I slept in Rachel's bag that night, after a long time spent on the balcony, occasionally speaking in hushed tones, but mostly just sitting together and watching clouds pass over the stars. The next day was the game, and I was roughly awoken by the blaring of the alarm clock. There was a great deal of commotion in the hotel room, running around, finding lost socks, brushing teeth, and a whole lot of Kelly and Rachel getting each other pumped for the upcoming competition.

            “Ready?” Kelly asked.

            “Let's do it!” Rachel called, snapping up the bag.

            The rest of the morning was a bit of a blur, punctuated by a small spoonful of neon yellow, continental breakfast eggs being surreptitiously deposited near me, and then the wild rush of chants and cheers the entire bus ride to the field.

            Finally in the locker room, the zipper whipped open and I saw Rachel's face peering down. She gave a sly wink and pulled out her pants, shirt, and compression shorts, an action that caused a wave of chaos around me, bobbing me around like a cork on a cloth sea. Unfortunately, my particular angle prevented me from seeing her change, but soon enough her cheery visage returned, swiveling around to make sure nobody was looking or paying attention.

            “Hey.” She whispered.

            “Hey.” I responded, “Ready for the game?”

            “You know it.” She said, “Are you?”

            “What?” I asked.

            “If you're good luck in the stands, then you'll be great luck on the field.” She said.

            “Uh...” I hummed.

            “Better hope you cleaned the inside of those cleats, otherwise it's gonna be a rough day for you.” She smirked.

            “Oh.” I said, “Oh no.”

            “Get in there.” She looked around again, “All the way to the end, okay?”

            Had she forgotten how her socks nearly drowned me? What was her plan for avoiding that? I didn't have time to argue the point, and part of me, perhaps still high off of last night's confessions, didn't really want to. I clambered up the clean outside of Rachel's shoe and flopped my way into the insides, scampering up to the considerably more humid toe area. Deep impressions of her foot were pressed into the soft surface like moon craters, dark with sweat and dirt, reeking with a stale odor.

            Rachel's finger hooked inside the cleat and deposited it onto the floor, a swaying elevator ride that left me vaguely nauseous. I heard the squeaks and scuffs of the other shoe being put on, saw a flash of a two-toned tube sock, and then, like a miracle or a mirage, five bare toes appeared at the opening of my dewy prison. The stirrup and leg warmer trick: Rachel, you mad genius. Like a tidal wave, her toes overtook me, smashed me into the end of the shoe, demolished all light, and came to rest over me. I was beneath their arch, barely able to move. I heard the whizzing sound of her laces being tied, the soft crunch of the leather settling into place, and then there was nothing but her weight in the darkness.

            Whoosh! Like the worst part of every roller coaster, I felt my guts hit my brain case when she took that first step forward, and then slam! A whale fall or a building smashing into the ground all around me, but somehow not on me. Her mass spread out over her sole, just barely exposing me to the pressure before it all lifted at once and then whoosh! The ride started over.

            It didn't take long for Rachel's toes to start sweating, even before the game began. A glisten at first, a barely perceptible shift in the air saturation, but I knew it would soon drive up on a logarithmic scale. I couldn't quite make out the muffled speech of their captain, but very quickly all of the girls were clapping, cheering, and stomping their feet, an act which sent me bouncing like a pinball between the undersides of Rachel's toes and the spongy insole, kicking up a long buried miasma.

            The team ran to the dugout. There was probably a load of game opening pageantry, but down below and underfoot, I was none-the-wiser. Rachel's toes were now wiggling, rubbing against each other and all over my tiny body, smothering me for moments at a time and covering me in a layer of salty grime. I heard the crack of a ball being hit clearly through the shoe, and knew that in at least two more batters, we would be up.

            Swing, stomp, swing, stomp, swing, stomp: Rachel approached the batter's box, a near-deafening series of bangs pealed through my ears as she knocked the dirt out of her cleats with the end of her bat. As she got into position her toes slid forward, ball of her foot nearly sucking me underneath, and then a great whirling as she pivoted and swung.

            “Steeee-rike!” I heard the umpire's shrill cry.

            Rachel dug in, more weight on my fragile form, beads of sweat beginning to form on her toes and dribble down to me. Another turn, another swing, and I heard a sound like thunder. I kicked against the slippery insole and tried to brace myself beneath and between the aspine monoliths that surrounded me.

            Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! A sprint to first base which would surely have killed me if I'd not prepared myself beforehand. What in the world was I thinking climbing in here? Rachel was far above me, practically ignorant of my presence and the fact that she could easily annihilate me, and here I was, nothing but dirt in her shoe, trying not to get flattened by her apocalyptic steps.

            The thought of Rachel accidentally snuffing me out like some unseen insect nearly made me come in my pants. Regardless of that frankly Freudian revelation, however, I knew I had to keep myself alive. She'd never forgive either of us if something bad happened.

            I tried to climb over her toes to reach their tops, but the slick sides and tight gap made it impossible. I heard another crashing hit and we were off, my miniature form immediately squeezed with the clenching of her digits.

            I was nearly unconscious by the time she crossed home plate, but heard her voice distantly say something about the bathroom. Several ginger steps later, blinding light and the unmistakable scent of tile cleaner invaded my senses. Rachel's concerned countenance appeared in the halo of the collar.

            “Hey, you alright in there? I felt you moving around a lot.” She asked.

            I coughed in response, before peeling myself up, shaking my head, and falling right back down into a toe print. “I might not fit in here.”

            “Hmm...” Rachel mused, “What if I just made you smaller?”

            “You, what? You can...?” I sputtered.

            “Yeah, hang on.” She said, and suddenly I was shrinking again, the inside of the cleat expanding into a colosseum all its own, Rachel's face growing more distant by the second, now barely recognizable in this distorted, enormous world.

            “I gotta get back.” Her voice was thunder now, “Good luck!”

            Five dirty toes reappeared, but now they outsized me the way the Jupiter outsizes Mars. Adrenaline electrified my movements as I scrambled away, but it was with growing horror I realized, as her foot grew closer and the light dimmed, that no matter how much I ran, I wouldn't be able to make it out of the crater left on the insole from previous use. I was literally at ground zero for one of Rachel's toes, and there was nothing I could do about it.

            How can I describe the feeling of it landing on me? I could tell you to imagine the sky falling, or what a dinosaur experienced during the cretaceous extinction event, or how all those little pompeians must have felt looking up at that falling blanket of ash from Vesuvius, but I don't think any of that would really help. All I can tell you is it landed on me like a natural disaster. I was pressed down by that ruddy, clammy toe and practically pancaked as she took her first step, the weight winkling out drops of sweat from both the floor and ceiling of my soon-to-be tomb.

            I suppose she must have realized it, though, because she kicked her foot against the floor, toe lifted, and dislodged me up to the end of the shoe, causing me to bounce back, and slap hard against the front of her big toe, just below the nail. I stuck to it like a bug against a windshield, before pushing myself off, rolling away slightly, and finally collapsing into a heap in the now spacious area.

             If she hadn't noticed, I would have become a smear the first time she took off running. My iron-like erection slipped free of my pants, as if in recognition of this revelation, and I was too exhausted to tuck it back in.

            One benefit of my newfound, smaller size, outside of not being squeezed like a tube of toothpaste with each step, was its relatively lower mass which, I think, is what kept me stuck to the pungent insole more easily. Despite every alarm siren ringing through my amygdalan pathways, it was actually safer this way.

            I lay there in that inky, mephitic darkness for a while, helpfully cemented in place by the strange physics of being so small, wondering how I'd ended up there, what strange confluence of events had possibly led to this, if I hadn't decided to sit in the lounge that night would-

            Rachel must have dived for a catch, because I was suddenly upended, flipped around, temporarily levitating, and then slamming back down with a wet smack. In that abrupt application of g-forces I had managed to be transferred from my relatively safe position at the head of the shoe to the area just ahead of her second and third toes, where the edges bulged outward but did not touch the ground, equidistant from either one's presence, but still dangerously close to both.

            They bared down on me like twin monoliths, and in those moments when Rachel stepped forward or idly scrunched them, they would converge, mash together along the midline I inhabited, and just barely brush against my tiny erection as they intersected with one another. The first time it happened I immediately came, an unexpected orgasm which would have probably made me seize had I not been more-or-less stuck in place. Without being aware of it, just by walking on me, Rachel had extracted another ounce, and the thought of her ignorance and apathy at the moment was enough to obliterate my refractory period. Five or so meetings of flesh on flesh later, I erupted a second time.

            By the end of the seventh inning I had been milked dry, my pants had basically been disintegrated by the relentless groping of Rachel's toes, I was soaked in the great globes of sweat which had rained down on me during the height of the game, and my brain was probably in a state of rewiring so extreme it would have made Donald Hebb do cartwheels. Based on the cheers and leaps of my emancipator and incarcerator, it was probably safe to say they won.

            Back in the locker room, Rachel's foot slid free at last, and the dim light hurt my eyes. She glanced down the length of the shoe, but could not see me as of yet. Her tapping on the side of the cleat knocked me free from my sticky little pool of body fluids, hers and mine, and caused me to slide down to the heel, a carnival ride which ended with a great eclipse of Rachel's face before the flickering, fluorescent bulbs above us.

            “Oh, jeez, you look terrible.” She whispered.

            I coughed in response.

            “Once we get home, I'll clean you up.” She said, bringing her face closer, “But hey, we won. A total shutout. Best game of the season.”

            She placed her shoes in her bag, and then piled the rest of her uniform on top of them, my sensory world now no more than the spongy touch of the insole and the scent of sweat from all over Rachel's body, a global tour of her different aromas and tastes.

            When we eventually returned to the hotel room, she palmed me like a professional sleight-of-hand artist and carried me to the bathroom, locking the door, and turning on the fan, before depositing me gently on the sink’s edge.

            “Hey!” She said, quietly but not in a true whisper, “How was it?”

            I began to speak, but she shushed me almost immediately.

            “Hang on, let me grow you back a little bit, it's hard to hear you.” She said, and so I did, an order of magnitude larger and still only an inch or so tall, “Okay, try again.”

            I told her everything that happened, as best I could in my debilitated state.

            “Oh, wow...” She said, sitting on the closed toilet and clasping her fingers together, “So, what you're saying is you came like eighty times and I didn't even once? You're gonna owe me a lot of action once we get home.”

            I laughed, probably a little manic, and watched her shake her head side to side, a touch of sympathy in the movement.

            “Alright, let's get you cleaned up? Do you want to take a shower with me?” She asked.

            “Yes, please.” I said.

            “Alrighty, let's do it.” She smiled.

            I'd never actually seen Rachel completely naked, as odd as that might seem, but in a few smooth motions there she was, the colossus of Rhodes, Mangal Mahadev, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, but all in motion, in flesh and blood and dirt, in soft, mottled skin, and with a sweat-darkened crown of hair. She looked down at me, balanced on one cocked leg, head tilted to question my expression; the closest thing I'd ever experienced to a religious awakening was staring at her body then, like a Catholic pilgrim stares at a philatory containing the remains of a saint.

            “Hey, seriously now, are you okay?” Rachel asked.

            “Yeah, yeah.” I took a deep breath and tried to clear my mind, “Just lost in thought.”

            “Big surprise,” Rachel rolled her eyes and extended her hand, “C'mon, Koji.”

            I removed what was left of my pants, tossed my shirt to the counter, and stepped into Rachel's warm palm. She turned on the water and tested it with her opposite wrist, before stepping in. Great balls of water began splashing over me not without a touch of pain, but they were hot, rejuvenating, and entirely welcome.

            “Here, hang on.” Rachel fiddled with the tiny hotel soap, trying to peel off the wax paper with one hand, before managing to scrape off a piece and deposit it next to me. I scrubbed lethargically, arms barely wanting to rise past my shoulders, while Rachel cupped her free hand to the one that contained me, creating a little pool of hot water for her to beam over as she watched me wash, “Dang, you are such a cutie.”

            “Oh, stop.” I said, but I really did appreciate the compliment.

            “No way, I'm gonna keep saying it.” She blew a cool stream of air at me, “Cutie.”

            “Fiiiine.” I said dramatically, “Well, you're cute too.”

            “Even when I'm a big scary monster, smushing you underfoot?” She asked.

            “Especially then.” I said, “Could you rinse me?”

            “You got it, Koji-bug.” Rachel said, allowing the shower's spray to fall on me, washing away the suds.

            “God, that feels good.” I sighed.

            “Here, why don't you chill here while I finish washing up?” Rachel asked, presenting me to a small shelf stocked with various travel-sized toiletries.

            “Yeah.” I said, sliding from her fingers and laying out between the cold tile and hot steam. I watched Rachel bathe, hands covered in soap bubbles sliding around her body with a degree of efficiency probably instilled by a decade of showering in locker rooms.

            “So, my toes really did a number on you today, huh?” Rachel smirked.

            “You have no idea.” I said.

            “Wish I could have seen your face when you thought I was gonna crush you.” She said.

            “I assure you, it was not very attractive.” I said.

            “Hm, I don't know about that...” She said, “Just the thought of it is hot as hell.”

            “Ooooh?” I said.

            “Want to pay me back some?” She asked. I didn't even respond, just stood up to the edge of the shelf and waited for her hand to come pick me up. She snapped me up in soapy, tree trunk fingers, tucked me snugly between two, and pressed me to her left breast. Undulating inwards, hot water cascading over both of us, Rachel rubbed me over her stiff nipple, and with each pass I'd lick at the bitter bubbles coating it. She quickly became bored of the old game, however, and without comment I was being lowered towards her dripping vulva.

            She roughly pressed me between her labia, immediately soaking me in her own excretions, lubrication for the upcoming journey, acidic and stinging, forcing me to close my eyes. I felt a rising, sliding sensation as I was moved up to her hard, little clitoris. I stuck out my tongue, but I knew that it probably wasn't even perceptible among the broad oscillations of her hand, swirling around, concentric path to her passionate moans, a spiral signifying the direct experience of this moment.

            The next time that hard button pressed into me, however, I hooked my arms around it, broke free of the frothy grip of Rachel's fingers, and began to worship properly, kissing like I'd kissed her neck. Each circuit of her hand threatened to push me off, a threat which should have been more concerning considering the open drain below, but I was too lost in the throes, the struggle of that moment, to care. The tips of her fingers moved faster as the entire world seemed to tilt, Rachel bracing herself against the wall. I worked faster too, contractions within that great wall of flesh tightening their frequency until finally her voice cracked and she half-sang, half-blurted blasphemies.

            “Haaah...okay, okay...” She said, snaking me from her sensitive spaces, “That was...wow.”

            “Y-yeah.” I gasped, “Wow.”

            “I...uh...I need to lay down.” She said.

            “Yeah.” I agreed.

            “Wait, I didn't wash my hair. Fuck.” She said.

            “Me either.” I said.

            “Forget it, who cares.” She said, using her other hand to turn off the water, and stepped out into the steamy bathroom, “Here, you can dry off here.”

            She deposited me near the corner of a hand towel. I grabbed at the cloth and pulled it up, so that I could effectively turn myself into a little burrito, rolling myself dry. I looked over to my tattered clothes from earlier and shrugged. I guessed I'd be going au naturale for the remainder of the trip.

            Now wrapped in a towel, Rachel picked me up again, and peeked out into the hotel room from behind the door.

            “Looks like Kelly isn't here. Probably went to dinner with the others.”

            “God, I'm starving.” I said, just now realizing the void in my stomach.

            “Want to order a pizza?” Rachel asked.

            “Oh, hell yeah.” I said.

            We spent the night eating pizza, chatting, and watching the fuzzy television. Kelly eventually returned, admonishing Rachel for taking too long in the shower, to which Rachel only smiled knowingly. I fell asleep stuck beneath a corner of a pillow, kissing the long fingers that were hidden there with me, fingers which had groped me and controlled me, which had pleasured me and been pleased at my touch. In that twilight, I wondered if I should tell Rachel that I probably loved her.