- Text Size +

"You're coming with me after school, right?" Cindy asked, almost pleading for reassurance. I'd moved to the area with my family just before the semester began, Dad's new job promising us a bigger house and a better college in my future someday but also leaving me to try inserting myself into an established social scene and structure once again. Fortunately, I'd gotten pretty good at it with all the experience I had moving around. I used to get angry, especially after I had to leave my first boyfriend behind back in freshman year, but I'd gotten over it. Relationships just weren't worth the struggle anyhow.

"I already said I would. I said it like, three times," I sighed, though I couldn't help but smile at Cindy even while I was shaking my head. She was cute in her own way, a little too eagerly effervescent and short to ever really be one of the beautiful elite, but she was close enough that she occasionally traveled in their same circles. Kind of like a sort of JV popular girl, sometimes she'd get called up to the main team if they were short a girl.

We were going to meet up with some of those girls today, though. Cindy couldn't shut up about it, which was amazing because she also kept saying that she couldn't really say much about it either. It sounded like a kind of secret club or something, but it just as easily could have been a bunch of girls getting together to drink and laugh and share rumors in private.

It turned out to be some mixture of the two. I drove Cindy and she gave me turn by turn directions without telling me where we were going, but it turned out to just be Dana's house.

If the popular girls were a team, she was definitely the captain. She had these spectacular legs and a slender, toned and athletic frame that her designer clothes always seemed to cling to as if they'd been made just for her. I imagined the contents of her closet were worth more than some of the cars in the school's parking lot... actually I was certain of it. 

Not to say that I didn't dress well, but I spent more time at Express and Charlotte Russe than Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom. Still, even if the labels on her clothes outclassed me, it was still refreshing to walk into a place where the girls were all gorgeous and dressed like senior high royalty.

Cindy was giddy and anxious, but I was right at home. This was my third school in two years, but one way or another I always found my way to the top, and now I just needed to figure out the competition so I could learn how they played the game.

Lora was the cheerleader of the group, because there always had to be at least one. Blonde, vain, condescending... simple enough. Cindy energetically waved at her and Lora responded with this smile and laugh that was impossible to determine whether it was delightful or derisive, but my little friend didn't seem bothered either way.

Michelle was the raven-haired beauty of the bunch. I liked her outfits, always somewhere between edgy and retro, and she had these huge eyes that instantly revealed whatever she was feeling in the moment. Her dad was an English professor at the local state college, and she'd inherited a sort of dreamy, artistic spirit, and I'd seen her face in a book almost every time I'd caught her away from the other two, though that wasn't very often.

"Hi, Nicole," she greeted me with a brief smile before turning back to Dana, continuing the conversation they'd been having about Homecoming themes.

It wasn't hard for me to slip into the conversation, especially with Cindy serving as an eager conduit between me and the other girls. After a while I started to tire of the small talk, having successfully complimented Dana's home and ingratiated myself with the others with a few key observations here and there.

"So, I have to ask," I began, and the conversation around me slowed as everyone gave me their attention. I liked that moment, at least for a bit. "What's the big secret? Were you all eager to have me visit, or was Cindy just, well, you know how excited she gets."

They stayed quiet, and everyone else turned to Dana, watching her as they tried to suppress these spreading cheshire grins. Nobody said anything, but Dana reached into the drawer of the nearby cocktail table and pulled out a little black velvet box.

They were all captivated as the box opened and Dana's manicured fingers carefully pulled this long, thin platinum chain into the air and an elaborately carved, crystalline pendant eventually rose into air at the end of it.

"Ohmygod," Cindy quipped, clapping her hands together. "It's so got to be my turn, right? Who are we going to do? Is someone else coming?"

"Hush!" Dana snapped, her sparkling blue eyes lifting from the pendant and locking with mine. "I think it's proper to give the guest the first opportunity. Besides, I want to try something new."

I stared back at her, my brow furrowed as the afternoon transitioned quickly from a chatfest to a cult-like atmosphere. Dana lifted the pendant to her face and delicately pressed her full, perfect painted lips to the crystal, and I took a deep breath as I watched her mouth and the crystal take on a soft, warm glow.

"Come here, Nicole," she requested, taking a step towards me, and for some reason I didn't move. Maybe my confusing or curiosity held me motionless, but either way I just stood there as she stepped towards me and slipped her finger past her mouth, briefly suckling at her own fingertip in this weirdly seductive way, and then before I knew it she'd reached out and slid that finger along my cheek, leaving a trail of wet and strangely tingly saliva on my skin.

The next thing I knew my knees were crumpling beneath me and I was on the floor, and soon after that everything went blurry and black.

*****

"See, I told you you didn't have to kiss them."

Dana's voice crashed into my skull with the force of a hammer, seeming all at once distant and deafening. I groaned and ground the heels of my hands into my eye sockets, trying to remember where I was and what in the world was going on.

"Oh, but I liked the kissing part," Michelle's equally powerful voice replied, and as I slowly opened my eyes I started to shriek and shake my head, falling back to the ground as I found myself face to face with the platform sole of her ankle-length boot, finding it nearly taller than my entire body.

"I thought it was somehow, you know, romantic," she continued, and now I could see her mouth moving somewhere a mile above me, a world away as she remained daintily seated on a couch the size of a stadium.

"You just liked having an excuse to kiss girls," Lora smirked as she joined the conversation.

"A woman's sexuality is a moving target," she quickly replied, and seemed about to continue her argument before Lora cut her off.

"Lez," she declared while grinning, and somehow their argument kept me distracted enough that I didn't completely lose my mind, at least until I saw Cindy coming towards me. I screamed in total terror as she dropped to a crouch, the body I'd always thought of as tiny now rushing towards me and completely filling the sky.

"I'm totally sorry," she was saying with that constantly smiling mouth that was suddenly several times my size and totally giving away the fact that she wasn't very sorry at all. I'd fallen to the ground while screaming when she first crouched down, and as her hand started to reach out towards me, fingertips bigger than my head coming closer and closer, I started scrambling backwards across the varnished wooden floor.

"No touching," Dana snapped while bending at the waist and slapping Cindy's wrist, leaving her pouting as she drew her hand back.

"It's never my turn," she bemoaned, her frown just as exaggerated as her frequent enthusiastic grins.

Then there was this moment, this moment of silence as these four colossal girls just sat there, grinning and looking at me on the floor, looming over me like a pantheon of school-age goddesses amused by the little mortal speck at their feet.

"She's scared," Lora smugly observed, and Dana nodded along as she took a step towards me, the stiletto heel of her colossal coral pink strappy sandal sending a frightening jolt through my body as it struck the ground.

"Of course she is," the giantess queen replied, her bright and brilliant eyes locked on me as she spoke. "But don't worry, little Nikki, I promise we're not going to hurt you."

That was small comfort from my position in the shadow of her shoe, but at least it was something. I took a deep breath and noticed the embossed "Dior" on the underside of her arch.

Thousand dollar Christian Diors on her feet and I was so small I was almost beneath them. I suddenly realized how much I hated her for both of those things, and probably for other reasons I couldn't think of in that moment, too.

Right. She called me Nikki. Screw you, Dana.

Michelle's voice ripped my attention and anger away from her. "It's just that nobody believes she can do this whole shrinking thing unless they're shown. Normally Dana'd find someone to demonstrate with, but Cindy really wanted to see it happen to you."

"I'm sorry," my supposed friend lied again, wearing this sort of goofy grin as she looked me over. "You just... you're so freakin' cute!"

Cindy was worse. I wasn't scared anymore, or at least the anger had outgrown my confusion and fear. The fact that I was so tiny and helpless next to her had me boiling. I clenched my comparably tiny fists as I glowered up at her, but Dana wasn't done talking quite yet.

"The point, Nikki, is this. I think we've all decided that we like you, and that you might be fun to have around. I've just found that it's good to let people know  what I can do--"

"What we can do," Lora interrupted, and the look on her face, dispassionate as it was, seemed to have this disturbingly predatory undertone as she smirked at me.

"If and when I allow it," Dana responded, shooting Lora a pointed look before she returned her attention to the little spot on the ground I occupied. "Anyhow, it helps people remember the importance of remaining in my good graces. Not that we mind giving out reminders when we need to, right ladies?"

Lora was quick to respond, giving a firm nod. "Right."

Cindy chimed in too, though she wasn't quite as on topic. "Can I please pick her up? Just hold her for a little bit?"

Blissfully nobody aside from me paid her any attention, and I hoped that was answer enough for the eager little giant bitch. God, I still couldn't wrap my head around it all, but now that I'd caught my breath and started analyzing the situation, I realized that they probably did this often, and that whatever weird magic was involved had to be temporary.

"For someone we like," Dana continued, completely ending Cindy's campaign to handle me like one of her dolls, "For someone I want to trust, once should be enough. After all, Nikki, you're a smart girl, right? Sharing our world is a pretty special thing, but you get that, don't you?"

I took one more glance at her pretty pedicured toes, each at least as big as me and perched at my new eye level, then looked back up and met her gaze.

She wasn't even smug or conceited. She just believed every word she said, and for some reason I had a strange sort of respect for that.

"I do!" I shouted up at Dana, giving an exaggerated nod of my head to make sure she could see my agreement just in case she couldn't hear my voice.

"Great," Michelle commented, though her voice didn't carry a tremendous amount of excitement. "That means it's time for drinks now, right?"

Dana sighed and gave a brief laugh as she agreed. "Sure," she said.

"I'll get it," Lora volunteered with surprising swiftness, and when I turned my aching, craned neck to glance up at her, one of her perfectly unblemished Coach sneakers was already descending from the couch, and it was lowering straight towards me. I stood for a long second, totally paralyzed by the patterned brown rubber sole as it rushed towards me and began blotting out everything else above it.

Finally I remembered myself and turned, also remembering how to scream at the same moment I dove for daylight. I didn't see how close Lora had came to squashing me like an ant, but I felt the jarring thud of her massive shoe striking the ground and a burst of displaced air against my back. It had to have been close.

"Lor!" Cindy protested as I laid there and caught my breath, experiencing the fading thuds of the girl's sneakers pounding their way into the kitchen as I rolled over onto my back, just in time to see Lora glance back and give a sort of half-hearted shrug and grin while pulling a large bottle of vodka from the freezer.

"Just teaching her a lesson about staying out of my way," she quipped as she gathered four small glasses, notably forgetting someone and I had to imagine it was the tiny person she'd nearly stepped on.

"You're such a bitch," Michelle sighed, covering her mouth as she yawned and stretched her legs out, propping her boots up on the table in front of her couch.

I wasn't about to take any chances with Lora as she turned back towards the group. I took off running beneath the table, making sure I was nowhere near her dangerous feet when she walked back in.

"You love it," she muttered amidst the clank of glasses being set on the table's own glass surface above me. I could still see what was going on between the table's decorative wrought iron frame, so I watched as Lora poured a bit of booze in each of the four tumblers. I found myself unconsciously retreating from Lora's side of the table, and eventually I ended up completely on the other side, though I didn't realize it until I was in the shadow of Michelle’s propped up feet.

I took a breath and let my eyes explore her length, really taking the time to try and comprehend her incredible scale. It was like I was in a tunnel or underneath a bridge that was somehow made of patterned leggings and platform booties, and as that idea set in I ended up drifting more and more to a side until I could see her face as well.

Even when we were the same relative size, her eyes would have been huge, and there was this depth to them that I'd always liked. It was pretty obvious that she was the most intellectual of the bunch, and now that I knew a little more about her tastes I could imagine a time when I might have fooled around with her if all of the current craziness hadn't occurred.

"Hey, sweetie," she cooed as she noticed me, and before I realized that I should be backing away, she'd already shifted to her side and had her hand stretching out towards me. I yelped and impotently tried to resist her impossibly huge and powerful and surprisingly warm fingers, and in the next instant I was groaning as she pulled me into the air, seemingly leaving my stomach behind as I rose at a terrifying speed.

I didn't squirm in her grasp for long. Michelle gave me a sweet and friendly smile before dumping me onto the couch cushion next to her.

"Poor thing," she spoke down to me, still wearing that same warm smile. "It's so cruel of them to leave you out. Want to share?"

I blinked, having an additional thing to be confused about until she dipped a finger in her glass and held it out towards me, a droplet of vodka bigger than my head clinging to its tip.

"Go on," she encouraged me with the same sort of sing-songy voice used to address toddlers. "Don't let it spill."

I stared at her looming fingertip, then back up at her huge, dark eyes and perfectly painted dark smiling lips. I swallowed, I bit my lip, then took a deep breath and stepped forward, tilting my head up to the tip of her finger and letting the chilled liquid touch my mouth. 

I didn't want it. I didn't have the slightest interest in licking liquor from a giant girl's fingers, but I knew I had to get along, had to be nice and play their games.

"Even 'Chelle gets to play with her," Cindy pouted between tiny tastes of her alcohol. I flushed with furious shame as I felt her eyes on me while I lapped at Michelle's fingertip, and that only intensified as the droplet's surface tension broke and suddenly I had Grey Goose all through my hair and drenching my top.

Michelle only giggled softly and patted my head with that same fingertip, and after that it seemed like I was almost forgotten. I sat there on the couch, drenched and dizzy from some mixture of my absurd perspective on the gigantic world around me and the mouthfuls of booze while a deafening conversation rolled on around me.

I had hated being patronized and scrutinized and patted, but I quickly found being ignored almost as infuriating. I drove a fist into the plush and positively expansive cushion beneath me and glowered at the giant chatty drinking girls in turn. I couldn't decide if I hated Dana more for orchestrating this whole situation, or Cindy for drawing me into it, though I wasn't forgetting that Lora had nearly stepped on me and Michelle had gone out of her way to humiliate me, too.

Then suddenly an overwhelming wave of nausea hit me. I could hold my liquor, but I didn't really have any idea how much of it I'd swallowed earlier. I covered my mouth and squeezed my eyes shut, but then just as quickly the sickness went away and I heard a few gasps around me.

When I opened my eyes I was back to normal. Aside from the smell of spilled vodka, it was like I'd never been tiny and helpless. I took a deep breath as I looked around, struggling to convince myself not to smash a fist into one of the other girls' faces.

"Well, that was shorter than expected," Dana commented, raising an eyebrow as she looked my full-sized form over.

"See? The kissing works better," Michelle replied with delight.

"How do you feel?" Cindy asked, a small measure of concern tempering her generally excited state.

I didn't scream at her. I took a deep breath, forced a strange smile and shook my head. "Wow," I said with as much wonder as I could manage. "That was so weird! I mean, what did I look like?"

"Oh gosh, you were so tiny and totally adorable!" Cindy gushed. "I wanted to pick you up so badly but you turned back pretty quickly."

I struggled to maintain my amiable grin as I gave her a little shrug, and after a beat I turned to Dana, giving her my most earnest look. "This has to be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” I enthused, certain my forced smile had to be almost comical. “I don’t know if it’s okay to ask this, but do you think I could try it out? You know, just… I just have to see what it’s like from the other side.”

The fact that she paused and considered the idea immediately brought a more genuine nature to my excitement. “Mm… I don’t know,” Dana mused, though her playful grin filled me with even more hope. “What do you think, ladies?”

I looked around the room, wide-eyed with anticipation, though nobody else seemed to be tremendously interested in having a lengthy debate. “She could always just shrink Cindy,” Lora suggested with a shrug, and I couldn’t help but nod and grin as I saw Dana nodding as well.

“Oh god, awesome!” I clapped my hands together and hopped up from my seat, taking a glance at Cindy and noticing that the sweet smile that was so common for her had faded almost completely. I held out my hand and Dana ceremoniously and carefully handed over the necklace.

“So, the way it works--” she began, but I cut her off in my haste. It was a bit impolite, but I couldn’t contain myself.

“I get it. I saw it all and heard everyone talking. I’m pretty sure I have it all figured out, but I think I could use another drink first. Is that okay?”

I hated asking permission for everything, but I knew that’s what Dana wanted from her friends. She was the queen, and she had to be treated as such.

“Sure, Nikki,” she agreed with her honeyed voice and her plastic smile.

I snatched the bottle up from the table and then paused for a bit, seeming confused for a brief moment for everyone around. “I guess I’ll need a glass,” I observed, and before anyone could say anything I spun on my heel and headed off into the kitchen.

It was easy enough to find a tumbler for myself, and as I came back and poured a bit of vodka I smiled brightly and looked around to everyone. “Can we maybe do a toast? I know it sounds a little corny, but this is a special moment for me.”

I was already moving around the room and pouring a bit more for everyone else before they said anything, and once everyone had a drink I set the bottle on the table and took a deep breath.

“I think you all know that I’m pretty new here, so I have to let you know that I’m beyond thankful for this opportunity. I mean, it’s almost once in a lifetime, right?”

I looked at everyone in turn and saw them all smiling back at me, eager to drink in every bit of my gratitude. “Anyhow,” I shrugged a little as I said the word, then raised my glass. “To new friends!”

They all followed along, smiling as we drank together. I threw back the entire contents of my glass and noisily slammed it back to the table, and took one more glance back at Dana as I lifted the pendant she’d given me.

“You’re going to fit right in, Nikki,” she reassured me, and I couldn’t hold it back this time. I shook my head and rolled my eyes just a little, then pressed the warm crystal to my lips, closing my eyes and taking a long breath as I felt the strange sort of tingling wash over me.

“They always pick me to shrink,” Cindy bemoaned, her wide eyes almost innocent once I opened my own and looked back to her. “So, are you going to kiss me?”

I gave this short little laugh and smirked back at the scrawny girl who’d brought me here, and then I spat right in her face.

She barely had time to gasp in shock before I got to watch her diminish before my eyes, shrinking away until she was smaller than a mouse. I had to laugh again to see her groaning and flopping on the cushioned surface of the chair she’d been sitting on, rubbing at her face with her sleeve.

“Hey, what was that?” Lora called out, raising her voice at me as she rose from her seat.

“Just something between me and Cindy,” I responded, completely keeping my cool despite my swimming head and the sight of the tiny, stupid girl slowly turning her head to look back up at me. It had sounded like she was used to this, but maybe there was something about this situation that had her a little more scared than usual. Maybe my grin gave me away. I reached down and brushed her from the chair like she was nothing more than a few crumbs and watched as she flailed through the air and landed on the floor.

“Don’t worry,” I reassured everyone as I settled back in her seat, leaning over to keep an eye on the tiny girl on the floor between my boots. “I think she’s okay. Hey, Cindy?”

I didn’t even really give her the chance to look up at me. I saw her head moving just a bit before I lifted my foot and shifted it just enough to erase her from my view. I was kind of running on impulse now, and everything was happening so quickly, but the next thing I did was just slap the sole of my boot down on her. Not hard, and not with any weight behind it. My heel stayed in the air and I just slapped her into the ground with my foot.

“You okay?” I asked, rotating my foot to get a little glance of her. She wasn’t. One of her arms was bent the wrong way and I could see a little bit of blood, but I wasn’t really looking at her too closely.

Again I slapped my foot down on her fragile little body, More blood, and I hadn’t really noticed her screaming before but once it quieted down I noted the absence of her cries. “You okay?”

I let everyone look for a moment, but only the briefest moment before my heel settled to the floor and I started to lower my toes. They were silent, everyone was completely silent and totally motionless, paralyzed by the gravity and horror of the moment, I guessed. I felt like the faint creak of my riding boot’s leather was clearly audible throughout the room as I gradually pushed my foot towards the floor, and once it started, I felt the same way about the soft and subtle wet scrunching sounds beneath my boot. Maybe it was just because I could feel it, too, and I was so hyper aware of everything in that moment, experiencing every single bit of Cindy’s tiny bones crunching and the spreading slickness under my foot--I figured everyone could see and hear every bit of her end.

“You… you stepped on her?” Michelle was gasping and shaking her head when I met her gaze, her big eyes even wider with her disbelief and terror, but I was too busy hearing her words over and over in my head.

I’d stepped on her. Cindy. Another real, live person and I’d stepped on her like any insect or worm or crisp autumn leaf at my feet. "Mhmmmm," I answered as my eyes dropped back to my tall black boot, glimpsing the tiniest trace of blood that must have spurted out from beneath it and then starting to twist my foot side to side, deriving a surprising amount of satisfaction from the smooth, slick way my sole slid against the floor.

I looked back up to take stock of just how scared and horrified the lovely Michelle was just in time to watch her swiftly shrink away until she was nearly out of sight. Lora figured things out pretty quickly after that, or at least she had the impulse to get up and run. She might have been charging at me or she might have been dashing towards the door, but I never got the chance to see what her plans were. Midway through her second step she diminished to almost nothing, and I was watching her tiny form continue running in my general direction.

"Your friend Lora's kind of a bitch," I observed, flashing Dana a wicked grin. She'd only now just gotten up from her seat and the mixture of fear and rage in her face almost made me laugh.

"I liked you!" she screeched, baring her perfect ivory teeth as she screamed at the top of her lungs. "What the fuck are you doing? What did you even do, you psycho..."

And then she was tiny just like her friends, at least the ones that I hadn't smashed like an ant underfoot. I chuckled again to myself as my attention returned to Lora, who'd almost gotten past me at this point. It was wonderfully easy to stretch out my foot and sweep it across the ground, smashing the side of my boot into her and bowling her over, sending the tiny girl tumbling across the floor.

"You really are kind of a bitch, Lora," I sighed while watching her cough and struggle back to her feet. She'd almost stepped on me. She'd intentionally made me think she was going to, too. I slid my boot back the other way, kicking her over and sending her sliding several inches across the floor again. It would have been nice to push her around a little longer, but I'd only stayed small for maybe twenty minutes from a touch of Dana's saliva. I'd only spit in their vodka, and if I was understanding things correctly, that meant that the other girls might only stay this way for a fraction of that time.

The second time Lora went to pull herself up, I didn't let her. One firm step was all it took, and again I couldn't help but take a deep breath as I felt the stupid girl just completely crumple and squish beneath me. I gave her one good twist of my boot, back and forth to make sure she was totally smashed before I took a few steps across the room to Michelle, my right foot making this wonderfully enjoyable sort of sticky wet sound each time it hit the ground.

She was already sobbing uncontrollably, and I actually felt a little bad about the fact that I had to do this to her. She was the only one of the group who'd been relatively nice, and aside from the fact that she'd made me lick vodka from her fingertips she hadn't really ever bothered me. Maybe I was just being a little easy on her because I liked her clothes so much and thought she was genuinely pretty. Still, there was no getting around the fact that she'd watched me crush her tiny friends.

I scooped her up from the couch, giving her a little look and a halfheartedly sad shake of my head before I walked over to Dana. "So," I started, the sight of the disheveled little thing reminding me how wonderful this moment really was. "You really wanted another loyal subject for your kingdom, huh? Another pretty lady-in-waiting for you to parade around with?"

I was grinning full-on now, staring down at the high and mighty Dana cowering at my feet. "Didn't work out so well, did it?" I quipped while taking one last glance at the terrified, tearstained face of Michelle before I slowly tilted my hand to the side and watched her scramble for any sort of grasp on my skin.

She didn't find one, of course, and ended up spilling from my palm and falling through the air, landing in a heap next to her friend. “Anyhow, I hope you had fun playing princess for the last couple years. Me? I don’t play games with little girls.”

I couldn’t help but emphasize the word. It was corny and I didn’t care at all. I was so wrapped up in the rush of power, in controlling every aspect of these people’s lives that nothing mattered except for how everything made me feel, and I felt incredible. My body thrummed with this amazing energy and heat, and before I even really knew it, my toes were already rising into the air and my boot was already sliding towards Michelle, erasing her sad, half-shattered sobbing body from view.

“This is the difference between me and you. You’ve had the friends and the boys and the car and the clothes. You even somehow had this crazy magical power, but you wasted all of it, Dana. In one afternoon, I’ve literally got everything you are and everyone you care about pinned beneath my heel. This is what happens when silly little girls get in my way.”

I didn’t draw it out to be cruel. Like I said, I actually kind of liked Michelle, but it was important for me to make sure Dana got a good look at what happened to her. I could hear the both of them screaming for all they were worth as I carefully lowered my boot towards the ground, and I paused briefly when I first felt resistance. “Say goodbye, sweetie,” I purred while bracing my hands on the fireplace mantel so I could slowly and steadily force my foot to the floor.

I closed my eyes this time once I felt the first crunch, and it was spectacular to experience every little pop and squelch of her body slowly flattening out beneath my foot. I mean, it was just kind of cool that I could tell that her legs were the first to sort of crush, and then I felt her hips holding up, resisting the unstoppable descent of my riding boot for a moment before her pelvis started to crack and snap. A few of her ribs popped, too, but the little crunch of her skull bursting beneath my toes interrupted them, and by the time that was done I was satisfied enough to raise my heel and give a good, firm twist to really grind whatever was left to a total smear.

I was starting to really like the twisting part. It was so… final. So powerfully dominant, really putting the exclamation mark on the whole crushing thing. I came back down from my own little world after that and looked back to Dana, who’d dropped to the floor and was sitting with her legs folded on either side of her, each of her hands clinging to a fistful of her own long, lovely blonde hair as she howled in abject horror.

“I could have just tossed the lot of you in the garbage disposal,” I commented as I watched her continue to stare at my boot and the bloody mess surrounding it. “It would have been a lot less work to clean up, but I wanted you to experience this. I wanted you to see just how far beneath me you all really were.”

Dana slowly looked up at me, hyperventilating still but slowly growing silent. “There’s hundreds of girls like you out there, you know? I’ve seen them, and I can promise you that after some fake tears and some posters, you’re just going to end up as a page in a yearbook. I mean, really, the most special thing about you is that you got to meet me, and that you’re going to end up just like all your friends, right? Take a good look at your future, Dana.”

As I made the demand my boot rocked back on its heel to boldly display whatever fetid gory messes were still clinging to my sole. I didn’t know what it looked like but it certainly must have made my point, because in the next minute the little princess was doubled over on her hands and knees and retching, spilling the vodka-soaked contents of her stomach onto the ground.

“Yep, that’s going to be you in like, thirty seconds, but if you want you can take what little time you have left and get a feel for what it’s like to bow down at the feet of a queen.”

She glanced up at me, her mouth hanging wide open as she wiped at it with the back of her arm, and my grin only grew wider to see her so pathetically hopeless.

“Go on, girlie. Kiss my boot and beg for your life. Try and change my mind, and when you’re done we’ll see how you squish.”

I almost didn’t expect her to do it, but desperation must make people do some unexpected things. I watched the tiny girl crawl forward and haul herself up, draping her body across the toe of my boot and begin pressing her lips to the supple black leather.

That freshman boyfriend I had used to be really into sucking my toes, and suddenly I understood why I loved that so much. It felt fantastic, to be sure, but as I watched what had been the most popular girl in my school plead for mercy while lapping at my comparatively massive boot, I experienced the most vivid, heated tingling rush spreading from my core through the tips of my fingers and my exquisitely lovely toes.

I was meant for this. Meant to be worshipped, feared and obeyed. I took a few steadying breaths as I watched Dana a little more, but I just couldn’t risk indulging myself anymore. My boot pulled back and she collapsed on her face, and before she could even more I’d settled my foot onto her back.

I still had some fun with her, of course. I couldn’t resist dragging her across the floor, pulling her through the puddle of her own vomit as I slid my boot back and forth, surely smearing her friends’ guts all over her in the process.

I thought of her like a worm, because that’s all she was next to me. Just like the ones I’d smash under my sneakers on the way to school after a rainstorm. Back then it was just something I liked, something I did, and now that I had Dana beneath my boot, it wasn’t all that different, just somehow more.

Stepping on people was something I did, at least from that point on. Something I liked. A lot.

I kept sliding my foot back and forth, rolling her beneath my sole just like a fat, ugly worm. Her arms had to have snapped, maybe ripped all the way off, and her shoulders probably dislocated early on, too. She broke apart under my foot, piece by piece, and before long all I could feel was that increasingly familiar slick wetness as my boot slid against the floor, leaving a long, broad streak of red as the only evidence that a girl had ever been there.

When I finally stopped smearing her around, it took me a few minutes to catch my breath. I looked around at the bloody mess I’d made and took another deep breath, suppressing a moment of panic as I thought of someone coming home to see what I’d done, but then my hand reached for the crystal necklace and I realized that if Mommy or Daddy showed up, they’d just be another smear underfoot.

The idea left me shuddering for a moment, but it wasn’t the crushing that excited me so much. It was the looks on their faces when they realized what I was going to do, what I could do to any of them. I sighed happily as I sat down and unzipped my boots, taking a long moment to survey what was left of Cindy, Lora, Michelle and Dana on my sole before I set that particularly wonderful boot aside, and once I’d done that I carefully set to cleaning everything up, finding a canister of antibacterial wipes under the sink and wiping up the squished remnants of my would-be friends from the floor and my footwear.

I did go ahead and run the wipes through the disposal, and when I was done I washed all the glasses and put them back, then took the bottle of Grey Goose out to my car with me. With my new necklace fastened around my neck, I pulled out of the driveway and headed home in a daze, not even turning on my music as I thought about my future.

I could be more than Dana ever was at school, between the sudden power vacuum and all the sympathy I’d get when it got out that my friends had all disappeared, but the way they talked about it, I figured there must have been others that they’d shrunken and played around with. Someone would know too much, and I couldn’t risk staying around.

After a few weeks, I told my mom that I just wouldn’t ever feel safe there again, and I knew that was all it would take for her to get me transferred.

Besides, Hillcrest had a better soccer team anyhow, and I wanted some trophies this year.

Chapter End Notes:

More than a few people asked me to do more with the characters from "Part of the Team," and while I always wanted to, it took me a little while to get there. I felt like Nicole needed some more exploration of her nature and experiences, so I went to her first, but in time I'll probably do something more for Mandy and Kristen. Hopefully you enjoyed what I came up with; I certainly had a lot of fun writing this.

If you haven't read "Part of the Team" yet, though... seriously, what are you doing with your life? Check it out.

 

You must login (register) to review.