Friday's incredible energy was not sustainable. Brett settled into a near-comatose state of exhaustion in a petri dish filled with sudsy water on the bathroom sink. He had looked up with weary amusement as Loren had dispensed a thin, minty soap with an eye dropper and flowed water at very precise increments and measured the temperature with an infrared thermometer. He half-expected to see her in a labcoat and goggles.
With a smile she looked over him and said "103. That should be comfortable Brett. Sorry, it is hard to run a bath this small properly! If it's too hot for you, just wait a few minutes." But Brett was in no mood to wait, his body caked with dried vaginal fluid. He jumped into the hot bath with enthusiasm.

He had enjoyed himself with Loren. Just twenty minutes ago, he had felt his lower extremities and much of his torso shoved against Loren's salty, slippery, moist pussy, as she toyed with his size and got him to a level which was pleasing to her. With Brett wedged inside her and a few fingers of her right hand grasping his shoulders, he could guide the rubbing of his own cock against the wall as his whole body was shoved in and jerked out. His body's movements made a juicy sound, as though he were stirring a giant vat of jelly. Yet the movements she took were cautious, quiet, and slight in their power. He could not tell if the restraint was due to her own nature, as it was likely still hard for her to feel comfortable during intimacy, or if she was simply worried that she'd hurt him with any application of real force. But aside from that, he could tell she was taking pains to emote openly, and treat him more as a partner than a sex toy, which turned him on tremendously. In the low light, he could see two of her fingers above him starting to massage her clit.
He wasn't sure he'd be able to detect if and when Loren had an orgasm, as there were many mysteries in the minds of 17-year-old boys. But ultimately she made it easy to identify by freeing a few pitiful, stilted yelps, and emitting a relatively larger quantity of fluid around him, then a sudden cessation of her quivering. The fluid began to leak out around him, coating his shoulders and neck, stopping short of his face. Both during and after this, he ramped up his own self-stimulation as she whispered to him to let go on his own, which he ultimately did. He came inside her. Never had Brett imagined that this would be how he'd get laid the first time.
As Loren remained motionless, Brett pulled out his arms from inside her and pulled himself out with the greatest of ease. The viscous lubrication that her body had deposited on him made his egress almost effortless. He felt deeply satisfied but very tired, and took a few steps away, his feet clinging slightly to the sheets on every footfall due to the stickiness on his soles. He sat down to rest a few feet to Loren's side. Loren moved her legs to the side and scooted over to speak to him, still in a whisper.
"Not that you were probably worried about the effect of what is likely a few microliters of semen at your size, but to be clear, I also have an IUD emplaced."
Brett furrowed his brow. He didn't know what an IUD was. If her question was if he was he worried that he'd impregnate her at a few inches tall, the thought had not crossed his mind even perfunctorily, but from her tone he just assumed that the effect was nothing to worry about.


After Brett's bath, he was unshrunk, and slowly dressed in his clothes from earlier in the day. He could hardly believe it was still the same day, it had felt like so much had taken place. He drifted off in search of Loren. His wrist control buzzed as he peered around the corner.
"I'm in my lab, Brett. Come on by. :-)"
He found she had dressed and was no longer wearing the bathrobe, clattering away on a mechanical keyboard connected to an iMac. She looked over and smiled at him.
"What are you working on, Loren?" Brett asked with as much energy as he could muster. He saw her typing rapidly on a mechanical keyboard connected to an iMac, in a program called Xcode, which he'd have to ask her about later.
"A little something in the interest of safety as I'm starting to do more with shrinkee infrastructure. We are seeing very little of this in the media, but there are unlicensed shrinking devices around which have a lot of the normal safety measures disabled and they could be used for kidnappings. Let me see your phone. Unlock it for me por favor."
The boy grabbed his iPhone from his pocket, waved it across his face, and handed it over to Loren.
She quickly went into his email app, opened some email he'd been sent by some service called TestFlight, and then she proceeded to install an app on his phone with fairly minimal user interface. He watched curiously.
"Now Brett, this is what I'll call the 'shrinkee protection' app. You don't have to actually interact with it and the interface is only for calibration and logging details. No need to ever open it, just keep it installed and if it asks for a new permission, grant the permission. I want you to have it on your phone for beta testing, but there may be bugs as I've not put that much time into it until recently. When it's on, your phone will use the mic to determine if there is a shrinking in its presence due to the characteristic air pressure wave generated by the shrinking process. You hear it as a kind of pulsating whoosh."
Brett nodded. He knew what she meant.
"Now a lot of that is unresearched and we don't know if the sound generated by the air pressure wave is characteristic enough to give high confidence. It also cross-checks against the phone's accelerometer. Using the same kind of detection technique as you might do to find out if your phone was dropped, I'm checking if the phone is crumpling to the ground in a pile of clothes during a shrinking process. Including this extra feature increases the confidence that the user her/himself has been shrunk, but it relies on the person carrying the phone at the moment it happens. GPS is also valuable, as a shrink detection event will then poll the phone's location and send it to a remote server periodically until the battery dies or data connection is lost. During this limited beta testing, I am going to be receiving all the shrink detection events and logs here on my own server and checking them whenever I get notifications. There's probably going to be a whole lot of false positives at first, but we have to start somewhere and I think it's reasonably feature-complete given my testing abilities. Try to help me test this by being available to confirm on your phone if you shrunk or not, okay? You'll have to use a PIN, which I will default to your birthdate. I'll be contacting you on the app if I think I've detected an event, and you can then obviously confirm if it actually happened or not."
Brett strained under the pressure of all these technical terms and tried to just use a humorous exit. "Loren, you can call me anytime without coming up with such an elaborate excuse!" He put an arm around her and gave her a side hug.
She was not altogether unresponsive to his touch, but the flirt barriers had come back in force. "Brett, I'm being serious. There are not a lot of people who have been voluntarily shrunk under conditions like yours. Very often it's unpredictable. I still think it could prove beneficial for humankind to let shrinking continue, but we really need to make sure there are safeguards to using it. I have seen firsthand now how a shrinking can be dangerous to a shrinkee even when the shrinker doesn't realize this and doesn't intend to hurt the shrinkee. Imagine how a lot of badly conceived pranks could go between friends. I want to work on protecting against unauthorized shrinking.

He just nodded energetically, like a bobble-head. He didn't know what to say. Of course he'd use the app but he was too dang tired to think about all this stuff. It was past 1am. How much coffee did this woman drink?
"Brett, are you ready to go home?"
"No, no, no, I'm just tired."
"Well, if you're tired, we need to get you home."
"Do we, Loren? um... I'm sorry, I kinda thought... you wouldn't mind letting me... s-s-stay over for the rest of the night." he stammered out.
The woman sighed and looked down, shaking her head. She turned back to Brett.
"I know you do. I don't know why I'm suddenly feeling constricted and frightened. But you need to give me time to process my emotions and understand how I feel about this. Frankly, I think you need to do the same."
Nodding with hidden disappointment, he added "I'm not that tired anyway. Show me more about how you're detecting the shrink events before I go." But despite listening attentively, he could not help but feel crushed flat. Perhaps the words were hard for her to say, but she said them with such finality. He felt sure that she wasn't really capable of seeing him as a romantic equal. Perhaps to her this was a strangely pragmatic friendship with a mere boy, which both allowed her to explore her sexuality and expand her research. He proceeded to continue listening to her explanation of the technology and trying to stay alert and responsive. Where he could sound halfway intelligent he tried to ask questions and absorb the response.
Loren was gratified that Brett was interested in her projects. She was impressed that he seemed to be asking good skeptical questions. Clearly the guy didn't know much about technology beyond the products he'd used as a consumer, and he didn't understand the feasibility of what needed to be measured, but he had a mind that was fairly scientific, which was not a bad starting place. Best of all, he was very unassuming, and didn't fail to acknowledge when he didn't know something, even though he sometimes hammed up his response with derpy humor. It was after an hour of taking him around her lab and showing him a half dozen projects that had interested her over the past year that she noticed the time. A Nixie tube clock, a gift from one of her nerdy friends, showed 2:00am.

"Brett, my gosh. I did not realize it was so late. We need to get going now." she said, grabbing his arm in surprise. Brett took the pronouncement with sadness, but he complied.
There was a wave of two competing feelings in her as they gathered near the door and put on their shoes.
She felt a strong sense of dread as she didn't know Mrs. Henderson well and was going to have a very tough time explaining why he was coming home so late. She had said probably 10pm, and could probably have gotten by with midnight, but this was getting very embarrassing. Perhaps she should just let him stay here, she thought. But lateness of the hour would make returning him harder and harder without having a lingering effect on his weekend and on his future memory of this encounter. She gulped as she considered what effect that may have. Given her past as the target of traumatic abuse, she had heard and digested and rebuffed all the excuses that abusers made, and had placed on her the most solemn restriction on forcing her will upon a younger person, particularly for sexual gratification.
The other feeling, which tended to make everything more complex, was her sincere pleasure at talking and hanging out with Brett. He wasn't an ordinary high school junior; he was wide-eyed and curious as they made their way into the depths of her lab, and he had grown in confidence and was treating her as an equal, knowing better how to dismantle her sometimes cold, forbidding mannerisms. He was also a regular jokester, devising some elaborate puns that sometimes even elicited a laugh from her. With the bitterness of perceiving this happiness vanishing, she inhaled strenuously as though the air were heavy as a boat anchor, as she again reconsidered the demands of his future: he still had a few more years to go before he was mature enough to be making decisions that mattered. She was not going to have this young man, who made her happy on an intellectual and geeky social level, who had no interest in impressing his way into her pants, who had self-selected in the most unfakeable way his sexual compatibility with her by showing acceptance of a shrinkee role, was experienced in the role, and could even enjoy it himself.


Rain fell in massive torrents as Ms. Issakinen backed her Tesla out of the garage. Brett was covering up his disappointment at leaving her home, both performatively and practically, by crossing his arms and falling asleep. It was made easier by the slow pace that Loren was driving in the storm, and the rhythmic drumming of heavy raindrops on the roof and glass of the car.
Then he was awakened with a start. He looked out the window. It was his mom's house. His mom's car and Don's bike were in the driveway, but all lights in the house were off. The Tesla's dash helpfully indicated that the time was 2:19am. He saw no lights on anywhere in the house. Even Don was asleep.
Loren was looking at Brett as he awoke, subued by seeing him hurt by her rebuff this evening. The flashes of lightning and faint glimmer of streetlight caught her eyes as he looked toward them.
"Brett, time for you to go home. I am sorry that you can't stay overnight with me. I am sorry that I kept you this late. I enjoyed our evening, and I am looking forward to having you as a student next year. Keep in touch, okay?"
As he sat there unmoving, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, then shooed him away. The lingering was breaking both of their hearts, though neither of them knew for sure the feeling was mutual.

At 2:24am, Brett fell into bed mostly still wearing his wet clothes, teeth unbrushed, socks on, and tried to fall asleep. His brain was trying to figure out if he should file the day's events as one big dream.
He felt the familiar feel of his own sheets, smelled his own lame Walmart cologne on his nightstand and saw a half-drunk can of energy drink, and it was as though the thoughts and feelings he had were all fake. They had to be. He cursed his own name and dismissed his memories. Crying silently, heavy hot tears, he cursed the vividness of his visions. Why did he, a massive introvert loser, have to imagine and fixate on a world where Loren Issakinen secretly loved him? Why did he imagine things that were so painful when they did not happen? Why and how did he have such a perfectly realistic fantasy of making love to her? No! It must have happened! He knew that he had actually experienced those things. But even if it was real, why was it ending now? Why would he torment himself by dwelling on them?
In a moment of clarity, it occurred to him that these were the hurt feelings that Loren must have been trying to spare him, he thought. She wasn't ready for this yet, or at least she wasn't ready to be hurt by some thoughtless kid. She wanted him to leave until he could make proper adult decisions, or something like that. She was so wrong about him. He wasn't immature. He'd show her somehow...
Brett drifted into sleep with a million thoughts still on his mind.

---


At 10:06am, the sun streaming through the blinds in Brett's bedroom, he was awoken by the faintest but most persistent phone buzzing.
He pulled out his phone, wiped the sleep from his eyes, and saw who it was. There were a few new notifications.
The first was two missed calls, and no voicemails, from Mrs Samson. Perhaps she was reaching out to him to congratulate him on his chemistry final project?
The second was an email from Principal Lee-Reilly. Whew, here we go, he thought.
Opening it, he saw her formal style jump off the page as though she were really there next to him.

    Hello Brett,
       
    I would like to thank you for your consistent performance so far in your shrink certification support. I can confirm that as of this morning, Ms. Olivier and Mrs. Gu are certified, and the applications for Miss Erenli, Mrs. Gomez, and Ms. Issakinen have been reviewed by me and submitted to the state. Well done Brett - we're halfway there!
    
    I have spoken with all of your teachers and I think that we can get you the 4.0 GPA for this semester. I stressed the value you were adding to this program and how much time you were spending on it. However, in one case where I was told your performance was worse than expected, you may have to perform remedial studywork - your teachers will individually reach out to you to clarify.
    
    I do have unfortunate news that Mrs. Samson has had a death in her family which requires her to leave town on Monday. She has told me that she will need to move up her shrink training with you to today - if you remember from your original schedule that you accepted, this was an alternative day for her, so I told her on your behalf that you would be able to make the time free. Please do work with her however she needs.
    
    Best,
    Mrs. Lee-Reilly, Principal, Westwood High School
    
As he read this, he realized he would have to call Mrs. Samson back. He was about to do so when she called him a third time.
"Hi Brett, ya there?" she said in her singsong, deeply Southern drawl. The way she said "Brett" ended up sounding someting like "Bray-ett", which never ceased to amuse him.
"Hi yes ma'am Mrs. Samson." He knew she liked being addressed as ma'am.
"Brett ma boy, I'm sorry f'I woke ya up. Did ya read Lee-Reilly's email?"
He replied that he had. He was not assumed that she went straight to business.
"Yeah, it's kinda last minute, but my dad died yesterday and I need to go back to Alabama this week to take care a'things."
"I'm sorry to hear that ma'am. Were you close to him?"
"Nah Brett, wadn't close to him. He was a mean, stupid man who drank too much. But he hated my mama even more, and a lawyer called and said I was the only one he took care of in the will. I don't really want the old man's land but I still gotta straighten out the particulars."
Brett wasn't sure how to respond. This was far more personal than the notoriously private, prim and proper Mrs. Samson had typically been. "I'm sorry to hear it anyway. Hope your trip goes well."
"Thank ya, hun. Well, I was gonna pick you up and take you over to my place today. But we had 'nother piece of bad luck last night in the storm. Turns out a bolt a'lightning struck my tree in my front yard and knocked off a branch, which broke my window. Lots of water all over the living room. My husband is talkin' to the insurance adjuster right now. We're going to have a big mess here with contractors comin' too. So as you know, Nancy and I are friends. I was gonna ask Nancy if it would be okay if we did the thing over at your place today. She said it would be right fine, that she was plannin' on bringin' over some friends to hang out and have brunch anyway."
Brett heard that last line with horror. Turning his head and sniffing, he could smell the luscious smell of brisket emanating from downstairs, which had been slow cooking overnight. His mom was going to make breakfast tacos and she often invited her girlfriends over to unwind together, where they'd also imbibe in fruity boozy drinks. These brunches were understood by Don and Brett, without the need to explain, to be events purely for ladies, and the men of the house avoided it, which the ladies were normally fine with. Somehow, he'd forgotten that the brunch was planned for this Saturday, today. His mom had definitely told him about it, but he had planned to go out today and didn't really remember it until now.
"Brett, are ya still there?"
"Y-yes ma'am. I'm still here."
"Well, does that sound okay with you? Your mama okayed it, and you're under her roof, so I don't really *need* your approval, but I wanna be sure."
There, that was the kind of harsh logic that he expected from Mrs. Samson. He had no choice but he was being asked to show enthusiasm for her last-minute decision to perform his shrinking punishment in front of his mom and a few of her friends. So he did what had always worked for him in the past, and gotten him through her chemistry class. He buttered her up.
"Yes ma'am Mrs. Samson, that is fine by me. You are in charge of the training, so you can do it as you want."
"Good to hear it, ma boy. Glad you're onboard, glad you got a good attitude 'bout it. I should be over there in about 40 minutes, still takin' care of stuff before I go. Talk to you later, hun. Buh-bye!"

---

In the intervening time, Brett stayed scarce, all but barricaded in his room as he heard another lady arrive and greet his mom. It was Cindy Wells, an old friend who had known Nancy since they were both freshmen in college. Cindy now worked for the city government and had a thin frame and sandy blonde hair cut short. She had a mischievous sense of humor which was sometimes too much for Nancy, but they got along well most of the time. Brett had grown up knowing Nancy and basically thought of her as a slightly crazy aunt. By the sound of glasses and ice chinking below, they were already starting their first drink of the day. Here we go, he thought.

But he didn't need to wait much longer. Mrs. Samson arrived a few moments later, greeting both of the ladies cheerfully. This wouldn't have been the first time that Katie Samson had come to Nancy's house, not by a long way, but she hadn't yet been to one of the brunches. Brett wasn't even sure if she drank.
Heavy footfalls coming up the stairs. It was not his mom.
A few knocks. "Come in," Brett murmured nervously.

In came Mrs. Samson, dressed nothing like she normally was during school hours, when she wore a long skirt and suit jacket over a conservative blouse. His obese, pear-shaped teacher was dressed as though she had turned over a new leaf as a camp counselor, wearing a huge oversized T-shirt that draped her large boobs and gut. Still, the hardest work was being done by a pair of cheap-looking plain black shorts that were straining to cover her massive ass and meaty hips, and ended- mid-thigh, leaving exposed mounds of flab accumulated around her thighs and the base of her knees. Her face was not made up, though, and her long eye lashes were natural and she had a very big, inviting smile. Still, he certainly never thought of her as attractive, and he was seeing more of her than he'd wanted to.
"Bray-ett, good to see you. Are you ready? I reviewed the training documents yesterday and this morning."
He shut his mouth, realizing he was gaping at the bulging, shimmying mass of her butt as she walked toward him. "Yes ma'am, you've read what has been done before. What do you want to do?"
"Well Brett, I was surprised to read that many of my colleagues spoke highly of almost everything you did. They mostly left detailed reports. Except Loren - she wrote very little, but then she was always shy, wasn't she?"
Brett said "Yes ma'am." He knew that Loren wasn't shy, but was just protecting both of their privacy. Jeez, was that too much to ask for? Had Miss Erenli told everything? Even the incident with her mother Umaima?
Katie Samson sat down on Brett's office chair, and it slightly staggered downward under her weight. He knew it had a weight rating of 250lb and it was probably being overloaded by her mass. As she sat down, she removed a pair of generic sneakers and pulled off some well-worn socks to show off some extremely large, chunky feet with thick, stubby toes. Most of her skin was slightly pink, as though she was finally getting a little bit of sun for the first time this year. He could make out some hairs growing on the top of her foot, which he'd never seen before on a woman. On her soles there were many callused patches and bits that were yellow or brown. Birthmarks possibly?
"Here, I just thought I'd show you what you're in for. Go on, take a whiff."
Brett swallowed as he leaned forward and took a sniff of her sole. Yes, they were a little whiffy already. She'd been busy this morning. "Yes ma'am, I see."
"I need to get men's size shoes usually. Size 11 wide. I apologize in advance but I did not attempt to make this any easier on you. My feet are a little sweaty as I was runnin' around dealing with the storm leak last night and this mornin'. My skin is rough. I have never had a foot massage or a pedicure in ma life, Brett. It always seemed like kind of a silly thing. And who wanted to spend money on their feet? But you were willing to do real nice things for the other teachers, Brett, and for free, without making 'em feel awkward about it. I want the same kinda thing."
"Yes ma'am." Brett said robotically. There was no real choice, and not much sense in fighting it.
She looked at him inquisitively. "You're really okay with cleaning ma stinky feet with your mouth while you're shrunk in ma shoe?"
He broke down and could not sustain this goody two-shoes impression any longer. "Well, I'm not okay with it. I really am not looking forward to it. But you want me to do it, you're making me do it, so I'll do it."
Her response was so prepared and automatic, it was as if she was waiting for his anger. "Mr. Henderson, I am not *making* you do anything. You signed a contract and this is your job. I know maybe I am not as pretty as some of the other teachers but you need to show me respect and treat me just like the other teachers, young man."

And with that, he was rudely shrunk down on his own bed. She placed him down the hole of her right sock, and then pushed in the foot and tucked into her shoe. The laces were retied, making his prison tighter. She rose to her feet and started to leave Brett's room.
Her foot was indeed rougher than any previous examples. He felt like there was crusted sweat on her sock, as though she had chosen to wear old socks for him. Her sweat was particularly musky and acrid, and he had a good deal of it to deal with on her sweltering toes.
And then she discovered how to use the shrink app on her phone.
"Mr. Brett, I don't feel you moving much down there. You've been asked to do a simple task. Please get to work eating your hardworking teacher's toe jam. I made sure that there is at least some for you." Understatement of the year.
He replied back "OK."
"OK what?" came the response above. She pressed down on him with her toes, momentarily stunning him.
"Yes ma'am!" he shot back, frightened at the anger.
"Good boy. Thank you." came her last text as she descended the stairs.
"Katie, Brett didn't want to join us? What's he up to?" Cindy asked jokingly to Mrs. Samson.
"Oh he's indisposed for the moment. He shouldn't bother us. In fact, he's doing some school work for me at the moment." she said smugly, eliciting a chuckle from Nancy.

Brett fumed inside the shoe. But whenever he stopped working, it seemed that Katie was ready to slam her foot into him and compel him to keep moving. So he found himself at yet another all-you-can-eat foot buffet, served courtesy of Mrs. Katie Samson from her size 11 wide restaurant.
Then he had another unexpected message on his wrist device. It read:
    AUTOMATED MESSAGE - This is the ShrinkProtect app. It has been detected that you were shrunk. If you have authorized this, press Y and your 6-digit PIN. If you have not, press N. If no message is received within 10 minutes, escalation measures will be taken.
    
    Y*****
    
    Thank you for confirming that you authorized this shrinking.
    
Then, after a brief period, he got a message from the same automated text source, but Ms. Issakinen had taken direct control.
    
    Hey it's Loren. Brett, tell me who are you with? You weren't scheduled for another shrinking today.
    
    im with mrs samson, she came unexpectedly
    
    OK Brett. Good luck. Thanks for letting me know.
    
It felt sort of good to know he was being looked after, but he really couldn't use it to help his situation now. It would be rough, tough, cheesy, vinegary Alabamian feet for Brett on the menu for breakfast.

---

As the three women enjoyed themselves together in three quarters of an hour of conversation, food, and drinks, the topic ultimately shifted to a recent news report that there was new shrinkee legislation planned.
"I hope they don't do it! I want a chance to try out a shrinkee at some point. I've always wanted one." Cindy said.
"Well, you know you can rent them," Katie said.
"Fat chance!" Cindy retorted. "There is a nationwide shortage, and it costs loads of money, like more than a grand per hour. The most 'reputable' companies won't do the service anymore. Because they are worried about the laws coming into place."
Nancy clicked her tongue. "Well, I haven't looked too hard at it, but I think the law is a good idea. I think they need to keep the shrinkees safe and they also need to discourage people whoring themselves out as shrinkees." Brett could hear this spoken far above as he was roasted under Katie's toes, and felt it as a personal attack.
"Oh I know they need to keep the shrinkees safe. But sometimes it seems like they're just trying to outlaw harmless fun." Cindy said, less enthusiastic than before. She hadn't realized that her friend Nancy was anti-shrink.

Katie was very quiet as the conversation went on. Nancy ultimately started to get irritated whenever shrinking was brought up, and found it hard to hold her tongue. All three were gulping down their drinks and mixing new ones.
"Well Cindy, let's just say I disagree with you on shrinking being a perfectly decent way to earn a living, but I agree with you with the principle that if you make the mistake of doing it, you deserve the consequences. Brett is suffering those consequences right now."

"BRETT!?!" Cindy exclaimed. "How did it happen? I'm sorry, Nancy, are there problems with money??"
"Hush, silly girl." Nancy scoffed. "We are doing fine. He did this to himself. I guess he had some secret desire for it. He is doing it through the school actually. You know the shrink training program they're doing at Westwood? He's the sole student volunteer."
"And speaking of sole," Katie piped up, "Brett has done a fine job cleaning my sole with his own tongue while we've been talking here."
Cindy gasped. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. "Why is he doing this? Why did you get him as a shrinkee, Katie?"
Katie started laughing. "Hahahaha! He's got a contract. A real open-ended one. Doesn't even get paid by the hour. He's gotta do this with a whole bunch of teachers. Bet he ain't happy licking all these teachers' feet, especially mine!"
Nancy snorted and added "They got nothing on my staanky feet, Katie!" But she then shook her head and continued with some anger in her increasingly drunk voice. "I didn't raise him to do this kind of trick. But he got himself in the hot water, I am not about to rescue him. You do whatever you want, Katie. He's a big boy now. If he goes over my head to my boss the principal and strikes himself a contract job, he's a big boy now."

Cindy was looking down and around, trying to figure out how to ask without being too crass, but the alcohol was getting to her head too, so she couldn't resist.
"Can... can I try him Nancy? Would that be okay with you?"
Nancy shook her head. "Look, I already told you I don't care. He's my son but he's basically an adult. He wouldn't have gotten himself into this situation if he didn't enjoy it. I just don't want to be associated with it. Don't ask me, don't tell me."
With that, Nancy finished an especially large gulp and then stood up. She mumbled "Excuse me" as she walked away from her two friends. She appeared to be walking toward the bathroom but then turned at her bedroom and went inside and locked the door, refusing to continue being around for a discussion of the shrinking of her son.

Cindy and Katie resumed their conversation and were starting to get friendlier themselves. Brett could hear them talking about him, but he missed out on a lot of the particulars. That is, until Cindy evidently laid down on the floor next to Katie's shoe and asked him in a clear, loud voice.
"Hey Bretty. You volunteered to be a shrinkee. You would let your ol' Aunt Cindy have a taste, right? Just a taste? I've never tried a shrinkee before. I promise I wouldn't hurt ya, and I bet it would smell a lot better than Katie's ugly old foot!"

Brett did not like the sound of this. And his mother's other friend, Melissa, still hadn't arrived yet. Oh, it was going to be a long day.