With the morning sun trickling through the blinds, Amy’s eyes blearily flickered open. In college, her sorority sisters would have called this a case of Awfuck’s Disease, where you wake up and the first words out of your mouth are: “aw fuck.” She was surprised that she managed to sleep through the night, mostly, given the early bedtime and empty stomach. A THANKFULLY empty stomach, she thought to herself as she recalled portions of her dream. The prior evening’s proceedings had left her with what felt similar to a hangover, a dull headache throbbing by her temples and a lingering, roiling sense of unease. She sat up and glanced over at Steve’s pillow, seeing him fast asleep, seemingly without a care in the world. She could swear that was a smirk of contentment on his face. I’m wrestling with nightmares, and he’s living his dream, she thought with annoyance. If anyone should be dealing with the unenviable combination of latent panic and a semi-hangover, it should be him.
She kept an eye on Steve as she stood up, stretching overhead with a yawn and grabbing her phone off the nightstand. 6:00 A.M. Normally I’d be getting ready to go to the gym. There was absolutely no chance she was going into the office today. Not until she and Steve arrived at some new form of status quo that would keep him safe while they sorted through this ordeal. She sent a quick text message to Allison Glenwood, knowing she would handle the paid time-off calendar. She bit her lip, wondering if she should fill Allison in fully. Allie is good in a crisis, and I could use a little of her optimism right now. She glanced once more over at Steve. Can’t do it without talking it out with him first, she thought with a grimace.
Amy wandered into the kitchen, getting the coffee started as usual to maintain some semblance of normalcy. She walked back through the bedroom on her way to the bathroom, glancing at the bed to see Steve exactly where she had left him. Heading into the bathroom, she started running water while she put toothpaste on her brush. Good lord, I look rough, she thought after seeing herself in the mirror for the first time this morning. It wasn’t just her hair spinning itself up into its usual bedhead rat’s nest of knots, but the generally haggard look on her face and the bags under her eyes. It was understandable, all things considered, but she couldn’t help but observe it.
She spit into the sink and ran the water, turning the faucet off before walking out of the bathroom. Steve continuing to sleep peacefully was really starting to grate on her nerves. We need to talk about this already. She felt the panic over the situation rising again and decided this needed to be Steve’s problem as well, not just hers. She flopped down onto the bed exaggeratedly, almost jumping into it and jostling the mattress. That did it; Steve’s eyes flew open, and he sat up.
Rubbing his eyes, he squinted over at her. “Don’t you have to go to work today?” he asked.
“Good morning to you too,” Amy responded sarcastically. “No, I took off today since, you know, THIS whole situation,” she said as she gestured vaguely in his direction.
“Oh,” Steve responded, a tinge of excitement entering his voice. “Do I smell coffee?”
“Yeah, I got a pot started. Wanna go sit down?” she asked him.
“Absolutely,” Steve responded.
“Okay, I’m gonna pick you up,” Amy warned as she carefully reached over and wrapped her fingers around him, lifting him upward so that he was sitting in her palm. She frowned as she saw he was still in his boxer shorts from last night. “What we do about clothes for you?” she asked with genuine curiosity.
“Good question, hun,” Steve responded. “Guess I’m just gonna have to be naked while you assume responsibility for keeping me warm!” he said with a grin.
“Steve, it’s 6:00 in the morning. Can we save the perversion for like, at least the afternoon?” she asked wearily.
“Oh, so you’re saying there CAN be perversion, as long as it’s scheduled perversion,” he responded excitedly.
Amy groaned. “Save it, mister. Let’s figure out what the plan is for keeping you alive first,” she said while carrying him toward the kitchen.
“Stay here,” Amy cautioned as she placed Steve down on the kitchen table.
Steve looked around, bemused. “Where am I gonna go, babe?”
“Fair point.” Amy responded with a slight smirk. It was good that their banter was at least somewhat normal; very few things were in the past 12 hours. Out of habit, she grabbed two coffee mugs and poured one, her hand holding the pot in suspense over the second. “Um, Steve, how exactly does this work?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at him.
“How does what work?” he responded from the kitchen table.
“The, uh…the coffee,” Amy answered.
“Oh, right,” Steve said. He looked contemplative for a moment. “Can you put a few drops on a spoon?” he asked.
“Want a lighter as long you’re freebasing caffeine?” she asked, smiling sweetly at him.
“Har har, Ames. You got a better idea?” he said with a hint of annoyance.
“Oh don’t get your boxers in a knot, Steve. They’re your only pair,” she answered.
“Wow babe, you’re really on a roll this morning,” Steve said, rolling his eyes.
“…put you on a roll,” Amy muttered to herself.
“What was that?” Steve asked.
“Nothing babe,” she responded, smiling innocently again.
Amy grabbed a spoon and a metal straw from the utensil drawer, dipping the straw into her coffee and capping it with her thumb. She held the straw over the spoon and lifted her thumb slightly, letting a few drops fall out before carrying it over. She placed it on the table next to Steve before slumping into the chair, sighing and rubbing at her temples. Caffeine should help with the headache, she hoped.
Wrapping both hands around her oversized mug, Amy slouched while resting both elbows on the table, closing her eyes for a moment to refocus. When she opened them, Steve was standing in front of his spoon, smiling widely up at her.
“What?” she asked while eyeing him suspiciously.
“Nothing babe. It’s just, you’re super cute when you’re all out of sorts. Really putting the “hot” in hot mess,” Steve responded.
Amy frowned at him. “Wow, you say such sweet things to me honey,” she said sarcastically. “Can you turn your lower brain off for a second and actually discuss this?” she asked.
“What’s there to discuss, Ames?” Steve asked seriously. “The suit is broken for now, and we don’t know how far off a reversal of this process is from MicroMD.”
“I know, Steve, and that’s the problem. I have a full-time job, a life to live. I can’t have a second full-time job and a second life dedicated just to keeping you alive,” Amy said with her voice cracking a bit.
“Well, about that. I feel a little…different…” Steve began.
“Different how?”
“Remember yesterday when you, ahem” he coughed, “er, squashed the suit?” Steve asked.
“How could I forget, Steve, I almost killed you!” Amy answered heatedly.
“Right, well, at the time, it felt like my ribs were close to breaking before you let up. But now, I dunno. I feel, denser, maybe?” Steve explained.
“I find it hard to believe that you could possibly get any denser, Steve,” Amy said with a smirk.
“And here you are telling me to take this more seriously,” Steve said while rolling his eyes. “Anyway, I don’t really know how to explain it. It feels like my bones are a little heavier or something,” Steve continued.
“What’s your point?” Amy asked with sincere curiosity.
“What I’m getting at is, I think if you were to, um, step on me again,” Steve said with his cheeks flushing a bit, “I might be able to take it a little more.”
“Babe, put your dick away for a second. I am NOT going to step on you,” Amy said incredulously.
“No no no, nothing like that,” he said hurriedly. “I just want to test something, if you’ll go along with it for a moment.”
“Okay…” Amy said with dubious confidence.
“I’m gonna sit down. I want you to put your thumb down on my leg and press until I tell you to stop,” Steve said.
“WHAT?!” Amy nearly shouted. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“Babe, if we’re ever gonna sort this out, we have to test things. Push the envelope a little and figure out what I can handle,” Steve reasoned. “I think we BOTH want to know how easy it is for me to get crushed.”
“Steve, hun, I could smash your leg into bits, and then you’re not only housebound, but you’re also basically immobile to boot, if not dead from bleeding out” Amy cautioned.
“I know, Ames. And believe me, if I feel like my bones are gonna snap, I’ll tell you to stop. I’m not so horny that I’ll tolerate a compound fracture of my femur just to get a rise,” Steve argued. “Just go with it, Amy, and I’ll tell you when to stop. I promise.”
“If you’re sure, honey. But I’m going to watch your face and the moment I see so much as a grimace, I’m stopping this,” Amy warned.
“I’m sure, Ames. Let’s do this!” Steve said with enthusiasm that Amy did not share.
This little psycho, Amy thought. Actually, maybe I’m the psycho for going through with this. Steve sat down on the table as Amy lifted her hand over his head, placing her thumb gently on top of his leg. Just the very tip of her thumb could cover everything below his waist. Amy watched Steve’s face closely as she began to apply pressure. First, just a fraction of pressure, and then increasingly more.
The whole time Steve just sat there, a goofy grin on his face as he watched his wife’s enormous thumb covering his leg. At this level of pressure, Amy knew that the average bug would already be reduced to paste. And yet, Steve just kept smiling along as she dialed up in the intensity gradually.
Just when she felt like she was really beginning to press hard, she caught the hint of a wince on Steve’s face and immediately stopped when he held up his hand.
“Okay okay, that’s good Ames,” he said. “Seems like I can take a decent amount of smooshing. I don’t think I’ll survive being stomped on directly, but my bones aren’t gonna snap like twigs either, it seems. Something about the reduction of the organic matter appears to have condensed it, or something. Made me just a little tougher.”
“So it would seem.” Amy was also genuinely surprised at how much Steve could tolerate. It put her mind SLIGHTLY more at ease knowing that a fall from the table likely wouldn’t be fatal, or if she sat on him by accident, he would probably be mostly okay as long as it was a soft cushion. Bet he’d love that, she thought.
“Okay!” Steve said excitedly while standing up and clapping his hands. “Let’s do your foot now!”
Annnnddddd there it is. He can’t help himself. Amy didn’t bother to respond, just giving him a flat glare until the smile dissipated from his face, and he got down on his hands and knees to begin sipping at the coffee in the bottom of the spoon like a dog.
Her stomach still being relatively unsettled, Amy fixed simple wheat toast with a little jam for breakfast, sharing a miniscule portion of it with Steve. He barely needed more than a few crumbs, and Amy realized she would have to remind herself constantly to start cooking smaller portions moving forward.
They spent a good part of the morning talking through the logistics of their new situation. Steve agreed with letting Allison know at some point, just not yet. He wanted a better picture of what their day-to-day routine was going to look like first, and they both agreed that revealing him to Allison at the office would be a monumentally stupid idea. Amy would just have to concoct some contrivance to lure Allison over to their home, where they would do the reveal…eventually.
Together, they settled upon a few ground rules. Steve had argued that it was safer for Amy to bring him along to the office on workdays, instead of leaving him at home. Amy was far from convinced, but she was willing to entertain a trial period for the first week just to see if it was feasible. The plan was for Steve to ride along in her purse, only coming out during breaks to stretch his legs and get a bite to eat when Amy took her lunch. Amy was worried about Steve being jostled around in the purse, or potentially falling out without her knowing, so their agreed-upon solution was to poke some pin holes into a prescription bottle. The translucent sides of the bottle would allow Amy to see easily whether Steve was okay, with the prescription label still shielding him mostly from view for a casual observer. Plus, it was a large enough object that if it fell out of her purse, she would know.
The prescription bottle idea was solely for transportation purposes while Amy was walking. He could sit in the cupholder when she was in the car, and when she was seated at her desk, they agreed he could be out and about as long as he staid out of sight and kept out of trouble. Her desk faced the door, and her back was to a wall, so she would be able to see anyone coming long before they reached her desk. Ample time to tuck him under the keyboard, for instance.
As the morning went by, Amy found herself already going a bit stir-crazy. She was accustomed to getting up and going, not lounging around the house for 12 hours before going right back to sleep. She got up and began pacing around the kitchen, glancing at the clock. It was already noon, and she hadn’t showered or gotten dressed yet. She briefly walked out of Steve’s line of sight to give a quick sniff under the arm. Yeesh, I should probably clean up.
But she was entirely restless and was considering going for a run. It was a brisk January afternoon, but she could layer up a bit. Amy had always found running to be a fantastic means of clearing the mind and burning energy before. She glanced forlornly out the window. The sun was shining, and she knew there weren’t a lot of hours of daylight in the middle of winter. She quickly made a decision.
“Steve, honey, are you gonna be alright if I go for a quick run?” Amy asked while walking back into the kitchen.
“Sure, as long as you take me with you!” Steve answered enthusiastically.
Amy gave him a flat, unamused stare. “For the second time today, Stephen, I must ask: are you out of your fucking mind? I can’t imagine anything more dangerous. We literally JUST talked about this.”
“Ames, just wear a hoody and tuck me in the pocket. I’ll be fine. Unless you take a tumble, I’m not going anywhere, and I’ll be plenty warm,” he argued.
“Absolutely not. No way I’m chancing that, enhanced durability or no,” Amy responded angrily.
Steve’s face lost its playfulness for a moment as he became visibly crestfallen. “Babe, yesterday you asked me if I ever thought what doing something stupid like shrinking myself would do to you before I did it. I’m gonna ask you to put yourself in my shoes, for a moment: you’ve become officially, indefinitely useless. You cannot text, call, browse the internet, use the remote to turn on the TV, leave the house, feed, bathe or clothe yourself, the list goes on. Even going with you to the office, I have to ride in an empty prescription bottle. At some point, we have to ask: am I still going to be able to live my life at all? Am I ever going to be able to leave the house with you feeling safe? Ames, I don’t have any other options. You are basically my entire world right now. My life is, quite literally, in your hands, and I am asking you, PLEASE, to just bring me along so I don’t spend the next half hour counting the tiles on the kitchen floor.”
Over the course of Steve’s diatribe, Amy softened in empathy. He was right. If she were in his shoes, she would be deeply resentful of being forever locked away, questioning whether life was still worth living. He didn’t even have a say in the matter. His access to the outside world was entirely dependent upon her willingness to indulge his requests.
I can’t believe I’m even considering this. Surprise surprise, the career attorney knows how to make a case for himself. Amy sighed. “Alright Steve, I’ll bring you along. But we’re using the hoody with the zipper pockets. I’m not taking ANY chances.”
Steve’s face lit up. “Great! In case you were curious about my attire, I will indeed be wearing boxer shorts for this outing.”
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Amy tucked her hair behind her head, binding it in a ponytail after zipping up the hoody. She placed Steve on the console table in the front hall next to her keys while she reached under it and grabbed her worn sneakers. Steve felt a tinge of excitement over catching a glimpse of the depression Amy’s foot had left in the insole as she placed it down next to her foot while lacing up the other one. Man, what I wouldn’t give to be riding along in there instead. He quickly gave himself a reality check, however. We already figured out that I’m not invincible. I don’t have a death wish, even if it would be a fucking sexy death.
Amy slipped her foot into the empty sneaker, lacing that one up as well before standing up and lifting Steve off the console table to her face.
“Babe, you’re absolutely SURE about this?” Amy asked with blatant concern in her eyes.
“Yes, Ames, stop worrying! It’ll be fine!” Steve answered while giving her a thumbs up.
“Okay, in that case, I’ll see you in about a half hour,” Amy said as she closed her fist around him. She didn’t want to risk dropping him, so she slid her closed fist all the way into the front pocket of the hoody before opening it to deposit Steve inside. She withdrew her hand slowly and carefully, making sure she wasn’t dragging him along by accident before she zipped up the entrance to the pocket. With that, she took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped outside, pressing the “lock” button on the door’s keypad as she shut it before walking across the yard to the sidewalk.
Of course, Steve saw none of this, being effectively in total, albeit soft and warm, darkness. Dim light filtered through the fabric once the sun hit the hoody directly, but it was barely enough to see his own palms right in front of him. He was jostled around slightly, but not unpleasantly, as he felt Amy taking strides across the yard. He was surrounded by her presence and absolutely loving it. He could feel her abdominal muscles expanding and contracting as she took her breaths, and he could smell the fabric softener Amy had used when she washed the hoody.
I wasn’t kidding when I said she’s my whole world now, he thought. This is surreal. The novelty wore off almost instantly once the reality of what he had signed up for set in. He heard Amy whisper a faint “hold on babe” through the sweatshirt before the gentle rocking inside the pocket turned into getting tossed around like a popcorn kernel. Despite her springy step and generally excellent running technique, he could almost feel each impact as her foot hit the ground before he bounced upward again between strides. The overall sensation was what he imagined a single article of clothing inside a dryer would experience on the “tumble dry” setting.
It was both fun and mildly nauseating. He eventually found a loose thread he could hold onto as a harness of sorts, wrapping his arm around it to hold himself in place. At least now it was more like an extra-bumpy car ride instead of a bouncy castle.
He had no sense of time really, but after what felt like five minutes to him, he could physically FEEL Amy’s body heating up. A warmth began radiating outward from her abdomen as her breath quickened. He knew a thin sheen of sweat was growing under Amy’s undershirt on the other side of the hoody, and for a moment he felt envious that he wasn’t riding in the undershirt instead. If he were at his full size, he’d probably be waiting by the door for her to get back from her run before he would offer to lick that sweat off her stomach and her chest. Nine times out of ten she would rebuke his attempts, but every now and then when she was feeling a little...dirty, she’d take the top off and lay down on the couch and let him do his thing.
About what he imagined to be 15 minutes or so into the run, he felt Amy’s steps slow down gradually before she came to a halt entirely, feeling a brief sense of weightlessness as she sat down somewhere. He knew based on the geography of their neighborhood that this was probably the bench at the bus stop a few blocks away. Wonder why she’s stopping. He heard Amy let out a faint hiss as he felt her bending over. That was when it all went horribly wrong.
He hadn’t seen it from his comfortable perspective deep in the corner recess of the pocket, but when she bent over, he fell forward to the front of the pocket, where he promptly encountered a small hole in the fabric. Amy probably didn’t even know it was there, being at the front of the pocket near the bottom, close to the hem of the hoody, and being barely large enough to stick a fingertip into. But at his present size, it was big enough. Alarmingly big, in fact. He toppled over himself, quickly losing his spatial orientation and whereabouts in the darkness, until he felt a very cold breeze biting at his bare skin. He noticed that he was maintaining an exceedingly tenuous grip on the single loose thread he had wrapped around his arm earlier.
He had his arms and legs spread out wide to stop any further descent, and from this perspective, it was like looking down out of an airplane before skydiving. He could see straight to the ground, two blue and green sneakers side by side on the pavement with twin columns of toned, rounded calves wrapped in tight yoga pants rising out of each. The reason for Amy’s sudden halt quickly became apparent. She had slipped her left foot out of the sneaker and was aggressively rubbing the arch of her foot through the white sock. For the second time in as many days, he took note of the permanent discoloration on the bottom of the sock from its repeated use and Amy’s foot sweat. Poor thing must’ve cramped up, probably dehydrated after last night’s ordeal.
His luck immediately worsened. Amy bolted upright briefly, and he heard her shout “hey Jackie!” happily. Ugh. Jackie Cooke. Also known as the Bitch Queen of Suburbia. Jackie was the president of the neighborhood’s homeowner’s association, a consummate busybody and perpetual critic. God help you if your blades of grass exceeded two inches in length, or if you had patches of clover anywhere on your emerald green sod. Putting a trash can on the left side of your mailbox for pickup, as opposed to the CORRECT right side, was an unforgiveable, overt act of insubordinate anarchism.
Jackie wasn’t all bad. She was certainly easy enough on the eyes, a handsome, tall brunette in her mid-40s that had aged with enviable grace. She was always welcoming, and consistently making social outreach efforts to build the community. When she’s not busy criticizing it, that is. If there was an HOA-sanctioned block party, chances are Jackie Cooke was hosting it and would insist on preparing food for everyone, no donations allowed. Jackie Cooke was the one at your house with a tray of brownies when you were still unpacking your boxes after moving in. She’d help you unpack those boxes too, and insist on organizing them alphabetically to boot. Jackie was perfectly personable and hospitable…when you weren’t defying her tyrannical iron will by failing to trim your hedges in time for spring.
A deeply Christian woman with bedrock community values, Jackie had married her high school sweetheart shortly after graduation and had her first child, Emma, when she was only 25. Her son Tommy was born two years later, but within the decade following Tommy’s birth, Jackie lost her husband, Joe, to cancer. She had raised Emma and Tommy as a single mother ever since and was doing an admirable job, by all accounts.
Where Steve took exception was in Jackie’s coping mechanisms following the loss of her husband. The woman derived an inordinate amount of satisfaction out of being a gossip, and Steve sometimes got the feeling that Jackie delighted in creating a clique of neighborhood wives that would seemingly convene just to prepare their joint litany of marital complaints to then bring home and unleash on their unwitting husbands. The other coping mechanism was at least more entertaining. Despite her religious zeal and status as a paragon of community values, Jackie had developed a not-entirely-unfounded reputation as a cougar with a predatory predilection for men half her age.
Having recently turned 18 and being in the prime of her rebellious teenager phase, Jackie’s daughter Emma appeared to be purposely cultivating a reputation as the anti-Jackie made physically manifest. Combined with the loss of her father, Emma wore her darkness like a safety blanket. Calling her aesthetic gothic would be to understate it. In the past year, she had cropped her hair to shoulder length and died it jet black with blood red highlights. She was hardly ever seen without her spike-studded leather choke collar around her neck, the glint of steel being complemented by her recent nose piercing. Her everyday makeup included dark purple lipstick, black eyeliner with varying shades of dark eyeshadow, long, fake eyelashes, and checkerboard fake nails. Her wardrobe consisted entirely of black attire, including knee high lace-up boots. The brand was Demonia or something, Steve thought.
Honestly, Steve really liked Emma. Not in a creepy, perverted sort of way (though he did find Emma to be hauntingly beautiful), but in a practical, straightforward, intelligent, and intuitive sort of way, with a penchant for biting, sarcastic, observational humor and insightful, witty remarks. Whenever he spoke with her at any of the backyard barbecues or neighborhood pool parties, he would invariably come away impressed. For as much as she was clearly going through, wrestling with teenage emotions and the lingering absence of her father, Emma was a good kid that was almost certainly going places. More than once, Steve had attempted to plant the seed of law school in Emma’s mind while she was applying to undergraduate colleges, often after she ran circles around his arguments in conversation. He felt like if he ever ran into her on the other side of the courtroom, he’d get his ass handed to him on a silver platter and he wouldn’t even be mad about it. Because he probably wouldn’t realize it had happened until a week later.
Focus you stupid asshole, Steve chastised himself. He was quite literally hanging on by a thread, threatened by a long, hard plummet to the pavement if he couldn’t hang on. If Jackie’s timing was comedically bad, however, her decision to wave at Amy instead of simply saying “hi” back was unfortunate on a cosmic level. Because Amy, sweet girl that she is, absolutely HAD to wave back enthusiastically, even though she had already greeted Jackie. That vigorous wave of her arms shook the hoody side to side. A normal human wouldn’t have even registered their clothing shifting with the gesture. At Steve’s size, it was like trying to hang on during an earthquake, and he lost his grip on the thread.
Oh SHIT! That one small movement of waving “hi” to a neighbor had doomed him. He knew he was slightly more durable than he was at his normal height, but he still didn’t want to test whether he’d survive a straight fall to hard pavement. Then there was the larger overall issue of getting noticed once he DID fall. Would Amy see him? Would she step on him by accident? Would he get scooped up by a bird, inexplicably disappearing from Amy’s life to never be heard from again? All of these thoughts ran through his head in almost an instant as he found himself falling, futilely peddling his arms and legs in the air to try to slow his descent.
His efforts managed to flip him over, such that he was falling backwards now. He had a brief glimpse of his wife before he hit the ground, her ponytail hanging over her right shoulder as she was bent over with one hand still massaging her foot while the other finished waving to her neighbor. Fuck, she’s not looking. Amy’s eyes were still on Jackie across the street. He fell past her calf and ankle, only then noticing how close he was to her leg during his fall. He instinctively suspected he wasn’t going to be landing on the pavement anymore.
He felt his back hit a warm, damp, spongy surface, the force of the impact knocking the wind out of him. As soon as he was able to take a breath, however, he immediately wished the wind had stayed knocked out of him. His nose was accosted by a cloying miasma of stale, vaguely cheesy foot odor, magnified to an almost unbearable extent courtesy of a toxic combination of the sneakers seeing heavy use both in the last few years and past few minutes.
If she had just walked in the door and kicked off her shoes, it’s not like he would’ve smelled anything at his full height, even standing right next to her. Again, Amy was aggressively hygienic and fastidiously clean. The stress of the past 18 or so hours, however, had resulted in an uncharacteristic oversight of Amy using the same socks she had worn to work the day before and to bed last night…and all morning. And he knew she hadn’t showered yet today. Combined with being INSIDE her shoe, the same shoe that her foot had just slipped out of seconds ago after working up a sweat for 15 minutes, well…it didn’t matter how clean she usually was. Right now, the inside of this sneaker was predictably an assault on the senses.
Steve didn’t mind a little foot sweat. Again, there was something enticingly naughty about his cleanliness perfectionist wife being a little dirty every now and then. Hell, there were a few rare occasions where he had managed, against all odds, to talk her into letting him suck on her toes right after she had kicked off her work shoes at the end of the day.
But this...this was a lot. It wasn’t so much a waft reaching his nostrils as it was a new state of being at that moment, the damp heat enveloping him despite the cold January air outside. There was no escaping it. He could feel the sweat soaking out of the insole of the shoe between his bare toes. He could see the permanent stain left by Amy’s footprint all the way inward to the toe section, with the five little depressions (well, me-sized depressions right now) from her toes and the crater from the ball of her foot being noticeably a shade darker than the more open heel area. But again, the thing that stood out the most, by far, was the scent.
Steve’s last hopes evaporated when he saw that Amy’s hand, finishing up rubbing the cramp in her arch, was blocking a direct line of sight to where he was standing. She was going to slip her foot back into the shoe and lace it up without any prayer of him being noticed. Seeing the writing on the wall, Steve took those precious few moments to try to sprint to the toe section of the sneaker. That effort ended up being unnecessary, as Amy angled the shoe upward to slip her petite foot inside, causing Steve to tumble end over end until he banged against the very front of the shoe’s interior.
He didn’t think the smell could get worse than where he had been standing in the heel moments earlier, but he hadn’t realized just how much the fresh air from outside was mitigating the effect. Whereas before it just felt like humid weather, now it felt like a steam room. The moisture and heat from Amy’s sweat was trapped in here, and whatever bacteria were growing in these dank, dark confines were all too happy to announce their presence in the most belligerent manner possible. Now, on top of the stale, cheesy aroma, there was an entirely more offensive layer of stinging body odor. The kind of sharp, ripe, lingering scent that seems to wind itself through your nasal cavity and into your throat as though it has a mind of its own. This area of the sneaker, with less ventilation and more accumulation of moisture, had fostered the perfect ecosystem for bacterial growth, resulting in an environment that was infinitely worse than anything he’d encountered previously.
He was sure that it was more noticeable because of his size and his proximity to ground zero. He knew Amy would be mortified if she ever knew and would probably spend the rest of her life buying new sneakers every month out of the mere shame of it. Of course, becoming aware of it would require her sticking her nose directly inside the sneaker and breathing deep which, unlike him, she was certainly nowhere near weird enough to ever do. The other alternative would be him telling her about it, if he lived to do so. He made a quick, meaningless promise to himself that, if he survived, he’d keep this secret for the sake of Amy’s mental health.
Suddenly, the dim lighting he had in the front of the shoe was blotted out, as he saw socked toes dip their way inside first before flattening out and barreling toward him. He wished he had made a mental picture of that brief glimpse he caught of Amy while he was falling, because it was likely the last time he would ever see his wife’s face. I insisted on coming along, baby, and I don’t blame you for this. No matter what happens, I love you. Those were Steve’s final thoughts as the damp, socked toes crashed into him.
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Amy felt her toes hit the front of the shoe before she slipped her heel inside and stamped it down. She bent over a little further to tie the laces again. If my thumb didn’t crush him, he’s not gonna implode being caught between my belly and my thigh. Lord knows they’ve both got wayyyy too much cushioning, Amy thought idly while remaining under the mistaken impression that Steve was still in the front, zippered pocket of her hoody.
She briefly considered taking him out to check on him, but as much as she enjoyed Jackie Cooke’s company, the woman was an unapologetic, world-class yenta. The last thing she needed was the entire neighborhood wondering why Amy fished out pocket lint to talk to during a run. I’m sure he’s fine, she reassured herself.
Standing back up, she hesitantly flexed her toes up and down, extending and curling them to test whether that debilitating cramp that had waylaid her run was going to return. There was a little soreness still, but she felt like it would hold out the rest of the way. She was only doing her half hour circuit of the neighborhood, after all, so she should be back home in 10-15 minutes. As she was flexing her toes, she felt her long toe seize onto a pebble and drag it under, rolling it back out as she continued to stretch out the tendons in the arch of her foot. She knew what it was immediately: their landscaping had gravel around the bushes and trees in the front yard. It wouldn’t be the first time that she accidentally kicked some up on her way to the street. I really should just use the driveway.
Though her breathing had slowed a little from the brief recess, her chest was still heaving from the cardiovascular exercise. Should’ve brought a bottle of water, she thought, though it still felt great to stretch her legs. The fresh air and the endorphins released from the physical activity were doing wonders for her mental state. For the first time since she had stepped on him by accident yesterday, she felt the panic over Steve’s wellbeing and their new situation subsiding meaningfully. Maybe he’s right. It IS all going to be okay…eventually. She smiled to herself before resuming her run, feeling the little pebble rolling around in the tip of the shoe.
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The toes hit him like a freight train, moving inexorably forward to the tip of the shoe’s interior before he felt the angle of the shoe level out. Amy’s heel snapped into it a second later. From his perspective, the impact of Amy stamping her heel inside the shoe felt like the lid finally closing on his coffin. He felt like his fate was sealed at this point. He then heard the faint zip of her laces being tied quickly. And that would be the nails on the coffin, he thought with grim recognition.
He expected the brutal impact of the jogging to begin any second now, but instead Amy’s toes lifted upward over his head and hung there for a moment. That’s right, the cramp. She’s stretching. He had barely enough time to register that thought before the toes collapsed down on him and pulled him inward, rolling him painfully across the bottom like dough under a rolling pin. He felt the textured fabric of the insole scrape painfully against his raw, bare skin, as he was dragged in and out mercilessly and relentlessly. He knew she was just flexing the tendon in her foot, but the torture almost felt personal. Like she was enjoying doing this to him on some morbid, primal level.
Even with the pain of his skin being rubbed between the rough sock fabric and the insole of the sneaker, the odor still surged to the front of his mind. He didn’t think it could get any worse than when he had tumbled down into her toeprints earlier, but he hadn’t counted on the added degradation of being surrounded on all sides with heat and sweat. He didn’t realize how much the crisp winter air had mitigated the shoe’s interior in the brief time Amy had slipped her foot out. Now, in addition to being immediately soaked to the point that sweat was plastering down his hair and rolling across his face, the ambient body heat magnified everything. The air became thicker to the point of being suffocating. He felt like he could cut it with a knife. His lungs screamed for fresh air, and gasping as he was, he couldn’t avoid taking in constant mouthfuls of the fetid steaminess with his every inhalation. His nose was being assaulted simultaneously, the previously stale odor becoming increasingly, overwhelmingly ripe. It went from a vague cheesiness in the aroma to feeling like someone was forcing his head into a wheel of Limburger to drown him.
He felt his skin pruning almost instantly, wrinkles appearing on his fingertips from the suffocating moisture. And then the real torture started. He felt a pit in his stomach as he lurched upward, knowing that this was the first of what would be many strides. He wondered with morbid curiosity whether the first impact would pop his body open like a grape. His teeth were jarred together as he felt Amy’s foot hit the pavement, her toes rolling forward and over him once more. The pressure built, and built, and built, pushing him to what was surely his breaking point, before it abated all too briefly. He was again tossed upward with the next stride, coming out from underneath Amy’s toes long enough to bang his head against the top of the shoe’s interior before slamming back down on top of the sock. He attempted to hang on like he was riding a bull, fruitlessly grasping for purchase and trying to get a handful of the fabric to hold onto. But the force of the next impact immediately shook him loose, throwing him once more to the tip of the shoe.
If riding in her hoody pocket earlier had been like a bouncy castle, this was more like he was at the bottom of a bottle with a “shake well before opening” label on it, a vigorous, aggressive, constant motion that he was powerless to stop.
In the back of his mind, he credited Amy’s excellent running technique for why he hadn’t been obliterated quite yet. He knew with each stride her foot was connecting with the ground in the order of heel, ball, toes, heel, ball, toes, on endless repeat. If she had been sprinting, he knew the forward weight would have already ground him into an unrecognizable paste as surely as a mortar and pestle.
As it was, he still wasn’t entirely sure he was going to survive this. One misstep could result in him rolling under the ball of her foot, and then he’d be dead in an instant. Even setting aside the possibility of getting crushed, his body was still being put through physical hell. Flying around the toe section of the shoe like a pinball, intermittently being smashed almost to the point of breaking and then banging his head against a toe or the interior of the shoe. Paradoxically, despite the fact that he was dripping wet from a combination of his and Amy’s sweat (mostly hers, he assumed), the heat and salt were causing rapid dehydration. He found that he was parched, his mouth dry as a cotton ball, the dull ache in his head from the jostling rapidly growing into a traumatic migraine.
Not to mention the motion sickness which was transforming into overwhelming nausea. The true breaking point came when he was gasping for air from the physical exertion of trying to stabilize himself and the thick, sticky atmosphere. His mouth opened wide to take a desperate gulp of air when a massive drop of sweat splattered directly into it. He immediately choked on it, swallowing a portion out of reflex and hurriedly spitting the rest of it out. It didn’t matter; the pungent saltiness remained on his tongue and in his airways, and some part of him suspected it would be there forever now. His body decided against his will to add to the mixture of bodily fluids as he threw up the toast and coffee from earlier in the morning…which he was then promptly rolled around in. If there is hell on Earth, this is surely it. He couldn’t imagine anything worse at the moment.
The deadly pattern of tossing, tumbling, smashing, drenching, and banging continued on for what felt like an eternity before he felt Amy’s footsteps padding slower and slower until they were just a brisk walk. At this point, he was trapped squarely under her big toe, his body plastered flat against the insole and his face buried into the wet sock, his head turned to the side in a largely futile attempt to get a breath of air. He credited still being alive to his slightly increased durability, but no amount of physical resistance was going to protect him if he suffocated, and right now Amy’s big toe was his entire world. What little air his lungs could take in was filtered through the fabric of the sock, his mouth involuntarily siphoning out sweat with each breath he took.
Take the shoes off…take the shoes off…TAKE THE FUCKING SHOES OFF!!! He was surprised that he was actually pleading out loud at this point. Amy took a few more steps, pressing Steve repeatedly downward into the insole of the sneaker to the point where he felt like he would soon be buried in it. But suddenly, the constant pressure abated for a moment as he could just make out the distinctive sound of their front door closing, and the keypad lock being engaged. He heard Amy’s other shoe clatter against the hardwood floor as she kicked it off her foot before he could hear the laces being untied somewhere above him.
Of course, Amy’s foot had one last treat in store for him before they parted ways. As she withdrew it from the sneaker, her toe dragged Steve’s body along the entire length of the insole, coating him in God-knows-what accumulated gunk as he rolled across the bottom and once more causing friction burns the length of his body. He was blinded suddenly by the light in their front hallway as Amy’s toes seemed to wave him a mocking “goodbye” as they slipped out the top. The motion knocked the sneaker over onto its side. With a tremendous effort of will, Steve clawed his battered and bruised body to his feet and limped outward, a pantomime of a zombie at this point. Testing out his body as he ambled slowly, he was utterly stunned that he didn’t immediately notice any broken bones. Definitely attributable to the increased durability, because that was an absolute beatdown he had just taken.
He blinked sweat out of his eyes, the light above him being momentarily blinding before he could make out Amy’s figure. Sweet, beautiful Amy, who had unwittingly come close to being his executioner for the second time in less than 24 hours. She’s right, we do need to be more careful. Gotta stop thinking with my dick. The perspective was still awe inspiring to him, the columns of Amy’s legs rising what seemed like miles into the sky, her entire form towering over him. His mind registered from his peripheral vision the wet footprints Amy’s feet were leaving behind on the cold, hardwood floor.
Amy unzipped the front pocket on her hoody, sticking her hand inside and fumbling around. “You alright Ste….STEVE??!!” He felt a pang of sympathy for her despite all she had just put him through as he saw the panic set in on her face. Amy patted the pocket on the other side of the hoody, unzipping that and fishing around inside as well in case she had forgotten the correct pocket. When that hand also came up empty, Steve saw Amy’s face blanch, draining of all color as she appeared almost physically ill. She frantically turned about and pushed her keys around the console table, probably wondering if by habit she had taken him out and placed him down as though he were her cellphone.
She spun around once more, her eyes darting all over the floor around her feet before they settled on him, recognition dawning in her expression as she squatted low and gingerly scooped him into her palm before standing up and bringing him in front of her face. He saw blatant concern in her expression, but also a faint relief.
“Steve!! What happened?! I thought I lost you somewhere!!” she breathlessly inquired.
Seeing the look on her face, he made a snap decision. He couldn’t tell her the truth. First, she would never forgive herself. Second, she would never, ever agree to take him out of the house again, for anything. He had to lie. Convincingly.
“Ames, I’m fine. I was waiting by the zipper and your hand just knocked me out of the pocket when you reached inside to look for me. I’ve only been on the floor for a few seconds, tops. Good news though! I can apparently survive a fall from that height unscathed!” Hopefully that’s true, he thought inwardly.
Immediate doubt registered in Amy’s expression. “Then why are you beet red, hun? You look like you just came out of a week in the sauna.”
“Well, uh…it was warmer than you would think inside that pocket. You really worked up a sweat!” Nailed it.
“Uh huh. You sure you weren’t um…having fun…in there?” Amy asked with a hint of a smirk.
Having fun in there? Are you fucking high? “You caught me! You know I love it when you get all sweaty and dirty, babe.”
“Have I ever told you that you’re gross? Just to make sure: you’re gross,” she responded with a knowing smile. “Well, I guess as long as you’re alright…” Suddenly Amy’s nose crinkled in disgust. “Baby, you stink. You smell worse than your hockey equipment, and that’s saying something.” That was fair. She actually had forced him to keep his equipment bag in the garage. At her insistence, he had started hanging the glove, blocker, and skates on a coat rack to air them out better after games. It hadn’t helped.
“Well uh, you know, I didn’t shower today. Or yesterday. Not sure about the day before that,” he responded sheepishly.
“Again, honey, I love you, but you’re fucking disgusting sometimes,” Amy chastised him.
“You know, I can’t exactly shower on my own anymore. We could, uh, clean off…together?” he said suggestively.
“My God you’re insistent. Incorrigible. I suppose you’re gonna ask me to use you as a bar of soap now?” Amy said with a raised eyebrow.
Oh come the fuck on, that’s playing dirty. Just not fair. “You know I wouldn’t want to impose babe…” he said with a wink.
Amy rolled her eyes and groaned in disgust. “Let’s get you cleaned up, Pigpen,” she said as she began to carry him toward their bedroom. He knew he should be relieved to be alive. He knew he should never risk anything like that again. He knew thinking with his dick was almost certainly going to get him killed. But that raised eyebrow of hers, that smirk, that suggestion of using him like a bar of soap…she knew how to push all the right buttons. And yet again, he found his near-death experience dwindling in his mind as he felt blood flowing to his groin at the thought of showering with her. Hell, he’d probably even give the shoe thing another try under more controlled circumstances…