Scott could hear the shower running in the upstairs bathroom, his own personal ticking time bomb as Maggie washed off after what was probably the most intense soccer game of her club career.  He had a feeling she would be eager to finish up on herself because of what she had planned for him afterward, and the mere thought of it made him run even faster on his way to Judy’s office.

            He had no idea if his mother was even in a mood to spare him Maggie’s mind-bending torment and raunchy word games.  Still, anything he could do was worth a try.

            Entering through the stylish French doors of Judy’s home office, Scott breathed a sigh of relief to see her sitting at the desk, tapping away on her laptop, her back to him.  He began to slowly make his way inside the room but, despite his haste, couldn’t stop himself from taking in the visage of his tremendous mother upon her throne.

            Her meticulously maintained blonde hair hung in a fashionable swoop over her shoulder.  Tall, full-bodied, but by no means overweight, she was a powerful woman in both stature and voice.  At forty-four, she was in shape envied by dozens of her peers several years younger.  She was still clad in a suit after some cross-town calls she’d been making earlier in the afternoon, though she had apparently begun to unwind, as her dark stockings were discarded and crumpled on the carpet a few feet away, along with her favorite black pumps, which lay on their sides.

            Her posture was straight and professional in the chair, but her legs were crossed underneath in a relaxed position, both bare feet arched up against the legs of the chair, soothingly flexing the deep wrinkles of her smooth, mature soles.

            Those feet.  They’d been the bane of Scott’s existence ever since he was thirteen and his mother had first shrunken him down underneath them for pampering duty.  Over the years he’d come to be intimately familiar with every nook and fleshy cranny of those pair of large, womanly appendages, even more so than Judy’s face, which he assumed was just how she liked their relationship to be.  She’d never been one to enjoy having others stand above her.

            There they were, like resting feral animals, strong and oddly artistic propped back against the chair legs, toes splayed casually against the carpet and scrunching into the fibers every so often for the exercise of it.

            As much as he hated to be forced under them without reason, and as much as he feared them when his mother was angry, Scott had unavoidably developed a respect for them.  Those feet had gotten Judy far as she metaphorically and literally walked over anyone required to get ahead in her career.  They were a part of her: the whole dominant package that made up Judy Stevens, and anyone who wasn’t at least intimidated by her presence was a blind fool.  That much he knew.

            But now, wallowing in his humiliation and simply desperate for a night that didn’t involve his sister experimenting with his naked body in her socks, he just needed his mommy to take charge of him and protect him like she used to.

            His mom.  Mom.  Definitely mom.  Not mommy.  She could make him call her that, but he would never resort to doing it himself in the safety of his own head.

            The twelve-inch Scott came to a stop behind Judy’s chair, his eyes still glued uneasily upon her bare feet arched vertically along the leg of the chair.  Despite being his maximum height at this moment, he was still just barely chin level with the heels of his mother’s magnificent size 12s.  They were forces of nature, ready to be unleashed on whoever misbehaved within their vicinity.

            Shaking his head to remove himself from this odd little trance, Scott wrung his knuckles together.  He had been in this position far too much.  It wasn’t just that Judy made him call her “Mommy” so often and Maggie made him call her whatever the hell she wanted at the moment.  It was undeniably affecting his head being so low around everyone all the time.  His height was starting to creep its way into his whole outlook on life.

            And he still had eleven months before he even could make an appeal to grow back to normal before an evaluation board of bloodthirsty lawyers.  In an effort to remain realistic, Judy had reassured her son that, at best, he was going to receive some increased rights for leaving the house, but nothing more for the time being, as he was still being closely observed as the shrunken house arrest guinea pig for the country’s judicial system.

            He was a prisoner in his house for the long haul.

            Shrugging to himself, Scott realized, with a singular end goal of avoiding Maggie’s exploratory clutches for the rest of the evening, his best chance was to throw himself as fully into being his mother’s personal attendant for the rest of the evening as he could.  What did he have to lose?

            Not risking any more time that his sister could burst into the room and claim him again, Scott carefully pressed his fists into the silky wall that made up Judy’s maternal sole and commenced kneading.  Aware that he might accidentally spook her and end up with her heel smashing downward onto him in surprise, he rubbed with vigor and purpose to differentiate his touch from that of a housefly alighting on her body.

            He felt the slight twitch in her skin as he began, but she didn’t do anything or even speak as he set about massaging the soft underside of his mother’s right foot.

            The flesh was toughened almost to the point of a blister around her heel, so he applied extra effort there, careful to avoid hurting the tender area.  He knew precisely how hard he could press without disturbing her.  He’d put in the time.

            With this done, he worked his way through the winding creases of Judy’s sole, the doughiest section, and couldn’t bring himself to hate it.  Her skin was cool to the touch against his palms and getting into a rhythm for caressing the sole in circles was cathartically calming in a way after such a violent evening in Maggie’s cleats.

            He ended by crouching down next to her bulbous toes, splayed against the carpet, and dug his hands between the narrow crevices of each one, caressing with aggressive abandon.  He needed to make an impression, after all, if he wanted to get out of his alternative evening plans.

            Cleaning duty in this area was often part of his job, given how much time she spent walking around in stockings and heels, so he set about fishing between Judy’s toes to tidy up.  He came away with one small clump of toe jam the size of an apricot in his hand and a few specks of dirt.  Nothing major.

            An oily whiff hung around Judy’s foot after such a long day, but frankly, after having his senses turned inside out for ninety minutes in Maggie’s abhorrent shoe, Scott could only notice when he inhaled deeply enough to check.

            Just as he released his hands from the massive arched display of his mother’s foot, before he could even reach for its twin, he felt a warm palm flattening against his naked back, followed by firm fingers curling around his abdomen just enough to grasp him safely enough for vertical transport.

            Realizing what was happening, Scott let himself go limp in his mother’s firm hand as she gently lifted him off the carpet under her chair and brought him up to her level.  As he hovered over her lap, she quickly brought her other hand underneath him, seating his bare bottom onto her other palm, allowing him to use her two hands like a chair.

            “Hi, sweetie,” Judy cooed, her lips spreading into a dulcet simper at her eldest son so awkwardly cradled between her two hands.  “Did Mother’s Day come early this year?  Because that was wonderful.”

            “Thanks,” Scott answered sheepishly.  “Just thought you might like it.”

            “Oh, you have no idea,” Judy groaned with exhaustion, rolling her eyes playfully.  “I’ve been either on a phone, in front of a computer, or talking to people in offices for more minutes than I spent breathing today.”

            “Sorry,” he said, folding his hands in his lap, hoping to cover up his crotch as casually as possible since he was so fully displayed in front of his mother.  It was bad enough feeling the clammy padding of her hand pressed directly against his rear end to hold him up.

            “How was the game?” Judy asked, blinking quickly as she remembered.  “Where’s Maggie?  I’m sorry I couldn’t have seen it myself.”

            “It went well. They won,” Scott answered as simply as possible, clearing his throat.  “She’s upstairs taking a shower.”

            “Oh, I knew they could take the championship this year.  I just knew it.  With that line-up, and Maggie at the front?  Unbeatable,” Judy cheered happily.  “And how was it for you?  Could you see much of it?”

            “It was, um…” Scott began, choosing his words carefully, knowing an improper balance of tattling or subtlety could end poorly for him.  “Kind of tough for a while, I guess.  I didn’t really… see any of it.”

            “Oh?”

            “Yeah.  I was… kind of along for the whole thing.”

            At this, Judy’s expression of curiosity tightened up in a way that threw Scott for a loop.  Her lips parted slowly as she exhaled in gasping surprise before pressing back together with what he detected as slight contempt.  Her fingers that were wrapped around his torso slowly curled along his skin, caressing him gently with her thick fingertips.

            “Really,” Judy murmured, puckering her lips for a moment.  “In her shoe?”

            “Yeah.”

            “The whole time.”

            “Yeah.”

            “How small were you?”

            “I don’t know.  Three, maybe?”

            “Oh, wow,” Judy sighed, tilting her head to the side slightly as she continued to gaze piteously on her battered son.  “We’re going to… make sure that doesn’t happen again, honey.  I promise.”

            “Thanks, Mom.”

            “You’re really doing okay? No marks?”

            “Not really, nothing that won’t go away in a couple days,” he answered flatly, having learned long ago to shrug off such minor inconveniences.

            “You’re going to really get your sleep tonight, aren’t you?”

            An opening.  He had to make this count.

            “I’m not so sure,” Scott answered lightly.

            “Why not?  Too sore?” Judy queried quickly with what sounded suspiciously like concern, though Scott suspected it was less out of fear for his physical wellbeing and more out of the idea that he would be unable to work effectively as her personal butler the following day.

            “No, Maggie just got new socks.  She said she’s wearing me to bed in them,” Scott shared, trying his very hardest not to let an accusatory tone slip into his phrasing.  The best possible scenario for him was to keep all things equal, despite how roughly he’d been treated by his sister.  The Stevens women generally did not take kindly to having the whistle blown on them.  Particularly when they had the option of depositing said whistleblower under their toes to silence future whistling.

            Judy raised an eyebrow and began to tsk, shaking her head back and forth emphatically.  “Oh, she is, is she?  Well, we’ll have to do something about that, won’t we?”

            “Um…”
            “I suppose she just likes taking it hard on you and forgets sometimes that even young men trying to make amends for their mistakes need some rest, too,” Judy considered, tossing her sleek dark blonde locks over her other shoulder, as though discovering this fact about Maggie for the first time.

            “Maybe,” Scott shrugged as neutrally as possible, still keeping his hands cupped around his family jewels.  This was moving along surprisingly positively for him.

            “I’m sorry I haven’t gotten to see you as much these past few days,” Judy added sadly.  With the fingers she’d just used to massage her son’s chest, she tilted her hand against his back more steeply so that she could run her thumb across the top of his head.  She rubbed it back and forth in a comforting pattern, ruffling his hair, but it was actually going a long way to relaxing Scott.  It was like having a thick pillow rocked gently along his head.

            “That’s okay,” Scott said, the words coming out as more of a satisfied whisper than he’d intended as he enjoyed the massage on the top of his head, and he indulged himself enough to close his eyes and just focus on the feeling.  Despite the embarrassment, he knew it would be a waste of a perfectly good moment to relax after his back-breaking evening if he spent it awkwardly avoiding the contact.

            “How about this, then?” Judy giggled warmly, enjoying the spontaneous reaction of her soothed son.  “We’ve both had long days, and I’m ready to wind down.  How about since Maggie’s gotten so much quality time with you, I take over for a little while.  Sound good to you, honey?”

            “Y-Y-Yeah,” Scott said, riding the last waves of pleasure from the scalp massage and grinning up at Judy’s face.  “Sounds good.”

            “Great,” Judy smirked happily before glancing at the screen of her laptop. “Now, I have to get this last report reviewed and sent off, but I’m sure we can make do here.  Mind sitting with me for a few minutes?”

            Scott almost flinched as he nodded his head in confirmation.  He wasn’t positive he’d heard correctly, but it sounded an awful lot like Judy was treating him nicely.

            More than nicely.  Hospitably.  Even sympathetically.

            What kind of body-snatching aliens had invaded, and how long ago had his real mother been replaced?  Was this some kind of lucid dream?

            It figured that, even in a dream he could control, he’d still find himself sitting naked in his mother’s hands.  Dreams were just another fun side effect of his sentence, and Scott’s most vivid ones tended to rigidly follow the spirit of his unfortunate reality if not the letter.

            Judy smiled in answer and lowered her hands toward her thighs before tending her son down into her lap with such delicacy that if he were a sleeping newborn, he would’ve remained blissfully in perverted dreamland.

            Scott gulped.  Even with how nicely she was treating him, and even at his full height of twelve inches, gazing upward from the base of his mother’s towering torso was an odd and startlingly intimate experience.  Her legs shifted, trembling imperceptibly under his back, and as he involuntarily pressed his feet against the shirt over her warm stomach, he became uncomfortably aware of the fact that the point he’d emerged from her as a newborn was just a matter of inches below his ankles, separated only by a few layers of cloth.

            Judy’s eyes returned to the screen above to read, but her left hand lowered toward Scott with fingers outstretched, warily, as though she might scare him, a precaution she never thought twice about normally.

            Slightly unnerved again by her overly amiable behavior, he watched suspiciously as his mother’s large palm hovered just above his torso and her fingers began to caress along his shoulders and chest, back and forth again in the same cycle.

            She was… petting him.

            Scott was taken aback.  Sure, in the grand scheme of things, his role at this moment was that of a lap cat for his mother.  That was a little off.  But all things considered, with his evening saved from Maggie, this had been bizarrely easy.

            Whether or not that was a good thing remained to be seen.