“Oh, Murphy’s cool. You’ll like her a lot, as long as you behave. Maybe even if you don’t.”

Daniel grunted lazily at his friend’s playful jab at his nasty habit, far too enraptured by his current predicament to muster up much more than that token sign of displeasure as he continued to slowly, comfortably melt onto her gargantuan thigh. Its owner was currently laying on her side across the length of the living room couch. Olivia’s thumb seemed rather intent on accomplishing this particular goal, with the dexterous digit kneading him softly into her golden skin. The now immeasurably powerful muscles seemed all too willing to accept this fact, yielding as they did to the whims of the young woman who had spent years cultivating them.

That lazy grunt turned to a moan as Olivia’s friendly thumb changed its motions. No longer simply rubbing up and down his tiny back but, instead, adopting a swirling motion that worked even better in its soothing purpose. In some ways, Daniel wondered if this – this being stroked as if her were a tiny but treasured pet in need of a gentle, calming hand – might actually be more embarrassing than the despised bathing session that had preceded it. Olivia was, after all, touching roughly the same places he’d rather not while grinding his front into the now pleasantly-scented surface of her bare thigh as she lounged about in a fresh pair of Nike shorts and a clean tee.

In other ways, he didn’t really give a shit. This was comfortable, and Olivia’s gentle massage was wholly appreciated as it worked to alieve him of the aches and pains she herself had inflicted upon him underneath her merciless sole, seemingly working them out of his body as she pressed him into her own.

So hell if he was going to think about this too much and ruin an otherwise gracious act from his friend who was currently feeling a little bit apologetic over the teasing that had led him to losing another chunk of his already severely lessened height.

Because if there was one thing he knew about these moments, it was that he had to enjoy them while they lasted.

“And? Who else?” Olivia questioned curiously as she continued to prod him about his courses for next semester and, most importantly, who would be teaching them. “Algebra, right? You get Ms. Stone?”

I wish, the shrunken teen thought with a bitterness that almost turned thought into word. With a dissatisfied groan, his eyelids opened for the first time in a while. Greeting them over a sea of carpet was the scientific documentary she had clicked on as a little treat for him, muted and essentially forgotten as the two had soon struck up both this conversation and delightful massage.

“Well?” Olivia pressed with some impatience. Her thumb slowed its motions to a halt in order to lessen any distractions that might come between her and the answer she desired. Daniel, staring blankly over the curve of her thigh, sighed before wetting his lips as he recalled the sheer unpleasantness of reading whose class he had been assigned to. He milked the silence between him and his friend for all it was worth out of a need not say the name that soon escaped his lips.

“Roland.”

It was almost amusing, really, how forcefully that one word expelled all air out of the room. How it caused the seemingly invincible body he rested upon to seize up out of sheer concern. If he had simply been an outsider to this conversation, Daniel might even deem it impressive.

“That’s…” Olivia started, voice suddenly rather quiet. Unconfident – which was not at all natural for the auburn-maned athlete. “…that’s not right,” she continued after a thoughtful pause. “Roland doesn’t teach that.”

“She moved up to Algebra this year,” Daniel sullenly explained, forlorn eyes sinking into the warm comfort of Olivia’s flesh. As a pained silence overtook them, Olivia’s thumb joined him in his despair, providing an affectionate rub of support. It was easy to become lost in this particularly oversized brand of sympathy.

“Danny,” his friend’s quiet voice called as the sympathetic rubs came to an end. Accompanying that end, though, was her thumb moving to his side, the pristine nail pressing down just enough into the bronzed thigh so as to leverage itself underneath him before gently rolling the little boy onto his back. Curious, Daniel’s eyes drifted up Olivia’s considerable curves, eventually meeting her worried emerald gaze.

“Danny, listen to me,” she continued, knowing she fully had his attention. “You can’t have another slip-up like this next semester. You can’t.”

“Yeah,” Daniel replied meekly, while Olivia’s far-off shoulders slumped in thought.

“If it happens,” she eventually offered as her mind raced with contingencies, “Go talk to Mrs. Murphy. I mean it. You won’t… you won’t get off easy, but she’s fair. She’s a good person, Danny – she was faculty advisor for our Truth Council chapter my senior year. Tell her I told you to go to her. She’ll… I mean, she’ll teach you a lesson, but that’s all it is from her – a lesson. And she’ll take looking after you seriously. She cares, Danny.”

He nodded.

“And she’ll care about keeping you safe,” Olivia muttered as the pads of her thumb and forefingers clamped onto Daniel’s sides. She lifted him from one comfortable surface to another – her taut, toned stomach, itself covered by the pleasantly soft fabric of her fresh tank-top. In probably the best approximation of a hug his friend could manage at this height differential, her fingers pressed him gently into the powerful abdominals in a display of affection that left Daniel wondering just who this hug was meant to reassure.

The implication through all of this was that Ms. Roland didn’t care about him learning any kind of lesson and, thusly, did not care at all about his well-being, whether that be physical or spiritual. The latter itself was enough to earn Olivia’s annoyance and disrespect. The moment he had confided in her his read of the woman, which his friend had fully trusted without a second thought, that distaste had become palpable.

The former, though, was enough to earn Olivia’s fear. Fear of what that lack of care could mean for his health. Fear that one of his well-intentioned slip-ups might one day be the last he ever made, and not for any of the reasons she generally hoped would be the case.

Absent, of course, was any suggestion that Daniel confide in anyone else. Perhaps better than even he himself, Olivia understood why he did not do this. Why she was the only person he had shared his thoughts with. Suggesting that a teacher, a shaper of young minds, did not care about the sacred Truth? That she saw its workings solely as a means to enable her own particular proclivities? It was an accusation that had weight, and too much of it. And Daniel had too little proof – nothing more than knowing how she looked at him, the tone of her voice when delivering a “lesson”, the licking of her lips when he had cried out in pain. Nothing but physical tells existed – something the sadistic instructor plainly took great care to keep up. That Olivia believed him even then, that she trusted so fully in his eyes, his perception…

Well, it meant the world to him. And that meaning was why he couldn’t really help but snuggle slightly into her stomach as her hand cupped over him, sealing him against the defined surface. One of her fingers returned to its previous activities, rubbing tenderly against his back and unintentionally intensifying his light snuggling in the process.

“You know, I can’t really watch my show here,” he called up somewhat playfully in an attempt to lighten the mood and move on to something a bit more lighthearted.  Not that it wasn’t nice to occasionally be treated to this much softer side of his friend, but seeing her shaken like this, her confidence seemingly lost, he could do without.

“You stopped watching that like five minutes in,” Olivia replied, her voice not at all lightened. If Daniel’s eyes could see beyond the finger clasped above his head, and then further beyond the cusp of her chest, he would see that the gears in her head were still turning. Trying to come up with any more contingencies should the risk of an afternoon with Ms. Roland look like it might become a reality. Teachers he could see, maybe an old junior classmate that had been on the school’s gymnastics team at the same time. She was clearly in no mood to lighten up at the moment, not when her friend’s safety might now be in question.

Resigning himself to the fact that he was probably not going anywhere until Olivia had worked through this rather disturbing news, Daniel simply made himself comfortable. Not really hard to do – Olivia had more or less done that for him already. Rubbing the side of his face into the fabric of her shirt until it shifted to his liking, mostly as an attempt to contribute to his own comfort, Daniel allowed himself to close his eyes as the considerable warmth of Olivia’s body spread to his own, gradually lulling him into a calm slumber.