Day 5. A Friday. John welcomed a long weekend, especially today. Kate and Emma did not have the day off so they would be at school unable to shrink and subject him to their ever-changing whims. They had quickly settled into a routine. Gloria would roust everyone out of bed, the day would begin in a panicked frenzy of breakfast, then John would walk to work, lobotomize himself with tedious spreadsheets and databases, trudge home, watch after (or out for) the girls, and finally a delicious dinner followed by bed. He didn’t see Gloria often besides at meals, he learned that she actually ran her own massage therapy and sport rehabilitation company and had to put in long hours while it was growing. She always made him feel welcome, though, and often he had to stop himself from looking her up and down when her attention was diverted elsewhere. He hoped that the novelty of shrinking him had worn off for the girls. It was impossible to predict when the mood would strike them but it had been almost 2 days since they had last shrunk him. Emma put him in a toy car and pretended to make him drive around a fake city while Kate played the monster, smashing her feet down next to him, pretending she only just missed each time. It was actually fun he admitted to the girls, like playing a videogame.

That being said he still remembered poor Johnny, still trapped under Emma’s feet, and, unrelated, he had yet to get any further with Tatiana. He cringed, remembering their most recent conversation. It was someone’s birthday, Greg from accounting maybe, and they were in the break room eating cheap cake. They both reached for the same piece. “Oh, sorry, you go ahead.” John had said, motioning for her to take the plate.

She laughed, “No, you take it. I like the edge pieces more anyway.”

“I’ve never heard anyone say that before in my life.” He replied, smiling at her.

She smiled back, flashing beautifully white teeth that contrasted nicely against her dark lips and skin. John nearly forgot where he was as she looked up at him. “What can I say, I like living on the edge.”

“Is that why you moved to nowhere, Wyoming?” He teased.

“One of the reasons.” She had subtly moved closer to him, their bodies were nearly touching. She tossed her head to the side, sweeping loose strands of hair out of her eyes. “If Bradshaw is so boring then why are you here Mr. anti-edge-piece?”

“My, uh, my mom told me they were hiring here and I could make enough to pay off all my loans.” Shit, why didn’t he reply with something witty, he had been doing so well.

Tatiana laughed again, a light, sweet sound. “That’s cute, very responsible. I should get back to work, talk to you soon cake police.” She lightly touched his arm, sending shockwaves radiating through his body, then squeezed past him back to her desk. That must have been a record for fastest bombing of a conversation, but, it didn’t seem like he had totally ruined it. He could play it off as a joke the next time he saw her.

Light snuck through the window and hit his eyes, causing him to squint. He rolled over in bed to check the clock. The house was silent so either he must be up way earlier or way later than usual. Shit, 6:00 in the morning, on his first day off he woke up before his damn alarm every other day. John groaned, dropping his head back onto the pillow. It felt like he had just closed his eyes for a second when the sun hit them again. He brought a sleepy hand up to cover his face but the light was still too intense. He rolled over, face down in his pillow, but the light still shone just as brightly. Aw shit, he thought, come on, not on my day off. He was getting used to it at least, he only blacked out (whited out?) for a moment before he came to. Unfortunately, that was all the time necessary for one sneaky person to grab him straight out of his bed.

“I’m gonna show you what life could be like if you choose us, John.” That was Kate whispering to him. She had him trapped in her cupped hands.

“Kate! You had better be getting ready for school and not bothering John!” Called Gloria from the kitchen.

“I’m not mom! He says he wants to sleep in anyway!”

“So let the poor boy sleep and come get breakfast, I’m not going to tell you twice young lady!” Kate stuck her tongue out and rolled her eyes conspiratorially.

“You’re with me today John, just hold on.” Her hand tightened around John and swung him down to shove him in one of her pockets. The only problem was that Kate was wearing leggings today, no pockets. “Hmm… well this outfit matches too well to change now, I’ll tell you what, maybe you actually like being a girl’s slave and just don’t know it yet. That’s what we’re testing today, I’ve decided.” Her other hand pulled off her shoe as she leaned against John’s bed for balance.

John’s eyes widened as he realized what was coming. “Whoa whoa whoa, hold on Kate you could crush me in there, think about what you’re doing.”

“Oh hush, I’ve done this plenty with Johnny I know what I’m doing. Besides, you don’t really have a choice in the matter do you.” She squirmed as she said this, unconsciously gripping John tighter. That’s just what I need, shrinking me turns her on, John thought. She finally worked off her shoe, a dark blue converse sneaker, to reveal a white sock with pink rings around the toe and heel sections. “Maybe… just a little smaller, just to be safe.” She muttered to herself. John felt woozy and his vision swam in and out of focus, everything had a small white halo around it. Snapping back to reality, John got a birds eye view of his prison, now seemingly even higher up. He realized he was even smaller, definitely less than an inch tall.

Her gripped loosened and he slipped into the soft cotton of her sock. He could still see through the tiny gaps in the fabric, and he watched as Kate’s hazy face flashed him a smile before a rough force knocked him deeper into the sock. Her hand was jostling him into position from outside her sock. Her feet were larger than Emma’s. They were whiter, turning into pink flesh around the pads of her feet up to her toes and down towards her heel. John was forced up against the smooth flesh underneath her foot as she adjusted him. “Not there dummy.” Her voice was still light, she really didn’t think this was a punishment he realized. Her fingers pinched at him through the sock and dragged him up until he was lying horizontally under her toes. The giant digits rested themselves across his body, her pinky toe covering a majority of his face. Thankfully, she took showers in the morning so only the faint scent of apple body wash was detectable as she grabbed and squeezed playfully at his body.

“Confusing” would be the word that John used to describe the following hours trapped in Kate’s sock. She slipped her foot into her sneaker and set off into the kitchen, paying John no more mind than she would a pebble in her shoe. John on the other hand was constantly aware of every motion she made. Walking was only half of it, even at the table she would constantly be tapping her foot against the ground or squeezing him with her toes. The air in her sock eventually grew humid with both of their body heat not helping the process. When she stepped down on him the pressure was immense, like the world itself was crashing down on him. But when she was just playing with him, wrapping her toes around his body and manipulating it… That was more like a massage than John cared to admit. Later, while Kate was stuck in class and John has nothing to do but listen to the muffled sounds of her math teacher drone on and on, he started to explore what little he could. He reached his arms around one of her middle toes, feeling the smooth skin beneath his fingers. It was perfect, like soft marble, and the way she could manipulate him just by twitching the smallest part of her body elicited new, unfamiliar feelings in John.

Drip. A faint impact on his face brought him back to reality. He must have dozed off in the crevice between her toes. The smell of body wash was certainly gone, replaced by a natural skin smell, heightened almost to the point of unpleasantness but not quite. Drip. Another splash hit his face, what was it? That was when John realized the only thing it could be, her feet were starting to sweat. “Oh gross, come on Kate!” but his words were muffled by her shoe and lost to the outside world. He began to struggle, thrashing against his dexterous cage. Outside, Kate felt the little man in her shoe move and shuddered imperceptibly. She could do whatever she wanted with him and he would be powerless to stop her. Hell, he would be powerless to stop just one of her toes. Above John, the massive toes flexed, giving him a brief respite, before curling around his body once again. This time, Kate stretched her foot within the shoe, carrying John up with it. The movement put him face to… pad? With her longest toe, about the same size and width as he was. John had an idea. He hated himself for it but he knew that if he wanted to avoid experiences like this he would have to stay on these girls’ good sides. He took the toe and began to tentatively lick it. It just tasted like skin. Sure he was ashamed, embarrassed, and a host of more complicated feelings, to be licking a teenager’s toe while trapped in her sock, but it was a means to an end. He could feel each groove in Kate’s toe underneath his tongue, as if licking a giant fingerprint. Soon, he was feeling dehydrated, the amount of spit on the toe was laughable, as if pointing out exactly how powerless and tiny he was. Tired and unsure if Kate even felt that, he began to rest.

“Oooh you made a good choice tiny John. That was the best math class ever.” Kate nearly purred the comment, it was so quiet and so hoarse.

“Kate… I… I need water.” John croaked, positive that Kate couldn’t hear him.

“Well I guess you’ve earned a break, hold on, it’s nearly time for gym anyway and I won’t make you go through that under my feet. Not yet anyway!” She finished with a small giggle. In a whirl John was yanked out of her sock and jammed in a pocket in her backpack. He heard the clanging of lockers and the clamor of voices all around him, he must be in a locker room. Kate was chatting with her friends, complaining about boys and parents and talking about the newest edgy music that somehow maintained its appeal to teenagers despite everyone loving it. Then, silence. John always had been bad at estimating time passing so the period felt like hours.

John fell asleep again, exhausted and sweating from his time underneath Kate’s feet. The smell of her foot lingered on him as if claiming him for its own. He chose not to dwell on it and instead drifted into a fitful sleep.

John woke up to the sound of arguing voices. They sounded like Kate and Emma so he must be home. If that was the case then that meant this had been the longest period of time that he had been shrunken for. He was a little nervous, what if there was some sort of time limit? There was no way he could let himself be stuck like this forever.

“You took him Kate! You took him and it isn’t fair! I want my turn now too!”

“Em, relax, I just wanted to show him what it would be like living with us. You want John to live with us right?”

“Yeah… I guess… But it’s still not fair! How come you get to do all the fun stuff with John first? I want a turn!”

“You’ll get a turn, Em, just wait a while ok? Mom is gonna be home soon anyway.”

“Stop it Kate! You’re being mean! I want my turn with him NOW!” Emma shrieked in the way only an angry little girl could. Suddenly, John’s world was inverted as the pocket he was lying in was yanked off the ground and carried into the air by a sprinting Emma.

“Emma! Come back here now! You’re being such a brat!”

“I’m telling mom you said that! You’re supposed to look after me Kate but you’re just being mean and selfish!!”

John could vaguely tell she was heading upstairs but with all the jostling going on, he could barely tell which way was up let alone which way they were going.

“Stupid meanie Kate, mom told us to let you rest today. Where are you?!” She demanded, searching around the backpack violently, throwing books and pencils on the floor.

“EMMA! You better not be doing anything stupid!” Kate was making her own way up the stairs. John hated to say it, but he would much rather be in Kate’s hands right now.

“Shut up Kate, you’re stupid! Aha! Here you are! Why were you hiding from me?!” Emma ripped John out of the backpack and held him up to her face. Her eyes were watering and a small line of snot was dripping out her nose. Her cheeks were flushed with anger and she frowned angrily as she stared at him. “Why do you want to be with Kate and not me huh?” She asked, barely concealing the betrayed sob in her voice, “is it because she has puberty and I don’t?”

“Emma, it’s not like that, I didn’t have a choice!” John tried to explain but Emma was hearing none of it.

“Yes you did John! You… you… you didn’t have to choose her!” Emma was crying now, large tears sliding down her face, staining her shirt. “Well if that’s the stuff you want then you’ll love it here! And Kate will never find you in mom’s secret drawer! I’ll come get you when you’re ready to be nice and apologize.” With that, she tossed John into the back of a small wooden compartment and slid it shut. Only a thin beam of light escaped through the edges of the drawer, not illuminating its contents, but allowing John to see his hand in front of his face. He listened as the girls confronted each other:

“Where is he Emma!?” Kate shouted

“Get off me! You had your turn! Just leave me alone!” John heard a muffled crash and several high-pitched grunts, the girls must be wrestling on the floor of Gloria’s room.

“Ow! No biting! Or I’ll tell mom on you Em. Then she’ll take John away forever!”

“Then I’ll tell on you too you butt-head! I’ll say you made me eat dad and then you’ll go to jail forever because you were so bad!”

“Stupid, you actually ate him!”

“No you’re stupid! You shrunk him dummy!”

“Shut up!”

“Ow! No you shut up!”

“Hey! No biting! No biting! Ow! Stop it Em! Why are you being so mean to me? I just wanted John to stay and maybe mom would let him stay forever and he could make her stay and take care of us more and we would finally have a real family!” Kate had been tipped over the edge. With deep, heart-breaking sobs she thundered out of the room. John could hear her stomps crescendo with her sobs until a door slammed, shaking the whole house.

“Kate… I didn’t mean… Don’t cry Kate I’m sorry. Kate? Kate come back I’m sorry I was mean I didn’t mean it.” Forgetting John, Emma took off after her sister.

“Jesus Christ.” John muttered, forgetting where he was in all the commotion. “What a fucking mess.”

Another door opened, “I’m hooooome!” Gloria called out in a sing-song voice. “Kate? Emma? John? Great news, I have the weekend off! We can finally take John to all the coolest places in Bradshaw. What do you say girls? John? Hellooo?” She trailed off after not receiving an answer.

John heard Emma say something to her but it was too quiet for him to make out. “Oh, it’s ok sweetie, Kate’s just having a hard time handling all these new emotions. Why don’t you make yourself a snack and watch TV? I’ll have a word with her later once I change and she calms down a little bit.”

Like a horror movie, John heard Gloria’s feet climbing the stairs and was powerless to do anything to improve his situation. He didn’t even know where he was. Thump thump… thump thump… thump thump thump thump… thump thump thump thump thump thump… The footsteps stopped in front of whatever piece of furniture John was hidden away in.

“But before dealing with all that,” Gloria was talking to herself, “Time for a little ‘me’ time.” John heard a rustling sound and the characteristic noise of a zipper. A light clatter as her clothes hit the floor.

What had Emma said? “Mom’s secret drawer?”