by a long way, but she hadn't yet been to one of the brunches. Brett wasn't even sure if she drank.
Heavy footfalls coming up the stairs. It was not his mom.
A few knocks. "Come in," Brett murmured nervously.

In came Mrs. Samson, dressed nothing like she normally was during school hours, when she wore a long skirt and suit jacket over a conservative blouse. His obese, pear-shaped teacher was dressed as though she had turned over a new leaf as a camp counselor, wearing a huge oversized T-shirt that draped her large boobs and gut. Still, the hardest work was being done by a pair of cheap-looking plain black shorts that were straining to cover her massive ass and meaty hips, and ended- mid-thigh, leaving exposed mounds of flab accumulated around her thighs and the base of her knees. Her face was not made up, though, and her long eye lashes were natural and she had a very big, inviting smile. Still, he certainly never thought of her as attractive, and he was seeing more of her than he'd wanted to.
"Bray-ett, good to see you. Are you ready? I reviewed the training documents yesterday and this morning."
He shut his mouth, realizing he was gaping at the bulging, shimmying mass of her butt as she walked toward him. "Yes ma'am, you've read what has been done before. What do you want to do?"
"Well Brett, I was surprised to read that many of my colleagues spoke highly of almost everything you did. They mostly left detailed reports. Except Loren - she wrote very little, but then she was always shy, wasn't she?"
Brett said "Yes ma'am." He knew that Loren wasn't shy, but was just protecting both of their privacy. Jeez, was that too much to ask for? Had Miss Erenli told everything? Even the incident with her mother Umaima?
Katie Samson sat down on Brett's office chair, and it slightly staggered downward under her weight. He knew it had a weight rating of 250lb and it was probably being overloaded by her mass. As she sat down, she removed a pair of generic sneakers and pulled off some well-worn socks to show off some extremely large, chunky feet with thick, stubby toes. Most of her skin was slightly pink, as though she was finally getting a little bit of sun for the first time this year. He could make out some hairs growing on the top of her foot, which he'd never seen before on a woman. On her soles there were many callused patches and bits that were yellow or brown. Birthmarks possibly?
"Here, I just thought I'd show you what you're in for. Go on, take a whiff."
Brett swallowed as he leaned forward and took a sniff of her sole. Yes, they were a little whiffy already. She'd been busy this morning. "Yes ma'am, I see."
"I need to get men's size shoes usually. Size 11 wide. I apologize in advance but I did not attempt to make this any easier on you. My feet are a little sweaty as I was runnin' around dealing with the storm leak last night and this mornin'. My skin is rough. I have never had a foot massage or a pedicure in ma life, Brett. It always seemed like kind of a silly thing. And who wanted to spend money on their feet? But you were willing to do real nice things for the other teachers, Brett, and for free, without making 'em feel awkward about it. I want the same kinda thing."
"Yes ma'am." Brett said robotically. There was no real choice, and not much sense in fighting it.
She looked at him inquisitively. "You're really okay with cleaning ma stinky feet with your mouth while you're shrunk in ma shoe?"
He broke down and could not sustain this goody two-shoes impression any longer. "Well, I'm not okay with it. I really am not looking forward to it. But you want me to do it, you're making me do it, so I'll do it."
Her response was so prepared and automatic, it was as if she was waiting for his anger. "Mr. Henderson, I am not *making* you do anything. You signed a contract and this is your job. I know maybe I am not as pretty as some of the other teachers but you need to show me respect and treat me just like the other teachers, young man."

And with that, he was rudely shrunk down on his own bed. She placed him down the hole of her right sock, and then pushed in the foot and tucked into her shoe. The laces were retied, making his prison tighter. She rose to her feet and started to leave Brett's room.
Her foot was indeed rougher than any previous examples. He felt like there was crusted sweat on her sock, as though she had chosen to wear old socks for him. Her sweat was particularly musky and acrid, and he had a good deal of it to deal with on her sweltering toes.
And then she discovered how to use the shrink app on her phone.
"Mr. Brett, I don't feel you moving much down there. You've been asked to do a simple task. Please get to work eating your hardworking teacher's toe jam. I made sure that there is at least some for you." Understatement of the year.
He replied back "OK."
"OK what?" came the response above. She pressed down on him with her toes, momentarily stunning him.
"Yes ma'am!" he shot back, frightened at the anger.
"Good boy. Thank you." came her last text as she descended the stairs.
"Katie, Brett didn't want to join us? What's he up to?" Cindy asked jokingly to Mrs. Samson.
"Oh he's indisposed for the moment. He shouldn't bother us. In fact, he's doing some school work for me at the moment." she said smugly, eliciting a chuckle from Nancy.

Brett fumed inside the shoe. But whenever he stopped working, it seemed that Katie was ready to slam her foot into him and compel him to keep moving. So he found himself at yet another all-you-can-eat foot buffet, served courtesy of Mrs. Katie Samson from her size 11 wide restaurant.
Then he had another unexpected message on his wrist device. It read:
    AUTOMATED MESSAGE - This is the ShrinkProtect app. It has been detected that you were shrunk. If you have authorized this, press Y and your 6-digit PIN. If you have not, press N. If no message is received within 10 minutes, escalation measures will be taken.
    
    Y*****
    
    Thank you for confirming that you authorized this shrinking.
    
Then, after a brief period, he got a message from the same automated text source, but Ms. Issakinen had taken direct control.
    
    Hey it's Loren. Brett, tell me who are you with? You weren't scheduled for another shrinking today.
    
    im with mrs samson, she came unexpectedly
    
    OK Brett. Good luck. Thanks for letting me know.
    
It felt sort of good to know he was being looked after, but he really couldn't use it to help his situation now. It would be rough, tough, cheesy, vinegary Alabamian feet for Brett on the menu for breakfast.

---

As the three women enjoyed themselves together in three quarters of an hour of conversation, food, and drinks, the topic ultimately shifted to a recent news report that there was new shrinkee legislation planned.
"I hope they don't do it! I want a chance to try out a shrinkee at some point. I've always wanted one." Cindy said.
"Well, you know you can rent them," Katie said.
"Fat chance!" Cindy retorted. "There is a nationwide shortage, and it costs loads of money, like more than a grand per hour. The most 'reputable' companies won't do the service anymore. Because they are worried about the laws coming into place."
Nancy clicked her tongue. "Well, I haven't looked too hard at it, but I think the law is a good idea. I think they need to keep the shrinkees safe and they also need to discourage people whoring themselves out as shrinkees." Brett could hear this spoken far above as he was roasted under Katie's toes, and felt it as a personal attack.
"Oh I know they need to keep the shrinkees safe. But sometimes it seems like they're just trying to outlaw harmless fun." Cindy said, less enthusiastic than before. She hadn't realized that her friend Nancy was anti-shrink.

Katie was very quiet as the conversation went on. Nancy ultimately started to get irritated whenever shrinking was brought up, and found it hard to hold her tongue. All three were gulping down their drinks and mixing new ones.
"Well Cindy, let's just say I disagree with you on shrinking being a perfectly decent way to earn a living, but I agree with you with the principle that if you make the mistake of doing it, you deserve the consequences. Brett is suffering those consequences right now."

"BRETT!?!" Cindy exclaimed. "How did it happen? I'm sorry, Nancy, are there problems with money??"
"Hush, silly girl." Nancy scoffed. "We are doing fine. He did this to himself. I guess he had some secret desire for it. He is doing it through the school actually. You know the shrink training program they're doing at Westwood? He's the sole student volunteer."
"And speaking of sole," Katie piped up, "Brett has done a fine job cleaning my sole with his own tongue while we've been talking here."
Cindy gasped. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. "Why is he doing this? Why did you get him as a shrinkee, Katie?"
Katie started laughing. "Hahahaha! He's got a contract. A real open-ended one. Doesn't even get paid by the hour. He's gotta do this with a whole bunch of teachers. Bet he ain't happy licking all these teachers' feet, especially mine!"
Nancy snorted and added "They got nothing on my staanky feet, Katie!" But she then shook her head and continued with some anger in her increasingly drunk voice. "I didn't raise him to do this kind of trick. But he got himself in the hot water, I am not about to rescue him. You do whatever you want, Katie. He's a big boy now. If he goes over my head to my boss the principal and strikes himself a contract job, he's a big boy now."

Cindy was looking down and around, trying to figure out how to ask without being too crass, but the alcohol was getting to her head too, so she couldn't resist.
"Can... can I try him Nancy? Would that be okay with you?"
Nancy shook her head. "Look, I already told you I don't care. He's my son but he's basically an adult. He wouldn't have gotten himself into this situation if he didn't enjoy it. I just don't want to be associated with it. Don't ask me, don't tell me."
With that, Nancy finished an especially large gulp and then stood up. She mumbled "Excuse me" as she walked away from her two friends. She appeared to be walking toward the bathroom but then turned at her bedroom and went inside and locked the door, refusing to continue being around for a discussion of the shrinking of her son.

Cindy and Katie resumed their conversation and were starting to get friendlier themselves. Brett could hear them talking about him, but he missed out on a lot of the particulars. That is, until Cindy evidently laid down on the floor next to Katie's shoe and asked him in a clear, loud voice.
"Hey Bretty. You volunteered to be a shrinkee. You would let your ol' Aunt Cindy have a taste, right? Just a taste? I've never tried a shrinkee before. I promise I wouldn't hurt ya, and I bet it would smell a lot better than Katie's ugly old foot!"

Brett did not like the sound of this. And his mother's other friend, Melissa, still hadn't arrived yet. Oh, it was going to be a long day.

Through the door of her bedroom, Nancy could faintly hear her friends obliviously continuing to converse openly about their plans. She stewed glumly, tried to open a book, but was just filled with waves of anger at the embarrassment they were putting her through. Did they have any modesty at all? Did their modesty immediately extinguish itself after a couple drinks? In spite of all she had said, Brett was her goddamned son. Cindy had met Brett when he was a toddler. As he grew to be a teenager, she had teased him and called him a hunk and a heartbreaker, which Nancy certainly thought was a joke as he was shrimpy. And Cindy was not a real aunt, nor a passable substitute by any stretch of the imagination. But she hadn't realized that her old friend was actually willing to indulge a shrinkee fetish with Brett. How greatly had the new shrinking technology changed norms.
And as for her son, what a bastard he had been to put her through this. She knew it was not her fault at all; she been an awesome mom and kept him from following in her older brother Don's footsteps and becoming a bad kid. They had a deal for her to give him her Honda CR-V when he got his grades up and kept them there during senior year. The blame for her son's corruption, in Nancy's mind, was mostly on her ex-husband's shoulders. He'd met Brett sparingly in the past 10 years, being a dismal absentee parent who rarely cared to exercise his visitation rights, but recently had been paying a lot more attention as though he was trying to acquire the boy for his firm. What the hell did her son think he was going to do? March in as an unpaid intern without a degree and take the world by storm? The rest of the blame fell on Brett, who had not only precipitated this totally unnecessary embarrassment to their family, but had doubled down on it in every subsequent conversation.
She continued to get angrier in silence. This wasn't all Brett's fault, but he needed to have it proved to him that being a shrink whore was not worth it. She talked herself down and realized she didn't want to stay angry, she just wanted some revenge. The thought of precipitating an unpleasant unexpected situation for Brett with Melissa did cross Nancy's mind...

On the other side of the door, Brett stewed in Katie Samson's shoe under the weight of her heavy foot, which prodded and poked him to work faster and harder. He was inhaling her foot detritus, wriggling his body through the tight conditions and grasping on the rough, craggy surface of an ugly, barren, middle-aged, working-class sole. In the parts where her foot had perspired, the sole felt like a mountain face rising above a rainforest: warm, rough, and wet. He imagined that he was climbing a foot mountain, and that if he fell down he would drown in the unappetizing filth that surrounded him.

She lifted her foot and twirled her ankle, finally acknowledging what Cindy had said earlier.
Pulling out her phone while still conversing with her friend, Brett heard his wrist buzz. "Hey Brett, it's Mrs. Samson. You doing okay down there?" She squeezed slightly with her foot while asking.
He saw the message as his wrist buzzed. He knew better. She was most easily disarmed by simpering sychophants, but she was wrathful towards anyone who punctured her good moods.
"Oh yes ma'am Mrs. Samson. I'm doing quite well thank you."
"How does my foot taste? I can feel that you've done a good job cleaning it."
"It tastes fine, Mrs. Samson."
"That is hard to believe. What does it taste like?"
Brett struggled to come up with neutral but not obscenely inaccurate language. He would have liked to say acidic, acrid, vinegary, bitter, cheesy, moldy, but all of those would make her upset and definitely keep him there for longer. He'd been under enough feet to know what he liked, and he knew that in a world where he weren't forced to feast on it, and it weren't from a woman that was overall unappealing to him, he could deal with even this very strong stench but he did not like being taken for granted and humiliated like this.
Finally he settled on "Salty and buttery."
"Haha, sounds like popcorn. That would work great. We could go to the movies together, I would eat the popcorn while you got your fill of my salty feet. And I could take you to any movie I wanted, because you wouldn't see much anyway from the floor.
Brett did not respond. This woman had one hell of an imagination.
She tapped for a while and got out yet more thoughts. "Well, I do not like the way my feet smell at all, and it turns out that I actually adore the feeling of having them cleaned by someone's mouth. I'm glad that it tastes good to you, Brett. I know that after this shrink training I will not generally be able to shrink you under normal circumstances, but that doesn't mean we have to stop. I can still keep doing this without shrinking you. I may just ask you to come to my office after class sometimes and you can just get under my desk and clean my big old feet for me. And despite what your mom says, I can get mine really sweaty for you too, probably as bad as hers, if I do some running. Only I don't like running much, so you need to ask me extra sweet to get that!"
Stunning. Somehow she had actually chosen to extend this fantasy and imagined he was a willing participant rather than acknowledging that he was just paying her the tribute of feigning enthusiasm becuase her bad temper was well-known. Maybe there was a disconnect? If this was an elaborate joking scenario, something wasn't contextualized properly and she left off all the emojis and clues that he needed. Maybe she just didn't have the familiarity with texting to pull it off.
Anticipating she would prod him to respond, Brett finally replied simply "Yes ma'am". He would disavow any affirmations made here 100% once he was regrown. Mrs. Samson didn't have anything on him, and he'd be graduating from her class in a few days. He could deal with just this little burst of her mischievous, selfish imagination.

The conversation far above which had gone mostly quiet was punctuated by Cindy demanding "Who you texting Kates?"
The two women were evidently very close because Cindy caught sight of the fact that it was to Brett.
"How are you texting him when he's in your shoe?"
"Haha Cindy, he's got his own little shrinkable device in there. It's on a wriststrap. He can read what we write and write back too. Let me clear this all out first though." Wise idea, Brett thought bitterly, you wouldn't want to share your fantasies accidentally.
He heard them chatter above, and evidently the device had changed hands, because he next saw this:
"Hi Bretty r u ready 2 come out? Ur old aunt Cindy want 2 save u!"
Jeez, asking him to pick was the worst. Cindy at least wouldn't hurt him, even if she was drunk. Mrs. Samson, he wasn't so sure. So he basically had to lie.
"You don't need to save me Cindy. Mrs. Samson isn't hurting me any."
There was chuckling from Katie above, and some growling by Cindy. The two women bickered comically for a few moments and then seemed to come to an agreement, and Brett found the shoe loosening around him. He could now see light through the sock as she lifted her foot from the floor and peeled off the sock. As the cotton layer surrounding him turned inside out, he fell straight into the outstretched palm of Cindy.

She held him up to her face, and then placed her hand over her mouth with delight, making a face like he was the most adorable thing she'd ever seen.
With the obvious scent of alcohol on her breath, she lowered her voice to a whisper. "HI Bretty... it-it's your Aunt Cindy. I didn't know you were a shrinkee or that you were even old enough to be one." There was an obvious, unexpected look of hesitation and second thoughts on her face.
Brett switched his wrist device to walkie-talkie mode and spoke into it. He heard his voice amplified on speakerphone from Katie's phone. "I'm a shrinkee temporarily Cindy. And that's cute and all, but I haven't called you aunt since I was like 12 which is about the last time you called me Bretty."
"Why are you a shrinkee, Brett?" she asked with as much focus as she could muster.
"I'm volunteering to help the school get the teachers certified to handle shrinkee students. There will be cases where they need to do it. I'm getting some financial assistance for it and some extra credit too. I don't want to be a shrinkee in general. It's not a career for me, if you know what I mean."
"Ahhh I see Bretty. Well, since I'm not a teacher you don't have to be my shrinkee do you, Brett?"
"Nope Cindy. And I'd really rather not, to be honest."
"That *hic* that is fair, Brett. I am sorry that I misjudged you." Cindy murmured. Her glass-eyed flirtatious look had now fully vanished and she looked like she  had control of herself and no longer had any interest in exploiting him. Internally, she was mostly drunk but had at least seen that she was about to make a big mistake and had walked back from the precipice.
"And now, I leave you in th-*hic*-the trustworthy hands of Katie cuz I gotta take a pee."
Cindy's cold, dry palm tilted to let Brett roll down roughly into Mrs. Samson's clammy palm.

---

Then the door opened, and in came Melissa Johnson with a big grin on her face. One of Nancy's neighbors, they had known her since they moved to the neighborhood a few years ago. She was a little younger than Nancy, with a very youthful face, heavyset and enormously built from her boobs down to her butt.
"Hey girls!" she hollered on coming in the door. "Where's Nancy, she in or y'all just eating her food alone?"
Cindy and Katie greeted Nancy's friend, the former much drunker than the latter, while there was a click from a door upstairs.
Nancy came down the stairs rapidly. "Hiii Melissa! I gotta question for you."
"Shoot girl. That's why we meet up ain't it? You got nothin but questions for me even if I be answering them with my mouth full of tacos!"
"What would YOU do with a shrinkee?"
The woman laughed loudly and heartily. "Hahaha Nance, I can't afford no shrinkee. I ain't won the Powerball yet, lady!"
Nancy took a gulp of a newly replenished beverage and thrust one into Melissa's face. "I'm just saying... tell me what you'd do. I think all the ladies here have some definite ideas about what we'd do with a shrinkee, and we've been talking about it. Cindy wanted to get one and suck him off like a candy."
Nancy gave the dismissive stare back to Cindy, as if to say - shh, play along.
Melissa, in between bites of now-lukewarm taco, said... "Hmmm well if you're talking money no object, I'd want one that would go up the rear. Just wanna experience it, you know? But maan you gotta pay them a lot by the hour to be willing to go there as a shrinkee. I'd need to throw in hazard pay for the size of my ass, they could get missing in action hah!"
There was a flash of dangerous fire in Nancy's eyes as she hissed "Well, you are in luuuck Melissa dear. We actually have a shrinkee here with us, who is not hourly and has an open-ended contract."
"DAMN girl, you gotta be kidding me."
"Nope, I'm quiiiiiite serious, take a look at this."
Nancy held out her palm and Katie, looking very suspicious, but slid Brett obediently into Melissa's palm. The skin on her palm was warm and soft, and he marveled at the long fingernails she had.

"How'd you get him girl? They so expensive!"
"He's a temp employee for the school." Nancy cackled. "He agreed to some shrinking in his contract, and it means teachers are allowed to do pretty much what they want with him for a few days, so Katie came to share! But we only have him for a few more hours, so you gotta make your move girl!"
"He can't have signed up to do *anything* though girl. Ya gotta be kidding me."
"I am not kidding you, kid! He's already been in the mouths and up the rears of half a dozen faculty at Westwood. He is a bona fide butt shrinkee."
Nancy gestured at Katie, and Melissa looked at her to corroborate. Katie just widened her eyes, shook off the shock, and nodded dumbly. "Y-yes'm he is."
Melissa peered as closely as she could to the young man in her palm. Brett felt like he could almost reach out and touch her extra-long fake eyelashes. His whole world was dominated by her face peering into his. Her eyes were enormous and focused intently on him, but at his tiny size she couldn't recognize the boy was her neighbor's son at his size, even though she had seen Brett a hundred times. It was such a novelty to see a tiny, struggling, willful human. It made her excited.
Nancy kept egging her friend on. "So do it girl, could be your only chance! We already had our turns."
Katie and Cindy looked at Nancy like she was absolutely crazy. But she shot daggers out her eyes at them back. The message was clear: she wanted Brett to suffer this unexpected extra punishment, and she wanted it to be dispensed by someone who didn't know who he was.

---

Melissa expectantly excused herself, stood up and carried the shrinkee to the bathroom. This was as surreal for her as anyone else. She thought she could hear muted arguing after she left, but it was probably the other girls upset that they were having to share. I mean, a butt shrinkee? That was worth something. Some of them didn't make it, even with the toughening of the shrinking process. There was the risk of being crushed or suffocated inside a woman's ass, which was a big risk to take. And here she had a fine, young man who looked to be early 20s volunteering to give himself to these mature ladies in discreet ways. Why they did it, she didn't know, but it was exciting to consider.

Closing the door behind her, she was humming to herself as she set him down on the sink. Brett looked up to see her having removed her blouse, and a truly massive lacy bra supporting some of the largest mammaries he'd ever seen, and whenever she turned in either direction he could see a massive ass behind her.
In a husky, commanding voice she addressed him. "Now I know you can't communicate with me, and I donno how you got roped into this, but I hope you are ready my man. If you're not I feel sorry for you. You are going in this ass. I'm pushin you in as far as you'll go, little man. I want you to help me come on my terms, you hear?"

"I let you see the titties before you go in. Seems only fair, huh my guy?"
With that, she playfully removed the bra and released the two heretofore stymied breasts, which fell down further than Brett would have imagined they could. He could do nothing but gape in awe. He wasn't allowed to see much during his fling with Loren, although she did let him feel up her boobs, so it occurred to him that this woman, his neighbor, an obese woman with an ass so big that it made him turn his head quite often, a 40-year-old African-American postal worker who barely ever noticed him and certainly didn't lust for him, was the first woman whose boobs he fully saw in person in any sexual context. They sagged halfway down her chunky belly and had deep black areolas large as plates with protruding, eager nipples. At his shrunken size, each breast was the size of the rotunda of the US Capitol building. He could probably be swallowed by those boobs, if that was her plan. But she was only showing them as they were incidentally part of her fun. Melissa didn't give him long to look.

In a very business-like manner, she pulled down her skirt and panties, twirling around to reveal a massive pair of buttocks with so many fold and wrinkles and deposits of cellulite he had no idea how he'd ever escape, or how she'd even register him in there.
Her two hands then spread the cheeks wide and he found himself looking at a huge, very dark, glistening asshole. She puckered and released it as if to show it was ready for his entry.

Then one of her hands took up the buttocks, and the other reached over and grabbed him by the shoulders and torso with what little fingertip she could fit together around her long nails, and started taking him towards the butthole. He saw light recede in two massive arcs as the cheeks came to block out sun on both sides, with only a glimmer from the top. With a little smack, her ass closed up. Darkness for Brett.
The asscrack was stale and musky with her odor. He felt the film of her sweat and ass juice clinging to him, creeping around him. He could smell and taste nothing but her ass, it was the whole world around him.

Then the gluteal muscles got to work. He felt himself kneaded by them, as a gentle moan escaped. The woman sat down on the toilet seat, which had a fuzzy pink cover, and started fingering her hairy clit while tweaking her enormous nipples. The muscles worked him closer and closer to her black hole, fastidiously and continuously, as she pleasured herself with this man inside her bottom.
Unexpectedly for Brett, a finger came and placed itself on his skull. She pressed him gently but firmly towards the asshole. Brett panicked as he realized she was actually going to insert him. All the way.
His legs, then his waist, then his chest were consumed. She kept pressing. Brett wanted to scream but he was desperately trying to avoid the flavor of unwashed anus that Melissa was subjecting him to. Writhing with all his might, it seemed that she was enjoying his movements.
Then came the final press. Melissa ruthlessly pushed him completely in, as he saw the outside world vanish and total darkness envelope him. He held his breath as there was essentially no air inside.

The giant woman whose ass contained him was actually fumbling with the remote control, trying to unshrink him slightly. Her inexperience was now coming at the expense of Brett's oxygen, and she was not unaware that if she did not hurry he would meet his untimely end. As he remained trapped, and could hear and feel nothing, panic set in. Brett flailed all his arms and legs, and as he continued to hold his breath, he started to see stars. Finally, he felt himself get weak and dizzy, and his motions weakened. He wondered if it was his fate to die in this woman's ass, oblivious as she was to the fact that it was her own neighbor's boy. Would she feel guilt for this? Would she ever know? Did mom want him to die? Why did she do this to him?

But when Brett felt he might just expire for lack of oxygen, Melissa finally resized him. The motion was a bit jerky, but she made him bigger and this caused him to extend in all dimensions. His legs extended further up her anus, while his head pierced slightly outside the pucker of her ass, surrounding his face on all sides. It was disgusting, as the slimy texture of the asshole was totally seeping all around him, but he could now finally breathe. Melissa breathed an audible sigh of relief above. She hadn't been wanting to kill him, just use him as a buttplug. And now he was perfectly positioned.

Melissa was a quicky study with the remote and found creative use for multitude of options. She increased his size a bit more, and then settled into gradually changing his size up and down in a programmed pattern, creating a pulsating presence in her ass. Whenever she shrank him too far, he had to hold his breath again, but at least he could survive the pace she was setting. He could certainly feel the quivering of her movement as she frantically fingered herself, and could hear the juicy sound of a wet pussy being penetrated. As it got louder and faster, when he felt like he'd been through the wringer a thousand times, when he was starting to beg for deliverance from the crushing pressure of Melissa's sphinter, she finally finished.

After catching her breath, the woman pulled him out of her butthole and then slammed her cheeks shut around him as though she decided against giving him up yet. She ran a bit of water, did a bit of cleanup, and then emerged outside triumphant and greatly pleased.


---

Nancy was beaming, like the cat that caught the canary as Melissa returned. It was so deviously happy that it immediately made Melissa nervous as she came back out to join the other ladies.
Cindy had not stopped drinking. "You have fun in there, g-girl?"
"Hoooooo yeah. Can't believe this one. You girls are lucky to get random contractors to work with you. We don't do no shrinking in my workplace, that's for sure."
"He did a good job for you?"
"Yaaaas. In fact, I've stil got him in my ass. He just felt so good in there."
Cindy and Katie looked at Nancy, more terrified than ever. What was the point of this subversion?
Nancy finally spoke up. "Well, he might be around more often if that's what you want."
"Hahaha girl, no way. He can't have enjoyed what I put him through. I gave him a peek at least."

Katie finally cleared her throat and said calmly, in her Southern drawl, "Melissa, that shrinkee was Brett, Nancy's son."
Melissa's face turned into that of shock in an instant. She shoved the grinning woman next to her enough to nearly topple her over. "NANCY! What the hell, girl? Why'd you shrink your own son and give him to me as a shrinkee to play with? Damn girl, I did everything with him! He's never going to be the same again!"
Nancy was laughing uproariously. She could hardly get any words out.
Cindy said timidly "Nancy was... upset that Brett had chosen to shrink himself. I guess she thought this was a funny joke.. and it kinda was, but it was also fuuuucked up, Nancy!""
Nancy butted in uncvilly. "You didn't hurt him none, shrinkees are tough. And I don't think it's fucked up, he was taught better than to do this. And if I have to be embarrassed about his whoring himself out to everyone who wants a shrinkee secretly, at least I can make him occasionally do stuff he doesn't want to do. And make people think about what exactly makes them happy, while we're at it."

Melissa was so angry she was unable to speak. Rising to her feet, she swung her body around with incredible rapidity and ran back to the bathroom.


WHOOOOSH. With a quick resizing, Brett all of a sudden was face to face with Melissa at full size. Face to face in the tiny bathroom, he could see she was mortified. She was trying to clean him up in his leotard with a washcloth, and was doing it frantically. He was just as taken aback as her, and it was strange how his torrent of fury died down so rapidly and he found himself sympathizing with the shrinker. Deja vu.
"Brett, believe me, if I had known it was you, I would never... I'm sorry."
"Melissa, you need to be less rough with shrinkees. I could barely breathe in there."
"God I know child. Please forgive me, Lord I wish I hadn't done it."
Brett's wrist communicator buzzed. He ignored it.
"Is it because you know me personally as a neighbor? You were okay with putting what looked like a different shrunken teenager into your butt."
"Yes!- I mean, not completely.... child, you're not old enough for this. I thought you were an adult when I did it. You're just a kid!"
Brett cleared his throat. "I'm old enough to do anything I want. Old enough to decide what I want to do with my body, anyway."
She looked at him quizzically. Nothing he could say would possibly embarrass her more, so Brett was starting to feel reckless. She really did have such a fine ass if he just were allowed to breathe! And the image of that rack burned into his brain was still mesmerizing him.
With heart pounding, and a devil-may-care attitude, he said "But I kinda liked it. Can we do it again sometime?"
"Jesus Christ, Brett. So they WERE telling the truth. You put them up to this, didn't you? You had your mom and your aunt and your teacher get together and make up a story so you'd get to go in my ass?"
Brett shook his head vigorously. "No! That's not it-"
She raised her hand and appeared as though she were about to slap him.
"You tell me the truth or I'm gonna smack you, child. Was this your idea?"
"No. I swear!"
"Well, whose idea was it?!" Melissa hissed.
"Mom- I mean Nancy! She's been mad at me ever since I agreed to shrink for school! It was for school originally! She probably just wanted to punish me more. She doesn't realize or doesn't accept that I like being shrunk sometimes by some people. And I'm sorry you're embarrassed, but it's OK.
The two stood there in silence. She looked at him and spoke in a domineering, husky whisper.
"I am leaving here now. Your mama is not right. What she did wasn't right. I am not comin' by your house anymore. And you, child, need to calm down. I don't want you to talk about this little encounter of ours, OK? And one more thing - you can come by my place if your mama is abusing you, but you don't mention one word to me 'bout me shrinkin you again till you 18 and you not livin' under her roof anymore and you thought about what it really means."


As he heard Melissa storm out of the house, he checked his wrist and realized it had been Katie releasing him from his torment.
"Hi Brett. It's a little awkward here since that outburst. Cindy had too much to drink and left. I'm gonna head out and let you off the hook for the rest of your shrinking time today. Have a blessed weekend!"

Brett trudged from the bathroom to his bedroom, locked the door, and fell into bed. Thank God today's work was over. Only two more teachers to go and then if he ever did shrinking ever again, it would be under his terms.

TAP TAP TAP. TAP TAP TAP TAP. The knock pattern on Brett's door was insistent.
He finally roused from his slumber, wiped off a rivulet of drool from his chin, and called out "What??"
"Brett, please open the door. I want to talk to you." It was his mom.
"What time is it." he asked groggily.
"It's dinnertime and I made you your favorite. Now open the door and let's talk."
He looked out the window. The sun had fallen and it was pitch black. He had just knocked out for six hours at least.
Lazily, the boy got to his feet and unlocked the bedroom door.

Gazing penitently, his mom looked at him straight in the eye and spoke in a hushed tone. "So Brett, I want to say I'm sorry about the little, eh, joke that I pulled earlier. Y'know, it was an idea I had because I was drinking, and I wanted to teach both you and my friends a lesson-"
Brett exhaled rapidly, indicating his disaproval with the apology.
"-and, well, I was very aggravated how gleefully they wanted to dominate a shrinkee. And you have to admit you learned something. You didn't expect to see this side from Cindy, did you?"
Brett shook his head. She could get a little bit kooky, but he indeed hadn't expected this, and he was greatly gratified that she had pulled back before doing something both of them would regret.
"Well, she told me to tell you she was very sorry for trying to ask you to do those things. And I feel really certain that you won't ever see that side of her again."
"I accept it, mom, but you had Melissa do it when she didn't know who I was. And that part was your fault."
"Yes, Brett, and I'm sorry. I wanted to punish you for what you were doing, and I wanted to show her that her feelings about shrinkees were wrong. That they could be sons, husbands, brothers, neighbors."
"Well, it was a dumb idea. She told me she definitely wouldn't have done that if she knew who I was. You pretty much set her up."
"I know. I get it. I was drinking too much. I'm sorry. Seriously, I get that it was wrong. But please try to understand. I'm trying to convey to you how much it has upset me to see you doing this with teachers who DO know you, but don't have to live around you or with you. They are acting inappropriately and taking advantage of you. My friend Katie showed an unhealthy amount of-and there's no other word for it-LUST for you, even if she tried not to express it in my presence. You're not only not resisting it, you seem to be cultivating it. And all of that has been hard for me to bear, it makes me SO angry."
Brett shrugged blandly. "Yeah, some of my teachers have been rough. But some of them haven't. Some of them have been alright. It changes nothing. I still have a job to do. Lee-Reilly still wants me to get the certifications done."
"Brett, you're not even doing what you're setting out to do. These certifications are a sham. You aren't helping people learn things that are pertinent to real disciplinary techniques. You're just showing up, letting them do whatever they want, and then rubber-stamping that they did the training with you. I bet you aren't even going through half of the paperwork with them, or the real training scenarios, before you sign off on these.
Brett paused and considered the accusation. Except for Ms. Olivier, who had fastidiously wanted to learn, and Ms. Issakinen, who already had experience with shrinkees from prior drills, he hadn't done much of the actual documented training steps with the teachers. But was that really his fault? He was doing as he was told. He was not running the show. If they didn't really want to learn, if they reckoned that this was just a game and they'd never shrink a student in the classroom anyway, it was not his problem.
Brett dug in. "So what if I'm not? It's their own signatures on the applications too."
Nancy still kept trying to win him over. "Honey, come on. They are having this forced down their throats. They have been told they have to get trained, and we held out for a while, but now that you volunteered for the principal, there was no practical reason we could come up with for delaying. Every one of the teachers who wasn't yet certified refused to do it for various reasons. Some of them just claimed to be too busy to get it done so far. Some just expressed an aversion to adding shrinking to our school's practices. That includes me. Some of them, maybe Katie, also maybe felt they were afraid that they'd be tempted by the opportunity to use a shrinkee unfairly. But it all boils down to one thing: there were enough of us that didn't want to do it, that we were holding Lee-Reilly in check and preventing her from dragging us in that direction. You have personally upset this balance and it's going to be bad, Brett. Westwood could become the first school in the state to do shrinking as an acceptable disciplinary format. There's bad kids, yeah, but we can figure them out without that heavy-handed tool."
Brett just shook his head. "You've told me this all before. I get it. But it's gonna happen regardless. If not me, they'd find someone else. And if you saw my contract, you'd have realized how much money this is worth to me. And other benefits too - with Lee-Reilly working for me and not against me, my GPA is going to sail right through senior year."
One last shot. Nancy pleaded with him to just walk away. "Hon, it's not got to be about the money. We can get the money. You're going to go to college. We talked about it since you were 14, we discussed the sacrifices, we talked about where you could get part-time work. Don is getting better, he is not going to hinder you and you might even find his life experiences helpful. Even your father might come through with that college fund he talked vaguely about. And are you worried about punishment from Lee-Reilly after this? She can't enforce that contract. She wants to sue, I'll go get Paul-"
Brett rolled his eyes with exasperation as she mentioned her ex-boyfriend Paul, a lawyer whom they hadn't seen in a year or more. They hadn't departed on particularly acrimonious terms, but given how much of a crass cheapskate he was, she would need to be doing him some particularly enthralling favors to get free legal help, and he didn't even want to think about it.
"-and we'll have a slam dunk in court. And grades? Brett, half the teachers at the school think that the shrinking is impractical and are largely opposed, and 3/4 of the staff think that Lee-Reilly is a horse's ass and would have nothing but love for you if you defied her. You wouldn't get free A's, but you'd have a perfectly fair chance and plenty of leeway. She can't punish teachers for grading you fairly, and she only has crude, cumbersome means of punishing teachers unless they grade you well. Put all that together, and you don't really get much out of it-"
Brett lost his patience. "No mom. No. You just don't get it. I could do all those things and suffer more but why? Why make it so much harder? We've already had it tough here for years! I want things to get easier for me! I want to get ahead!"
"Why? Because you're taking the shortcut and cheating yourself out of a year of education. Because you might get into a better school but it will be because of fake grades and you will crash and burn. Because you're doing it at the expense of your pride. Don't you have any self-respect? You are sullying your name in this community, and by extension mine. People are talking about you. The gossipers are calling you a foot slut, and insinuating that you were abused as a child. People like me who know you are running out of ammunition to defend you because you just keep doing it. If you quit now, we might be able to undo the damage, but it's literally the last chance. This is more than just you, Brett. We're talking about changing the face of American education here."
Her boy was nonchalant. "I'm not taking it. I don't want that last chance. Stop judging me for engaging in a simple business transaction. I don't care about your school politics and weird ideas about honor."
Nancy was starting to grind her teeth in annoyance. "So you're going to follow through with this? You're going to accept these ill-gotten gains? You're going to help Lee-Reilly make unaccountable shrinking practices a reality in education across the nation?"
Brett smiled smugly. "Yes to all the above. Now I'm hungry. Thanks for dinner."
His mom placed her hand on his arm as he tried to get around her in the doorway.
"That wast your last warning. I have tried to be reasonable. After you are done with Mrs. Padmanabhan, you have to get through me. If you still need to be taught a lesson at that point, I'll oblige."
Brett pulled away angrily. "Stop threatening me. You already tried to teach me a lesson today. It didn't work. I still think shrinking can be good under the right circumstances. But thanks to you, now we have a really fucking awkward relationship with our neighbor. So get over yourself. I am almost a grown man, and I am doing what I want to do and what I agreed in writing to do, and you can't do anything about it."
Nancy clicked her tongue and seethed as her son walked by.

---

As the last week of school passed, with Brett studying mostly for his finals, Wednesday began with a communication technique Brett had experienced before: an email from the teacher who'd be shrinking him today.

    Subject:our training today
    From: Alka Padmanabhan (alka.padmanabhan@wwhs.edu)
    To: brett (brettttank@gmail.com)

    Brett, I'm sorry I'm having to take you after school but I was told that we had no choice but to do it today, and I already have other errands to run. You'll be with me until the evening and then Nancy will pick you up or I can drive you home.
    Come by my classroom after third period, before the pep rally.
   
    Sincerely
    Mrs. P
    
He had found it strange that she was asking him to come at that time. She wouldn't have time to do anything with him in the ten minutes between third period and the pep rally. The unusual nature of this request was replayed in his mind as he approached her classroom door that afternoon, seeing it surprisingly empty.
"Hello Brett." He heard Mrs. Padmanabhan say from behind his shoulder. She was untying one of her sneakers on a chair in the corner, carrying a small bag which evidently had a change of clothes in it, as she was not dressed for teaching class. She had on an athletic T-shirt and pair of running shorts, exposing her thin, darkly tanned legs. The slight woman, perhaps five feet tall if that, was typically dressed in a power-color pantsuit.
"Hi, Mrs. P." He saw her expressionless face greet him with no smile. She was typically a very quiet and serious person, and with her droning lectures in a thick Indian accent, had typically failed to capture his attention during class.
"Good to see you again. Well actually you are now my coworker, it seems, Brett. So you should call me Alka, not Mrs. P anymore. Principal Lee-Reilly has told me that you are paid for your contracting work in this shrinking thing. Well, I do not think I will typically shrink students, so I thought it wasn't really worth it, but she is making me do it." The woman didn't sound happy.
Brett tried to make levity of it. "Haha I wouldn't quite say coworker. I'm just helping out. But I will call you Alka if you want."
"Are you ready to begin now with training Brett?"
"Well yes, but, isn't it time for the pep rally?"
Alka actually laughed. He had so rarely heard her laugh before in class. "Yes silly, why do you think I'm dressed this way? I am in the staff relay, we'll be racing the students. Just for fun. But they better watch out, I am a keen marathon runner."
"So... how are we going to get started now?"
Alka stared slightly at him. "Sorry if I'm not clear with you. Like many previous teachers you will be doing your containment portion of the training in my shoe. I was told by Lee-Reilly that we should start it during the rally. You have been under other teachers' feet before, right?"
"Well, yes, but-"
"So, why are you acting nervous?" Alka asked with sincere confusion, as she peeled off her socks and flexed her toes on the floor.
"You'll be running with me in your shoe? That is going to be intense, I haven't had that happen before." This wasn't quite the case - but it had only taken place with Loren, whom he knew hadn't written any of this in the report. There was a possiblity that Lee-Reilly was making up stories again, but why would she want to make it harder for him in the final stretch? After this, it was just his mom, and then he'd be home free.
Yet despite his protestation, the humorless Mrs. Padmanabhan continued with indifference. "Hmm that is not what I've heard from Lee-Reilly. Well, even if so, you don't need to worry. You are going to be tough enough. I'll make you 1 inch size. I know that it will get sweaty in there, but you seem to be okay with that. And actually I have heard you prefer it that way, so you will be in luck today. I thought it was weird but actually Wendy told me you licked her feet. I won't ask you to do that but I guess you can if you want. This is all weird for me too. I know how the shrink control works and I know you can talk to me with your wrist control. So let's get started. I already read the training document."

WHOOOOOOOoooooooooshhh. The instructor had been truthful when she had said she'd read up - the shrinking gradient she used was very gentle and followed the recommended firm press followed by slowly letting off the button when nearly at the desired size, then auto-adjusting to the final size.

Loren's app still worked becuase his wrist buzzed.

AUTOMATED MESSAGE - This is the ShrinkProtect app. It has been detected that you were shrunk. If you have authorized this, press Y and your 6-digit PIN. If you have not, press N. If no message is received within 10 minutes, escalation measures will be taken.
    
    Y*****
    
    Thank you for confirming that you authorized this shrinking.

Alka was walking toward him at this point. He heard the roar of his massive clothes overhead rustling as she threw them off the pile. Then she found him standing there. Across her face spread a very pleased smile through which her somewhat crooked teeth were peeping. She appeared to find it funny that he was so small and wearing a silly leotard. The reaction she was having was one of amused astonishment. It was so bizarrely uncharacteristic of her typically staid persona, and coupled with the gym clothes she was wearing when she normally dressed so conservatively, he felt like he barely knew her.
"Ha ha, okay so Brett, I'm going to put you in my sock now okay?
She held his body over a bright yellow no-show sock, of a relatively small size, and then with a little hesitation, released him. Falling backwards on his back across the slightly damp cotton, he slid downwards what seemed like an incredible distance into the toe section, scraping through bits of dirt and fluff. He landed face first in the flexible cotton, bouncing back slightly. The thin socks let through a good deal of light and he could clearly see the number 6 in the sole. So she had size 6 feet, Brett thought. Pretty small, he thought.
But at his height, a very small woman's foot was still enormous. He was struck by the sight of the slender, slightly wrinkled sole wriggling its way into place in the sock as the toes groped their way to the bottom until they had taken hold of Brett and had made their intention clear to knead him and toss him around.
The setting became tighter as she shoved her socked foot roughly into the shoe and quickly laced it up tightly. He was half underneath, half between her toes, and she kept windmilling them around so as to toss him between her toes. The most worrying part for Brett was that her shoes were much looser than Loren's had been, so he could not be tucked into place, but would have to actively avoid being crushed too hard.
"Hmm!" Alka said thoughtfully. "You are like a little fidget toy, Brett. Well, I hope you are okay with what we're going to do. Sorry in advance if I am rough."


Inside the shoe, as Mrs. Padmanabhan shuffled her feet across the halls, Brett shivered from the coldness of her sole. It was like she had been sitting with her feet immediately in front of an AC duct. Her toes cradled him, the wrinkly flesh massaging and squeezing him on all sides, as though attempting to extract warmth from him. But he could feel a change. The air temperature changed as she walked into the auditorium. The pattering of her feet became drowned out by the sound of the high school band playing the national anthem. The anthem faded out to rapturous applause, and was followed by weak voices of staff over a tired old intercome system that were impossible to distinguish over the chanting of raucous kids. Westwood school spirit was stronger and louder than ever. The air conditioning in the old auditorium was weak and this worked to quickly alleviate Brett's feeling of coldness. He started to feel Alka's foot grow warmer and start to moisten.
But he couldn't focus too much on temperature, as Alka kept him off balance. She tapped her foot relentlessly while sitting in one of the bleachers, chattering at a medium level with some of the other teachers. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but he knew what was happening in the background. Contests of strength and agility were happening between classes, with isolated parts of the room erupting with groans and cheers each time. There would finally be challenges which were designed to set up "fair" fights between staff and students. That would be where he came in.

Alka finally got to her feet and he felt rapid footfalls as she went down to the running track, now littered with humorous obstacles for the audience's amusement. He heard the announcer's muffled speaking and felt Alka's short toes grasp him and give him a quick squeeze, as if for luck.
"Brett time to race now. I've got a one on one and then a relay."
The teacher's foot pummeled Brett mercilessly as she started running. Using a method he'd learned under Loren's foot, he struggled for purchase out of the pressure zone under her fast-moving sole and managed to hold onto her toes. But he kept getting jostled with all the empty space, and his grip was slipping as she began to ramp up the perspiration. The air was hot and heavy with her sweat and the texture was getting sticky and viscous as it mingled with sock lint and dirt in the shoe. He faceplanted into the gap between her big and second toe seemingly on every other stride, taking in the salty detritus as though he were diving into a vat of it.
There were mostly groans from the crowd, as it seemed that Alka had beaten her challenger, who was doubtless one of the faster boys at the school who didn't realize that the short Indian woman was a ringer. To Brett, the first race seemed to be over relatively quickly, but afterward the pulsating power of the foot muscles still seemed to emanate around him. In the humid darkness, he laid against the top of her foot to catch his breath, feeling her sweat coat him, while a pumping vein indicated her blood was still moving rapidly through her system, ready for the next exertion.
He understood this this was just the respite. She would probably be the last leg of the staff team in the relay, as she was likely their fastest runner, so he had a few minutes to get ready for the next onslaught. Then it came. The world suddenly jerked around as though he were in a sweat-filled washing machine. He wrapped his arms around her two smallest toes and tried to hold on to the top this time, not wanting to get punished underneath. Though he had figured out a safer position, it still did not stop him slamming into the top of her foot on the downard cycle of every step, bashing his chest and face against fresh beads of hot, foul sweat. He held on until the end. Alka had finished in a narrow victory for the teaching staff. She shifted Brett's body around by fanning out and flexing her toes, then eagerly embraced him as a fidget toy in their sticky clutches. Brett marinated sullenly in her sour, spicy sweat.


After what seemed like hours to Brett, the pep rally, with all its noise and distant merriment, finally drew to a close with Brett still trapped in Alka's shoe. He had tried to reach out to her on the wrist communicator in vain. Since she had sat down he'd sent her multiple messages with no response.
"Congrats Alka, sounds like you won the race! Can't be due to your foot helper, no that can't be... XD"
"Alka what time is it?"
"Hey Alka it's still super hot in here. Is the auditorium AC busted or something?"
"Mrs. P, message me back when you check your phone or shrink control."

Finally as she got to her feet and departed the auditorium for her car, she caught up with his message.
"Sorry Brett actually I don't check my phone very much. Thanks. I was a very good runner in college and I'm happy I can still do it. Yes, the AC is barely working in the auditorium, so we were all pretty hot too. Sorry but you'll have to stay in my shoe for now, I need to go home now and I'll finish with you later okay?"

Brett was chagrined. He felt the woman's sticky foot clinging to him as she walked, with the stale sweat still hanging in the air and burning his lungs. She seemed totally unconcerned with his welfare, despite the benign language she was using. Why was she taking him with her home? What was the point of all this? If she didn't enjoy it, and didn't want to actually do training or have fun with him, why was she doing this?

He thought about all these things as she got behind the wheel of her car and drove herself home. With th boy buried in her left shoe, Alka rested her foot on the dead pedal, which at least gave Brett the stability to hold himself up and rest.

---

After swinging open the front door, Brett heard Alka speaking to an adult male in Hindi. He presumed it was her husband. The dialog seemed strained and acrimonious. In the distance he heard one cheerful toddler and one crying one, both speaking mainly juvenile English with a smattering of Hindi.

He had been ignored during the car ride home, and now remained trapped in her shoe. She had driven home still dressed in her running gear and did not change when she got home, as it seemed she had two young kids to take care of, and an annoyed husband. The world continued to spin around as she juggled a variety of domestic tasks while verbally sparring with her husband who finally seemed to be getting into a better mood. Brett finally decided to venture to text her.
"Alka, when will you let me out? I must have been in your shoe for 2 hours now. Please let me get some fresh air."
There was a reaction from her husband. Evidently Alka was not in contact with her phone, and he reached it before her. More yelling that he didn't understand.
But Alka must have conveyed that the situation concerned an English speaker, as the man's deep voice switched to English. "Who is Brett? Why does he need to be let out? Where is he?"
"He's in my shoe Vijay! I was trying to tell you about the shrinking. He's a student volunteer."
"You gotta be kidding me Alka. Why would he volunteer? You didn't tell me you were going to hang out with one of your boy students after school."
"You're crazy!" Alka started. The conversation reverted back to Hindi, perhaps in the hopes that their little ones wouldn't understand the words.

Brett had only to wait and see how it would blow over. The minutes dragged by and they seemed to both calm down.
Finally in came a message on his wrist. "Brett I'm sorry. I had to come right home after the pep rally since my kids got out of day care and my husband is lazy and suspicious. He seems to think that I acquired you for shall we say selfish purposes while he watched the kids."
Brett had to chuckle. Was it unselfish of her to keep him trapped there? Did she think he wanted this? He texted back with sarcasm. "Oh that's crazy, it couldn't be further from a selfish thing. I mean, I bet you hate having me in here."
"You are right I didn't really like it Brett. However I thought you wanted it. Are you unhappy in there? Other teachers have told me you like feet, especially stinky feet, and they thought you'd be really happy with doing this with me. Lee-Reilly confirmed that. I didn't see how you could enjoy this, but I went along with what I was told.
No way, was she really that naive?
He dodged answering either way. "I don't really want to address all of that Alka. But can you let me out and let me eat something?"
"I am making dinner for my family, but your mom is on the way. While you are there in my shoe, you can eat my toe jam if you want. I definitely feel some after the racing today. I hope it meets your expectations."
Speechlessly, Brett realized she was serious, or at least her facade was impenetrable when surrounded by her husband and kids. The story she was sticking with was that this was entirely his fantasy, and he was simply being coy about it, even though for Brett it was brushing up against madness to considering ingesting the craggy mass of gummy, rubbery, foul-smelling grime between her toes and under her soles, comprised of globs of congealed sweat and skin cells and fluff. And through it all, he just couldn't read her tone and divine any trace of self-satisfaction or playfulness. She thought this was some kind of duty and had only the most cursory understanding of what his feelings might be.
"That's okay, I really couldn't Alka."
"Are you sure? Are you just you being shy? Really there is no need." came the incredulous response.
"I'm sorry that you seem to have the wrong impression of me, Alka. Totally wrong." Brett said, trying to walk all this back to reality.
The response came about a minute later, and was total capitulation. "OK Brett. If you say so. You don't have to do anything. Your mom will be here in fifteen minutes so let's get you resized and on your way, okay?"

Brett exhaled. He felt the now-famiiar sting of frustration that others were talking about him as though he were a full-time shrinkee desperate for power to be exerted over him by everyone. This was what his mom had warned him about, but at least this time it hadn't gone too far.

But relief gradually surged over him. Alka was nearly the last teacher! Brett smiled absent-mindedly as the math teacher pulled him out of her shoe and prepared him for unshrinking. Apart from his mom, Brett was at the end of the certification contract. If he could somehow bargain with Nancy to sign that she had the training, somehow persuade her to just let him off the hook, he'd be home free. He'd have to be more conciliatory and offer some kind of quid pro quo at home, but he was sure it could be done.

"Wake up, Brett." Nancy demanded gruffly.

Brett bolted awake. It was still dark outside. What time was it? His wall clock showed it was 6:42. After rain last night, the sky was partly cloudy and the sun had barely emerged. It was destined to be a slightly drizzly, but very humid day. The sun would emerge gradually.

But gradual was not to be the form for Brett's Saturday morning. After finishing up with three finals this week, Brett was basically home free. Just a presentation in his last English class next Monday. There were hazy memories of how he had gone out very late and partied with some seniors at one of their houses where there had been liquor for a couple hours before they were shooed away. Some awkward exchange. He had seen some girls there, and had been bold enough to talk to Zoe, a short-haired blond girl with a piercing giggle. But he hadn't remembered it going anywhere.

"Brett. Stop malingering. It's time for my day with you shrunk. I've made my peace with your little side job and all the damage that it's caused. But we're doing it as promised."
The boy stood groggily and wiped his eyes to more clearly see her. She was wearing bright green athletic shorts and a thin white V-neck tee. He hair was rumpled and her face had no makeup. Though she had a few wrinkles and her skin was looser than it had been 20 years ago, Brett could see fierce determination in her fiery green eyes.
"I made you breakfast. You'll be eating leftovers. Now get undressed. I don't care if you're wearing the leotard. You're shrinking on the count of 15."
Brett suddenly scuffled. There was such visceral irritation in her voice that he knew she was serious. And he had no idea what was planned. So he dropped his pants and underwear with reckless haste.
"14. 13. 12-"
Brett scrambled to find the leotard naked, his mom standing imperturbily in the center of the room as he tore around like a wild animal trying to find hidden prey.
"9. 8. 7. Better hurry, brett. 6, 5-"
He finally spied the old leotard under a pile of clothes. He hadn't washed it yet since last time. There was still the hope in his mind that his mom would let him off easy. But as he jerked the tight garment up his body, fitting his thighs snugly, that hope was replaced with panic.
"4, 3, 2, 1 - blast off!"
Just as he got his shoulders through the leotard, he was shrunk down with intense rapidity.
WHOOOOSH! The pitch was higher than before. It was as though she had learned how to disable all the gradient controls and shrink him as fast as possible.

She picked him up, with just the faint smell of soap on her hands. She held him up to her face and made a strange visage as her lips shuffled around thoughtfully. Her eyes moved about as she continued to move her lips and jaw about. He realized that she was licking something in her mouth.
"Your breakfast is currently wedged in one of my molars. I can feel a few molecules of chewed up bacon in there, that should be plenty for you. And if you get thirsty, hope you like the taste of spit. You've already had it from most of my coworkers, why not your mom too?"
Seeing him flailing and start to protest in an infinitesimal volume, her lips widened into a grin as she chuckled slightly.
"Oh, and we're going to go on a run together. I've got my own route, about 3mi, before I head to practice with the girls today. You've got a big day ahead."

He saw her open her eyes wide and stare at him as a big, foul-smelling tongue came between the parted lips and flatten itself as if to accept him as an offering. A human sacrifice to be devoured by his mother's mouth ripe with morning breath and barely tinted by a few strips of bacon and a few sips of coffee. As she dropped him onto the tongue, the fall from above was short and his landing abrupt. On the rough tongue surface, he landed and was instantly stuck to the sticky tongue as if by fly paper. It was too difficult to peel himself off to crawl and he was simply stuck until she salivated more. Brett gasped and took in the pungent odor of the mouth as Nancy pulled her tongue inside. Light dwindled as she slowly closed the lips and brought him into his tongue prison.

Nancy rolled over her tongue and tried to perch him gesturingly right at the back of her molars, even though it put him terrifyingly close to her throat. She felt some wriggling and resistance, but he wouldn't have the energy to keep it up for long. All of his efforts were for nought, and may have actually stimulated the production of sliva in her mouth. She grimly vowed to take no heed of his motions and just subject to him to this, as he must somehow like it.
As Brett was tossed around, he was finally pressed against the edge of the molar and used his wrist device to illuminate the tooth. It indeed had crumbs of bacon tucked into the gaps.
Then came a quick message on his wrist device.
"Brett, I don't feel you freeing that bacon. If you don't eat it, fine, but your job is to do some cleaning up in my mouth. So get to work. I don't need to tell you that I can make things worse for you, do I?"
Held in place, Brett quickly tapped out a response. "No mom. But this is so disgusting."
She didn't reply, and strode out the door to start her run, slamming it behind her.

    AUTOMATED MESSAGE - This is the ShrinkProtect app. It has been detected that you were shrunk. If you have authorized this, press Y and your 6-digit PIN. If you have not, press N. If no message is received within 10 minutes, escalation measures will be taken.
    
    Y*****
    
    Thank you for confirming that you authorized this shrinking.
    
He instinctively entered his info into the app, as his skin was sloshed with his mom's thickening saliva and he was bounced around in one corner of her mouth. To his surprise, it seemed like Ms. Issakinen was still paying attention to his input, as she replid with a personalized message.
"Hey Brett, it's Loren. Who's got you today"
"my mom. Not super happy about it but it's her turn technically."
"Hang in there. It's your last day, right?"
"yes" Brett said, struggling to keep the screen in vision.
"That's great. Well, I'll contact you tomorrow, OK? I had a question that I wanted to ask but I wanted to ask in person."
Brett's spirits were momentarily buoyed as he read those words. What did Loren want to say to him? It must be important if she wanted to say it in person.
His spirits sunk down just as rapidly as Nancy used her tongue to shove him into the corner of her cheek. There was not much free moisture in the mouth and every surface was becoming sticky. He realized he was going to be stuck in this little pocket of her mouth as she ran, with nothing to breathe but her sour workout breath. Every so often the tongue came and slaked across him, depositing more sticky, mucusy slobber on his person. By the time the run was wrapping up, he felt like he was swimming in rubber cement.

He did reach over, pick out and eat the bacon, as his stomach was starving and he desperately wanted to avoid filling it with gallons of his own mom's saliva. It was moist with her mastication, but still tasted of bacon at least. Hoo boy, what a day already, he was thinking to himself.

----

The run had ended, the pace had changed, and he was now in the car with Nancy going to the school. But he still remained in her mouth. Slowly the stickiness subsided and her fresh, wet saliva began to replace it.

Why had she not let him free yet? The run was long over! What was she doing now? He heard a door close. It sounded like a bathroom door. And then he was unceremoniously spat out into the sink into a napkin.
"Okay Brett. Time to wash off. You're not done for the day, but I will let you bathe and drink from the tap."
He looked at his surroundings and saw the massive walls of the porcelain sink 10 feet tall around him, with his mother towering over them.
The lukewarm water came out, greatly refreshing Brett. He stood underneath the torrent and quenched his thirst greedily underneath the stream of clean water, imagining he was under a divine waterfall.

"Hi Nancy~~!" Mrs. Gu hollered as she popped into the ladies room. She looked down at Nancy fidgeting with something in the sink. "Er... what are you doing there?"
Nancy shrugged and replied casually with a friendly smile. "Hi Wendy. I've just got Brett here, he is getting a bath after having a little mouth journey. I finally tried it myself."
"Ohhhh Brett! He is still a shrinkee! Why is he still doing it?"
"I donno Wendy. I thought he'd have learned better by now. What are you doing in the office on a Saturday morning?"
"Hehe I forgot some supplies I need for home, Nancy. I was only going to quickly go in. How are you doing today? Why are you in?"
"Oh I'm just doing some extra practice with my girls today. And then there's the softball game in the afternoon."
Wendy looked excited. "Ohh your athletics girls! That's great. By the way, did I tell you my sister Yuan was in town?"
Nancy looked puzzled. "Wait, I thought she was back in China?"
"No, she was there for a few months but now back. She does consulting and advertising in the city sometimes. Sometimes they need a face for certain ethnic products, right? And she is a face for Chinese sports."
Nancy nodded. Of course she knew. Yuan Gu was an Olympic athlete who had had set some distance running records back in Beijing 2008. She had somehow gotten some fleeting popularity among western audiences for a big, emotive smile and publicly warm friendships with competitors on the American team, and it led to some low-key advertising deals with sports brands that Yuan took advantage of while she could. Now working on both continents, Yuan was no longer a full-time athlete but still dabbled; mainly, though, she was trying to create an indigenous Chinese athleticwear brand that would be competitive with US or European designed gear, and figured that staying close to NYC with its large Chinese-American population would offer the best chance at both developing the right products to a receptive audience, and striking up the right business contacts.
"That's fantastic! Do you think you could bring her to see my girls? I'd like to give them a role model. Just a quick speech?"
"Oh ho Nancy... I don't know. Her English isn't that great, she doesn't like speeches."
"Oh come on! She doesn't have to say much. I'll do most of the talking."
"Well... I will message her."
"Did Brett get a chance to meet her when he was with you?" Nancy probed. Brett, hearing the conversation in the sink, perked up his head and started paying rapt attention.
Wendy looked surprised. "No unfortunately not.... it's a pity, she was very interested in the idea of a shrinkee."
"Oh I didn't know! Brett would certainly be willing to oblige."
Wendy just tilted her head back and laughed. "Hahaha are you serious Nancy? Doesn't Brett get a say?"
"Oh, he's already told me. Brett would be completely fine with it. He's told me he would be honored to serve the feet of such a prestigious lady." Nancy lied with a big smile on her face.
Brett looked up, aghast. He tried to hit the walkie-talkie button but his mom had disabled the audio output on her phone and the shrinking remote. Nobody heard him.
Wendy looked amused but unsure. "Well.... he did kind of volunteer earlier to be a foot shrinkee for Yuan but I think he didn't understand how bad it would be. I mean, she treats her feet really badly. I always thought they were so stinky haha! And I think... she might be a bit rough and mean. She is a very dominant lady. She doesn't speak English that well, she may not communicate well."
"Have no fear Wendy. I assure you that Brett is ready. You bring by Yuan this afternoon and I'm sure he'll do his best with your sister, whatever she wants to do. I tried to talk him out of it, but he was actually adamant that he have a chance to meet her."
"Wow really? What a guy! I wish he offered me a second chance too, hah!"
Nancy laughed with her. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind adding you to the list, maybe next week."
"Oh you're too kind Nancy. Really. I would want to ask him personally I think. But thank you for letting Yuan try it, she always wanted to try a shrinkee."

---

Out on the field, Nancy gathered her girls. This wasn't a full session; there were 6 there today. All of them were doing some brief sprints early in the day, but some of them were cross-country specialists and had long distances to cover afterward.
Brett, cradled in his mom's pocket, could hear all the dialogue but could see nothing. He had to go by voices, identifying girls as they spoke up.
He could not fail to hear the cackle of Amber, who self titled herself "The Amazing." The winningest high school athlete in Westwood history, the 18-year-old red-haired Amber had shown some prowess at state last year. Now a senior, she was still still thirsty. Where she lacked raw intellectual prowess, she possessed an abundance of ruthlessness and cunning.
Then a familiar voie- the giggly Zoe was also there.
But he couldn't make out the other girls yet. Until his mom pulled him out of her pocket and set him on a table.
"So... girls. This is my no-good son Brett."
"Hey loser!" Amber shouted.
"Haha hey loser!" Jenna cried. This was Amber's minion.
"Whoa, what happened to you Brett?" Ada asked, concerned. His heart skipped a beat to hear some interest in his wellbeing from his gorgeous crush.
"Long time no see!" squeaked Zoe, laughing as she had just seen him recently.
Dominique, a tall, quiet Sudanese girl, was nonplussed. "What's up with this, Miss Nancy, why did you shrink him?"
Ayla was silent, but she looked very interested.

"Brett is doing shrink training with me. He isn't my son today, but a worker for the school. A contractor, if you will. And since I already know my way around a shrinkee well enough, I'm pretty much done with him. As the team captain, I'm nominating Amber to dispense his punishment amongst you girls."
She walked away and left Brett standing on the table, handing Amber a slip of paper as she walked away.
The girls all crowded around, but were somewhat reticent to touch him. He could barely look around and make out all the figures around him. Thin, muscular, toned girls who were almost all out of his league.
Amber read the piece of paper and started laughing hysterically. She fought off the fawning attention of Jenna and composed herself.
"Okay gang. We're supposed to punish Brett. He is going to go in our shoes. Each one of us for at least a few laps."
There are at least three voices cheering and whooping in that moment. He could make out Amber and Jenna, but couldn't decide if the third voice was Zoe or Ayla. Dominique was laughing, assuming it was a joke. "Amber, you're crazy. It has to be a joke. He can't go in our shoes. He'll be crushed!"
The laughter and ebullience by Amber and Jenna evaporated and they looked among themselves spouting lame excuses. "No, it doesn't work that way. They're tougher! He'll be fine."
The heretofore quiet Ayla piped up. "She's actually right. Principal Lee-Reilly posted on this in the school newsletter. The shrinking process increases the resistance to impacts and pressure far more than their size would normally permit. Think of him like a little scorpion. Small but well armored."

"Very good, Ayla!" Amber said approvingly. "Thanks for backing up your captain." Some of the other girls rolled their eyes at Amber's cockiness.
"For that, you get the first lap."
Ayla could hardly contain herself as she leaned over and started to unlace her shoe. The thin, pale lips of the long-faced brunette let out a little smirk.
"Hey wait wait wait!" They heard from the nondescript remote control that Coach Nancy left on the table. "Don't I get a say in this at all? I didn't sign up for this!"
"It's the loser! How is he talking to us?" Jenna asked warily.
Brett decided to taunt them. "I've tapped into the RF frequency of the device and I'm sending it an encrypted audio signal. If you don't let me be, I'm going to activate its self-destruct feature."
Ada was the only one who laughed. She shook her head. She had long heard Brett try corny, nerdy deflections.
"That was a pitiful attempt, loser. You tell me the truth or I'm going to crush you like an insect." Amber was starting to get angry for real, raising her palm intimidatingly over Brett on the table.
Dominique touched Amber's arm and tried to gently physically restrain her. "Hey Amazing, chill out." Ada added "Yeah, we're not part of this. Just let's do what the coach asks of us and be done with him."
The response from Brett came back suitably unnerved by the threat. "Okay okay okay okay... I'm using a special wrist-mounted communicator. I can talk to you any time on the remote you have there.  But you don't have to use it, since I can hear you fine at your normal tones. But seriously! I don't want to be here anymore than you want to be involved with me. I was doing work for the principal, and my mom got involved-"
"Why were you volunteering to shrink, Brett?" asked Ada in a kindly tone. She alone seemed to be sincerely concerned for him.
"Because the principal wants the teachers to be trained in it. That's all, I swear-"
"That's bullshit. You don't want them to shrink all of us for punishment, do you? What do you get out of it, twerp?" Amber asked unbelievingly.
"Well, I get a scholarship and some extra credit. But I don't think they're going to just do it like that-"
Groans all around. Dominique exhaled sharply and sucked her teeth. Zoe asked "You're selling us out for THAT? Not gonna lie, but boy you're naive."
Ada was shaking her head, evidently saddened. "Not cool, Brett, I'm sorry to say."

---

As the girls arranged for the order they would share him in, most of them went back to their previous workouts. Ayla was alone with Brett for the moment. She sighed and then launched into a strange diatribe.
"So, tell me the truth - do you seriously believe you'll escape the wrath of Lee-Reilly? She understands power. If you remain the sole volunteer, you're safe for now, but if they find someone else to do what you're doing, you are screwed. And you better hope that your training with the other teachers stands up to audits, because they're going to look at who co-signed their applications if those audits fail. You could be liable."
Brett swallowed. Why hadn't his mom ever put it in those terms? She made it sound pretty stark.
"Well, I don't think any of the teachers will fail audits. And I do believe that I'll be safe until I'm out of here. Just one more year to go." He said carefully, trying to cling to some credibility. In the back of his mind, he was thinking about Loren's ShrinkProtect app and how it might be his protective aegis if there were untoward activities by unscrupulous actors who had shrinking technology. And he was still a minor. He felt that the contracts would be tossed out if it ever came to a bona fide lawsuit.
"You're a simple dweeb, Brett. You deserve to go on a sock ride. Ready to go?" Ayla wiggled her toes in unison as she displayed before him the inside-out sock that she had already soaked through with her sweat. Gripping him with the toe section, she turned the sock back inside-out, and he was rudely shuffled until the sock came to rest and her long toes probed their way into his prison.

After Ayla's turn was up, she came back and handed over to Dominique. The tradeoff was undramatic, as Dominique did not relish the punishment she was inflicting, saying quietly "I had nothing against you, but the coach is telling us to do this so I guess I'm going to go along. You shouldn't have started this, Brett." He saw the ebony-black skin of her feet slide glisteningly out of her shoes and socks, and she grabbed him with her toes before putting the sock back on and then giving him another round on the track. She was a brutally fast sprinter, with the end result for Brett that he was soon swimming for his life above the sweat pooling under her sole.

Zoe was up third. As before, she was mostly unsympathetic. "I guess Amber and Jenna were right, you are a loser Brett! I can't believe I actually used to think you were cute." The short-haired, slightly mousy blond giggled piercingly as she dropped him into her sweaty sock and gave him a few new laps. But throughout, to Brett's surprise, her feet held up surprisingly well, with her sweat having only a minor odor and not completely overpowering the lotion that she had applied to her dry soles in the morning.

Jenna, the fourth girl, sandy-haired and always bearing an impressively deep tan, was up next. He had never known her terribly well, but starting in 5th grade she had crushed on him intensely. She finally cornered him in 7h grade in a supply closet and asked him to ask her to go out with him, speaking with great confidence and presumptuousness. That event had replayed in Brett's mind so many times over the ensuing years, as Jenna got taller and tanner and developed very desirable curves. But going back 4 years, Brett didn't see any of that. He would never dream of dating, was more of a class clown, and he'd not been prepared for the advance and had bungled the event with great crudeness, and in the process deeply offended her in a lasting way. Though he would much later try to recant and make amends and get to know her, it was for nought. Jenna acquired a diametrically opposed persona in high school, becoming a bully herself, and to Brett she was always the penultimate tormentor next to the Amazing Amber herself. Publicly a right-hand woman to Amber, she was actually the more creative and intelligent one, as well as gifted with a sensitive side that she had lately gotten very good at hiding.
Yet Jenna's foot captivity betrayed the latent affection for him that she still somehow felt deep down. Or at least, that's what Brett reasoned must be the case. Her footfalls were shallow and slight, her pace diminished, as though she were simply not truly prepared to do him physical harm. He again grimly regretted that he had made an enemy of Jenna, as she was evidently not incapable of small private mercies. She gave him the closest thing to a respite he'd had since he woke up this morning.

Amber herself went fifth. He considered her the architect of his present misery more than anyone else, and he could tell she relished that role.
"Why do you have it out for me, Amber?"
"That's Amazing Amber to you, loser. I call 'em like I see 'em. You used to be harmless, so you got just a little bit of mocking torment. But your mom is right that you've been insufferable lately. So this all makes sense."
"Insufferable because I've developed some self confidence?" Brett asked caustically.
"Whatever you wanna call it. Now are you ready?"
"Wait. One more thing. Nobody else is around, so tell me honestly - did my mom write that on the paper or did you make all this up?"
Silence from the huge redhaired girl standing above him. She squinched her lips, furrowed her brow, and stoked her chin as if carefully considering the question. Finally, the answer came with a resigned shrug.
"Much as I'd like to take credit for all the evil you come across, Brett, I can't tell you I made this up. Your mom wrote to do this stuff. And she told me personally that since I was the captain, I was in charge. And I am currently in direlection of my duties if I don't force you to inhale the smell of my sweat-soaked feet and give you a bath with them."
Ten laps of hell under Amber's punishing digits, clutching him as though trying to squeeze out his essence.

Finally it was Ada's turn. Brett had been enamored with her ever since she had shown what he thought was fawning appreciation for him in algebra, helping to save her grade on a few occasions where she struggled to learn before she had finally dropped out. Despite all her physical blessings, her relatively tall stature, energetic, lithe body, black straight hair, black eyes, with a complexion and accent that made him ponder what part of Earth she might have come from, his favorite part was her very feminine, slow, deliberate, caring voice that always seemed to capture his attention. Especially when she used it to ask questions or laugh at his jokes. God how he'd wished she would give him a sign that he could take it to the next level, but she had always gently turned him down when he'd tried to venture that direction.
He wasn't super surprised to see her sympathetic to him. "Poor Brett. We're shoving you into our shoes while we work out. That's gotta be rough."
"Not gonna lie Ada, it has been-" Brett started, but to his surprise she cut him off.
"Well... I could let you off easy. But I am disappointed in you. You aren't standing in solidarity with the students, but you're trying to undermine student rights and empower those who would bring about new punishments that will make school harder for kids everywhere."
Brett was flabbergasted by this response. She had never spoken to him with such eloquence. He'd never thought of her as a heavy philosophical thinker.
But she continued. "And I need to tell you something more. I once thought you were a great guy. But you thought you were helping me while you were very often finding ways to confuse me. You enjoyed misleading me, and you hovered over me so much that people thought we were dating."
With all credibility lost, he resorted to joking. "WAIT wait wait- if you're going to break up with me before I've even asked you out once, please not here."
Ada scoffed. "All of these girls here know that you like me. I told them you had a decent side and you were once a good guy. But you made it hard to defend you. You stopped tutoring me like a friend who seriously cares, and started just trying to make me feel stupid until I gave up and cried in your arms. You can't win someone by belittling them, Brett."
"I... I can't believe it Ada. I didn't know any of that. I thought I was helping you. I never meant to belittle you."
"Maybe you didn't mean to, but you did. I dropped that class because of you. So I'm not that torn up about putting you in my shoe right now. Sorry but not that sorry, Brett."

The next few laps under Ada were the worst, not from her efforts directly, but from the cumulative strain. Brett's tiny form was starting to show evidence of its pummeling under the six girls. He felt airsick from all the lifting and dropping into shoes, nauseated by the unending variety of foot odors and salty intrusions into his mouth, and weary from the heat and lack of oxygen within most of the girls' shoes.

---

Finally some relief. Ada had freed him and shown some remorse, and even carried him gently in her palm and given him a quick rinse in the sink as they all hit up the locker room to convalesce after some tough training. But Amber ordered them all to stand by for the next set of orders with their shrunken charge. There was audible groaning as everyone wanted to be done. Brett had a few visible bruises and except for among Amber and ostensibly Jenna, there remained little appetite for punishing Brett.
"C'mon Amber," Zoe challenged. Wiping her brow, she added "He's totes had enough. Besides, I'm exhausted. I desperately need a shower."

"I agree!" came the delighted blaring walkie-talkie voice of Brett underneath running water, sensing he was about to be freed.

Amber hissed. "Ugh, who turned that thing back on. We don't need to hear from him. Anyway, girls, there is one more thing we need to do." She waved the crinkly piece of loose leaf paper around above her head as though it were a historic telegram.
Switching to a calm, matter-of-fact voice, Amber continued. "Coach Nancy, the loser's mom, says that we need to make this loser clean our feet."
"Haha, how's he going to do that at his size?" Dominique asked. "Does he have a tiny shrunken bottle of bleach? My feet are so ripe right now."
Amber held the paper up to her face, cleared her throat, and read verbatim from the page, as though she was already certain she wouldn't be believed.
"Brett is to stick his head in between each of you girls' toes and ingest every visible molecule of toe jam. He must chew and swallow all of it. Then he must lick the underside of each one of all your toes over all the surface area, and clean underneath your toenails if they contains anything extra."

Gasps and gags started to resound. Jenna cackled, Dominique looked surprised, Zoe was dazed, and Ayla was expressionless. Ada, flustered, spat out "No way, you're not serious Amber."

"I am 100% serious girl." Finally turning over the piece of paper, all of them clamored around it to read if it was actually written there. They found that it was. The writing was unmistakably that of the coach.
Ada shook her head, looking for some more support among the other surprised and confused girls. "Ayla, is that even possible?"
Ayla, something of a wizard with estimation problems, had already pulled out her phone to do some back of envelope calculations. "Well... based on the number of grams of loosened skin likely produced over the given surface area during the time we've been working out, and scaled quantity of perspiration, adjusting to his size at 1 inch height... well, it would be a tight squeeze in his stomach, but Brett could probably eat it all."
Amber continued with fake solemnity while secretly she was stifling a smile and looking at Jenna who was doing the same. "She has also said it's my job to make sure that this gets done. If he doesn't get his job done, it's going to be my fault, so please don't fight me on this girls."

Amber nodded. "Who's going to go first?"
Jenna piped up "Ooh ooh, let me go first! I can't believe I'm going to get a chance to do this with a shrinkee."
Expecting this, Amber nodded and then asked. "I knew I could count on you Jenna. But who else is going to volunteer?"
After a moment of silence, Ayla was the next to crack. "Fine, I don't care. Let me go second so I can get cleaned up. I would really rather have a shower now, but I guess having a tiny tongue work on my sweaty feet is better than nothing."

The first two in line established, Amber let the locker room fall silent and serenely walked out of the locker room to confer with the coach.
The remaining girls were expressing various degrees of apologetic and exculpatory pleas to the shrunken boy near them.
"I... I don't have a choice, Brett. I'm sorry." Ada added.
Zoe had some silly optimism to suggest. "Maybe it won't be so bad, Brett? I'm hoping for you. Though at our size it smells pretty awful in here even at a distance, I can't imagine that it's any better while shrunk. I guess you've been under lots of teachers' feet at this point, but I bet nothing like this."
"Sorry little dude, it appears you have some really unsavory work ahead. But I hope you can be OK with it, as it is kind of a big moment for girls to get their own shrinkees for this kind of thing." Dominique said.
"Yeah Brett!" Zoe piped up. "You know, it may suck for you, but at least we'll all get a chance to try something new. Thanks for your sacrifice."
Ada resisted "Zoe! I don't want to try this particular new thing. Why are you acting happy about this?"
"Well, you said it yourself - we don't have a choice. And neither does he. He's going to have to eat all of our foot crud and if we don't do it, Amber is going to make us do it. We're doing what she says he needs to do to get through the shrink training. Coach Nancy came up with a process and we're just doing as we're told. At least we can try to enjoy ourselves a little bit while doing it."
"Zoe is right." Dominique said quietly.
Ada shook her head but didn't resist further.

Brett swallowed hard. As he was dried off pointlessly from his sink bath, he was placed on the floor in a circle of socked, damp feet that had just been exhumed from their shoes seconds ago. The humidity of their heat and perspiration was so intense he felt he could see vapor rising from their feet.
The girls took off their socks, taking care not to disrupt any of the gunk between their toes so that it would be there for Brett to consume. They lined up their feet again in a circle around the trapped boy.

Seeing walls of toes, with the whole spectrum of color of skin from pale white through olive tan through deep ebony, he could make out defined veins and sock marks around the ankles for all of the girls. All had some hardening or calluses on their soles, all had at least some clumps of gooey grime between their stinking toes.
He could not fathom how he'd eat all of this, and why his mom was putting him through this. This must have been the lesson she threatened. She thought this would break him. She thought he'd be disenchanted with shrinking by the experience of being abused by young, attractive girls. But he would persevere, and he would later tell her how viciously and unsuccessfully she'd tried to dominate him without even having the courage to do it herself.

Meanwhile, the halfway-sympathetic equivocations of the girls were starting to get more insistent. They tapped their toes on the floor, and continued to ask with increasing pressure.
"No way around this, loser. And go to my toes first. I painted them just yesterday so enjoy the view. You should be honored to be eating my foot secretions, I know you'll find it tasty. If you get hungry again, I can run around and get you some more too, sweetie." Jenna said with a fake sweetness.
"Okay Brett, start eating. I'm sorry that you've got to do this, but I don't want to be here all day." Ayla said demandingly.
"Sorry, kid, you've got a lot of work to do. I'm going to have a big load of toe jam for you, so just be ready. Sorry in advance, you'll be getting your sodium intake for the day that's for sure." Dominique added, smiling sheepishly.
"Same here. Sorry that your mom is making you do this, but wow what a weird punishment. My feet smell like moldy cheese, according to my little brother. Come to think of it, I'd rather be doing this to him than you hehe! But at least you get to be a shrinkee for your favorite classmates hehe! Nobody our age can afford shrinkees unless they're like daughters of Saudi royalty, so you're really doing us a big favor." Zoe blabbered, trying to defend their actions.
"Brett, I'm also sorry. I hope you don't get sick." Ada said blankly as she spread her stinky toes wide.

The feet of the girls surrounded Brett, the size of double decker city buses, with heat radiating from them as though they themselves had exhaust pipes. Among most of the girls’ toes, he saw many formidably large packets of foot grime derived from hardcore workout sweat, sock lint, and whatever detritus was under their feet.

He had started, as she insisted, with Jenna, who exaggeratedly giggled and grinned as he savored the gushy matter between her toes, with her giddily vowing that he was going to stay in this position for as long as she had the power to coerce him thusly. She flexed her tanned feet menacingly around him.

But eventually, Ayla and Zoe grew tired of waiting and they settled on a system of expediting Brett’s efforts while keeping multiple girls engaged. The ladies lined up on the bench in the locker room and practically set their feet overlapping one another. They were seated in 1-3-5-4-2 order, with Jenna on the left, Ada in the middle, and Ayla on the right. He would cram a mouthful of toe jam in from the greasy foot of one girl, and then while masticating and swallowing it he would walk to the end of the row and take a glob from the girl on the other side, then work his way inwards.

It was torturously difficult and salty. He couldn’t keep it up. He was through Jenna and Ayla and was starting on Dominique and Zoe, working his way to the bigger toes which had more mass to consume. At that moment, staggering back from Zoe’s foot and standing in front of Dominique’s left big toe, he ran dry and simply couldn’t continue. Brett stepped back, and exaggeratedly waved his arms and pointed at his tongue. The girls were mostly quietly laughing and not paying quite as much attention to him, so it took a moment to be recognized. With his communication shut off, he prayed they would notice he needed water.

“It looks like he reaaaaally doesn’t like it.” Zoe said thoughtfully.

Dominique playfully said, “No he’s shaking his head after you said that! He must be saying it’s really yummy. He likes licking my toes.”

“Nuh uh girl, your big feet are foul!” Jenna retorted.

“They are! But he’s eating everything. I’m going to tell my grandma in Sudan that I had a shrunken white American boy lick my feet willingly and she is going to laugh in disbelief.”

All of the girls laughed. They were starting to get more comfortable, even the less outgoing ones, which started to terrify Brett.

Zoe, of all of them, seemed to recognize his gestures first. “Maybe he’s thirsty?”

Jenna started making a hocking sound, trying to work up some phlegm. “ ‘ere, lemme spi’ on ‘im!”

Ayla grinned. “Do it! I’ll join in.”

“Ewwww that is so gross Jenna! You’re both nuts!” Zoe replied, laughing.

“Hang on I have a little water.” Ada tried to quietly resolve the situation. She filled a bottle cap from her nearly empty water bottle. The water was two hours out of the tap, was now lukewarm and was maybe half of her backwash, but when she set it down in front of Brett, he greedily slurped it up and the other girls congratulated her on her quick thinking – after all, the goal was to get this boy punished and on with their day.

This gave Brett enough motivation to power through the rest. He resignedly returned to Dominique’s long, ebony black toes and resumed probing the gaps with his fingers for toe jam, showing handfuls in his mouth as he accumulated it.

And so it continued. Zoe’s giggliness was back and she seemed to be intensely ticklish to the actions of his hands and mouth as he worked between her toes, making his job take longer but making it no more palatable to him.

And finally he came upon the sour, salty toes of his all-time top crush. Ada had mercifully kneaded her toes around each other and into the floor and tried to tidy them as best she co uld, making his job far easier. He was liable to collapse at that point.

She looked down at him and sighed. This was about all he could take, but the awkward and highly public access to Brett in this highly personal and demeaning way was not pleasant for he either, despite how she might have imagined it in the first place. Ada simply felt embarrassment for him.

The remainder of the track team had finally departed. Ada had furtively washed him under the sink but had departed abruptly without wanting to be caught caring for him. Brett feverishly paced in a shallow plastic bin in the locker room awaiting Amber’s return.She hadn’t come back twenty minutes later, and he’d succumbed to his exhaustion and laid down. His stomach was bulging and he felt his stomach juices growling and protesting against the load of crud he’d ingested, but he didn’t want to vomit in his bucket and deal with the fallout. His mom was nowhere to be found. Finally, Brett dozed off.

He awoke what seemed like minutes later, but without his wrist control, he didn’t have access to any kind of timekeeping, so for all he knew it could have been hours. There were far off voices approaching closer. One of them sounded like his mom.

“Yeah, the girls sometimes need something, you know? I want to convince them that girls can do anything, and being masterful on the field is a great first step but they don’t always believe me. Your agency is amazing though, Yuan. How has it been growing recently?”

In a heavily accented voice, a woman Brett had never heard before was responding to his mom. “Many eh… business meetings. I still feel like an athlete but maybe more now a business lady hehe. We have some backers for growing the brand in China and, eh, it’s useful to get feedback on design you know, but doesn’t always lead to money. Sometimes I’ve been to Nike in Oregon but they, eh, don’t want partnership. I can not always convince them that, eh, the Chinese high-quality sports market is so vast and untapped and it could be popular here too. Easier to go direct to investors sometimes especially if you can do it through conferences and talks you know?”

The lady spoke somewhat tentatively and was definitely not fully at comfort with the English language, but he could tell she spoke with authority and some experience to which his mother was deferential. Rather uncharacteristically deferential, he thought – this woman must have some clout in Nancy’s mind.

As the two women rounded the corner into his line of sight, he saw a medium-height, muscular Chinese lady walking next to his mom. She was dressed in a long sleeved, oversized-neck tee with black yoga pants. She looked a bit younger than his mom, but from her features was clearly a knockout in her younger days. “Oh I believe it Yuan. Well, here’s Brett. Gosh, he’s been here for a few hours. Let me unshrink him so you can meet first.”

The woman replied “Of course.”

His container was gingerly upended and he rolled off the side onto the hard wood bench in the locker room, then was unceremoniously unshrunk with the control. He felt very self-conscious sitting there in the ridiculous shrink-proof leotard.

“Brett, this is Mrs. Gu – Yuan, the sister of your teacher Wendy Gu.”

The woman stepped forward and extended her hand. He shook it and she had a surprisingly strong grip.

“Please to meet you, Mrs. Gu.”

“Hi Brett, nice to meet you too. I hear that… you are getting a lot of experience shrinking.”

His mom spoke for him. “Yes, Brett has volunteered for a lot of the teachers.”

The woman smiled with some amusement and glow in her eyes. “You volunteered? It’s so upstanding of you Brett.”

Both of them looked to him to explain a bit. He felt the weight of the silence and just started talking.

“Yeah… I guess I just want to help out my teachers.”

“And of course Mrs. Gu too, right?” Nancy shot daggers from her eyes at Brett.

“Well-“

Interrupting with some constrained fury, Nancy continued. “He knew of your performance in 2012 and was amazed that you were part of our community here too. He heard you were in town and wanted to meet you.”

Yuan beamed. “Well…. I cannot stay here for long but I would be happy to take you with me. You’re sure you don’t mind?”

Brett looked toward Nancy, who again spoke for him. “Not at all! Brett is basically done for the school year and I am happy to give you my day with him. We haven’t done much today.” That last lie galled Brett. She spoke of him as fresh and ready for more torture when he was nearly wiped out earlier and had only just had a nap in a plastic bin.

Yuan looked at Brett to confirm. He felt under pressure and he was intimidated by the highly assured way that the woman spoke and the unbroken, confident eye contact she was giving him.

“Y-yes, I’m ready to go.”

Yuan then awkwardly added, “You are… experienced in being underfoot? Most of them that do it in athletics are very well trained and paid. This is kind of amazing.”

Brett nodded.

“Hehe okay. I do warn you that it may be a bit worse than other women here. My sister Wendy doesn’t have stinky feet, but I do.” Brett wondered silently. He could have disagreed with that last part, Wendy’s feet weren’t exactly odor-free.

Again Nancy wouldn’t let him talk. “OH it’s nothing for Brett. I warned him earlier but he said he was more than willing to serve your feet. The stinkier the better, haha!”

Yuan laughed. “Hehehe that’s fantastic! Would you believe, eh, it is really hard to get shrinkees willing to actually obey? I have shrunk my son sometime but he refused to clean my foot. I give him sponge but he still doesn’t want to. Not even to relax and honor his mother.”

“Oh no need for a sponge, Yuan. Brett’s experienced with tongue-cleaning feet. Oh, here’s your wrist communicator Brett, let me put it on you.” She squeezed his arm hard and whispered words of oblivion into his ear if he didn’t play along. Yuan never broke eye contact with Brett, which he found even more intimidating.

Brett swallowed. There was no way around this, though he was a little scared of being left with this stranger. ”Yes Mrs. Gu I’m a really big fan and I was sad to hear that you didn’t get to have a shrinkee of your own when you were an international athlete.” With some trepidation, as the woman’s beautiful face was starting to blush at his words, he added “Yes, I will lick your feet clean if you give me enough time.”

The woman gaped. She looked at Brett and touched his arm. “Wowwww! I can’t believe it. Such a kind offer. Amazing! Of course I will accept gladly. You do honor your family with your generosity. I can see Nancy has raised you as a good young man. I wonder if I can use you to show my son what good sons do.”

Nancy and Yuan both shared a laugh as Brett was shrunk back down.  Whoooooooooooooooooosh!

Finally looking down at the feet he’d agreed to serve, he noted that they were quite large for her body. The eye catching neon pattern on her sneakers concealed size 9 feet, and he saw her sit down on the bench, remove two no-show socks, and then pause for a moment. Her soles were craggy and callused as though she did plenty of running barefoot. The bottom of the sneakers looked well-worn with patches of smoothed-out fabric and visibly damp regions.

“I think I will go without socks Brett. You will be there to do the absorbing, so that should be fine.”

Nancy agreed” Sure! That’s totally fine. You two have fun together! I’m gonna head home now Brett, Yuan will bring you back when you’re both ready.”

As Nancy left the room, Yuan looked at Brett calmly and said, “So I expect you to obey me now, OK? You are a shrinkee and this is how it works. I can not hear you speak anyway. You listen to me. You do as you are told. Otherwise it could be dangerous. OK?”

The strange woman extended her hand, picked him up by the shoulders of his leotard, and then set him down roughly in the shoe. He bounced on a moist, mildewy-smelling region of the sole and ran as the foot came back down in. Sprinting wildly he clambered for grip but was still hit by a rocky mass of the lady’s foot as far above he heard playful giggling.

The scent was already that of sour, cheesy, seawatery sweat, with the woman’s salty rough toes wrapping energetically around him.

He hadn’t been given a timeline. He could only hope that Yuan would tire of him quickly and not extend this further than it had to. Surely his mom wouldn’t give him up to her overnight? She had no training and nothing like the right attitude to undertake this, seeing it as a duty that he was to undertake unquestioningly as a good boy.

The brightly-colored athletic shoe of Yuan Gu’s own design had some words written in stylized calligraphic Chinese letters. For the majority of her Asian market sales, it did not need to be explained. If she were in a sales presentation to an American audience she would probably have said it was virtually untranslatable to English, and meant something between vivacity and immortality. Might have been a cheesy pitch to some, but the etching was top notch and the design was modern, and it seemed to help sell the mythos behind an upstart athletic firm that wanted a seat at the world’s table with Nike and Adidas. A firm that was trying out an inverted business relationship between the world’s two largest economies. This time highly visible Chinese entrepreneurs were trying to mastermind the fashion connections, sponsorships, and marketing angle (albeit backed by a stronghold of US investors who liked the odds of eating Nike’s lunch in China) and a number of nameless American workers furnishing the production processes and quality (even if the American production was only a token small batch compared to the vast factory being built in Vietnam, and largely were there to help sell Americans on the brand).

Yuan was leaving the high school after her detour to visit Nancy. With some satisfaction at the latest funding round, the entrepreneur was allowing herself a quiet night without any business plans. She wanted to see her sister Wendy, share a bottle of wine, and have a little break from the city. Stepping behind the wheel of her Benz, Yuan was gratified, and still surprised, that a teenage boy from this small upstate high school was offering himself to her as a shrinkee gratis. Maybe this was the sign that she had truly made it.

Down in her right shoe, the kneading of her tough sole felt to Brett like he was being pulled across a conveyor belt of rough construction paper while a stinky weighted blanket laid atop him. Below him a slightly mushy sole moist with the sweat of an active woman who liked to walk fast and had probably done plenty of running today. But at least she was now driving her car and was no longer walking on his body, so the pressure was lessened.

    AUTOMATED MESSAGE - This is the ShrinkProtect app. It has been detected that you were shrunk. If you have authorized this, press Y and your 6-digit PIN. If you have not, press N. If no message is received within 10 minutes, escalation measures will be taken.

Hmm, the automated message had taken longer than usual to get sent, Brett noticed. Maybe she had to reboot the server?

Brett thought carefully about how he should respond. Normally he had responded very quickly to these messages, remembering that Ms. Issakinen had told him that she was monitoring this activity and would inform the authorities manually if she couldn’t raise him. She had said so with great seriousness. It was a service he strongly appreciated, and he didn’t want to embarrass her by calling in the cavalry for something he had begrudgingly consented to already. Was it worth calling the cops – would he have any recourse? Was he not legitimately constrained under the terms of his contract?

He tried to think back to what Principal Lee-Reilly had said. So many threats had been hurled at him in her office. That she could have him punished by correctional officers, that she could have anyone punish him as long as it was in the presence of a certified person or by one of the named people in the certification process – he remembered all that, but could not remember if this kind of situation was against his contract and he feared the consequences of a false alarm. Yet it seemed to be patently unfair. There was no training involved here, just his person being whored out to whoever his mom felt like. So he dawdled in responding. Perhaps four or five minutes went by as he stewed in Yuan’s sweaty shoe, starting to feel very sorry for himself.

The next text that came in was not automated.

“Hey Brett, it’s Loren. Don’t scare me dude. You OK? You’re shrinking again on the same day? You’ve been shrunk for over 11 hours today.”

Loren. He swooned at the words she wrote and wished that the sweat pouring down on him was the divine essence of that wonderful creature. He felt betrayed by his own lack of confidence when a moment ago his mind clearly identified her as Ms. Issakinen and failed to solidly assert that they had a special relationship at this point. She was Loren to him and always ought to be. She wasn’t just protecting him as a responsible teacher would, she was caring for him in a way that nobody else currently did. But what a pathetic position he was in right now. He started the day eating chewed-up bacon, and had little else but water and foot gunk since then. He couldn’t muster any energy for a pleasant conversation while he was being tugged around by the Chinese entrepreneur’s toes.

Impatiently Loren followed up with another of her clumsy attempts at humor. “Or did you hack my app? Probably wouldn’t be hard if you really tried, as I am still working on identifying spurious sources of audio and GPS data and it’s still pretty crude. Anyway. Don’t pretend that you’ve got anything better to do on a Saturday night than answer me, I know you better than that. 😊”

Finally forced into an unanticipated grin at this last message, he tapped back. “Hi Loren Im with a ‘guest’ of my mom right now. It’s Wendy Gu’s sister Yuan.”

The response came back from lightning-quick fingers. “Wow. Well, I’m sure you’ll be okay if Wendy’s there, but why did you agree to that?”

Brett thought for a moment. He was too distracted by Yuan’s toes to actually explain this whole situation, and with her statement on his safety he wasn’t sure if she was actually going to back him up if he asked to be rescued.

“Long story. Can I tell you tomorrow?”

“I will make sure that you do. Now I need to go. Don’t message me on this app since I can only answer it when logged in from the server. Text me at my regular number for faster response, mmkay?”

“Sorry Loren. Talk to you soon.”

The heat increased. He felt some new source of warmth emanating from the outside. Yuan must have turned on the car’s heater and pointed it into the footwell. Given that it was a warm, windless June evening, he again wondered how this could be for her comfort, or if it was calculated to make him more miserable.

As Yuan pulled into her sister’s driveway, Brett’s shoe prison had gotten increasingly inhospitable. Her foot perspired all around him, as though he were sinking into seawater but never quite drowned in it. With the temperature change away from the heated footwell and into the evening air, the sweat started to congeal and he found it increasingly sticky and viscous.

How was he intended to “absorb” this? Why hadn’t she worn socks?

In the living room of Wendy Gu’s house, there was animated conversation and greetings. Brett heard the familiar voice of Wendy, preparing some food in the kitchen. Some grousing by a sarcastic teenager, who must have been Yuan’s son. Fortunately for Brett’s understanding, they sometimes lapsed into English when talking with him.

The enormous size 9 foot finally stopped with its aimless kneading and gripped Brett’s body with its ripe, moist, meaty digits. An incoming rush of cold air as Yuan peeled her shoe off, exposing the boy to the open air. As her toes parted he fell onto a thick rug and looked up at his surroundings.

The beautiful, fierce eyes of Yuan looked at him expectantly. Behind her, an unbelieving 15-year-old stood agape at the figure before them.

He looked to the right and saw the more familiar face of Wendy sitting in an adjacent chair, grinning with a tinge of polite, secondhand embarrassment for this situation. Seeing them side by side the filial proximity was noticeable, although Yuan was clearly the athlete; Wendy had a doughier, less chiseled figure and a rounder face. She crossed her legs and lifted one off the floor, tapping her flat with the sole of her foot rhythmically.

Finally, Yuan cleared her throat and spoke in English. “Brett thanks so much for your work. Show my son how you honor with your sacrifice to women of your family.” The language was eloquent but rough as she wanted to use words that were venturing somewhat from her normal English scripts in sales and marketing. He looked down and saw her long, milky-white toes with abundant patches of reddened skin wriggling on the floor, still glistening from their treatment in the shoes. Her unpainted nails showed no particular care or attention, her feet themselves were calloused and had a foul smell. She reclined on a sofa much longer than her body, and placed him up on the cushions in front of one of her feet while the other foot remained on standby.

Her unbroken gaze became less cheerful and more hardened until he started to make his way forward. She, a virtual stranger, expected him to clean it from end to end with his tongue. As he reached her foot, she bit her lip and nodded expectantly.

He started with the tip of her little toe and prepared to work inward to the gap between her toes. The flavor was acrid and sour, the texture gummy. He was cleaning off a layer of smutz that had been on her foot as well as whatever was in her shoe itself. At this stage he knew the drill pretty well, but she had such a strong foot odor that he had to ration his motions and take extra time. It was comparable to the student athletes he had served earlier in the day, but without the strange hormonal response of being around girls familiar to, and long lusted-after by him. At the foot of Yuan, the seconds of silence as he walked to and began licking her foot seemed to hang on for eternity. Here was a stranger, though attractive and so far restrained, whose bounds of caprice and self-indulgence were unknown. It fueled adrenaline and fear.

“Eww!” protested Yuan’s son.

Yuan said huffily, “You’ll join him right, Henry? I have another foot too. I know your grades are good this year, I wish you still would be a good diligent son.”

Henry was having none of it and fought back in Mandarin. Wendy laughed awkwardly as if to diffuse the situation peaceably, but Yuan simply shook her head and responded in English as though she needed Brett to understand.

“English now Henry, Brett doesn’t know your words.”

He fumbled slightly. This boy knew English from school in China, but he never used it to emote anything. “That isn’t right of you to do it to me or to him. But at least he volunteered! I didn’t and I never will. You can afford to pay a Chinese man to do this, so why me or why him?”

Yuan smiled. She looked back at Henry with the triumph of a cat who had caught a prize bird and wanted seconds.

“If you don’t join him fine. Brett is a very good young man and he do it all. I let you go out now. But I won’t forget lack of respect, never.”

Far above, the two sisters caught up on many missed months. Each had a glass of fruity wine in hand. The last fundraising meeting that Yuan had set up had netted $22 million for her company. The economy was strong enough to support her startup’s dreams.

The job still sprawled ahead of Brett. He already felt like the job was unending. When he had finished with her toe jam proper, she had tilted her feet up to present the soles. They were still reddened and had that gummy, congealed sweat texture slicking up their rough, battered surface. And the smell was incredibly strong.

“Soles now Brett. You do good.” Yuan said quietly above, breaking the Chinese conversation.

Wendy was getting increasingly skeptical about the situation. Brett had been going strong with no interaction for the best par of an hour of conversation and she’d almost lost track of his presence, but this command stuck out for its presumptuousness and lack of questioning about his feelings, which bothered Wendy as a teacher who knew the boy. Still, as the younger sister Wendy was somewhat in awe of her older sister and her world-class successes, she had a half-conscious hesitance to confront her.

“How did you meet Brett again?”

“Oh, you know, I met with Nancy and the girls at the field. Nancy wanted me to meet some of the girls, give little speech, see who had won state contests that year and who was really good. She told me, her son – right here- he is my big fan haha. He wanted so much to get to serve me, she said.”

Wendy just raised an eyebrow. “Do you know Nancy and her son don’t get along well? She may have said more for him than he would have said for himself.”

“Well, he told me himself. He say he clean my feet like the best athletic shrinkees. He has done so much better than I thought.”

“Yuan…. He is not an athletic guy. He is a normal kid, more of a nerd actually. That sounds a bit suspicious.”

Yuan scoffed dismissively. “He is doing it! And no threatening him in any way. If he wanted to stop now, I let him stop. Do you hear Brett? All you would do is disappoint me, no big deal.” She smiled exultantly, confident that he was entirely comfortable with the job he was doing. She craved the vindication that his enthusiastic continuation would give her.

Hearing these words, with a glob of this conceited Chinese woman’s sweaty foot funk clogging his throat and permeating his taste buds, Brett was craving a respite. He seized upon the challenge, accepted it, and stopped, taking a few steps away from her foot and then laying down on the sofa cushion and catching his breath.

Seeing this, the smile on Yuan’s face faded and twisted into a bitter, seething rage. She gestured to him to continue, and then shook her head as it was clear he would not.

“Nancy lied, what a bitch!” the embarrassed Yuan exploded.

“Well, Yuan, maybe it was just a miscommunication, maybe she didn’t tell you that the certification involved punishment that he didn’t really want to-“

“Why do all you teachers stick together, Wendy? She is a bitch and she sent me to punish her own son because she’s too weak to do it herself. Look at this weak boy, he can’t even do the work he said he would do. He lied too!” The last words wounded Brett, who was trying his hardest but desperately needed some rest, some proper hydration, and some real food after having done this with the track team earlier today.

Wendy tightly bit her lips in discomfort. She was getting flashbacks to the violent anger of her older sister when they were little girls. But with Yuan this time in her own house, there was little she could do to flee the situation. She started to dig in. Wendy had no choice but to stick up for him and defy her sister, and she prepared for the old ritual, decades ago, of getting beaten by Yuan. But she feared more for Brett’s safety.

“Maybe she did. Nancy can be difficult, Yuan. But you don’t have to take it out on Brett. If he doesn’t want to be here, he should be allowed to go home. You told me he was at the gym with the girls today, he has had a long day.”

The elder Gu sister laughed in disbelief. “Long day? Why are you all so soft here? Do you even remember life as girls in China? Do you know how long my days are for my business?”

Wendy sighed. “I know you work hard. I know you don’t have to come see me and my school. I’m sorry for your displeasure. Please just let me take Brett home.”

“Why do we need to go now? His mom didn’t want him back tonight.”

Wendy sighed. “I’m afraid you are going to hurt him, Yuan. You have a serious temper.”

Yuan stood vigorously and cursed in Chinese at her sister. “You so ridiculous! I won’t hurt this boy, I’ take him back myself! I don’t need this from you!”

Unable to bear it, Wendy exploded back. “Yes, you DO need it! You were never able to stay calm without me! You used to beat me all the time. I tell you now, you will not hurt Brett or you will be sorry! Forget all the money and the power you have now!”

Wendy waited for a slap or a punch. It had come a hundred times before. One upon a time, it had never failed to arrive. The last time it had come from a teenage Yuan and it had hurt Wendy greatly, leaving her with a swollen face and gasping for breath on the floor.

This time, the blow didn’t come.

The two stood in eye contact for a few moments. Yuan’s eyes bulged as she bottled her anger, and her features softened as she looked down, gritted her teeth, and did what it took to regain composure. Using the techniques that she had had to learn to survive in the business world, the transformation happened with astonishing abruptness.

“I am sorry for my outburst.”

After a pause, the elder sister added “I am taking Brett home now. You car is blocked by my car. I call Nancy and tell her I come now. Then I go back to my hotel.”

The next few moments were a whirlwind for Brett. Yuan stormed away to her Benz. Wendy picked him up off the couch cushion, apologized, and set him down in the kitchen sink to give him a quick bath. He hungrily ate a scrap of chicken placed in front of him and was allowed to relieve himself into a bottle cap with his teacher’s back turned.

“Brett I am so sorry for my sister’s anger. She isn’t always like this. I won’t let her take you anywhere unless she really calms down. But I don’t think I should drive yet, I drank too much wine. Just sit tight for now.”

Brett, unable to reply so that she would hear, just gave the biggest thumb’s up that he could. He made a mental note to thank Mrs. Gu later, as he had come very close to breaking under the strain of the day and her attentiveness had saved him.

Out in the driveway, Yuan was calling the cell number that she had for Nancy Henderson, which was a fairly old entry. Either the coach wouldn’t answer or the number was no longer correct. Sighing with exasperation, Yuan looked through recent numbers and found a phone number from an Amber whom she had met today. The promising athlete who was Nancy’s star of the team, who wanted mentorship, who had the gall to use “Amazing” as her nickname – maybe this girl would have Nancy’s number and that would be that.

“Hello?”

“Hi Amber it’s Yuan Gu.”

“Oh Mrs Gu! Th-thanks for calling back so soon. Um, how is it going?” The girl was a bit nervous as she was still star-struck by meeting a recent Olympic champion and burgeoning entrepreneur.

“Good Amber. I just need to reach Coach Nancy. I have her son Brett with me. He is still shrinkee.”

“Oh right! Well, I have Coach’s number, but she had to leave this afternoon. Some other trouble with Don. He’s her older son.”

“Oh I see. Hmm, can I get into the school? He would have a house key in his bag, right?”

“Hmmmmm probably… yes I think he had his bag in the gym locker room. I’m pretty close to the high school now. And as of this week I’ve got a car too hah! How about I go swing by and get his clothes and then meet up with you? I could take Brett home if you wanted.”

Yuan was pleased at the serendipity of this phone call. “That would be great Amber, thank you for taking care of this. I’m at my sister’s place, the address is 345 Gold Terrace. I might have to leave before you make it back here.”

“3-4-5 Gold as in the color? No worries Mrs. Gu. It was a great pleasure to meet you today. Don’t worry about Brett, I’ll take care of him.”

Half an hour later, after Yuan left her sister tersely and headed back to her hotel, after Brett satisfied his appetite and laid down peacefully on a napkin, Wendy suddenly let his nemesis Amber into the house.

No way, Brett thought. What was happening? He saw with horror Amber exchange pleasantries with the teacher, feign interest and curiosity in the shrunken boy, and bring him so close that he could smell her peach lip balm and count the pores on her freckled face. She cooed and doted on shrunken Brett as though putting on an elaborate act to convince Mrs. Gu to let Brett leave with her. Why was it working?

Wendy was either naïve or had somehow persuaded herself that this was all okay. She finally explained what was going on.

“Brett, I tried calling your mom a lot of times, but I couldn’t reach her, and she has the shrink control. Amber is going to take you home, isn’t that nice of her? I’ll send you along in this little box.”

He tried jumping, waving his arms and screaming, but in his shrunken state he was unheard and his calls unheeded. Carefully, Wendy picked him up and put him in a hard-plastic lunchbox, one compartment of which had some napkins for padding. She closed the door partway, allowing some oxygen and light to infiltrate his new quarters. He saw the world through the slit of the box as he was lifted out, taken out the door and, and dropped roughly onto the seat of Amber’s car. The words he next heard came from the Amazing Amber, and were dripping with disdain.

“We meet again, loser.”

“We meet again, loser.”

In the following seconds of silence, Brett heard a tinny creak as the car door was pulled shut. Amber had changed from her earlier attire of running shorts into jeans and appeared much freshened up. The battered green Buick stank of mildew, as one of the windows had been letting in moisture. The mildew was pinch-hitting for her sweaty gym bag, which wasn’t in the car at the moment.

Amber’s keys jingled as she started the car and drove a few blocks and posted up in a Checkers parking lot. She parked on the side of the street and addressed her nemesis, while he fumbled to lift the lid of the lunchbox compartment and see what was happening. Brett’s heart was pounding. He felt true fear. The chicken he’d just eaten started tickling the back of his throat and threatened to reemerge, as he felt the nausea of doom. Amber was totally unpredictable, had a huge chip on her shoulder, and was in the most diabolical mood.

“Let’s talk, micro-dick.” She was waving the control in front of his box lid gap, flaunting that she had total control of the instruments of shrinking and that she could hear him if he used his wrist device. She had apparently taken or been given custody of the control from Brett’s mom. What’s more, she had his bag, which meant she had his clothes, his phone, his wallet, and his keys. He was totally powerless.

Shaking himself out of it, Brett tried to calm down. “Yes, what do you want?” he said into his wrist as nonchalantly as he could.

“Only one little thing…. to dispose of you. What would be a good way? Have you ever thought how you wanted to die, Brett?” She asked with conviction and intense curiosity, speaking like a veteran interviewer. It was the same tone and poise she had shown on the local news when she had won multiple state records for girls track last year and was feted as a wunderkind.

“Wha--! You’d never get away with it. Not in a million years. I’ve got-“

Cackling, Amber replied. “I could 100% get away with it. I could swallow you in one gulp. You’re so small there’d be no evidence – you’d just have vanished.”

“But what about my mom? She is expecting me.”

“Pshaw nobody expectin’ you, loser. She dunked her phone this morning. As far as she knows, you’re still with that big-shot whore ‘Yawn’ and her sister.”

Brett was just stunned at the way she spoke of Yuan, who was supposedly a hero of hers. How deep did this hatred go?

“What about Mrs. Gu? She knows you’re taking me home. She’ll tell the police!”

“Right, like she is going to testify. They’re both Chinese nationals. Her big-shot whore sister was just abusing you. Your mom’s old ex that she talks about, the lawyer. Who is she gonna go crying back to when you turn up missing? And who do you think they’re gonna believe, dumbass? They are gonna deport both their asses back to China!”

Brett started to tear up. She was a maniac. This was some kind of real-life MAGA homefront war to her. This white trash kid had a chip on her shoulder the size of the Continental Divide. My God, she was actually serious.

He choked out, his voice breaking, “B…but why?”

“Would like to say it ain’t personal, but you’re the one fucking us over hardest. You are enabling this fucking shrinking shit. You are making it happen because you’re so fucking horny for shrinking. Fuck that shit.”

“I’ll stop! It’s not finished yet!” He pleaded.

“The hell it ain’t, asshole! Your mom submitted her certification application just today and it’s prolly gonna be approved too. Don’t even fucking matter, the rules are already changing. You are fucking up education and bringing us into this brave new world bullshit. You don’t know how to be a man and it’s gotta fall to me to teach you how to die like one.”

“Do you want money?? I’m getting a scholarship from this, I can get money from my dad, I’ll do anything you want!”

Amber paused. “Nope. Me and my mom might be trailer trash but we got our pride. We’re real Americans and we are gonna learn and grow the old-fashioned way. But I ain’t gonna eat you, or feed you to my dog. I got a better idea. Somebody else who’d have a better time eatin’ you and who I can use for the purpose. Let’s see if I can kill two birds with one stone and snag a bitch ass liberal foreigner...”

She turned to a pile of papers in the passenger footwell. It was a printout of the shrink certification training reports that Lee-Reilly had been amassing. Every detail that Brett or the teacher had said had been captured in these reports, and each teacher got to read what had happened in the previous sessions. They were part of the reading that Nancy had been given yesterday for the training. Seemed that Amber had managed to liberate these as well. Brett knew that his mom was deeply disappointed in him and had shown tremendous rancor in her treatment of him in the past few weeks, but he could scarcely believe that she knowingly gave information to a girl that harbored homicidal ideation against her own son. It had to be some elaborate prank or

“Hmm… wonder who I can convince to eat you… “

“please Loren, I’ve been captured by Amber”

              ERROR – The message could not be sent.

“were near mrs. Gu’s house but I don’t know where were going”

              ERROR – The message could not be sent.

“please help”

              ERROR – The message could not be sent.

As the minutes dragged on and she pored over the reports, Brett was frantically trying to text Loren, but he had no reception. The lunchbox was mostly metallic, and acted as an effective Faraday cage, blocking the wrist device’s cellular antenna. Increasingly desperate, he tried to climb the side of the box and kept falling down its slippery edge like a mouse caught in a bucket trap. It was hopeless. On one final painful tumble he just laid there in a heap in the box, bawling and feeling intense regret for having ever started down this path.

If I ever get free, he said to himself, I will go to church for the first time in five years and thank God. I will treat my mom and Don better. I will-“

Interrupting his thoughts periodically with crass judgments, Amber jauntily cried “Damn dude, you been in so many women’s mouths. Damn you a whore!” More page flipping. “ugh…. Wait! This is perfect. You had that fucking jihadi bitch Erenli? She is SUCH a bitch! She gave me a bad grade on my government paper just because I defended President Trump’s Muslim ban. Fuck her fucking bleeding heart ass back to asscrackistan where she came from.”

If the remark hadn’t come at such a terrifying time, Brett would have found it hilarious that Amber would blame her teacher for that and concoct such an implausible delusion of political persecution, when Amber had plenty of mental deficits that could account for bad grades. But starting to grow numb to her cruelty, and unable to come up with an effective plea, Brett decided to blast the idea. “She’s too smart to fall for this stupid stunt, Amber.” Was it possible to talk Amber out of this?

Amber thought a moment. “Might be right, but I bet her mom ain’t. She wanted to eat you, says here.”

Fuck, Brett thought. Was that in the report? Had he written down or told Lee-Reilly that Umaima Erenli had offered to eat him? Maybe in a throwaway context? He still couldn’t work out if the older woman had shown such a profound misunderstanding that shrinkees were real people that she seemed to potentially believe he’d make an offering of himself, or if it was a clumsy attempt at humor that didn’t translate properly. He hoped fervently that it was the latter, as this would grind Amber’s murderous plan to a halt.

A keychain jingled as she flicked on the motor. There was a squeaky belt on startup that went away after a few seconds. Brett was stuck with nothing but sounds to indicate the progress being made towards his plotted demise.

But she made sure to let him know. “Oh yeah this is great. We’re definitely going to her house. Sounds like her mama is going to eat some American micro-dick for dinner, and I’m gonna get some Bedouin bitches busted with time to spare.”

As the sun set, the rickety Buick approached the apartment complex where Miss Erenli lived with her mother. Brett was treated to an opening of the lunchbox lid for the first time as her big, powerful hand came for him.

Now was the chance! He tapped “send” on a detailed message to Loren. A spinner indicated sending progress.

“Loren come quick and call the police! Amber is going to kill me! I’m at Fatima Erenli’s house!”

              ERROR – The message could not be sent.

Brett frantically tried to tap out another shorter replacement. Each one prompted a short attempt to send followed by a message of failure, though it seemed to be trying.

But it was too late. The hand grabbed him by his lower half and held him upside down as he was clenched tightly enough inside her clammy fist that his arms could not reach one another to resume texting.

His world swung around nauseatingly as she slammed her car door and took a heavy set of steps toward the Erenlis’ door, then knocked on the door insistently.

KNOCK KNOCK knock knock knock.

Within 15 seconds, Umaima answered the door. “Hello yes?” she asked of Amber, a smile fading as she didn’t recognize the stranger. looking at her with skepticism.

Amber put on her best bemused smile and tried to look like she also found this weird. “Hi… is this Fatima Erenli’s home?”

“I am her mother.”

“Is Fatima home?” Amber asked.

“No, she is out teaching tonight.”

“And, um, are you Umaima?”

Umaima nodded, unblinking.

“Okay. Um… I’m Kelly, and I have with me a shrinkee named Brett – he claimed very adamantly that he wanted to see you.”

Suddenly Umaima’s smile was back. She beckoned for Amber to enter the house.

“How do you know Brett? Is he your friend?”

Amber bit her lip and pretended to think. “Well… yes, I guess…. As much as shrinkees can be friends. They aren’t really normal people though, of course! They live such short lives and can’t really talk.”

Umaima nodded vigorously. She was doing so with great defensiveness, as though acknowledging the humanity of shrinkees made her somehow old-fashioned or parochial, and was something to be avoided. As Brett saw it through the gaps in Amber’s fingers, his heart sunk.

“He told me he wasn’t going to have much time anyway, and he wanted you to eat him.”

Umaima’s eyes bulged. “He wanted… ME… to do that?” she said, flustered.

“I know, it’s really weird right! I guess some people might not like it, but… would you be willing to do it?”

Umaima sputtered. She thought it unseemly to show any enthusiasm for it. It was immodest and selfish. But it had been a desire of hers. Her stomach groaned slightly as she had been making dinner later and later in the evenings for the benefit of her daughter.

Finally the woman spoke quickly. “I can if he really wants. Are you sure?”

“I am totally sure. He was very specific. He said that he wanted you to eat him whole today.”

Umaima blushed and inhaled sharply. “Yes, ok… you set him down there. I will do as he wants. Please sit… I guess maybe this is nothing new for you. How many shrinkees have you had?”

Amber looked upward as though trying to count. “Oh lots… I guess maybe 10 or 11.” Brett was flabbergasted as he looked up at the two ladies, as he knew that Amber had never eaten a shrinkee and this pretension was ridiculous.

But it seemed to be working to soothe Umaima’s remaining doubts. As she came over and looked expectantly at Brett, he started hollering at her to stop, flailing his arms. She picked him up in a warm hand and held him close to her face.

“Do they always yell when you do it?”

Amber nodded. “Oh yeah. Even if they really want it, they do make noise and wave their arms like they’re trying to tell you something.”

Umaima smiled broadly at Brett, showing her teeth. Very quietly, in a tone Amber couldn’t hear, she murmured “Thank you young Brett, I hoped you would agree, let me eat you.”

The plunge into her mouth was rapid. He could still hear Amber talking outside, but it was distant, as though hearing someone while underwater.

“…and you can drown him in your mouth if you want, but it takes a while, or you can swallow…”

The word swallow hit him with horror as Umaima evidently felt empowered at the sound of it. Her tongue, defeating the strongest opposition from his whole body, worked him backwards to the back of her throat, positioning him face-first towards the dark orifice. She was holding her breath and the air was cloying, stale, and oppressive.

Then, the tongue curled up and over him, pressing him into the gap. Her throat muscles closed around him. It sealed him perfectly and tightly, like a sleeping bag squeezed on all sides by a hydraulic press, but the pressure had a directionality downward. Inexorably, despite digging his fingers into the walls, he was swallowed.

Flying through open air, he landed in a splash into a sticky, hot liquid. Her stomach smelled of stale, acrid vomit and there was very little food particulate. He heard churning. The stomach was greeting his presence as though he were sustenance. His presence necessitated the production of more fluids. This was the reality of his new eternal prison.

Jesus, don’t let me die here, Brett thought. I don’t want to die as food.

But maybe he would die of massive burns first. The stomach was mostly acid, and he knew its effects. His skin would start to tingle, and then it would burn, and the pain would get progressively greater until his final moments.

And then, very distantly, he heard laughter. It was Amber. He could not hear what she was saying during the laughter. Umaima’s response, though, echoed through her body. She was speaking with trepidation. “Now what is funny?”

He couldn’t make out Amber’s words, but it had the tone of triumph and mockery. She was resplendent in the sarcasm that she could deliver when in this mode. It was probably getting the best of her.

He could hear Umaima losing her temper. She cursed in Turkish, and growled “This was a joke? You cruel girl!” He heard the unmistakable sound of an open hand slapping flesh, as Amber was evidently being accosted for the perfidy. More yelling ensued. Umaima seemed to get hit hard in the gut as he felt his world shaken backward. The woman screamed that she wanted nothing to do with this, to leave her alone.

In haste and panic to undo her mistake, Umaima stuck two fingers into the back of her throat, and subjected Brett to a final roller coaster ride. Brett felt an overwhelming joy as he was expelled out of her stomach. He was starting to believe that he was safe, that Amber’s hubris would be his rescue.

But he was wrong. Amber hit the cowering woman again, who fell to the floor in tears. The fleeing girl scooped him out of a shallow heap of puke, and ran out the door, cursing at her luck and how the plan had failed. She slammed the door, running back out the way she came.

Why did this always happen to her, Amber thought? It was such a good plan, to tar those fucking Chinese and Muslim invaders. All her life, she had been undercut by wimps and weaklings. Why such a fuckup when she finally had her rival where she wanted him? What a stupid mistake. Well, she would just have to get out of here, nobody knew her real name around here anyway, and no way would anyone believe she had done this. A clean getaway, then she would gather her thoughts and do the deed more inconspicuously. She would eat him herself tonight, wash him down with vodka, and pass his body in her morning shit tomorrow. They’d never find his remains in her fecal matter, no matter what was alleged- she’d still get through this.

The stern figure of Loren Issakinen greeted Amber, who stopped gobsmacked in the parking lot before she could get into her car.

“Hi Amber. Fancy meeting you here. Have you seen Brett Henderson today?” She said, dripping with sarcasm.

“Oh, um…. I don’t think so, not after he, uh went out with Coach Henderson’s friend.” Amber sputtered.

Loren rolled her eyes. “Right. I already called Wendy and she said that she had, erhem, dropped off Brett with you.”

“Did she say that? I don’t know why-“

“Look kid. This is no joke anymore. You’re in big trouble and you’re going to be in really big trouble if you don’t hand him over to me now.”

“If you’re suggesting that I would hurt him, I’m a little insulted.” Amber said nervously. “And actually, I saved him from being accidentally eaten.”

At his shrunken height, Brett screamed bullshit with all his might, but he took comfort that Loren was not having any of it.

Hissing, the computer science teacher approached within inches of Amber’s face. “I’ve heard enough. Open your hand right now. Put him into this pouch. Gently.”

The girl complied, tears starting to form at the corners of her eyes. Brett slid into a soft, fabric-lined pouch, into which she had thoughtfully place a small swatch of alcohol-coated wipe. He eagerly wiped off the sticky substance still covering him, holding his breath against the powerful fumes of the alcohol, and then collapsed in the exhaustion of existential relief.

“I don’t know what you’ve done to him, but if you tried to eat him or set him up to be eaten, you could be in for attempted murder. As it is, I think at least aggravated assault, don’t you? Medals don’t count for anything in state prison.”

Amber was silent. She was holding back tears at finally facing the threat of repercussions for her vile machinations.

Loren continued in a wrathful tone. “I’m going to take Brett to unshrink and see what shape he is in. If he wants to press charges, I will be behind him every step of the way.”

As the teacher took Brett back to her house in her Tesla, her mind raced. She was pleased with her rapid, military-like response to the delayed texts Brett had sent, and that she had been able to find him from the last GPS fix that the app in his wrist device has gotten. That was a stroke of luck. Amber had disposed of the original shrink control, but, again, they were fortunate to have a few spare prototype devices handy in Loren's lab. But that was just the beginning.

Despite all he’d been through, Brett still had a rocky path ahead.

Many of the faculty had shown great callousness and lack of empathy in their treatment of Brett. That bode poorly for how he would be treated in the future, and for how unprofessional the shrinking process had become – Loren was now convinced that it was could not be done appropriately with secondary school students.

It did not end there. The student body would be brutally bullying him next year, many of them reacting with resentment at his contribution to the shrinking rules, on a smaller scale but similarly to the way Amber likely had been motivated to act. Everyone would find out sooner or later who he was, as Lee-Reilly was barely even attempting to keep his identity secret anymore among the faculty and parents. This was causing a rift between the principal and Loren, who was starting to wonder if this was all a crappy political game. A game that Brett didn’t deserve to be punished by.

Maybe moving to another school would help, but she cursed Nancy most of all for this outcome. There might be backpedaling and apologies, but Loren didn’t believe them anymore. By abandoning custody for that of a comparative stranger, his mom had effectively abused him and invalidated any trust he might place in her. He had already told Loren of the uncaring judgment and fierce punishment he’d been receiving. To give him back to her now would be a cruelty.

Loren sighed and shook her head as she pulled up at a stoplight and glanced over at Brett sleeping in the pouch.

Maybe he’d be okay with his existing circle of friends. Maybe she could protect him. Maybe this would all fail and they could abscond to another city. Maybe she was projecting her feeling onto him because she had once wanted to be rescued and was intoxicated by the feeling. Maybe he would finish growing and have no further use for her, and all of her planning was just daydreaming.

The possibilities teemed chaotically in her anxious mind, but Brett did look downright serene sleeping in that pouch. Peering down, she smiled warmly at the young man whom she loved.