"Oh, my poor little Ray," Naomi squeals when Rachel carries me into the house. "My poor little baby!" She runs over and snatches me from Rachel's palm and covers me with a dozen sticky kisses. "I swear to God, I'll never forgive Cheryl for this!"
"Praise God," Paul says in a voice calculated to be choked with emotion. Yeah, right, I think, enduring his touch as he touches my face with a calloused index finger. Praise God that your fucking investment is still safe.
"Thank you so much, Rachel," Naomi says. "I had my doubts, but you guys really came through for us."
"No they didn't!" I shout. "Suzy's the one that rescued me. They just showed up at her apartment to beat her up and take me away."
Rachel sighs and says to Naomi, "He's still a little upset that we wouldn't let him stay with Suzy." She laughs. "I think those two had plans to live happily ever after together."
"I can't believe you were running away to live with that girl," Naomi says, looking down at me and shaking her head. "What were you thinking?"
"He wasn't," Paul says, then chuckles. "Not with his head, anyway."
"Well, it doesn't matter," Naomi says, closing her fingers around me. "You're home to stay now, Ray."
Three weeks ago, when I was a prisoner in Kim's drawer, the National Mirror printed a retraction and an apology for the story about me and the Daltons. It was their first retraction since the Mr. T/Satanic Conspiracy fiasco of the late 80s. In a very elegant missive, the editor of the paper explained that reporter Benny Doyle had confessed to fabricating the entire story, including the fake photographs. Mr. Doyle had since been dismissed. The editor regretted any inconvenience brought about by the grievous misconduct of their former reporter.
Over the past three weeks, my mother and SPECTRUM have been butting heads with the Daltons and GenetiTech, seeking to enforce their visitation rights. GenetiTech didn't want it to get out that I was missing, so they stalled by filing some kind of injunction requiring Cathy Miller to prove she was my mother. And they've spent the last week losing tests, sabotaging results, and basically prolonging the procedure to buy themselves time. Now that I'm back, they've arranged for me to meet with my mother on Wednesday.
In just two weeks, some judge handpicked by Rachel Foster is going to legally hand me over to the Daltons, who will in turn hand me over to GenetiTech. Rachel referred to the hearing as a "foregone conclusion." I'm terrified she might be right.
And last but not least in our list of developments, it seems that I have lost dollhouse privileges. Rachel believes that I am a "flight risk," and has thus encouraged the Daltons to tighten their security. My new home is a twelve-gallon aquarium which sits on the floor where my dollhouse was. No more furniture, other than my sponge bed and the matching orange plastic dining table and chair. A white paper ketchup cup, one of many stolen from Dairy Queen, sits in the corner to serve as my toilet. A small Dixie cup sits in the opposite corner, half filled with drinking water. The walls are glass on all sides, and there's no top on the thing.
In other words, absolutely no chance of privacy at all.
"You could have gotten your brother killed!" Paul is yelling at a tearful Nicole. "What the hell were you thinking?"
I'm leaning against the glass wall of my prison, watching this melodramatic scene play out. I can't really see Nicole because she's sitting in Paul's recliner. Paul and Naomi stand in front of her, with their backs to me.
"I don't know," Nicole chokes out between sobs. "I didn't want to move to Midland!" The last is said in such a pathetic, wailing voice that it would almost be funny if I didn't feel sorry for her.
Can you believe it? I feel sorry for her! The little bitch betrayed me, lied to me, and handed me over to her psychotic friend Kim. And God knows I spent a good portion of that first week lying helpless beneath her foot, or squirming between her toes, while she and Kim took turns tormenting and teasing me.
Paul's been shouting at her for about fifteen minutes now, ever since Rachel and the crewcut twins left. And at first, I was really enjoying it. Nicole started crying and Naomi started to interject, and Paul told her to shut the fuck up. And I just stood there, grinning. You tell 'em, Dad, I thought.
But now, the haranguing has gone on way too long and shows no signs of ending. Paul's basically repeating himself. This is the third time he's asked Nicole what the hell she was thinking, and the poor girl is crying so hard that she's hyperventilating.
"It's not all her fault," Naomi says angrily. "Ray was going to run away anyway, remember?"
Paul whirls on her, his face red and contorted with rage. "Shut up!" he bellows, flinging spit in Naomi's face. She wipes angrily at her cheek, but says nothing.
"What if he had gotten killed?" Paul yells. "What if that crazy whore next door had killed him? Or your psycho little friend, huh?"
"I'M SORRYYYYYYYYYY!!!" Nicole screams, bolting from the chair, right through the two of them. She runs past my aquarium into her room, and slams the door.
"Get your ass back out here!" Paul shouts, storming after her. Naomi follows right behind him. "You get your ass back out here right now!" He pounds on her bedroom door so loud that it rattles my aquarium.
"Paul, stop it!" Naomi yells. "Calm down!"
One more fist against the door, this one sounding powerful enough to split the wood. Paul stomps back into the living room and snatches his car keys off of the coffee table.
Naomi, still following him, demands, "Where are you going?"
"Out," he snarls. "You discipline that little bitch of yours, and make sure she stays the hell away from my son." Paul trudges out the front door, slamming it behind him. I hear the slam of a car door, and the squeal of Paul's tires in the driveway.
"Bastard," Naomi shouts at the front door. "Go fuck your little girlfriend Rachel! You think I don't know about it?"
She walks briskly past the fish tank, her bare feet angrily trampling the carpet. She gives me a brief, withering glare as she passes.
Oh, boy. I'm so goddamned glad to be home.
I can't quit thinking about Suzy, and it tears me up to know that she's probably worried to death about me right now. I picture her beautiful face smiling down at me, those intense green eyes so full of love... my recollection is marred by the memory of the brutal smack and the red mark on her tearstained cheek. The ferocity of that image startles me, and the events of the day - of the past month - come flooding through violently. I collapse on the floor of the aquarium, sobbing bitterly.
"What the hell are you crying about?" Naomi asks in a mocking voice. I'm so mired in my own misery that I didn't even notice her approach. I look up into her face with its cruel and vindictive grin, towering so high above me.
"Your daddy can be a real asshole, you know that?" she says. "He has no right blaming all this on poor Nicole."
I sigh. "I know, Naomi. I feel bad for Nicole..."
"You should," she scolds me, her hands on her hips. "It's just as much your fault as it is hers. More, even."
I stare up at her, incredulous. "Wh... what?"
"'I'm tired of living like an animal,'" she recites from my runaway note, "'something for Naomi to pet and play with...' The whole thing was your idea, Ray. You roped my poor little girl into your little scheme, and now you're ready to let her take the blame for the whole goddamn thing."
As she says this, she raises her bare foot and drags it along the glass wall of the aquarium. Her toes make a squeaking sound as they slide along the glass, leaving a smear in their wake. When her foot reaches the top of the aquarium, it rests on the edge. Her wiggling toes loom above my head.
"You think things were bad before you left?" she asks, slowly lowering her foot into the tank. "I'm gonna make sure you're fucking miserable from now on."
She sweeps her foot along the bottom of the aquarium, effortlessly knocking my table and chair against the wall. Her foot continues until it strikes the paper cup and spills my drinking water all over the floor. "Oops," she giggles. Her toes come down on my sponge bed and slide it along the glass bottom, soaking up the water.
When she finally tires of that game, she plops her bare foot down right in front of me. It hits the bottom of the aquarium with a soft thud. She flexes her toes, pressing them down against the glass.
"Start kissing my toes," she orders me. "I'll tell you when you can stop."
I slowly raise my head from her wriggling toes, looking all the way up her bare leg, past her shorts and tank top, to her evil, leering face. For a few seconds, we simply stare at each other. Then I let out a snort of derisive laughter and say, "Um, no."
That menacing grin on her face falters for a second, but only for a second. Her foot taps angrily, making an odd peeling sound each time she lifts it from the glass and brings it back down. "Excuse me?"
I shake my head. "I said, no. Now, I'm really tired and I'd like to take a nap, so if it's not too much trouble, could you please remove your big-ass foot from my..."
My smart ass retort is cut short as her foot suddenly raises and comes down on top of me. Her toes mash me against the cool, smooth surface of the glass and slowly work their way around me. In seconds, she has me between her big and second toes. She squeezes them together painfully, making me cry out.
"You're about to go into time out," she tells me. "Only this time, I'm gonna be wearing the goddamn panty hose."
I catch my breath and glare up at her. "Fuck you," I tell her, earning another painful pinch.
"You little bastard," she snarls. "I'm gonna stomp the shit outta you!"
"Yeah, so you've said," I yell up at her. Her toes clench together for nearly ten seconds, squeezing the air from my lungs. She lifts me up out of the aquarium and rests her foot on the edge. After a minute or so of grinding me between her toes, she reaches down and snatches me up between her finger and thumb.
Still dazed from the ferocity of her attack, I dangle in front of her vicious face. I finally manage a defiant grin. "Do you have any idea what I've been through over the past month?" I ask her, laughing. "You can't even begin to imagine!"
Her eyes narrow and she exhales angrily through her mouth. "It's nothing compared to what you're about to..."
"Yeah, right. Whatever," I say, smirking at her. "I'm terrified."
She stares at me, her mouth moving, but saying nothing. Then finally, she stammers, "What the fuck has got into you?"
"You are so pathetic!" I tell her. "I can't believe I was ever afraid of you! You're not intimidating, you're just... unpleasant!"
"Shut up!" she shouts directly into my face, bathing me with spit and sour breath. My ears actually ring for several minutes afterwards as she stomps into her bedroom, clutching me in her fist.
"Boy, I bet you'd really like to squash me right now, wouldn't you?" I call up to her. "Rip off my arms and legs, and just flush me down the..." Her fist squeezes together and shakes as she holds me up to her face. I swear, I don't think I've ever seen her this angry.
"I said, shut up!" she screams at me, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Shut your goddamn mouth before I..."
"Stomp the shit out of me?" I offer helpfully. I smile sweetly, and something in her face just snaps. Her anger just seems to collapse, and suddenly she's crying.
"I hate you, you little bastard," she whispers, her eyes brimming with tears. "I'll be so glad when you're out of our lives."
I spend a couple of hours in Naomi's panty hose, naked and pressed against the top of her foot by the nylon. I'm lying on my back, staring up at her through the tan mesh. In addition to the stockings, she wears only an oversized Coors Lite t-shirt that hangs down to the middle of her thighs.
She makes a couple of half-hearted attempts to torment me, pressing against me with her other foot, stroking me with her toes. When she notices my budding erection, she gets a little encouraged. But just as she manages to bring me to a sputtering orgasm, I yawn very loudly.
"Come on!" I shout at her as her toes press at my body through the nylon. "Harder! What's the matter with you?"
Finally, Naomi lets out a frustrated sigh. She plops her feet on the coffee table and crosses her ankles, blocking me from her view. "Just shut up," she says, her voice petulant.
"I really need to use the bathroom," I tell her.
Her foot slides to the side to reveal her tired, bitter face. "Too bad," she tells me. "No potty breaks."
I shrug as best I can in the constrictive prison. "Suits me," I tell her. "It's your foot I'll be shitting on."
She lets out an exasperated, weary moan and stands up. She stomps as hard as she can to her bedroom, jarring me with each step. She sits on the edge of the bed and uses her fingers to work me along her foot until I'm between her toes. Then she peels off the panty hose.
The cool, fresh air is a welcome change to my naked, sweating body. She stares at me with disgust and anger as I dangle helplessly between her toes. I meet her stare for several seconds, then say, "Uh, Naomi? Potty?"
She plucks me from her toes and carries me into the dining room. She still stomps angrily with each step, and her arms swing back and forth. At last, we reach the aquarium. She starts to set me down, but reconsiders for a second. She lifts me to her face one more time and says, "I'll be taking you to work with me every day until the hearing. And I'm going to make you as miserable as I possibly can every minute of the day."
"Right. Okay."
"I'm serious, Ray," she says, a whining note creeping into her voice. "You're going to spend the entire day under my foot, with your little face wedged up between my toes."
I shrug. "Sounds ghastly."
She falters. "I'm gonna..."
"You're gonna be wiping poop off of your hands if you don't put me down," I tell her. The look on her face is so helpless, it's priceless. She bends down and drops me on my still damp bed.
I walk over to the white paper ketchup cup and squat over it gracelessly. Naomi stands there, watching. It's such a sad attempt to humiliate me, and I refuse to even acknowledge it. I finish my business and tear off a piece of tissue from the folded square on the floor to clean myself. Once I'm done, I slip into a pair of sweats.
"Your mother is a crack whore," Naomi hisses suddenly. "She's a nasty, diseased whore who didn't even want you."
I gasp loudly. "That's low, Naomi... I don't think my mom was actually diseased."
"No way that judge is gonna let a nasty crack whore have you," she says. "And when I finally get custody of you..."
"Hey Naomi," I interrupt, grinning viciously. "You think my dad's gonna make it home tonight?"
She's silent for several seconds, her mouth moving wordlessly, her eyes narrowing until I can no longer see the whites. Then she kicks the aquarium with the side of her foot and storms off. I hear her bedroom door slam.
I'm sore, bruised, exhausted, and stink of sweaty feet. But I don't care. I just kicked Naomi's ass, and I'm just about mad with vindictive glee.
I collapse on the damp green sponge and fall asleep, thinking happy thoughts while I still can.
Giantess World
Homunculus by Cayce