“No…”
The
controller fell from David’s suddenly limp fingers. It hit the
floor hard, clattering
expensively, though it wasn’t like it mattered. Not
compared to the forfeit for losing.
“Yes!”
his sister, Penny, cheered. “I win! I win!”
“That
you did, honey. Well done for beating your big brother after he
talked so tough,” their mom said, chuckling over on the armchair.
Her bare toes pattered on
hardwood, anticipating what came next.
“Wa-wait. This can’t be
right. There’s no way I lost…”
A
figure cast David in its shadow. He craned his neck to look up at
Penny standing over him, lips twisted into the most insufferable grin
she could manage. When he tried climbing to his feet she pushed him
back down, overpowering him surprisingly easily in his state of
shock.
“Stay
down there, LOSER. Get
used to being smaller than me for a change.”
“Only for a week, honey,”
their mom said. “That’s what we agreed.”
“Mom,
come on, you don’t think I was serious, do you?” he asked,
gulping as he saw her
reach for her handbag beside the chair.
“You’re too old to be
reneging on bets, David. You lost, fair and square.”
“But
Mom, I—”
“Enough. If you’d have won, I
doubt you’d be complaining that Penny does your chores for the
whole month. Instead you have to spent a week half an inch tall.”
“Yeah, between your toes. Isn’t
that too far?”
“You agreed to it.”
“Because I didn’t think it’d
actually happen! This is ridiculous.”
Finally,
after rooting around for the duration of the conversation, David’s
mom found what she was searching for. Out came her DURD—Domestic
Use Reduction Device—and it buzzed
to life with only a single button press. Panic tightened his chest
upon seeing the device, caused his heart to race and nausea to build.
He felt sick at the thought of what was about to happen.
“Can
we do something else? I’ll do anything. Anything.”
“I’m not the person you have
to ask. Better come to an agreement with your sister quickly, though,
this’ll only take a couple minutes to set up.”
David
reluctantly removed his fearful gaze from his mom playing with the
DURD’s display and shifted it to his still-grinning sister. She
shuffled her small bare feet, waiting excitedly for his request.
“Penny…”
“Yeeeeeees? What’s up, bro?”
It was obvious from the twitch of
her lips that she was resisting the urge to laugh.
“Please, let me do something
else. O-or even try again? Double or quits.”
There’s
no way I lose twice, he thought.
She got lucky.
“Hmm. Let me think.”
Her fingers stroked her chin—an
exaggerated gesture. He was forced to watch her think, listening to
the slapping of her bare sole on the ground as she tapped her
foot, listening to his mom tinkering with the DURD, steadily sealing
his fate.
“I’ve decided!” she
announced. “And I might let you off… if you kiss my pretty
feet.”
David sighed. It was cruel of
her, but much better than the alternative. Despite his instincts to
show nothing more than disrespect to his brat of a sister, he knelt.
Her feet had a natural, youthful look to them. Soft, made softer
still by infrequent maintenance. Currently—on account of a recent
sleepover with all her friends—her toenails were neatly trimmed and
painted pink.
Closing his eyes, he gave into
the degrading demand and started planting light, hesitant kisses on
her eager toes. She was giggling; either from the sensation, the
sight, or both. Even their mom had a chuckle at what was unfolding.
Eventually she pushed him back with a gentle kick and sat on the
floor. Both feet lifted, paused for a moment for him to bask in the
sight of her pink soles and plump toes, then rushed forward to claim
his face.
“Keep kissing,” she ordered,
on the edge of laughter.
David had no choice other than to
kiss the soft, slightly sweaty skin rubbing against his face,
exploring his features. Penny collapsed backwards clutching her
belly, laughing loudly, yet never pulling her feet away for even a
second.
“Okay, okay,” she said,
breathlessly. “Now go kiss mom’s feet. Then, maybe,
I’ll forget all about this bet.”
A glance cast at his mom’s
waiting feet made Penny crouch down beside him and lay a hand on his
shoulder.
“Think about it, big bro. Kiss
mom’s feet now and potentially get out of a week shrunken and glued
between her toes, nothing to drink but toe-sweat, nothing to eat but
dead skin and toe-jam. Kiss her feet now and it’s entirely possible
you’ll be spared. I know I would. Spending any amount of time
between mom’s cheesy toes would be a nightmare.”
“Hey,” their mom said with a
smile. “I have functioning ears.”
“It’s true! Don’t even try
to deny your feet stink.”
“Alright, I’ll admit my feet
don’t smell the best, but we don’t have to talk about it, do we?”
“Sorry, Mom,” Penny said,
giggling.
Before crawling over to his mom’s
feet, David spared her a questioning glance. She met it for only a
moment, raising a questioning brow. He sighed again, then approached.
Then had a sour, mildly cheesy—like Penny had hinted at—odour,
recently freed from a pair of ‘too warm’ slippers. It took a
moment of mental steeling before he started kissing the rougher, more
mature skin of the tops of her toes. The nails were trimmed too
short, unpainted.
“Well?” Penny said. She’d
paused rolling around with laughter and lay watching, waiting, for
him to carry out her command.
David’s mom was silent aside
from snorts of amusement as he started lathering her smelly
toes with kisses, catching whiffs of their pungent odour on every
nasal breath. He heard Penny laughing harder than ever, rolling side
to side on the floor behind him, probably with arms wrapped around
her stomach as she tried to contain the laughter. His face turned
redder with each kiss, hoping that soon it would be all over.
Once Penny had finally gotten
over the scene, she climbed to her feet and cleared her throat.
“I’ve decided.” She stopped
to let out a giggle that made David’s skin crawl. “No mercy. Mom,
shrink him. I’ll go get the glue!”
“Mom, n—”
“Sorry, David, a bet’s a bet.
It’s only for a week.”
Zaaaaaaap!
A nearly transparent beam of
light shot from the DURD’s barrel and struck him in the chest.
Immediately, around where the beam hit, he felt his flesh…
spiralling. Inwards, toward the point of impact. That changed to an
indescribable odd sensation, spreading out from the
chest-spiral. A burst of dizziness, then, he felt his whole body
dwindling rapidly.
In mere moment he was a half-inch
tall. In front of him, a pair of giant feet with unpainted toenails.
A similar odour to before flowed over him, although much, much
stronger. The toes curled, plump pads bulging and rubbing
against the floor. Another set of feet were quickly approaching from
behind, every gargantuan footstep shaking his entire world.
With the massive, smiling faces
of his mom and sister peering down at his shrunken self, David really
felt his new size. The tube of specialised glue that Penny fiddled
with made him incredibly nervous.
“That the stuff?” his mom
asked, her voice booming, vibrating the ground itself.
“Yep! The same glue Stacey von
Vallenhappenheimer used on Pik-Pok to glue her ex-boyfriend to her
sole. That was hilarious! Well, it’s not quite the same glue. Simi
liar enough, different brand.” Penny stomped a foot, making David
stumble. “If you gave me more pocket money I’d have been able to
get the good stuff!”
“All that’s important is that
you’re sure it’ll work. This only lasts a week, right?”
David saw his mom reach for the
glue, then saw Penny yank it away.
“Yes it only lasts a week.
That’s what Stacey von Vallenhappenheimer said.”
“Okay, but—”
“Mom, please, trust me. Pull
your toes apart. I’m gonna shove him in there!”
Their laughter was deafening.
David ran towards the underside of the armchair in a moment of pure
terror, between his mom’s feet. That did nothing to stop Penny
pinching him between her fingers and bringing him close to her face.
She stuck out her tongue tauntingly, then rolled him between her
fingertips, spinning him around to see his mom prying apart her big
and second toes, exposing the rank, jammy crevice between. Before he
even had time to scream he was thrust toward the disgusting gap,
hurtling toward it. Penny showed no reluctance shoving her fingers in
there, pressing David firmly against the reeking skin.
Then he felt a cold metal tip
travelling around the edges of his tiny body, distributing glue to
seal him in place for the week.
*
* *
June
raced into the living room, stopping beside her grandmother’s
armchair and jumping with excitement.
“Granny,
all the dishes are washed up. Can I see uncle now? Can I?”
The
older woman, still looking rather young for her age, raised a
questioning brow. “Are they all dry?”
“They’re
on the drying rack. Please don’t make me dry them off with a towel.
That’ll take sooooo long. I
only have a few hours before Mom and Dad get back from their date.
Let me see him!”
June’s grandmother rolled her
eyes, smiling wryly.
“You do remind me of your
mother sometimes, June. So much energy. I can hardly keep up. If you
want to see Uncle David so bad, get ready, my foot is probably going
to be a bit smelly.”
“You always have stinky feet,
Grandma.”
“Hey! Watch it cheeky, or I’ll
fetch the DURD. I still have seven vacant toe-gaps for naughty
girls.”
They
both giggled at the mock threat. June’s grandmother picked up a
foot from the floor, resting it sideways on the opposing knee. She
peeled off the sweat-dampened ankle socks, exposing an aged, heavily
wrinkled sole. More and more rough, flushed skin was unveiled, then
her thick-headed toes.
June turned away at the surge of
warmth and unpleasant odour wafting up from her grandmother’s bare
foot. Yet, she soon turned back, giggling at the thought of the tiny
man imprisoned between the toes. They spread wide and she finally saw
him, peppered with sock lint alongside the skin all around.
“Gross!” June leaned closer,
sniffed, then reeled away at the stench coming from the toe-gap.
“I warned you.”
“That’s so funny he has to
put up with such an awful smell. Won’t he be used to it after all
these years?”
“According
to the doctors, no. Poor thing. It’s impossible for him to get used
to it.” June’s grandmother smiled sadly, giving Uncle David a
poke. He came to life for a moment, writhing in place. The movement
lasted for a few seconds before he stilled. “Little David is stuck
there for good, ever since the bet.”
“Mom’s never told me how it
happened. She just starts laughing whenever I ask. Will you tell me
the story?”
“Sure.
I don’t see the harm in it. It all started with your mom beating
your uncle at a video game he was supposedly good at. If he won, she
had to do all his chores for a month. If she won, well, you can see
the result.” June’s grandmother chuckled. “It was only supposed
to be for a week, but the glue your mom used was cheap stuff, and
wasn’t an anti-allergy variant. Of course, we had no idea that
David was allergic. We found out a week later when he wouldn’t come
off. The doctors couldn’t do anything about it, he’d literally
fused to my foot. If we’d realised sooner, we’d have been able to
save him.”
“Were you angry at Mom?”
“At
first, yes. She’d just robbed your uncle of his life. University. A
house. Marriage. He’d never get to experience those things. Instead
all he gets is a lifetime between my toes. Then after thinking about
it for a while I calmed down. It was an unfortunate accident. Your
mom had a point, too.” She chuckled. “It is
pretty hilarious. Once I calmed down, and after I got over my
sympathy, I could see the funny side. I can only imagine how gross
and humiliating it must be for David.”
“Does he eat? Or sleep?”
“Oh,
your uncle is always eating. Notice how there’s no toe-jam. All the
dead skin between those two toes is eaten up by him. No, he doesn’t
sleep, either. Can’t, apparently. The fusion left him as nothing
more than a living, thinking toe-wart; stuck in an unwilling
symbiotic relationship with my foot. Sweat, dead skin and toe-jam is
plenty to sustain him. Even if they were to perform an operation to
remove him, his body has adapted to fit the new environment. He
literally can’t survive without feet.”
“Oh
my god, Granny, that’s nasty!” June laughed. “So he’s
constantly smelling and
tasting your stinky feet? He can’t even sleep to escape it? And he
actually needs them to
live?”
“That’s right.”
“Ew!” June peered down at her
uncle, grinning. “Sucks to be you, Uncle David. Don’t worry, if
you ever get removed and need a new pair of feet to leech off of, I
volunteer. My feet get so sweaty, especially when I play sports.
You’d love it!”
“Is that a genuine offer, young
lady? Obviously I won’t be around forever, so he’s going to have
to be removed one day.”
June’s face lit up. “Can I
really? I was just teasing him. I didn’t know you’d let me.”
“Sure. Can I trust you to look
after my son?”
June
nodded frantically.
Her
grandmother laughed. “Alright, don’t get too giddy. I’ll have
to talk to your parents and it won’t be until you’re older, but
one day we can transfer him over.”
“Hear that, Uncle? You’re
gonna be my toe-pet next. Isn’t that exciting?”
June’s uncle twitched again in
response to what she said. Twitched, presumably, with mutual
excitement. She’d never know for sure, given he had no way to
communicate any more, but she thought he looked forward to her feet.