“Are you sure this isn’t a performance-enhancer?” Michelle whispered anxiously, twirling a finger through her dark ponytailed hair.

            “No! I told you it’s not. It’s completely legit, it’s just on the down-low for now. You should hope it stays that way, cuz seriously, you will feel the difference after you try it just once, I guarantee!” Nicole laughed. She waved a hand, beckoning her fellow track teammate into her Olympic village apartment, and closed the door behind.

            “All right, but no promises. I want to see what this big secret is first, since you’re so sure it’s allowed,” Michelle said. She adjusted the strap on her red-white-and-blue training singlet and crossed her tanned arms in defiance. “I worked my fucking ass off to get onto this team, you know? I’m not putting my spot at risk just for some weird experiment. Can we make this quick? I gotta go do a couple warm-up miles.”

            “This’ll take two seconds, and it’ll change everything,” Nicole promised. From beside her bed, she produced a box marked with the Olympic colored rings; lifting the top, she revealed a sight which nearly made Michelle faint.

            “What the shit!” Michelle gasped. She poked a gentle yet inquisitive finger at the astonishing contents. Inside Nicole’s box were two people, a man and a woman, or at least what looked like people; it was hard to be certain, because they were barely two inches tall. “Is this for real?”

            “You bet it’s for real, and what’s even more real is what they can do for you!” Nicole sat on the bed. She peeled her long cottony socks off the ends of her petite toes. Briefly running a thumb over her olive-toned skin, callused from vigorous running drills, she then reached into the box. Her willowy fingers curled around both the tiny naked humans and snatched them out.

            “Wait, wait, what… what are you doing?” Michelle murmured. She was still dealing with the insane reality of witnessing two shrunken people, let alone the uncaring roughness with which her teammate handled them.

            “What’s it look like? Sit down by me, and I’ll let you have both of them, since it’s your first time. Me first, though.”

            “Have them? What are you-”

            Michelle stopped her rant, as she was shocked beyond all known logic for the third time in sixty seconds. Both the miniature man and woman were dumped from Nicole’s fingers and sprawling on the bedspread. In regal anticipation, the black-haired, fair-skinned runner leaned against the headboard, spread her arms wide, and grinned ear-to-ear. Each of her now-bare feet were propped up on their sides, exposing her rosy-pink soles in their wrinkly glory. The man walked to the left foot and the woman to the right. Then, without any hesitation, each of the shrunken things pressed their hands into the supple walls of flesh, followed by their open mouths. So began a rhythmic dance of practiced tiny hands grappling with the rubbery wrinkles of Nicole’s slender foot, plus a pair of microscopic tongues desperately lapping at the probably-stale, balmy skin.

            For a full minute, Michelle watched in silence while her friend and teammate had her feet unquestioningly and passionately worshiped by a pair of naked, two-inch tall strangers from inside an Olympic-brand box. The toes were even individually cradled and smooched.

            “See?” Nicole said. Her tickling digits flickered as the pair of puny workers progressed their way along her meaty soles. “It’s all on the level.”

            “Never mind how… how the hell this is even possible, but…” Michelle stammered. The bronze-tanned track star wasn’t fazed by much, given the challenges she went through to make the American team; however, this was a whole different can of worms. “…but what could this even be doing to help? Is this some kind of sick joke? Are there cameras around here watching us? W-What…”

            “No cameras, no tricks. Just good old-fashioned holistic massage and tongue baths from a couple of shrinkies,” Nicole explained as if it was the most rational thing in the world. She shrugged, and reached forward, petting each of the hard workers with her finger, careful not to distract them from their duties. She thumped the mattress. “Sit by me, and see for yourself.”

            Michelle wasn’t sure what made her obey other than morbid curiosity. She made efforts not to rattle the mattress too hard and throw the human foot-cleaners off balance.

            “Take off your shoes and socks, and just relax,” Nicole said.

            No less bewildered, Michelle slowly did so, setting her running gear down on the carpet, but kept her feet curled up close to her body. The pair had reached Nicole’s heels at the same time, and now squatted on hands and knees, practically giving themselves whiplash with the effort to spread their miniscule tongues over as much surface area as they could. Seemingly finished, then, they responded to Nicole’s enormous index finger pointing toward Michelle. Without a word, the shrinkies walked to the woman’s trembling bare feet.

            “Holy shit,” Michelle uttered, and as they approached, she relented, stretching both of her legs out for ease of access. Her feet, deeply tanned from vigorous sun exposure, were still pale and tender on the underside, and Michelle was flush with goosebumps from the first instant she felt those pinpricks for hands touching her soles. It was hard not to jolt, too, when she noticed their insectoid tongues greeting her skin, but Nicole’s hand at her shoulder helped soothe her into the act. Another minute of awkward silence followed while the shrinkies did their thing: Michelle, feeling guilty already, did her best to ignore the subtle sensations of caressing fingers languishing her musculature, and wet tongues creeping into the wrinkles of her sole.

            “What are their names?” Michelle asked. She realized this was a kind of insane thing to wonder at this stage of participation, when she already was willingly allowing a couple of helpless nude individuals to lick her feet, but there was no common sense in play at this point.

            “Heck if I know,” Nicole laughed. “They just came for me in that box. You think I stopped to ask them their names? I just call that one Leftie, and that one Rightie, because of-”

            “Yeah, I get it.” Michelle quieted, and cocked her head at the little eager beavers. Something was happening. She’d always had especially sensitive soles, prone to being tickled by her siblings in youth, and as a result, Michelle usually avoided any acts which allowed others to touch her feet, in case of embarrassing overreaction.

            But this “performance-enhancer” was activating none of that. This didn’t feel like having bug legs tittering over her skin, as Michelle expected; rather, it was more like her bodily self-awareness was expanding to every intricate pore and skin cell. Michelle was intimately aware of exactly where each of those hands and dedicated tongues was smearing on her foot flesh, and what’s more, she didn’t mind. In fact, it felt good. Better than good.

            This was too weird.

            “I need to hit the track for training before coach gets pissed,” Michelle sputtered. She withdrew her feet from Leftie and Rightie, careful not to kick them as she slid off the bed and hopped back in her gear. Instantly, she noticed the fuzzy feeling which warmed her skin during the act fading away.

            “If you say so,” Nicole laughed; her feet plopped down around the shrinkies, entrapping them in a peachy canyon awaiting vigorous licking. “Come back after you’re done. The way you get the most out of it is by doing a before and after workout treatment.”

            Michelle pretended not to hear as she jogged out of the apartment. As soon as she hit the turf, an inexplicable surge imbued her limbs. Perfect unity of motion in her body came naturally. The girl was hardly out of breath as she finished a particularly speedy warm-up mile, and did a double-take when she saw the time. She repeated the mile, just to be sure, and reproduced the effort nine seconds faster, to minor applause from her coach, who complimented her form.

            Nicole wasn’t surprised to hear an insistent knock rapping at her door one hour later.

            “Have a good practice?” Nicole giggled.

            “Where are those two?” Michelle uttered simply. She was still catching fresh oxygen, and her skin was frosted with sweat, but there was fiery determination in her eyes. “Can you… give me another turn?”

            “Why, sure I can! I told you to come back, didn’t I? Get all your shit off. But don’t sit on my bed, okay? I don’t need you getting the sheets mucky. Sit in the chair.”

            Michelle sat and tugged her shoes and sopping socks off; she watched as once again that mysterious white box was opened, and Leftie and Rightie emerged in Nicole’s callously balled fist. The woman stalked smugly to the chair, stooping in front of the seat, and dumped them in front of Michelle’s steaming toes.

            “What do I do?” Michelle muttered. “I mean, do I…”

            “Just don’t move,” Nicole smirked, pinching her nose.

            The muggy air from Michelle’s trainers was beginning to fog the room. Salty, soaking-swamp flavors permeated up to the level of the runner’s nose, and if that was the case, she knew things had to be even more hot and hellish down below. Michelle was nothing if not a hard-working athlete, who never let soupy conditions in her shoes get in the way of a strong performance. Yet like true champions, Leftie and Rightie went to their respective assignments with the same fervor as before. Hands and tongues dug at the weary wrinkles, and instantaneously that fuzzy feeling returned.

            As Michelle balanced on her heels, revealing the damp canvas of her soles to the shrinkies, she could feel beads of sweat rolling down her golden skin and gathering stickily around the heads of the man and woman. Still their efforts didn’t slow. Michelle could only imagine what it must taste like. Just from sampling her own sweat which dribbled down her upper lip in the midst of a sprint, Michelle knew she wasn’t a fan; trying to conceive of what happened to that same acidic liquid down in the briny, pressure-cooker depths of her well-battered trainers was inconceivable. Mud, vinegar, bubbly soap flavors probably all balled into one horrifying concoction and served as a gooey beverage.

            But strangely, as the minutes ticked by in relaxing bliss for Michelle and those guilty goosebumps turned to outright pleasure, she realized she didn’t feel wrong. Did that make her a bad person, she wondered? Nicole certainly didn’t appear to be losing sleep over keeping these little slaves in a box by the bed, on-call for foot-licking duty whenever the mood struck. And slaves did indeed seem to be their designation.

            Despite that worry, Michelle savored the trickling sensations as the sweat was swabbed clean from her soles and funneled into the tiny bellies of these hardworking sufferers. She could almost picture Leftie and Rightie beginning to bloat a little when enough rancid dollops of sweat the size of ice cream scoops had entered their bodies. For people so small, they were more capable than any masseuse or physical trainer’s touch that Michelle had ever experienced. It didn’t make sense, but the fact was that these two people the size of the woman’s thumbs were talented maestros, turning her race-hardened muscles back to butter and slurping up every oily drop of perspiration. She glowed.

            “I’ll tell coach to get you your own box,” Nicole snickered, winking in recognition at that same transformative expression in Michelle’s eyes.

            “Tell him two boxes.”

Tina couldn’t say at what point her victory had gone so sour. One minute, she was happily waiting at the sweepstakes desk, holding her winning ticket which had earned her a “meet-up and full-time hangout” with Serene Terran, the famous eighteen-year-old Olympic gymnastics superstar. The next thing she remembered was being led to a back room, a flash of light, and everything going dark.

            Now, despite Tina’s prior perception of reality, she was standing in front of a statuesque twin set of youthful bare feet large enough to have belonged to a Greek goddess monument. Except this was no marble construction, but in fact a living, breathing, flexing pair of peds with bulbous toes each larger than Tina’s newly half-inch body. The skin was dusted in layers of chalk, yet also damp with glistening perspiration.

            “Wow, you’re really something, little girl!” a voice boomed melodically from above. That voice, soft and feminine, was twinged with a distinct Southern drawl; Tina knew that voice. She tore her terrified gaze away from those intimidating bare feet and let her sightline creep up the impressive set of thick, toned limbs glazed with sweat, past the form-hugging blue leotard, and up to the titanic face of the speaker, who was currently sitting on a bench. Serene Terran. Blonde, cute as a button, yet steely and focused. Evidently the ticket wasn’t lying about getting to meet her, though Tina imagined something more like a casual how-do-you-do for a couple hours. Certainly not this. She’d read that Serene was only five-foot-one; this titaness was hundreds of times that.

            Tina opened her mouth, hoping to greet her literal Olympic idol; instead she just screamed, and took off running the other way. Only in this instant did the woman realize not only was she standing in the expansive foam-padded cavern of a gymnasium, but she was also completely naked. Escape to the miles-distant wall seemed impossible.

            “Oops, where ya going?” Serene murmured adorably. A gargantuan leg with a densely rounded calf muscle passed over Tina’s head, then descended; that chalk-caked sole slapped down on the padded floor, sending up a cloud of dust which stopped the half-inch woman in her tracks. “Now, don’t be a sore winner, little girl. I won you fair and square, see? C’mere now.”

            Won her? What kind of sweepstakes was this? How was Tina to know that just by arriving to claim her prize, reality would get so bent out of shape and put her in nauseatingly unfathomable situations?

            Tina recovered and attempted to run around the bulwark of Serene’s squat yet gigantic bare foot. She didn’t get far before the expertly sculpted leg was shifting again, shepherding Tina into an embankment point where the massive toes united with gymnastic poise. The half-incher stopped, feeling hopeless, and stared up at the adjoining spires of Serene’s beefy thighs. How could she hope to escape a giant girl who’d proven adept and dexterous enough with her body to compete against the best in the world?

            “That’s more like it,” Serene congratulated sweetly. Her left foot dragged gently on the mat, briefly altering the shape of her puffy sole; her toes drummed loudly on the surface. “You ready to get your hangout time with me now?”

            So this was the prize after all, not just some dark conspiracy. All along, Tina was headed toward this disaster.

            “Don’t move, or I might squish ya on accident,” Serene instructed. “And we don’t want that. You seem really cool, so I’m gonna get the most out of you.”

            Tina was paralyzed to the earth as those hearty soles reared back and cupped around her on either side, forming sky-high flanks of pink, creased, ever-shifting flesh. Even turned on their sides, Serene’s feet soles were two stories tall. Heat radiated off them with animal fury. Sweat lines painted through the chalk like abstract art, and above all, Tina was made stingingly aware of the stench.

            If she’d been told to try to describe what her Olympic hero’s hypothetical B.O. was like, this was roughly what Tina would’ve guessed, pushed to the nth degree. The experience wasn’t unlike shoving her nose into a recently used gym sock and inhaling to the fullest extent of her lungs. Liquid grit, powdery chalk, and a ghostly whiff of feminine products assaulted Tina’s senses. All she could see now was just a thin sliver of the ceiling staggeringly high above; everything else in the woman’s sights consisted purely of ruddy young sole skin, weathered by infinite cartwheels and graceful landings. Cupping her hands over her nose and mouth did little to temper the intensity of the brackish haze.

            “I’m just tryna get you used to your new place, see?” Serene commented from her bench above. She juggled her soles from side to side, letting Tina rebound off each puttied surface. “I heard it can be too overwhelming for you if I make you start doing your thing as soon as we meet, and believe me, I know it doesn’t smell like sunshine and roses down there!”

            Tina endured the minor twitches between the soles, becoming instantly moist and dusty from colliding with Serene’s feet. Being made to directly contact those walls of muscle and skin made the experience startlingly real like never before, and Tina screamed again.

            “Aw, it sounds like you’re not super-into it yet. That’s all right. It might take you a few times before you start liking it,” Serene sighed. She stopped the sole bouncing. “But just so I can see how you do, I need you to start rubbing my foot. And, uh… licking it, too. Both of them.”

            Liking it? Tina wasn’t sure if she was more offended by that possibility, or the Olympian’s gall at telling her to lick her filthy sole. She crossed her arms and held still.

            “NO!” Tina shouted, at last summoning words.

            The towering blonde rolled her eyes, and rested her chin on her fist like a quietly petulant child. Her eyes darted across the landscape of the practice gymnasium, and then she leaned down to the ground, her fingers parted on the approach toward the inescapable canyon of her soles where Tina was cornered.

            “Hey! STOP it!” Tina crowed as she was pinched into the pliable enclosure of the girl’s equally chalk-dusted digits. The frightening drop from so high, though, quickly shut her up.

            “I didn’t wanna have to do this, since we’re just meeting for the first time and we’re gonna be working together during the whole Games, but I’m kinda in a hurry,” Serene drawled with irritation. She stood up from the bench, and marched over to a wide mat set in front of a wall mirror, where she sat down with her legs spread wide, facing the reflection. “They told me if you don’t cooperate, I should… “encourage” you a little bit. Which I think just meant punish you, which I don’t wanna do, cuz I want you to like serving my feet, but if you’re not gonna listen? Well, here’s your… encouragement, little girl.”

            Serene’s reached with expert flexibility to her fully extended foot. Her fingers kept Tina dangled upside down, hanging over the plump row of toes. The Olympian scrunched her digits then spread them wide apart, making room. Thus satisfied, she lowered Tina and jammed the woman directly into the tender, squishy crevice between her two biggest toes.

            Tina tried to wrestle, but the iron strength of that vice-grasp was made apparent immediately when Serene pinched her prize in place with a single toe-curl. With nothing more to say, the gymnast commenced her stretching routine, reaching and contorting in all manner of impressive directions. For the duration of the cool-down, Tina was made to look at herself in that wall mirror beyond: her pathetically bare and puny body poking awkwardly out from between the two ruthless and powerful posts of Serene’s musty, wriggling digits atop the slick soles.

John struggled to gasp in air, with the pressure of two beefy walls of toe-flesh clamped on either side of his body. The musculature of a single one of those ladylike phalanges overpowered him ten to one, so there was no point in struggling. Only his head was spared the numbing compression of the giant feminine digits. To his right, three other men, equally naked and equally miniscule at one-half inch tall, popped their heads involuntarily out of the tightly gripped toes. Drops of chlorine-scented dew rolled in glistening trails down the olive-hued slope of the girl’s petite foot.

            Coco Liu’s opposite ped was positioned the same as she perched on the end of the diving board. Four men resided between her other toes. The twenty-one-year-old swimming champ was focused on one thing, and one thing only: beating her last PR to the opposite end.

            It was only by the grace of her tightly pinched toes that the eight men she had held in the doughy thrall of her foot were kept from plunking to the Olympic pool waters far below. Her coach originally insisted on this unusual method to help train the young woman to maintain perfect poise in her feet for speedy motion; it worked so well in practice, it was now tradition for Coco to wear eight shrinkies between her toes like loose jewelry. She was so used to it by now, the girl really only thought of them post-practice, when the coach was lovingly removing the little runts and putting them back in their prison-box.

            New to the crew, John was having serious regrets about volunteering to help with “maintenance” at the Olympic natatorium. One second he was signing a contract he’d admittedly only skimmed, and the next thing he knew, his naked body was being pinched between a stranger’s gridded fingertips to wedge him into the famous Chinese swimmer’s lanky digits. He decided it was best not to ask why a replacement member was needed between Coco’s toes, nor why this was allowed in the first place.

            With immaculate form, Coco careened into the water, hands pointed into fin-formation. Once in line, she fluttered effortlessly down the lane. Her soft yet athletically-sculpted legs propelled her with impressive determination. The young woman, though of gentle and alluring appearance, was like a machine with a motor attached when she hit the waves.

            John sputtered, clenching his every muscle and airway as the assault commenced. The pressure of those olive toes increased tenfold; the flesh paled with effort, making John’s body fully numb. He’d have resented this stinging act, if it wasn’t the only thing keeping him from being lost to the spiraling current. Water rushed past him faster than he thought humanly possible, threatening whiplash with every bobbing passage up and down out of the pool as Coco’s titanic foot fanned to and fro. Despite the slickness of the punching bag-sized digits, John was rooted firmly in place to the cushy crevice the entire way.

            Shock rattled the shrunken man’s frame when, in a great breaching splash, Coco hopped out of the pool and hoisted her feet onto the adjoining tile. Her heels balanced the weight of her feet, meaning her toes were still hovering a deadly distance up from the surface. Horrified, and struggling to choke out all the water he’d chugged down his nose during the lap, John did his best to cling to the water-pruned wrinkles in Coco’s pearly skin. Her texture was tender, almost like milk-hardened ice cream, and he might’ve found this unique opportunity to touch her almost enchanting, if it wasn’t for everything about the circumstances.

            John gawked as he craned his head to look at the other three men pinched in Coco’s long toes. To his surprise, which was difficult to come by given the already mind-boggling reality, each of the shrinkies was militantly licking the curve of the toe crevice which gripped them so possessively. They were focused in their practice, only removing their tongues from the sopping, chlorine-flavored flesh for long enough to adjust their necks back for another long slurp on their Chinese swimming goddess’s damp and weary toes.

            Repulsed, John turned his head away, and instead found himself accidentally staring directly up the loping path of Coco’s leg, past her slick swimsuit, and up to her gigantic face. The young woman had removed her rubber swim cap, allowing her glossy raven-black-hair to cascade down her shoulders. Her piercing amber eyes zeroed straight to John, and though her lips didn’t move to speak, her authoritative and narrowed vision told him all he needed to know. As did the slight twitch in the toes which pulsed around John’s bare body, reminding him that her foot was easily strong enough to snap him like a leaf.

            John didn’t need telling twice. He dipped his chin and commenced licking the pudgy surface area of the athlete’s toe cleavage. Bitter chemically-treated water and salty perspiration coursed down his throat. At least this filthy task offered a break before Coco’s next lap.

            The new “maintenance” man grimaced as the woman’s toes sealed him back in place, and the crashing waters of the pool drew near.

“Sorry about this, Coach,” Gretchen Bixler spoke into the fabric mouth of her shoe, though the devilish grin she wore with such delight demonstrated she wasn’t actually sorry at all. She tilted her chin down, coyly swirling her wavy blonde locks around her callused finger. In her opposite hand, the burly six-foot-two giantess palmed a shotput ball. “But you’re my good luck charm now. The last few practices proved that. And you know what competition’s like at this stage. If you give up your rituals, you can kiss the medals goodbye.”

            The woman’s former coach Fred bowed his head with seething resentment as he crouched in the age-beaten, lightly-soggy insole of his one-time protégé’s athletic shoe. She called him Coach without fail, even though he wasn’t her coach any longer, just because it hurt to remember. Even though he’d helped the girl climb the ranks from high school amateur to college star and eventually Olympic hopeful, all it took was one mistake. He’d over-trained her two years before, and cost her a qualifying round. With the stipulations of Gretchen’s contract, he not only lost his employment; he lost most of his height.

            And, as of late, he was a regular resident of the smarmy and adorable giant beefcake’s shoes whenever it came time for her to hurl that ball down the field. Still on her staff, but far lower down the food chain.

            “Well, like you always said. Success waits for no man or woman. So original, aren’t you, Coach?” Gretchen snorted. She set down the shot put and perched her ample thighs on a bench, cresting her dense bare toes over the edge of the shoe and waving in at Fred. Her glistening smile widened.

            An aide called to the next competitors to get out on the field. From beyond, the cheers of the dizzying Olympic stadium echoed all the way inside the shoe. As a stickler for ritual, in addition to keeping her former coach in her shoes during every competition, Gretchen was also not a fan of socks. Not that Fred suspected he’d be much happier if he was being stood upon by the muscular blonde in sweat-soaked socks as opposed to fleshy, rock-hard mattress of damp sole.

            Rather than shove her foot right in on top of Fred, though, Gretchen instead made him watch the violent swoosh of her opposite ped entering the twin sneaker. She knotted the laces with enough force to tie a noose, specifically one scaled to Fred’s four-inch size. At last the moment came. The woman set her empty shoe on the ground, forcing its occupant to stare all the way up at her broad-shouldered stature: beauty and beast, rolled into one.

            “You know the drill, Coach. I wanna do my best right now. And as we proved during training, I do best when I’ve got you working your hardest down there. Hands, mouth, and legs. I want to feel you putting in even a fraction of the effort I’m putting in to bring home a medal for the country. Got it?”

            Gretchen didn’t wait for an answer. Her toes re-entered the shoe’s mouth, and this time she didn’t withdraw. A sandbag-like big toe punched Fred to his knees, then quickly folded him onto his back using the fleshy coffin of tightly-packed digits. The rest of the young woman’s size-thirteen monster of a foot ate up space, inflating the cottony walls of the shoe, and squashing Fred like a pancake into the tacky insole with resolute swiftness.

            The disgraced coach didn’t bother rebelling by inaction. That was a bad move. He’d tried that the first time Gretchen heard about the miraculous medical and physical benefits of shrunken foot worship before, during, and after training. For his lack of initial cooperation then, the man had earned a night of being duct taped to Gretchen’s sole, which she conveniently didn’t wash after practice, while she slept. A full nine hours with his face jammed into the pungent, swollen ball of her foot. Fred didn’t make that mistake a second time. That toejammy stench still haunted his dreams.

            As Gretchen entered the field of play, serenaded by the flash of cameras and screaming from thousands of fans, Fred was hard at work. He pumped his legs as though on an invisible bike, kneading the rougher bend of her heel. Meanwhile, his hands circled in figure-eights around the pliable stretch of sole. Then, with his head under the ball of Gretchen’s foot, Fred went to town: teething on the gritty skin, licking in panicked rounds, and outright kissing if nothing else. The richly raunchy taste hardly bothered him now.

            Sickly enough, he’d learned how to make the most of being walked upon, for efficiency’s sake. When his protégé’s massive bare foot was taking on her body weight for a step, it became impossible to pamper her. The meaty sole flesh inflated slightly, the creases of Gretchen’s arch turned shallow, and Fred was buried under several inches of muscled padding. During these moments, the already scarce oxygen was squelched away by Gretchen’s outdoorsy aroma. Heavy, muggy mass made his tiny bones creak.

            Then, as Gretchen took a stride and winnowed her weight to the opposite foot, then that was Fred’s chance to get going. His legs, hands, and tongue worked in impressive tandem. The sad part was that he was likely among the most skilled shrinkies at this debasing activity. God knew Gretchen liked to tell him so after successful events, when she’d peel him off her sole and dump him right back in the briny footwear.

            Fred could only imagine what it would be like to speak to his younger self back in time, and try to explain that his calling, his one true talent, was not coaching track & field events as he hoped, but in fact, servicing the unforgiving, swampy, titanic bare foot of a woman ten years his junior. Technically, he still got to be “in” the Olympics, so that was something. But, as Fred listened to the muffled sound of the announcers booming through the wall of the shoe and dense planetary mass of Gretchen’s foot, he decided it just wasn’t the same.

            The crowd fell silent. Gretchen rolled on the balls of her feet in preparation, hoisting the shotput at her shoulder. Right about now, she was eyeballing the target with her famous steely scowl; she wasn’t thinking about herself, the millions of viewers, and certainly not the shrunken former coach stamped under her sole. Fred could just see her now, even though all he could “see” was blackness and the occasional flash of geometric foot skin cells whenever light cracked through the shoe’s mesh. She really did deserve to be a champion, judged purely on her athletic prowess.

            Then came the wind-up. Fred gritted his teeth as Gretchen’s entire vast, doughy ped pivoted down upon him. She was spinning, building up momentum, concentrating on the release. One long stride forward, and the four-inch man felt the thankful relief of pressure. His body momentarily clung to the ceiling of hot skin, stuck fast like tar, then came down again and was sandwiched thoroughly when Gretchen’s foot mashed him anew into the insole. Fred continued licking the wet patch of skin for a while longer before he recalled that the attempt was already made, and his heel-lapping wasn’t necessary. Now the judgment.

            Although he couldn’t quite make out the reading of the measurement, the enthusiasm of the announcers, plus the roar of the crowd, told Fred enough. Gretchen had done well. Maybe he really was her good luck charm after all?

            The walking recommenced as the powerful blonde returned to the sidelines, with more of a confident strut this time that sloshed Fred all the way up to the dancing bell-ends of Gretchen’s toes. She never was shy about goose-stepping, especially when it was warranted. It made her tiny passenger all the sorer, being bowled down by her arch, but it would be over soon enough. Maybe she’d even be in a good enough mood that she’d see fit to give him the night off from servicing her. That sounded like a cheer big enough for a gold medal.

            Laces were unlashed, and Gretchen’s foot was pried out of the shoe, sappy now with pre-competition perspiration. As her toes passed over Fred’s naked body, the girl made sure to caress the pillowy digits along the little man’s face and chest. Grimy, but her way of showing tomboyish gratitude.

            “Great show out there, Coach,” she whispered into the shoe. “What would I ever do without my little good luck charm?”

            “I don’t know,” he said hollowly.

            “Remind me later: we need to have a quick pep talk about your technique,” Gretchen commented boldly. “It’s not bad. I mean, it feels really good, having you licking my foot over and over again until you dry up, but it could still be better. Like you used to say, perfect is never perfect enough.”

            Angry and humiliated as this arrangement made Fred feel most of the time, there were moments where he was still capable of feeling a glimmer of pride for this amazon of a girl who was really already a giant unto herself even before he was shrunk down to be her personal living insole. That, ironically, made him feel even lowlier than his near-constant duty as a foot licker and sweat chugger. She had to be a true champion, after all, to make him believe for even an instant that this wasn’t wrong, and that just maybe he did belong down here in her shoes for as long as she deemed to keep him around.

Nell was thoroughly worn out after a day of relay races, but luckily, as always, the shrinkie therapy was doing wonders. She stretched on a bed of stacked towels upon her village apartment floor, laid on her stomach with her rancid, perspiration-glazed soles upturned to the ceiling. An inch-tall person crawled along the handholds of each wrinkled arch, burying their miniature tongues into the cushy crevices.

            Occasionally Nell twitched when a particularly ticklish little mouth or pinprick fingertip irritated her sensitive skin, but for the most part, it was lovely. With a luxurious sigh, she idly pondered if some of the same health benefits would take effect if she showered before letting the shrinkies go to town on her feet? Coach never said anything about that, though, and since it seemed now that half the Olympic village was using this method for recuperation, Nell wasn’t willing to take the risk of reducing her healing. If the shrinkies were as eager as they seemed to swallow up half a comparative gallon of congealed grime, well, who was she to argue with the science?

            “Hey, Nell! Aren’t you coming?” Her relay teammate Patty stuck her head in the door.

            “What is it? I’m… rebuilding my body,” Nell responded wearily. She ran her fingers through her brunette bob cut, then next traced the swollen contours of her quadriceps. Today had been a good day, but in order to have another good one, she really just needed to remain here until the shrinkies had lapped up every ounce of sweat from her soles.

            “We’re about to have the Olympics, remember?”

            Nell frowned, in a slight daze after so much running. “We’re at the Olympics, Patty.”

            “No, no, dummy. I mean the Shrinkie Olympics. C’mon, put some shoes on or something, and follow me. We’re all over in the common room, and it’s about to start. Oh, and bring those two with you.”

            “I haven’t even showered yet.”

            “That’s the point. Hurry!”

            Patty disappeared. Nell shrugged, beleaguered, but not wanting to miss out on the fun, whatever it was that was happening. She peeled the naked inchers off her soles. Then, doing as she was told, she slid the thong of a sandal between her moist big toe and second. Rubber insoles slapping against her wet flesh, Nell trailed down the hallway, with a shivering shrinkie in each fist. It was strange they were shaking only now; maybe they were like little junkies, Nell decided, who went into withdrawal if you pulled them off their source without warning. Who could imagine being that attached to a giant runner’s foot, and one drenched in sweat and toejam, no less? Nell smiled, and stuck out her tongue at them.

            The common room was packed with athletes, most of them track runners like Michelle and Nicole, but a few Nell didn’t recognize. Several athletes were leaning against the walls, muttering to shrinkies in their palms, while others had their human toys sandwiched under heels and grinding into a flip-flop insole. Others were whispering, exchanging money and curses. Nell realized they were gambling on something, but what?

            A circle formed around the center of the room, where two lines of women had positioned themselves on their knees. With six athletes on each side bowed, the twelve Olympians all faced away from one another, and were conspicuously barefoot, with their soles turned up and their toes in merry dance. Every foot, though differing wildly in size, pigment, and motion, all shared one trait grimly in common: each was absolutely sopping with so much greasy sweat that each of the twenty-four individual feet was made to glow under the lights. Finally, eleven inch-tall shrinkies stood on the carpet between the opposing shores of oily feminine soles.

            Suddenly Nell understood exactly what “Shrinkie Olympics” meant, and while a small part of her felt just a smidge of guilt for the little people being put through something that likely wasn’t in their job descriptions, she also knew right away she was staying to see the whole contest. The concept was simply too disgustingly delicious.

            “Nell!” Patty hissed. “You got one you want to throw in the ring?”

            Nell examined the two people clenched in her soft hands. One was still quivering so hard that they looked incapable of walking on their own; the other, though, had gentled down. Smirking, Nell knew exactly who to pick. She leaned over the circle and placed the calmer shrinkie amongst the rest of the naked brethren.

            “Line up, slaves!” Patty barked loudly. The attention of every amused athlete was captured, but particularly that of the nervous competitors below. Breaking to a run, the twelve split off, with one individual each standing at the pudgy baseline of toes, and all of them facing the opposite finish line a couple meters away.

            Nell raised an eyebrow. She hadn’t heard them referred to as “slaves” before, though it didn’t seem an inappropriate name. What else should you call a human-shaped thing which was at the mercy of young athletes, their existence reduced exclusively to gnawing off someone’s heel calluses and sucking down toe grunge? Perhaps harsh, but not wrong.

            “Everyone ready? Stopwatch? Spotters? Photographers?” Patty asked, addressing the normal-sized humans more pleasantly. Several athletes raised hands, demonstrating their phones were ready to either capture video or monitor the cleanliness of the game.

            Nell sunk into a chair and observed the proceedings with keen interest. She’d almost forgotten about the still-quaking shrinkie in her opposite hand; waste not, want not. The young woman leaned toward the floor and slid the miniature person onto the platform of her sandal before lowering her sole down and sealing them under. Instantly, the tiny tongue bath resumed, and Nell rippled with goose bumps.

            “Then I’d say we’re about ready,” Patty announced. She crouched over the start line, studying the shrinkies to ensure none of them had a headstart. Only now did Nell notice each of the opposing giant bare heels was adorned with a piece of string. “Remember, little ones: there are two stages here. Lap one is capture the flag, so just get up as fast as you can. Lap two, though, is more complicated. You will put your tongue down on the toe, and you can’t remove your mouth until you’ve put that flag back at the top of the heel. If you do, you will be disqualified. Clear? Perfect!”

            Everyone held their breath, and Patty blew a whistle.

            “Ready? Set? GO!”

            Like champion track starters, all twelve “slaves” sprinted across the carpet toward the other line of upturned feet, eyes on the prize of the string-flag adhered to the tip of the foot hill.

            Nell’s heart fluttered as she watched her proffered shrinkie take off running for the opposite foot. She had to stop herself in her anxiety, though; this was just for fun, after all, and Nell had taken no bets. It was simply too easy to fall back into those nerves, given the circumstances of their time in the village.

            All the shrinkies reached their assigned foot around the same time, and this is where the real competition began. Watching the twelve each try to conquer the sloped hillock of a fleshy bare foot at once was akin to disorganized mud wrestling. Those soles were so slippery, that most participants had difficulty even getting enough of a grip to ascend, continually sliding back and becoming entangled amongst the miniature moat formed by the toes; instinctively, of course, the participating athletes were only too gleeful to worm their digits about, gripping any shrunken limbs unlucky enough to get lost between the doughy valleys of their foot’s cleavage.

            “Hey, that’s cheating!” shouted a couple of the athletes with stakes in the game, when they noticed this encumbrance.

            “Let it go! You’re keeping it from winning!”

            “Yeah, stop holding it! Interference!”

            Nell was briefly puzzled by their wording until she realized the “it” was the shrinkie.

            After some struggle, though, grasping the spongy foot-furrows carefully, a couple of the miniature racers managed to reach the summit of those concave soles. They snatched their string flags, and rolled back down the sweaty embankment. Nell’s fighter was the third to do so, and she couldn’t help but cheer a little.

            Once again, the shrinkies were sprinting across the gulf of carpet, more spread out this time as several of them still struggled to get out of the twisted toes keeping them rooted like quicksand to the base of the living hill. Multiple girls whose feet served as the obstacle course, in fact, gave no indication they intended to release their captures. Those shrinkies, resigned, had commenced caressing and licking the pale bulbs of tired digits. Aside from those gamblers who’d lost their competitor, most of the athletic audience in the common room seemed not to mind the amusing spectacle. A couple people even dropped in extra non-competing shrinkies, offering these toys to the happily grappling toes for added texture; those engaging in this act had seemingly forgotten about the competition altogether, resorting to the distraction of those athletes with multiple shrinkies pinched in their slimy toes. One of them, a star shot putter that Nelle recognized as Gretchen Bixler, now had the thrashing bodies of four shrinkies clamped in the muscular finger-toes of her beefy peds.

            The rest of the audience, however, was still deeply invested in the conclusion to the race.

            The second lap sounded far more fascinating, to Nell at least. Most had struggled to complete the first task without the difficulty of keeping their lips wrapped over the terrain of sweaty foot; could they do so now, while also steadily pouring a trickle of oozy pore-fluids down their throats? Nell recoiled, but she also couldn’t wait to see whether anyone finished. The pressure was so great, she had to remind herself to relent some of the weight of her sole bearing down on the sandal, with a junkie shrinkie camped in the wet darkness beneath.

            As the first tiny runners returned to the row of twelve feet where they’d commenced the game, everyone fell into a hush, sitting on the edge of their seats. Just as instructed, each competitor stuck out their microscopic tongues and slathered the nearest globe of a bell-end toe; thus qualified to begin the round, they started climbing, dragging themselves mouth-first up the damp incline.

            Nell bit her lip. Her little champion was doing well, only trailing in second now. Maybe they could even win it. Perhaps she should’ve bet something after all.

            This lap, as predicted, took much longer to complete. Several shrinkies were disqualified outright when, if they lost their grip and slid back down the sun-tanned dune of athletic skin, their lips came disconnected from the soggy sole rimples. Those spotters filming the affair called out any rule breakage, and Patty was quick to remove them from the field between her thumb and index finger, to the groaned consternation of the viewers with money in the ring. Most of the disqualified runners were instead wedged directly between a random set of wiggling toes; there also seemed to be some concerted effort, for no reason other than sheer entertainment, to fit an inch-tall slave between each one of Gretchen’s gargantuan toes.

            Nell’s runner, though, remained in the game, even as the competitors were narrowed down to just five who had yet to part their mouths from those mammoth hillocks of milky sweat and rubbery flesh.

            It was hard for the relay Olympian not to sympathize with the plight of those five; the flavors found across the span of foot undersides had to be rank and objectionable in the way of expired food, mucky swamp waters, and distilled vinegar all at once. Not to mention the lingering heat of that skin stored in briny socks and tight shoes for twelve hours a day, likely so sticky even beneath the painted sweat that it threatened to bind those puny lips directly to the giant sole.

            Yet they persevered. Nell held her breath again when her runner was nearing the top, moving a millimeter at a time digging their hands into the grooves of the stinky arch, face still hugged to the slick and pillowy wall. The flag hung from its shoulder.

            Their shoulder, Nell reminded herself. Not its.

            As her competitor claimed the victory, though, by pinning the string firmly to the heel, the distinction of slave pronouns was quickly forgotten. The room went wild, cheering in joy or stomping their feet with frustration; Nell just hoped those who’d lost hadn’t also chosen to store any spectating shrinkies under their feet, because those slaves were unlikely to be useful much in the future if so.

            Either way, this kind of uproar almost reminded her of the Olympic stadiums themselves, in microcosm scale. Which was appropriate, given the tiny runners, and the fact that their “medals” would all amount to the same prize: a night of being glued back to the monoliths of gummy soles, and a belly full of salty foot broth.

            Everyone was a winner in the Shrinkie Olympics, Nell decided, as she recollected her human toy and hungrily shoved it under her opposite foot to be squinched down into the sandal insole. After all, it wouldn’t do to have a pair of feet in a mismatched state of recuperation. The “winner’s” tongue got to work immediately.

Tina hung in limbo. Specifically, she hung upside down with her numbed legs pinched possessively between the gymnastic toes of the one and only Serene Terran. But it was hard to tell these days.

            The young Olympic star had been making even greater strides than usual, hitting PR after PR, and the girl attributed these gains to the changes in her workout recovery: specifically, the addition of her half-inch shrinkie. That first flexible cooldown session was just the beginning. Apparently her coaches had argued for giving her even more of them, perhaps one for every toe, but Serene was insistent: her “little woman” would do the job alone.

            Which meant Tina was on duty 24/7. Just like her young owner had explained during that first meeting, while there was a little wiggle room for adjusting to the situation, there wasn’t much, and there were unholy expectations of Tina. Too scared of what this leviathan gymnast could do to her if she was displeased, Tina had at last given in: massages using her whole body as the tool, plus infinite kisses and tongue baths.

            “Today was god-danged spectacular! Near-perfect form, the coach said, but she’s always tough. Not that I blame her,” Serene prattled as she reclined on her bed, with Tina dangling from her chalk-dusted digits. As if it wasn’t enough insult-to-injury that she forced the half-incher to worship her tired feet, she had to ramble throughout the heinous act. “But really, you saw me! I was off that bar like an egg off the roof of a henhouse. Haha! My grandpa used to say that when he meant he was going somewhere fast. I don’t know why. Hey, are you listening still?”

            Serene’s toes pinched. The meaty walls caved in on Tina’s ribs, threatening to bruise them, but stopped short of doing so. That good-natured Southern belle-effected voice haunted the shrunken woman’s dreams; of course, something far more powerful haunted her days.

            “Yes,” Tina peeped. Shaken back to partial cogency, she resumed rubbing the nearest punching bag-sized toe upon the petite athlete. She tried to lick it as well, but couldn’t reach far enough. The haze of balmy sweat-fog was evidently impeding her depth perception.

            “What’s up with you today, little lady? I know I’ve been talkin’ your ear off, probably, but this is what I do when things are going well, you know? And they are going well. At this rate, we’ll be taking home at least three golds. Yeah, you heard me!” Serene explained. “So what’s the deal? What do ya want from me?”

            Tina sighed as the monstrous toes “hugged” her again, squeezing out another drop of sweat into her hair, then responded too quietly to be heard: “All I wanted was your autograph. That’s all.”

***

For the first time in my tenure here, a chapter didn't meet the length requirements, which is fun. Hey, I did say this collection of stories would vary in the size of its chapters as well as its athletic participants. Sometimes you gotta leave them wanting more, and sometimes you have to stall to fulfill the word count requirement, like I'm doing at this exact moment.

Next bit will have a little more meat on the bones. Stay tuned!

Cady’s lips grazed the rubbery dam which curved around the range of her head and down past her hips. There was no wriggling away. She tried craning her neck, but every direction she turned her face, she only unintentionally kissed her clenched mouth against another doughy swath of skin. Two oblong pillars of flesh and muscle wedged around her ribs from either side whenever Cady attempted to squirm to safety. She was trapped.

            The irony was that the flavor of that peachy wall, consisting of the tender webbed skin between a set of giant toes, ordinarily was far fouler: like vinegar and old gym socks brewed in a pot of boiling saltwater. Tonight, for once, the aroma was instead perfumed by citrus soap and floral beauty products. Yet due to the occasion, Cady couldn’t have felt more repulsed or full of self-loathing.

            She’d dreamed of being here for years. From pee-wee soccer, then travel clubs, her high school’s championship-winning team, then university super-stardom, and eventually Olympic hopeful status. Cady had poured every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears and then some into the effort of playing on the international stage. And, perhaps most of all, earning the well-deserved honor of the post-competition press conference, with all the glory and flash of press cameras surrounding her. Since she was a little girl, she’d pictured herself here.

            Of course, Cady had always imagined she’d be sitting at the conference table in that dream. Not naked, shrunken to a quarter-inch tall, and imprisoned between the toes of her teammate and bitter rival Trish Moss. The difference was palpable. So close and yet so very, very far.

            And it was all due to a bad game, or really a string of games, after which Cady was faced with being booted from the team altogether. Instead she was put on suspension by the coaches, thanks to some persuasion from Trish, whose motivations ended up being far less generous than it first seemed. Cady would remain on the team, but throughout the Olympics, she would be the 24/7 foot-pet to the American team’s best striker.

            Occasionally, light from a camera would flare beneath the table, casting a glow into the callused crevices of Trish’s battle-hardened toes. Cady would wince at this millisecond exposure, and wonder if the high-def photographs would capture her image. Of course, at her size of a carpenter ant, it would take a keen eye to spot her entombed between Trish’s tan toes, and which themselves were outfitted in expensive sparkle-toned heels. However, even the faint possibility of being discovered down here made Cady even sicker than she became when she was forced to lick and drink the post-scrimmage grime out from Trish’s digits.

            There was no confusion on her part. No matter how clean Trish scrubbed her filthy feet, Cady would still easily choose to spend a full day snogging every meaty wrinkle of Trish’s giant gritty sole, rather than a single half-hour press conference amongst flower-scented toes. Cady’s pride made this current endurance almost unbearable. It should’ve been her up there, with Trish’s shrunken face jammed against Cady’s luxurious foot flesh. Not the other way around.

            “A couple questions for Miss Moss, now,” the announcer called out. “Yes, you?”

            “Hi, Trish. Betty Landman, from The Times? Would you be able to comment on a rumor which has been circulating the Olympic complex? There’s been talk of brand-new performance enhancement of some kind, shared by many athletes, with particular attention today on the soccer team. Anything to say?”

            Cady noticed Trish’s freshly showered toes dampening slightly during the question. Obvious nerves over the truth turned the woman’s skin clammy and moist. Even if this practice was sanctioned by cruel bastards from the ethics committee behind closed doors, the evidence was pinched pathetically between her toes at this exact second.

            A coach whispered something in Trish’s ear.

            “I, nor anyone I know, has done anything unethical. We serve our country in this competition, and take that responsibility seriously. I’ve never seen or touched a needle or pill of any kind, and all my reports are clean, which is public record.” Trish’s explanation was cookie-cutter, and technically true. Even as she spoke it, though, she scrunched her toes tighter around her quarter-inch teammate: perhaps suddenly self-conscious of the possibility of a reporter peeking under the table at her open-toed heels and noticing a person smushed underneath.

            During Trish’s answer, Cady was utterly submerged in swollen toe flesh from either side. Puffy skin seemed to inflate above and below as Trish pressed her digits tightly together. Without warning, Cady couldn’t see or hear anything, nor smell or taste aside from a gridded flank of inner toe forcibly massaged into her face. At the suspended player’s puny size of a quarter inch, and stuck between Trish’s two largest toes, it was entirely possible for the giantess to clamp her slender phalanges together and completely conceal her human toy. Hidden in plain sight.

            For the rest of the press conference, Trish did just that. She kept her toes mostly bunched together; with expert muscular focus, though, she parted her digits only enough to let in a wisp of oxygen for Cady. Down in the musky, floral darkness, embraced on every iota of her naked form by pillowy toe skin, the shrunken woman listened in anguish.

            “What message do I have for all the kids out there, you ask?” Trish boomed, responding to a final question. Her toes squeezed tighter than ever, briefly muting Cady’s world again, and caving her tiny face into the supple wall of flesh. Once satisfied with the degree of kisses she forced her shrunken teammate to administer on her foot, though, Trish flexed her toes wide enough for Cady to hear every word. “That’s easy. Never give up on your dreams, and you can achieve anything. Work hard enough, and someday you can be sitting in this very spot, one way or another. God bless America.”

Camila Novak had heard whispers of the shrunken people given to other competitors for a particular and sickening purpose. Coming from a tiny Eastern European city-state nation, which most countries of the world hadn’t even heard of, Camila didn’t anticipate getting her own shrinkies, and thus wasn’t surprised when her coach quietly told her so. They didn’t have the training budget of the gold medal winners.

            It was just as well, though. Camila was a gentle soul, and the very idea of subjecting a miniature human being to her feet, especially after she’d been exerting herself, was disgusting and unfathomable. They had feelings, after all!

            Given her taut yet petite frame, angelic sand-blonde hair, and piercing doll-like blue eyes, people didn’t take Camila for a serious athlete. When she told them she was headed to the Olympics, most raised an eyebrow. Then they added a derisive laugh when she told them she was a mountain bike racer.

            But Camila had gotten this far by refusing to listen to the nay-sayers. The twenty-year-old was about to compete in the most challenging race of her life the next morning. Even if she wouldn’t have the supposed advantage of tiny people tending her feet, she had to remember she’d gotten here on raw talent. Her family was poor, and her hometown had no claim to fame except Camila’s spot on the team; if she allowed doubt get to her now, she’d let them all down.

            When Camila returned to her Olympic village apartment after evening practice, however, she was surprised to find a mysterious white box on her bed. The top was emblazoned with the Olympic symbol rings. A tag attached read, “For Camila. Good luck, and love, from us all.”

            The girl’s spirit was warmed before she even touched the lid to open it. Her community was rooting for her. Fingers shaking with excitement, she opened the box, then promptly had to cup her hands over her mouth to avoid shriek-gasping.

            Laying in the box were four items. The first and largest two were a logical discovery: a twin set of new athletic shoe insoles, fresh and insulated for the maximum pounding they’d endure the next day during the mountain bike race. The other two items, however, nearly made Camila faint.

            It was Thomas and Sofia, her two best friends in the entire world since childhood. Except they were nude, and only four inches tall apiece.

            “Hello!” Sofia called to her stricken-silent giantess friend. “You’re not dreaming, Cammy! It’s us.”

            “Aren’t you going to say hello back?” Thomas said with a grin.

            Shuddering to her knees, Camila crouched by the bed. She put herself at eye level with her action figure-sized best friends, standing in the box. The athlete was boggle-eyed, breathing heavily, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. Just to ensure Sofia was telling the truth, the girl extended a finger, gently stroking the bare bodies of her friends. Upon discovering they were made of flesh and bone, as well as tangible genitals, she retracted with fear.

            “Oh my God,” Camila stammered. Her eyes welled. “What’s happened to you? What’s going on? Were… were you captured? Please, tell me what’s happening. I can help you. We can return you to your full sizes, if only-”

            “Nobody captured us, Cammy,” Sofia said. To reassure, the girl climbed out of the box and approached her friend’s gigantic face, and rubbed a tiny hand on her broad cheek. “We are here for you.”

            “For me?”

            “Yes!” Thomas cheered. With some effort he picked up the corner of the new sneaker insoles in the box. Then he pointed to a four-inch-human-sized hole carved into each of the foamy insoles. “What do you think these openings are for? It’s so you can wear us, during the r-”

            “Ease her into it,” Sofia hissed at Thomas, then smiled lovingly again as she turned back to her enormous bestie’s beautiful and bewildered countenance. “You’ve heard of the program, yes?”

            “W-What?” Camila blubbered. The tears were rolling now.

            “You know it. Very hush-hush, but people being reduced in size down to very small, and used to-”

            “I’m sorry, I… I know what it is,” Camila corrected. Emboldened by the comfort of her friends, she reached forward. Her curling fingers and soft palms wrapped around Thomas and Sofia, scooping up them up from the bedspread and holding them before her big blue eyes. “I mean what are you two doing here? We have so few training resources on the team, I-”

            “We know,” Thomas said from the warm perch of Camila’s hand. “They couldn’t afford it. That’s why they put out an open call for anyone willing to participate. Dozens of people from town volunteered to do this for you! But we argued the hardest.”

            “W-Why would you do that? Why would anyone?” Camila mumbled, overcome with emotion and shock. “You’re telling me that dozens of people that I know argued for the right to be… shrunk… and, given to me, to be used to… t-to…”

            “-to service and clean your feet, before, during, and after the competition,” Thomas said, finishing the thought for her. Sofia shot him another irritated glance.

            “During?” Camila scowled, repulsed. “You don’t mean you expect me to…”

            “Actually, we don’t just expect. We insist, Cammy,” Thomas said.

            “I won’t do it! You can’t make me put my dearest and most beloved friends under my feet!”

            “You must!”

            “Why?”

            “Because we love you. And we wanted to support you in your dream,” Sofia explained. “That’s why you have to put us in those insoles Thomas showed you. We will support you… literally… every pedal of the way.”

            Utterly overwhelmed now, Camila slumped against the bed, a weepy puddle of feelings and responsibility. She cuddled her two tiny friends to her increasingly wet cheeks as she cried out all the aggression and misunderstanding over this unthinkable gift she’d been given. Every once in a while, the girl paused in her tears to lay sloppy kisses on the faces of Sofia and Thomas. The two confident shrinkies did their best to comfort their friend, rubbing her fingers and whispering soothing assurances, even though it was they and not she that would be worn inside a pair of sweaty sneakers all day. An hour later, a red-faced Camila had recovered enough to form words again.

            “Why don’t you put us down, Cammy?” Sofia offered with almost maternal grace.

            “What for?”

            “We’ve been training. We want to show you why this is going to work,” Thomas insisted.

            “But… I’ve just been biking all day. I still haven’t cleaned myself. My feet are so gross, and I…”

            “That’s the point,” Sofia said, then patted the giantess’s thumb curled over her hips. “Please. Put us down. Let us prove to you how much we care.”

            Another deluge of tears started pouring down the emotional cyclist’s cheeks, but she relented, and lowered her cupped palms to the carpet. Camila set her friends down on the floor between her thighs, and carefully outstretched her legs.

            “You should probably take off your shoes,” Thomas said.

            “Don’t be afraid, Cammy,” Sofia said. “Let us help you.”

            Silently, Camila nodded and did so, prying away her trainers, then peeled off the white socks, which still adhered to her overworked foot flesh by sappy perspiration. Her stubby toes were decorated with a polka-dot pattern of squishy, cottony flecks of toejam. A reeking fog of vile, balmy stink rose like steam from the girl’s cute little peds, which were intimidatingly massive to her four-inch friends. If Camila had to cover her nose to endure it, she could only imagine how nauseous her body odor was making Sofia and Thomas. To her surprise, though, they didn’t pinch their nostrils, or even grimace.

            Like a choreographed dance, Camila’s childhood friends walked the length of her legs, toward her newly unveiled feet. They looked to one another, mouthed something Camila couldn’t make out, and separated. Without hesitation, Sofia pressed her hands against the sweat-sticky decline of Camila’s shallow arch, while Thomas gripped a smelly toe-bulb the size of his own head.

            And, if that gesture alone wasn’t bizarre enough for Camila to witness, both of her friends then desperately pressed their mouths to her skin with the urgency of people clawing for gas masks in a fire. Sofia massaged her hands in tandem circles, while her tongue explored the nearest furrowed crest of a sole wrinkle, sliding her tiny wet muscle from end to damp end like a corn on the cob rind. Meanwhile, Thomas opened his jaws wide and shoved as much of the tip of that pink marshmallow-toe into his mouth as he could manage; from there, the boy hungrily suckled the skin, nibbling gently, gulping down soggy toejam, and licking every curve until the toe gleamed with both sweat and saliva. Then he moved to the next.

            Camila surrendered to the instant and undeniable rush of rich goose bumps which assaulted her body. This was like nothing she’d experienced before. She’d never felt guiltier in her entire life. Yet this strange process of having her dear shrunken friends licking, rubbing, and gnawing her gunk-marinated biker’s feet was inspiring all kinds of strange feeling inside Camila.

            Most notably the fact that she knew, even now, as much as she hated the concept, that she would allow her beloved friends to camp inside her shoes for tomorrow’s race. God help her and her caring heart, she might even enjoy it a little.