Scott inhaled delicately through his nostrils as his face was caved against the muscular, peachy ball of Judy’s bare foot. She gave her powerful ped another wiggle, and it was smoothly fitted into the shoe with her two-inch son inside. The usual aroma of summer grime and balmy flesh greeted his olfactory senses; the same flavors were teased against his tightly clenched lips. His back creaked as it was bent into the shape of the arched stiletto she’d placed him inside of for demonstration.
He didn’t even have the gumption to feel angry about this. Sure, he hadn’t even done anything wrong to earn this latest foot-sandwich atrocity. Sure, Judy could’ve mentioned to him that she’d volunteered the pair of them to make a special presentation in group today. Sure, she could’ve told him that Olivia Blackwell, the resident R&R therapy session guru and expert in all things shrunken torment, would be bringing in some special tools to make his winnowing all the more public.
Would it have softened the blow at all to know these things before? Scott didn’t think so.
The stiletto had emerged first from Olivia’s black bag of tricks. It was made of a rather ruthless vinyl substance that put some particular pressure on Scott’s limbs as his mother smeared him length-wise along her sole. Worse still, though, the shoe was entirely translucent. After he’d managed to wrestle his cheek to the side of Judy’s crushing sole, Scott could get a surprisingly clear look at the outside world beyond the glassy confines of the shoe.
Which could only mean everyone out there could see him clearly, too.
They were certainly trying to, anyway. Most of the shrunken individuals, all standing at varying sizes ranging from six to twelve inches, were placed on the floor. The young people were crowded in terrified wonderment around Judy’s proudly posed leg, towering above them like a beacon of their upcoming emotional doom, with the poster boy of their woes visibly splayed inside the see-through prison beneath the woman’s massive foot.
The parents all took the opportunity to observe, too. They all stooped low to the ground before Judy, trying to get a good look at the underside of her borrowed stiletto. Group members both shrunken and not all knelt before the glass altar of the shoe, watching Scott’s silent struggle with baited breath. Judy herself only smiled as she rotated her ankle to provide an underside perspective to all parties present.
For his part, Scott was just focusing on gasping up regular breaths. There was hardly time to be humiliated by the audience he was forced to play to now just beyond the tight glass walls of the shoe. After so many years of being stuffed into Judy’s heels, Scott had a certain knack for adjusting his oxygen intake within two minutes of entering the hole. However, that only worked when the shoes were fitted specifically for his mother.
These vinyl training tools of Olivia’s, clearly intended purely as demonstrative tools and not to be worn outside the Clinic as normal shoes, were a different story. Ordinarily, Scott had at least enough room to wrestle his body into a new position after a few minutes of wrenching himself against the ceiling of feminine foot flesh.
That luxury was not afforded today. There was well and truly nowhere to go as he was plastered flat beneath the unbelievable weight of Judy’s foot. His every joint and bone was putty under the thankfully forgiving mass of his mother’s pink sole. If not for the handy air holes poked modestly along the seam of the plastic instep, Scott surely would’ve suffocated.
Space was only the first concern, though. There was a prevailing odor of chemical surface cleaner, probably after multiple uses by other Clinic members, to avoid the passage of germs. It was only somewhat successful, though, as Scott could detect numerous other remnants of smells trapped in the shoe which didn’t belong to Judy. There was a definite note of aged lotion, crusty and floral in its gooey affectation, most likely when an older woman used the shoe. There was also a hint of something sour and grassy from a younger, athletic wearer, probably a girl even younger than Maggie. Of course, all of these minute flavors were trumped by Judy’s insistent size-12 foot, which flooded every square millimeter of the training footwear with its physical shape and its atmosphere. Her skin was hot and lightly greased, only warming Scott’s body further beyond comfort with its tepid scent. And it was getting harder to keep his lips closed as they were forcibly ground against the gridded ball of her gigantic, moist foot.
“Doesn’t that hurt him?” a voice of one of the mothers asked. “It looks like she’s crushing him.”
“Well, as you can see, by Judy’s example…” Olivia explained, waving her hands in a steady dance like she was a game show presenter, “…it really is quite possible to wear your charge in footwear even as restrictive as this, providing accommodations are made, such as breathing holes, which I assure you are providing Scott here with plenty of air to stay healthy and conscious.”
“Still, couldn’t he break a bone?” one of the fathers asked.
“Safety is a concern in any given situation. Taking a shower in your home bathroom, for example, is statistically more dangerous than what’s happening to Scott now,” Olivia said almost instantly. Her smile widened. “The short answer is, yes, he could break a bone. But there are plenty of reasons why, just as surely, he will not.”
“Such as?” another parent asked.
“First and foremost, training will take you a long way in learning precisely how to handle your child or other charge. I can guarantee you that Mrs. Stevens has had enough years of experience in this practice that she could wear each and every one of the reduced individuals here today in these same heels, and they would be infinitely safer than one of our newcomers wearing their child in a fluffy house slipper,” Olivia said.
Through the air holes, Scott picked up enough pieces of the conversation to follow along. Sick as it was, Olivia was right about Judy. She was a true maestro when it came to keeping her shrunken shoemate alive and unbroken.
“Like this,” Judy said simply, planting the foot in the translucent trainer heel upon the floor. Next she shifted her weight from one leg to the other, and actually picked up her opposite foot from the floor, centering her entire body’s mass down into the single glassy prison in which Scott was incarcerated.
He barely had time to widen his lungs. Scott broke his cardinal rule and opened his lips, gulping an emergency gasp of sour-flavored air. His teeth scraped softly against the rotund globe that was the ball of Judy’s foot. The salt-and-vinegar tang of it burned against the inside of his cheek. All around, the pressure increased uniformly. His whole body was on the verge of losing feeling, but he’d managed to keep himself spread wide.
“As you’ll see, if you’ll take a look down inside…” Olivia continued. “…injury will be avoided when the subject is just as well-prepared as their handler.”
Faces both small and normal-sized crowded around the plastic slope of the shoe, peering in at Scott’s miraculously mashed body as his mother’s whole body weight was trained atop it. The group had to take turns, backing away so others could stoop down to the floor and get a glimpse of the master-class in shrunken shoe rides. Despite the humiliation of it, Scott couldn’t help but feel grateful in this moment that his mother hadn’t chosen to strip him naked before making this demonstration.
“And just as easily, I can assure you that Scott down here is just as experienced in his own role as his mother is in hers,” Olivia continued gleefully. She looked to Val, who nodded, encouraging her to carry on. “Judy, why don’t you show us how easy it is to walk without harming our helpful little volunteer?”
The request was barely out of Olivia’s mouth before Judy was on the march. Her heel spikes clacked in rapid rhythm across the floor of the room as she paraded for the group, which followed slowly after her, trying to catch a glimpse of her tiny passenger.
Scott adjusted accordingly, glad at least for some occasional lapses in the pressure as his mother’s giant foot rose from the ground for another step. Her sweat-slicked skin squeaked all around him on every shift of her deep arch. At the very least, he was lubricated enough in her filth that he could move in pattern with her sole. While the translucent trainer heel was still a purer and more painful form of this activity than he’d experienced in a while, his instincts allowed him to recover relatively quickly from the brain-deadening numbness of being stood upon on one leg. By the time Judy had walked five laps around the entire room, with the impressed crowd of parents and tiny teenagers filing behind, he’d dutifully fallen back into form.
As Judy’s sole grew softer and more malleable from the canned heat of the shoe, Scott could feel his body sinking upward into the mushy island of his mother’s skin. Practically melting into her. It was only when he was laid out in Judy’s palm, with cold wind being blown on him from between her lips, that he fully realized he’d been removed from the shoe finally. Surrounding him on all sides were the faces of his audience: a group of nineteen pairs today, but in practice, representative of so many more that his mother wished to reach.
“Class dismissed,” Val said happily, golf-clapping along with the rest of the group for Olivia and Judy. Scott only looked on blearily from the exposed center of his mother’s palm, where he was marooned.
He’d told himself he’d go along with this entire months-long flagellation of his self-worth with the silent dignity of a martyr. For the sake of his siblings and their future liberties from their totalitarian parent, which he was determined to help them earn. On days like today, of course, that cross was an especially heavy one to bear.
Particularly when Judy stood on one foot.