I've got these magic pills, he said. They'll make my dreams come true.

What pills, she asked. What is your dream?

To be yours, he said. To be your tiny, treasured possession. Yours entire.

But you are mine, silly. And she giggled. Then she bit her lip and searched his face.

Not like this, he pressed. Not like I can be. I'll be tiny. You'll be larger than life.

Aren't I fine the way I am? I like you the way you are, she said.

You know it's my fantasy. You know I love you. You know this is me.

Silence.

Please let me do this, he begged.

Okay, she said. Take the pills.

I love you, he said.

He swallowed the pills. She swelled, towered, soared. Her long feet stretching out like the feet of an immortal limestone pharaoh, her slender legs as tall as ancient redwoods, her hips, her stomach, her small breasts and gentle shoulders all dim as they swayed high above him in the heavens. She stretched over, her long arms leading delicate hands to her knees. Hands he used to hold. Hands that could hold him. Her angelic face furrowed, she bit her lip once more and searched the carpet for him.

She called his name, her voice rolling like thunder across the twilly carpet plane. He called back, weakly, as if he were alone in a forest. She lowered a hand down and he climbed on. For a long time she held him in her palm, looking at him, half smiling, her eyes drawn in hard lines of worry. Her palm stretched out around him like the cracked landscape of sun-baked rock flats, but soft as a sea of down. He stood and danced, jumped, cheered and tumbled. She giggled despite herself, and used a finger to poke him.

I don't know, she whispered. I don't like you like this. It's too much too fast.

I can't change back, he said. I'm yours forever!

She leaned forward, her eye a reflected moon shimmering in a trembling pool. She blinked and he felt a wave of air fan toward him.

You can't what, she asked. You're stuck?

I'm yours! He twirled triumphantly. I love you! I'm yours! I'm yours!

Her eyes closed for a long time and he went back to his reveling across the expanse of her palm.

Finally, she spoke again: What do you want to do?

Play out a fantasy I've always had, he said.

It took a while for her to work up the courage. She knew he had a foot fetish. She'd indulged him on several occasions, letting him give her foot rubs often and even encouraging him to kiss her sole because she knew he liked it but he was too shy to do it. On special occasions, on nights she was her most courageous, she even let him lick her foot, or suck her toes.

His fantasy was to be a foot pet, as he called it. He wanted her to step on him. She was horrified, imagining his little body crumpling under the sole of her foot.

It'll be okay, he said. Maybe if you wore thick socks?

It took quite a time for him to talk her into it. She hated the thought of squishing him. She held a hand up toward her face, fingers gently pressing to her lips as she watched him for a long time on the carpet. He waved up at her.

Try it, he encouraged, waving frantically.

She couldn't hear him. She took a steady breath and finally stepped forward, steeling herself against the possibility of lifting her foot and finding only a stain on the carpet where her lover once stood. She raised a foot over him, covered by a thick sock, and then lowered it slowly.

She couldn't feel him under it, but gently, ever [i]ever[/i] so gently lowered her foot to the ground. She chewed on her lip. I love you, she whispered furiously. Her toes flexed in a nervous twitch and after another moment she lifted her foot. He was on his back, staring up at the ceiling and she immediately dropped to her hands and knees and lowered her face down to him with a wail.

I love you, he said breathlessly.

She closed her eyes for a long time again. Then whispered: Now what do you want to do?

He wanted to play with her feet bare. She let him explore the tops of her feet, roll around against her insteps and tickle between her toes. He covered her well kept flesh with countless kisses and lapped at her like a tiny worshiper. She blushed, she squirmed, she fidgeted, but her feet remained as still as stones. Not a twitch, not a playful squeeze, nothing but a slight lift of her foot so he could get at her soles, which failed still to soothe her nerves. Finally she lowered her hand and had to ask him more than once to climb onto it. He did, with a few glances back at her feet.

This is great, he cheered. You're a dream come true!

She closed her eyes. When they opened, she couldn't look at him. She looked at somewhere over his head. At the wall. Then said: Now what do you want to do?

His ultimate fantasy: he wanted her to be able to take him anywhere. He wanted to be a speck in her shoe, under her feet, nothing but a pebble to be forgotten as she went about her day.

I don't want to forget you, she pleaded.

It's not like that, he said. I love you. It's just a fantasy.

It's not just a fantasy now, she said. I don't like it.

We can't turn back, he said. Please, you're so beautiful.

I don't like it, she said.

Please, he said, and continued to say it.

Outside, the sky molted from blue to orange as she held him in her palm, her eyes closed, her mouth trembling. The sound of car engines grumbled by; downstairs an automatic timer clicked and the living room lights turned on; a bird rustled through the branches of a tree outside the window.

My shoes, she repeated.

It'll be great, he said. If you wear socks I should be fine, like earlier.

My foot pet, she said.

Yes, and he kneeled on her palm and kissed it over and over.

She watched him for a time and then lowered him to the ground. She pulled on her socks slowly as he watched every movement. She could barely keep her eyes open. She pulled her sneakers from under the bed and then lowered her hand with him. Gently as she could, she tipped him into her shoe.

Please, she said.

But he'd already disappeared, exploring the length of her insole and the depth of her sneaker. Finally he reappeared at the heel and waved. She could only imagine what praises he was shouting up at her, his love. No, his owner. No, his goddess.

She closed her eyes tight, oh so tight, and then reached for the vacant sneaker and slid it on. As was her habit, she twisted her foot into it and then stomped down to fit her heel into place. He jumped atop her insole at the impact and then cheered. She looked down at the sneaker which held him.

This is your fantasy, she said.

Almost imperceptibly he nodded. He kneeled atop her insole.

This is what you want me to be, she said.

Like a little worshiper, he bent forward on the insole and must have kissed it. She looked at the wall, then out the window, then down her her foot, one with a sneaker on it, the other in a sock. She gazed at her little lover standing atop her insole inside her sneaker as the bird in the tree trilled about some mysterious thing. She gazed and gazed, and then finally looked back to her foot in the sock.

She reached down and he cheered so loud she actually heard it. But she didn't grab the sneaker. She peeled off her sock in one smooth motion, and then raised her bared foot, absently, spreading her toes and clenching them as one often does when just taking off a sock. He froze on her insole.

She looked down at the sneaker and lowered her toes so they were resting on its edge, curling over it. He fell onto his rear and his head was shaking. He was slowly crawling backward.

What was he saying? Maybe... What are you doing? Put your sock back on! Maybe he was calling her name.

She couldn't hear him. She reached forward and stretched the sneaker's mouth open with her thumbs.

This is your fantasy, she repeated, her face blank.

And then she slid her bare foot into the sneaker which imprisoned him, at first feeling only the insole against her foot, but then she could barely feel his tiny body as it tickled her sliding sole. She worked her heel into her sneaker slowly and then closed her eyes.

She breathed.

Her eyes opened.

She looked out the window. She looked down at her feet, both inside sneakers, one ankle ringed by the crinkled collar of sock.

She stood and started walking. She fixed dinner and poured herself a glass of wine. She got the mail. She watched a few shows. Then she got out a box and started putting his things in it.

When she went to bed she didn't check for the little red smudge on her sole, or for the tiny crushed body inside her sneaker.