“Nope… nope… dammit…”

Johanna dug around the closet, on her knees, rummaging through the spare paper and empty shoe boxes. Prior experience told her that her phone could be located in easy-to-reach places such as this. It’d already been almost a week and she was itching to tell Nikki everything that happened. As apprehensive as she was about unveiling the true scope of the book’s power to her only friend… scratch that. Nikki was more than her friend. She was Johanna’s everything. If Johanna couldn’t tell her anything… Johanna had nothing. She would be nothing, except a warden. A super-powered warden with magical abilities, but a warden all the same.

Johanna cursed, tossing another shoe box over her shoulder. She then glanced behind her, noticing that her mother’s room had fallen into disrepair of late. Candy wrappers littered the floor, as did Doritos bags. The remnants of half a dozen Uber Eats orders created a moat of trash about the perimeter of the bed, yet to be ferried to the kitchen trashcan. The bed itself was unmade, and it was due for a wash even before Johanna appropriated it on account of her mother being indisposed at the moment.

Still though, her Mother did one thing pretty well. When she said her phone was gone, she meant it.

Johanna had tried all week different ways to get her mother to divulge its location. At first, it seemed as though Susan was still in shock, and Johanna was willing to cut her a bit of slack, avoiding banging her up too much. Now, though, the defiance had set in. A dry defiance, left out on the counter overnight, but defiance all the same.

Johanna sighed. Time to pay her mother a visit.

Standing up, she left her mother’s room, instinctively closing the door behind her as the floor creaked.

She opened the door to her own room. The first hints of the morning rays were just streaming into through the windows, and the room itself was already lit by the faint glow of Johanna’s lamp. Susan, however, would not be privy to these little wonders of life on Earth. Not yet, at least.

Johanna grinned, taking a seat on her desk. She’d since cleaned much of it, so now the austere writing surface held nothing save a pencil and notebook, her lamp, and a single bottle labeled with a brand for Vitamin C, smack in the middle.

Johanna placed her wrist on the table in front of the bottle, bracing her forefinger behind her thumb, until…

PLINK!

A tinny little shriek echoed from its confines, and Johanna snickered. She grabbed the bottle, giving it a short shake to and fro, just for funsies. She then pressed down on the cap, pushing and turning to overcome the child-lock.

The bottle opened. Inside there lay a woman, though any similarities she had with the strong, confident mother Johanna once knew were now superficial. The bottle was not large enough in any direction for her to completely unfurl her body, so she was forced to curl into a fetal position to get some semblance of sleep. Her hair was stringy and dilapidated. Her eyes were sunken and hollow, nothing more than slight slits, crusted over in the darkness as they became nigh unusable. Her nightgown was torn and ripped, becoming little more than a rag to hide only the most private of privates allotted to someone who quite frankly was still quite the bombshell. Almost cuter now that she was all trapped and confined like that. It made Johanna feel oddly tingly, something that’s been happening for a while now whenever she thought about the particulars of this arrangement too much.

Susan turned her head, glancing toward the sky occupied by Johanna’s face, but not truly seeing anything.

Johanna chuckled, and she said, “Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey!”

The horrid figure within split her mouth slightly, before breaking into a coughing fit. Johanna cringed, holding the bottle away from her as she waited for her mother to finish. Then she said, “Damn, don’t aim that at me, okay? Anyway, did you think any more about my request?”

Susan managed to pry her eyes open, and the moment she did, it was as though she was reminded that she was, in fact, in hell. There in her little capsule, she saw the face of her only daughter once again, and she immediately sought to shrink (figuratively) back into the safety of her uncomfortable little jar. “P-p-p-p-please…!” She repeated this mantra, over and over as Johanna rolled her eyes.

“You’re still on that ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ crap? I told you it was simple. Tell me where my phone is… and I’ll consider letting you grow back.”

Susan listened as Johanna seemed to portray herself as being completely reasonable, and not a demented abductress who had used unholy magic and gained some unknowable power upon another human being, much less her own mother. Something completely unheard of, Susan never could’ve imagined anything such as this were ever a reality outside of movies. And yet, here she was, on the receiving end of her daughter’s most furious ire. It was the crushing truth of her existence now, but every time she threatened to acknowledge that truth at face value, it threatened to tear her brain in half. It was much easier to retreat into her jar, where things were simple. The floor was flat, the roof was flat, the walls were curved. These were all verifiable truths. As uncomfortable a sleeping arrangement it was, at least this was something she could know ontologically.

But still, Susan wasn’t stupid.

She knew there were things that she could provide that Johanna simply couldn’t do herself.

Yet. Who knew if there were a spell to print money somewhere in that devil book of hers?

But for the time being, it was Susan’s money that kept the lights on, that kept the water running, that kept the gas hot. These were all things that more or less would continue for at least the next month before anyone found out she was missing.

But the phone was an urgent need. Without a phone, a teenager was nothing.

So Susan couldn’t give it to her. At least not that easy.

Johanna sighed again as her mother shook her head, searching deep within herself for the faintest seed of defiance.

“Still not going to obey me huh… c’mon, don’t you see that you’re not in charge anymore? I own you!” Johanna kicked out from her chair, standing up and putting her hands on her hips. “I can do anything I want with you, now! Don’t you get it?”

Nothing but a few squirrelly head-shakes.

“Oh, for the love of…” Johanna didn’t want to have to do this, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

She reached her thumb and forefinger into the jar, grabbing Susan by the shoulder, a move that elicited many shrieks and grunts as she tried and failed to push Johanna’s massive anaconda-like fingers away.

“Johanna, Johanna!” Her mother screamed back, finally waking up out of her depression-induced slump, the will to persist on her own terms fulfilling her. “Put me down, t-this instant!”

Johanna did nothing of the sort, holding Susan in front of her face, her dangling vantage point giving her a perfect view of Johanna’s steely eyes.

“You know I could crush you right now, right? I could smash you between my fingers, reeeeeally rub your remains hard so you become nothing but a red splotch on my palm. Like that,” Johanna snapped her fingers, startling her mother.

“I could step on you. I don’t even have to give you the dignity of crushing you beneath my bare feet, I could put on my chunkiest boots and stomp you out right there on the pavement… wouldn’t it be fun if I, like, gave you a head-start before I crushed you? That’d be kind of cool, huh?”

Susan watched as her daughter delved into thought, and only became more frightened. Her daughter tended to be a bit of an alternative girl, but these were… especially violent scenarios. Either she’d thought of stuff like this before, or she’d spent a looooong time mulling over the most creative ways to snuff Susan out since her shrinking. And Susan didn’t know which possibility was scarier.

“Or, hey! You know, I could totally just eat you right now! I could just swallow you down! You’re so small – I could make you so small – I wouldn’t even have to chew! Though I could… could you imagine that? Getting chopped in half by my incisors? Having your limbs crushed to paste by my molars? Ripped to shreds by my canines? See?”

Johanna hooked one finger inside her cheek, pulling at it to reveal her dazzlingly white teeth, seeming all the more sharp as she blew a huff of humid air back at Susan’s cringing face.

“I could do all of these things. All of them. Mother.”

Susan’s sniffs got louder. It was coming. She couldn’t take it. Breaking down into yet another panic induced series of sobs, Susan said, “J-Johanna… d-d-do you h-hate me t-that m-mm-much?!”

Johanna sighed again. “Quit blubbering,” she said, and she lowered Susan to the desk, dropping her on its surface and eliciting a slight “Oomph” as a result.

Johanna then took her seat, leaning her head on her palm. “As much as I hate what you did… I… don’t hate you.”

“Then change me back to normal!” Susan seethed, breaking out of her tears just long enough to sound intelligible. “Johanna please!”

“Let me finish.” Johanna injected a paralyzing authority in her voice, reminding Susan of her place. “I was saying… I don’t hate you. That’s why I don’t do these things. I don’t actually want to hurt you…”

Susan began to feel hope. Her daughter was expressing… restraint? That restraint could be weaponized. Maybe even modified into its cousin, remorse.

“Yes. I do still love you, Mother,” Johanna continued, sneering down and watching Susan’s slight smile melt away. “And that’s why I need you to finally learn who you are now. And do you know what that is?”

Susan didn’t want to entertain Johanna’s sadistic mind games. It wasn’t until she BANGED on the table with force that Johanna scrambled back up. “W-what?!”

Johanna giggled. “You’re my bitch! Isn’t it obvious?”

“I-I…”

“Face it.” Johanna flipped her bed-headed mane. “I have more power over you than you ever had over me. What, you thought keeping a roof over my head was power? I can turn you into a living dust mote. You literally cannot live without me! Hell, I haven’t even read the entire spellbook yet. I bet I could just make a new mother just like you and nobody will be able to tell the difference! And you could spend the rest of your life in a terrarium.”

Susan was once more taken aback by her daughter’s callous suggestion of supernatural forces to erase her from greater existence.

“It’s this… love,” Johanna practically spat out the word, as though it were physically painful to say, “that keeps me from doing that.”

Johanna exhaled, crossing her arms as she prepared her final thesis. “Mom, I could grow you back. We could be the family we were always meant to be! We could go out together, we could bond more than ever! And all it would take… is accepting me. As your master. That’s your first choice.

“Or…”

Susan shivered as Johanna’s huntress eyes narrowed on her.

“I could crush you like the bug you’ve become. And wipe you out of my life. So, what’ll it be?”

Susan waited for a long while, and Johanna never took her eyes off her. Johanna patiently rapped her fingernails on the desktop, a maneuver that made it difficult for Susan to stand. She wholly expected Susan to give her answer then and there. A final ultimatum that would decide the duration of Susan’s remaining life.

Susan balled her fists, staring down at her body, barely covered only in the most critical places by scraps of fabric tied about her. She unclenched, gritting her teeth before saying, softly, gently to the floor…

“No.”

Johanna’s eye twitched. “I’m sorry?”

“J-just kill me.” Susan slumped down to her ground, hugging her knees, rocking back and forth slightly. “Just kill me.” Susan was numb. Nothing made sense. It would be easier to die than to live with the pain that everything in her entire being had been upheaved.

Johanna looked down at her mother’s pitiful curled up state. Johanna didn’t want to kill her, that was the entire problem! Was I too harsh, thought Johanna? No, of course not. She’d been quite reasonable; she’d even dropped bread crumbs into her pill bottle every breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Her mom must’ve been weaker-willed than she thought.

If Johanna wanted to keep her mother as a pet, she would have to remind her of what it felt like to be alive.

“Okay,” Johanna said, smiling.

“W-what?” Susan asked, looking up from her depressed glare to see her daughter’s fingers coming toward her.

“If you want to die, who am I to deny you?” Johanna winked, plucking her mother up once again, squirming, writhing, before popping the two-inch woman in her mouth.

Johanna’s jaws shut as her teeth snapped closed, locking her mom in a wet cave. She woman was battered continuously as Johanna’s jaws adjusted themselves, her slimy tentacle-like tongue battering the screaming woman consistently as she tried to bang against the walls of Johanna’s cheek and gums, doing nothing but being beaten back by their saliva-coated patina. This made Johanna laugh.

“Mm, hm-hm-hm-hm-hm…!” Johanna had never felt this way before in her life. She had a live, human person in her mouth, being completely covered in her spit, fighting for her dear life, trying and failing to overcome the eldritch environment of Johanna’s jowls. It was an incredible experience, feeling someone struggling against you so helplessly, so fruitlessly.

It reminded Johanna of... that feeling. That feeling that’s been coming to her in recent days.

That tingly feeling of power.

Slowly, Johanna’s hand began to travel to her crotch, feeling the warm wetness as she traveled beneath her bathrobe.

Susan, meanwhile, was feeling the suffocating compression of her daughter’s mouth. The initial experience was traumatic enough, but now it seemed as though Johanna was merely flipping her around, gumming her like a piece of rubbery candy. Her entire body was coated in the sticky stuff, sticking her hair to her face and eyes, her hands too unable to get a grip. Susan shut her eyes, her mouth becoming a thin line. You asked for this, she chanted in her head. You asked for this… so take it!

But then…

Susan started to get smaller.

“No, no no!” Susan screeched, as her body began to get even more minuscule, traveling from two inches, to one inch, half an inch, a quarter of an inch, a millimeter… all the way down to a measly half a millimeter, not even as big as an ant. Johanna kept her cheeks slightly puffed, the meager translucent light filtering through them giving Susan the appearance of a slightly pulsing, dark cave, lined by impassable gates of pearly teeth.

But as Susan sat helplessly on Johanna’s tongue, she realized the next danger: the saliva.

Drips of it were inching down the flesh walls, but what were once annoyances in comparison to her had now become massive trials, pond-size boulders of sticky liquid that were filling the cavern quickly, daring to slowly overcome and drown Susan before long.

Drowned in her daughter’s own saliva.

“Help, help!” Susan screeched as Johanna’s tongue shifted, dropping her is the thick soup. The cavern shifted, and gravity began to flow backwards, toward that damp dark tunnel headed by the ever-pulsating uvula. Susan had to hold on to the rough taste-buds of the tongue to avoid being swept away into the deluge of her daughter’s mouth. “HELP! HELP! HEEEEEEELP!!! I DON’T WANT TO DIE!!!” The existential fears of drowning, of darkness, of death, of being devoured, digested. They felt insurmountable as she struggled to stay afloat, to stay grounded, to avoid the oh-so-easy slip up that would send her plummeting down the tunnel of the esophagus. Susan’s tears evaporated into the rainy spit soup as she manically called for someone, for anyone. For a god or gods, for mercy. But only one creature in her entire life had the power to grant her mercy, and Susan hadn’t done a very good job of earning that creatures favor.

Not now, maybe not ever in her life.

Johanna meanwhile, was having the best time of her life.

Flopping supine on her bed, she was driving her fingers deep into her pussy, unable to moan, unable to even swallow, for fear of her inadvertently sending her mother plummeting to her death in Johanna’s stomach. She didn’t even want to think about what would happen if she grew her back then. But it didn’t matter, her absolute, overwhelming power over her mother was enough to drive her over the edge, even if her self stimulation was helping her along.

Johanna squirmed, feeling the slight, pebble-like entity in her mouth get tossed and turned against absolutely cavernous walls. She could scarcely even imagine what it would’ve felt like in there. Dark and scary, warm, utterly sopping wet? Johanna shivered, imagining it, imagining what she was putting her mother through… She rubbed her fingers over her clitoral hood, alternating between that and stuffing them in her vagina, massaging her bare-breasted nipples all the way as her entire body had been exposed in her expression of self-love.

Johanna removed her hand from her crotch, seeing it in front of her face, moistened and slickened with sticky juice of their own.

Johanna planted her left index finger inside her mouth, poking it through her lips, tasting it, allowing the salty ejaculate to mingle with her increasingly oceanic saliva, further torturing her mother as she was forced to contend with the hot, musky fluids. This torture was neverending as she was continuously swept away, all the while Johanna had already returned to getting herself off again, unable to stop, toes curling, back arching, finally breaking out into a harmony of moans, still never stopping, going even faster and faster as she rode her orgasmic high, spilling countless drizzles of her cum onto the bed, until finally, her fatigue caught up with her, and she fell back, winded, legs spread into a “V”. She allowed herself to open her drooling mouth to catch her breath, and a dangling Susan was once again allowed to see the faintest semblances of light as the morning sun finally drifted into Johanna’s room in its full glory.

Susan saw this opening, and she didn’t even hesitate. She tried to get any bit of purchase on Johanna’s inner gum walls, but always found herself sliding down, erasing any progress she made, landing on her daughter’s sideways tongue.

As Susan tried again and again to escape… she realized at once what she was doing.

Susan was laying there, in the wake of her latest failed attempt, trying to climb out of her daughter’s mouth.

She didn’t want to live like this. But it was evident she feared dying just as much.

Susan tried to sigh, but instead coughed out several globules of saliva in a hacking fit.

“Johanna…!” Susan tried to call out, weakly. “JOHANNA!!!” She called again, breaking into another fit. As she cupped her mouth preparing to shout once more, two long, slender fingers began to invade the sinkhole from above, and Susan felt a warbling in her stomach as she began to expand once again, just enough for the diminutive woman to give Johanna the purchase she needed to grab her.

A strand of sticky spit was still connected to Susan by the time she was pulled out of Johanna’s bubbling mouth, the strand breaking and coating her lower lip like a ring. Johanna was now sitting up on the bed. She smiled at Susan, who hung limply again, completely naked but now with eyes wide, full of clarity as she stared at her daughter who was almost equally nude, save a single black choker.

“Did that trip give you some perspective?”

Susan nodded frantically.

“Well then! Have you changed your decision in any way? I really hope you did, because I swear to God I will literally chew you to bits if you still try this whole ‘defiance’ bullshit.”

Susan nodded, slightly less frantically.

Johanna giggled, reaching down and placing Susan on the floor at the foot of the bed, a small puddle of drool forming beneath her as she tried and failed to stand up.

“Prove it,” Johanna said. And she snapped her fingers, and before she knew it, Susan was back, at normal size, completely naked, the saliva that once coated her now simply a thin wet shell, evaporating in the ambient air in only an instant.

The crouching Susan didn’t even have the time to truly appreciate her return to full size before Johanna shoved her foot in Susan’s face, arms crossed.

“Prove to me your devotion. Worship me.”

Susan was assaulted by the foot’s slightly musty, dusty scent, the consequence of back and forth trips between two rooms on hardwood tile halls. She backed away slightly, still crouched, but unwilling to truly give in, just yet.

“I’m waiting.” Johanna chided Susan, who turned white with fear. She’d only just been blessed with her former size once again, she couldn’t squander it, this gift, this life. Not now, not so soon.

Susan looked up at her daughter. Even here, just out of bed, in the morning light, she looked regal. Susan always thought her daughter was beautiful. The most beautiful creature in the whole world. But now, as she held her foot out to her mother, the pit in her stomach began to disappear, and she started to see her daughter in a… slightly different light.

Even now, in the back of her mind, the seed of defiance was chastising Susan for even thinking this way. For daring to think this was an acceptable result of everything that had occurred over the past week. For daring to give up hope.

But… what hope was there?

If Susan did this, there was hope. Hope for a life free of fear. Hope that she could live as a full human.

Hope that her daughter would love her again.

Johanna truly did own her. What point was there in resisting? And would it really be so bad, in the end? Giving her everything for the person she loved?

Isn’t that what parenthood was all about, anyway?

And so, Susan took Johanna’s foot in her hands, and she planted a kiss on it, directly on the bottom of the sole. The kiss was long, but felt far longer to Susan, who began to convulse as she neared her oxygen capacity threshold until finally letting go of the smooch, leaving a wet spot in the ball of Johanna’s foot.

“V-very good,” Johanna sighed, feeling a convulsion of her own come on, as she began to once again plant her hands in the middle of her snatch. “Keep going.”

Susan was well familiar with the sound and scent of female masturbation. Somehow, the fact her daughter was literally getting off at her expense was enough to make another barrage of doubt batter her mind. But this was her one second chance at a first impression. She had to suck it up.

Susan kissed Johanna’s foot again.

And over, and over, and over again, as Johanna stretched out, laying down, playfully twisting and curling her toes in her mother’s face as she continued to masturbate.

“Ahhhhhhhh... this is so… so good,” Johanna breathed in between strokes. Her sore labia didn’t take much to achieve a shivering, minor orgasm, one that inadvertently kicked Susan in the face slightly as the winded Johanna stretched out to once again regain her breath. Susan accepted this, waiting until Johanna finished reeling and resting for more orders.

Once she did, Johanna wheezed out a chuckle, propping herself on her shoulders to finally look down at her mother’s tear-stricken, crying, pitiful face, awaiting its orders like a dog.

“Ah, ah-ha! Ha! You fucking did it!”

Susan sniffed in response, silent.

Johanna looked down with a smile tinged with pity. Then she leaned down, planting a kiss on Susan’s hair.

“Mmmmmmm’wah!”

The move startled Susan, who shrank back slightly. Johanna smiled at her, and pet her hair.

“Good girl.”

Johanna stood up, still keeping her eye on her mother as she sauntered nude, hips swaying, breasts swinging, to the other side of the bed, grabbing the spellbook. “And just so we’re clear, if you ever, ever try to disobey me and take this?” Johanna brandished the book. “I am going to make you so small that you can live a hundred lifetimes on the ridge of my toe and never travel farther than a nanometer. M’kay?”

Susan shivered, still keeping her eyes low.

Johanna grabbed a handful of clothes from the floor and stuffed them underneath the crook of her arm. She picked up her panties from the previous night, still slick with cum that was just beginning to crust over, and she tossed them to her mother, where they landed on her shoulder.

“Feel free to get familiar with that scent. You’ll be seeing a lot of it. But in the meantime… this is your room, now.” Johanna felt a rush as she delegated her tiny room to her mother. The twin-size bed sheet was still soaked in Johanna’s own cum, a deep dark spot that still had a silvery pearl of incandescent fluid in the middle where it had yet to absorb.

“Tomorrow we’ll have a lengthier conversation about the location of my phone. I’ve got a lot of things to tell Nikki. And hey, maybe if you’re really good, we can finally sleep together in my bed…” Johanna smirked before turning to open the door. “Ciao!”

Johanna left through the door.

Susan stayed there, crouched, in the ready position for a few moments when the knob turned again and the door creaked open. Johanna popped her head in, slightly apologetically. “Oh, almost forgot! Mom?”

Susan craned her neck up to look at Susan.

“I love you.” She blew a kiss to her mother and then closed the door once again.

Like a loose rubber-band, Susan suddenly flopped to the floor, limp in a heap, sobbing silently as she slowly reckoned the reality that would be her new life.

***

Johanna clutched the doorknob. She kept it turned, holding it stiff, gazing through the seam of the door. She watched as her mother collapsed into a pile, whimpering a quiet, pitiful whimper.

Johanna smiled, slowly, painfully slowly, turning the knob back, ensuring it didn’t squeak or creak by the speed of her movements. The door closed, Johanna decided to give her mother a bit of alone time. She’d earned it, after all. In a sense.

Well then, thought Johanna.

Time to check on her other new tenant.

Johanna strolled through the house, the living room, to the kitchen, completely and utterly free. She absentmindedly scratched her buttock, finding her way to the counter where a large glass jar filled with twigs, leaves, and clumps of grass was situated next to the microwave. Inside a small mottled-green frog was lying still, silent, only stirring at Johanna’s presence, staring at her with big, bug eyes.

The frog croaked a pitiful croak.

Johanna snickered, grabbing a slice of bread and breaking it up into pieces over the mouth of the glass enclosure. “What to do with you… I’ll figure something out. Trust me.”

The frog hopped around, taking brief, depressed pleasure in the arrival of its food as Johanna winked, leaving it to its own devices.

“I could always use more toys. And once I get my phone back… you’ll all have a new owner to be toyed with.”