Sheila woke with a start and sat straight up in bed. A sound that made her think of a door slamming, as loud as a thunderclap, rang in her ears; her adrenaline raced up and down inside her chest like galloping horses.

She clutched her covers over her rising and falling chest; her eyes searched the placid darkness of her large room. Nothing was out of order: there were no vaguely human shapes standing in the darkness -- at least, not after she inspected each apparition long enough to figure out what the phantoms really were.

Sheila slipped out from under her blankets' protective warmth and into the cold air of her room. Her slender, arched feet found the cozy insides of her furry slippers; she drew a robe around herself and stood. Then Sheila went over to the panel on her bedroom wall, which housed her emergency miniaturization device. She'd never used it on anyone, but just knowing what it could do and having the small, egg-shaped gadget in her hand made her feel instantly more at ease.

A small smile slowly shaped Sheila's lips. It was empowering, even, to have the EMD in her clutches. It was like holding a gun: if she found an intruder, Sheila was well within her legal rights to shrink that person down to the size of a doll and hold them captive until the police arrived. Sheila's mind thought back to news stories depicting homeowners shrinking intruders and then "accidentally" stepping on the person before the police arrived. Sheila very nearly hoped she found someone trying to rob her house. The thought of someone so small before her was exciting.

Padding through the long hallways of her house, the blond smirked, feeling suddenly like a ferocious predator on a hunt. She kept the lights off as not to disturb her two daughters. She stopped to peek into their rooms and saw how neither stirred. The more Sheila ventured into the tranquil gloom -- making her way down the stairs and through the first floor's many rooms -- the more she questioned whether there ever was a noise to begin with.

The woman paused in the kitchen, preparing herself a light snack. She poured a small glass of wine to settle her nerves, and sipped at it as she stood there in her robe, playing with her mussy, golden tresses that spilled around her shoulders. Though on her own, in her fifties, and a mother of two, Sheila was wealthy, and spent money to maintain herself: even in the middle of the night and without any makeup, she looked serene, with fine blemish-free features constantly rejuvenated by creams, moisturizers, and the kind of care only afforded by expensive salons.

She popped the final hexagonal chocolate cracker into her mouth and gave her glass a quick rinse. Sheila intended to head back to her room, but paused when she saw something that surprised her. To anyone else, it would have been a pair of simple sneakers, but to Sheila, they weren't just any shoes. The faded, pitted, gray-colored trainers were what Sheila's maid frequently wore, though she often switched to a pair of house flats as she cleaned. Apparently, Lakshmi had forgotten her sneakers before retiring to her quarters, outside, behind the garage; Sheila bit her lip.

The woman hooked her fingers into the sneakers and then quickly scurried toward the stairs. The small hairs on the back of her neck tingled with static; she suddenly felt very naughty: as if she'd stolen something and could get caught at any moment. She supposed, really, that she had; her sleepy daughters could wander out and see her at any moment -- and then what would she say? Sheila shook the thoughts from her head as she made her way to her room; she could just tell them she was putting them out of the way until she could return them to Lakshmi.

And it was true: she would return them -- to the kitchen, not Lakshmi, before she went to sleep. But Sheila couldn't let such a rare opportunity slip by.

The door to her room closing behind her was all the safety she needed. Sheila brought one of the ratty gray trainers up to her face and hungrily sniffed. The musty odor of Lakshmi's feet filled Sheila's every breath: an acrid dampness, like the scent after a rain, with a strong, salty tang. She pushed her face deeper into the mouth of the sneaker and inhaled again, greedy for more; she wrinkled her nose. The smell was different; she didn't like it: it was sour, and reminded her of cheese.

Sheila held the shoe at just the right distance and breathed deeply, in and out, trying to keep the scent always in her senses. One of her hands snaked down between her legs and she leaned against the door and moaned. She gently brushed her fingers over her lips as she imagined pressing her face into the soles of her maid's feet. Sheila's eyes fluttered opened and she moved swiftly over to her bed, shedding all her clothing in the process, and gathering up Lakshmi's sneakers and the vibrator she kept in the top drawer of her nightstand.

For hours, Sheila drew in the aroma from the sneakers, lost in the fantasies the scent inspired, vibrator humming obediently against her clit as she imagined how she might serve her mistress the next day.

###

"Okay, Miss Sheila, see you next week!"

Sheila tossed the magazine that she was pretending to read aside and then leapt up from her chair. "Wait," she started, and panicked; she walked toward the kitchen, where Lakshmi's voice came from. "Um, I still need to pay you!"

The homeowner -- blond hair in an elaborate braid done at the salon that morning -- looked ready for a jog, dressed in an orange zip-up sweatshirt and black tights; she had a pristine pair of sleek black-and-gold sneakers on her feet.

Lakshmi, on the other hand, was exhausted from doing her weekly "big clean" -- it was the last chore between her and leaving for the weekend, and seeing her family. Though Lakshmi and Sheila were close to one another in age, Lakshmi didn't get the other woman's spa days or expensive ointments: the maid looked as tired as she really was. She wore a drab green shirt with brown pants, and her usual house flats; she had her unruly black hair tied back in a messy ponytail, and the Lakshmi's shirt was dark with sweat under the arms.

"In fact," Sheila cleared her throat. "I was wondering if you'd be interested in picking up... Well, fattening your check, so to speak."

Lakshmi rolled her eyes and scoffed. "Come on, Miss Sheila! I told you no more!"

"Don't call me that," Sheila replied quickly, in an urging tone. "Well, not right now, I mean." The blond was flustered, and looked as if she might stamp her foot. "Come on, let's not have this talk again. We both enjoy this. You know you do."

"I told you, I'm no longer your mistress."

Since their fight, Sheila had imagined the moment she found herself in many times, and practiced all the things that she wanted to say. In the theater of her mind, she navigated the conversation eloquently, and Lakshmi accepted her back at her feet. In the moment, it suddenly felt impossible: Lakshmi's words pierced her to her core.

What spilled from her lips was nothing she practiced, and sounded not at all like she imagined. "Please," her voice was a whine, "Please," and it was hard to say any other word, "What do I have to do?"

Lakshmi glared at Sheila; the homeowner found it hard to look back into the woman's intense brown irises -- Sheila's eyes kept flickering away and back. "I want power," Lakshmi demanded. "Not a few dollars to 'get myself something nice.' I want everything."

Hope sprung anew within Sheila -- there was a way to please Lakshmi -- but she was confused, too. Her doe-eyed blue orbs now flittered between Lakshmi's eyes, looking at one and then the other. "What does that mean?" Sheila shook her head. "How do I give that to you?"

Lakshmi walked closer. She was thin, and long limbed. Standing with her legs and back straight she was taller than Sheila, and that's how she stood. Sheila's feet were glued to the floor, she was convinced, and her legs started to shake in a way she worried was noticeable.

Sheila dearly wanted to break the silence as Lakshmi's cold, calculating eyes gazed down on her, but she couldn't. She physically could not force herself to produce words. There was fear in her, and she could smell her own sweat.

Lakshmi's eyes glittered. "On your knees, girl," she said.

Sheila swallowed. She reached out for the kitchen's island; the polished marble counter was cold. The woman leaned on her hand as she lowered herself down onto one knee, and then the next, her bones immediately aching atop the hard, flat tile.

Then the blond looked up at her maid. "Lakshmi, I-"

Lakshmi cocked her arm back and swung it forward, the effort showing on her face; she struck Sheila on the cheek with a room-filling WHAP!

"Stay right there," Lakshmi commanded Sheila, and then the tall, thin woman padded from the room. Sheila watched her feet leave, shy with ecstasy, her cheek still glowing from the slap. She was lightheaded in the best way; buzzed from her submission to Lakshmi.

When Lakshmi returned, she carried bundled papers. Sheila's face scrunched up in confusion as the woman threw the sheets down before her; a pen clattered against the tile. "Sign," Lakshmi commanded.

"What? What is this? A contract?"

"Everything."

Lakshmi stood over Sheila with her hands on her hips, gazing down on her coolly and ignoring her questions. Somewhere, a clock in the kitchen ticked loudly, it's typically soft sound unimpeded by anything other than Sheila's voice. When the woman on her knees did not sign, her mistress left the room once more. This time she went upstairs.

Sheila's eyes glanced over the unfurled papers with worry. They looked very official, like a lease, or an employment form. The blocks of text were numbered and lettered like legal articles, and Sheila tried to take in as much as she could: the document mentioned her and her family, her home, her bank accounts, her possessions -- it mentioned Lakshmi, too: turning it all over to her.

Upon hearing the other woman's footsteps, Sheila called out, "I can't sign this, Lakshmi. This is too much!"

Lakshmi appeared at the bottom of the stairs with a smile on her face, holding something that looked like a small gadget; egg shaped. Sheila's eyelids widened as she realized too late what it really was -- Lakshmi was pointing the device at her, looking over her hand as if she aimed a gun.

"Wait," Sheila pleaded, "Don't!"

Lakshmi's grin turned wicked; she gleefully stared into Sheila's blue eyes as she thumbed the EMD. There was no bullet, or visible beam, just a sensation: a warm tingle spread all over Sheila's body. For a moment, the shiver was pleasurable; a few ticks of the clock later, a queasy torrent hit her in the gut and she watched with horror as her maid -- and everything else -- visibly swelled in size. Then the world stabilized just as fast, but Sheila was a little smaller.

The partly shrunken woman doubled over and vomited, glugging as liquid and chunks spewed out of her. She threw up a second time, regurgitate puddling and splashing on the tile. Sheila, still hunched, glanced at Lakshmi with pleading eyes. "Ugh, sto-"

Lakshmi pinched the device. Sheila's stomach swam, and then so did her vision. The world was growing again -- her organs shifted inside of her, as if the elevator she was in just fell free. When reality solidified and her ride stopped, Sheila was looking across at the top of Lakshmi's chest, in line with her clavicles; her own clothes were loose. The sight and sensation robbed the woman of breath. There was no mercy in Lakshmi's chestnut brown eyes.

"STOP!"

Again, Sheila was helpless to the forces that wracked her up and down, and compressed her from all sides. She dry heaved, liquid sloshing uncomfortably inside her, but she desperately kept it down. It was horrifying, the way Lakshmi's body swelled. A few inches were added to her in all directions. Sheila noticed new, fine details in the texture of Lakshmi's clothes and flesh, as if she now saw the woman in a higher definition than before. It was her entire scale shifting, Sheila realized with horror; she had shrunk so much that her visual frame of reference had changed.

"Miss Lakshmi, please stop," Sheila begged.

"Sign it."

"I can't."

Lakshmi's thumb moved. The shrinking woman's sobs were cut off by another round of vomiting. Her mistress stood there and watched, the smile never leaving her face. Then the smaller woman recovered and found herself looking across at her maid-turned-tormentor at the level of her navel; Sheila fell to her knees with a blubbering whimper. Her sweatshirt drooped over her diminished frame, suddenly considerably heavier than it was moments ago. A SLAP! made Sheila flinch -- Lakshmi tapped her foot atop the tile wearing her worn, ratty flat, waiting.

"Please don't make me any smaller," Sheila sobbed. "Please, please stop." She worked the heavy, oversized pen with both hands and signed the page. Her tears wet the paper. When the tip of the pen stopped moving -- her brand on the page finished -- Sheila lifted her gaze toward Lakshmi and found that the larger woman still had the device pointed at her.

Any shred of hope Sheila clung to was torn away as her stomach tightened; her clothes became loose, and then billowed around her as she lost sight of Lakshmi's gleeful, malicious grin. The tiny woman tumbled through space, end over end, in a soft tunnel. The now mattress-like fabric of her sweater cushioned her fall; the smell of her spring mountain soap was heavy in the air, and the linty, plush dark orange interior of the sleeve smothered her.

Sheila had no idea how small she was; the sleeve was large enough to crawl through, but was claustrophobic all the same.

"Come out, come out, little bug," Lakshmi taunted with a laugh. The tiny woman shriveled up at the giant sound, and very nearly burst into tears. Lakshmi's voice was so large and powerful now. Her laughter was oppressive, like a barrage of thunder heralding a violent storm.

Sheila forced herself to crawl through the labyrinth of fabric she found herself in, unable to stop the tears that ran down her cheeks and left them wet and warm. Rustling nearby told Sheila of the giant's movement: Lakshmi was rubbing her bare foot atop the pile of clothing, feeling for her quarry.

"Please no, oh please, oh god." The words were spilling from Sheila's lips; she couldn't stop them. She didn't want this to be real. This had to be a dream. But no amount of hoping let Sheila escape the grim darkness, or the hair-raising sound of Lakshmi's now huge foot sifting through her deflated garments.

All at once the roaring hush of sliding flesh came right for her, and Sheila screamed, overtaken and pressed flat under an impossible amount of weight to resist. It was like being dragged underneath by a wave, and pressed hard into the sand. She heard Lakshmi's happy, rumbling chuckle high above, and something unknown pressed down on Sheila's naked little body -- Lakshmi's toes, Sheila realized, when they wiggled, huge.

"Found you," the giant remarked happily. Sheila couldn't move, pinned in the darkness; a tart, sour stink reached Sheila, overpowering the scent of her washed linen -- the fabric dampened with sweat, and the aroma of Lakshmi's foot seeped all around Sheila like a fog.

And then Lakshmi's foot left her, and the world started to shift around the little woman; she tumbled down a long fabric slide toward a shaft of light. Sheila screamed. She fell from the sleeve of her too-large sweatshirt and went head-first into the tile floor, knocking into it hard enough to dim the edges of her vision.

Sheila rolled over onto her back, holding her head, only to find that Lakshmi held her bare sole over her, and was frowning down. The tiny woman stared up at the rough, worn flesh hanging overhead with fear and disgust; in the distance was Lakshmi's face, a mixture of pure excitement and gleeful anger. Seeing her maid -- her mistress -- now as a colossus shocked Sheila's mind in a visceral way, as if she'd just been struck by a hammer: Lakshmi seemed infinitely powerful, holding her foot with such disdain over Sheila, as if the tiny woman was born a bug and had always been this way, and it was only right for Lakshmi to snuff her out underfoot.

As the giant's sole lowered, Sheila could see all the whorls and imperfections in the flesh, all the bits of dirt, and smears of dust, hard rough ridges of skin and where it tore, and how Lakshmi's soles were damp with sweat. They were feet that worked hard.

"You dumb little white bitch," Lakshmi growled, and she smothered Sheila underfoot.

Sheila was underwater. She was drowning in a swamp. She couldn't move any of her limbs, not even an inch. The gritty flesh of Lakshmi's foot molded around her, and the air was low on oxygen, and rich with an off-puttingly sour funk. Sheila started to really panic, but couldn't thrash in protest; Lakshmi's foot pressed down so it completely cut off the smaller woman's air supply and forced her nostrils and lips closed. Sheila's body sung with pain from being flattened so brutally against the cold tile, and her lungs felt as if they might burst. She heard her own scream, trapped inside her mouth and ears.

Consciousness-sustaining air never came. Sheila passed out, smothered under Lakshmi's uncaring sole.

Wherever Sheila regained consciousness, the floor was hard, and flat, and ice cold. There was no light, and she had to blink to make sure her eyelids were actually open. With a panicked gasp, Sheila was suddenly wide awake. She sat up on her frosty, mysterious perch and stared, sightless, at the opaque gloom that surrounded her.

Then a monstrous headache drove itself like a spear through the woman's brain. She let out a small wail as horrible details flooded back in on her all at once, images to go with her pain: Lakshmi, a powerful giant, and the crushing weight of her rough, fragrant sole -- Sheila's pains and aches suddenly made terrible sense. Lakshmi must have kept her foot on top of her until she knocked her out.

Realization settled on Sheila, one that dried out her mouth, and chilled her skin. A thought -- she could have killed me -- rattled around Sheila's mind as all the terror those five little words inspired slowly dawned on her. Like a laser striking a prism, the beam multiplied and branched out in countless different paths: Was Lakshmi trying to kill her? Would the giant have cared if she did? If she was willing to go that far...

It was an unconscious movement: as she sat in the dark, limbs pulled in, Sheila's hand drifted by her neck while the woman was lost in thought. Her fingertips brushed up against something. A foreign object. Something around her neck that was not there before. A collar. Sheila's searching fingers found hard leather all the way around, with a large metal clasp on the back.

Sheila gripped the clasp around its edges and tugged at it. She yanked it as hard as she could. The mechanism wouldn't budge, and the leather twisted against her throat. Sheila croaked in despair, choking her own cry as she flopped against the hard ground and fought with the restraint around her neck. Her eyes bulged at the effort, and her tongue felt dry, and both hurt. A hot line trickled down the back of her neck where the clasp bit into her flesh as she strained against her collar.

Then Sheila gave up and lied flat, limbs askew, like a doll thrown and left there. As her breathing slowed, her eyes adjusted to the darkness and started picking out new details.

Bars. And a low ceiling. Sheila was in a cage. Collared, and in a cage.

The woman hugged herself as she sobbed. She watched more of the room reveal itself, shapes becoming objects she knew -- a small bed, drawers, a plastic-looking laptop computer -- though everything was disturbingly large. It was a cavernous bedroom. The cage that imprisoned her must have been on top of a dresser for how high up she was. Despite the space's size to her, the bedroom was smaller than any Sheila had ever called her own -- even as a child. It was a tiny room, and messy, too: there were clothes piled in the corners, and discarded shoes, and mounds of paper heaped here and there amongst the rest of the clutter -- books, boxes, socks and underwear, bedding, household odds and ends.

Sheila found her mind drifting to Lakshmi. Was this her room? Was this how she lived? Sheila had no idea. The woman kept her quarters in the room behind the garage of Sheila's house tidy and spartan. Or, Sheila thought: maybe it wasn't her house anymore.

The tiny woman pulled herself from the floor. She wrapped her arms around her bent legs and pulled them closer. Lakshmi always liked playing rougher than Sheila wanted her to. Sheila's fantasy was to serve and pamper the woman: washing her feet, giving her foot rubs and massages -- even kissing Lakshmi's soles, after they were cleaned. She most enjoyed a teasing and light tone. Typically Lakshmi would read a magazine or talk on the phone through it all, her expression flat and uninterested. But Sheila had paid her, and sometimes the woman would even tease her a bit, which Sheila had loved.

For hours Sheila was left in the small cage: a tiny figure huddled and shivering. A few times she got up to walk around and stretch her legs, and to inspect the thinly spaced bars that contained her; she couldn't squeeze through them, or bend the metal. The clasp on the door, too, was a simple pinch-lock -- but Sheila's little arms couldn't force the knobs together. After a while she gave up and simply lied in the center of the cage, shivering on the cool ground until her body heat warmed the spot up for her. She almost fell asleep.

The sound of talking alerted Sheila's dulled senses. Then the door across the room opened. Her heart raced painfully in her chest; her breath caught as the lights snapped on. Even through the over-illuminated haze Sheila made out the distinct, massive form of Lakshmi entering the space. Lakshmi's cruel visage took shape as Sheila's former maid walked right right up to the cage and loomed over her new toy.

Sheila scrambled backward, as if she could escape Lakshmi. She crashed into the bars behind her. Even then, fear seized control of her body and she tried to squeeze between the metal rods, knowing she couldn't. Lakshmi chuckled and effortlessly pinched the clasp of the lock open between her finger and thumb.

Lakshmi's huge brown hand reached for Sheila; the woman's thick fingers crashed all around her. Sheila was positively waifish at only a couple of inches tall, and was easily swallowed up and captured, pressed against the warm flesh of Lakshmi's palm that was musty from the titan's sweating.

Sheila's stomach dropped into her guts and swam around as she was pulled from the cage, encased within Lakshmi's fist. She had no way of telling which direction was up as her body struggled for equilibrium. Then Sheila settled on her back, and Lakshmi's curled fingers rose, and light spilled in around the woman atop the undulating, living pedestal of Lakshmi's palm, held right before her colossal, malicious countenance.

Lakshmi had a face like a crow; long sharp nose, dark sparkling eyes, thin pursed lips, big round cheekbones and gaunt cheeks and small chin. Her russet brown skin was a little lighter than her thick black locks, which were pulled back into a tight bun. She was fierce and beautiful. Especially at her size. Sheila felt pathetic by comparison. Lakshmi was big and powerful, and Sheila was nothing, held before her. She was a sliver -- as white as the belly of a fish -- sitting in the center of Lakshmi's rosy tan palm.

The giant grinned, showing her teeth; then Lakshmi's jaw came apart as she laughed, loudly, right over Sheila's nude, collared form. Lakshmi's hot breath was all over her, pungent and stale. Sheila held her arms up and screamed as Lakshmi used her fingers of her other hand to pinch her; and then the tiny toy was traveling down the length of the giant's form: she was dressed in her usual work attire, with a simple shirt and slacks, and her flats.

"Want me to knock you out again, bitch?"

Lakshmi kicked off her thin, tattered flats. They clattered around Sheila, who cried out and hunkered down, hoping the hard sole of one of the shoes wouldn't swat her dead like a fly. She glanced skyward when she heard Lakshmi chuckling, only to watch the underside of the woman's dirty toes appear directly overhead -- it was dizzying, how fast Lakshmi could move. The toes crashed onto her and forced her against the dusty hardwood floor of the bedroom.

"Maybe you won't wake up this time."

Sheila fought against Lakshmi's grasping, harassing toes. They were slick with sweat, and a tangy odor wafted over Sheila every time Lakshmi spread her digits; between them, Sheila saw how clumps of grime gathered in their deepest nooks, and flecks of dirt and specks of lint dotted the giant woman's brown flesh.

The tiny woman lost the fight. Lakshmi's overpowering toes pressed her flat, and Sheila was treated to one last glimpse of her grinning tormentor, high above, from between Lakshmi's big toe and the next. Then the flesh of Lakshmi's sole slid over her, molding to her shape. The plush mass of the ball of the giant foot returned Sheila to a familiar position: suffocating to a sour stink, buried under a smothering blanket of skin.

Sheila almost blacked out. She had no concept of how long Lakshmi's foot stayed on top of her, but, suddenly, she was awake and alert as the giant reached down for her. The tiny woman's shriek had no wind to it; her lungs were tired, her throat raw. The world spun around in a mash of blurry colors as Lakshmi's bulk shuffled toward her colossal bed. Sheila almost puked from how fast Lakshmi's hand moved: all at once the woman's sole -- her foot resting on her knee at the ankle -- was waiting for Sheila to be pressed against it.

"You're pathetic," Lakshmi loudly growled.

Sheila was forced into the soft, hot expanse of Lakshmi's sole. To the tiny woman it was a moving wall of flesh, alive. Lakshmi's finger and thumb pinched her tightly about the waist, meanwhile her forefinger stayed behind Sheila's head, keeping her face pressed against the fragrant skin. The sweat from Lakshmi's foot clogged Sheila's nose and got in her mouth, warm and salty -- it was difficult to scream, let alone breath. She could feel the stuff all over her body, making her sticky and damp, and matting her hair. Sheila was dragged through something thicker, like gunk, as Lakshmi swiped her across a streak of dirt and pushed the tiny blond's head between her long, bony toes.

"Little white cunt. Look how dirty you are. You're too pale. I can see it all over you, you filthy bug!"

For the giant, Sheila's little ball-like head was the perfect fit, slotting into the nook deepest between her toes. For Sheila, it was almost worse than being smothered underneath Lakshmi's sole. Her body was spared the crushing weight, but Sheila's face was pushed completely into a suffocating mask of soft webbing, and the odors there were far more potent. Combined with whatever the wet sludge was that her face was buried in, it was as if she'd been dunked into a tub full of pungent, soft cheese.

Lakshmi's huge fingertip gave Sheila's itty-bitty skull one last press before leaving her, and then the giant's toes curled possessively, so her captive had no chance to unwedge her head. Lakshmi's distant chuckle was muffled by the pulsating structure of flesh and meat and blood and bones surrounding Sheila in all directions. It was harder and harder to breathe -- she had to fight for every lungful of Lakshmi's sharp sour stink -- and Sheila wiggled fiercely, and beat against Lakshmi's rough sole with her fists and legs. The giant only laughed more.

"You're so white. White like one of my rags."

Once more Sheila found herself scrubbed along the rough sole, now more deliberately. She was scraped over the dry, tough spots of Lakshmi's overworked skin, and Sheila's body was cut by torn ridges of flesh that had dried and become sharp. Lakshmi's heel, especially, was coarse as sandpaper and grated Sheila's sensitive, manicured form.

"Lakshmi, please don't-"

Lakshmi's looming visage soured like the sky before a storm. "Shut up, you insect. You pathetic little grub. Never speak up to me again. If you do," Sheila was repositioned by Lakshmi's long, knobby toes, which wiggled against her -- the tiny blond struggled against the flurry of blows; Lakshmi's toes beat her hard enough to bruise, "I'll break that ugly little face of yours. I'll smash it flat! You'll look like a pink little pig with a smashed nose, I bet."

Sheila expended all her effort to shield herself from the attention of Lakshmi's sour toes, but the impacts were too great. When Sheila was pulled from the underside of the giant foot and back toward the woman's face, she was limp between the fingertips that pinched her. Blood trickled from her nose, and the corner of her lips. Her eyes were wet and pleading, which caused Lakshmi to sneer with glee.

"You will do everything I say, or I will crush you. You are a worthless, disgusting, pale grub. A termite. Never talk unless spoken to. And you never say anything other than, 'Yes, Goddess Lakshmi!'"

Lakshmi's eyes narrowed and her thumb and fingertips put a dangerous amount of pressure on Sheila's hips.

Sheila's throat was as dry as a desert. "Yes, Goddess Lakshmi!" She croaked.

Lakshmi threw back her head and laughed; Sheila nearly threw up -- her mind bobbed on the verge of a blackout. She moaned as she was lowered. Sheila knew with dreadful certainty that she was heading back towards Lakshmi's foot; she was pressed against it, held fast to the plane of wrinkled flesh by the giant's thick fingers.

"Now," Lakshmi's powerful voice rumbled, "Lick!"

Sheila dragged her tongue against the wrinkled flesh of Lakshmi's sole; the flavor of it was hard to take, as if she'd just popped a too-sour, salty candy into her mouth. The giant woman's flesh had a gritty texture to it -- nothing like Sheila's own soft, precious feet.

"You are small because you are weak. You are white and American. Weak! Lazy! Stupid!" Lakshmi chuckled with relish. "I am a goddess compared to you!"

Lakshmi pushed Sheila's head back between her toes. "Lick!"

And Sheila did, eating the gunk between the giant's digits. The sludge was thick and bitter in her mouth, and she struggled to choke it down. She had to work each mouthful into a tighter ball with her tongue, first, and wet it with as much saliva as she could, or else it jammed in her throat.

Lakshmi guffawed the night away, guiding Sheila around every part of her feet, and making her eat all the dirt between her toes. When she was finally returned to her cage in the dead of the morning, Sheila was quick to fall asleep. She woke up several times, throwing up the filth in her stomach.

Each time, after emptying herself best she could, Sheila lied back and surrendered to the escape of her dreams, desperately hoping she could stay inside their false realities.

###

Sheila moaned; she stirred. Her body ached from having slept on the smooth, hard plane of the cage floor, which was warm and wet from her body heat and sweat. Her nose, too, stung sharply from how Lakshmi had smashed it with her toes. Blubbering, Sheila felt the shape of it with her fingertips, her mind unsure whether this bump, or that dent, was there before. And then she realized that she wasn't the only one moaning and sobbing.

She shared her space with two young women. Sheila wiped her dripping eyes. Her daughters, Lyla and Julie, were naked and collared and huddling together, shaking. They stared back, mirroring her uncertainty -- then all three broke into tears at once, crawling toward the center of the cage and embracing.

Sheila wailed. "My girls!"

A flood of sudden relief overcame the mother as she wrapped her arms around her two daughters and pressed their nakedness to her own. It was a tight huddle, and they locked their limbs together. Lyla, the eldest -- soon to leave for university -- was taking it a bit better than Julie. The youngest of the three couldn't stop herself from shaking all over, like a dog back home after being lost in the rain.

Sheila sat back, with one hand on Lyla's shoulder and the other on Julie's, and looked between their scared eyes. Blue, like their mother's. She almost started crying again. "What happened? How did you get here? Oh, god, we've got to get out of here. Please tell me one of you has a cellphone, or -- no of course you wouldn't -- wait! Was anyone expecting you anywhere? What day is it exactly? Someone will have to come looking for us. They must. Please, please tell me one of you had a sleepover, or a party, or something this weekend!"

It was only then that Sheila realized how her daughters stared at her. With fear and consternation; wanting both to help her, but struggling to recognize their mother. Sheila couldn't stop babbling. She tried to tell them of the horrors she'd already suffered as Lakshmi's toy -- tried to impress upon them just how dire it was that they gather their wits about them, and quickly.

Lyla swallowed, and spoke first. "Mom, I-"

They all felt the rhythmic build: steady pounding that shook the hard metal floor, which drilled pain into the bones in their knees. Sheila looked toward the door to the bedroom just as it opened, and was blinded by the burst of illumination that spilled in from the hallway. "No no no no!" The girls screamed as the lights overhead snapped on, and the distant giant was all at once larger and looming over the cage after a few powerful strides. Lakshmi's features above them appeared angry, but her eyes sparkled.

The whole front wall of the cage opened with a terrible screech as Lakshmi pinched the door's clasp. Sheila didn't know what she was planning even as she rushed forward and screamed with all of her might: "La-" she caught herself, "Goddess Lakshmi! This is too far. Take me! Do whatever you want to me! But leave them!"

Lakshmi grinned down from high above. Sheila didn't notice how the giant brought her hand around until it was too late, and her coiled, trunk-like finger was already flicking outward. The glinting nail caught Sheila's cheek, the edge of it slicing the tiny woman's flesh open, and the flat of it smashed against her skull and sent her tumbling backward. Sheila let out a wild wail of pain as she bowled into the opposite end of the cage.

Her girls called out warnings as a cool gloom overtook Sheila -- fearfully she glanced up to see how Lakshmi's hand had followed her, finger cocked once more. With a quick scrape of flesh the pillar of an appendage swung through the air like a pendulum. Sheila only just managed to get out of its way, displaced air whipping at her with a whump. Lakshmi laughed. The finger retreated, and just as quickly struck out again, this time catching the tiny matron right in the leg.

Sheila screamed; the hot hurt reached all the way to her bone. Her leg didn't move as well after the hit, and she found it hard to escape Lakshmi's whipping finger then. It bashed her right in the stomach, and slapped her breasts, and smacked the fat of her thigh so hard she bruised instantly, her whole side turning jaundiced violet. The rest of her pale flesh was molting into yellows and purple and blues, or bleeding red. Curling up and crying, hoping for mercy, only made it worse: Lakshmi's finger knocked her helpless slave into the bars of the cage as if she was a hockey puck. Sheila fell to the floor in a heap.

Julie sobbed into Lyla's chest as her older sister held her; Lyla, too, was horrified at the sight of her mother's brutally beaten body lying almost still. When the young woman glanced up at Lakshmi, she was chilled by the sight of the giant glaring down at her. The angry visage was still there, but that gleeful glitter was gone: her captor's eyes were full of contempt.

"Come here. Now!"

Lyla's terrified eyes dropped down and took in Lakshmi's waiting hand, as large as a tennis court. At first she clutched Julie tighter, but her brain kicked in: "Come on, Julie. We have to do as she says!"

Julie's face was full of horrified disbelief and she whined, "What? Are you nuts?"

Lyla dragged her younger sister to her feet, and nearly chucked her onto Lakshmi's giant, waiting fingers. Then she moved quickly to help her mother up; the woman held her sliced-open cheek with one hand, and blood trickled between her fingers and down her arm. She cried out as Lyla grabbed her and pulled her, too, toward Lakshmi's grasp. Lyla couldn't keep herself from staring up at the giant once more out of instinctive fear as she hauled her mother forth. She was surprised and ashamed to find satisfaction written on the giant's features, but they quickly hardened when Lakshmi noticed Lyla gazing up at her.

"Hurry up, bug girl!"

Sheila wailed as Lyla forced her ever forward. Reluctantly the mother scrambled -- and Lyla pushed her -- up onto the dry, wrinkled flesh of Lakshmi's fingers. The appendages curled, and all three women screamed as they fell, rolling, tumbling painfully over one another as they spilled onto Lakshmi's palm. All at once the world whirled around them; they were hoisted up into the air so fast their stomachs fell into their guts. The giant's distant face peeked in at them overtop her pillar-like fingers as she moved quickly through the house. There was a small smile on her face. Far below, the giant's bare soles slapped hardwood.

Two other faces suddenly came into view through the curled trunks of Lakshmi's fingers. Both women, one old and one younger, were as richly brown as Lakshmi, and shared her angular features. Lyla thought she recognized the girl, who looked to be around Julie's age, but she couldn't put a name to the face. She was positive she'd seen her around school: something like hope surged inside Lyla upon seeing the youngest of the giants, whose countenance seemed more innocent in its excitement.

In the older woman's face, Lyla saw no mercy. The wizened visage was as stoic as a stone carving, with beady eyes set under wisps of eyebrows, and a perpetual frown. Her white hair was pulled back under a red-and-gold shawl. Where Lakshmi's hatred burned white hot, this eldest giant's contempt was pure frost -- all the color in her irises having faded to a steely gray over time.

"I am your goddess, Fatima," the dowager croaked in a voice that was soft but firm.

"And I'm Goddess Anala," the giant daughter announced, loud and proud, her face suddenly serious. In her eyes, Lyla saw that same fire, like Lakshmi -- a greedy flame that robbed her of any warmth.

The platform that held them started to descend, and the giants loomed higher and higher -- Lakshmi's face lowered with her hand, sneering at Lyla and her family the while. Lyla, full of awe and terror, was the only one of them staring back: Julie still sobbed in her arms; Sheila, who lied curled nearby, wore a mask of constant pain. Her head and shoulders were covered with drying blood from the deep slash across her cheek.

The trio of tiny women screamed as Lakshmi simply tilted her palm, unceremoniously dumping them onto the uneven, dirty wooden floor of the apartment. Like a soldier plunked onto a beachhead under heavy fire, Lyla scrambled to get her bearings in a panic, and to check on her mother and sister -- constantly, fearfully aware of the titanic beings who loomed over her.

Sheila wasn't on her feet, or even on her knees -- she was sitting sidelong, like a drunk just trying to hold her sloshing payload in. At least she wasn't curled into a ball, Lyla thought with anger, and then the young woman felt ashamed. She knew she shouldn't be mad at her mother -- the blood spattered all over her parent was a clear sign of how much she'd already endured -- but Lyla needed Sheila then more than ever. Instead, she found herself in the spotlight, a de facto matron. She went and helped her naked, shivering little sister to her feet first, before turning toward her mother.

Sheila wasn't there anymore -- that is, if she was, then she was engulfed by Lakshmi's long, bony toes, each bigger and larger around than any of the tinies, which wiggled on top of something. Lyla gasped and glowered up at the giant, balling her fists.

"Leave her alone! Haven't you gotten your fill already, you monster?"

Lakshmi gazed down; in her eyes was a chilled heat, like a freshly dormant furnace still searing to the touch -- a cooling volcano, post eruption.

"On. Your. Knees!"

Lyla crossed her arms and glared back at Lakshmi.

It was Anala's foot that slapped down, dangerously close in front of the insolent little woman. "Kiss my toes right now, stupid slave!"

"How dare you!" Lyla screamed, shaking a raised fist in the air. "I am not your slave!"

Anala's hands were on her hips and her expression was unimpressed. The tiny pale woman felt even smaller under that giant's brown-eyed gaze. "Then you are a bug."

In one smooth motion towering Anala raised her tan, reddened sole and then brought it down right on top of Lyla with a loud snapping staccato, and a wet, disturbing gurgle -- as if Anala just stepped on a fat, juicy cricket. The big brown foot twisted slowly one way and then the other, crackles popping in the ears of Julie and Sheila. The house-sized mass of flesh lifted away to reveal Lyla, mashed up and in a bad way. Sheila's eldest twitched like a half-smashed insect, crushed into the filth of the hardwood floor.

Sheila, suddenly alert, sat up straight as a board and shrieked. Julie sank down to her knees, the tears flowing over her cheeks and dripping off her chin as she gazed up at the giants, full of fear. All three of the god-like beings watched while wearing grins, but their eyes didn't smile -- their eyes all held the same malevolent spark.

Sheila staggered to her feet. She almost fell right back over. Her body was horribly weak. Only in her most exhausted and wasted moments -- in severe illness, or childbirth -- had any experience ever come close. Sheila's brain felt like it was lost in fog, and just taking a step forward was a real effort.

It was the vision of Lyla that fueled her, and forced her onward despite her injuries from Lakshmi's thrashing finger. Young, beautiful Lyla, now horribly mangled. The gruesome wounds were beyond anything that Sheila imagined could be healed -- and what hope was there of help? Sheila's mind floated away from her body. It was all too much: she wasn't this skeletal, bloodied woman marching forward; she wasn't making the pitiful, blubbering noises that this thing was trying to pass off as speech. She wasn't this helpless, or powerless.

To see Lyla as she was in that moment was a waking nightmare. How her midsection was smashed flat, and stringy guts had burst forth from her split-open sides. Her legs were unnaturally curled and crinkled, and the one good arm she raised to beseech her mother's help zigged and zagged, broken all over. And Lyla's face -- Sheila almost couldn't bear to look at it: there was a ghastly tear down the middle of the young woman's face from how her skull was crushed in on itself, and her flesh ripped in a jagged line.

Then Fatima's thick, rough toes lowered onto Lyla's fragile, broken form -- they rested heavily on top of her. "Lick," the old woman ordered curtly. Worry fluttered inside Sheila at how the thick toes flexed dangerously, and how a fluffy piece of debris was pressed down onto Lyla's ruined face. The young woman mechanically turned her head and lapped at the tanned flesh, her strokes weak; she was forced to pull the grime into her mouth and swallow it quickly, fearing that the elder giant might think she'd stopped, and hurt her. Fatima chuckled and curled her toes anyway, flexing them around Lyla with a crackling of ribs, and a deflated scream from the tiny teen.

"No!" Sheila yelled. She rushed forward with all her might, which wasn't much. As she hobbled toward her fallen daughter, Fatima's bulbous digits wiggled on top of the pale-and-red body beneath them. The giant toes beat down like hammers. Lyla was helpless against the blows. Her functioning arm moved to shield her, but was quickly smashed into the ground at her side. When the toes finally had their fill and rose away, Lyla's head slumped to the side, and a thin slick of black-red blood rapidly pooled around it in all directions.

Wearing a mask of abject horror, Sheila shuffled, losing steam as she gazed at Lyla, who lied still and could very well be dead. No, the matron told herself. She wouldn't stop, or slow down, or fall to her knees. She wouldn't!

Lakshmi's long toes appeared in front of Sheila and pushed the tiny woman back onto her ass. Sheila wailed as she watched how Lakshmi's foot rose up into the air, revealing the length of her long, glistening sole, covered with smears of dust from walking around the apartment barefoot.

Lyla stirred, hacking blood and gazing fearfully up at the foot poised above her. Lakshmi's sole silenced Lyla's curt deathscream with a horrifying SLAP! against the wood, followed by crackles and a squelch. Lakshmi twisted her foot in place as if she were putting out a cigarette under the ball of her sole. When the russet flesh lifted, all the was left of Sheila's eldest daughter was a splatter of blood, shredded pale slivers, and wet chunks -- nothing resembling the defiant young woman who stood there shaking her fist moments before.

Sheila fell to the ground, limp. Her eyes rolled back and for a moment a fainting spell seized her -- she pushed it back. Rolling over, the former mother of two watched as her remaining daughter was sobbing in the shade of Anala's hovering sole.

"God, no," Sheila whimpered.

"If you don't do what we say," Anala announced, haughty, bratty -- to Sheila's bottomless dismay Julie was pressed down beneath the giant foot -- "then your last breaths in this life will be from under my stinky foot, and you'll die like a bug!"

Sheila raked her dry tongue across her parched lips. She worked what moisture she could into her throat, just so she could beg, but all she could muster was a whisper: "Please don't kill my baby girl. Oh, please," she said, and kept repeating it.

A creeping shadow overtook Sheila, then, and she rolled onto her back just in time for Fatima's grubby toes to lower down onto her. The warm, fragrant flesh molded around her, and the old woman gave her a painful squeeze, as if to force her deeper into a more comfortable nook. After a slow, happy chuckle, the dowager ordered, "Lick."

Sheila started lapping at the salty flesh. Bits of dirt stuck to her her tongue, gritty and bitter. She couldn't spit it out from her dry mouth, so she had to swallow it, and with effort. Anala's voice boomed distantly with the same command to Julie. Sheila squeezed her eyes shut and continued to lick.

"You are both nothing!" Lakshmi hissed her words. "Your lives are over. You are already dead." And then the giant woman chuckled. "You live to serve us, your superior goddesses. Or, you'll be another smear on the floor."

Like Lyla, Sheila thought even though Lakshmi didn't say it. Fatima's toes squeezed her once more and the giant old woman cackled as Sheila lapped, and lapped, and lapped at her toes, sobbing.

After that terrible day, the mother of one fewer awoke in her cage atop Lakshmi's dresser, alone. She climbed onto her owner's proffered palm without need of a command. Every fiber of her being cursed her for not asking where Julie was, but she never opened her mouth, and kept her eyes looking toward the expanse of Lakshmi's tanned flesh. Sheila's body still stung from welts and cuts produced by Lakshmi's flicking fingers -- her slashed face in particular -- but it was fear that cemented her silence: those fingers had punched like redwoods, and even imagined resistance against Lakshmi sent the tiny woman's legs shaking.

Sheila didn't protest when she was dropped into the fetid depths of the familiar gray sneaker; or when she was commanded, simply, to "clean." The interior was large enough to be a studio apartment, and its magnification assaulted her senses. The miniaturized mother dropped down to her knees and palms, shouting, "Yes, Goddess Lakshmi," and she scrubbed at the bitter foam floor of the oversized shoe with her teeth and tongue.

With pain Sheila ruminated on the fantasies she'd once had, holding this very sneaker over her nose and imagining Lakshmi as she wanted the woman to be. Trapped within the reality of her former maid's dominant reign, however, Sheila felt like a complete fool; terminally naive. That cloying aroma she craved before was an overpowering stink now; her tongue was caked with salty grime -- filth compacted to the insole by Lakshmi's hard-working sole that she had to swallow with great strain; the miniature woman's body shook with exhaustion and hunger, even as stuffed with gunk as she was.

Lakshmi left Sheila in her sneaker all morning. The giant's stomping shook the shoe; the tiny woman could hear Fatima and Anala's voices down the hall, out of sight -- in a whole other world, it seemed. Another reality. It was as if she didn't exist. Then the tremors increased with severity, and the gloom in the shoe deepened. Without warning, the world tilted, and Sheila tumbled end-over-end to the heel. She was scooped up and dropped onto one of Lakshmi's tattered flats instead, then was carried through the small-yet-cavernous house.

Sheila didn't need to be ordered twice: she worked on this new shoe all the same, not stopping even as it ferried her toward the giant's car -- a brand new sedan -- like a magic carpet; or while Lakshmi drove from house to house, wearing her sneakers and keeping the flats on the passenger's seat. The towering, statuesque maid never looked at her, or talked to her, and Sheila was continually transferred between Lakshmi's pairs of shoes throughout the day. As the giant labored, Sheila licked the sweat and grime that accumulated on both sets of footwear, fresh and old. It was an impossible task to complete -- or even keep up with -- in Sheila's diminutive state.

It would become a model for many of Sheila's days, after that. Unacknowledged, or ordered around. She woodenly forced herself to follow every instruction -- to inhale this, or ingest that, or tongue this clean. It left Sheila bloated and wrecked, body and mind.

For what must have been a week or more she didn't see any trace of Julie. It was hard enough not knowing if she was okay. The worst of it, however, was never having the courage to ask. That, and the awful relief in Sheila from her daughter not being around, and seeing her mother this way. These myriad emotions all mixed together and created an odd jumble that simply left Sheila deeply ashamed.

Lyla. In Sheila's mind she couldn't stop seeing her dead baby girl, but not as she usually pictured her, happy and smiling, like a graduation photo. Instead, her memory was of a puddle of lifeless gore, utterly destroyed.

Would that happen to Julie? Had it already? Would it happen to herself?

Sheila knew: there was nothing she could do to stop Lakshmi, or any of the self-proclaimed goddesses. Back in her cage, alone -- hugging herself, shivering, naked, collared -- Sheila's mind entered a hopeless void and the woman shut down. She wept until she fell into a slumber that would give her no rest, only fleeting respite, which instantly vanished whenever her eyes opened.

###

Meanwhile, Julie was with Anala.

"You're mine now," the serious young woman informed the shivering little slave she held in her fist. It was their first moment alone together. "And you're going to do everything I say. Don't and I'll step on you like your dumb sister. Is that what you want?" Anala put frantic itty-bitty Julie down on the ground at her deadly feet, and lifted her sole over her. The giant was still in her clothes from soccer practice; a damp cotton stench bowled over the mini teen. "Because I can do that, slave -- I can. Maybe you're too stupid to follow orders, anyway. Just like your pathetic sister. What was her name again? Ah, it doesn't matter.

"It felt so, so good to step on her, you can't even imagine. When Maa told us we were getting human pets I couldn't believe it. I've only read about crap like this online. But then she said you weren't really pets, like a dog or a cat. You're all just bugs." Anala's knuckles crackled as she flexed her toes over Julie's shivering form. "So you can be a smart bug, slave. Or you can be a dumb bug. It's your choice.

"But you should know: dumb bugs," Anala's lowering sole swallowed all the light around Julie and the smaller girl shrieked, "get stepped on!"

The slab of rosy tan flesh forced Julie flat on her back. Julie was only able to catch glimpses of the giant's smug visage -- and the fire in her eyes -- from between the looming high schooler's wiggling toes. The pressure all over her body was immense; at any moment, Julie imagined she might be crushed. She screamed and begged for mercy, trying to fight off Anala's thick brown toes with her stick-like limbs. The sweaty skin and firm muscles only pressed down harder in response; the giant's toes only smothered her more completely. Tiny Julie wailed in humiliation at the sour stink she was forced to inhale.

Anala's toes covered her until she nearly passed out, and then spread, and covered her again, and spread. Each time, Julie felt her mind teetering on an edge over unconsciousness, and yet she held on. Her begging words went unheeded, so she tried actions instead: kissing at Anala's toes instead of fighting them. When that didn't work, she licked, and only then did the monstrous toes seem appeased.

"Good bug," Anala mocked, stroking Julie's weeping form with her grubby toes. "Smart, bug. This is your life, now. Your life as a person is over; you're an insect. My pet buggy." Then her colossal form leaned over and Julie flinched as she was struck with hot spittle. "Now" -- and Anala's foot settled on Julie once more, and she looked up the giant's long leg, to her angry, serious expression -- "thank me for not crushing you like a dumb bug."

"Yes, Goddess Anala," Julie wailed in tears, and kissed the warm, slick toes that wouldn't release her head.

###

After what may have been two weeks, probably longer -- Sheila really couldn't be sure anymore, as much as she tried to count the passing days -- mother and daughter finally reunited, separated only by the distance between Fatima's soles, where they rested on the ground.

Fatima watched television with her feet atop the pair, keeping only enough weight on her heels as not to crush the pale women, or smother them beneath her flesh. The giant's soles were hot, hardened, and heavy on the squirming forms of the two women. They didn't writhe to escape -- no, they wormed their little bodies in an effort to please the thick, rugged flesh that blanketed them. For Sheila, it felt like hard labor in a hot sauna, and she was covered head-to-toe in Fatima's sweat. Dust rubbed off from her skin, clumping like mud.

Sheila and Julie went utterly ignored for most of the evening, save for the buzzing of the television on the far side of the room. The only acknowledgement they received was when Fatima repositioned a foot on top of one of them so that her little worshipper could better reach a sweet spot, or change what area of her sole they licked clean. Only once did the diminutive couple get a break: when the old woman rose to fetch her dinner from the oven. When the titan sat back down, she herded the tinies between her feet with hard prodding from her rough, boulder-like toes.

Fatima leaned forward and paused; the dowager chewed, her jowled mouth working in circles. Then she pursed her lips and a glob formed there. A mass of chromatic mush and saliva plopped down in front of Sheila and Julie and splattered them with warm gooey debris.

"Dinner," Fatima croaked with a laugh. Sheila watched in dismay as the old woman's fat big toe stirred the goop, flattening it even more. The living mountain then fanned her gnarled digits, presenting their undersides to the tiny women. It was a disgusting, humiliating sight, yet Sheila's stomach sent conflicting signals. It was trying to persuade her brain that this was something she wanted inside of her. The fallen mother had eaten very little in the way of food, other than scraps tossed down at her, or what she could find on the giants' feet; it showed in the troughs flesh between her ribs, and her sunken cheeks, and drooping eyelids.

"Thank you, Goddess Fatima," Julie half murmured, half shouted.

Sheila glanced at her daughter, aghast; the teen crawled on her hands and knees over to Fatima's raised appendage and started lapping at the chewed-up, spit-out food that mixed with the sweat and grime on the woman's toes.

Then Fatima's cold gray eyes cast a glare on Sheila; the little woman gazed back up, frozen in fear. "Come, bug. Eat," the giant elder commanded.

Sheila looked at the slick underside of Fatima's fat big toe, covered in chewed food. Her daughter lapped at the goop without protest. All at once Sheila was hit with a sudden jealousy that horrified her: she couldn't help but worry that her daughter would gobble it all up before she could get her fill.

"Yes, Goddess Fatima," she muttered.

The old woman's thick foot rose, knocking Julie over with a startled cry in the process. Sheila's vision snapped upward to the heavily lined face hanging overhead, and saw the deep frown carved into Fatima's ancient countenance. Terror peaked inside Sheila; especially when the heavy slab of Fatima's meaty sole started to lower down toward her. Images of a screaming, mangled, almost dead Lyla between the titanic elder's thick toes flashed in Sheila's mind.

"Yes, Goddess Fatima!" she shrieked out; the old woman cackled. When the giant returned her foot to the ground, Sheila hurriedly crawled forward and licked her spit-soaked meal from it. Her wounded cheek stung with the motions of her jaw. She lapped at the mush, shoulder to shoulder with Julie. It was horrible how good it felt inside of her. And when it was all gone, the two shrunken women continued to lick at the plump brown toes, and between every one.

###

Lakshmi's one and only daughter sat on her bed, legs flat and forming a c-shape, soles facing one another. Anala gave Sheila the most attention she'd had in weeks. Sheila suffered it with chagrinned acquiescence. Julie worked on Anala's opposing wall of flesh, mirroring Sheila's actions and words, but with a more spritely tone and demeanor, as put-on as it appeared.

It was the weekend. The orange morning poured in through the windows of the little, messy room. Anala wore a sleeveless black t-shirt with distressed capris jeans, and a big black-and-gold hat cocked to the side. It was all new, including the large phone she thumbed at, and the glinting gold chain around her ankle.

That wasn't all. There was Lakshmi's new sedan, of course, which Sheila found herself in almost every day, unless she was left at home to serve Fatima, or Anala, or to labor inside one of the giant women's shoes, forgotten. Appliances around the house were constantly carted away, replaced with modern, efficient machinery. The living room, too, could barely fit the enormous wide-screen television that replaced the old cathode-ray-tube-powered box that sat there before, and all three of the house's self-titled goddesses had flat-panel displays in their room now, too.

Anala's attention drifted to and fro between the television screen, the phone she held, and her slaves licking her sweaty soles clean. She micromanaged Sheila especially, telling the older woman which part of her foot to attend to, or she'd push her blond little head deeper between her toes, or point out wadded bits of sock lint for Sheila to eat. The tiny matron counted the minutes until Anala would be leaving that day for school -- not that serving Lakshmi or Fatima was any better, but at least they might leave her alone.

"Thank your goddess!" Anala ordered each time, and Sheila would mumble it around a mouthful of grime. Until Anala flicked her in the head, that is -- then she swallowed before she spoke, and shouted the required response. Her skull buzzed painfully like a rung bell for many minutes after.

"Just think. This could have all been yours, if your mom wasn't so fucking dumb." Anala was talking to Julie, Sheila realized, though the younger girl didn't pause in her worship for a second. "Do you know why you're my slave, ladybug? Because your mom's got a thing for Maa's feet. She wants to be her slave, even! Isn't that the stupidest crap you've ever heard?"

Anala burst into laughter. Sheila couldn't stand the sound, or the words that lingered in the air; she buried her face in the youth's fragrant flesh, and licked.

It struck Sheila as odd that she wasn't angrier with Lakshmi for revealing her kinks to her family, but what did it matter? Her fantasies, when translated into reality, were nightmares. A terrible dream she couldn't escape. It was of no significance what any of them thought of her -- even Julie. She couldn't help the girl, not directly. All that mattered was she served; if she was a good bug, maybe neither of them would end up a juicy stain, like Lyla had for her disobedience.

###



In her most courageous or depleted moments, Sheila dreamed of escape.

It was an easily defeated notion when she was in Lakshmi's home. Where was there to run? Without the scraps given to her or dropped carelessly by the giants, she would starve. If she was found, she would be crushed. At her size, outside of Lakshmi's home, where a bird or even a bug could end her, surviving long enough to find anything resembling help seemed an impossibility -- to think about it was to plan a journey to another galaxy. No, there was no escape from Lakshmi.

A terrible truth dawned on the imprisoned soul. Even though Sheila wanted to believe that any alternative was preferable to serving her cruel mistress, the thought of dying -- the very real prospect of a certainly awful end -- terrified Sheila to the bone. Suffering as Lakshmi's slave allowed her to cling to a dim hope that her situation might change for the better.

A chance at such a change -- and freedom -- presented itself one time, while the secretly wealthy maid cleaned the familiar-but-alien home of a family which was of the same socioeconomic class Sheila used to inhabit. She was left to her duty in Lakshmi's dank sneaker, and saw the homeowner, a woman, in glimpses when the titan's huge feet slapped close to the shoe. Curvy, white, and pale blond -- similar to Sheila.

Deep inside of her a force urged her to take a risk for her liberation. To scale the worn, fuzzy wall leading up to the mouth of Lakshmi's sneaker, and get the homeowner's attention. Yet another piece of her, growing larger, pushed for surrender, so that her already hellish situation didn't get any worse. And how could she know whether the woman stomping around outside the shoe was any better than Lakshmi? Unbidden, images of the giant homeowner laughing at her while wiggling her toes on top of her filled Sheila's mind and wouldn't leave.

The wind abandoned Sheila's sails and she slumped to her knees.

Then, as always, she licked the ground that was so totally marked by Lakshmi's foot.

###

Lakshmi held up Sheila with one hand, her other gripping the steering wheel. The rumble of stalled traffic and cacophony of groaning car horns was a storm-like din outside the sedan's interior as the giant shouted at her.

"We are your goddesses. You don't just say, 'Yes, Goddess Lakshmi!' you will say, 'Thank you, Goddess Lakshmi!' For everything! And you'll say it with a big happy smile on your face, and respect in your voice, or I will replace you. Do you understand, slave? I will get a new you."

Sheila nervously glanced down at Julie's tiny form in Anala's huge lap. Lakshmi had just picked up her daughter from a soccer game, and the girl's sharp sweaty musk turned acrid in the air conditioning. Julie looked savagely beaten, and shivered in a ball. Sheila was uncontrollably horrified by the sight and, Anala, a grin on her face, plucked up the girl and shook Sheila's daughter like a ragdoll in her face. Anala called her "my good luck charm" over and over in sugared sing-song.

Then Sheila's vision swung back toward Lakshmi's glaring eyes as her owner continued talking. "What is it with you bored white housewives? I swear every white woman I work for secretly wants to be under my feet. I had no idea until I met you. Then I learned you weren't special. You might not even be the dumbest of the bunch, but you're close."

Anala's hand came up beside her mother's. As Sheila gaped, Julie struggled to push herself up with her arms so that she could kiss the tips of Anala's fingers as they curled over her. Face caked with grit, Julie croaked through cracked lips, "Thank you, Goddess Anala," after each peck.

"You see?" Back to Lakshmi once more: the giant's angular ferocity was more refined than ever -- a sign of the expensive oils and washes she cleansed her face with now. "What kind of fool are you, to sign away everything you've worked for? To sign away your family? And for what?" Lakshmi sneered. "Is it everything you dreamed it would be, bug? Are you enjoying life as my slave? Do you still love my feet, you pathetic freak?"

You did this to me, Sheila wanted to scream, but she couldn't. Her head dropped as if Lakshmi's words physically struck her, and tears traced glistening lines down her cheeks. She looked over toward Julie, only to find Anala's bulk in motion. Sheila watched with growing terror how the grinning giant fed Julie's small, battered form into the mouth of her soccer cleat. Julie whimpered, trying to hold back her own tears, and for the first moment in a long while, a mother and daughter looked into one another's eyes: one hoping to save, the other hoping to be saved, both knowing it was hopeless.

"What are you," Sheila began. She stopped. Then: "Please. Goddess Anala. Goddess Lakshmi! She's. Please." Sheila couldn't string more than a word or two together before she feared uttering heresy in the presence of her chuckling deities. Anala forced her bare foot into her cleats, and Julie was once more lost to the world; underfoot, out of sight, out of mind -- save for Sheila's.

"Anala, get this slave out of my sight. I'm too disgusted to even look at her."

"Come here, little white bitch," Anala quipped in Lakshmi's tone, and she pinched Sheila and lowered the hysterical woman down toward the opening of her other shoe. All at once Sheila was gazing up at Anala, a bug's view, as the gleeful and cruel younger woman brought her reddened foot down. Her slick, wiggling toes cut off Sheila's light and air as they entered the cleat.

"That's my daughter!" Sheila screamed in the fetid dark, vocal chords pained with the effort. "That's my daughter, you monsters!"

There was no response, save for the uncaring, rough weight all over her naked body from Anala's scrunching, boulder-like digits. Sheila fought against them for as long as she was physically able, until her whole body failed, falling limp. Anala's toes didn't stop. Before long, in the stink and the suffocating heat, her body tender and bruised, Sheila completely gave in, mewling in despair as she licked Anala's hot, sweaty toes so that they would stop beating her.

###

Sheila needed an "attitude adjustment," Lakshmi had declared as she bound the woman's nudity painfully tight with floss.

Now Sheila dangled on the inside of a dingy toilet bowl, as spacious as an arena. Her daughter, similarly wrapped with twine, hanged across the way. Julie didn't respond no matter what Sheila called to her. No amount of pleading would get her to even look at her mother, save for the rare glare.

Sheila only had so long to beseech her daughter before a pall stretched over the basin, and Fatima's cackling filled the sky above. Malicious glee stretched the old woman's features; the giant turned and hiked her robes up to her waist. Fatima lowered her dimpled, doughy cheeks down toward the toilet seat and settled with a content, rumbling sigh. All the light in the bowl was blocked out by her plump rear, though Sheila's eyes quickly adjusted, and she gazed fearfully at Fatima's curving ass, and the shape of her monstrous, bulging sex in the dark.

There came a hissing whine, almost comical if not for the foul stench it was accompanied by. A hot blast shook Sheila's dangling form; the force noisily disturbed the water below. With horror and humiliation Sheila realized what had just happened, choking on the must as the regal crone squawked and gassed them once more. Then Fatima started pissing.

The first drops of Fatima's piss splashed into the bowl. Then the trickle became rain. Sheila turned her head and scrunched up her face, but broiling droplets from above and cold sprays from the churning water below peppered her bound body. She could just make out Julie screaming across the way over the rushing liquid. Fatima's urine dribbled from her folds like a waterfall, and the noise bounced around the basin, almost deafening. After a few more spurts, Fatima wiped herself, and with a pleased laugh lifted herself from the toilet seat. And then she was gone, and once more Julie and Sheila were left alone; this time, Julie glared at her mother and didn't look away.

Time passed cruelly slow as Sheila and Julie hanged there, dripping. Vague sounds reached them from the world beyond, but it was hard to think about what the noises could be -- or even anything at all -- with the pungent tang of Fatima's urine filling every breath. When the bathroom door creaked open what must have been hours later, a horrible relief welled up in Sheila, and then instantly vanished as Lakshmi's grinning visage appeared in the sky. She wasn't expecting salvation, not really. But an approaching giant was a welcome diversion from the palpable, intense dislike that radiated from Julie, and could mean an end to their torture, should Lakshmi be satisfied.

The giant woman bent over and, with a scissor-snip, Julie screamed as she fell and smacked against the porcelain below. A streak of red from the girl's face stained the white as Julie slid into the lake of piss. Sheila glanced upward from swift reflex, pleadingly, in panic, only to see Lakshmi's cruel brown eyes gazing back, and then came another metallic screech.

Sheila tumbled downward and her legs snapped loudly on the curving ceramic. With horror she wondered if her limbs had broken; they hurt in a way that felt wrong. Like a worm, she had no arms or legs to aid her, bound as she was. She couldn't stop herself from skidding downward into Fatima's stale urine. She rolled into the morass and tried her best to float on her back, spitting out a mouthful of bitter, fruity piss.

With red irritated eyes Sheila watched as the light above was eclipsed by Lakshmi's russet brown posterior; Sheila gazed into the puckered eye of Lakshmi's anus. The colossal woman's chuckle echoed throughout the bowl, and then a hissing jet of scalding air disturbed the water all around the shrunken mother. Sheila bounced off of Julie as the two bobbed aimlessly, futilely attempting to remain upright -- though it was now far more unpleasant to breathe the air, as nasty as it was to be face-down in piss. Each time Sheila was able to orient herself on her back, the vision she was faced with only got worse: up above, Lakshmi's fingers pressed into the thick folds of her sex. Her fingers rubbed at herself, brushing against her clit; then her appendages pulled outward into a v-shape, spreading her lips.

"Goddess Lakshmi, no!" Sheila screamed, only to be silenced and drowned by a concentrated stream of the woman's piss.

Sheila bobbed violently like a raft helplessly tossed by rapids. It was impossible to keep the urine from entering her mouth; it was a struggle to keep from swallowing it. The woman knocked painfully into her daughter in the deluge, which seemed as if it might never end. Then like a sudden summer shower it ceased, save for a few last drops and spurts from Lakshmi. But a sound like rocks sliding against one another drew Sheila's attention to yet another horror: the knobby cap of a piece of shit was sliding wetly out of Lakshmi's expanding anus. Water currents, stirred by Lakshmi's fluids, guided Sheila directly under the hanging log of waste, tempting as a bullseye.

Sheila's eyes widened, pried open by abject dread. This is how I die, she thought.

The shit curled as it pushed from Lakshmi's asshole, and then it broke off and plummeted, freefalling. For a disconnected moment Sheila was like a cartoon character watching a piano come down. Then reality returned in a shock: mortal fear gripped her the moment before impact, and she braced, body and mind seizing. The powerless woman was sloppily whacked by the tube and forced under the fizzing drink. Shit molded over Sheila's body like hot and thick clay, and every atom that composed her shook with panic as she tried to escape underneath it, holding her breath.

The stillness inside of Sheila's throat and lungs quickly became unbearable; the packed filth was impossibly heavy on top of her -- more so as moments passed; she squirmed, and she fought, and she wiggled, but the mound didn't budge. I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to

Water rushed in across Sheila's back and into the crags; she was ripped from her fecal encasement by the surge and bobbed up to the surface like a stubborn buoy rising once more out of storming waves. Sound, thundering, pounded her ears. She vomited, and gasped, and threw up more, and choked on the nauseous environment. In one small mercy, she beached, leaving her heaving on the hard ceramic shore in a typhoon of piss and shit as the titan relieved herself.

She knew she should flip herself over to check if Julie was safe, but she just didn't have it in her. Sheila was emptied out. The stench was unreal. The air was toxic in her lungs, and her body was wholly soiled. Numb, Sheila listened to the horrendous rumbling of Lakshmi's movement. She forced herself to breathe. She sometimes sobbed, and sometimes simply stared away the moments, wanting so much for it to end that she was left paralyzed.

When Lakshmi finished, she left without looking, or flushing, or pulling the tiny women out of their reeking hell.

For the first time since Lyla was stepped on by the cruel pantheon, Sheila and Julie shared a cage with one another. No supportive embrace. No words shared. There were no other sounds in Lakshmi's shaded room save for their breathing, and the steady ticking of a tireless clock.

Brow furrowed, Sheila studied the huddled form of her surviving daughter; the young woman had her naked, pale, scrawny backside turned toward her. Julie shivered. So did Sheila. Really, they always shook. But to be close to her daughter again, to know that no cruel feet would hold them down and keep them apart, restarted a protective algorithm in Sheila that was impossible to ignore.

The mother rose to her feet. If she couldn't muster any words to comfort her daughter -- what would she possibly say? -- she could at the very least be with her. But when she came close, Julie leapt up and growled, her face wild. Sheila yelped and hopped backward as if a feral dog had dashed out into the street in front of her.

"This is all your fault!" Sheila retreated a step, asking her daughter's name, but Julie took a lunging stomp forward, her wiry lean musculature clenching up as she shrieked, shrill and clipped: "IT'S. ALL. YOUR. FAULT!"

Sheila made a helpless noise and Julie screamed "shut up" with spittle flying from her lips. The daughter charged; she pushed her mother to the ground and started kicking at her. Her kicks became more confident; she kicked the fallen woman with an intent to do serious harm. "I'll kill you!" Julie stomped Sheila, bringing her sole down onto her scarred face, and any part of her that tried to escape her wrath: she stamped Sheila firmly in place. Blood and tears ran down the woman's cheeks as she struggled against the blows. Sheila surrendered with a wail, going limp.

"Julie, please. Oh, Julie, please," the battered woman pleaded on the ground, begging in a bruised, beat up, sobbing heap.

The peal of laughter from above was mocking, yet Sheila was queerly happy to hear it. The woman moaned on the ground as Julie let up; a river of bloody saliva flowed from her mouth. Lakshmi's giant hands snared both tiny women in a fist each: Julie was dropped into one of her gray sneakers; Sheila she brought over to her bed. The tiny woman watched with apprehension as Lakshmi stood at the end of the mattress and stripped off her clothes; she squeaked when the giant gripped her once more.

Lakshmi didn't have a body Sheila would typically be jealous of, and yet she was fearful, and in awe of the titan's nude grandeur. "You are shit. Do you understand? You are NOTHING! An insect I could step on. An insect I will step on if you do not obey me completely. I own you, you pale, pathetic termite. You are inferior. I am your goddess!" Lakshmi hissed every word. "This is it. This is your last warning. If you ever displease me again, I will crush you."

"Thank you, Goddess Lakshmi," Sheila whimpered.

"For the warning," Sheila was about to add, but Lakshmi's fist moved down around her thigh as she lifted her leg onto the edge of the bed. Lakshmi's gloating face disappeared like the moon beyond the horizon of her flesh. The giant reached down with her free hand and spread her fingers, holding her asshole open. Then, screaming "thank you, Goddess Lakshmi" hysterically, Sheila soared straight at the giant's anus. She was forced through the plush wrinkles of oil-slicked flesh, and Lakshmi's thick fingertip pushed her slave deep into the clutches of her sphincter.

###

Sheila scurried over when Lakshmi sat down by the coffee table. The giant removed her sneaker, then her stubby sock, and lowered her glistening bare foot to the table's edge. The spidery toes spread as Sheila approached, and the diminutive being didn't pause for a moment, sliding her blond head deep between Lakshmi's digits and lapping at the sensitive flesh.

No amount of time made Sheila used to the boggy cheddar-like stink between Lakshmi's toes. She had long since schooled her face not to show it. She pulled a glob of soggy lint from the woman's flesh and rolled it into a ball between her tongue and the roof of her mouth. It was like swallowing a rough tennis ball. Then she forced a smile and called, "Thank you, Goddess Lakshmi!"

Lakshmi wasn't paying any attention to her. The woman was already embroiled in a conversation with her mother that Sheila couldn't understand. The scrawny, pale thing had seen better days. The hair she had left was cut in one straight slash, like a doll's after its owner has stopped caring and turned into an impulsive barber, gathering all her hair in one fist and snipping. Sheila's neck was red and raw around her leather collar, which was the same she'd always worn. On the one side her butchered hair was short enough to show off the pink knotted line that ran across her cheek, where Lakshmi's fingernail had sliced her open.

Around Julie's neck was a lace collar, which was just one of many that she wore. And clothes -- Anala dressed her like a cherished figurine. Julie enjoyed a higher station than Sheila, or so it seemed. Her daughter was rarely at anyone's feet other than Anala's. The giant girl still shoved her soles in the tiny's face after practice, and spat on her, and yelled at her and humiliated her, but more and more Julie appeared more like a pet, and less like the slave Sheila was.

The ex-matron was left to clean Lakshmi's feet all on her own, and was kicked over to Fatima, or back, when either goddess tired of her. No one petted her, or acknowledged her -- she was invisible, just a subtle sensation to be enjoyed by the giants, or ignored.

The family was going on a trip. The goliathan trio hadn't shared its plans with Sheila, but it was clear by the heaps of brand-new luggage packed and stacked around the apartment. There was still more to fit, even: mounds of gifts, by the looks of it -- clothes and merchandise, and all manner of odds and ends.

There were a few special items, too: cages filled with shivering white families. Huddling together, looking very much like Sheila did, the first night of her captivity. Sheila didn't waste even a glance at them; her tongue lapped dutifully at the feet of her goddesses.

Really, Sheila was glad for the extra slaves. If she had any luck left -- if luck was even a thing that existed -- it would mean less work for Sheila. She didn't consider their misery, or hold out any hope for them. There was no point in that, now.

###

The gay affair was full of women, young and old, darker or lighter in tone, some wearing traditional saris or pajamas, while others opted for casual, modern shirts and blouses and skirts and slacks. Most people were barefoot, or wearing sandals. They all had wavy brown or black hair -- the majority wore their tresses proudly, but a few kept it clipped short. The women were clearly relatives of Lakshmi and Anala and Fatima from their angular features and their thin bodies, long in limb, with big, bony hands and feet; the same malicious spark glinted in their eyes, too, when they saw the little white slaves the three goddesses had brought with them from America.

It had been a humiliating introduction to a culture Sheila knew nothing about, and wouldn't be invited to join. Passed around by leering women who must have been sisters or cousins, or aunts or nieces of Lakshmi. Fingers unabashedly prodded her breasts, and between her legs, and rubbed painfully at her blond hair. Very quickly passing hands gave way to stamping feet, and Sheila was lowered down to the ground and rolled underfoot, or clenched between toes, or ordered with words she didn't understand, but struggled to obey. These women weren't as practiced as Sheila's goddesses; their treatment was rough and uncaring.

When the ring of women had finally dispersed, giant hands reached down and claimed little pets. The miniaturized families were split up, carried off into all corners of the home, which was mostly one large room. Anyone who resisted, or disobeyed, was tortured for the amusement of the giants; obedient pets, like Sheila, were given humiliating tasks. Meanwhile the gathering of looming women laughed, and chatted, and sorted through the bounty of offerings Lakshmi brought with her.

Thus Sheila skittered across the ground, naked and collared like the rest of her kind, doing her best to carry a shot glass-sized cup of something alcoholic, and to dodge the big brown feet that stomped all around her. The glass was icy on her breasts and tummy and hips, and sticky on her skin where the liquid sloshed and spilled. All the small hairs of her flesh raised each time a bus-sized sole slapped near, and she yelped like a startled pup.

She didn't wonder whether she might be stepped on; there was clear evidence it was possible: a woman about Sheila's age had been mashed into the hard plane of the floor, its red-brown tiles camouflaging some of the mangled figure's splattered blood and guts. Each time Sheila passed by the flattened form of the woman, she appeared less like a human corpse and more like an indiscernible smudge as the giants continued to trod on her without a care. Her squashed, pathetic body was grooved from the lined flesh of the soles which crushed her -- like sneaker treads imprinting squashed gum -- and her ripped up pale flesh was caked over with grime and dust.

Only Julie seemed to escape the horrors of the floor. She was with Anala, impeccably dressed as always, and Lakshmi's pride and joy was almost affectionate in her attention. Julie pleased her in the way a well-trained dog might as Anala ordered her to do tricks for her friends, and to prove her subservience. Sheila felt a pang of jealousy for the girl, who she hadn't spoken to in months, who barely seemed her daughter anymore. She wasn't seen as human, but at the very least, she wasn't treated like a worthless insect.

Sheila wasn't told to do tricks. Any giant who passed overhead was liable to press her flat and order her to kiss their sole; and she'd thank them for the privilege as loudly as she could. The stink of their feet clung to her flesh. She caught wind of herself as she scurried around and it only deepened her shame. Clutching her barrel of a glass, Sheila ran into another shrunken woman, younger -- around Lyla's age -- and the two gasped and stopped to look at one another. But not for long: tanned feet smacked by the floor all around them.

The young woman screamed as trunk-like fingers pinched the glass she held, and for a moment in time she was lifted with the glass, before she thought to let go. Gloom swallowed Sheila and her beverage was taken from her, too; the tiny blond fell backward, and stared upward with horror at Lakshmi's grinning face. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes glazed. Drunk, as was the titanic woman standing next to her, who could have been Lakshmi's sister for all the similarities in their features. Sheila didn't gape for longer than a breath; she fell on Lakshmi's slender, knobby toes and kissed and licked her master's flesh.

High in the heavens, the pair jawed excitedly, though Sheila detected building frustration in their tone even though she didn't know what was being said. When the giants laughed down, Sheila couldn't help but glance up to see if they were chuckling at her: to her relief, both Lakshmi and her companion jeered at the other slave.

Sheila gazed across the floor and saw how the scrawny, freckled brunette was frozen. The girl's knees knocked together as she stared, slack-jawed, at the mammoth beings before her. A wink of light reflected off wetness on the woman's thigh: she was pissing herself. The brunette let out a truly pathetic squeak before gazing back at Sheila and mouthing "help" with a chattering jaw. Then a plump brown toe smacked the girl in the head and knocked her over.

The giant's digit didn't give the young woman a chance to recover. It lowered down with her, and held her head against the tile. She kicked and thrashed and beat at the flesh that pinned her, but, like a squirming insect, she couldn't get free. The thick toe curled and the skin paled where it exerted a powerful force onto the tiny creature's cranium. The teen's face turned as red as a tomato, then her teeth exploded outward and her eyeballs popped from their sockets as -- with the barest of ease -- the giant's appendage plowed through the head beneath it. The young woman's skull smashed flat with a crackle; then the rest of the giant's foot settled on what was left of her.

The gruesome imagery refused to leave Sheila's mind as she redoubled her efforts to stay focused only on Lakshmi's toes. She lapped with abandon, and squealed with desperate frustration when she was kicked away. With fear and confusion, Sheila gazed up at her owner.

"Worthless," Lakshmi intoned as she stared unblinkingly at Sheila.

With fast-growing dread Sheila watched Lakshmi's familiar sole rise into the air. She knew every inch of the towering woman's foot; the sight of it was as identifiable and unique to her as Lakshmi's face. Every curve, and bump of bone, and swell of flesh. The sole was a powerful sight, as if Sheila found herself before an imposing monolith of unknown origin.

Sheila fell to her knees and clasped her hands above her, spewing out garbled prayers to Lakshmi for mercy.

Lakshmi barked a laugh, and then grinned a happy little grin, and flexed the toes of her raised foot with a popping crunch of her knuckles.

"Dumb little bug!"