Alex kept his eyes shut tightly, his arm wrapped firmly around Michelle’s anklet, as her right foot took another gut-twisting rise into the air before plummeting back toward the floor for an earth-shaking smack, the titaness of a mother planting her full, megaton weight onto the heel of her bare foot just below Alex’s desperately flailing body. He blinked, feeling the wind whip past his face as her left foot rose into the air for another step, then heard the soft, padded flap of her soft sole striking the wood. His muscles tensing, Alex knew it was his turn again as his mother’s foot rose calmly into the air again. Each horrifying bounce through the air felt to Alex like bungee jumping without being properly secured, as all he had to support himself was his tired arm’s grip around the jewelry.
After what felt to Alex’s sore muscles like an eternity, the walk of death came to an end. Alex stared upward, past the winding, billowing folds of his mother’s olive skirt, past the impossibly rotund mounds of her breasts, and up to her face, framed by the vine jungle of perfectly silky black hair. She still had his makeshift Lego staircase gripped softly between her fingers to be put back in its proper place. The miniscule boy saw her bite her lip, her eyes darting over the shelves of the living room looking for its proper location. Finally settling, she opened a drawer on a side cabinet and plopped the little plastic staircase into a huge pile of multicolored blocks containing Alex’s brother’s Lego collection.
Looking upward again at the hem of his mother’s skirt, dangling just out of reach, Alex realized that, being in a standing position, Michelle’s skirt hung just a little lower than when she was seated. This was his chance to get a higher foothold on her body to continue his ascent. With the arm not wrapped around the anklet, Alex reached up as high as he could, grasping at air with his fingers. The thick hem was just out of reach. In despair, Alex caught himself on the anklet again, trying to rethink his plan, then felt his mother’s foot rise into the air again as she began the slow trek back to the kitchen table to continue her work.
This time, the boy glanced upward at the swaying skirt hem, and realized that at the top of each step arc, his mother’s shapely skirt lowered even further. Gulping, Alex knew what he had to do to keep moving, despite the incredible risk. He watched as the colossal mass of foot flesh planted on the ground below him, then quickly went to work, swinging his leg up onto the anklet. With some effort and a careful sense of balance, Alex managed to poise himself atop the jewelry in a precarious crouching position. Of course, this meant his grip was no longer firm, and the boy felt a cold sweat begin trickling down his forehead. If he missed this jump, the trip downward from the air to the ground of his mother’s foot would send him plummeting to the ground below, where, if he managed not to crack his skull, he became fair game to be mulched under Michelle’s dry heel.
It was time. As his mother’s left foot planted on the ground, Alex braced himself against the warm skin of Michelle’s ankle, keeping his eyes on the prize: the exact corner of the skirt hem he was planning on grabbing. He felt gravity shifting underneath him as Michelle’s foot arched against the hardwood floor, preparing to take a step. Using the momentum afforded to him, Alex pushed off his thin perch of the ankle bracelet and was sent shooting much higher than he was anticipating. Flailing wildly for a moment, butterflies filling his stomach, Alex’s hands slid past the thick fabric of Michelle’s skirt and, in a frenzy, he grabbed ahold, twisting a leg into the fabric for a better grip. Looking down, he realized even now just how high up he was: to the poor lad, it was like dangling from the side of a four-story building, and he was just barely up part of Michelle’s shin.
The next length of time was spent in concentrated silence as Alex meticulously worked his way up his mother’s right leg, using the threads of the skirt as netting to fit his tiny fingers in between and grip. Each time he made a motion, he tugged lightly at the fabric, ensuring he had a strong grip, before hanging on and moving his next hand higher, pushing his legs into the folds for better support. Admittedly, it was easier than rock climbing, but the fact remained that he had no rope attached to the ground, and he was certainly much higher up than most rock climbing facilities could have allowed for. At this moment, Alex was totally on his own. A fall from this height would kill him instantly no matter how he played it out in his head.
Occasionally, as Michelle rocked her feet back and forth against the floor, the motion would be felt in her skirt, flapping ever so slightly, and at these intervals Alex’s heart would almost stop as he instantly clammed up, clasping his body tightly against a fold of the skirt for as much support as possible, riding out his mother’s absentminded tics until they no longer represented a true danger to his treacherous climb. If only Michelle knew just how impactful the simple motions of her legs and feet were on the life of her son. Alex could only imagine how his mother might react if she knew what was happening right now. He longed so desperately for this terrifying ordeal to be at an end. At the moment, his mother’s giant body was like a foreboding mountain, threatening and unknown, the danger of death breathing down his neck at all times as he climbed slowly but surely. If only Michelle could see him and know it was him, this would all end. Alex felt a warm shiver run down his back to imagine the immaculate relief he would experience to be discovered and, at long last, be completely safe. To clamber into the soft, warm palm of his mother’s hand, probably seeming to him at this point to be as wide as his bedroom. To lay back and know that everything would be all right as she smiled down lovingly at him, swearing to find a way to return him to his normal size.
Grunting from exhaustion, Alex knew there was no time for such fantasies. The reality was that his mother was still completely unaware of his plight, and even though she would never want such a thing for all the world if she were aware of it, with a simple brush of her backhand or a sliding shift of her toned leg, Alex would be sent cascading toward his doom on the floor.
After just over half an hour, the athletic fifteen-year-old’s patience was rewarded as he felt the slope of the skirt begin to level out. He had reached his mother’s quad, meaning the ground would soon be horizontal, and he could plan out his next move. Clambering over the last lump of Michelle’s knee, Alex crept across the firm, almost flat plain of his mother’s thigh. Even through the soft fabric, the boy could feel the well-sculpted muscle underneath of a woman who worked out five times a week at the local gym for an hour at least. Nodding, Alex silently thanked serendipity for giving him such a healthy and athletic mother, for without her influence, the boy doubted he would be as fit as he was, and thusly wouldn’t have had a chance in hell of safely climbing up his mother’s tremendous tower of a limb.
Alex’s momentary thanksgiving was brought to an abrupt halt as he heard Michelle sigh deeply, straightening her back against the chair and shifting her legs. Feeling his mother’s thigh rumbling beneath his feet, the boy tried to keep his balance and, in his panic, began backing away from the side of her leg that led to the death plunge to the ground below. However, this led him closer to the other side, and before he knew what was happening, Alex was tumbling off his mother’s thigh and into the space between.
He bounced roughly off her left leg, then back to her right before landing with a hard smack on the wooden chair. It was incredibly painful and knocked the wind right out of the boy, but at the very least, his mother had chosen that moment to push her legs closer together, thusly allowing them to break his fall as he slipped in between.
Climbing back to his feet, Alex stared upward out of the darkness of the canyon of green fabric between his mother’s legs and up at the light above, where he could see her towering torso still hard at work at whatever she had laid out on the table. Her beautiful face was so peaceful; Alex almost hated the fact that he was going to have to deliver the shock of her life to her, on her birthday of all days, once he finally got her attention.
Suddenly, Alex began trembling. A cold chill was running over his skin, slowly at first, than more rapidly, as if raw nitrogen was being dumped quickly over his skin.
“No…” gasped Alex as the tingling sensation returned.