Enter 19 year old Stacy, in a similar position to Marcus, minus being a grad student but just as broke. A few weeks back from when Marcus found the ad she had found a similar one, however this one was geared towards women and seemed a bit more clear in its intentions.

“””

Next Generation Innovations is seeking applicants who is willing to go the distance in the name of science. We are looking for female participants between the ages of 18 and 28. We’d like the applicant to take part in an experiment studying the effects of volatile molecules emitted by certain bacterial metabolic processes. The bacteria in question are Brevibacteria, Propionibacteria, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Micrococcaceae,  Corynebacterium, Pityrosporum. All of these bacteria are found naturally and in abundance under the right conditions on a person’s feet. We will be testing the effects of the odor and taste given off by the feet specifically from the female sex and its effects on the male sex. Typically wearing close toed shoes will cause the feet to sweat which will allow the bacteria to flourish and increase the odor. The male participant will be reduced in size in order to increase the potency of the experiment so as to maximize the results of the study. The applicant is advised to prepare for the experiment by wearing close toed shoes for as long as possible, avoid washing the feet, shoes, and socks if worn. Potency of the applicants feet will directly affect their pay. Pay ranges from $20-$50 per hour. Please send in your name and age in order to apply.

“””

The further Stacy got through the advertisement the more scrunched up and disgusted her face appeared. 

“There’s no way this can be real. It’s so gross” she thought as she audibly gagged. She immediately began googling the company to see if they were real, and lo and behold, they were. “I can’t believe this. How are they even paying this much?” Stacy at this point had a deeply pensive look on her face. She rolled backwards in her computer chair and looked down at her feet covered in fuzzy slippers. She could feel how moist her feet were and how long she’d had those slippers, it had to be at least 9 years. She pulled one foot out and immediately felt the air begin to cool the sweat that coated her sole. She spread her toes looking intensely at them and felt the cool air hit the pockets in between her toes. She could also feel the heat emanating from her slipper on her foot. She knew her feet stunk already but it only took a few seconds for the odor to waft up into her nose causing her to wrinkle her nose. She proceeded to imagine a shrunken guy beneath her foot inhaling the scent. She audibly gagged again as she imagined a tiny nose pressed against the bottom of her sweaty foot. But then, something strange; she giggled. Then immediately went back to being disgusted. And then, a voice from across the room — her roommate Dana. 

“What the fuck is that smell? It smells like nasty feet.” She shouted in disgust without even looking up from her phone as she scrolled through Instagram. Stacy’s face went bright red as she slipped her foot back into the slipper. “None of your business!” Stacy shouted, then continued “but come take a look at this.” 

“I’m busy” Dana replied flatly.

“Oh, I guess you don’t want some extra cash for doing basically nothing.” Stacy replied half annoyed.

“Sounds like a scam” Dana retorted.

“No I totally looked up! Will you just come look?” Stacy gave on final go at getting her roommate in on the deal of a life time.

“Ughhh, fine” Dana grumbled as she walked on over to the computer. She stood beside Stacy as she read the ad as well, and experienced the same reaction. Pure and utter disgust and bewilderment. “This is so fucked up.” She whispered as her eyes continued reading on. Then, she got the pay section and began to think as well. “So this says some dude is gonna sign up to shrink down and smell our feet?” Dana asked herself aloud in a confused tone.

“And also taste them it looks like.” Stacy replied.

“And how the hell is he gonna do that?” Dana asked

“How the hell should I know. Lick them maybe.” Both of the girls looked at each other for a moment before Dana finally said, “Screw it I guess. Send in my name too.”

And with that, Dr. Miller had received her first two female applicants. They too received a very excited email from the good Doctor telling them that they’d be notified when a male applicant was found so that they could come in.

Two weeks later on the same day that Marcus Dr. Miller had reached back out to Marcus, that night she also reached back out to the girls. They were in their dorm as usual lounging around, when Stacy’s laptop made a notification sound. She nonchalantly opened up her email assuming it was related to classes. As she read it her eyes lit up and she began shouting, “oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!!! Dana! The ad was totally real! We’re in! She wants us to go in tomorrow.”

Dana lifted her head from her phone with an incredulous look on her face, “You serious? They actually found some dude who signed up for us to stick our nasty feet all over him? Must be some kind of freak”

Stacy nodded in agreement but said “Freak or not, this is basically free money.”

Dana agreed — “Agreed. Good thing I’ve been wearing these boots sockless for the past two weeks, I’m going for that $50 per hour rate.” Dana said with a slight smile on her face.

Stacy lifted her foot up off the ground encased in an old basically falling apart pink flat shoe — “Yeah you’re telling me, I think I can smell my feet even with my shoes on. Feels so gross.”

The girls laughed a bit more, pondering how it would feel to have a shrunken man at their feet in the current condition.

The next day Marcus arrived at the facility sometime in the evening. Upon entering he saw a pristine white room with a single reception desk at the back center of the room in front of a completely metallic door. Standing at the reception desk was a a young woman who looked to be in her early 20s. Marcus approached the woman at the desk and as he did so she looked up from the computer in front of her and smiled brightly.

“Welcome to NGI! How can I help you?” She spoke cheerily.

“Hi, I was accepted for as a paid participant for a research experiment here? I spoke to Dr. Hellen Miller.” Marcus replied

“Oh of course! Let me just search your name here.”

The woman typed Marcus’s name into the computer and after a few seconds her face went from a brief look of shock to one of disgust. 

“Um…are you sure?” The woman asked inquisitively

“Oh yeah, totally. I was made for this role” Marcus said, lying through his teeth as he had no idea what the experiment was actually about, but he definitely wanted to get paid.

She stared at him in disbelief for a moment before saying “wow…umm, ok I guess.”

Marcus at this point was somewhat concerned but he didn’t think much more beyond a simple “wow, what a bitch.”

The woman led Marcus through the metallic door which opened up into a long hallway with several more doors just like it along the walls. As they walked down the hallway towards one final door all the way at the end, the woman kept taking brief glances at Marcus, each one more disgusted than the pervious one. 

“So like, what do you think it’ll smell like? You think you can handle it?” The woman asked in an attempt to understand why he would have agreed to take part in such an experiment.

Marcus, not wanting to seem ignorant and afraid of being told he wouldn’t be able to do it, proceeded to confidently answer her.

“Oh yeah totally, no big deal. I do it all the time. Probably a bit bitter you know?” Marcus flexed his bullshitting skills pretty hard here.

The woman gave him a hateful glance while saying “Wow. I’d never be able to do that. Good luck.” She finished as they began to enter this final room. This room looked similar to the entrance except that it had no more doors, just the one they came in through. At the end of the room there was a tall chamber with a transparent glass door. The chamber seemed to stand on top of another smaller chamber beneath it. And the smaller chamber was connected to a completely glass box but with a carpeted floor. The glass box was about 10 inches tall and 2 feet long. The top of the box was made from a glass piece that looked like it could slide open. At the side of the room there was a line of comfortable looking chairs that someone could rest in. Finally in the corner of the room he saw what looked like a folded up spandex suit of some sort. 

“Please wait here for a moment while I go get Dr. Miller. In the meantime, please remove your clothes completely and put on the required suit for the experiment.” The woman said before exiting the room and closing the door behind her. Marcus approached the tall chamber and could see that its floor could swing down, leaving an opening to the smaller chamber beneath it. And that smaller chamber could also open up and allow access to the glass box in front of it.

Marcus proceeded to do as he was told. The suit felt a bit snug, but in a minute he was used to it and actually felt it was quite comfortable. He felt it had some electronics embedded into it, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Just a few moments after Marcus heard a knock on the door.

“May I come in?” He heard a feminine voice come from the other side of the door.

“Yeah!” Marcus replied.

In walked a beautiful looking woman wearing a tall lab coat and black loafers. She went over to shake Marcus’s hand.

“Hello, nice to meet you! My name is Hellen, I wanted to thank you again for coming in Marcus. You’re the only male who applied for the position so I was beginning to get doubtful we’d be able to carry out the testing, but then I saw your application and knew I had to act fast! Now I’m sure you read the description carefully right? You know how this experiment will be carried out?”

Marcus, again not wanting to seem stupid decided to bluff his way through it all.

“Oh yeah totally. All makes sense to me, let’s get this show on the road!” Marcus said feigning enthusiasm. At this moment he also noticed a strange odor in the air. A few moments passed and he finally placed it. It was feet. He could smell foot odor mixed with a slight hint of fruity lotion or something. He looked down at Hellen’s foot wear and could see that her black loafers looked absolutely destroyed and rancid. He began to wonder why the hell she didn’t get new shoes, but didn’t think anything more of it.

Hellen noticed where Marcus was looking and smiled at him. “Fantastic! I wish more people had a zest for the sciences as you do. I’ll just need you to sign this paper work and we can begin right away.”

Hellen handed Marcus a packet of papers that must have been at least 65 pages long. “Don’t worry about reading all the mumbo jumbo, it’s pretty much just expanded legalese on what the ad originally said. You can just sign the bottom of the first page and we can begin.”

At this point Marcus had felt the scent of her foot odor to be kind of strong and figured he’d just sign the paper so they can start the experiment and he can stop standing so close to her. After he signed it Hellen clapped her hands in excitement and and led Marcus over to the tall chamber. 

“Now this is the size reduction machine. Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing and it’ll happen almost instantly. ” Hellen said as she opened the door to the chamber guided Marcus’s movements into it. The use of a size reduction machine was pretty much the only part of the ad Marcus DID understand. He stepped inside without too much worry and prepared to be shrunken.

In a way he was kind of excited. Not many people can say they’ve had the experience of being shrunk, and he was getting paid $200 an hour, so this was a win win situation for him. Hellen walked over to the side of the chamber where there was a control panel and began entering some settings. In a few moments he heard the machine begin to whir up, the noise had a very mechanical ring to it, and then he was flooded with a bright blue light. He felt static electricity tingle across his skin. The floor he stood on began to receded further down into the smaller chamber that it rested upon until the floor had been completely removed. He now stood 10 inches further down from where he entered the chamber, meaning the small glass box’s roof was at about his upper shin. Suddenly he felt very light headed, and before he could even blink a very loud laser like sound rang and the room was a lot larger than not even half a second ago. 

Marcus couldn’t believe it. It’s one thing to read about it in the news and another to actually experience being shrunk down. He must have been an inch tall now. Everything around him was huge. For one, he now stood in the chamber and was completely blocked in on all sides. The walls were too high for him to climb out and exit the way he came in, and he could now see that the small glass box in front him had an opening to it from inside of the chamber where he was. He heard Hellen’s voice now.

“Marcus, looks like the shrinking was a success!” She was now holding a tablet of some sort in her hands and was looking intensely at it. “The suite you’re wearing allows me to monitor your vitals along with many other metrics of the experiment. Now I’ll need you to step inside the glass room in front of you. It has a lot of sensory electronics built into the carpeted floor that will allow me to track the conditions inside of it.”

Marcus, still in shock at his surrounds began walking forward into the glass box through the opening. After he did so Hellen pushed a button on her tablet and another solid glass panel slid over the opening sealing him inside the box. Marcus Wass caught off guard by this and it scared him a little. He wondered how he would breath if everything was sealed off. The floor beneath him felt very comfortable, and he could feel some air coming from it. 

“No need to worry Marcus, that chamber is well ventilated by funneling filtered air through the floor up into it. Now our female participants should be arriving soon, but I’ll begin the experiment slowly first and then increase the potency as we progress.”

Marcus thought to himself “Oh? There’s girls involved? Score! This is my best idea yet! And looks like it’s starting, meaning it’s time to start getting paid.” He finished his thought as he smiled smugly to himself.

Hellen kneeled down and completely removed the glass roof of the his chamber. She then stood back up and lifted one foot up towards the opposite leg’s knee. Her hand reached down and began tugging at her loafer. Marcus watched with a puzzled look on his face. “What is she doing?” He thought.

“I myself will also be taking part in the experiment, so I’ve been carefully preparing some samples for you with these old shoes of mine. I promise you they’ll certainly be enough to get you started. And there’s plenty more to come. My assistant tells me that you do this all the time so you should be very familiar with the odor.”

Marcus was now even more confused. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?” He asked. Hellen could see that he was talking but she couldn’t hear anything from her tablet. “Sorry Marcus” she started, “Looks like the microphones in the suit are malfunctioning, I can’t hear you. Don’t worry, we’ll fix it soon. I’m just going to get you started and then go wait for the female participants.” 

Marcus watched as she pulled one of her loafers off with a sickening squelch sound, catching a brief glimpse of her foot which looked pretty on the outside but was was lined with a red imprint of how tightly the shoe was affixed to her foot. Her foot looked moist as well. As the odor quickly expanded through the room everything in Marcus’s head immediately clicked, and his face quickly turned into an expression that one could only understand as a look of utter doom and hopelessness. “Wait a second.” He thought, “An odor test? The disgusted front desk girl? Her asking me what I thought it would smell like? The bacteria found naturally? Her foot odor? Oh God no. This was a mistake. This experiment…I’m going to be smelling feet?” Marcus began to panic which caused his heart rate to increase which prompted Hellen to notice it on her tablet. 

“Fascinating” she said to herself. She tapped a button on the tablet to being an audio recording. As she recorded, she pulled off the other shoe as well and placed them in front of her. Then she kneeled down again and picked one up and held it over the now exposed glass box. 

“It seems the odor has spread to the subject’s area rather quickly and the body’s first immediate response is one of revulsion. This is evidenced by the quickening of the heart rate. Perhaps it is excitement as well. We shall continue until we understand the full depth of the subject’s reaction.”

Marcus immediately covered his nose. She now had the shoe in one hand held over the opening of the box and her tablet in the other hand. The odor assaulted Marcus the closer she got. He couldn’t believe just how bad it was. It was at least 10 times more powerful now at his size than when he could smell the faint odor at normal size. He began to feel sick to his stomach just from how cheesy and thick her foot odor was. She proceeded to place the loafers inside the glass chamber on either side with the openings faced towards the center of the box. She continued to speak to the recording tablet.

“Subject is now attempting to prevent the odor from entering his nose. I’ve placed my shoes in the chamber such that odor flow from the shoe towards the subject is maximized and spreads evenly throughout the chamber.”

While Hellen was potentially close enough for her to hear him Marcus began to shout and jump up and down.

“DOCTER THERE’S BEEN A MISTAKE!! I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS. PLEASE YOU HAVE TO LET ME OUT. THIS IS ALL A MISUNDERSTANDING”. Marcus had completely lost any thoughts of making money and just wanted to escape the predicament. The odor had gotten so much worse from her placing the disgusting, cavernous, humid, and rancid shoes that were now clearly trying to choke him with their stinky foot odor. There’s no way he could handle this. Each passing second the reality of the situation hit him more and more. ”Female applicants…” he though. “Oh God, I have to get out. There’s going to be more of them.” 

Hellen had noticed Marcus’s panic and didn’t react positively or negatively. She simply replaced the roof of the glass chamber until it was fit so snugly that the only air flow was from the technologically advanced floor he stood on. The odor now had nowhere to go and quickly got were and worse as it condensed inside the chamber. Marcus ran to the front of the box and began banging on it, pleading to be released.

Hellen spoke into the recorder again, “subject seems to be very bothered by the odor. This is very interesting. It seems no matter what, this odor causes a reaction in the amygdala stimulating feelings of disgust.” Hellen finally spoke to Marcus directly telling him, “Alright Marcus, please try to remain calm and just take deep breaths. I’ll be monitoring you through the suit to make sure nothing goes wrong. You should be aware that the floor you stand on is specialized for this experiment. It allows oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules through, but the volatile molecules that contribute to the foot odor collecting in the chamber are now able to pass, meaning the only place they can pass through is your nose and lungs. I’d like to see if it’s possible for the human body to actually filter the foot odor itself, meaning the molecules quite literally pass through your lungs and into your blood stream reaching a saturation in your body of foot odor, or if they are just re-exhaled, meaning there’s no way to reduce the odor at all, causing you to be subjected to it in perpetuity. Again, thanks for joining this experiment and being part of something bigger. I’ll come back once some of the other participants have arrived.”

As Hellen turned to leave the room Marcus screamed at the top of his lungs, begging to be let go. But unfortunately that wasn’t happening. Hellen left the room and shut the door behind her, allowing Marcus to bask in the thick humidity of her potent foot odor. 

And he hadn’t even experienced a real foot yet.

To be continued