Ms. Issakinen walked wordlessly with Brett toward the exit. She had a kind of determined, graceless gait as though her mind was in a different place as she walked. Brett was surprised as the CS teacher decided to take a detour on their way out of the school. He could see she was going to swung by the gym, to Brett's embarrassment, probably hoping to catch Mrs. Henderson in the athletic office. Mercifully, the gym had no after-school stragglers today who would know Brett who could identify him.
As always, the air in the gym was musty and stale, with a pervading odor of sweat. Rapping on the glass of the athletic office door, Loren let herself in and found Brett's mom going over some paperwork on her ancient PC.
She said monotonously "Hello Nancy. Today I am taking Brett for my training. Do you want him back by a certain hour?"
The other woman lifted her head and swerved to identify the intruder. She narrowed her eyes a bit, somewhat taken off-balance by Loren's robotic tone and strange wording. She peered around the corner and saw Brett sheepishly trying to stay out of view.
"No time in particular. You take him for the whole weekend and give me a break!" his mom laughed, trying to get a smile out of the other teacher.
It didn't work. She remained stone-faced. "I'll bring him back sometime tonight then."
The pair then promptly left, leaving Nancy to shake her head in bewilderment. What a strange lady.
It was barely 4, and there were still a lot of cars in the lot. He didn't need her to direct him to her car, as he already knew she drove a blue Tesla Model S. There were a few Benzes and BMWs owned by faculty and a couple of rich kids, but the Tesla was unique to his eyes, and owning an EV conferred her the added advantage of being able to charge right up front, by one of the two chargers.


"Brett, get in the passenger seat please."
He didn't need instructions and was already opening the door. As he hoped, he plopped himself into the seat with enough time to see her open the door and slide over her pert butt into the seat while her head was turned.
But when she turned her head around, she looked again unamused. "Eager, aren't we?"
The drive to her place was even more awkwardness. She didn't want to make much conversation with him. The longest string of words that they put together happened towards the beginning of the drive.
"Nice car," Brett had noted with alacrity.
"Thanks." She sounded glum as she replied.
"Did you buy it when you came to the east coast?" Brett tried again.
Thinking for a second as they went around a right bend, she finally said "No, I already had it in Cali. Little bit of a present to myself after getting bought out of a self-driving startup."
"What ever happened to those guys?"
"Those guys? Can you evolve your language Brett? That firm was over 50% women, a rarity in this industry." said Loren, as she peered bitterly through the windshield.
He sat silently, chastened and threw up his hands. She seemed to notice and finally softened a bit.
"Well, to tell the truth... I hated the culture. Very hand-wavy. Very little thought put into their ideas, a triumph of marketing over real work. It sounded great to be changing the world, but there were so many fake people and idiots that we were never going to do that."
"So why did you come to New York?"
"After the startup, I went to Apple, which was a nice place, but I was poached by MS who flew me out to New York on a whim."
Brett knew that she meant Morgan Stanley, not Microsoft, as his dad had taught him the names of all the big investment banks.
Continuing, Loren added "The money was great and there were very smart people there. One corporation is as good as another, right?" she said questioningly.
Brett said nothing, but he didn't think so. Some corporations, some start-ups, some managers, some people were better than others, at least from a point of view. He wanted to say something, but as he parsed her sentence compressing several years of her professional life, he realized that there a tinge of desire for approval, so he decided to hold his tongue and not disagree. Before he could make the decision, though, she followed up.
"Brett, I did ask you a question. Are all corporations the same basically?" she said with more insistence.

Yikes. The importuning tone was unmistakable in that one. He resented the pushiness of it. "No I don't think that Ms. Issakinen."
"Hmm. And why not?"
"Well, some companies dump toxic waste, and some don't-"
"That's an inane counterargument, but if you must. They all do if they are in the business of generating toxic waste, Brett. Obviously if they don't have it, they don't dump it. But human nature being what it is, the profit motive leads to some pretty terrible results for ordinary people and the environment." His teacher was starting to take this conversation way too personally.
"Fine. All corporations are the same. I bet you're glad you are working for the state now." Brett murmured, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"I am. And I am trying to work as hard as I did when I made ten times the money. There is value in striving for others. I just wish you appreciated it more than things like cars."
How had he wounded her this much by pointing out that she had a nice car? Why was she this cold? Again he felt the pain of seeing no future to his professional or personal relationship with her, feeling stupid and embarrassed in her presence. He couldn't bear it any more and dramatically pulled down his ballcap around his face and sat there quietly with his arms crossed, trying to squeeze himself into the smallest, most unobtrusive shape he could think of. He just focused on not saying anything, on not tearing up as a younger boy would, though there was so much that he wanted to say and ask.


---


The ride home would have been long enough if he weren't stewing in silence. She lived a bit further out than he expected, in a community of fairly large houses whcih each had their own electric gates. Her home was one of the smaller ones in the neighborhood from what he could see, but hers was a particularly modern design with a minimalist but handsome exterior that had a lot of very thick, dark glass. The photovoltaic panels on the roof were seamlessly integrated with the large panes of glass.
As she swung open the front door wide and beckoned for him to enter, he got his first taste of the rules.
"Shoes off, please," she commanded, pointing down to a shoe rack at the entrance. She herself peeled off her Converse and set down her purse on a small table by the door.
Looking around, it was starkly modern in the wide open great room, flowing from the front door to the living room to the dining room and kitchen, with a very high roof. It was also fastidiously clean. Of course, Brett, thought. She had a housekeeper and lived alone. This stuff was probably hardly even used.
Brett could smell curry and garlic and fresh vegetables. Something was already cooking and caused his mouth to water. There was a person already in the kitchen. Loren turned away from him and smiled slightly as she greeted her housekeeper in Spanish, addressing her as Maria. Maria was a very short, older woman who smiled big with some fake teeth. Again, Brett couldn't understand what they were saying, but he heard his name spoken. Loren handed Maria an envelope and the older lady resisted slightly, clearly surprised at the gesture. But Loren, with some cajoling, persuaded the woman to take off the apron and disengage from the cooking and head home. She smiled very broadly to Brett as she slipped on some battered crocs and left out the front door, with Brett barely having moved from the entrance.
"That wass my housekeeper Maria, Brett. It's her birthday tomorrow so I wanted to give her a little something and let me take care of myself for the next couple days."
"That's nice of you." Brett said in a bored monotone. He was still hurt from her previous tongue lashing.
"She's a very nice lady and she has a nice family. She makes living here better for me. I don't have many friends these days, too busy in the lab."
Brett still stood awkwardly in the doorway. He was eager not to make assumptions of her hospitality given how frigid she had been so far.
"Brett, where are my manners. I am sorry. Please come sit down at my table."
Brett just shrugged as he came towards her.
The suddenly solicitous teacher looked concerned. "Are you upset about what we said in the car, Brett?" He nodded noncommittally.
"I am sorry. I sometimes get too heated in arguments. It was a coping skill when everyone around me had very strong personalities and, well... they often acted like arrogant assholes. I shall try to be more reasonable as I know that is not you. Now please eat something with me. It's not too spicy, don't worry.
She lowered her head at the table in what looked like prayer before eating. Brett did not know her to be involved any particular church, and there was no obvious religious imagery in her home, so if she was religious, it was in a very private way.

The two then ate with mostly decent conversation. He sparked some genuine enthusiasm in her by asking what she meant by the lab- if she meant the computer lab at the school.
"Oh some of the time yes, and I am trying to get all kinds of software and hardware development mini-labs built there for the students. But I also do a lot of work from home. Nobody else lives with me and I've got all this space to myself, so I have purposed most of it for projects." She then proceeded to list some of the bioengineering experiments she was involved in, how she had herself made improvements to the tiny shrinkable wrist control that he used after the first one was destroyed by submerging in water, and how she was working with major industry players to get improvements to the biological containment field used in shrinking - so far they had only had success shrinking organic material (and had the very best results with living things, it seemed), but they had less success with metals and most inorganic materials, which was why the freight transportation revolution, except for foodstuffs, had eluded them so far. It was a lot of background to take in. Brett perceived Loren had some strong opinions about technology to empower common people, espoused some socialist sympathies, and  he had to dance his way around the hypocrisy of her working with big corporations while not working for them directly, as though they somehow didn't benefit even if they didn't pay her directly. Happily, he did not betray his thoughts by giving any indication of them to her.

Meanwhile, Loren stood up, put the dishes in the dishwasher, and then reclined on the couch and exhaled. She gestured for Brett to sit on the other end. As Loren removed her socks, Brett passed by and sat down, with utter incredulity at the situation of being at Ms. Issakinen's house on her couch, with his heart starting to pound as he pondered what was about to happen.
"Now Brett, now that we've had dinner, let's talk about the rest of the evening. I typically do any of a few things in the evening. If I'm feeling motivated, and I am not at the moment, I go straight to the lab. If I'm not, I go work out for a bit. I try to get a full night's sleep every night and I will take a shower before bed. Of course, I am going to shrink you now. I would like to work with you to incorporate you in my activities during the time you have to spend with me."
Brett was momentarily stunned as he looked into the face of who he had always thought of as a brainy supermodel, the Hedy Lamarr of his time, and realized she had absolutely no plans for this particular Friday night - she, who most of the boys at Westwood lusted after more than any girls their own age, who would have had a captivating presence in the trendiest club or lounge in the city, who also had all the money she needed to do anything she wanted..... she was just going to stay home with Brett, and go to bed early.
She hadn't said ANYTHING about taking him home tonight. He was off. Holy shit, was she going to keep him overnight? Through the weekend? Had he died and gone to heaven?
Shaking it off, mind racing he asked "So I take it you're ready to shrink me and start your workout?" Brett asked. "Do you want to do any of the training or theory first?"
She scoffed and continued monotonously. "Brett. I have already read the paperwork thoroughly and I know the theory quite well. I don't really need you to tell me what it's about. I have already learned how much pressure to apply, how far you can safely fall, how much air you need per minute and what you need to live. I have an idea how you'll react to being scooped up, as I've done VR simulations already. You're probably going to be surprised at how sturdy your body is, in fact, and I could push you harder than any of your previous teachers because I grok the physics. I understand how shrinkees are. But I imagine you are in some sense different from the simulations, in an interesting way, because you have shown a willingness to undergo this procedure several times, and most shrinkees are presumed to be hostile."
What was she getting at? Brett got nervous.
She added a slightly seductive inflection, narrowing her eyes as she looked at him. "Where do you want to be shrunk on my body?"
Brett gaped slightly. "Um.. why are you asking me? Most of the teachers here told me what they wanted to do and made me do it."
She nodded and showed some concern. Speaking in a lower tone, she started.
"That is true, but they thought that they were just doing some strange training procedures or at least pretending to. You know that you're doing things that you find erotic. Because I know this, I think it's very important to get consent when such feelings are involved. Maybe some of your teachers feel the same way and simply did not suspect your feelings, but I know it, Brett, so I do not have an excuse. You might be hiding it well from some people, but I can tell."
He was gobsmacked. What was there to say to that? She was reading him from top to bottom, like she would a microcontroller datasheet.

"Do you find me attractive?" she demanded with a smile on her face.
His eyes widened. "Um... are you really asking me this?" he said with his face beet red, looking off into space.
She squinched her face a bit. "Yes, I am. Don't lie to me Brett. Despite what you may think, it isn't the easiest thing in the world to confront you like this."
He paused for a moment and then replied. "Um... of course I do. I think most of the boys in the school find you friggin' gorgeous."
She frowned. "I can imagine some of them do, Brett, but I did not ask them. I asked you. You ought to have your own opinions. Now, how do you want me to shrink you?"
Brett's mind paced. It was so confrontational, so direct. So obvious that she couldn't be attracted to him and was disappointed with him. It must be a trap. It must be. Somehow he was absolutely sure. He talked himself down from getting too excited and then cleared his throat and delivered the most dispassionate, least-leading reply he could think of.
"Ms. Issakinen, I'm here to help you learn whatever it is you want to learn from this experience. I am not trying to use the fact that you've been obliged by Principal Lee-Reilly to get shrink training, to get you to do anything inappropriate with me. I honestly answered your previous question, which may have been a mistake, but I don't want to tell you how to shrink me as I think you should decide. If you don't have any idea, then maybe you should stop and think for a bit so we make the most of the time we have during training."

The teacher closed her eyes for a moment and slightly shuddered, with a very muted exhalation that was not quite a sigh. He wondered if this was profound rage, or if she was just intoxicated with relief that he wasn't trying to take advantage crudely. She seemed to have a lot of anger in her, but perhaps there was some more fundamental reason for it. She probably had to deal with ogling and propositioning constantly. There were scores of disrespectful boys that made lewd remarks about her practically within earshot, that told each other that they wanted to gag her and fuck her until she cried. And he'd heard more violent acts envisaged by the embittered boys who had been rebuffed by her in a way that they found personal. Perhaps he had failed to distinguish himself from those boys until this moment. Perhaps she was projecting experiences onto this interaction.
The response from Loren finally came. She had a slight smirk on her face but he was startled by the hesitancy she had in her reply. As though finally, for once, he'd said something she hadn't thought of or prepared for.
"OK Brett. I... would like for you to ride along in my shoe while I work out. And, uh, I want to feel your tongue between my toes. And, uh, if you enjoy it, I want you to know that you are permitted to enjoy yourself and release, so to speak, against my foot as well." At this, she actually lifted her right leg onto the couch and laid her foot on his lap, wiggling her painted toes. Holy shit, Brett thought. This was like some kind of weird dream. Surely she wasn't actually doing this. He bit his tongue and tried to avoid a visible erection emerging on the spot. Thankfully she didn't keep her foot there long enough. She spun around adroitly and placed her feet on the floor. The shrink remote control emerged and she pointed it at him and shrunk him.

Whooooooooooooooosh. She shrunk him very gradually and gently, with a deftness that bolstered the claim that she knew how to use the technology well. He emerged at a 1 inch height, surrounded by a sea of soft suede cushion that used to be his seat on the couch.
Loren picked him up with two fingers and cupped him in her palms with inquisitive delight. Her hands were soft and warm. No calluses or blemishes, well moisturized. She was a 20-something with the skin of a pampered teenager. This woman did not do anything more damaging with her hands than type code and occasionally install servers, but those soft hands had written recognition software in self-driving cars, cutting-edge market-making algorithms, embedded IoT software, and contributions to countless FOSS projects.


---



He felt himself lowered to the floor. She released him into one of the same yellow ankle-length socks she'd been wearing all day long. It was a fairly long fall, but she was holding the sock off the ground and when he hit the bottom of the toe section, it felt like falling into a stinky hammock.
Then came her right foot into the sock. He was able to see the light from the ceiling shining across the toe gaps as she wiggled the foot into the sock, then the light was banished as it came to rest on his body. She tweaked his body so it was perched horizontally underneath her toes.

The bottom of her foot was not warm like her hands, as it had been pressed against the cold hardwood floor. It was a strange feeling for Brett to be squeezed by this cold, clammy, sweaty foot, with the toes possesssively wrapping around his body. Compared to Ms. Olivier's and Mrs. Gomez's feet, Loren Issakinen's were not quite as strong-smelling, but as she had been wearing these socks all day, there was a subtle odor of musky sweat surrounding him. She hummed tunelessly to herself while lacing up her shoes, which tightened the foot's grip on Brett.

As Brett had seen when he was escorted in, she had a decent gym setup in her garage, which was not air conditioned. Remembering this as she walked in, he knew that soon the relative lack of sweat around him would be remedied by the hot, humid June night coupled with Loren's workout. She took close care of her body, evidenced by some pretty formidable thighs and calves, and he knew she probably wouldn't be going for a little stroll.

The running was the worst part, as he was slammed into the bottom of the sole and then bounced up into the toes above, although the soft flesh of her feet dampened the impact somewhat. He could see why she had cupped him in the gap between her toes and the ball of her foot, as it offered the most protection. Yet he could barely stay in place enough to react to anything around him. But at a certain point he adapted to the rhythm and grew to prepare for and enjoy the weightlessness of flying upward into her soft sole, and tried to use the mechanical energy of his flight to climb his way around all of toe crevices, counteracting the accumulation of sweat and grime between them, which she seemed to appreciate.
 
He didn't mind the lifting and squatting and reps on the machines nearly as much. These activities were not relatively high impact from his perspective, even though he could feel veins and tendons in the foot pulsing as she exerted herself, and could hear grunting above. But it did certainly get the sweat flowing more than ever, giving Brett a veritable briny sea to slurp up. He tried to swallow it all obediently, failing miserably to keep up. She would sometimes miss a half-step and giggle when he took a lick between her toes, as it was so easy for him to tickle her. At times he heard her timidly and cautiously singing along to something she was listening to in her headphones. Brett found it amusing that Ms. Issakinen didn't want him to hear her singing as though it would somehow be embarrassing.

Brett was busy enough during his captivity in the shoe during his teacher's workout that he didn't think to try to message her or send a voice transmission on the wrist device. It was probably an hour or more, but he didn't really check the time. As she promised, he was physically uninjured by the whole ordeal, but it did feel a bit like he'd been steamrolled by her foot afterward, and, of course, he had plenty of feminine foot taste swirling in his mouth.

As the footfalls of his teacher slowed and her fast breathing way above subsided, he realized she was done with the workout, and was walking away from the gym and back to the house. "OK Brett. That was a good workout. Thanks for the good work you did on my foot. I am impressed. I hope you also had fun. I need a shower. Maybe we'll see my lab afterward. My other foot is jealous!"
Brett used the wrist control to speak. "Well, you can put me in with the other foot then and spread the love!" he said with a chuckle.
"Drop the joke, Brett. Do you really want to do that?"
"Yes, if you are willing, I do. But only if you want me to as well. If you think I'm disgusting or if you are still thinking I'm a science experiment, then I don't want to."
He couldn't have been less prepared for the tenderness of her response.
"Aw Brett. I do not think you're disgusting, nor do I think of you as a science experiment. I think I have most definitely misjudged you. You're one of the gentlest people I've me in some time."

With a careful hand, Loren transferred him to her other sock, and as she sat down to take a breather, she rubbed him thankfully with her toes. There was still more to do tonight.