“I think you’re going to like this, Judy,” Nancy Dugan said eagerly, biting her lip with anticipation as she reached down into her briefcase to pull out another stack of papers bound by clips.  “This is the list I had last week of potentials.  I highlighted all the ones we’ve gotten since then so we can add them to the guest list.”

            “Wow.  Somebody’s been busy,” Judy said with surprise as she examined the impressive number of lines on the sheet she’d been handed.

            “Hey, you don’t pay me the almost-big bucks for nothing,” Nancy joked, crossing her leg over her knee and throwing her head back to chuckle.  Her hair, normally a dirty blonde, had recently been dyed a radiant auburn.  She wore a tight gray suit that hugged her athletic curves in a manner complimentary enough that men half her age would stop and take a second glance at her pronounced rear.  Her legs, toned and on a rigid shaving schedule, were sculpted by years of rigorous weekday yoga classes.  A constantly-grinning countenance was marked with the unmistakable expression of multiple plastic surgeries; miraculously, most had gone over well, and some of the advanced years had indeed been smoothed from her face.

            Hidden away under the desk was Scott, still at a modest eight inches tall, camping out beneath the gently applied weight of his mother’s left bare foot: the one he’d been promised he’d be massaging eventually the night before.  The ball of it was gingerly pressed down against his chest, pinning him against the carpet lightly enough that he avoided rug burns.  Her heel, however, was arched higher in the air, giving him some room to maneuver his arms and more thoroughly caress her swollen sole as needed.

            Scott noticed a difference in Judy’s flesh as he rubbed it, which was puffier and rosier than normal, after all the time she’d spent walking around town the day before while he was off spending the evening in Maggie’s cleat.  She had indeed not been exaggerating her need for this kind of care last night.

            He gave particular attention to the sweet spot of her sole, where the wrinkles were deepest and the skin was most tender.  Irritating as it was for him to admit it, he had become rather adept at knowing what part of her foot his mother wanted massaged without her having to say, because he had the closest vantage point available to check out problem spots.

            Her smooth mature toes hung just above her son’s puny head, dancing and wriggling about.  They would occasionally settle down over his face, the marshmallowy underside of them caressing his cheeks, but it wasn’t too unpleasant because of the lilac gel she had so charitably applied to her feet earlier in the morning

            In fact, with the threat of his mother’s normally musky toe odor out of the way, there was a certain relaxing pleasure to be found in the smooth toes brushing against his forehead, like having leathery pillows brushed over his skin.

            Besides, being underneath his mother was far and away the preference at this moment.  Nancy came into the house on her own as she pleased for meetings, as Judy had been pulling up a set of files to show her manager on the computer.  This gave Scott a neat little opening to scurry into the office and bury himself under his mother’s weighty bare foot as it rested on the carpet before Nancy arrived, an act the senate candidate hopeful was only too happy to oblige.

            By the time Nancy had entered the room and asked where Scott was, he was already doing too good a job on his mother’s worn-out and peachy sole for Judy to surrender him just yet, and she had even laid her foot down a little more heavily onto her son’s body at the question, as if to claim her offspring definitively as her own against the newcomer.

            Scott didn’t want to admit it, but considering the circumstances, he was eternally grateful for that fierce maternal instinct of Judy’s just this one time.

            “So as I was saying last time,” Nancy continued.  “The party next week.  I know you’ve got it planned out just how you want, but I really feel we need to look at it again.  You know, gussy it up.  Make it bigger.”

            “Oh, I don’t know, Nancy,” Judy answered.  “I don’t want to give them the wrong idea about me.  Some of them we only just won over.  And I don’t want to chance it on thin ice.”

            “Still worried?” Nancy laughed.  “What’s it about now?”

            “A few things.  You know I had the webcam meeting with Techilogic last night, and, well… some of the same concerns are still there.”

            “Chicken feed.  We’ll handle that after the party.  Anything else?”

            “Well, you know, after my daughter’s… social media activity with Scott,” Judy mumbled uncomfortably.  “I know it was my own fault.  I saw her do it and didn’t even think much of it.  I… talked to her about it afterward to make sure it doesn’t happen again, but I still hadn’t realized how many… people could see that picture, and…”

            “Wake up, honey, and realize what century this is,” Nancy scoffed.  “Those things blow over faster than you can say celebrity nude leaks, and if you’re worried your rivals are going to pull that out of a hat at a bad moment, because I know you are worried about that, I guarantee you I can find another ten things from their camp to make them shut right up about it.”

            “Really?”

            “Please.  You know me, right?  Easy as pie.  I know people.  We can make things can go away when we need them to,” Nancy answered with a dismissive snort of laughter.  “And you know Emily has a talent for that, too.”

            Hearing this from under the table and his mother’s foot, Scott resolved with all his might not to be worried.  After all, Nancy had indeed managed to help quiet down the rumblings that began from Maggie’s Instagram photo of him, half in a doll dress and half in his birthday suit, thanks to her above-average PR skills and “a few phone calls,” as she’d so casually put it.  For the first and presumably only time in his life, he had a reason to be grateful to the woman.

            Yet his mind still wasn’t calmed by this conclusion.

            What the hell did Nancy mean “things can go away?”

            Was a capacity to play public relations like a harp enough to do what she was saying she could?

            Did he really want the answer?

            “Fair enough,” Judy sighed.  “But even so, the garden party still doesn’t need to be that big.  I’m trying to create an image here.  Plus, you know I’ve always had a soft spot for… smaller… things.”

            “I’m telling you, Judy, this is a most important part of it right now.  You want them to feel like your side is the place to be.  You’re not just some lady from the city council who got a couple changes made to the PMRD laws.  No, no, no.  What you’ve been doing isn’t just some little stint, it’s a huge deal: it’s reforming the American penal system for the better, and you want to play that up.  You want a shot at that candidacy, you’ve got to put your face into their heads as much as what you stand for.  So, I actually already took the liberty of adding a few extra attractions already for the party.”

            “What attractions?” Judy asked, a smirk creeping over her lips.  “This is in a week, you know.  I’m sure it wasn’t cheap.”

            “Don’t worry about the price yet, it was nothing much.  They’re rentals, anyway.  Extra catering location, bigger wait staff, some bonsai trees, a fountain.  Those kinds of things, just to spruce up the location.”

            “Okay, Nance, I agree with you on the idea of it, but bringing in a fountain just for the afternoon is a little much.  We’re not going with the fountain,” Judy insisted, fighting back another peal of laughter.  As she emphasized her words, she absentmindedly clasped her warm toes over Scott’s face, muffling his breathing for a few short seconds.

            Scott almost wanted to chuckle too.  That did sound excessive, even for his normally extravagant mother.

            “I’ll make you a deal,” Nancy whispered intently, leaning forward over the desktop.  “We drop the fountain, if you finally stop hogging your little foot-hugger boy and give me a turn with him.  You’re not the only one who walks around all day, you know.”

            Scott’s blood iced, and he felt Judy’s foot shifting its weight atop his chest, considering the option presented to her.  His muscles tensed and he made a snap decision at the cost of his humility, wrapping his arms around the sides of her foot and hugging it back down to him as closely as possible, which she responded to in kind by reversing her motion and flattening her entire womanly appendage back down on his body.

            The weight of his mom’s wide sole splaying down across his entire frame knocked the wind cleanly out of Scott’s chest and he wheezed for air.  Her heel was also pinning his member hard against his waist through his pants, but he managed to keep his arms wound as far around the rubbery rim of her foot as he could.  No matter how hard she stood on him, it was still better than the alternative.

            Above the table, Judy giggled with delight at what she was feeling beneath her.

            “What’s so funny?” Nancy inquired, raising an eyebrow curiously, her eyes darting beneath the desk.

            “Oh, nothing,” the matriarch sighed lovingly as Scott continued embracing her foot with all his meek might.  She laughed piteously again.  “I’m just enjoying him, okay?  You don’t have to rush me.”

            “You get him all the time, though, Judy.  Please?  I’m just aching.  You have no idea what I go through in these spikes,” she said, and on the other end of the desk, from his upside down perspective immobilized under his mother’s hulking foot, Scott could make out the sight of Nancy’s newly freed and dexterous toes flicking away her intimidating red stilettos to the carpet next to her.

            Her feet then stomped flat onto the ground with an imposing thump, her toes pinching at the carpet and her heels pivoting against it for relief from the restriction of her towering shoes.  Just as she was lacking Judy’s height and slightly fuller frame, Nancy’s feet weren’t as milky or rounded as Scott’s mother’s, and instead revealed several veins pressed to the smooth skin along the tanned tops.

            “It’s not my fault you insist on torturing yourself in those things, honey.  Maybe if you’d had your own kids, you wouldn’t have this problem,” Judy insisted smartly, getting an amused chuckle from Nancy at this last comment.  “Just kidding, of course.”

            Scott knew she was doing anything but kidding.

            Still, the turn of this conversation was hard to wrap his brain around.  He couldn’t believe how central he had become to what was happening above him.  Two grown professional women in middle age, previously discussing important matters of Judy’s political campaign, now arguing like hyperactive high school hotties over who had the right to smother a Barbie doll-sized college student under their silky soles.

            “C’mon, just for a few minutes.  We’ll chop the fountain right off this list,” Nancy wheedled, her feet bouncing a few inches off the ground excitedly at the prospect of it.

            “Oh, all right, you win,” Judy conceded.  “I am trying to teach him better manners so I can introduce him to more of my friends, after all.”

            No.  No.

            Shit.

            Scott thrashed awkwardly from the tension he’d been building up internally as his mother’s warm foot suddenly lifted off of him and left him exposed, a light frosting of sweat already on his skin after being pressure cooked under her sole for the past few tense minutes of negotiation with Nancy.

            Judy’s foot arched against the chair leg a few paces past the end of Scott’s feet, and he jumped up just in time to see Nancy crouching under the desk on the other side, her eyes wide and wild with glee.

            She lowered herself to her knees so that she could inch under the desk closer to the cowering form of Scott on the opposite end, still laid in front of Judy’s feet, but no longer under her direct protection.

            “Hey, babe,” Nancy babbled in a degradingly bubble-gum voice, waving a well-manicured hand at him before extending her arm fully and beckoning him to her with her slender fingers.  “Come see your favorite Auntie Nancy.”

            It briefly crossed Scott’s mind to scramble backwards and throw himself down against the top of Judy’s foot in a last-ditch effort, but he knew this would only elicit a shared chortle between the two ladies, followed by his mother peeling him off of her foot by force and handing him over to Nancy, who would then have even more ammo with which to break him down.

            “Nance, while it’s on my mind, I wanted to show you something Techilogic sent me during the call last night.  I’ll be right back.  Go ahead and get Scott started.  He’s here to lend a helping hand, after all,” Judy instructed happily, rising to her feet and marching out of the office without a second glance at the son she’d just left at the mercy of the county’s most aggressive cougar.

            “Wait, Mom…” Scott muttered with a hopeless peep under his breath before turning to look toward Nancy again, who by now had crawled further under the desk and, with no Judy there to question her breach of social etiquette, quickly wrapped her fingers around Scott’s sides and scooped him off the carpet before he had time to blink.