I’d often wondered how it would feel to be close to Whitney’s dirty white socks as I watched her slide them in and out of her shoes in the break room. I never expected this might happen. Never thought I’d wake up one morning as a tile on the floor. My face was hidden from the eyes of those around me, and I could only stare up at the underside of the break room table as the maintenance associates pulled out the chairs and stacked them in the corner.

I could of cried as the ragged strands of a mop smacked me in the face and began to grind into me. The water was warm and the soap stung as the mop moved along my face and lips. Between each slide I caught a glimpse of the woman in cover alls as she seemed oblivious to the man she was torturing as she went about her routine. I was just another filthy tile on the floor of the break room. There was nothing to really see, even if someone were to get close. I seriously doubted anyone ever would.

She went about mopping the room, and followed up with a fresh coat of wax that seeped into every inch of my face. I suffered for hours it seemed, watching as the chairs were moved back into position with two long stainless steel legs mounted just above my head. I could hear them talking, and if I had been able to make out the words I would of screamed because I felt the chair above me sliding out and watched in horror as the woman in cover alls sat down for her lunch break. Her dirty wet sneakers moved into positions on either side of me as I heard the rumble above as she took out her meal and began eating. My world was filled with the foul odor of her feet, which grew to enormous levels as she slid her wet socked feet out of the sneakers and placed them squarely on me.

I could feel the warmth of her body through the wet fibers of her filthy socks. They had seen better days as they were stained brown and yellow with sweat and the dirt of the floors. She massaged her toes by rubbing and scrunching them into my face, using the slight ridges of my nose and lips as scratching posts which she ground hard with the bottom of her socks.

The hour went by painfully and slowly as she was oblivious to my suffering and seemed to be enjoying herself far above me. I could taste her foot sweat in my mouth and it had filled my stomach, but I was unable to move or spit out the putrid water. As her break ended she dragged those dirty sneakers of hers onto my face with the tips of her toes and scraped at my face as she pounded her feet back into them. I watched in disbelief as she finally stood and walked away. The lights of the break room were turned off and I laid there in the darkness, feeling the filth of her feet harden into a film over the surface of my face.

The morning hours were pretty slow as nobody was here. I knew I wouldn’t be so lucky later and took this time to contemplate on how I would contact someone, much less escape this terrible fate. I figured all escape plans tend to require the ability to move oneself or to speak and I had the ability for neither. As the morning passed and the lights were turned back on I heard some girls talking as the chairs around me were slid out and the morning shift workers began to file in to sit and talk before beginning their shifts.

I strained my eyes to look and could just make out Marina as she tossed her lunch bag into the fridge as she said hello to everyone. She was wearing her regular black pants and velvet clogs with a shirt that hugged and held her in all the right places. She had that kind of sexuality that is hard to resist. The girl had a permanent smile on her face and I would often just see her sitting text messaging people through her phone. I wondered how many of them wanted her just for her skills of conversation. I know I always enjoyed being near her as she had this natural scent to her that made you forget everything else and only want to take her and feel that body of hers against yours.

I watched her velvet clogs as she walked around the table and as I should of expected the chair moved out from above my head. Her velvet clogs looked more worn as she lowered her feet onto my face. The air grew warmer underneath her feet as I could smell nothing but her all around me. She was a mixture of perfume and the kind of smell a girl gives off when she sweats in a wind breaker and I loved it so much more than those foul feet of the maintenance woman. She was still talking as she pulled her feet back and slid her clogs forward to rest on my chin. I could smell the sweat and perfume. Her red socks looked worn and sweaty as they stuck tight to her huge feet.

There was nothing between me and her red socks now. I screamed her name as loud as I could. Nothing stopped her toes as they reached down through the sweaty red fabric and began to rub themselves along the ridges of my face. I tried once again in vain to close both my eyes as she slid her heals into the grooves that were my eyes and tilted her feet back. I could only stare at the red fabric clinging to her heals as she ground them hard into my eyes, causing them to itch painfully as the sweat and strands of fuzz were ground into them. I could taste pieces of fuzz as they must of broken free from her socks to land in my open mouth. They must be all but invisible to any normal sized person, but to me it tasted like she had shredded her entire sock and shoved it into my mouth.

I could barely take it any longer when she slid her heals from my eyes with a hard grind and I watched as she slid those feet of hers back into those velvet clogs. The clogs dragged along my face lightly in comparison to the pain that her heals had done as she slid out the chair and got up to leave. She had been my main hope for salvation and all that she had left me with was a mouth full of debris from her socks and eyes that felt as though they had been punched repeatedly by a prize fighter.

I watched her stand. She rose so high above me that I really understood just how insignificant and small I had become. I was nothing to her as she stood saying goodbye to someone at a nearby table and pushed the chair legs within inches of my face. I was an amusement for her foot to rub against and nothing more. I wondered what I could do to gain their attention. I wondered how many days it would take before the rubbing of filthy socks like hers finally grind me down until I was nothing at all. I wondered if anyone would ever know and I wondered if it were possible for me to become something worse as the constant feet finally turned me into dust. I wondered if I would even still be aware when I was nothing more than the dirt collected on the sweaty bottom of someone's sock. I wondered if it would even be a sock of someone I adored such as Marina, or if I would find myself at the mercy of some stranger.

The day wore on and my face was battered beneath the shoes of  those I had once called co-workers. Each one would leave me worse off than before and I was helpless to prevent them from using me as they saw fit. In the beginning I screamed up to them, but finally gave up as I accepted that I was the only person who could still hear me and I wondered if  I was still making a noise at all, or if the screaming was only in my head. In my heart I hoped that this was only a bad dream or that whatever had changed me would reverse it on it's own. I needed something to believe in as with each new sweat foot that would feel me out I began to think of myself less and less as a human being.

It was then that I looked up to see my friend Trina towering above me. She was a curly dark haired girl who often wore big leather shoes with thick heels and today was no exception. She just stared forward at the television with a blank look on her face as she sat into the chair that she had pulled back nearly to the table behind it. She sat down slowly and pulled her feet out of her shoes to place one on my nose so that she could cross the other on the ankle above me. I always thought she smelled nice and sexy as she would often rub her fingers along my shirts as she talked to me but being this close I could only smell the odors of her feet as tiny pieces of debris fell from her scrunching toes and onto my face.

I tried to think of how much I adored her to distract my mind as her foot pressed down harder into my face. It was hard to breath as I was forced to take in air through the filthy fabric of her sock each breath being filtered through layers of sweat and dirt. She moved her feet slowly as a woman does when she is aroused. I could hear her hearting through the socks above me as I struggled to breath. Her feet were beside each other as she rubbed them and the small pocket of air was growing more thin by the moment. I felt myself blacking out and tried with everything I was to struggle free from below her feet but there was no hope for me and I feared my last view of life would be the bottom of her feet as the darkness formed around my eyes and I passed out.

When I woke Trina and her feet had gone. I strained to see around the room and saw only a girl reading a book at the next table. She had long blond hair that had a slight curl to it and wore black rimmed glasses. There was a slight smile on her face as she focused on the book. I wondered if she was aware that someone was watching her as she would look up in my direction as though she had felt me staring at her. I could not help but wonder if the tile on the floor under her feet was also someone like myself who had been cursed without reason and found themselves at the mercy of a world that was unaware that they even were alive.

I lost my thoughts as someone entered the room making a bit of noise. I strained my eyes to look and saw that it was one of the store managers. Her name was Kim and she had long dark brown hair that curled ever so slightly along a face that could light up a room. On her chest was the most fantastic set of breasts I’d ever seen on a woman. I often caught myself staring at her during work as she would sit at her desk in her leather shoes and dark nylons. I loved to watch her play with her shoes and catch them with her toes and would make excuses to spend time in her office so that I could catch a glimpse of them.

One day I even saw her using the wall to kick her foot hard into her shoe. I wished at the time that I had been that shoe lump she was pounding into place. Never in my dreams did I think about how painful it must have been for that lump to be pounded by her sweaty foot. I never considered how terrible and foul it was to be subjected to the feet of these women who always smelled so good when I was my normal height.

I shook myself free of my thoughts as the chair legs screeched back and I saw Kim standing above me. She kicked those leather shoes off and set her diet coke onto the table and quickly sat down without the slightest hesitation. I watched my friend with the glasses vanish as the shadows of two black nylon feet blocked out everything and left me just inches from the bottoms of two enormous feet. I instantly felt both warm and wet as she settled them onto me. The smooth nylons were gentle at first as they moved along the ridges that were once my face.

I felt so wet and warm as her nylons did little as a barrier to the sweat that had formed along the bottoms of her feet. She barely moved those feet as I felt something strange. I found myself looking down at the tile that had once been me as she lifted me into the air as I found myself bound to the shape of her foot with my head just below her toes. I struggled to break free but found I could only move my head. I leaned it forward to look at my arms and legs and found to my horror that they were nothing more than a dark outline of a man and faint ridges in the fabric along the bottom of her black nylons. There was nothing for anyone to notice except for my head which I imagined looked like nothing more than a slight imperfection in the fabric.

I watched as she lowered me into her leather shoes so slowly that I could see just how worn out the insole inside them had become. Her foot slid inside and my face was dragged along the dirty insole as her toes pinched and moved my head into a space between them. I felt my body crush as her entire weight came down and as she played with my head I realized just how hopeless my life had become.