The familiar sense of vertigo followed by free fall reminded me of my position in the world.

Underfoot. Slave. Toe cleaner.

BOOM

The vibrations from her foot striking the ground was intense, but the accumulated filth at the front of Dianne's shoe had completely locked me into it, it's viscosity too thick to be able to move any of my limbs.

Dianne's big toe lifted along with the rest of her foot, and each time it went up it rubbed the muck up my chest and face, only to come back down and repeat itself, smearing me again. Each time I felt myself sink a tiny bit deeper into the muck.

BOOM

I was scared, delirious. I no longer was thinking about anything that a normal human thought about. My life only consisted of Dianne's sweaty foot and the hot, humid, and salty conditions of her shoe – there was nothing beyond that. No other reality existed for me. I was nothing more than a living pedegg. I had no other option for reality.

Anything else was simply a tease – a test – to see if I forgot my rightful place below Dianne's toes. I no longer was thinking rationally – the horror I experienced under Jen fully rematerialized old thought processes and habits – my behavior that existed in the desperate struggle to survive under Jen's brutal sadism.

I had slaved under Jen until Tracy rescued me. The horrible things I saw and experienced took many months of attentive training and care by Tracy to return me to my normal behavior – to view myself as a person again.

It only took Dianne hours of placing me in her shoe to negate all that.

BOOM

I heard the door to the bathroom slide open, and the shoe came to a stop. The filth had risen closer to my eyes and mouth. I was completely encased.

Dianne's foot began to withdraw. I would have cried in joy but I had no tears to give. I instinctively went to prostrate myself to my toe mistresses but the muck locked me in place, and I couldn't move.

The foot left the confines of the shoe and I could see the white light pour in from the entrance. Fresh air returned and the cool breeze felt cold on my exposed face.

“Mark?” Dianne said. “You in there? You can come out now”

I couldn't, however. Wedged into the filth made it impossible for me to move.

Scared that I wasn't following Dianne's commands, and worried for my life if I didn't heed them, I yelled to indicate my purpose to serve her.

“Dianne! I'm sorry! I'm stuck! Please!” my voice was coarse and I sounded tired.

A hand appeared near the entrance of the shoe. Dianne's black tipped nails looked like sharp axes.

“Stuck? Let me see...” Her gigantic hand entered the shoe. Dianne couldn't possible see me as these ax tipped logs got closer, and I realized she could easily decapitate me if she decided to thrust her finger towards my neck. At least I'd die quickly.

As her fingers got closer to the tip, the shoe was suddenly tilted, and gravity was pushing me down from my back. Dianne's fingers were below me, and each one reached out at me like of huge log of an arm trying to grab at me. One of them, the index, got right up to my face. The blade of her cuticle loomed right in front of my vision, and I began to whimper in fear.

At the last possible second her nail tilted upward, and the soft flesh of her finger tip pressed into my face, sinking my last bit of exposed skin into the filth. Blinded and smothered by toe jam, I was submerged in the gunk, suffocating.

The next minute or so felt like an eternity. I was utterly panicked, futilely trying to pull myself from the filth, but it was hopeless. After suffocating long enough, I passed out.

I was violently awoken to freezing cold water and found myself coughing up bits of filth in my mouth.

Confused, I spasmed in a useless attempt to free myself from whatever new hell I was in. As quickly as I woke, the cold water stopped, and I found myself shivering on a warm alien surface – I could finally see I was lying naked on the strange riverbed that was Dianne's living hand. I embraced the warmth with my naked body and shivered lying in her palm.

Dianne had cleaned my unconscious body off, and her godlike voice boomed from above me. “Sorry Mark. I didn't realize how much dirt had accumulated in my shoe. I guess it's these new pumps. You're the first tiny I've smuggled in them so I didn't realize how different it was until I saw how much gunk was stuck up in the tip.”

I didn't look up at her. I was afraid still that she might be mad at me for not leaving her shoe when I was told to.

“Anyway, I cleaned you up as you were pretty filthy. Thanks for helping me work today and giving me that break, I really appreciate it.”

I shook, still terrified of her, her voice vibrating me through her hand, I simply stared at the ground that was her palm, too afraid to look at her.

“But yea, sorry about that. I didn't notice from up here.” She laughed slightly. “I'll put you back in my shoe and once we're back at the seat I'll remove it so you can get in my purse, from there you will be good until New Zealand. Again, I appreciate everything you did – considering how much gunk you gathered, you did a really good job” her voice sounded slightly bubbly as she praised me.

I wondered if Dianne realized how much of the filth I ate from her toes. I shivered with my head down, my naked body tried to snuggle closer to her skin.

My mind was full of contradictions. Two parts of my brain were in bitter civil war. There was the human part of me – the part of me before I shrank, the part of me that existed in diminishing degrees up until my time with Jen, and the part of me that Tracey dragged out of the abyss – to the point I was nearly feeling like my old self again.

But then there was other part. The tiny part – the slave part – the bug part. The part that I slowly was becoming aware of after being shrunken. The part that Jen had made second nature to me in her sadistic treatment towards me. And, sadly, the part that most reflected reality, ever since I shrank, manifested perfectly with Jen, and manifesting itself again now. This is what made it so difficult.

It was easy to say that I was human. I could think, feel, and reason. But unlike the human I was before, I was no longer fit to be in the world around me. Everyday things were a matter of life or death. Spaces normally meant for a person to simply sleep became intractable environments. Normal sized women became goddesses, who could kill or inflict unimaginable horrors without the slightest effort – without even thinking about it.

So with Dianne praising me for cleaning her toes, the human part of me felt disgusted, humiliated. But the bug part of me felt pride, acceptance – purpose. And since this was the reality I was dealing with...

No! I tried pushing it out of mind, and it felt like my brain was being torn in two directions. I'm a human being! It doesn't matter how small I am!

But then I heard another voice in my head, one that sounded more resigned.

But if you're a human being, why have you spent almost a half a day in this woman's shoe? Why do you feel pride for being told you've done a good job licking from her toes, even though you have almost drowned in her sweat multiple times?

I didn't have an answer. There was only one thing I could think. Sometimes you gotta make sacrifices for a better future.

And my brain was settled. Whatever hell I was in now, this was in the effort for a better future. I may take a few steps back, I may do things or act in ways against my nature – but I can't forget the basic fact. I'm a person, bug sized or not. I had to hold onto that.

Shivering in Dianne's hands, her green eyes staring down at me, made holding onto that prospect incredibly difficult though. The nature of my reality was harder to deny than the thoughts in my head. I was desperately trying to hold onto my sanity, but I wasn't sure how long my willpower would last.

Dianne had cleaned me off. I lied naked on her alien environment of a palm, I was warm and comfortable, the chemical smell of the bathroom felt like fresh air in comparison to her shoe. I looked into her green eyes, Dianne's face conveying a feeling of warmth, and a twinge of sadness. It was the first time it seemed that Dianne seemed to somewhat recognize the hell I had just gone through. It didn't make me happy, sad, or mad. It just left me feeling helpless.

The reality is... the resigned voice said in my head, this woman is your goddess. She can do with you as she pleases.

Dianne began to speak.

“Look, I can tell that this last day has been rough for you. I'm sorry. These are the sacrifices we have to make” Her hand began to lower, and even though it was nothing in comparison to everything I had gone through so far, I knew what was happening and began to sob.

“Shhhh Mark.” Dianne said in a quiet, sympathetic voice. “I know it was hard for you in there, but you only have to make it for another minute back to my chair, then I'll let you out and you'll go into the purse. That's what you would prefer, right?”

She stared at me, I guess expecting a response. I couldn't prevent myself from crying, but I tried not to sob. I knew if I spoke it wouldn't have sounded like anything more than that, and some impulse from Jen's sadism made me think this was all trick, so I simply nodded.

“Alright, Good. You're a brave boy Mark.” She smiled, as I reached her waist, her face appearing like the top of a building now, looking down at me, her blue outfit looked like the side of the same building.

I closed my eyes and prayed it would all be over. When I opened them, I was nearing the bathroom floor, her huge tan legs were on either side of me, looking like great tan towers. Her right shoe was off, and tilted on the side, looking like a large black cave, the insole's heel visible in the light, the rest of the shoe descending into darkness.

She placed me on the floor. I couldn't see her face above me, just her tan legs going into her blue skirt, bent at the knees, nothing else visible past that on her body. But then her face appeared, and part of her blue jacket, she was leaning forward, staring down at me, her immense UFO of a face floating high in the sky.

I shivered, naked, on the bathroom floor. I didn't want to go into Dianne's shoe. But I knew that's what was going to inevitably happen.

That's because you're just a bug, the resigned voice said.

Dianne spoke, her booming voice causing me to vibrate on the floor. “Well Mark, just another minute or two and then you'll be done.” She smiled down at me, and she moved her right foot from the far side of her shoe to the near, blocking the entrance, giving me 20 yards of space from the double decker sized tan flesh. It was dirty along the bottom, but even from here I could tell the difference from where I cleaned it and from where I didn't.

Jen's sadistic instincts suddenly told my brain to start licking, and I took a quick step forward, about to run towards it terrifying fear and begin to lick the side, but I stopped myself.

But that's your purpose...

I shoved it out of my mind, and repeated the word “sacrifices” to myself, trying to remain calm – remain in control.

I looked up at Dianne again, and she was watching me. She must have noticed what happened below her, but I don't think she understood any of it. To her, I was just a silly little man on the floor, one who spent perhaps a bit too long in her shoe. She spoke again.

“Well Mark. I'll leave it to you, but either way you're going back into my shoe.” I looked up at her, the words 'back into my shoe' made me want to cry, but I didn't.

“You can either go into my shoe now, and my foot will join you in there, or...” She picked up her right foot, and huge thing flew towards me before I could react, it was suddenly above me, blocking off my vision of Dianne's face, casting an enormous shadow. The toes began to wiggle only 10 or so yards above me, and then she repositioned her foot, so that the gap between her big and second toe allowed me to see her face far above me.

“... or you can join my foot now, and you can go into my shoe as a couple.” She giggled, and my face turned beat red.

See? You're lucky. You should be honored to go to the shoe ball with this big foot.

I didn't know what to say. It didn't make a difference. Dianne was smiling, her toes wiggling above me. I looked over to the shoe on my left, and the tan ocean ceiling of flesh above me cast a dark shadow on the floor around me before I could see the light on the floor and her shoe further away.

It didn't matter. I looked up at her. “Let's just get this over with” I was proud at myself for the statement, at least giving myself some pride in not choosing between two awful situations, pretending to be brave and indifferent.

Dianne, however, didn't seem to want to recognize this small personal victory. “As soon as you tell me what you want” She said, lowering her toes a little, so that the were only 5 yards above me, before he bobbed them back up again, like she was contemplating squishing me.

She wasn't going to let me have this victory. I sighed.

“I guess I'll go with your foot now.” I said, and as the words came out of my mouth Dianne's lips turned into a beaming smile.

“Good! Then let's get this last act started” Her foot positioned itself over me, almost like she was going to just squash me then and there, but then it retracted, lowered to the floor. She pressed her toes in the plastic below her and her black toenails glistened only yards in front of me.

Dianne spoke again. “Come on. Get between my big and second toe, and then crawl under the second and third. I'll grab you from there, and move you into the shoe.”

Go on, bug. The resigned voice sounded like it was mocking me now.

I did as I was told. I walked in-between Dianne's toes, her big black toe on my right got visibly more dirty as it went from the top of the toe to the bottom. I was only just taller than the top her toe, allowing me to see warped reflection of her ankle off of it. I took one last look at Dianne. She continued to smile down at me, it looked like she loved watching me humiliate myself.

“Come on Marky, time to crawl under my toes” She giggled.

I should have been mad, but the resigned voice just took over instead

Crawl, buggy.

So I crawled, the foot smelling of leather, cheese and vinegar around me. The gap under her second toe was about a yard tall, and even wider, so it was easy for me to crawl into. The tunnel was dark, but the bulges of yellow flesh were still clearly visible, the swirls of her skin looked like finger sized channels. Much of it was caked in filth, and as I crawled further I could feel the wet grime along my naked back.

Dianne didn't wait very long, and my feet hadn't gotten out of the gap between her big and second toe when space around me began to collapse, and the soft slick flesh began to wrap around me, making me instantly hot. I didn't try to resist, and the fear within me was only minor. I was mostly resigned.

The toes squeezed me, making it difficult to breathe but not impossible, and I was lifted into the air, seemingly 30 or 40 yards. Dianne's tan hand with black tipped fingers appeared below me, grabbing the shoe, before it lifted up towards me, becoming larger and larger, until all I could see were the bottom of Dianne's toes, the ball of her foot, the wet black insole below me, and the leather walls of the pump. In only another couple of seconds it was completely black, and stuffy. I was back in her pump, and the heat already quadrupled.

BOOM

The shoe slammed down and I felt slight pressure on my back as Dianne stood up. My face was pressed into the dirty wet pump insole, so I rolled myself over onto my back, scraping the grime from her toes, the heat from them making it feel like I was surrounded by fire. I whimpered as Dianne's toe flesh periodically was pressed into my face, preventing myself from breathing. Otherwise, I was pressed directly against her third toe, every breath I took smelling like moldy cheese, vinegar, and leather.

“Alright Mark” I heard Dianne's voice say. “hold on for a minute”

The bathroom door slid open. The process of being pulled into the shoe, vertigo, and slammed back into the toes as they threw me back into the muddy insole began afresh.

BOOM

I closed my eyes and prayed for it all to be over, cold sweat from the shoe splashing over me as it shifted around me.

BOOM

Dianne's toes began to form fresh globs of sweat. I watched them on the sides of the toes, felt them transfer onto my body as her toes glanced against my face, leaving the acrid sweat burning my lips.

BOOM

It'll be over soon. It'll be over soon. It'll be over soon.

BOOM

The movement stopped, and almost as quickly, the foot above me began to recede, light and fresh air returning to the shoe. I watched in awe as it pulled away from me, the huge thing leaving me wet and cold in the dark cave. Her black nails glistened in the darkness. As it reached the entrance, her toes grabbed the side of the leather pump. She slowly turned it sideways, giving me enough time to prepare for the wall to become the floor, for once in a long while this reorientation didn't leave me to fall and hurt myself.

This was my chance, I realized, and I ran towards the exit. As I got near the entrance of the shoe, I saw for the first time anything outside of the shoe on the plane that wasn't the bathroom. The environment was gray. I could see that her left foot was still in it's pump about 50 yards away. There was another seat adjacent to it, but nobody was there, and after that, an isle, with huge women appearing to be over a 1000 yards away.

I finally was standing at the entrance, the only thing separating me from the plane was the side of the shoe, now my floor, which provided me a 5 or so yard drop. Looking left, there was a wall and Dianne's purse about 100 or so yards away under the seat, to the right, row after row shoes and bags and feet. I felt overwhelmed. There were hundreds of women in here, each of them a world on their own to me.

I shivered naked in the cold air of the plane, I suddenly felt like I should go back into the sultry cave of the shoe. But instead I jumped down, and I must have been damper than I realized because the plastic surface slipped out below me and I fell on my face. I lay their disoriented for a second, but a loud crack startled me and I looked up.

Dianne was tapping her big toe directly in front of me, filling me with a sense of urgency. I tried to look up at her but she was looking forward; I understood that she wanted me to be quick. Out here I could be seen, and it was dangerous. I tried to stand but the tapping of her toe kept shaking me, and I desperately tried to brace myself.

TAP

I gave up on standing and began to crawl. But before I made it far, the world around me shook faintly, and became more and more pronounced over the whir of the plane, until the thunder of footsteps could be no longer denied.

boom BOOM BOOM

I couldn't move, the vibrations were too intense, I was just on all fours staring at the floor, praying this all to be over. As the final boom hit, I was cast in a dark shadow, and I heard a voice.

“What is that!?”

Dianne took her shoe off and Mark crawled out of it. She waited for a second for him to make her way to her purse, but the tiny man seemed disoriented. In a desperate attempt to get him to move, she began tapping her foot, but that only seemed to disorient him more.

She stopped tapping but what she saw made her heart sink. She could see Sarah coming back from her rounds. Sarah was a blond girl, and younger than her, probably over 25, easily making Dianne 10 years her senior. Her hair was tied back into a pony tail, and her eyes were dark blue. Her skin, while not tan, wasn't pale either. She had red lipstick on. Like many stewardesses, her time standing on planes gave her calves a healthy look, and she was only maybe a tiny bit thicker than Dianne, more curvy. Her face didn't look as sharp, and her rounded cheeks made her look quite cute. She wore the exact same outfit as Dianne, but instead of pumps she opted for black flats. Standing, Dianne would have been taller than her, but only because of the heel on her pump, otherwise, they were around the same height.

Dianne watched everything unfold and could do nothing to stop it. Sarah lumbered over, stopping at her chair to sit down, they only had about 15 minutes to rest before they had to start serving breakfast.

As she got in front of her seat, she leaned down to remove her headphones from the chair, bending forward to grab the objects took her head directly above the tiny man below her. Dianne tried to shield him with her foot, hoping Sarah, wouldn't see him, but the expression on her face, and the look in her eyes as she looked at Dianne, revealed all. She'd been caught.

“What is that!?” Sarah exclaimed, more surprised that anything else as she sat down in her chair.

Dianne had to think quickly if she wanted to salvage this situation. Tiny smuggling was a serious offense, and since they still hadn't gone through customs, the rules that applied were still the rules from the home country. In this case, Mark wouldn't survive the rest of the trip. Protocol would be to dispose of him – they didn't really care how, but the most common way was simply down the toilet. She heard some flight's stewardesses made it a point to get the passengers to not flush until somebody had to take a #2, the thought being if other tinies heard about this the gruesome nature of it would discourage further smuggling, although Dianne simply suspected that the staff found it amusing. She, however, would be charged with a crime, lose her job, and most importantly, never be able to smuggle a tiny again.

“Shhh!” Dianne said, putting her voice to her lips. She knew she had a chance with Sarah. Although Sarah didn't agree with Dianne on men's rights, Dianne and her had worked together and been friends for a few years now, and, most importantly, Dianne didn't reveal her own feeling towards the rights of tiny men. Hopefully she knew enough of Sarah to convince her not to report this. She'd have to be careful in her approach.

“Shhh me? You know how much trouble you could get in for this!” Sarah said again, still not lowering her voice. It was still early in the morning, and most of the other passengers were either asleep or had headphones in, so nobody noticed.

Dianne's response flowed out of her mouth naturally, and she was surprised by it herself. “Look, please, don't say anything. It's just so damn comfortable, and you know how long these flights are...” She was careful not to say 'he' as that would give away the game.

Sarah looked at Dianne and grinned. “You like to dance close to the fire, don't ya?” She laughed and looked down at the tiny man, her voice sounded a bit like a valley girl.

Dianne shrugged, slightly relieved at Sarah's response. She wasn't out of the fire yet, however. She glanced down at Mark, and saw him shivering, he looked like a deer in the headlights. She felt a pang of sorrow, because she knew that this was not the road he wanted to be on. There were only two options now, one of them horrible, the other death. But he knew these were the risks.

Sarah spoke again. “I can't believe you'd do this. And to New Zealand of all places! Like, were you even thinking?”

Dianne gulped in nervousness. “Well it's just these long flights – my feet ache – and I know we have those trips planned for our time off in New Zealand, and you know, with it being illegal in New Zealand... I just didn't think it through, ok? Please, don't say anything.”

Dianne and Sarah had a few days off between longer flights like this. They'd been meaning to do a bit of a hike/camping trip together while they were here, knowing that New Zealand was full of majestic beauty. Her instincts to reference their plans proved useful, and Sarah clearly thought about this.

“You're right about that. The hikes would be a lot more pleasant if we could, like, bring inserts along with us, duh. You could get in a lot of trouble for this still. And I could too now that I know about it! You should really get rid of … it” Sarah knew the trouble she could get in now as well, being associated with Dianne, and so chose her words carefully too. She lifted her right foot up, bringing her black flat closer to the tiny boy.

“No!” Dianne said, and the desperation in her voice almost betrayed her. She thought quickly to recover story. “It's just that... this is the best insert I've ever gotten, it be a shame to just waste him like that.”

Sarah rose one eye and looked at Dianne skeptically. This was at a point where tiny prices were near record lows, and only celebrity tinies really held any great values. Even the best trained tinies weren't worth more than a couple of hundred dollars, and you could easily get decent bulk tinies for the price of a dollar a man. Still, she had experience with tiny inserts, and reflected on a time she got one who was supposed to be a bottom barrel tiny, but felt absolutely divine under her, on top of the fact that he was funny too, and made her laugh more then she had ever laughed in her life.

One time on a particularly hot day Sarah had gone out for a jog with him in her shoe. She had been doing wood runs, going up and down hills and splashing through puddles, for about two hours. The whole way he was trapped under her arch, cushioning her blows as she ran over roots and gravel, straining her legs up particularly steep slopes and using short choppy steps down even steeper ones. Normally, her feet would ache about an hour in, but her the foot with her tiny insole still felt great. She took off her shoe to switch him (at this point there wasn't another insert that could keep with her to match the comfort level, so best practices said that you should rotate inserts so that one foot doesn't become overworked) and the tiny man said nothing, but he was clearly drenched in sweat, breathing heavily, and looked like he had just finished running a marathon himself. She dropped him in her other shoe, making sure he was positioned to support her under her arch, and kept running, quickly forgetting about him. It was fantastic. She was enjoying the fresh pine air and the wind upon her exposed limbs, and most importantly, her feet didn't ache at all. By the time she was done, she was pouring in sweat, and enjoyed a pleasant walk back in the shaded forest, each step she could feel liquid ooze from the sole of her shoe, a combination of sweat and puddles she had trampled through.

She got back to her car and attempted to start it. Nothing but the struggling whir of the engine attempting to turnover. It wouldn't start. Frustrated, she slammed her feet down, and felt the tiny man in her shoe pressing against her arch. It felt amazing – he was immediately hitting a pressure point. As he continued to massage her sore, sweaty feet from within her wet sneakers, she decided she might as well make the most of it, and removed her shoes.

Even from her seat far above him, the smell was noticeable. Her running shoes weren't exactly new at that point. She rolled down her window to breathe fresh air, and then watched the tiny crawl out of shoe, he was soaked, gasping for air. Sarah giggled at this, her white feet twitched in front of him, and the tiny man knew what to do. She lowered them down so that her toes were only about an inch off the ground, and she watched the tiny man walk up to her toes, and begin to rub the bottoms of them. He was an expert at this.

As she sat there flipping through her phone, waiting for AAA to arrive, the tiny man spoke to her.

“What's the problem?” he said, pulling on her second toe with both her arms with all his might, attempting stretch it. He then got under her toe to flex it upwards. Sarah, knowing the tiny man wasn't big enough to push it up all the way, lowered her foot to the ground, so the tiny man was straining under the weight to keep it up in the air above him. The stretch felt nice, and tiny mans huffs and puffs against her sweaty skin was a pleasant sensation.

“Oh my car broke down. Super annoying” Sarah said, her little man collapsing under her toe, getting pinned on his back to the floor. His face was sticking out just on the side, allowing her to view his face between her toes. He looked incredibly cute like that.

Without missing a beat, the tiny man responded. “Well did you call a toe-truck?”

Sarah didn't expect the response, and began dying with laughter. Looking back on it, the joke wasn't that funny, but as she was tired after the run, the way he said it without missing a beat, his expression and current predicament – it was just hilarious. It was one of those moments in her life that she would never forget.

The thought made her sad. She only had him for a month, and it was the only time she had ever felt any affection towards a tiny man. By the last week she had thought she would have him for life, and the thought of having somebody pampering her toes at all times like he did made her wish for the times she still had him.

Sadly, she had foolishly decided to lend him to her mother after gossiping about how awesome he was. She never found out what happened to him. All her mother would say was that tinies are a dime a dozen and not to worry about it. Her mother had gotten her ten replacements. Most didn't survive a single run.

Back in the present. Sarah looked down at the tiny man on the floor, and she suddenly reminded him of that tiny man from her past, especially based on Dianne's own words.

She suddenly felt jealous, and decided to turn the situation to her advantage, knowing that Dianne would have no choice anyway.

“Like, If I didn't know any better, I would say this looks an awful lot like smuggling.” She cracked a smile mostly joking as she said it.

Dianne became nervous, but knew she had to choose her next words carefully. “SHHH! That's ridiculous. It's just a valuable insert is all.” Sarah continued to smile.

“Well is it so valuable you wouldn't share it with your friend? You know the one you've heard say multiple times about how much she'd love to have one?” Sarah knew she had Dianne cornered with this.

Dianne respectively, knew she was pinned, so she said the only thing she could think of to prevent everything from being ruined.

“Well now that you know, I see no reason not to share” Dianne sounded normal, almost like she was splitting a soda.

The tiny man on the ground was now looking up at Sarah, trembling. For being such a valuable insert Sarah thought he sure does shake a lot. She giggled down at him.

“Ok cool” Sarah said, as she took her right flat to peel of the bottom of her left, leaving her toes still inside. She removed her right foot from her shoe, and hung it over the tiny man below her.

“Just till we get back to the states, ok? Then you can have it back.” Sarah smirked, ecstatic that she was going to have a tiny insert throughout her whole New Zealand vacation, and based on what Dianne said, an extremely comfortable one.

Dianne didn't expect that statement. She had to scramble, knowing that if Sarah had him through her whole trip there was a good chance he would never gain asylum in New Zealand.

“The whole trip! No way. I was really looking forward to using it on our hike” It was the only thing she could think to say. She hoped it was reasonable.

Sarah, however, didn't expect her to agree to anything but the flight itself, so she pounced on the deal. “Yea that's fine with me. We can share it for the hike”

Both of the women looked down at the tiny man as Sarah's right foot steadily lowered onto him. Sarah was excited, these last hours of flight were always the worst, seeming to drag on forever, and she had another round of meal service to do, her feet already sore from the hours of standing.

Dianne, respectively, watched the tiny man shake below her. While her facial expression remained neutral, she felt pained to see him so terrified. But these were the risks we take, and luckily, he hadn't gotten flushed down the toilet. She'd have to contact the railroad and see if they could work on an escape plan, at this point, she was thinking they'd meet her on the hike.

The blond women loomed above me, her dark blue eyes staring down at me below.

I was fucked, I knew. This is one of those worst case scenarios that I had heard about from my time on the railroad.

You're a bug. The resigned voice said. It almost made me more accepting of the situation.

There were rumors about what happened to tinies who got caught in flights. The stories always varied, but the end was always the same. Death. He hoped that if this Sarah woman didn't crush him, Dianne would crush him just to prevent something horrible from happening.

The stories varied. There was the typical stomping of course, but sometimes they would make tiny tea, dropping the little man alive into boiling hot water so the stewardess could have something refreshing to drink, his little screams wouldn't last very long but were always a delight to hear.

Then there was being dismembered and eaten. Sometimes they would just rip you apart right then and there and hand your little limbs out to the stewardesses, other times they would nibble at you, handing you from stewardess to stewardess, the one who's bite killed you was the loser, and would have to buy everyone a round of drinks.

The most common story, however, was of the lavatory. They'd place you in the toilet, and put a sign above it saying not to flush. Then they'd simply forget about you, as the women did their business assuming that they shouldn't flush due to some kind of problem, as you steadily waded around in the filth until you either drowned from the struggle or were buried alive in feces.

The concept was horrible and gross.

I looked up, and Dianne and Sarah were still talking, the whir of the airplane loud, and I was trembling in fear too much to hear what they were saying, but I looked at Sarah. She had red lipstick on, and her white fingernails contrasted with Dianne's black. Her blond ponytail fell behind her back, and her face, while not as sharp was as Dianne's, was more voluptuous and cute. Clearly younger, her body was curvier, and her thighs and butt were a bit thicker. A beautiful woman if I had been normal sized, now, just another thing to be terrified of.

I was dead. It might have made sense to run but there was nowhere to go, and I probably would have just been accidentally squashed by one of the other women on the plane – if I was lucky. So I sat still, on all fours, looking up at Sarah, her long blond hair pulled back behind her head, her cute face staring down at me, her cheeks were puffier than Dianne, but she didn't look fat – just healthy. Her lips were a solid red in color. She looked to be far in the sky, like Dianne, but if Dianne looked like a building from Italy, Sarah looked like a new German high rise. I traced my vision past her stewardess uniform, down her white legs, to her black flats. Off to my right she had her right foot closest to me. It was black and worn along the bottom, her huge foot sticking out of it seemed to look like a massive fleshy hill, I could make out the bones and muscles along the top of it as they flexed in the shoe well above me. In comparison to Dianne's pump, the thing had a lower profile, but based on what I could see of her foot, Sarah's foot appeared to be about the same size.

The talking continued, and I began to hear what they were saying, only in bits and pieces over my own distracted mind and the whir of the airplane. The voices vibrated through me as they spoke, and I found myself staring and Sarah's huge flat off in the distance.

“...It's just a valuable insert is all” Said one of them.

“... you wouldn't share it with your friend?” Said the other.

“...I see no reason not to share” said the first.

The ship sized flat lifted into the air suddenly, unnaturally, and with it the pale tower it was attached to. It moved off into the sky, before lowering back down to Sarah's left flat hundreds of yards away from me. I could see the discolored sole of her right flat, it was well worn, and the grooves along the bottom seemed to be mostly smoothed off, it's black color no longer uniform but appeared to have white stains, huge chunks of dirt wedged into the area between the heel of the shoe and the arch.

The right flat pressed into the back of the left, her toes picked up in the process, warping the ship of the flat around it, revealing the gaps between her toes even off ever at this distance. I heard a “fwoomp” and the back of her left foot revealed itself, the heel of it appeared to be at least 20 yards into the air, and even from here I could see the discoloration of it, it was slightly red in comparison to the arch, and had a gray white sheen from a thick callous. The muscles in her ankles flexed far above that, looking like steps carved out of a mountain.

In a flash, her right foot was now out her shoe, and swooping back towards me, it moved so quickly, covering the hundred or more yards in an instant, a gust of foot smelling wind dragged along with it, that I was cast back in shadow. Above me by 30 or so yards was Sarah's foot, and she flexed her toes, making the bottom of her foot like like a strangely white ocean rippling with waves, the ball of her foot had an even thicker callous – each of her toes calloused themselves, darker in color than the rest of her skin. They looked to be taunting me.

Look, your newest mistress. The voice emerged in my head again.

“...Just till we get back to the states, ok? Then you can have it back...”

My heart sank. I tried not to think about what was happening, but it was too late.

Dianne was giving me to Sarah for the trip? Until I'm back in the states? Does she even work for the railroad at all? How could she do this?

It's because you're a bug, Mark. The voice said.

But then my voice came back. No! You'd be dead otherwise, that's why.

Still, I wasn't sure.

The voices kept going, but I was mesmerized by the foot looming above me, the white toes were bobbing up and down, curling and uncurling. They looked eager, like monstrous dogs about to be fed.

I finally recognized the voices again and heard Sarah speaking.

“ ...Yea that's fine with me. We can share it for the hike...”

For the hike? The thought scared me, but I didn't have time to dwell on it. The shadow around me began to get darker and larger, and I looked up.

Both of the women were staring at me, far off in the sky, the gray of the plane around them. Sarah's dark blue eyes twinkled with anticipation, she appeared to be grinning form ear to ear, as her white foot slowly lowered onto me, squirming with anticipation.

Dianne's facial expression didn't change, it looked totally neutral, almost indifferent towards me. Her green eyes looked into me and made me feel like she was watching a bug, like she was wondering if it made a noise when it got squashed.

The white wall of leathery flesh continued to lower, soon blocking my vision of anything else but it above me. My new world, I knew instinctively. My newest mistress.

I felt the heat as it got closer, and could see the details more clearly. It wasn't as dirty as Dianne's foot, or wet – but it clearly had a sheen along the bottom, a mix of oil and sweat from her time working on the plane, bits of debris coating the bottom. There was some gunk between the toes, but it was lighter in color, and not nearly as thick. Her callouses in contrast with her skin made it seemed darker, more of a dark gray coloration in comparison to the normal skin, and there was a hard, yet smoothed off part under the ball, leading to torn flesh along the sides, patches of dirt caked on throughout it. It kept coming down, taking up more of the sky above me until it appeared to go off in all directions endlessly. Her arch wasn't as high as Dianne's, but she certainly wasn't flat footed.

At this point I thought Sarah was going to keep moving her foot down, and press me into the floor slowly under the callous on the ball of her foot, crushing me once and for all. Instead, she shifted it down and away from me right as it knocked me lower onto the floor. I turned around to look up and saw her toes positioned over me. They weren't as long or slender as Dianne's, nor were they short and pudgy. I saw Sarah's eyes briefly through her second and third toes as it was positioned over me, the environment becoming stuffy, the smell a mixture of feet and soap, before collapsing onto me, her flesh slightly colder than Dianne's but still instantly warming me up, pressing my naked body to the cold airplane floor. I let out a slight whimper.

Her toes then dragged me back and forth, rolling me around, the oil and sweat from Sarah's foot making my body feel greasy. It got into my mouth and tasted of salt, burning my eyes at the same time. Her foot didn't taste as strongly of vinegar, but there was still a splash of it, and the cheese had more of a fresh taste, but mixed with soap. I was harshly rolled under her toes for a bit, and I heard Sarah giggle, sounding a bit like a valley girl as she did it, the callous under third toe knocking into my head as I rolled towards it each time, and felt like I was getting punched in the face as I was roughly dragged along the floor.

After about 5th or 6th hit, I could see stars on the edge my vision, but the rolling stopped. All I could see now was the bottom of this girls toe, I was right below the joint on her digit, and there was a small layer of gray lint gathered in there. It smelled of fresh cheese and a splash of vinegar, and her flesh surrounded me, it was softer under her toes where I was in comparison to Dianne's thinner leaner ones.

There was a pause, and I could hear only myself breathing and the whir of the airplane as the flesh above me twitched. I eventually could feel her pulse shooting through me.

Then the toes wrapped around me, forcing all the air from my lungs as I was shoved deeply into the cocoon that was her toes, my mouth forced roughly open from the extreme pressure on my chest, and filling it with the oily flesh of the bottom of Sarah's toe. I wriggled desperately, but it didn't make a difference, and my vision slowly began to fade as my squirming turned to involuntary spasms.

As I was about to black out, I found myself breathing, surrounded by a rush of air and white light. I was in free fall.

I slammed into the white surface, it felt like hardened leather, and the wind was knocked out of me, stars shooting in my eyes. I simply gasped at first, face down looking at the white floor, unsure of what was happening, where I was, it smelled of feet and faint leather.

It only took a few breaths to remember, and I looked up, seeing a black wall only about double my height surrounding me on all sides – except behind me. Behind me was Sarah's left foot, already inserted into the tip of the shoe, her heel suspended 20 or so yards above me, rough and discolored, but the swirls on her flesh from here were visible, and it looked like shimmering puddles, which turned to white waves of leather and she flexed her foot above me.

You're blessed said the resigned voice You get to serve your goddess as the insole that you are.

There was nothing I could do, and the foot began to lower itself upon me, the details of her foot becoming larger and taking up all my vision while the environment got darker, warmer, and stuffier around me. The last thing I could see were the shiny swirls on her oily flesh of her arch as it fell on top of me, pushing me down into the hard sole below, entombing me in my newest hot cheesey prison.