Sam Bennett leaned back in his chair with crossed arms, surveyed the half-empty courtroom, and breathed a sigh of relief. This one was in the bag.
He had to admit to himself: he was nervous for a minute there when Katelyn made such a ruckus out of his harmless office antics, especially after that outburst she had in the private counsel meeting. It was certainly bold of her to admit in front of everyone that Sam had “emotionally coerced” her into “offering physical pleasure with her legs, feet, and/or toes,” as she so eloquently put it, in exchange for business-related promises made implicitly. Frankly, she was only the third girl ever to complain to someone beyond HR about his foot-flavored predilections, and those first two cases were both settled out of court, of course from someone else’s pocket; Sam was too important to the organization to be bothered with actual consequences, and he knew it. That especially was what made him so confident as he sat beside his puppet of a lawyer, Rachel Morrow, and stared hungrily at her feet below the table while they awaited the judge to return and throw the case out.
The woman definitely wasn’t Sam’s first mental image of the lawyer-type. She was intense, certainly, but there was also an adorable rebelliousness tucked away in there somewhere, as well as a dose of feminine softness, neither of which were befitting the legal profession. A slender brunette with dark wavy hair, gleaming black nail polish, pert breasts, and pouty lips, Rachel was definitely lovely above the belt, but as usual, Sam’s first check-in gaze was down south. There he found nylons so sheer they were nigh-invisible, which complimented glossy midnight pumps. He was lucky; Rachel’s attention was focused on the bench, leaving her vulnerable to wandering eyes. And at this proximity to those svelte legs encased in shimmering nude stockings, he couldn’t help but ogle.
With her toned right thigh crossed over the left knee, Rachel’s foot hovered above the marbled tile of the courtroom. After a few minutes of midair idling, the leather cusp of the shoe’s back clopped loose from the smooth curve of her heel. Suspended at the pointed tip from her toes, the woman’s elegant arch emerged from the shadow of the shoe. She bobbed; her toes propelled the shoe up and down, bouncing the loose footwear.
Still, Rachel’s attention was focused intently on the throne. Perfect. Sam leaned back an inch further in his chair, giving him a clearer view of the artistic dangle. He could see the thread line of the stocking running down the supple calf, over the hill of the heel, under the lope of the curvaceous sole, and disappearing into the valley created between her heel opening and ped’s underbelly.
“C’mon,” Sam mouthed silently. “Little lower. Let’s see it. Please?”
As if by divine intervention, the heel slid lower in accordance with his wish, until it hung like a Christmas ornament from Rachel’s big toe. Almost all was revealed. Her sole buckled methodically, scrunching the wrinkled slab through the nude nylon, the shadows of the inner heel flashing across the shining fabric. Through the ghostly filter of the stocking, Sam could make out the fogging of the flesh tone, from rosy pink to muted yellow, then back again.
A door opened, and the judge re-entered the hall. Sam knew the resigned look on that face. The pre-emptive glower of defeat was evident in his screechy opposition Katelyn, as well her silent siren of a lawyer: August, he was pretty sure her name was, though who cared?
He leaned back forward in his chair to ensure his tenting pants were concealed, though given the power-trip high of getting cleanly off the hook yet again, he wasn’t sure he’d have minded if Rachel saw his bulge or not. In fact, if this wasn’t the final time they had any reason to meet, it was entirely possible he might’ve inched his way into her good graces for an eventual footjob from those languid arches and silky stockings. She looked like the type who’d agree if it meant a promised boost for her career. The judge’s gavel came down, and with that, Sam Bennett was a free man.
Or so he thought.
Rachel bunched her toes and rolled her sole, slapping the elegant shape of her foot back inside the pump. Technically, she’d won the case, at least as far as public record was concerned; no-doubt she could look forward to some hearty unearned congratulations later on. She should feel glad. Instead, she only felt remorse and poisonous moral entrapment. This wasn’t a victory for her, but for ethical corruption.
After Katelyn’s tearful testimony in the private counsel, the charges leveled against Mr. Bennett were so extreme and specific, even Rachel was seriously doubting anything her own client had said was truthful. So, she had to test for herself.
All it took was a few minutes of dangling her shoe from her foot like a carrot on a stick, and Rachel knew she was on the wrong side of right. Even when he thought he was being secretive, Sam bore his macho man’s-man arrogance proudly. He wasn’t at all shy about studying her exposed foot, nor about letting his fly prick up. Rachel felt ill during the en masse exit from the courthouse, especially as she felt Sam’s eyes still glued to her confident gait. The slimy weasel had just been told by the American judicial system that he was allowed to do whatever he wanted, and use women and their feet as disposable playthings.
This wasn’t why she went to law school. Even as a little girl, Rachel dreamed of earning comeuppance for wrongdoers, ensuring justice was dealt wherever it was required. Today, she had failed. That predatory bastard was out, and not only back on the streets, but continuing to climb the corporate ladder. But what else could she do? All night Rachel tossed in bed, wishing she had the answer.
In order to stave off the panic attack meltdown, Sam mentally retraced his steps. Nothing from his morning seemed out of the ordinary: He made coffee in his $900 grinder before leaving the penthouse, made a pit stop at his office high rise, and swung by the law offices of Gianna, Tessa, & Associates. There were just a couple formalities to sign away before the case involving Katelyn was over and done with. Ordinarily Sam wouldn’t bother showing up in person, but it didn’t hurt to establish good relations with a talented bunch of legal snakes for the inevitable next time they had to silence some screeching set of tits for him.
Plus, it would give him one last chance to glimpse Rachel’s feet beneath that crystal-glass desk. He hoped she was wearing something sheer and revealing which let her toes peep out the ends. Even more, he prayed she’d give him one last unintentional dangle-show, perhaps even going so far as to let those imprisoning pumps fall to the floor so her stockinged piggies could pet the floor. All of that tracked just fine, yet here Sam was, not two minutes after he was let into Rachel’s office waiting for her return, and his entire reality was thrown in a blender on high. Something had happened to him. He’d…
Shrunk.
That was the word for it, right? There was simply no other term to describe the sensation of finding oneself reduced to the height of a one-inch tinker toy on the abruptly vast field of shag carpet. His clothes, which remained fitted to his body, were the last tangible reminder of the known. Everything else around had expanded to hundreds of times its former scale, from the skyscraping leaves of the potted plant to the frosted glass fortress that was Rachel’s desk. Sam’s knees gave out and he sunk to his haunches, feeling on the clammy verge of passing out. The man sprawled like a lunk of floor lint between the metallic temple pillars of the chair. Had somebody spiked his coffee beans with the leftover mushrooms from the last company retreat?
Sam clutched his chest, wondering if he was having a stroke or a heart attack, though there was no pain or discomfort, save for his racing pulse. His body had merely plummeted to the size of a kitchen roach with no alteration to his health otherwise. If anything, he was more perturbed at the lack of headache or gastro-intestinal torment. That meant there was absolutely nothing to go on for explaining his bizarre circumstances.
“What the hell is this?” he roared, flinching at the pitiful squeak of his tiny voice. “Who did this? Whatever’s going on, it’s not funny!”
Before the miniature man could even think of whom he might place blame upon first, a more pressing matter appeared. The staggering blockade of the office door swung open on its hinges, and in walked Rachel Morrow.