Monday

Ms. Chapman unlocked her classroom and stepped through, holding the heavy door emblazoned with various art projects open for her impending guest. A young boy shuffled in behind her with uncertain steps. Ms. Chapman nodded and closed the door.

“Well then, Stuart…” Ms. Chapman stepped to the light switch, her heels clacking and her lanyard jingling with every spare move. She switched it, and the lights activated in waves, gradually illuminating a classroom that appeared to have been working on various spread-out assignments before suddenly being called to more important matters (lunch). “Do you know why I wanted to speak with you?”

Stuart was a short young man, even by 6th grader standards. He wasn’t as tall as almost all the girls, and he wasn’t as broad as almost all the boys. His tweedy blonde hair was perpetually in tousles, and without his glasses he was blind as a bat. It seemed to Ms. Chapman from a cursory inspection that about the only thing the young man had going for him was his academic acumen… but ever since the latest exam, even this had been cast into question.

“Is… is this… about my grades?” Stuart looked at the floor constantly, shuffling his feet in arcs against scuffed tile.

“To put it bluntly, yes,” Ms. Chapman said, tapping her foot for a moment. She waved Stuart over, and he followed obediently to her desk. A chair was positioned at front for him to sit, and he tentatively sat within, gaze never travelling upward.

Ms. Chapman sat in her own rolling chair, feeling the stress empty out of her as she relaxed her back and stretched out her spine. She sighed, allowing her feet to slip out of her back dress-code high heels into a pile beneath the floor. Then she felt the stress flooding back. The semester was almost halfway over and the performance of her cadre of students had been going downward more and more. It started with math, which made sense. Not even Ms. Chapman enjoyed math. But then science, social studies, even reading! It was endemic in her class, and though Ms. Chapman hoped Stuart’s continued academic success was proof she was at least doing something right, ever since he scored a 68 on the latest test his homework quality had been dwindling. A bad sign.

Of course, Ms. Chapman couldn’t say all this to the young man. So instead, she interlocked her fingers into an X shape and gazed at him from around her computer. “I’m worried about you, sweetheart.”

Stuart said nothing, glancing up at Ms. Chapman before again letting his gaze descend, apparently unable to look Ms. Chapman in the eyes.

Ms. Chapman closed her own eyes for a moment as she pondered how to best express these concerns. Her toes gripped the edge of the mouth of her shoe, a nervous habit as they clicked and clacked beneath the desk. She slackened her fingers and prepared to speak.

“You’ve been doing so well in class lately. I’m just curious if perhaps…” Ms. Chapman opened her eyes. “Can you please look me in the eye while I’m addressing you?”

Stuart’s focus was completely on the floor beneath her desk. He snapped out of it quickly and nodded. “Yes ma’am!”

“That’s important. You need to look adults in the eye while speaking to them. Now…” Ms. Chapman prepared to speak. “Has… there been any trouble at home, Stuart?”

Stuart shrugged. “No, not really. It’s the same ol’, same ol’.”

“Well, that’s good to hear at any rate.” Ms. Chapman rapped her fingers across the cover of the lesson plan. She opened her desk drawer and pulled out a marked scantron. “Now, I have –”

The scantron slipped from her fingers, coasting through the air until it fell on the ground. Ms. Chapman sighed. “Can you get that, please?”

Stuart nodded emphatically. He got from his chair and dove underneath the desk.

Ms. Chapman cleared her throat and gripped the mouse. The computer monitor turned on, followed by the massive projector screen perpendicular to her desk at the front of the room. Stuart scuttled like a vole underneath her desk, the paper making scratchy sounds as it slid beneath them on the floor, forever lost from Stuart’s dry fingers. As Ms. Chapman loaded the test questions on the whiteboard, she began to wonder.

“Stuart? Stuart! Have you gotten the sheet, yet?”

“What? OUCH!” Stuart bumped his head against Ms. Chapman’s desk. As he reeled, he scooted from beneath Ms. Chapman’s desk, surely scraping his khaki brown pants against the floor. The scantron was in his grasp.

“Stuart, honey, you’re not stalling, are you?” Ms. Chapman raised a singular eyebrow, and Stuart shook his head emphatically. “Good. Because if I have reason to believe you are, I will give you detention.”

“Not my permanent record!” Stuart eeked.

Ms. Chapman nodded ominously. “Anyway…” She grabbed the projector remote as the first question appeared on the screen. After rolling her chair around and to the front of the desk next to Stuart, Ms. Chapman lightly snatched the scantron away from her student and gestured upward. “Now, tell me. What’s the answer to this question?”

Stuart looked up. It was a rather simple word problem about a pastry chef’s dilemma in turning a recipe meant for three into a recipe meant for five. Stuart didn’t even have to bust out the scratch paper. “3.75 cups,” he rattled off.

Ms. Chapman peered at him. “Correct. Now, we haven’t reviewed this test in class, correct?”

Stuart replied, “Mm hmm.”

Ms. Chapman propped one foot on her knee, kneading it between her knuckles. “How did you get that answer?”

“Well, I just… cross… multiple…” Stuart’s voice trailed off, and only a few moments after the reasonable expectation of him finishing his sentence ceased did Ms. Chapman finally snap. She turned to him, and noticed once and for the first time… Stuart was looking at her feet.

“Stuart?”

“Mm hmm?” He didn’t turn away this time.

“Are you staring at my feet?”

This time he did. He looked up at Ms. Chapman, having turned tomato red. His breaths got quick, and he began to hyperventilate. “I-I-I-I’m sorry Ms. Chapman! I-I-I didn’t mean to –”

“Stuart, please.” Ms. Chapman gazed down at Stuart with her motherly smile. “It’s okay, truly.” Truthfully, Ms. Chapman wanted to laugh out loud, and she was trying very hard not to. This was certainly novel; never in Ms. Chapman’s thirteen years of teaching students across elementary, middle, and high school levels had she encountered and caught anyone ogling her feet before. It was a new feeling, and it made Ms. Chapman feel… kind of giddy. Like when a student tells a teacher “I love you” or some other display of disproportionate affection.

“I-it is…?” Stuart squeaked out. Ms. Chapman could tell he wanted to turn his gaze to her feet but was stopping himself with as much willpower as an 11-year-old could muster. “It feels… weird. Like something’s wrong with me…”

“No, Stuart. Nothing is wrong with you, and don’t let anybody say that there is. There’s nothing wrong with thinking feet look nice,” Ms. Chapman chastised. “But you need to focus. We’re here to talk about your grades.”

Stuart nodded slowly, eyes still downcast. Ms. Chapman thought for a bit, then said, “We can talk more about feet… later. After we’ve gone through the test.”

Stuart’s eyes almost lit up. “Okay!” he cheered.

The next ten minutes went by like a blur. It was almost unbelievable; Stuart’s erstwhile academic acumen that she thought he lost had returned in full force. He was cross-multiplying, using fractions, finding the area of circles and triangles and squares, even some beginner algebra. All without a calculator. It was… sort of scary, if Ms. Chapman was being honest. But the goal was for her to have a class of educated students by the end of the semester, and this was as good a start as any.

“That’s… that’s incredible…” Ms. Chapman clicked the Next Slide button but none came up. “You just answered every question with 100% accuracy. Where was this during last week’s exam?”

“Ah…” Stuart cast a glance to the seat he’d been placed in for the test, just close enough to Ms. Chapman’s to afford a view of beneath her desk. “I was a bit distracted…”

“Oh.” Ms. Chapman put a finger to her lip as Stuart waited patiently. “Well, I guess a deal is a deal…” Ms. Chapman pulled her foot up from where she’d perched her toes on the spokes of the rolling chair. Her sole was placed firmly in the cushiony seat of the chair, and Stuart was practically salivating.

Suddenly, Ms. Chapman was struck by a horrifying thought. Am I… am I really about to proffer my feet… to a child? Clearly, he was into it, or had some burgeoning fetish. And while there’s nothing wrong with that per se, as a teacher and authority figure, this was all sorts of wrong.

But what, really, was wrong about it? It’s just feet, after all. It’s not as though she ripped off her clothes in front of him. And besides, Stuart had confided in her something deeply personal, something that without her, he might’ve let fester and hinder his development in a self-loathing manner. If she gives Stuart an outlet, she might save him from a world of self-doubt and self-hatred later once his puberty really kicks into high gear.

Besides. Stuart had just aced a test for the promise of her feet. That just was too absurd not to entertain.

So, Ms. Chapman gulped, and she began to stretch her leg out, sole-forward, in Stuart’s direction. It was a difficult maneuver to keep her leg stable; Ms. Chapman wasn’t the most athletic woman, but she could hold it for a little bit.

Stuart looked like he was on Cloud 9 as the foot inched ever closer and closer, Ms. Chapman’s toes clenching and unclenching in the air bubble before his face as the slightly acrid scent of her soft and moist and sweaty pads wafted into his nose.

“How is it?” Ms. Chapman asked.

“Delectable…” Stuart replied.

Ms. Chapman laughed. “That’s a vocab word. You just got 5 points of extra credit.”

Stuart giggled, then reached up to wipe his glasses clean as they collected with fog. Once that was done, the feet appeared in even more crystalline definition than before. “C…can I… touch them?”

Ms. Chapman thought for a minute, then smiled. “You earned it.”

Stuart could barely contain his elated cheer, but he swallowed it. He lifted one hand to lift the foot up from her ankle like a legendary grail, and Ms. Chapman sighed in relief. Her calf and thigh was burning. Now that she had a bit of support, this would be much more bearable.

Stuart meanwhile was dancing his fingers delicately above Ms. Chapman’s splayed toes, unsure, as though he were not worthy to interface with these divine tootsies. He interlocked his short fingers amidst Ms. Chapman’s toes, and a slightly truncated gasp escaped him. His heart was pounding, and emotions he wasn’t entirely sure of were swirling in his stomach. He tugged the foot a tad closer to him, pulling Ms. Chapman’s chair in his direction. Ms. Chapman giggled, and she nodded.

Stuart took this as the go-ahead. So, he caressed the foot with both hands, and he pressed it against his cheek.

Ms. Chapman felt the boy’s warmth through the sole of her foot as he nuzzled it like a stuffed animal. She crossed her arms over herself and got ever more comfortable in her chair, content with the knowledge that her feet were quite literally in good hands. This was like nothing Ms. Chapman had ever done, with a student or otherwise. She’d dated a few kinky men over the years… and here was Stuart, giving her feet better attention and care than any of those losers had ever given to a single part of her body. It felt as though Stuart had truly become one with her foot, and it was enough to make Ms. Chapman’s nails plunge into the armrest of her chair as she further sunk into bliss. Her toes clenched in an involuntary, near-throbbing as her worship continued, and they grabbed Stuart’s glasses by mistake for a moment.

“Oh, my bad!” she said, chuckling.

Stuart peeked his face from the foot, quite massive in comparison to his boyish head. His hair was disheveled, and his face was a bit wet. “Did you say something?” Ms. Chapman could tell every moment he looked at her was killing him as he awaited the chance to return to her feet. So she simply smiled and waved him to continue, an invitation he took with gusto.

He rubbed the slightly damp underside of his teacher’s foot across his face and forehead, giving it butterfly kisses that reposited near-infinitesimal droplets of her sweat on his eyelashes. Each breath he took through his nose felt like a gift that imparted into him divine inspiration. And when it became too much to resist, Stuart couldn’t help but pucker his lips and plant his mouth on the ball of Ms. Chapman’s foot, giving them a great, big, squelching kiss.

“Ahhhh…” breathed Ms. Chapman. She could get used to this. But the fun had all but been had. “I think that’s enough for now, sweetie.”

With puppy-like acquiescence, Stuart removed his face from Ms. Chapman’s sole, allowing her to retract her leg and let it once again rest on the edge of the seat. “S-sorry…” he said, staring at the ground again, though conspicuously away from where his teacher’s feet would’ve been.

“Sorry? You have nothing to be sorry about. That was…” Ms. Chapman trailed off. She feared the consequences if he repeated to anyone that a teacher told him that was the hottest thing I’d ever done with anyone.

“That was a delight. You were gentle, and I have to believe you must have experience with worship– ah, uh, I mean, rubbing feet.” Saved it.

“No, not at all,” Stuart said, finally ready to meet his teacher’s gaze. She was smiling, and that made him happy. “It was my first time!”

“Well, if you don’t end up becoming a rocket scientist or an engineer like I’m sure you will, know you have a very bright future in being my personal foot rubber.” Ms. Chapman reached out and plucked at one of Stuart’s cheeks, making him blush. She grinned and scooted the chair back behind her desk as she put on her heels.

“If only the rest of the class were so easily motivated…” The anxieties that put her in this position had returned. Ms. Chapman had managed to help the student who arguably needed help the least, but that left 20 other young boys and girls who were struggling, possibly beyond repair.

Stuart watched Ms. Chapman return to her computer and enter grades, and he had an epiphany. Now feeling just a bit more confident to potentially speak out of turn, Stuart said, “Well, maybe they are.”

Ms. Chapman turned to him quizzically. “Why would you think that?” Then she gasped. “Do the other students talk about me? What do they say?” Ms. Chapman only barely stopped herself before her childlike propensity for gossip possessed her.

“Nothing, really,” Stuart admitted. “But I do see them watching you… sometimes… but… I don’t know. I don’t really talk to most other students.”

“Ah,” said Ms. Chapman. “Well then. You should have just enough time to grab a bite from the cafeteria. If you run. Go on,” she said, waving him away.

Now that his more primal urges had been sated, Stuart suddenly realized how hungry he truly was. “Ah, right!” He got up and trotted to the door. “Oh, and Ms. Chapman? I see how often you take off your shoes in class… think you could, maybe… maybe…”

Ms. Chapman looked at him slyly. “Yes, I will.”

Stuart’s smile turned into a beam.

“Have a good lunch,” Ms. Chapman said, and the young one darted out the door, leaving Ms. Chapman all alone in her room until the class returned.

Ms. Chapman reclined as far back as she could, feeling an itch of some sort on her feet. These shoes were feeling more and more like weapons by the day. She shook them off, allowing both to clamber to the ground with dual clacks! Unencumbered, she raised her feet, allowing them to rest, ankles crossed, on her mousepad as her head rested in the cushiony fabric of the chair.

She’d managed to get to the bottom of one student, but the rest of them would be more of a challenge.

Tuesday

Ms. Chapman shook her head as she scrawled another red mark on the test. She’d managed to get through to one of her students, but the rest of the class was still frustratingly outside of her reach. She never expected Megan to be a star student – the girl was tall, brazen, and pushy. A bit of a bully more wont to use her fists to solve problems than her head. But she’d at least hoped that she’d be… somewhat competent by the end of the semester.

Ms. Chapman sighed, and she glanced to the clock and – it was a quarter ‘til 5 already? Goodness gracious. Ms. Chapman had been so absorbed in her revisions she hadn’t noticed the time go by; if she wanted it back home in time to get ready for her date she might have to skip going to the grocery store. Resolving to finish grading later that night, Ms. Chapman collected the stack in a single ream and scooted out from her chair, planting her bare feet on the ground.

True to her promise, the schoolteacher began to walk about the classroom barefoot, with only her and Stuart the wiser. She’d noticed his watchful gaze whenever she journeyed across the room to help one of his classmates, and she couldn’t help but wonder what was going through that brain of his when he laid eyes on her moisturized, aged, leathery feet. What was it about them that attracted him so?

But Ms. Chapman wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. True to his promise, Stuart’s homework had been flawless, and his other in-class assignments were pristine. He was doing just as well as Ms. Chapman had come to expect of him, and she had little reason to believe that would change. It was a small beacon of light in an otherwise upsetting situation. Now, as she slipped on her shoes, put on her coat, and walked to the door, she could only pray the rest of her –

Knock, knock, knock…

Ms. Chapman’s hand paused in its journey to the doorhandle. Then, curiously, she opened it a smidge, revealing not a fellow teacher or administrator but…

“Megan?!” Ms. Chapman tried to swallow her shock, but of all students, she was the least likely Ms. Chapman expected to visit her after class. Megan was almost as tall as Ms. Chapman was, with long legs that made her the perfect captain for the junior cheerleading team. Her lovely mahogany-colored skin was without flaw, and her bountiful curls of dark brown hair would’ve made any boy swoon. She would be quite the catch, had she not a rather aggressive and somewhat mean streak.

Megan didn’t respond, simply shoving past Ms. Chapman and into the classroom. Yet, she wasn’t alone. Megan had Kim Lee in tow, a reserved young lady with straight black shoulder-cut hair who tended to keep to herself. Despite this, she seemed to have drawn the short straw in being Megan’s chew toy for the week. Kim Lee also had two left feet, and nearly slipped and dragged Megan down to the ground, eliciting an evil glare from the taller girl before the two were properly situated inside the classroom. They faced their teacher.

Megan spoke for them. “We want to talk to you.”

Ms. Chapman scraped the side of her leg with her shoe. “Ah, girls, I’m about to leave right now. Can it wait for tomorrow?”

Megan side-eyed Kim Lee, and she broke into a devilish smile. “No, it can’t.”

“Well, I’m afraid it must,” said Ms. Chapman, preparing to leave them in the room on their own. “I have a date at 6, so I need to be home in time to –”

“I was playing a game of Truth or Dare with Kimmy, here…” Megan yanked Kim’s arm. Kim acquiesced, simply staring at the floor bashfully. “… who told me that she was in love with you. And couldn’t be without you.”

This was enough to raise Ms. Chapman’s eyebrows. Even if it was coming from a bully, the idea of two separate students confessing their love to Ms. Chapman one day after another was a statistical anomaly.

“Isn’t that right, Kim?” Megan prodded.

Kim nodded shamefully.

“Ha, right!” Megan jeered. “So, Ms. C. What’re you gonna do about it?”

Ms. Chapman looked at the both of them, and she closed the door quietly. “Well, Kim. I’m flattered. Sincerely.” She sidled back to her desk chair, seating herself within it. Kim’s eyes were drawn to her. “But I’m afraid I’m just too old to be in a relationship with you, sweetheart.” Ms. Chapman reached down to remove one shoe, placing it on her desk. Then the other.

Ms. Chapman leered, swinging her feet back and forth. And Megan’s eyes shifted, one-two, one-two, in perfect harmony.

It was an odd prediction, Ms. Chapman thought. But, could it be…?

“That being said…” Ms. Chapman purred.  She batted her eyes at the olive-skinned lady. “I’ve never been one to deny a gift from my students. Being on my feet has been quite a slog of late, and it would make me quite happy if you could ‘help’ with that. Unless you don’t think you’re up for it.” Ms. Chapman winked.

Kim’s gaze rose, as did her thin eyebrows. Megan looked down at her incredulously.

Ms. Chapman propped her ankle on her knee and scrunched her toes. “I’m waiting.”

Reverently, Kim broke her arm from Megan’s meager grip and fell to her knees, crawling forward and reaching out to grab Ms. Chapman’s exposed foot.

“Ah, ah, just one moment. Before you start… you need to promise me one thing.”

Kim gave an excited nod. Ms. Chapman could almost see the drool pooling in her mouth.

“You need to get an A on tomorrow’s pop quiz. Because if you don’t… I’ll never let you anywhere close to my feet again.”

Something in that threat made a pained expression flash across Kim’s face, and for a moment, even Ms. Chapman feared she herself might burst into vicarious tears. Either way, Kim gave another yanking nod.

“Alright, baby…” And Ms. Chapman offered her foot to Kim, who immediately set to rubbing the outstretched object of her affection. Her hands were daintier than Stuart’s, and this made it tickle just a tad bit. But once Ms. Chapman got used to the sensation, she couldn’t stop the involuntary sighs from leaking out, even as Megan stared down at the scene, dumbstruck.

“You know,” Ms. Chapman turned to Megan, leaving Kim obediently to her work. “You don’t have to stay here.”

“I… I-I-I–”

“You know…” Ms. Chapman dragged out sultrily as she put a finger on her cheek. “I have another foot. If you’d like. You could be my second little foot rubber for the evening.”

“A-ah, uh,” Megan stuttered. “God, no! What the hell…?”

Ms. Chapman shrugged. “Fine by me.” She let out a soft moan. When she looked down, Kim had just laid a kiss on Ms. Chapman’s toes. “You can leave, now,” she said, jerking her chin in Megan’s direction.

“F-fine!” Megan shouted, stomping away and putting her hand on the door. She turned the handle, then looked back. An unimpeachable smile was spreading across Ms. Chapman’s face as Kim’s kisses became more frequent and inadvertent. The girl was on autopilot, and Ms. Chapman was loving every moment of it.

Megan’s twitched, rattling the doorknob. She grit her teeth and turned back to the door. Then she turned back to Ms. Chapman. Then back to the door. She turned it a few degrees… then she stomped back, silently, lustfully dropping to her knees, but once again Ms. Chapman would make Megan wait before she could claim her prize.

“Now, before we do… I have a few stipulations,” Ms. Chapman said.

Megan rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, get an A or whatever.” She tried to bury her face in Ms. Chapman’s other foot but was knocked away with a slight kick to the nose. Megan gave her teacher a toxic glare.

“That’s not all, Megan. See, you’ve been quite disruptive to my class… oh…” Ms. Chapman let out another moan. Kim was really getting into it; her face was flushed. Ms. Chapman bet she couldn’t even hear this conversation anymore. “And in addition to giving your all on the assignments, all I ask in return is that you…” Ms. Chapman playfully scrunched Megan’s nose with her toes. “… stop being such a bully. Stop being so pushy, and don’t force anyone to do what they don’t want to do.”

Megan was livid. She was being asked to give up her entire way of life! “Fuck, no!” she said, crossing her arms.

Ms. Chapman rolled her eyes and heaved a heavy sigh. “Oh, Megan, Megan, Megan… I’m afraid it’s not up to you.” She wagged her foot in an arc in front of Megan’s face. Megan’s defiant eyes followed it; by the time she figured out what she was doing, Ms. Chapman already had all the information she needed.

“God, what’re you trying to do?!” Megan exclaimed.

“Just trying to make you understand. You need these feet, don’t you…?”

Megan was silent, but her lip was quivering. Ms. Chapman put her toes even closer to Megan’s face, but never touching. The gentle scent was seeping into Megan’s nose… it made her eyes water. But not from the smell.

Megan sniffed. “P-please…?”

Ms. Chapman shook her head. “Not until you swear to them.”

“I SWEAR, JESUS CHRIST!” Megan shrieked. Ms. Chapman hadn’t even the change to nod in assent by the time Megan slammed her face into Ms. Chapman’s feet, drawing her tongue across the sole in long strokes as she moaned in desolate euphoria. Kim was as obedient and tweedy as ever, but Megan was aggressively servile.

Ms. Chapman thought it was great having one of her students serving her. But having two? The trio allowed silence to caress them, silent except for the lustful moans that inadvertently escaped them all.

It did not stop until Ms. Chapman felt a vibration in her coat pocket. A phone call.

“One second, girls,” Ms. Chapman said, scooting away. Her heart broke at Kim’s face; Megan meanwhile simply panted as she waited patiently for the return of Ms. Chapman’s foot.

Ms. Chapman answered the call. “Hello?”

Her face scrunched up.

Ms. Chapman’s eyes glanced over the clock quickly, fearful of what she’d see. But she’d seen enough to know they’d been at this for nearly two hours.

As the man yelling at the phone increased his volume… Ms. Chapman simply snapped her phone shut, giving the confused students an awkward smile. “I think that’s about enough for today…” Ms. Chapman grabbed her shoes and put them on, feeling the girls’ saliva that had accrued on her soles squish within the footwear. “The both of you did a marvelous job. And if you can keep your grades up, I think we’ll have a bright future ahead of us.”

Megan and Kim both stood to their feet, dejected yet understanding. Ms. Chapman smiled, then gave another commandment. “Oh, and, this is going to be our little secret, right?”

“Psh… Sure, whatever,” Megan drolled. Kim nodded like a manic chicken.

“Wonderful. Have a nice walk home!” Ms. Chapman said, opening the door for them to exit. They did, still trying to catch glimpses of Ms. Chapman’s feet even within those shoes, only stopping once they were across the threshold.

Slam!

Ms. Chapman was alone again. She collapsed into her chair.

Jesus, that was incredible…

But more than that, it was inexplicable. Why… what? How… she had been so lost in the moment, she didn’t realize how utterly ridiculous the entire situation was. She’d somehow convinced the both of them to worship her feet… well, there was no convincing required. They were the ones who needed her feet, and Ms. Chapman was more than happy to give them to the girls. But, why? Why were her students so in love with her feet?

Well, at that, Ms. Chapman scoffed. Sure, a couple of students had a bit of a fixation. That was a bit weird, but it wasn’t as though every student in her homeroom class was obsessed with her soles.

Wednesday

“I trust your pencils are all sharpened?” Ms. Chapman asked. She was seated on top of her desk with her hands clasped together, facing a group of twenty students. As she’d been for the past two days, her feet were bare, and this time they were swinging back and forth with leisure, her heels bumping into the mahogany of her desk.

Each child had three items on his or her desk: a sheet of paper, a pencil, and a rubber eraser. Ms. Chapman observed a few of her children as they fidgeted, but the class appeared ready. She nodded, and she unclasped her hands and reached across the desk to snatch the remote from beside her computer. Soon, the ActivBoard behind her flashed to display the quiz subject, the rules, and the time limit.

“You will have fifteen minutes. When I start the timer, the questions will appear on the board. You must answer them True or False, and if you answer False you must explain using full sentences why. Am I clear?”

The class made a casual murmur of agreement. Ms. Chapman looked out over the students, and she caught Megan, eyes trained on the instructor’s feet like a predator stalking her prey. Kim Lee looked so fixated she almost wondered if the girl was paying attention. And of course, little Stuart. All were in different places amongst the classroom, and yet all of them were focused on her feet.

Still though, they weren’t the only ones.

It wasn’t everyone. Of that Ms. Chapman could be sure. But there was a non-insignificant amount of students peppered around the class who seemed to be taking glances at the teacher’s swinging feet. Some were even taking long looks, drinking up their bareness as they hung in the air. Her wiggling toes, her slightly-dusty soles, her smooth and bulbous heel, her protruding ankle, each ministration of her foot seemed to alter the feel of the class ever so slightly, and Ms. Chapman was definitely jacked into it. Sitting on her desk wasn’t exactly new, but this combined with her new perpetual lack of footwear during class was an unlikely boon for a few students. In the rest, it gave rise to mystifying emotions that the kids didn’t fully understand.

Ms. Chapman herself didn’t know how to feel. She was confused, perplexed, heck, even gobsmacked by it all. And yet, there was something nice about being desired. She’d had luck with some of her other students right now, and luck was definitely something she needed when it came to training these kids, many of whom were located far below the center of the school’s bell curve when it came to grades. If she could perhaps entrance the entire class… use their infatuation as a tool… use her feet as the means by which she could control them… turn them into the perfect slav– students. The perfect students. That’s what she meant… the perfect…

Someone coughed. Apparently, Ms. Chapman had been in thought for a while. She shook her head meekly. “V-very well then. And just so you know, once I’ve graded them, I’ll have a special surprise for those who get an A. So do your best, and that might be you!”

She looked at her students again. There was another cough.

Ms. Chapman gave a nervous smile as she fiddled with the remote. “Anyway, begin!” And the timer started.

Ten questions appeared on the board. Ms. Chapman remained seated on the desk, her gaze high and mighty as she surveyed her domain. The three students who’d confided in her their secret desires took a moment to tear their eyes away from their teacher. They wanted her feet of course, and they knew they could have it and more. But they had to suffer through being away from them and focus here on the quiz. It was a series of questions about the literary works they’d analyzed over the past few weeks. Shakespeare, Harper Lee, William Golding, and a couple of short stories. It was a somewhat broad selection, but the questions were such that anyone who paid attention to the reading would be able to deduce the answers without too much trouble.

Indeed. It shouldn’t be hard. Yet the past three quizzes of a similar nature Ms. Chapman had given were Cs and Ds across the board without a vowel in sight. Ms. Chapman had been doing her best since then, but aside from Stuart she hadn’t seen much improvement at all.

Ms. Chapman let out a heavy sigh, then transitioned it into a short humming rhythm to keep the students from cluing into her burgeoning melancholy. She scooted off her makeshift throne and chagrined at the cold touch of the floor on her bare feet. They pattered as she returned to her desk and sat in her chair, waiting for the timer to run out.

“Seven minutes everyone,” she called. Pencils scraped over paper. Some students were erasing aggressively. Others appeared to have finished already. As always, Ms. Chapman could tell which students would do poorly and which who would do… slightly less poorly. More of the same, that’s always what happened. The life of an educator.

“Three minutes left…”

She propped her foot on her knee and dragged her manicured nails along the soles with just enough gentleness not to tickle. These were the feet that had been worshiped by her students twice in less than two days. What was it about them? Ms. Chapman was a woman who tried her best to be hygienic, clean, attractive, and set an example for her students. At the same time, she’d never dressed in a manner that was provocative or meant to titillate. Her younger co-workers and older students have described Ms. Chapman’s manner of dress as “librarian-core”, which was apt, of course, but for a woman who did on occasion want to be seen as sexy and attractive, it stung. Whatever her feet did to these kids, that was a result of her feet alone.

A cartoon bomb sound effect went off.

“Pencils down!”

All writing stopped. By that point, only a few were still working on the assignment. They hastily crossed their last Ts and Fs just in time for Ms. Chapman to leap from her seat and march to collect them herself, swiping them from the helpless students who had yet to check their work. Cursory glances at the top slices of quizzes showed there was little variation in the True or False answers, though she’d have to dig deeper in the short answers to have an idea of what the standard deviation of the quiz scores were.

Ms. Chapman slid into her desk, depriving a view of her feet from all except those closest to the front of her class. She chuckled grimly to herself, thinking, Yeah, right. As though these kids cared about her, and her feet less so.

But anyway. She set about the work of grading these papers, primed for disappointment. True (correct). True (correct). False… She skimmed the explanation and determined it was also correct. True (correct)…

…

…

***

Megan was used to being pulled aside from class and spoken to by the instructor one-on-one, usually in the wake of her pushing, punching, scratching, or biting another student (always provoked).

Stuart, in his own way, was no stranger to receiving special commendation from a teacher in a solo environment.

Neither would be offended if they heard the other say they never would’ve imagined seeing each other in this scenario they so often found themselves in. But when Ms. Chapman finished grading her papers, she sheepishly looked amongst the class and requested that Stuart and Megan (and also Kim Lee) wait outside the classroom for a few moments.

So, the three students looked at one another for as long as they could before averting their gazes to the floor and shuffling in place. Stuart was mostly baffled Megan hadn’t made a joke at the expense of his glasses or his hair. Kim was just happy to be included.

The door suddenly opened, and all three students stood at attention as Ms. Chapman slid out. Kim raised a brow as she observed her teacher’s face; she looked more nervous than she felt. Which was, perpetually, an above-average amount. Ms. Chapman pulled the door shut and leaned back against it as if to catch her breath. Stuart’s eyes seemed to glimmer as he noticed her feet were, as promised, still quite bare.

When nobody spoke, Megan decided on a far too conversational icebreaker, “So, what’s good?”

Ms. Chapman seemed not to notice or care for Megan’s lack of code switching. She let out a breath and stood up straight while flattening out some wrinkles from her blouse. “Yes, of course. Ah, well, children… it would seem I have a bit of a problem.”

Kim looked as though she’d been hit by an invisible bullet. Megan tried to act cool, but even she couldn’t hide the sullen glance that flashed over her expression. Stuart was the first to ask what his classmates were surely thinking. “So… we didn’t do so well on the quiz… I guess?”

Ms. Chapman looked truly baffled. It was almost scary. “What?”

After startling the kids, the echo bounced down the hall. Another teacher poked their head out of a far-off classroom. Ms. Chapman suddenly realized this was less than a private meeting space.

Ms. Chapman crouched slightly and said in a far lowered volume, “What?” The students seemed to take the hint, and they all stepped in a bit closer to her huddle. “No, quite the opposite. In fact… you three all made As.”

Kim and Stuart both lit up. Megan almost stumbled, and she screamed, “BITCH, I–”

Megan caught herself. The other three were staring at her.

Megan cleared her throat. “I-I meant… yeah. It’s all good.”

Ms. Chapman counted off five seconds to make sure nobody else tried to peek into their audience. “Well yes, but my problem is… so did everyone else. By which I mean, somehow the entire class received an A.”

Kim Lee went agape. Stuart raised an eyebrow. Megan gave her trademark glare, and she said, “Seriously?”

Ms. Chapman nodded. “Indeed. 90s and 95s across the board. Except for you three, that is, who all received perfect scores.” She winked, and all three kids blushed. “Now, my problem. I said beforehand that students who scored an A would receive a prize. I happened to have a few gifts kicking around in my desk drawer just in case…” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a wrinkled handful of individually-wrapped candies. After blowing off the dust bunnies, she brandished them to the group of three. “…but it appears I underestimated you kids! I barely have enough prizes to reward even a handful of students, much less the entire class!” Ms. Chapman gave a frustrated, fleshy stamp on the floor.

She waited for the students’ response. When it was not forthcoming, Ms. Chapman said, “Hello? You’re listening to me, right?”

Neither Stuart nor Kim Lee had been listening. Their attention had been pulled downward, which Ms. Chapman had frankly come to expect. Megan on the other hand looked at her teacher dumbfounded. “You’re… kidding, right? Your plan was to reward us with… Jolly Ranchers?”

Ms. Chapman chagrined. “Haven’t I already made it clear I don’t joke about these matters?! If you three can help me come up with some kind of reward for the class, I would be grateful. Something you know that your friends will like, but it has to be something I can provide on short notice. So, no pizza parties, ice cream socials, nothing like that.”

Megan looked at Ms. Chapman. Then she looked to Stuart and Kim, still quite hypnotized. She looked back to Ms. Chapman.

Megan shrugged. She grabbed Ms. Chapman’s hand and pulled her back into the classroom with much protest. “Ah, ach, Megan! Unhand me!” Stuart and Kim followed slavishly, not really caring about the circumstances of their return.

Megan shoved her teacher into the room before she closed and locked the door. Then she called out, “Alright everyone!”

The meandering conversation halted at once in the face of Megan’s authoritative yell. Just as planned. Megan grabbed Ms. Chapman’s arm again, and gently coaxed the flustered teacher to once again clamber upon her desk. She returned her attention to the class.

“So! It seems Ms. Chapman was so baffled by our performance in this latest quiz, she’s become speechless! Is that right, teach?”

Ms. Chapman: “Ah, well –”

“See!?” Megan interjected. “Totally stupe… stupef… confused. Because every single one of you got an A!”

This electrified the uninspired chitchat. Megan gave Ms. Chapman a quick wink before addressing the class again.

“That being said… I’m sure everyone in this classroom is excited to receive their prize…” Megan shot a look in Kim and Stuart’s direction. They stood there silently until Megan injected that look with the usual fear she imparted in those who spoke to her. That seemed to do the trick, and the two kids suddenly got to work behind Ms. Chapman’s desk, doing something she could not quite see out of her peripheral vision. Ms. Chapman was far more interested in what was going on in front of her anyway; Megan had crouched down, her hands traveling about the side of Ms. Chapman’s calf, her shin, lifting her left foot up by the ankle and brandishing it out for the rest of the class.

All talking ceased.

“You get what I’m saying here?” Megan whispered. Everyone heard her.

Up above, amongst the crowds. Boys and girls alike were greeted with a vision of Ms. Chapman’s foot. Her toes curled and opened; the draft chilled them, and the ensuing breeze carried the flavor of her feet back out amongst the students. The hardy scent of her feet was absorbed into each tween’s nose. Ms. Chapman truly was speechless… she could see into their eyes. Those closest to her feet in the frontmost rows, their eyes were already glassy, glazed over. Habib, Priti, Justin, Tanya, Omar… all of them were under a spell. It was at the back of the class that things were getting wonky. The kids seemed to be blinking, shaking their heads, slapping at their temples. They couldn’t understand what was going on, why they felt this way.

A blonde, pigtailed girl from the rear suddenly stood up. Gigi. “I, uh, have to go to the nurse’s office.”

Gigi clambered through the desks, racing, hunting for the door as quick as she could. But the closer she got, the closer she came to Ms. Chapman’s feet. Soon, she didn’t even realize she’d changed course. She was heading straight for Ms. Chapman’s sole, and she soon buried her face in it as though it were the last pond of water in the scorching desert. “Ahhhhhh…” Her moans and groans were muffled by her teacher’s thick, pillowy foot flesh.

Ms. Chapman was aghast. She scooted back, and her tailbone hit something hard. She turned, and here she realized exactly what it was Kim and Stuart were up to. They’d constructed a headrest out of spare textbooks from the front shelves, and they were just about to drape Ms. Chapman’s coat over it when the teacher bumped into the construction and very nearly toppled their hard work. Stuart had to grab the trembling tower with both arms to avoid catastrophe. Kim Lee shot her own mean glare in Ms. Chapman’s direction… she hadn’t even known Kim was capable of making such a face.

“Go ahead!” Megan continued her act and goaded Gigi on, tugging playfully at one of her pigtails. “This is your prize, you earned it!”

“I… earned this…!” Gigi huffed, planting kiss after kiss upon Ms. Chapman’s sole. Somehow, she was a better little worshipper than Kim Lee, but not quite as good as Megan or Stuart.

Ms. Chapman was still struggling to understand what was going on. But when Stuart and Kim Lee both took her shoulders, inviting her to lay her head back, she didn’t refuse. She scooched gently up the desk, putting almost her entire body upon the surface. Both feet were free to wiggle their toes, and Gigi had almost had her fill. Her face was wet with the remnants of Ms. Chapman’s own sweat, in addition to the moist smooches she gave to her teacher’s wondrous soles. Finally, as a finale, Gigi planted a loud, moaning kiss against the ball of Ms. Chapman’s foot.

“Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…”

It seemed to keep going and going. Ms. Chapman wanted to look up and see what was happening, but Stuart and Kim Lee insisted she relax. Gigi continued her smooch. Her face was turning red, sweat droplets were running down her temple. Until…

“…mmmmmmmUAH!”

The kiss was complete. Gigi fell to the ground, her tiny torso rising and falling with the heartbeat of a squirrel.

Megan looked down at Gigi’s sleeping form. Then she looked up at the astounded class. “Well, looks like she enjoyed her reward. Raise your hand if you’re ready for your prize next.”

Every hand in the class went up.

Thursday

“The War of 1812!”

Every other hand in the classroom went down and glared at Justin, who suddenly covered his mouth.

“Oops…”

All gazes returned to the foot of the class. Seated atop her oaken desk was Ms. Chapman, leaned back against a very real stack of pillows this time, all brought in from the students’ homes this morning. To her left, Carla was practicing her skills as an amateur hand masseuse and nail stylist. To her right, Ms. Chapman would occasionally glance lazily to the computer monitor, the contents of which displayed on the ActivBoard behind her. She might occasionally press a button on the directional pad or click a couple times on the mouse, but her attention was split between actually teaching class and wallowing decadently in the tsunami of pleasure that she was receiving from being pampered day in and day out by her students. Her feet, both bare, were currently digging their heels into Kim Lee’s back as the girl was positioned prostrate in front of the desk, and from the dumb, blissful look on her face, she couldn’t be happier. Her left foot was being nuzzled and caressed by Megan, while her right was currently free real estate. Instead, it would be today’s prize for students who raised their hands and answered the study questions correctly on the board.

Justin, like every other student in the classroom, was able to answer correctly. However, he omitted a very important step.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” said Ms. Chapman, shaking her head. “Someone got a bit too eager.”

Removing her feet from Kim’s back (much to Megan’s annoyance), the schoolmarm rose from her makeshift throne to full height and began taking long, regal steps between the aisles of desks. The hush that had fallen over the classroom now approached a church-like reverence.

“I-I-I’m sorry for not raising my hand,” Justin said. His face was turning redder and redder. “B-but, I still got the answer right, right?”

“Come now, Justin. We both know that doesn’t quite cut it anymore,” said Ms. Chapman with apologetic eyes.

And she was one-hundred-percent right; it was no longer a question of if her students knew the answers. If Ms. Chapman asked for something, she now received it, and this extended to ensuring the kids studied the material. There was now no component, no facet of the lesson plan that Ms. Chapman’s students weren’t familiar with on at least a high school if not college level. The students could freely recite the names of every president in American history, their VPs, and their platforms. They could rattle off battles from the French-Indian War to the Iraq War, and their political ramifications. There was now a running competition amongst the youths to see who, after a flippant suggestion made by Ms. Chapman, could memorize the most digits of pi. A majority of the boys were currently in the upper double digits, while a smattering of the girls had made it to low triple. Either way, the current record stood with Stuart reportedly at 948 by EOD Wednesday. Her students could synthesize graduate-level analyses of Dostoyevsky and Kafka. In less than a week, the classroom had transitioned from a ragtag team of misfits punctuated by a few rising stars, to perhaps the most knowledgeable group of 11-12 year olds in the Southeastern United States.

And all it took was this middle-aged teacher dangling her feet before them, like a carrot on a stick.

To get a taste of those feet, her students would do anything. In fact, the only obstacle between them and becoming ever more intelligent was their addiction to the feet themselves. An addiction which at times caused some students to erroneously burst out in class with uncontrollable urges to devour her soles and suck her toes without following proper classroom procedure.

“Man, c’mon! I-i-it was just one little mistake! Ms-Ms-Ms—”

Ms. Chapman sighed. She retracted her foot from Megan’s grasp and, subsequently, the warmth of her hands and face. Megan was perturbed, until Ms. Chapman snapped her fingers and pointed past her in Justin’s direction.

“I think… five minutes should do?”

Megan was, of course, aggravated to be pulled from the objects of her affection, but hearing the voice of her teacher was enough to melt her heart. She rose from the floor, towering over the seated class. Then, she pulled a length of tape from the desk drawer and began to lumber toward Justin, who could only stare at the former bully who by fate or chance had become the primary enforcer of Ms. Chapman's will when the teacher’s actual words just didn't cut through the hypnotic miasma of her feet anymore. 

Justin squirmed in his seat, shaking his head, mouthing "Please... no, no, no..." 

Megan's lips curled into a smile. Her devotion was solely to Ms. Chapman and Ms. Chapman's toes, but she'd be lying if she said she didn't enjoy having a teacher-sanctioned excuse to lord over the rest of these maggots. And, with the practiced precision of someone who'd done this a million times before, she yanked Justin up from the seat and started wrapping his head in the material, carefully plugging up his nose before depositing him back in his chair.

The poor kid couldn't even sniff anymore -- his sinuses were entirely blocked. Most of the students who hadn't yet entered Ms. Chapman's high court were content with the privilege of simply smelling the odor that Ms. Chapman's feet emitted, blanketing the room with the comfort of a fall-scented candle. Without that, Justin was... nothing. He was no longer a member of this group of apostles blessed with the presence of this earthly deity and her earthy soles. He was just... some kid in a classroom. For five whole minutes of his life. It was more than he could bear, and thus despite the fact his mouth was completely exposed and there were no obstacles to his breathing, as Megan returned to Ms. Chapman's side, Justin seemed to convulse in a silent fit before passing out on the table, a slimy trail of drool pooling into a blue-tinted puddle on the pen-smudged desktop.

"Hmmm... I've really got to workshop these new punishments a bit more," Ms. Chapman thought to herself. She'd ask her students for recommendations -- they were now, after all, more than capable of outdoing most large language models when it came to synthesizing trivial information and ideas -- but it was probably a lost cause to ask them for ways to eventually restrict them from enjoying her feet. Whatever the case, there was still an entire half-semester's worth of time left for her to brainstorm and experiment on that front. In the meantime...

Now was the time to sit back, relax, and... just enjoy this. With a click of the mouse, the PowerPoint presentation progressed. Or, well... it should've. When she glanced at the computer screen, she realized with a start that it was over.

"Ah, well then. Guess it's time to move onto biology review..." Ms. Chapman dragged the mouse across her desktop, searching for that biology PowerPoint when a timid voice emerged from the back of the class. It was Gigi, who had been given the privilege to take an old pair of Ms. Chapman's workout socks home the previous day. She was still huffing their balled-up forms as she spoke.

"Um, Teacher? We already finished biology review this morning."

Ms. Chapman sat up. "Oh huh?! Ach, God..." Somehow, despite being in the lap of luxury unknown to any except kings and sultans, she was feeling a migraine come on. "Okay... literature. Might as well just hammer home some of the key points in Harper Lee’s work and compare it to how Harriet Beecher Stowe—”

“Already reviewed it. Right after biology. Remember?” Habib said. “It was right before lunch. You ran out of study questions. Marina got in trouble for kissing your toes too long.”

“Not making that mistake again,” said Marina from the middle row of students, and she started biting her nails.

“Hmm…” Ms. Chapman wracked her brain searching for a subject the group could study. “Pre-Algebra?”

“Already got it.”

Ms. Chapman scratched her chin. “Regular algebra?”

“That too.”

“Ph-physics?”

“Our theorems are perfect.”

“American government, then?” said Ms. Chapman. “Come now, you can’t expect me to believe you’ve gained a comprehensive understanding of that, can you?”

As her students recited in perfect unison the opening lines of Article VI of the United States Constitution, it seemed to only now be hitting the professor; somehow, her students had successfully mastered the entire curriculum in less than 48 hours.

“There has to be something I can still teach you children…” said Ms. Chapman, finally beginning to claw her way up from the drowsiness of being waited on hand and foot. “Stuart hon, do me a favor and hand me my lesson plan…

“Stuart?”

Oh. That’s why things felt so off today. Stuart, the first of many of Ms. Chapman’s little servants, wasn’t here! Whatever was so important that he felt the need to miss spending more time gluing his face to the underside of Ms. Chapman’s soles, nobody could say. But his absence suddenly felt like a void in Ms. Chapman’s heart the moment it was acknowledged.

Ms. Chapman and her class looked at each other awkwardly. Megan took the initiative to untie the tape from Justin’s nose, and the way his face once again flooded with pinkish color was that of a succulent plant which had been given the water it was previously denied. He drank in the ambient scent of his teacher’s feet, but that didn’t change the fact that as of now, there was technically no reason these students even had a reason to be here. Aside from truancy laws of course.

BRIRRRIIIIIING!!!

The mid-afternoon bell rang, and before anyone knew it, the band of students ascended from their desks and shuffled out of the class with startling efficiency. Even in the presence of divine soles like Ms. Chapman’s, children will be children, and children needed some way to release their pent-up energy. In less than 40 seconds, Ms. Chapman was left alone in the classroom, embroidered in fabrics and silks and surrounded by blankets and pillows like an Aztec queen with no attendants. She looked like she’d missed Mardi Gras by several months. And frankly, she felt that way too.

“Do… do they even need me anymore?”

Ms. Chapman was reckoning with that thought as she paced around the room, her bare feet still making wet, fleshy sticking sounds as they deposited equal layers of thin sweat and trace saliva in a coiling path between the desks. Her students… they made her proud. Extraordinarily proud. Not only was their scholarly acumen reaching disturbing heights, but so too was their emotional intelligence. Even their social intelligence improved by leaps and bounds when access to Ms. Chapmans’ feet was at risk. But regardless of the origin of this new standard of behavior, the fact remained that these students were hers. Ms. Chapman’s. And if she no longer had any knowledge to bestow… what would be the point? After all, it’s not like she could just keep them as her foot worshipers forever.

Or… or could she?

Psh. No. She couldn’t. Not only would that be ethically ambiguous, it was also impossible. They would need to ascend to the seventh grade eventually. At the rate they were going, that looked more and more like the fast track to college, but the result is the same. She would lose them. Perhaps worse, they’d lose her. Feet, that is. Such a dreary thing to think about, for all parties.

“I… no way…!”

Ms. Chapman’s head snapped up to attention. Her face turned red, then drained to white, then slowly aimed toward the door. She knew that voice. She despised that voice. And that voice’s smug and baffled cadence told her that its owner had witnessed far more than a lonely teacher sulking in her empty classroom.

Ms. Chapman gulped. “M-M-Mrs. Tanner?!”

Mrs. Tanner stepped into the room with her arms crossed and a brow raised. If Ms. Chapman was librarian-core, Mrs. Tanner was the epitome of chic. Younger, hotter, and smoother in just about every way than the middle-aged schoolmarm, she was able to sport outfits that were just trendy enough to be fashionable without breaking dress code (in this case, a red sundress with a denim jacket on top). Her homeroom students were always getting into spats with those of Ms. Chapman’s – harmless, for the most part. But Ms. Chapman harbored her own suspicions that this rivalry was very real to Mrs. Tanner. Old blood versus new, youth versus experience.

“M… M-Myrtle…” Mrs. Tanner was clearly aghast. At precisely what, Ms. Chapman could only harbor sneaking, terrifying suspicions.

“I… um, I…” Ms. Chapman threw the blanket off of her shoulders and shuffled in place nervously. “How much did you see?”

“Enough,” said Mrs. Tanner, stepping into the room. “And might I add… have you no shame? I’ve seen some depraved things in my own school days… but this? Turning your classroom into some… some kind of… some kind of fucked up foot orgy?!”

In truth, this was the first time that Ms. Chapman had ever heard it expressed to her in such plain terms. That sorta… was what she was doing, wasn’t it? But then, no! Definitely not. It's not as though she made any untoward moves to these students on her own. They came to her!

On the other hand, that defense would definitely not hold up in a court of law.

Ms. Chapman took a deep, slow breath. She’d been cornered. It wasn’t going to be difficult to prove that somehow, the kids had become Ms. Chapman’s dedicated foot servants. Ms. Chapman then said in a tone that was more sigh than speech, “What is it that you want?”

Mrs. Tanner crossed her arms and tapped her flat. “Simple. I want you to admit to the principal that you’ve been faking your students’ test scores.”

“WHAT?!”

Mrs. Tanner smiled, smug. “You heard me.”

“I, I, ah, ph-phwa… h-huh?! Faking test scores? You believe I’ve been… faking test scores?!”

“Anyone with a functioning frontal lobe could tell it as clear as day. Your class had been floundering for months now. Then 'suddenly', the little bastards start performing well? More than that, they start performing phenomenally?! After less than a week? Ah-hahahaha!!"

Mrs. Tanner was doubled over in laughter for a time, and Ms. Chapman could only stand there and look at her as the rage inside of her built up.

"Honestly, Myrtle, the only thing that's dumber than you executing this scheme is thinking nobody would catch on. I mean, these other teachers are some real rabble, I'll give you that. But you thought you could get such contrived nonsense past me? Someone who actually knows how to use a Chromebook? Think again." Ms. Tanner paced. "In fact, I can already put it together. You coerced the poor kids. You set some kind of condition. If they did your disgusting bidding, you'd help 'correct' some of their failing grades." She used air quotes. "Sound about right?"

Ms. Chapman stared daggers through Ms. Tanner's soul. "I... I assure you. I did not fake a single exam grade. Everything my students achieved in their classes this week, they earned. On their own." Ms. Chapman stamped her foot again. "Say whatever you want about me, but I am not a liar. Nor are my children. My children are..."

Ms. Chapman stopped short. How could she describe it? The students who changed her life and made her feel genuinely wanted for the first time in years? 

"They are... the smartest, most intelligent, and most wonderful kids on the planet. I'm willing to take any blame for this." And Ms. Chapman pointed at her rival with a deadly glare. "But those kids deserve everything they've gotten."

"Ha... right," said Ms. Tanner in a tone that just made Ms. Chapman boil over with hatred. How dare she accuse not just her, but her kids of falsifying these scores. Who did she think she was? Who?!

"Well, your students will have plenty of time to prove that when you're off in a holding cell somewhere." Ms. Tanner turned. "I'm sure you'll find someone to satisfy your sick urg—”

ZZZZAXXX!!!

And with a flash, Ms. Tanner was enveloped in a stream of light and... disappeared. And behind her, stood Stuart. Ms. Chapman's darling Stuart. He was holding a strange device that looked not dissimilar to a stun gun. Its electrified prongs were dimming, but he still held the item with a determined focus.

Ms. Chapman's head was spinning. "I... Stuart, I... huh?! What the... where'd she, I, what did you do?!" Ms. Chapman started to walk forward when Stuart yelled:

"STOP!"

Ms. Chapman stopped in place, mid-step. The boy had become... exceptionally authoritative.

First, Stuart closed the door and locked it. Then he pocketed the deactivated device before he crouched to the ground, scrounging around on the floor for something. When he stood up, his hands were clasped together as if he were holding a tiny animal.

"Okay," said Stuart... "Look."

Stuart unveiled his hands. And sitting in his palm... was Mrs. Tanner. Mrs. Tanner was tiny, and she was very displeased, practically red.

“Unhand me THIS INSTANT!! STUART?! STUART, ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?! HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE?! MYRTLE, MYRTLE, TELL HIM TO LET GO OF ME!! CHANGE ME BACK! CHANGE ME BA…”

“Wow, I can barely even hear her,” said Stuart. “She’s like a… little dust mote…” Already, Stuart’s attention was turning away from the violation of all laws of physics that sat in his hand, and it was instead focused on Ms. Chapman’s feet, stamped against the floor and sweating slightly more than they typically did. In fact, all of Ms. Chapman was sweating more than usual, a fact which betrayed the teacher’s relative unease with the situation.

“I… ah… Stuart…” Ms. Chapman said. “What was that?!”

“Huh, what? OH, oh…” Stuart closed his fist gently, encasing the shrunken Mrs. Tanner within his fingers as he started. “It’s, um, well, a bit of a long story.”

Ms. Chapman hazarded a glance out the window. She spied the rest of her class galumphing through the playground at breakneck paces. Recess was still in full swing.

“You’ve got about twenty minutes,” she said. “Think you can manage?”

***

“And that’s pretty much how it all happened,” said Stuart, absolutely full of pride as he beamed at his homeroom teacher.

Ms. Chapman’s jaw was on the floor. “Let me… let me just catch my breath…” The woman stumbled to her throne and collapsed on it, reversed with her backside out in the direction of the class.

“Do you need assistance? Pampering?! A massage? Ibuprofen? Anything?!” Stuart said, and without delay he dropped to his knees and began to smother Ms. Chapman’s foot in kisses. “Oh man,” he mumbled between smooches. “I know it’s been less than a day, but God… I missed this soooooo much…” That was about all he could get out before he buried his face and mouth in the surface of her prime feet.

“I… ungh… I missed this too,” said Ms. Chapman, turned askance to watch him worship her from the corner of her eye. It felt… transcendent. It was enough to make her grimace in a river of never-ending bliss. “I did miss you… s-so… so much…”

As decadent as it was to have her favored servant back at her feet, she still couldn’t get that story out of her mind. The tale Stuart spun wasn’t long in the traditional sense, but it was complicated. And it involved clandestinely swiping a sample of her sweat the previous day while she wasn’t paying attention, taking it home, and analyzing it using a household lab setup. Most scientists would’ve needed college-level facilities to obtain even a fraction of a fraction of usable data from a sample that small, but Stuart was not ‘most scientists’; at this point, he far exceeded them. Further, he was a man on a mission:

Get closer to his teacher’s feet. By any means necessary.

Hence his invention of the physics-defying shrinking device in scarcely a handful of evenings. What better way to get closer to Ms. Chapman’s feet than through shrinking himself down small enough that he’d have enough of those feet for twenty lifetimes?

“Stuart… I’m… I really am flattered,” said Ms. Chapman as his warm tongue once again dragged across the length of her sole. “Really… you kids are too good to me. But what you’re suggesting, it’s, it’s… it’s parodical. I mean, even if the thing did work, it’s not as though you children can live the rest of your lives on my feet!”

Stuart lifted his moist face from between Ms. Chapman’s soles. “Why not?”

“I, I, ah…” As always, these students knocked the wind out of her. “Well, the first and most obvious reason, if an entire classroom of students disappeared on my watch, I’d go to prison. And I don’t think my feet hygiene would remain satisfactory for you critters while I’m behind bars.”

“Oh, that? Actually, I’ve already figured out a solution to that… you!”

“Me?”

Stuart nodded. He dragged his finger down Ms. Chapman’s left sole, eliciting a slight giggle. What came back was a mixture of mostly sweat with some saliva. “I found out last night when I was analyzing your perspiration. Despite my best efforts, I can’t really seem to locate anything different about your sweat from normal sweat. But I noticed when my mom came to tell me to go to bed, she started behaving… strange once the scent hit her.”

“Strange?”

Stuart nodded. “Agreeable. Almost… entranced? The point is, I don’t know what I told her to make her leave me alone, but I’m pretty sure the only reason she did is because your feet aren’t just attractive to us. They’re attractive to everybody.”

“E-everybody?” That… didn’t seem right. But Stuart was adamant.

“I tested it out again with my dad, and with a few other teachers. That’s where I’ve been all day, and I can only believe that your foot scent and its sweat have hypnoti– ah, well, I mean, um, persuasive properties. In fact…”

Stuart had kept his fist clenched all throughout the worshipping session. Ms. Chapman squirmed and turned face-up, and she once more got a clear picture of him opening his palm. She couldn’t make out the shrunken Mrs. Tanner in the wrinkles though. But she did feel the slight tingle of him depositing her on Ms. Chapman’s big toe.

“Attention, Mrs. Tanner,” Stuart said with the analytical precision of a scientist prodding his test subjects. “What’s your status?”

Ms. Chapman leaned all the way forward and peered down at the bulbous toe, smooth and manicured from today’s pampering. And she spotted the rice-sized teacher who only moments ago was crying and screaming about having her committed.

And she listened.

And listened.

And listened in, searching for a hint of noise, or response, or anything. Stuart’s eyes were trained on the big toe, and Ms. Chapman felt a pang of guilt knowing how desperately he must’ve desired to burrow his nose into the crevices and inhale the scent straight from the source. But he had to know his hypothesis – the one realistic barrier between him and a lifetime of bliss – was correct.

When suddenly, his ears perked up. And he grinned.

“Huh?” Ms. Chapman leaned in closer. And her eyebrows jumped as it hit her ears too.

“God, yes… this is… this is incredible… is this what I’ve been missing all these years…? Oh, oh Jesus Christ, if this is what those kids were after I don’t blame them, this is amazing, please, please let me stay here… forever… Myrtle? Do you hear me? God, my God… please tell me you hear me. Myrtle? Are you up there?”

Ms. Chapman could only hazard a guess at how it must’ve looked to see her planetoid face emerge through the transluscent blur of the rest of the classroom. The endless, warm chocolate hazel as the diminutive woman communed with what would surely become her new deity. “Yes, I hear you.”

“Thank you… thank you…” And the ant-sized figure collapsed, kissing the toe and coating itself in the scent of those feet.

Ms. Chapman turned back to Stuart, who couldn’t suppress a smile at his deduction being correct. “Okay… so, you’re suggesting that I… oh, I don’t know… lace the inevitable letters home informing parents of the disappearance of their children with… my sweat?”

Stuart blinked. “Well, no, though that’s actually a way better idea than I had to hook up a sweat evaporator machine to the school’s air filtration system, thus sending the entire student and teacher body population – except for you – into a hypnotic stupor.”

“Right.” She looked back at Mrs. Tanner, rubbing herself with more of the sweaty secretions. “So, is this as small as they get? I’m starting to become more inclined to this idea… but I don’t think I necessarily want twenty ant-sized little worshippers scurrying across my feet at all times.”

Stuart shook his head. “Oh, this was just for the demonstration. The device can shrink people waaaay smaller than this. In fact…”

Stuart grabbed the electrical stun gun and flipped the switch. Instantly, the prongs alighted in a static arc, and with pained precision (that scared the bajesus out of Ms. Chapman) he managed to hit the shrunken Mrs. Tanner with a second blast of the shrinking device. At this, the poor woman seemed to genuinely disappear into nothing; Ms. Chapman could no longer make out her form after all. For all intents and purposes, she’d vanished.

“That… that device doesn’t happen to have a reverse button would it?”

Now that Mrs. Tanner was out of sight, out of mind, his attention seemed to return to ogling Ms. Chapman’s feet. It took her repeating the question for him to snap out of it. “Huh? What? Oh… why would it?”

“W-well, what if I wanted to grow one of you back? What if you change your mind?” The enormity of the decision that could now be facing the schoolmarm was really beginning to take root in her psyche. This was quite literally bigger than her. Ms. Chapman didn’t expect her class to acquiesce to this harebrained scheme… but the possibility that they would was scarily… not impossible.

“I, well, I mean… that thought never really crossed my mind.”

“Exactly!” yelled Ms. Chapman. “See, this is too crazy to even entertain if there’s no reverse switch, or a grow setting or—”

“No, see, Ms. Chapman… it never crossed my mind, because I wouldn’t want to grow back. And I can say with confidence that none of the rest of us would want to grow back either.”

Ms. Chapman stared at Stuart. The incredulity on her face was beginning to annoy him.

“I… I don’t understand.”

Stuart scoffed. “You really don’t get it yet?” He took a long, deep breath. And he went on, “If we take our tests, move on to the 7th grade… we’re done. We passed, but… what even is there for us anymore? More tests? A career? I mean, even this…”

Stuart brandished the shrinking zapper.

“It’s cool and all… but it’s not what I really wanna do with my life.”

Ms. Chapman could only stammer. “B-b-but… I’ve seen those test scores! You children aren’t just smart, you’re prodigious. You can do anything you want, sweetie! Anything in the world!”

And Stuart looked into Ms. Chapman’s eyes and stared down the depths of her soul.

“I want to live on your feet. Nothing else matters.”

It felt like a gong piercing Ms. Chapman’s skull. One which, serendipitously coincided with the sound of the bell. Not long after, students flooded the halls, and Stuart had already taken his seat by the time the rest of her class began to mill into a line outside the locked classroom. Ms. Chapman remained in a daze, only having enough lucidity to grab the shrinking zapper from her desk and shove it into the drawer. Then, she sleepwalked to her door, opening it and allowing the river of students to flood in, cheering with glee at returning to class for another session of learning. Ms. Chapman sleepwalked through the rest of the lesson as well, eventually giving up once it became clear the entire class knew the lesson plan like the back of their collective hands.

The group descended into an organized assembly line of granting each of them the opportunity to worship and lick their teacher’s feet. Only one student – Stuart – chose to abstain. Instead, he looked at his teacher with hope and anticipation. Hope that she would heed his plea and give all of these students the freedom they’d earned over the past week.

Those were Ms. Chapman’s thoughts, on repeat, for two hours as she sat there in muted silence and bliss at the students worshipping her feet. So blissfully unaware there was already a tiny worshipper there praising their goddess right along with them. One that they may, for better or better, be joining soon.