The bus ride had gone on for quite a while, and Brett couldn't really keep up with keeping Miss Erenli's feet clean of sweat given the heat. At a certain point he threw in the towel and quit. He was just too thirsty and had a salty mouth that he could not keep salivating into.
He reckoned that she was on her laptop given the soft sound of clicking above. The texting stopped while she worked to prepare for her next class. Despite the setting, the humid environment and lowered oxygen was making him sleepy and he laid back down in the sole.
Miss Erenli probably didn't notice anymore as she didn't react. He still occasionally saw a faint glimmer of light from above at the top of her flat, focused through the gap between her big and second toe. The gap narrowed and widened slowly, as she fidgeted with her toes while typing.
It was too hot to fall asleep, but Brett settled in for a rest.

After what seemed like a very short time laying in the slightly damp sole of the shoe, he felt his world shuffle. Miss Erenli was putting her feet on the floor and packing up her laptop.
He saw a text on his wrist. "We're here. I have a little time. I'll unshrink you once I get to my office. Would you mind hanging out there?"
Another blur of motion. He barely could keep up with the changes in direction as he could tell she was shuffling as quick as she could to get to her office in time. The footfalls slowed as she neared the office, as she evidently wanted to compose herself. Was there someone there waiting for her?

There was. Brett heard Miss Erenli evidently talking with one of her students, whom Miss Erenli enthusiastically addressed as Melissa, about something related to the class.
Oh boy, he hoped that this wasn't going to do take long. But he didn't have a way to tell the time here, without his phone!
Duh. The wrist walkie talkie! Like people used to do before smartphones...
He touched it and saw a very small clock display. It was 4:56. He figured that if Miss Erenli had been rushing, the class started at 5. That left very little time.
If he missed this window, it would be a long time before he'd be free...
As they wrapped up their convo above, he felt the shoe loosen and his world tilted. Whoa! His body slid down at a sickening angle into the back of the flat. Scrambling to his feet after what felt like a giant water slide, he saw the shoe further tilt until he could walk straight off the edge of the flat to the linoleum below. With a final leap, he was free and stood triumphantly.

WHOOSH! And then, all of a sudden, he was full size again. He smelled like a giant 5'10" tall foot.

Miss Erenli giggled a bit. Always a history nerd, she jestfully said "You look like a Victorian boxer in that thing." gesturing to his flat brown-colored scientifically manufactured shrink-proof leotard that hugged his legs halfway to the knees and was almost skintight against his torso.
But he couldn't tell if that pronouncement was sarcastic, because he knew his body was scrawny. Miss Erenli had this talent for keeping him guessing with these jokes.
"Now I have to go teach. Your clothes are in the plastic shopping bag. I'd invite you to sit in on my women's studies or world history classes, but I believe you have a final tomorrow so you'd better be studying for that. I'll be back at about 6:50."
"OK Miss Erenli. See you after you're done teaching."


-----


He sat down on her office chair after putting on his shirt and jeans and tried to crack open a textbook. No good. The adrenaline of the shrinking and the unfamiliar place were distracting, and the accumulated sweat on his body was starting to become uncomfortable. He peeked out the door and didn't see anyone in either direction. After finding a close-by restroom and washing his face and hands, he couldn't help but explore for a moment. Venturing out of the instructors' office area, he saw a much newer and more inviting building than his high school. They had an imposing glass atrium in the front, which caught the brilliance of the late afternoon sun. He saw a few boys just a couple years older than him chatting and laughing, a custodian pushing a yellow cleaning cart, a young woman sitting at a table and studying alone, and a digital clock on the wall reading 5:05. It looked nice. Maybe this was what college was like.

Then, returning in the direction of Miss Erenli's office, he had to pass into the suite of cubicles and small offices by a woman sitting at a desk which had been empty as he had walked by last time. This time there was an older woman sitting at a computer, and from this direction he saw the name "MRS MILLER" embossed on a name tag on her desk. She was plump, red-faced, and had round old-fashioned glasses. Mrs. Miller looked irritable in that moment.
"Hi. Do you have an appointment with someone?" she asked blankly.
"Uhm I'm with Miss Erenli." Brett said sheepishly.
"Fatima is in class right now hon. You can wait here if you'd like."
"Well, uh, y'see I came in with her. The door to her office is actually open because I left it slightly open. I can show you." He said, starting to get nervous.
"Well... I didn't see you. She came in here alone and chatted with Melissa for two minutes then went to class, I was sitting right here and saw it all."
Brett's heart raced. He didn't want to have to explain this in full.
"Well, I did come out from her office a few minutes ago. I walked back this way. I didn't see you then."
"I was away for a moment. In fact I saw you walking out toward the atrium as I left the ladies' room." she said, still unyielding.
"Look, if you'll just let me go to her office, I can show you that the door is slightly open and my backpack is in there and she brought me with her. Just please let me get my bag and wait there for her." Brett pleaded.
Mrs. Miller softened her tone, but still was untrusting. She thought he was some 18-year-old dweeb who was too shy to ask what he was really after, and decided to gently let him know that she knew. "Honey, you don't have to make up a story about coming in with her if you just lost your backpack. We all lose stuff. What color is the backpack?" she asked. "I can go check for you. If you didn't leave it in her office, we can go to the lost and found at the main department office."
He gave up. There was no winning this. "It's black with some blue." he said meekly, sitting down on a couch near the woman's desk.
The plump woman rose to her feet with some effort, jiggling slightly as she got into motion. The white and pink floral pattern dress she was wearing seemed to just barely contain her - he could just see flabs of fat jutting out of the bottom of her thighs where the dress ended near the knee, and she had some meaty calves.


Returning a moment later, she came bearing the backpack. "I guess this is yours, young man?" she hollered across the hallway.
Standing up and taking the bookbag, Brett was relieved. "Thanks! Can I sit here and study?"
"Oh yeah, suuuure" said Mrs. Miller lazily as she sat down, her wide hips getting wider when coming to rest on the hardwood chair. "But ooooone more question first, honey."
He looked up, surprised at the jaunty way she asked, and looked at her questioningly. "Yes?"

The double-chinned woman smiled broadly, slightly crooked. She locked eyes with him as he nervously squirmed. Her straight reddish-brown hair had patches of gray, and she just shook her head slightly as if to say, you're in for it now kid. He had no idea what she was about to ask him, but he could tell just by the look on her face that she had dropped any pretense of treating him like any other student.

"Are you one of those Westwood kids?" she finally asked.
Brett froze. What did that question mean? What was Westwood known for? Think! Did he talk a certain way? No, that couldn't be it. Why would she expect him to be a high school student from the other side of town? Think, goddamn it, think! What about him was making this woman so suspicious?
But faced with no explanation, he decided that it really was going to be worse for him to explain himself fully. "No, what makes you think that?" He lied.
Mrs. Miller leaned over from her desk, a bit higher than Brett on the couch, and lowered her voice as she spoke less than a foot from him. "Weelll, I know the Westwood principal's, shall we say.... notoriety. And I saw a shrinkee control in Miss Erenli's office. And you're wearing one of the shrinkee communicators on your wrist. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but... you smell like feet. (hehe) So you're a shrinkee, sure as I'm sitting here."
Brett was stunned and started to sputter ineffectually. Why was this happening to him? What did she want?

"And there are only two kinds of shrinkees in this area: Westwood students, and criminals serving their sentences. And you've already told me you're not a Westwood student. So that makes you an escapee."

Brett tried to walk back his last statement. "But wait, I was lying! I AM a Wes-"
She shushed him indignantly, continuing in a harsh drawl. "You said the opposite a few seconds ago, young man. Now are you going to tell me how Fatima came to get you as a shrinkee, and how you got free? If you don't tell me I'll have to hold onto you until we can get Miss Erenli back and all this explained. You have to know I won't hesitate to shrink you. With this control, I could put you in my shoe, and I bet my rough, big feet will give you a tougher time than Fatima's.
Brett said "No! Please don't. I'm telling the truth now. I'm sorry I lied. I am a Westwood student and not a criminal, and I'm not shrunk for punishment. I volunteered to be shrunk!"
The woman laughed. "You volunteered??! Nobody volunteers to be shrunk." She cackled.
Brett insisted "I did volunteer! I swear. I've volunteered for three teachers so far. Teachers have sat on me and put me in their shoes already."
Mrs. Miller's smile faded. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"Yes! It's the principal's orders that every teacher has to have the shrink training."
"Hmmmmm" said Mrs. Miller, thinking intensely. "Okay. I'm not quite sure I believe you yet, but we can wait until Fatima gets back to straighten this out."
Brett agreed hastily. "Yes ma'am." He was about to breath a sigh of relief.
"Good boy. Now would you mind going into my shoe for the time being? We don't get shrinkee training here, but I've always wanted to try it."
Wait, what? Did she misundertand him that thoroughly? Brett sputterd "Oh um... I'd rather not go in your shoe if you don't mind haha." He laughed awkwardly as though it had been a joke.
She looked surprised but pleased at this. "Wow really? Okay.... you'd prefer to be under my big ol' booty? That would be sweet of you, never thought I'd get a cutie like you to volunteer for it, but it is so big you might get lost hehe!"
Brett said quietly but firmly: "Mrs. Miller, I meant that I don't want you to shrink me."
Mrs. Miller looked genuinely saddened. "Okay.... sorry hon. But you told me you volunteered to be under your teachers, and I guessed you liked it. Not calling you a perv, it's fine with me..." her voice trailed off as she seemed to be coping with major embarrassment at his rebuff.
Brett sighed and tried to be as earnest as possible. "No, that's not it. It's a long story.... I didn't tell you why I volunteered. There was extra credit and I actually am helping them with training. It's basically a part-time job. I have never been shrunk except as part of this arrangement, ma'am, it's not like you think."
Mrs. Miller put her hand on her voluminous chest and said sorrowfully "Oh my, I'm sorry child. You are just an ordinary kid after all, a good kid."
Brett said "Yes ma'am, that's me." He wasn't sure if that was true, but felt that he had to believe it. "Well, I'm really sorry that I'm just not able to help you out right now. Maybe our paths will cross in the future. But for now I'm with Miss Erenli for her training and I really do need to study, so I-"
"Honey, I get it. I'm really sorry for the misunderstanding. I think you should get back to Fatima's office now." The boy obediently walked back.

Brett would have to watch himself; this was a whole different world to adapt to. The outing with Miss Erenli was only to be the first and he had to hope that it wouldn't end worse than a simple misunderstanding. Some antisocial types felt entitled to casually abuse shrinkees, and some crazies were known to get off on abducting them. Whenever he showed up with this shrinkee control and wrist monitor outside of his own school in a controlled environment, it was a risky place where strangers may notice the small clues and immediately judge him as a forcibly-detained shrinkee who unshrunk himself and was probably up to no good, who could be taken advantage of. Many would not even think of him as a normal person who had accepted the fate of shrinking voluntarily, because why would someone do that?
In fact, rather than faulting her, he found the lady's initial skepticism and desire to detain him sensible. It was merely her subsequent hope that his voluntary shrinking condition could be exploited with his own tacit approval that he found noteworthy, though it was still hard to judge poorly of her because there was something primitively, subconsciously exciting to him about the gentle, idle threats she wielded, even thouh she was an almost complete stranger.
Thinking over the past few weeks, the simulated shrinking punishment by teachers had exposed him to many diverse reactions, none of them inherently malevolent so far, although all had surprised him in how far they had gone with him. Both they and he showed varying degrees of self-control, and the outcomes were not well explained by purely didactic or business motivations, even though he outwardly pretended that nothing else influenced him.
But Brett was still fundamentally immature, and found it hard to accept that he had actual attraction to teachers who did this to him. His mom's words rang out in his head and he angrily dismissed them- he wasn't a perv, there was nothing wrong with what he was doing, and he would continue to do it as long as he was treated well and reimbursed accordingly. That was that.


---


The remaining time passed far more quickly than Brett had intended. He had barely gotten through half of the review for his final tomorrow when he heard the door click open behind him and the familiar graceful figure of Miss Erenli enter the small office.
"How's it coming Brett? Did you get enough work done for one day?"
"I think so Miss Erenli. Still a little nervous about my final tomorrow but I prepared about as much as I'm going to tonight."
She looked tired and didn't protest. "Okay if you say so. I'm ready to go too. My mother is cooking dinner already. It's not a long walk to my place. But it's time for you to make a decision now."
Brett asked "What is it?" with anticipation.
"You can't walk home with me. Around my apartment some of my neighbors are other Syrian people, many of them older people, strong Muslims with traditional beliefs. I wish it were different, but I can't let them see me coming home with a male student to stay the night, or they will talk unkindly about me. I'm pretty sure my mother understands what I'm doing because I explained to her, but it would be a lot easier if none of my neighbors saw you."
"So, your decision is how you want to go with me. If you want a break, I've got a comfy spot for you in my purse. But if you want to start the second confinement, I can put you back under my feet for the walk home, or I can carry you in my mouth, and that should technically conclude it." She flashed a brief, goofy grin. "I don't know how Lee-Reilly comes up with this stuff..."

Brett felt like some levity. "Oh they both sound so great I just can't pick. How about both?"
Miss Erenli rolled her eyes. "You keep up the joking and maybe I'll actually start following those time periods in the document. Could be a long night for you Brett!"
"Haha okay okay, sorry sorry. But I do want a break. Please carry me in your purse."


As promised, the ride home was gentle. While Miss Erenli shlepped his overnight bag yet again, he was embedded in a travel pack of Puffs tissues near the top of her purse. The lotion-infused smell was permeating all around him. He felt like he smelled better afterward, as though his body had been lightly rubbed all over with some fragrant lotion.
He heard her walking across streets, waiting at crosswalks, and finally up a set of stairs to her apartment. The door creaked open and he immediately heard Miss Erenli talking with another woman in some language that he didn't understand. Probably Turkish or Arabic.
The conversation was getting animated and was punctuated periodically by the strongly accented voice of the other woman asking in English "Where is he?" It must be Miss Erenli's mother. He started to feel self-conscious and hoped that he was not an unwelcome intruder. This hadn't been his idea in the first place.
The voices disengaged and he heard the sound of Miss Erenli's footfalls change, as though she was now on a hard surface floor.

"Sorry Brett, I know you didn't understand any of that. My mother didn't think you'd actually come and is a little embarrassed that you're a guest of ours under these circumstances. I had to assure her very strongly that she didn't need to do anything special, that you were a student and only here for a scheduled training session for dealing with shrinkees, and that I wasn't bringing home a suitor."
Chuckling, she added "Mother is always telling me to find a good man, but she is so picky with them."
Feeling the tissue world around him shift, he realized he was being lifted out and saw the enormously tall teacher set him down on the ground very gingerly. When he was unshrunk with a WHOOSH, he perceived his surroundings to be a small bathroom and saw a shorter, older woman watching from a distance outside with fascination. Miss Erenli was barely two feet away from Brett in the small bathroom, and she stepped out closing the door behind her, glaring at her mother. Through the door, Miss Erenli suggested to him to put on his old clothes after cleaning up the remaining foot residue on him, and then come out and eat dinner. Working quickly in the sink, he could smell food, and was eager to eat.

Brett stepped out of the bathroom and was immediately sized up by her mother, who spoke slightly stilted English.
"You're a student at Westwood?" (yes)
"You study under Fatima?" (no)
"You have girlfriend?" (no)
"Why you doing this for Fatima?" (long story...)
"How old are you?" (17) "17 only! You are just a boy."
Finally recognizing that Fatima was getting irritated with this, the mother asked (by way of Fatima) if the boy would eat mujaddara, as she hadn't prepared any American food. Miss Erenli informed Brett that it contained lentils and rice and onions. Brett had no complaints and told her it smelled delicious, which seemed to please her mother. Sitting down at a small table, she continued to pepper Brett with probing questions while they ate, while Miss Erenli just sat amused and rescued Brett if any questions veered too far into the inappropriate.
Brett tried to avoid talking with his mouth full, but found it hard with the pace of questions by Miss Erenli's mother. She seemed very interested in the shrinking program, and was astonished that he had chosen to do it. She wanted to watch when Miss Erenli would finish her shrink training, which Brett found strange but he didn't protest.

With night falling, after dinner he agreed to be shrunk down and put into Miss Erenli's mouth.
With a WHOOSH, he disappeared into a pile of clothes. Miss Erenli's mother yelped and seemed to panic, as though he had disappeared. As the teacher fished Brett's clothes out of the bin and hovered over his wiggling body, she handed over to Brett a very tiny engineered cloth garment that could replace the leotard and keep him decent. The school had given this to Brett as part of the shrinking package following feedback from Wendy that the leotard itself was so bitter with its chemicals that it impaired the ability of the teacher to perform mouth containment.

After he dressed his shhrunken body, she held up Brett in her fingers to show her mother that it had actually shrunk him without harming him. Brett saw the older woman eye him very closely at a range of about eight inches. Her look was somewhat inquisitorial, and didn't make Brett feel comfortable.
But there was a job to do now.
"OK Brett, now I'm going to put you in my mouth. Thanks for choosing to be my dessert heheh. I'll still be able to text with you on the app, OK? I'm going to set a timer for one hour. I'll be grading during this time, but message me if you want."
He saw the white rows of teeth come open. Fatima Erenli closed her eyes, displaying her cute eyeshadow and long lashes, as she slowly lowered Brett into the tip of her extended tongue and let him fall backwards.
His world was bombarded with the same scents he had just sampled in the food they'd eaten. She had salivated heavily, as thouh she thought that the saliva would cushion his entry, but it actually ended up all over him and nearly drowned him. He immediately fell off the tongue on the right side, into a virtual pool of spit under her tongue and came up gasping.
Yep, this was going to be another case where he'd be drinking gallons of his teacher's saliva. Hers did not have the somewhat stale taste of Wendy's spit, but was somehow fresher, less viscous, and obviously tinged with the residual flavor of coriander and cumin from dinner.

He heard talking from outside the mouth. The teacher texted him "Thanks for putting up with my mother. She is asking me over here what it's like to have you in my mouth. I'm going to see if I can move my jaw with you in my mouth."
He chortled and texted back "No problem."
She sucked down and swallowed some of the pooled spit to open her mouth to speak, while Brett was wedged between the right edge of her tongue and her bottom row of teeth. The jaw opened and he felt the pressure from the tongue momentarily increase to hold him in place, but what she said was unintelligible.
"Actually Brett, it's pretty hard to talk while keeping you in the same place in my mouth. I'll whatsapp her instead nevermind."
Then, after she said something to her mother, Brett heard some laughter from Fatima's mother.
"What was funny?" he asked inquisitively.
Some more delay as evidently she was switching messaging apps. "Oh I just said 'he is very sweet'." back to her.
Brett playfully retorted "Lol I didn't volunteer to be your dessert for real. Don't swallow me!"
He heard a very loud snort which was evidently coming from his giantess host. "But that was in your contract to be swallowed right? :P Lee-Reilly wants to see how shrinkees cope with teacher digestion."
Brett smirked and responded "Lol sounds painful. what purpose does this research serve?"
Another buzz. "To see if any of the troublemakers at Westwood would make good snacks for hungry teachers. You aren't a troublemaker but thank you for your sacrifice. :P"

Some more outside conversation ensued, and then both Fatima and her mother laughed. The laughing opened the mouth to light and air, and shook him up.
"What is so funny this time?"
"sorry Brett. My mom asked if she could try you out, if you are so sweet. I don't know why she feels so entitled to you."
Brett asked "Is she being serious?"
"Well, maybe. But she is just not used to this kind of shrinking situation. She finds it hard to think of you as a normal student. Obviously you don't have to do that, or any other weird thing she asks."
"Well, if she really wants a quick taste later, and it would make her happy, I would let her do it. I guess this is something that the average woman never gets to experience, right? Some people pay big money for shrinkees in other countries."
"Wow Brett."
"That is.... veeerry kind of you. Are you sure?"
Brett reddened but tried to be casual. "Sure why not? I'm in your mouth now, is it really that different?"
He heard Fatima's mother's phone ding, and then a bit more laughter. Then in her mother's stilted English he heard "Thankyou Brett!"

The spit was building up again. He felt his way to higher ground, sweeping his fingers around the outline of her teeth and gums. He incidentally felt and broke off something wedged in her gum. It was a particle of rice as big as his forearm.
"Lol Brett that tickles. And are you flossing me with your fingers???"
"Sorry Miss Erenli. Not trying to."
"I think I'm going to just have to put you somewhere to be less distracting."
The tongue swept him impatiently over the surface of the tooth and into the pocket of her cheek underneath her lower left canine.
From here she sucked him with the greatest of care, slowing increasing and decreasing the air pressure and saliva flow in her mouth. It was done so carefully he felt like she was a researcher testing his properties.
Pinned in place by the soft wet flesh of his teacher's mouth, Brett spent the remainder of his mouth period pressed on almost all sides. It was like being in a shallow, warm pool wrapped in a weighted blanket. Surprisingly pleasant, in fact relaxingly so. He could almost drift off in here, and awaken as a fluid, reduced to a lower form by the waves of saliva...


----


The timer went off and Brett realized he actually had drifted off inside Miss Erenli's mouth, as she had remained incredibly still. Miss Erenli pulled him out and set him down. Adjusting to the light and fresh air, he saw a shoebox with a pile of tissues, a medicine cup filled with an ounce of warm soapy water, and a flat, squat metal cylinder which he knew to be the charging device for his wrist control.
His skin was wrinkly everywhere and he felt like it was almost peeling in places. He thought back to previous biology lectures. As it turned out, digestion started in the mouth, so it was not inaccurate to say that Miss Erenli had begun to digest him in just the span of an hour.

"Thanks for being so compliant Brett. I hope I didn't hurt you in my mouth.
Brett walkie-talkied up to her "No, I'm fine Miss Erenli. You were very careful the whole time."
"Great. Well, this is your overnight home Brett. Unfortunately I don't have enough space to give you your own room, so you'll need to stay shrunk overnight, but this will give you privacy. Your box is on a closet shelf out of the way. I figured I'd give you a chance to get cleaned up and comfortable before my mother takes her turn. If you need me text please. I'm going to go prepare for bed myself."
"OK Miss Erenli. Thanks."

He removed the cloth undergarment and slipped into the tiny bath she'd drawn for him. It was soothing to wash off the day. He had been sweated on and coated in spit for a sizable portion of his day.
But it seemed very shortly after, as he was drying off on a swatch of paper towel, that the mother came and looked into his box.

Brett's heartrate shot up. She didn't know anything about handling a shrinkee and he had wanted Miss Erenli present for this.
"Call me Umaima" she said in a whisper.
How could he? She didn't have the app on her phone or the other end of the walkie-talkie. He yelled up "WHERE IS FATIMA" but she heard it as a low squeak and giggled at him.
"Oh I cannot hear. You OK?"
Brett nodded very exaggeratedly, so much so that even at his small size she could see. But how would this work with no communication?
"OK we go now. Thank you ~~ Brett"
She picked him up, even though he was naked, and walked out of the room with his body cupped in her left palm. In the far distance he heard a shower running and assumed it to be Miss Erenli.

Umaima sat down in a chair in the small living room and said to him "Now I put you on floor. Lick." Oi, he hadn't agreed to do the foot licking again. Just the mouth containment, and he had said just a little taste. What had Miss Erenli told her? Was this another miscommunication or had Miss Erenli told her mother that she was allowed to demand that he lick her feet too?

She pulled some big, craggy looking feet out of house shoes. The toes were stubby and her toenails slightly yellowed. Her feet weren't black on the bottom, so at least she didn't walk around the house barefoot, but he could smell the house shoes from here. Very old and worn-in, with years of accumulated sweat and grime. Her feet were dirty and he was being asked to lick them clean at the end of the day.
But he obeyed.
The foot was salty and a bit cheesy, which he expected, but it was also rough, unlike previous teachers. When he caught a larger fleck of something on the surface of the foot in his mouth it required some chewing.
Up above the woman was smiling grandly and haughtily. She gave him commands like "move to next toe", "eat faster" and "be thorough".
When he had appropriately masticated the tops of her toes and the surrounding foot area, she commanded "Between!", her voice rising. He saw her spread all her toes and expose very smelly regions with a bit of grime between.
This woman really didn't take care of her feet at all. Why should she, he thought? That was now the shrinkee's job. He had to move faster than usual or he saw her get impatient. This was a frantic pace. He was eating a massive dessert of middle-aged Syrian woman toe jam.
"Now under nails." The woman lifted up her feet exposing some detritus under her yellowed nailbeds. He wondered if she had some kind of fungus. Did she really expect him to eat that too?
"Go!" she repeated, her toes wiggling.
So he went for it, leaning under her slightly raised toes and grabbing clumps of everything underneath her toenails. They tasted intensely sour and salty, worse than the rest of the foot gunk.
"Good boy," he heard her say above. Umaima closed her eyes and felt pampered in a way she never had before. What a strange, delightful thing to have a willing shrinkee.
After finishing the first foot, he heard the shower turn off. Umaima reacted as though her party was about to end. She told him to finish up quickly, so he basically bolted the remainder of the foot gunk on the right foot.
Standing between her feet, catching his breath, she said down to him. "Now let me taste you. OK?"
Brett couldn't say anything to her anyway, so he just stood there silent.

The lady reached down and pulled him up. He saw her slightly weathered face, brown eyes just like Fatima's, and her teeth were a bit yellowed. She kept her eyes open as she opened her mouth. Instead of putting him straight in, she tilted her head back and stuck out her tongue slightly, then tilted her palm so that Brett would slide in.
Oh boy, Brett thought.
It felt like a big fall, a few seconds of sheer airtime as he saw the mouth get larger. The woman didn't close her eyes but tried to see everything. She wanted to somehow register his feelings of fear or dread as he fell into her mouth.
But no pain on impact. The tongue was so cushy it absorbed it. Although he could tell it was rougher than the younger women who had previously put him in their mouths. What followed thereafter was like a sloppy, stomach-churning roller coaster ride.
She was intensely fidgety with him, even worse then Mrs. Gu had been. He was slurped and sucked like a candy, pressed against the roof of her mouth, pressed into cheek pockets, held under her tongue with the full force she could muster.
"Mmm sweet boy" he heard her mumur without opening her mouth too much.
This felt like eternity as she probed him in every corner of her mouth. Again, he was basically pickled in spit, soaked to the marrow, with great volumes of it forced into his nose and mouth. But her breath was a little more sour, the saliva fairly viscous, and the environment shifting so constantly that it felt nothing like the previous cases.

After what seemed like forever, she finally pulled him out of her mouth. "I eat you now?" asked the woman innocently.
He said "NO!" and shook his head as exaggeratedly as possible.
"No? Why no? You don't want?"
Brett was dumbfounded. How could she think he wanted to be eaten by her? Where did she get such utterly unrealistic preconceptions about shrinkees? Did she not even consider them human?
"But I want to eat you." she said very flatly, as though it mattered. "Will you let me eat you? You are sweet and young shrinkee," she added for extra motivation.
Brett continued to say no as loudly as he could and shake his head until he got dizzy.
"OK I stop joke. Thank you, letting me taste you. Thank you, cleaning my feet." Umaima said. "Many women would be very thankful. I wish you would stay tomorrow and go with me to see my friends. But Fatima tell me you go to school with her."

As if he was still considering it, she added in a chipper tone "If you change mind, I always be happy to eat you."

With Brett's heart still pounding, she carried him back to his box and laid him back in his bath, as he had new filth to wash off. He was very tired, and despite some fear that Umaima would come back in the night, he assured himself that Miss Erenli wouldn't let her mom eat him. Once he was assured of this, he immediately fell asleep on the pillow of tissues.