"Where are the pickles and the tomatoes," Pete asked as he rifled through the fridge in the club's employee break room.
"I dunno Pete, wherever you left them. No one touched your food." Jill returned her attention to her smartphone.
The toaster dinged, popping up two piping hot slices of bread. "Never mind, I found them."
"Can you believe Rachel hasn't scolded us today?"
"Why would she? Didn't she already take care of that yesterday?"
"I know, but, we're talking about Rachel. She doesn't let things go that easily. You know what I'm saying, Pete."
"Did she really put you in her shoe? That's not like her at all. She doesn't let anyone near her shoes, not even the rich customers."
"I already told you she did. Why would I lie about something like that?"
"But like, you were seriously inside Rachel's shoe? Was it nice? I mean, like was it soft? I bet it was really comfortable!"
"It was a shoe, Pete. I'm not sexually attracted to Rachel's feet. What is it you want me to say?"
"But it was cool, right? Like exploring an alien landscape?"
"No, it wasn't cool actually. The inside was still warm, from her foot."
"Oh man, that is so hot! What did it smell like?"
"You did not just ask me that... That is, like, SO gross! I'm not having this conversation."
"Why couldn't it have been me?! She should punish me too!"
"Letting you blow your load in her shoe would be a reward, not punishment. Don't even bother asking her to punish you. It won't turn out the way you're hoping. Rachel isn't stupid."
"That is so unfair. I hate double standards!"
Rachel poked her head in the break room. "My office. Five minutes." She left as quickly as she had appeared.
"I'm not going back in her stupid shoe. I'm not doing that again today!"
"Don't worry Jill, if it comes to that, I'll take one for the team."
"You are such a pervert! When you close your eyes at night, I bet you dream about her feet. You don't understand my suffering at all."
"What's the big deal? You've been in a shoe before. It was part of the orientation training when you were hired. Everyone does it."
"Pete, do you remember orientation? It wasn't my boss's favorite ballet flats that she had been wearing all morning long. It was a brand new, never been worn, pair of cheap flip flops. There's a huge difference!"
"That's strange. The flip flops I explored during orientation had toe prints. They weren't dirty or anything, but they were definitely showing signs of wear."
"You probably imagined it. I'm sure you had all sorts of wild fantasies while you were jerking off."
"I didn't--"
"Yes you did. I know you did. You can't fool me, Pete. That was your first time being shrunk in a shoe. Someone like you? Nuh uh. There's no way you could resist."
"Whatever, let's just go to her office and get chewed out. Might as well get it over with..."
Pete and Jill left the employee break room and silently walked down the halls toward Rachel's office. Her office was tucked into a corner of the building, away from prying eyes. In a club designed for catering to pervy clientele, privacy was a rare luxury.
"You can wipe those sullen looks off your faces; I wasn't planning to chew you out." Rachel spun her laptop around so that the screen was facing Pete and Jill. "I want you to watch this. I know young people barely pay attention to the news any more, but this is something that both of you need to see."
Pete sat hunched over in one of the chairs facing Rachel's desk. The computer screen was showing news footage from some channel in New York. They were currently playing video taken from a surveillance camera. It looked like a shrinking suite, much like the ones in their own club. The camera was focused on a man in the center of the suite, who appeared to be in the process of fixing something.
Another video playing side by side with the first, showed a woman with red hair entering the suite and removing her shoes. She walked obliviously toward the shrunken man in the center of the room. The footage from the camera focused on the tiny man showed her giant foot coming down on top of him. He disappeared under her painted toes. The woman seemed to notice something strange underneath her and moved her foot. When her toes lifted, the man's legs appeared to be bent at odd, unnatural angles. He was thrashing about wildly, waving his arms in some frantic attempt to ward off any more attacks from her deadly feet.
"She stepped right on him!" Jill gasped.
The news channel switched from surveillance videos to a live shot of the red haired woman speaking with one of their reporters.
"I found out my husband was secretly coming here, doing that thing men do, where they shrink themselves to fit inside your shoes."
"Were you concerned he was cheating on you with another woman's footwear," the reporter asked.
"Not at all," the tall redhead laughed. "I'm a total catch. Bill is madly in love with me. I don't know why he didn't just tell me. He didn't have to sneak around. I've even let my boss explore my shoes before. You should have seen the poor guy. I've worked with him for years. He only recently worked up the nerve to ask me. He could barely get the words out, he was so nervous. I bet he was scared to death. He nearly fainted when I asked him which pair of my shoes was his favorite!"
"If you don't mind me asking," the reporter interrupted, "why WERE you at the club then? I mean, if you weren't worried about your husband's secret outings, and you're completely okay with this sort of thing."
"Curiosity. That's all really. I wanted to see what the big deal was, so I thought I would have a go at exploring my own shoes. Everybody else was doing it..."
"Tell us what went wrong. I know that's the question on all our viewers' minds."
"It's a very easy question to answer. That club sucks, is what happened. The airheaded space cadet attending to the guests gave me the wrong suite key. As far as I knew, the suite was empty. I stepped inside, took off my shoes, and walked into the center of the room. Before I could bend down to set my shoes in the center of the circle, I felt something crunch under my toes. When I moved my foot, there was a shrunken man lying where my toes had been. His legs were broken! He was obviously screaming in pain, but I couldn't hear him because the suite's microphone system wasn't working. That's why he was there. He worked there. He was the unlucky technician sent to fix that suite. His dumb coworker almost got him killed. He's fine now, thank god, but he still has two broken legs. The doctor said he'll make a full recovery. I bet he'll have nightmares about me stepping on him for the rest of his life though."
"That is such a tragic story. An accident like that should have been completely avoidable."
"I'm not a lawyer, but the manager of that club needs to be charged with criminal negligence or something. I know I'm the one who squished that poor bastard, but it totally wasn't my fault. The way they run that place... It's a miracle no one has died!"
Rachel closed the lid of her laptop. "I hope that was instructive. All of these tedious rules and safety checks we have can be a pain, sure, but you see the alternative. No one is getting 'squished' on my watch!"
"I won't slip up again," Jill blurted out.
"What we do here is dangerous. People could die. ALL of us, would do well to remember that. I'm not lecturing you for fun. If anything, it's fear. I don't want someone to get hurt or killed. That's on us if that happens. We have to live with it."
"It was my fault too, Rachel. Jill isn't the only one to blame. I wasn't being careful either. I saw that she was standing inside the circle, and I didn't make her back up. That was my mistake."
"No Pete, it was my faul--"
"Okay, you're both sorry. That's good. Now learn something from that experience. Let's all get back to work and pretend this never happened. We're here to make the customers happy. Safe customers are happy customers. They can't pay us if they're dead."
"Why are you crying Jill? Are you serious right now? I'm not yelling. I didn't throw anything. I'm being as nice as I can here..."
"No, it's not that." Jill sniffled. "You saw that video. She stepped right on that shrunken man. I almost... I almost did that to Pete."
"Pete, hand her a tissue."
"I'm fine Jill." He delivered the box of tissues from Rachel's desk. "You didn't squish me."
"But I could have," Jill whimpered. "I'd never do that to you Pete, never!"
"I know you wouldn't," he hugged her supportively. "You wouldn't do that to anyone."
"Okay, we had a good cry. Let's stop torturing ourselves over something that didn't happen and get back to work."