Helen was reading her book in her armchair, illuminated by warm, orange lamplight, when her youngest son entered.

“James. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“I-I couldn’t sleep.”

Smiling, she slipped a bookmark between pages and set the book down. I know that expression. He wants to ask for something, but he’s embarrassed. How adorable! She removed her reading glasses too, placing them atop the book.

“Come on now, James. What can I help with? You know I can read you like a—”

She gestured at the side-table and chuckled.

However, his eyes weren’t on the book. They went straight past it, settling on her shrink-ray beyond. Then they snapped up to the ceiling.

“Is Dad in bed?”

“He is. Needs to be well-rested for work tomorrow. I assume this isn’t for his ears? It’s a little soon to be buying birthday presents. Let me worry about that.”

James shook his head. “No. Th-that’s not it.”

“Then what is it? Tell me.”

“I…” he seemed to be about to speak, before he blushed and the words failed.

“Oh. I see. You’ve finally got a girlfriend!”

He grimaced. “Sorry, no.”

“Well out with it then! We don’t have all night.”

The poor boy looked positively ill. Red-faced, trembling, stammering. She hadn’t seen him like this since…

Helen grinned.

“I think I understand. This is like the time your sister caught you sniffing her gym shoes. I remember how funny that was. She demanded foot rubs from that day on, didn’t she? And you were so happy to give them, even with your brother calling you names. I’d have made the same demand, but I couldn’t make you rub my old, wrinkly feet. That would have been too mean.”

On the floor, her feet slipped out of her slippers and rested in front of the tattered house-shoes. When his eyes were dragged down to them and widened, she knew she was on the right track.

“That’s why your here, isn’t it? My feet. Maybe I was a little too apprehensive back then. Now I feel sad, thinking about all those foot rubs I’ve missed out on. Well, there’s no time like the present to ca—”

“No,” he said. “Y-you’re wrong.”

“Then please, enlighten me, James.”

His throat swelled with an audible gulp.

“O-okay. I do like your feet. But that’s not all. I want… I want…”

Helen leaned closer and wiggled her toes excitedly. “Go on. You’re so close.”

“I want to be your tiny foot-pet!”

Silence. She blinked slowly, not sure if she’d heard correctly.

“Why?” she asked.

“I just… do. I like feet. Giant feet. Your feet. The idea of serving my own mother is so humiliating, but I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s possible with your shrink-ray.”

She laughed, making him blush harder. “That’s quite the fantasy. As much as I’d like to accept—I know all about tiny people serving feet—I don’t think I can. You’re my son. We want grand-kids someday!”

“Darren and Lauren will give you grand-kids. They’re both so successful. They’re both in committed relationships and have moved out. I’m not like them, Mom.”

“And so you want to spend your whole life shrunken at my feet?”

“Y-yeah.”

The idea was tempting. James hadn’t been quite the exceptional child his siblings had been. Both of them had always topped their classes in academics, athletics and popularity. James always ended up around the bottom. Helen had given a foot-pet a ‘test drive’ once, at a place where they were sold. The experience was incredible, but so expensive! With James, all she’d have to do is shrink him down and send off the papers.

Maybe he was meant to be beneath people. This is what he wants, and I’ve always given my children what they want.

“This isn’t something you can go back on, James. Once you’re my foot-pet, you’ll always be my foot-pet. I can’t imagine your father will ever speak to you again. Your brother and sister will find it hilarious, of course. If you thought the teasing back then was bad, this time it’ll be brutal. Then there’s me. I’ll be a kind owner, but I’ll also expect a lot from you. Your every waking moment will be spent at my feet, and every sleeping moment in my footwear. The smell will be intense at that size. The pressure when you’re underfoot will feel as if you’re being crushed, yet the density side-effect will protect your body. Disobey me, and you’ll be punished.”

“Wait, you’re okay with it?”

“Very much so. I adore having my feet fussed over.”

“And you’ll shrink me to be your foot-pet?”

“Only if it’s really what you want, James. Are you sure?”

He hesitated, then looked down at her feet again and clenched his fists.

“Yes!”

“Keep it down,” Helen said, chuckling. She grabbed the shrink-ray and adjusted the setting to three inches. “You’ll wake your father up.”

The shrink-ray made a bunch of noises and came to life in her hand, lighting up. She aimed it at her son and fired. Within seconds he was tiny, staring up in wonder at her and her mature, comparatively gigantic feet.

“Come on, my new pet. You have years of foot massages to make up for.”

* * *

Ding-dong! Ding-dong!

Cheddar’s naked body was trapped underneath the pudgy ball of his owner’s giant foot as he attended to her toes, stretching his neck to lick anything in reach. As always, the undersides of her toes and the spaces in-between had a strong, sour flavour that made him shudder with disgust.

“That’ll be Lauren and the twins,” his owner said. “Go answer it would you, dear? I’m a little busy with my favourite pet.”

“…disgusting…pervert…disappointment…”

“Don’t listen to that grumpy old man. You’ve never disappointed my feet.”

The foot atop Cheddar scrunched, causing the wrinkles to deepen and multiple. The sole’s creases pinched his chastity cage, its natural warmth stimulating his penis within. He groaned in frustration, the cage preventing him from getting hard. Her rough skin caressed his nipples too, adding to the sexual torment.

“Is that little cage of yours uncomfortable? Since it’s Christmas, I might give you a release, as a present. When was your last? Two months ago? Three?”

Six, Cheddar thought as tears welled. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed since that fateful day. It’s hard to keep track when his entire life revolves around a pair of mature feet. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, feet. Massaging them, kissing them, licking them, being trampled underneath them. The reaction from the rest of his family had been expected. His father disowned him. Whenever his older siblings came over to visit, the teasing was relentless. Before, his parents would have protected him. Now, the closest thing he got was his owner hiding him beneath her foot.

Cheddar had been forbidden from calling her ‘Mom’. She’d decided he was due a name change as well, since he had been demoted from son to foot-pet.

It had been an eye-opening experience, that was for sure. Cheddar wasn’t even sure he had a foot fetish any more; spending every second of his life enslaved to a pair of smelly feet larger than himself had destroyed almost all interest in them. What remained of his fetish was kept under control by the chastity cage—a Christmas present from his sweet sister a few years ago.

His owner’s toes playfully squeezed his head as children ran past.

“Behave, you two! Play nice with your cousins,” Lauren shouted.

Cheddar felt anxious listening to his former sister’s approaching footsteps. Whilst his former brother was content with verbal bullying, she was much more hands on. Not counting his owner’s festive mercy, Lauren was the only person who got him Christmas ‘gifts’.

The chastity cage had been the cruellest so far, seconded by the social media account documenting his new life to the world. He cowered under toes, scared of what she’d got him this year.

Her shadow was cast over him. Rather than peek between the toes and see her likely smiling face, he dutifully kept licking them instead.

“My toes really needed this. They’ve been feeling so unloved recently,” Cheddar’s owner said.

“Aww, is little James not giving his mommy’s toes enough love?” his former sister said.

“Lauren. We’ve spoke about this. Cheddar. Not James, Cheddar.”

“Oh, yeah, my bad! It’s because he stinks like your feet, right?”

“That’s right!”

They both laughed together and Cheddar felt himself reddening with humiliation, attempting to behind the toes as a massive pair of blue eyes appeared above them, peering between. They twinkled with amusement—he didn’t need to see her mouth to know she was grinning. Her skin crinkled as she presumably grimaced at the odour.

“Ergh. You’re not wrong, Mom. Very cheesy.”

“Sounds like someone’s not doing a good enough job down there. Cheddar, do you want a release for Christmas or not? Because if you do, you’re gonna have to work a lot harder.”

They laughed again as he sped up the licking, lapping up more and more of the various flavours of his owner’s toe-flesh.

“I’ve got him a wonderful present this year,” Lauren said. “Should I spoil the surprise? I really wanna spoil the surprise.”

His owner chuckled. “Go ahead, sweetie.”

Lauren giggled childishly.

“Remember those gym shoes of mine I caught you sniffing, all that time ago, J— Cheddar? It feels like so long ago. That was before I had the twins, before Darren gave me the cutest nieces and nephews. Before you decided to become Mom’s tiny toe-toy. Well, I found them. At the back of my closet, in a ragged old shoebox. They reek just as bad as they used to, only staler. I was quite surprised that they still fit. Tightly, but I can get my feet in with some effort.

“That was several months ago. Ever since, I’ve been wearing them. No socks. Finding those rotten things was a blessing in disguise, really, because they motivated me to start exercising again. Now those gym shoes are nasty beyond belief. And,” she paused to snicker, “those are your presents! Your ex-sister’s stinkiest shoes!”

“How kind!” Cheddar’s owner said, caressing his face with the soft pads of her toes. “What do we say when someone gets us a gift, slave?”

“…thank…you…” he managed. Words were difficult these days—his vocal chords were out of practice.

“You’re welcome, foot freak! Smell ’em good, because that’s the stench of your future owner’s feet.”

Cheddar stopped licking.

“That’s a long way off yet,” his owner grumbled. “I still have a good few decades left in me.”

“I know that, Mom. I just mean… eventually…”

He didn’t like the sound of the chuckle that followed.

“Oi! Did I tell you to stop licking? And, yes, I suppose that will be the case one day. Your brother certainly won’t be interested. I can’t remember the last time he even insulted Cheddar.”

Cheddar went back to licking his owner’s salty toes, trying not to burst into tears as the two women above discussed his fate so casually.