Scott grunted, adjusting his already-shallow breaths as his mother’s enormous pointer finger pinned his helpless inch-tall frame into the doughiest arch of her nylon-clad sole. He allowed his arms and legs to splay out. Almost instantly he sunk into the smoothly wrinkled flesh as he had so many times before.

            “I don’t want you to think I’ve been discouraged about your progress after today, honey,” Judy explained calmly. A reassuring smile crossed her plush lips. “This was just a setback, and I had to correct you for the past few hours. But now we’re at the Clinic, because I and everyone on that disciplinary board wants to see you improve… to become a better person. That hasn’t changed.”

            Judy casually arched, causing the nylon to tighten against the underside of her foot. Immediately Scott was sandwiched even more firmly between skin and fabric, intrusively compressing down against his chest and painfully squeezing his manhood to his waist.

            Worst of all, though, this simple act of Judy’s ensured Scott’s nose was thoroughly buried between each delicately parted fiber of the stockings. They were caked liberally with gummy sweat, flecks of dry skin, and soaked lint morsels. And there was nothing to stop them from being inhaled.

            Though Scott tried to avoid, it was impossible not to get a wisp of fleshy salt and cotton specks sucked into his throat. The effect only amplified in the seconds that followed, as Judy’s finger refused to budge on her son’s abdomen. He sputtered, bowing his head out of necessity to pull his face out of the wet trap of her giant footwear.

            “So once we’re inside today, I don’t want you to feel like you have to focus on the negatives… the mistakes you made this morning, and what I had to do to you to make sure it doesn’t happen again. You slip up, you learn from it, and you move on,” Judy said, falling into a pattern of phrasings Scott heard echoed for his first several sessions in the Clinic. “Just focus on moving forward. Okay?”

            “Y-Y…” Scott coughed. He fought back the burning feeling of his mother’s sweat lingering on the back of his throat. The young man suspected it would take yet another fruitless evening of continually rinsing to remove the nauseating taste from his palate. Still, actually speaking up was imperative in this moment. “Yes. Yes.”

            “Good. I’m glad we’re back on the same page again,” she said with a self-satisfied nod. At last she removed her finger from Scott’s stomach. The buoyant wall of her sole flesh to sprung him back against the stocking. Leaning in closer to her foot propped up on her knee, then, the woman lowered her voice to a calming whisper: “Let’s just remember once we’re in that circle not to go embarrassing Mommy over personal things that we can just talk out ourselves. Okay?”

            Scott nodded grimly, upset by this reminder but nonetheless resilient to it, as he was firmly resigned to withstand his mother’s totalitarianism for the greater good. Judy was implying her displeasure with Scott becoming too open in the group counseling circle in the Clinic, where the majority of his session times were spent, much of it under her watchful eye. Even the occasions where shrunken detainees were allowed some time to speak freely without their enormous guardians holding them didn’t feel quite safe enough; there was no telling who that counselor was talking to behind closed doors, even with a good faith Hippocratic oath in place.

            Judy’s disciplinary practices were well-known by now and adopted by countless households of shrunken felons around the nation, but even so, she had a balance to maintain in her reputation. She wasn’t going to allow Scott even an inch on affecting it. And after the treatment he’d received for the past five hours, thanks to divulgence even more trivial than casual public mention of his mother’s decidedly medieval methods, the young man was in no mood to test his parent.

            “Things are so much better when we decide to agree with each other instead of fight, don’t you think?” Judy opined kindly. “Keep that in mind after I let you out now.”

            She pinched her fingers around the tip of the stocking. One inch at a time it tugged away, though she was in no particular hurry to get it off.

            Scott was dragged roughly along the sweeping ceiling of stretchy nylon. Over and over he found his face rolled hard into the expansive sole as his mother gingerly pulled back the layers of soft polymer to free her foot and tiny son at last.

            Even after the stocking passed completely over him, Scott remained glued to Judy’s foot by a gummy residue of sweat and lint. He made no foolish motion to escape. It didn’t seem to trouble the woman, either, as she folded her stocking up neatly and set it on the passenger seat, still clearly in no hurry.

            When Judy’s hand returned to her upturned sole, she took her time once again, curling her massive fingers demonstratively over Scott and bathing him in their shifting shadows. Tenderly she placed her pinky finger against his cheek, running her digit down the length of her son’s chest and down to his stomach. She stopped just short of stroking along his inner thigh.

            He shivered involuntarily at her cooling touch.

            Once satisfied, she gave his right leg a little squeeze between her thumb and forefinger and peeled her tiny son off her sole like a piece of flattened chewing gum.

            Scott once again let himself hang limply as his mother draped his miniature body over her thumb. She him closer to her face, though not quite up to eye level. A few stray blonde hairs caught up in the breeze of the car’s AC brushed against the boy’s back. For a moment his shoe-cooked body temperature was alleviated by the cool wind that only seemed to reach above average waist level for passengers. However, as Judy’s lips parted, exhaling an intentionally warm rush of air over her naked child, the relief was quickly cancelled out.

            “And even though I have to do this to you now, I don’t want you forgetting how proud I’ve been of you this past year, Scott,” Judy remarked. Her other hand appeared suddenly in Scott’s field of vision. A moist cleansing wipe was tucked between her fingers as it steadily neared him.

            The white towelette swooped over Scott like a blanket, mercifully covering up his mother’s looming face as though they were playing peek-a-boo. Judy’s fingers tenderly went to work scrubbing at his sore body. Amply experienced, she knew the correct amount of pressure to apply without inflicting harm. Slowly the grit and grime from her greasy stocking-clad toes was rubbed away.

            Scott simply let her do her work, lifting his arms and spreading his legs to make room. Wipes had been a mainstay of Judy’s purse contents for years. It was an unspoken backup in case an impromptu shower substitute was ever required for her shrunken offspring, as it most certainly was now.

            Through the damp paper, Judy’s thumb caressed over Scott’s hair, ruffling it to thin out as much of her dried sweat as she could. It then traced under his neck, down his chest, and into his thighs, where she ensured to thoroughly stroke the soapy material beneath his crotch. Scott, as usual, remained numbly still throughout the process of having his junk massaged by his mother.

            “All the support you’ve given me for the campaign when it’s most important… it hasn’t gone unnoticed,” the woman said. She spoke with genuine pleasantry rather than the candied tone she usually took on.

            The wipe was suddenly swept away, revealing her sunnily grinning countenance once again mere inches from the end of Scott’s miniscule nose. Her teeth stretched into that same broad victorious grin to which he’d been a personal audience so many times. She crumpled the towelette and discarded it into the cupholder between the seats. “So thank you.”

            “You’re welcome…” Scott said, matching her level of false civility. That answer was simply expected, rather than some act of wild generosity on his part. Watching Judy’s eyelashes bat several times in quick succession, obviously indicating anticipation, he tried not to roll his eyes: “…Mommy.”