It was still slow going, and every time Sam was foolish enough to gaze back up to the top, he would become momentarily entranced by the lethargic visage of that elegant sole. So intricately detailed with a roadmap of creamy wrinkles and impressionistic hues of flesh tone ranging across the warm spectrum, that scape was a sight for demented eyes. And Sam had certainly been treated to so many irregularities and bizarre horrors this day, that he couldn’t even fault himself for taking a lustful glance at that broad, meaty sole which had just spent all morning tormenting him in the shoe-dungeon.

            Forty-five minutes later, moving at the speed of a snail, Sam reached as high as he could in the shoe. The leather clasp which encased the lower architecture of Rachel’s slender ankle acted as a firm barrier to escape. Shivering, the little man felt himself hesitating to act, which was still not becoming any more comfortable of a sensation, despite the numerous occasions today that he’d been forced to feel lost. What if he spoke up to signal he’d completed her ridiculous demands, only to have the giant woman, who wasn’t even deigning to watch him make the treacherous climb, flicked him in the skull with her pinky toe again as a punishment for speaking? He wouldn’t put it past the vengeful shark at this point, and Sam was far too weary and desperate for emergency services at this point to test her. So, he waited.

            Eventually, Rachel seemed to finish whatever task she had on her computer, or simply bored of it, and set aside some spare attention for the miniature human life trapped down in her shoe. The cool and reserved brunette, steely as ever, leaned back in her swivel chair. Her fingers plucked her glasses off the bridge of her nose, and she peeked under the lenses. Pupils dilating slightly at the sight of her client cowering and shaking from muscular exhaustion at the peak of her shoe, Rachel smiled.

            She took hold of the glass precipice of the desk and knelt beneath again, though she was in no hurry to relieve Sam. Even as her free hand floated above the opening in the brown leather high heel, the cutthroat lawyer still only tapped her fingernails with percussive clarity on the harder inner cusp, but did not reach inside to grab him. The act was just as meticulous as that done with her toes when her foot was still actively daring Sam to step out of line so she could push him back down to the briny toe section with her boat-sized ped.

            Eventually, her long index finger fished inside. Sam, on the verge of letting go, went limp just as the soft pad of Rachel’s forefinger curled beneath his gut and flipped the man onto his back. She caught the scruff of his dirtied suit with her fingernail before he could slide back down.

            “Where do ya think you’re off to there, little guy?” she cooed. Ironically, this babied timbre angered Sam even more than her callous and cavalier voice from earlier. “You made it to the top, just like I asked you! Why are you trying to get back down into that shoe, huh? Is there something down there you forgot, maybe?”

            “No,” Sam grunted. It took all his effort not to front-load the sarcasm.

            “Well, that’s good. But there must be another reason you seem to want to go back down there again and again, no matter how many times I ask you to come out!”

            “Gravity.”

            “Oooh, somebody’s a clever little bug,” Rachel snarked. “Actually, I think it just has more to do with that foot fetish of yours, and your sickening desire to use and abuse any woman who comes into your path, so long as she’s willing to fuck your slimy cock with her toes. Case in point…”

            Still keeping Sam pinned to the sloped insole with her index finger, Rachel carefully slid her thumb inside as well, and grazed her manicured nail along the tiny human’s torso. Though only a small motion, it yielded a reaction from both; Sam instinctively shuddered at even fleeting contact upon his unfortunately awakened genitals, and Rachel felt the distinct little micro-nub through the man’s pants. Her grin widened.

            “Just as I suspected,” she drawled.

            Sam gnawed his tongue again. It wasn’t his fault. He definitely wasn’t receiving sexual satisfaction or gratification from any of this cruel madness. At best, he had a half-chub, and that was only from the adrenaline and from laboriously dragging his body up the soft hill of the shoe. Anyone would end up a little aroused in those circumstances. Surely Rachel could understand that, no matter how much she hated him.

            “Please. Let me out. I reached the top. Can… we talk?” Sam groaned, just as Rachel’s thumbnail passed over his waist again, flicking with feather-strength at his pants tent. He flinched again, warmed to the core in spite of himself, and only became more furious. As it was, it took all his strength to parse that request out without inserting an insult.

            “You sure? It seems like Samuel Junior-Junior doesn’t want to get out of the shoe,” Rachel commented. Her cheeks flushed pinker. “You get it? Because you’re already small, I can’t call your dick “Samuel Junior,” because that’s you. Yours is so small, we have to use two juniors.”

            “I get it.”

            “Fantastic. What you didn’t seem to get, though, is that at no point did I promise to take you out of the shoe,” Rachel said, not bothering to hide her smirk. She let loose a lilting giggle. “I just said we’d have a talk once you had the chance to spend some quality time down there with the thing you love most, plus proved that you can follow simple directions by climbing back up. And you did that, which means you deserve a reward. So talk. Why should I tell a single soul about what’s happened to you, squirt?”

            Unsure which part of what she’d just said made him madder, Sam refocused his energy on damage control. He was in a serious pickle; he could see that. After all, he was shrunken inexplicably to an inch tall, currently being gently crucified to a high heel insole by a woman’s fingertip, while her thumb casually toyed with his humiliating semi-erection in the name of proving that he was aroused by this torture. This was no time to tempt fate.

            He’d gotten himself out of trouble time and time again. Now was the moment to put those skills to use.

            “Because you’re… a lawyer,” Sam began. “You believe in the legal system, and the idea of everyone deserving a defense, regardless of how you feel about their level of guilt in a situation. You don’t like me. I get that. I probably deserve it, from you and other people. I’ve made mistakes, after all. But does that really make it right to condemn me alone?”

            Rachel studied her client where he lay spread-eagle inside her shoe, at the mercy of her two fingers. He nibbled the corner of her lip, frowned, and then united her forefinger and thumb nails. The scruff of that suit was easily pinched between the keratin plates, and Sam was plucked from the dark mouth of the shoe.

            Feeling less secure than ever, Sam shut his eyes and crossed his arms in a useless attempt to keep his suit from falling away. It did anyway, of course, unable to support his minute weight, and a few seconds later he plummeted, but just for a breath, before he plopped on the waiting expanse of Rachel’s open palm. He watched with some consternation as his suit, a tailored number he’d picked up from an Italian outlet, was discarded into Rachel’s garbage can like a gum wrapper.

            She was just trying to get to him. He knew that. But Sam couldn’t let her break him so easily.

            “All right, smooth talker. You got what you wanted. You’re out of the shoe. But we’re going to proceed MY way now.”

            Isn’t that all we’ve done, Sam wanted to demand, but he kept his mouth shut.

            “Okay,” he said.

            “Take off your clothes.”

            “What?”

            “What did I JUST say to you before?” Rachel spat; the spitfire in her returned to the surface. “You got yourself this far. I’m willing to listen. But we’re going to give you a polygraph test.”

            “Polygraph test? How is me being even more vulnerable supposed to-”

            “You think you’re not vulnerable already? You think those little clothes will do you any good if I decide you haven’t learned the lesson well enough yet?” Rachel mocked. “You have until I reach the count of ten to start stripping, or you’re going back in the shoe, under my heel, not my toes, and you won’t be coming out until bedtime. Ready? EIGHT… NINE… T-”