Matt stared bleary-eyed across the landscape of the flower-pocked garden, with the sun beating down on him. He didn't recognize his surroundings, nor could he recall a reason for his lying in the dirt like he was. Maybe he'd gotten too drunk with his buds and his girlfriend Nadia the night before, and blacked out; of course, that only explained the short term memory loss. It didn't explain the reality-defying shock of discovering that, as of his awakening, he was no taller than three inches.

            Pulling himself to his feet, Matt wandered down the dirt path of the garden. He dusted himself off, and looked over his body: everything was still there, including his clothes, and yet still he was the size of a human thumb. The floral stalks stretched up over his head like trees unto themselves; it was a regular jungle out here in front of the strange and serene suburban ecosystem. A brick house, higher than a skyscraper, loomed ahead in the distance, even though it was only across a lawn which an ordinary person could traverse in a matter of seconds.

            Pinching himself did nothing to end the dream. But just before he could descend into panic mode, Matt's attention was drawn to the sound of the front door hinges squealing. Gawking at the sheer size of the door itself as it swung, Matt found his expectations yet again shattered by the far more surprising and frightening sight which materialized in the doorway.

            It was a girl, probably a decade younger than him, around eighteen or nineteen. She was blonde, with luscious golden locks, and chocolate-brown eyes which seemed to twinkle in the sunlight; she couldn't have been taller than five-foot-three. Perhaps just a couple pounds over the average, she had plainly grown well into womanhood out of recent adolescence. Her thumbs toyed with her lip of her jean pockets as she stepped barefoot onto the stone stoop and scanned the horizon of the yard. She was admittedly pretty adorable, and Matt couldn't imagine he would've done much more than glance her way if this was any other day. But it wasn't any other day, and given Matt's new height, that girl happened to look one hundred and fifty feet tall.

            Survival instinct made Matt want to drop and play dead in the dirt, but then his rational side clicked on. Though he had no idea what had happened here, he was unlikely to escape the danger of the gigantic outdoors without some help. So, gulping, Matt sprinted out from under the cover of leaves and flower petals and waved his arms over his head in the grass.

            "HEY!"

            The blonde was just about to turn around and re-enter her house when her gaze snagged on Matt; her eyes bulged to the size of dinner plates, her jaw hung open, and in the next breath she was bounding down the steps across the grass. Only now, as Matt watched the titanic teen's feet growing larger in his sight and pounding the earth beneath them with such incredible force, did his heartbeat really start to throttle. This was a good idea, right?

            "Oh-my-God!" the girl shrieked with sugary delight; the exclamation was made as one word. Her loud voice arrived with high-pitched alarm, and startled Matt. "Are you real, little guy?"

            As the mysterious giantess came to a halt in front of Matt, her toes briefly wiggled before her left foot arched forward, with her big toe extended. The meaty bulb of that digit alone, not much smaller than Matt's collective frame, drew near and grazed down the front of the shrunken body. An aroma of strawberry soap and gritty springtime sweat wafted from between her chunky digits. This touch, which confirmed he definitely wasn't hallucinating, paralyzed Matt to the ground.

            She crouched down. Hands, soft and feminine, despite their majestic scale, braced in the dirt. Just as abruptly as Matt gained the girl's attention, her pretty billboard-sized face was hovering above him. She'd managed to close her shock-laden jaw, and in its place, her full lips curved into an irrepressible smile.

            "H-Hi!" Matt coughed, waving again, though less enthusiastically this time. His puny height was put into a whole new and scary perspective when he had the ginormous beast of a teen actually squatting above him like this; her shadow easily covered him up. Doing his best to tear his eyes away from those earth-busting feet and the idea of how easily they could crush him, Matt cleared his throat. "Thanks for coming over. I'm sorry, but I don't know how this happened. The last thing I remember, I was in bed, and now... well, you see. Do you think you could help me? If you have a phone, I could-"

            "This is so amazing. I can't believe I just found you out here! It's like you were waiting for me," the girl interrupted. None of the sparkly passion was lost from her tone. If anything, she was even happier. One of her arms lifted up, her fingers curling pensively against her palm, and then that broad hand was outstretching toward Matt. "Come here, little guy. I won't hurt you."

            "W-Wait!" he gasped. "I... I appreciate the help, but could you just give me a second to-"

            The girl did no such thing as wait. Wind from her incoming hand nearly bowled Matt over, though her palm made contact with his body using uncommon tenderness. The cushioned, peachy pad of her palm blocked his way, displaying every intricate crease in her youthful skin. Trembling, the three-inch man tried to back away, but only fell against the girl's giant fingers, which were already curling around to close him into her fist. It was hopeless; she had him. A victorious giggle sounded through her pursed lips.

            "Please, be careful!" Matt peeped as he was sealed into the warm darkness of the girl's closed hand. Trying to squirm into a more comfortable position, the man found he was powerless to the sheer muscle of this teenager's single appendage. In fact, he doubted he could even fight back against one of her pinky fingers.

Centrifugal force gently bounced Matt against the giant blonde's curved fingers and palm. She was moving now, and quickly.

A minute in the anonymous cell of her fist passed. Matt heard the sound of those colossal bare soles slapping across a tile floor, followed by muting on carpet. He heard her steps landing hard on stairs, the sound of another door opening and closing, and then he was brought back to the light.

            No sooner was Matt given a brief glimpse of the pink-patterned great hall of the bedroom, though, when he was faced with a different challenge entirely. A pair of massive, puckered, freshly glossed eighteen-year-old girl's lips flew straight toward him.

            Throwing up his hands in defense did no good. Matt's entire top half was thrust against moist, vibrating lips which bloomed into kissing formation. On either side, her fingers cupped to ensure he had no chance of rolling away from her gooey affections. Suction from within her mouth kept Matt adhered to those lips, as did the glue-like saliva and the pressure of her fingers on his back. Her lips pulsed like a beating heart. Dramatically, a musical moan emanated from the giant girl's throat while she kissed, like something she'd heard from a soap opera.

            "Mmmmmwah!" the girl slurred, ending the kiss with rising volume. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then grinned down at the shrunken man trapped in her palm. "Sorry, you were just too cute not to kiss. My name's Sarah, by the way, little man."

            "S-S-Sarah?" Matt repeated back dumbly. He breathed heavily, perhaps even more shocked than when he first discovered his size reduction; her warm spit and the residue of lip gloss still painted the front of his face and torso. "I d-don't know why you did that, but, um, I really do need to use your phone, Please, I-"

            "Awwww, you're trying to talk to me, aren't you! Just like a real person!" Sarah cooed, stroking his hair with her finger. The girl rocked back and forth as she sat on the end of her bed. She scrunched her face and babied her voice, like she was talking to an infant, or maybe a hamster. "That is so precious. Listen to you: meep meep meep, meep meep meep. You're almost perfect, little man, you know? I think I'm definitely gonna keep you forever."

            Minutes into the nightmare, and Matt was now rethinking his already warped reality yet again. Could she actually not understand what he was saying? It was possible she was just being sadistically advantageous, pretending not to comprehend, but the girl spoke with such innocent conviction that he believed her assessment of him as an animal. Even though it terrified him to his core.

            Matt started thrashing about in Sarah's hands. He hardly thought of the threat of the drop below, nor that car-sized foot which so casually lifted up and brushed him in the yard. After a few seconds of useless struggle, Sarah seemed to take pity and, with an amused smirk, bent toward the carpet below and opened her hands.

            The moment Sarah's fingers uncurled from his body, Matt took off running. He knew his pathetically tiny legs wouldn't carry him far, but he had to do something. Pumped with adrenaline, he sprinted toward the distant closet doors. It wasn't a great chance, but maybe he could take shelter in there and come up with a new plan.

            "Ooh, somebody wants to play, huh?" Sarah called out, laughing. The floor rumbled beneath Matt as he felt her setting those bare feet back on the carpet and taking long, melodramatic strides in chase. So he ran harder. As Matt dove under the closet door, though, it occurred to him that there was no way he could've reached this far if she hadn't let him; Sarah was just toying with him.

            Nothing immediately caught his eye for cover in the blackness. Matt fumbled blindly forward, still at top speed, and toppled over the side of a stomach-high leathery wall. Not stopping to question the obstacle, Matt crawled frantically forward on his hands and knees until he bumped his head into the curved inner wall of the short tunnel; breathing heavily with exertion, only now did Matt notice the stench of fruity lotions and salty sweat baked into the fibers of the squishy ground and walls.

            He was in Sarah's shoe. A black ballet flat, to be precise.

            Light spilled into the shoe, revealing the identity of Matt's poor hiding place, as the titanic teen opened the closet doors. And there was Sarah, towering overhead, and wearing another of her loopy smiles. She brushed a blonde strand over her ear, cocked her head, then lifted her left foot off the carpet again. The slender pink mass of that ped lurched toward the resting ballet flat, until her toes curled over the edge and gripped the shoe. Matt felt the insole shudder under him.

            "PLEASE!" Matt cried. His body was quaking too hard to attempt another escape, and not with those monstrous toes right there and so flippantly dragging this boat of a shoe around. "Can't you understand me? I need HELP! Please, won't you help me?"

            "You sure do get excited, don't you, little guy? With all your cute noises you make. I wonder why you wanted to go in here?" Sarah commented sweetly. Her toes flexed on the mouth of the shoe, absentmindedly showing Matt the pillowy crevices and the spirals of her toeprints.

            "I didn't!" he shouted.

            "Hmm," the giant drawled, ignoring him again. "I think I've read something about this kind of thing. It's like how puppies want to be close to the smells of their owners, cuz it reminds them of the people who take care of them and love them. Is that why you're in there, little man? You wanna be close to my feet?"

            "NO!" Matt was on the verge of crying now.

            "Well... I think we can do something to help you with that. I'm a nice owner. You'll see. I want you to be happy!" Sarah explained. Her toes arched and slid into the flat, followed by her thick sole, with the rest of her foot eating up space and backing Matt further into the pointed toe section. "So if you wanna be under my feet, who am I to argue?"

            Unable to fight back, Matt was buried under a pile of wriggling, damp, briny-scented toes. He was wedged helplessly against the shoe's wall, with Sarah's gleefully dancing digits grasping at his body and entangling his limbs between. Her fingers tugged the back of the shoe, which let her full foot settle comfortably into the flat, with her new pet squashed safely beneath her sweet-and-sour foot flesh.

            "I think we're gonna have a lot of fun together," Sarah whispered.

Matt drew labored breath under the mattress-like heft of Sarah's enormous, putty-soft sole, which currently was resting directly upon him. As she had for five days straight now after returning home from school, the eighteen-year-old removed him from the slipper she'd placed him inside atop her closet shelves, dropped him on the bedspread, then happily plopped either her wriggling toes or the entire brunt weight of her meaty foot right down upon the three-inch man.

            "I'm home, Boogie!" Sarah sang cheerily, as she rubbed Matt's helpless body around under her grit-flecked feet, which had been walked on in warm socks for eight whole hours. "Did ya miss me? And my feet? Cuz they sure missed you, and how cool you feel on my skin, since it's all hot and stuff out there."

            The question was more rhetorical; it was now firmly established that Matt couldn't actually answer her in a language she'd understand. He'd tried continually throughout the past seven days since his capture to scream explanations at the unabashed girl in plain English; he tried when she determined that "Boogie" was his new name, and again tried when she removed his clothes as easily as a doll's and replaced them with coarser ones she'd hand-stitched for him.

            But the answer was definitively no. He did not miss her feet.

            "You really do feel super nice down there, Boogie," Sarah complimented sweetly. She pushed the thick pad of her big toe down on Matt's stomach, slowly expelling his air supply. "I don't know if you get tired of this sometimes or not, but since I know for sure you do the puppy thing where you like your owner's smell, I gotta make sure you get plenty of my smell when I come home every day. I can't let you forget me, you know!"

            There certainly was plenty of it; Matt wasn't in danger of forgetting the odor of Sarah's lively peds any time soon. The ditzy girl was an active and adventurous type, prone to breaking into casual dancing or bouncing about with excitement. As a result, the exertion meant her feet were cooking all day in her fashionable sneakers and cotton socks.

            Those socks, damp with salty perspiration, would peel away slowly from her pink soles, which glistened slightly with lingering sweat, right before Sarah grinned down at Matt and made her toes pounce on him. Instantly the congealed sweat would sop into him like a sponge. The stench was earthy, rubbery, and bitter like distilled vinegar; in fact, Matt was shocked that such a youthful girl, so pretty on the outside, could produce such swampy filth.

            All Matt wanted to do now was get the hell out of here and attempt the journey back home, wherever that was; Sarah never let him get far enough out of her clutches to guess his geographic location. People had to be worried about him by now. As relaxed and "with it" as his beloved girlfriend Nadia was, even she would surely start to take issue with his being gone a whole week. And he was dearly missing her touch. Yet there was no end in sight, and to hear Matt's new bubbly blonde host, this was his permanent habitat now. Sarah meant to keep him forever.

            The routine every day was the same. First, hours spent alone in the dark inside a slipper which stunk strongly of old soap and raunchy adolescent foot skin. Then, Matt would hear the pounding of gleeful footsteps as the girl charged toward her bedroom and snatched him out of the closet prison.

            "Where's my Boogie? Where is he? There he is!" she cooed, like she was speaking to an obedient dog, as her giant fingers fished into the mouth of the shoe and dragged Matt out by his ankles.

            Next, Sarah would spend a good twenty minutes playing with her pet under her feet: rolling him up and down the length of her flat sole, gripping his little legs between her pudgy toes, or just plain wedging her heel against his miniscule head to give him the purest possible whiff. Then, once she got bored of such direct interaction, she'd whip out her cell phone and start texting friends, or put on some auto-tuned pop music or mushy teen romantic drama TV. But this didn't mean a break for Matt. For the next hour still, he remained a footrest for a girl hundreds of time his size.

            "Ugh, I can't believe she's gonna stay with him!" Sarah complained about the attractive model actors playing out melodrama. When the television's contents were particularly upsetting to the obviously emotional girl, her plush toes would pinch around Matt like iron vices. "Last episode they left it on a cliffhanger, and now they're still together! Can you believe it, Boogie?"

            It was useless to fight back against the foot-smothering; the first time Matt tried, Sarah only thought he was playing, and responded by squashing her moist sole down even harder on his body. She pressurized him with such strength that Matt could actually feel his body molding into her skin like wet clay, and when she pulled away at last, he could see the pale imprint of his body flushed into her wrinkled sole. Still, today, he summoned the strength to make another fruitless effort, and began kicking and punching the ceiling of foot flesh.

            "Haha! Nice try, Boogie. I like that game, too. I'll put you under my foot again, and we'll see if you can tickle me enough to get off of you. Ready? Go!" Sarah kept to her word and proceeded to bury Matt under her peachy sole. Stupidly, he actually followed her directions, and tried to battle and squeeze his way out from under the girl's smooth instep. With the lubricant of her sweat, he almost made it. However, just as he was starting to emerge from underneath, Sarah's opposite foot reared, and she pinched his torso gently between two of her velvety toes.

            "Gotcha! You know I wouldn't really let you get away, even though you did a pretty good job," Sarah giggled as she manhandled the shrunken toy with her dexterous digits.

Matt's efforts to resist again were only met with a marshmallowy pinky toe shoving itself right into his skull. Sarah's never-ending laughter would've been adorable if it wasn't completely at his expense while she turned him into a human massage aid. It was still near-incomprehensible to him to think that this eighteen-year-old, with her lilting laugh and girly-girl hobbies, was so easily capable of dominating him.

            "Here's your prize, Boogie, for doing such a good job. You get to smell my cute little feet again, just how you like!" There was no way to stop her as the girl's powerful foot rested on Matt's legs, pinning him down, while the opposite ped stretched forward and separated her big and second toes as far as she could, making plenty of room for his head. Lovingly, the girl jammed Matt's face into the tender crevice of skin at the crook of her giddy toes, and embraced him tightly. "Mmm, there we go! You fit perfectly between my toes. I knew there was a good reason I found you. It's almost like destiny, right? It's just so lucky that I picked a pet who goes so well under my feet!"

            Sarah's reasoning reminded Matt of lines from her teen-drama-romance show. This fact might've gotten on his nerves, if he wasn't already deeply concerned with the fact that his nose and mouth were being continually stamped into the doughy span of skin between this girl's monstrous toes. Worse, the longer she held him here without release, it became necessary to try to breathe. Timidly, Matt gasped for air, and was repulsed by the feeling of his lips dragging on the musky foot flesh.

            "Ha!" Sarah squealed, and clamped her toes harder around his head. "Don't tickle me like that, Boogie! The game's over. I'm just trying to reward you now by letting you smell your favorite owner's feet, see?"

            As per the routine, this activity arrived at a grateful ending. Sarah would plant a temporary farewell kiss on Matt's head, then leave him in the slipper while she disappeared to have dinner downstairs with her family. Then she'd reappear an hour later, with some leftover crumbs for him, and sprinkle them into the shoe. He had to eat the remnants of bread, cheese, and lettuce right out of the reeking fabric insole, of course, which made him gag on every bite. During the whole thing, Sarah watched him eat with big adoring eyes and occasional commentary asking him if he enjoyed the snacks she'd found "just for him."

            When it came time for bed, however, Sarah broke with the routine for the first time in her week-long ownership of Matt. Rather than putting him back in the shoe, the girl clambered into bed, still with the young man in her gentle hands, and slipped into peaceful slumber with him entrapped in the clam shell formation of her hands.

            Already Matt was missing his usual bed inside Sarah's slipper. Sure, the smell there was musty and made it hard to sleep as Sarah's toe-odor filled his lungs; however, it was far more challenging now to get rest when he was entombed within a constantly shifting pair of grabby hands large enough to completely imprison him behind her slender fingers.

            Each time Sarah murmured and rolled over in bed, gravity became nonexistent as Matt was slammed from side to side against her giant clenched palms; it was only lucky that her skin was so soft and inviting, to avoid injuring him every few minutes. Sarah was definitely an active dreamer. Matt even heard her whispering in her sleep a few times throughout the night. The word "Boogie" was muttered several times, followed by a lazy giggle.

            Somehow or other, though, Matt did get to sleep. He became aware of this only when he was rudely awakened by a gargantuan pair of puckered, spit-glossed lips hammering him with puffy kisses. Across his whole body, Sarah's cutely pursed lips dotted circles of drool, while her thumbs kept him pinched firmly down to the bedding of her cushy palm. Smooch after sloppy smooch was laid into Matt's face and chest, making him sticky before he'd even had a chance to become fully conscious. Worst of all, her morning breath was in full force, hovering in a pestilential fog around Matt; no matter how much he coughed, he couldn't clear the airway of Sarah's unwashed exhalations.

            "Good morning, Boogie!" Sarah chimed, and engulfed Matt's head into her lips again like the side of a lollipop. "That was so much fun, letting you sleep in here with me. I think maybe we'll do it from now on! Wouldn't you like that?"

            "No!" Matt groaned.

            "Of course you would!" Sarah cheered, as always not understanding. Her three-inch pet resigned himself to yet another slobbery kiss which left a string of the girl's spit dangling from his chin. Another hot mist of morning breath poisoned Matt's lungs. She wiped her mouth, smiled with seething adoration at the helpless man in her curious hands, then hopped out of bed. Humming to herself as she readied her school clothes and selected a pair of shoes to wear for the day, Matt was actually strangely grateful to see her lowering him toward the dark opening of a sneaker. Once she left for the day, he could catch up on sleep.

            Unfortunately, that hope was dashed when Matt turned around and saw not a giant hand lifting him up to leave him on the shelf, but instead the shadow of a bare foot sliding itself into the opening. She was going to wear it with him still inside. Sarah's toes tackled Matt against the briny-smelling wall, and flexed as Matt's arms and legs were ensnared between the girl's digits.

            "SURPRISE!" Sarah called out loudly enough for him to hear her all the way down inside the dank, humid hovel of her shoe crowded with muscle and skin. "I'm taking you to SCHOOL with me today, Boogie! Now I know for sure you won't forget me and how I smell, cuz you'll have it all day! Lots of time for you to hug and kiss my toes. I don't know why I didn't think of this before."

            Matt curled into a ball and cursed the day he was born as he felt the undulation of the teenage giantess's massive weight bearing down on him, peeling away, grappling him into the fleshy bell-curve of her toes before squashing down on him all over again.

            And that was just a single step.

Matt blearily returned to full consciousness as Sarah's warm, sweat-sticky toes unpeeled from around his body. The darkness inside her sneaker was steadily replaced with light while her foot was pulled out of the opening, and was soon replaced by the sight of her delighted fingers reaching inside to collect him. The man made no attempt to resist, and in fact stood up to allow the giant eighteen-year-old to grab him into her fist.

            The blonde sat on the edge of her bed, and admired her three-inch toy with bright eyes and a loving smile.

            "Hi, Boogie! Mommy missed you today!" Sarah squealed, just as enthusiastic as ever. She cuddled Matt into both cupped palms and drew him to her lips, kissing him full on the head. A grimace crossed her face, probably at the greasy flavor which was now painted on Matt's body from squishing under her toes all day, but she covered it up. "You felt so good under there today, rubbing around on my feet. I'm so glad I have a pet I can take to school with me every day without anybody knowing. It's like we never have to be apart!"

            Matt was stoic, just glad to have fresh air again. He'd been in the girl's possession for a full month now, and about twenty of those thirty days were spent inside Sarah's shoes while she happily went about her activities, grappling him with her toes and using him like a rolling massage tool whenever he slid under her slick sole.

            The experience in grimy, sweaty, balmy blackness for eight straight hours a day was an undeniable hell. Gentle and well-intentioned though the girl appeared, she did not know her own strength, and imprisoning the tiny man under her oily bare feet or sopping cotton socks each day was taking a serious toll. Plus the evenings weren't much better, when Sarah chose to play with Matt under her soles and toes on the bed while she watched TV; then, a rough night of being fondled between her palms in the middle of good dreams. Adding bizarre insult to injury, Sarah had recently taken to referring to herself as Matt's "Mommy," which just made their whole dynamic even weirder.

            "Guess what, Boogie?" Sarah wheedled softly. Her rich brown eyes appealed to Matt with interest, and she looked genuinely expectant that he might answer, even though it was established that she couldn't understand his words. "Aren't you gonna guess?"
            "You're going to let me go?" Matt said sarcastically.

            "Awww... listen to you, with your cute little meep-meep sounds. I love it, just like I love you, Boogie," Sarah cooed. She used her thumb to smear away some of the congealed foot sweat from Matt's face, and languished another, slower kiss on his face which briefly interrupted his airflow. Her strawberry yogurt breath wafted with sugary girth around his head. "I can't wait for you to guess, so I'll just say it. Bobby asked me if I wanna "hang" tonight. Bobby Macintyre!"

            Matt nodded. He'd been around his bubbly mistress long enough to know that this was big news. Sarah had been harboring a major crush on Bobby for at least a year now, and was itching for him to approach her, too shy to do it herself. Which Matt found ironic, since Sarah was definitely not shy when it came to stuffing a tiny stranger under her naked, perspiring feet day after day. He wondered how Sarah might react if Bobby were to mysteriously shrink down to three inches tall. Would she still be fiending for his affections and her first romantic kiss, or would she simply jam Bobby between her opposite set of toes so she could have a boy wriggling under each foot?

            "We're gonna go out to get pizza and a movie. Oh, Boogie, I'm sooooo nervous! I gotta get ready soon, cuz I gotta look super cute and pretty, so Bobby will wanna go again sometime," Sarah explained. She curled both legs up on the bed, and lowered Matt down onto her nearest exposed foot; while she continued blathering, she massaged his body along her weary sole, and ran his head past the crests of her jutting toes. "But at least I'll have you with me the whole time, to keep me company! I won't feel as nervous with you hugging my toes like the precious little thing you are."

            Matt cringed, and not just from the continued feeling of his face grazing the pillowy, damp underside of Sarah's spritely foot. When the girl said she was going on a date, his first thought was hope for being left alone on her shelf for the evening while she was off going ga-ga for Bobby. Instead, it seemed, there would be no break, and his duty as Sarah's living insole would continue on into the night.

            For two hours, Sarah painstakingly prepped for the date. She tried on seven different outfits before settling on a simple pink blouse and jeans; next, the girl straightened her wavy golden hair, and carefully applied her makeup. During this particular activity, while Sarah sat in front of her vanity and spread shiny gloss on her lips, Matt was down on the carpet pinned beneath the ball of the girl's foot. He was made to look up the expansive tower of her upturned sole over his head while she lovingly squashed the rest of him. The experience was novel, and weighted heavily on him, as the complete mass of Sarah's monstrous body threatened to pop him all the while; still, she was careful not to do so, and at least she'd bathed, which meant a fruity perfume permeated her skin now instead of sweat. For this, Matt was grateful.

            At last it came time to head out for the date. Sarah slid her first foot into elegant ballet flats, then extended the leathery opening of the opposite boat to Matt, and beamed expectantly at him.

            "Climb inside, Boogie," she said. "We're going on a date now, and your Mommy wants you to come."

Matt considered sprinting yet again, but thought better of it. She'd only catch him, grind him into the carpet for a few minutes as a game, then drop him into her shoe all the same. Granted, at his new size, he seemed to be more durable and capable of handling incredible force, but it could still hurt. He was learning his place, which was frightening to him; the man crawled forward with regret into the waiting mouth of the shoe.

            "That's my good boy!" Sarah cheered as she pushed her foot inside and let the three-incher smush under her creamy sole flesh. "Gosh, you really do like being in there so much, don't you? Well, Mommy likes it too."

            Regret, as well as the weight of the eighteen-year-old's titanic appendage, mounted inside the ballet flat. Matt positioned himself as best as he could to minimize the rhythmic pulsing of Sarah's all-consuming sole. With each step, it was as if the man was being absorbed into a profound heartbeat, transferred via the ceiling of sweet-smelling, crease-laden skin.

            Sarah made her way outside the house and down the block. Nearing the metro, her feet were already losing the comforting blanket of perfume aroma. Maybe Matt was too used to it now, or maybe the springtime humidity was just that oppressive. Sarah's feet were toasty, almost numbingly so, and she was barely on the train en route to the pizza parlor. The sole ceiling wasn't wet yet, luckily, just heavy and warm. Matt hoped it would last.

            Twenty minutes later, Sarah's march halted, and she merely stood upon her little pet for what felt like ages. Talking was heard above: a calm, kind young male's voice, and the distinct chattery glee of Sarah. This was different than how she usually trod on him; ordinarily, she winnowed her slender weight into the balls of her feet to relieve the fragile man of her mass, but right now, Sarah was shifting her balance from one side of her instep to the other. Indeed, she seemed nervous, like she said.

            Matt groaned. He fought to avoid the rocking pressure of the teen's meaty foot flesh alternately flexing and tightening with the strain of her girlish anxiety. There was nowhere to crawl fast, though, and the blubbery friction of Sarah's clay-like sole kept Matt pretty well stuck. If only they'd just sit down and order a damn pizza.

            The passage of the meal was tedious for Matt, as he was made to listen to the two awkward lovebirds making small talk and tittering about random school events. Sarah's joyous laughter punctured the muted darkness under her foot quite often. But at least her weight was shifted off of Matt while the pair ate. He even tried to use his chance to climb up under Sarah's toes, where the weight wasn't as heavy, but the girl instead took this as a chance to play, and made her digits ball and flick around Matt's helpless form; all the while, she carried on her conversation with Bobby above like nothing strange was happening.

            After the pizza, the pair made their way to the movies by train again. Matt waited out the event patiently, but he was starting to worry; the muggy evening air was turning Sarah's skin from warm to humid, and a few beads of gooey perspiration had formed at intervals across her rubbery sole. In the theater bathroom, Sarah arched her sole out of the shoe just high enough to peek under and see Matt. She waved her fingers in a princess-like fashion.

            "This is going great, Boogie!" she whispered. "He's so cool and nice and I like him even more now. I wasn't sure before, but I think he's definitely gonna try to kiss me after the movie's over when we leave, and I'm gonna do it! God, I'm still sooooo nervous, but at least I have you. I know it'll be okay! Now, say bye-bye to your Mommy for now."

            With that, Sarah's sole molded itself back around Matt's helpless body, and the moist darkness resumed. But at least the movie offered another break from the weight of a giant feminine foot repeatedly sandwiching Matt's body into the flaky insole. Sarah even crossed her leg over the opposite knee, which completely alleviated the weight; unfortunately, it also caused the three-inch man to slide all around the slippery interior whenever the girl casually tilted her ankle.

            When the movie ended, Sarah and Bobby rose with the rest of the viewers to exit the theater. The girl's steps were measured yet almost stumbling now, like she was simultaneously terrified and elated of the destination. Though Matt couldn't see her face now, he could easily picture the look of earnest excitement on her cute face as she prepared for the very first kiss of her romantic young life.

            A pause came when they reached the outside. More exchanging of words, and then Sarah's foot arched slightly. She leaned onto the ball of her foot, with Matt smeared into the incline of her sole. Her skin quivered with anticipation and pubescent need. Then, a dramatic pause, probably timed specifically by the girl, and the familiar sound of puckered lips sounded from above. The kiss.

            And Sarah's foot practically gushed with sweat. Like her skin was waiting until this moment to unleash the stress-deluge. It sponged all around the gritty walls of the ballet flat, and especially Matt, washing into his nostrils and throat. Writhing and coughing for air only served to increase the effect. There was no getting out of swallowing several cups of his "Mommy's" nervous, fruit-perfume-flecked, toejam-tainted sweat. The kiss was enduring for a full muscle-tightening minute, and with every passing second of Sarah and Bobby's adolescent lip lock, Matt was suffering in the mushy stew of his cheerful owner's shoe. With each smack of her sole, the tiny man was borrowed between the grainy insole and the putrid, oil-oozing mountain of teenage foot, glued off and on.

            He could only hope Sarah learned to get over her nerves for future dates, or he might just drown in her shoe the first time she wanted to try a French kiss.