Alex shoved his face into the fluffy pillow, not wanting to watch his giant capture change post-shower. He wished he could take a shower— his body still reeked of chlorine and he could still feel Nerea’s butt on top of him. He would’ve asked her to drop him in the sink or something, but he was too afraid she’d make him her new bath toy if he expressed any interest in taking a shower. 

“Estoy vestida ahora.” Nerea said, letting Alex know her clothes were on and it was okay to look. 

Alex peeked over to her slowly in case she wasn’t dressed fully. When they had gotten back to the hotel after the water park, Alex had a very uncomfortable hour as Nerea held him against her bare stomach as she watched tv and waited for her madre to get out of the shower. He had enough of seeing her bare body. 

Luckily, she was fully dressed outside of her bare feet. Nerea wore a long orange dress with flowers embroidered along the chest. Alex sat up on the pillow, gazing at the little girl staring in her room’s large mirror.

Nerea was only 10 years old, yet she held so much power over him. Even now as she padded way too much makeup on her face, she looked so innocent. Should Alex be afraid of a kid like that? Certainly not, yet he found himself flinching everytime she approached or said anything to him. 

Alex looked away from her as Nerea sat on the bed next to him, as if not looking at her could cause her to ignore him. From the corner of his eye Alex watched Nerea slide long nylons up her slender legs, and Alex wondered if they had been a little mature for her. Even the excessive make up on her face looked out of place for someone her age, and made her look more ignorant than older. 

Nerea bent under the bed and pulled something out. “¡Éste!” she exclaimed, pulling out a pair of flats from the bed and plopping them on top. “I almost left these at home since they are too big for me, but these shoes are perfect to bring you to la cena tonight.” 

Alex’s stomach stabbed with hunger. La cena was Spanish for dinner. People from Spain ate dinner a lot later than people did in the states, and Alex was starting to think they already ate on the ride home from the water park. 

“You have to be joking, right?” Alex wasn’t sure if Nerea actually just suggested she take him to dinner in her flats. “If you’re nervous about me trying to escape again— which I promise I won’t— you can just lock me in a drawer or something.” Alex already decided he wouldn’t try escaping until Nerea was asleep that night, so he wasn’t lying. 

Nerea pushed the flats closer to Alex, and he could smell the stink coming off them. “I no yoking. Mí dress has no pockets, and madre no want me to take my clutch. Can we only check if you will fit?”

Alex was apprehensive, but if he didn’t fit at least he wouldn’t have to continue to argue with her. He lifted his leg over the side of her flat, annoyed at how excited Nerea looked down at him. He ducked under the front of the flat, and he actually fit relatively snugly under the flap. 

“I fit, can you help me out of here?” Alex wiggled in the flat, but it was too tight to move. 

“Yay!” Nerea cheered, lifting up the flat and putting it on the floor. 

“Nerea, wait!” Alex yelled. There was definitely a misunderstanding, Alex was not trying to say that he fit and would allow this. He struggled in the flat, but just as he wedged himself free, Nerea’s foot entered the flat and her giant toes rammed into his body. 

Nerea’s entire foot was in the flat, her big toe pressed right into Alex’s face with her other toes lining his neck, chin, stomach and legs. He slammed a fist against her second toe, but he didn’t have enough room to slam hard enough to hurt.

The little girl wiggled her toes over Alex, her third toe wiggling against this bare stomach making him laugh since he was ticklish. Nerea tilted her foot up and down, admiring the way Alex felt in the flat against her toes. “You fit really good. I can’t wait to play with you with my toes.” 

At least Alex could hear a lot better from the shoe than he could the bikini bottom, not to mention that her foot didn’t smell too bad since she had just showered. But it was really hot in there, and Nerea’s toes were already starting to sweat a little bit. 

Nerea stood up off the bed. The pressure on Alex only increased slightly since he wasn’t directly under her toes. She was walking, and as she did so her toes rubbed into Alex. The giant toes brushed sweat on him like paint on a canvas, and it only took a few steps before his chlorine scent changed to sweat. 

“¿A qué hora nos vamos?” asked Nerea. 

“Mija, it’s sundown.” said Nerea’s mom, whose english accent caught Alex off guard. “We speak English after sundown, even while on vacation.” 

“Aww,” Nerea whined. “When are we going to the chicken?” 

“It’s kitchen, and they’re called restaurants, like restaurante sin el e.” Madre corrected. “Let me grab my things and we’ll leave. Be patient.” 

The weight from Nerea’s toes were lifted off Alex as she sat down. He never questioned how Nerea learned English, but she must’ve picked it up from her mother. Only speaking English after sundown seemed like a great way to learn a second language, Alex wished his parents had done that with him. Though they only knew English, so he couldn’t blame them. 

It was peculiar being this close to somebody’s toes, especially since Nerea was so young. Nerea occasionally swung her feet, causing her toes to slide into him. They were plush and soft and reeked of body odor, and the sweat caused them to glide over Alex’s body every time they touched him. 

Alex grunted as Nerea stood back up. He actually pressed his face into her big toe as he screamed, trying to muffle the sound. The last thing he needed was for Madre to find out about him. The situation was too embarrassing to explain, not to mention she might kill him for being her daughter’s doll. 

The weight was released off him again as Nerea hopped into the car. The engine revved, and Alex felt the car move. Nerea’s feet didn’t exactly hit the bottom of the car yet, but the tip of her toes did. The blood in Alex’s body rushed to his head and Nerea’s toes gently grazed his body. 

As Nerea and Madre conversed, Nerea was a lot more comfortable making English mistakes around her than she was Alex. “I saw a friend from e’school today at the pull.”

“Just school,” Madre corrected. “Stop putting e’s in front of s’s. And its pool.”

“We went to the wave pull and I was knock under.” 

“Knocked, mija. Remember past tense.” 

“I am good with the irregular ones you taught me, see? It is taught, not teached.” 

“Most Americans say It’s, not it is.” 

Hearing them talk so casually about her mistakes made Alex appreciate just how much English Nerea already knew. She still had some way to go before she could have a conversation that isn’t a little broken, but she seemed to be improving fast.

Alex wondered how much English Nerea actually didn’t know. She asked her madre often what different words she said meant, but Never never did so with Alex. How well could she actually understand Alex when he spoke? That could be the root of many of their misunderstandings. Perhaps when Nerea asked him to play dolls, she meant to do so for a much longer period of time than her statement conveyed, and why he wasn’t able to communicate the danger of being put in her bikini or flat. 

“Can we turn on the air tradition?” asked Nerea. 

“It’s broken, we have to suffer with the heat.”

Alex was starting to feel really hot, he just thought that it was because of the heat he felt radiating off Nerea’s toes. Though now that Madre mentioned the car having no air conditioner, he noticed the increasing heat. 

Nearea’s toes were sweating a lot more than they were moments ago. Droplets of sweat rolled down her toes and bursted on Alex’s face and body. It was disgusting, and his body squirmed from the moist liquid. The massive toes were becoming slippery, and they rubbed over Alex’s body a lot faster due to it, soaking sweat into his body. 

It didn’t help that Nerea constantly wiggled her toes to feel where Alex was. Alex knew she was having way too much fun, and she probably liked that her toes were getting really sweaty. She shoved her big toe into Alex’s face, pressing it right up against his nose. The smell was disgusting, and Alex forced his hands out from under her littler toes to try and push it off, but he was unsuccessful. 

Nerea’s sweat dripped into his mouth. Alex spit it out, but that didn’t get rid of the salty taste that plagued him. He gagged on the taste, yet there was so little room in the little girl’s flat that another glob of sweat soon took the place of the one he spit out. 

The sweat soaked into the insole below then, and Alex figured that was how foot prints must’ve formed in insoles. The flat would reek of sweat for the rest of the day even if her foot stopped sweating. There’d probably be a dark spot from where Alex’s body was too, since he was covered in so much of his own sweat on top of Nerea’s that he couldn’t even tell the difference anymore. 

“Why are you laughing?” asked Madre. 

Nerea kicked her foot forward, her toes sliding into Alex and making him grunt. “I was thinking of a funny yoke. No translate well into English.” 

“Honey, how many times do I have to teach you this?” complained Madre. “You need to use the English word ‘To Do,’ it does not translate well.” 

“Pero mama,” Nerea became upset, inching forward in her seat and stomping her foot on the floor. Alex winced in pain as her smaller toes sliced down the side of his body. “We no say do in spanish.” 

“But we do in English. You need to practice.” 

Nerea pouted, but the conversation did seem to dampen her mood with playing with Alex. The rest of the car ride was smooth except for the copious amount of sweat seething from Nerea’s toes. She only wiggled her toes over him once more before remembering she was supposed to be in a bad mood. 

The car stopped some time later. The car door slid open, and Nerea hopped from her seat in the car to the ground below. 

As she fell, Nerea’s toes slid over Alex, and as she fell her toes pulled him back. He screamed as her foot slammed against the ground. Alex’s body was halfway under Nerea’s toes, and they scrunched to support her landing. His entire body ached from the impact. If Alex had been under the ball of her foot, or forbid if he were under her heel, that jump would’ve done serious damage to him. 

Nerea walked towards the restaurant. Each step was painful, but didn’t hurt as much as the jump. Nerea foot lifting in the air gave Alex little reprieve. Not only because each step was short, but because he was too preoccupied with the pain from the previous step to enjoy not being stepped on. 

The giant girl’s foot weighed back onto him. This was all happening way too fast. How was a little girl’s foot hurting him this much? Each step down felt like her toes were punching him all over his body. 

Alex’s face got it the worst, since Nerea’s big toe was large enough to cover all of it and sweated more than her other toes, but her second and third toes pressed into his neck and chest while the third and forth made good work on punishing his stomach. He tried not to think where the other end of the 4th foot pressed into, and her pinkie drilled into his upper leg. Even the part of his legs and feet that wrapped around the side of her foot took part in the beating, as her foot stepped just as hard on that. 

The air became cooler, and Alex figured that must’ve meant they were in the restaurant. Nerea steps fell a little easier too, must’ve been something with the flooring. As she walked, Alex tried pushing against her toes to push himself free. The problem was that her foot was so slippery that his hands glided right over them. 

He pressed his hands harder into the toes, but they slid between them over and over again as Alex was crushed by them. Alex decided to try pushing from underneath, pushing on part of the girl’s undersole, but the rest of her body was too heavy and her foot only crushed his hands. 

Thankfully, he didn’t have to suffer through being stepped on for very long. Nerea slid into her seat at a table, and her little kid feet just barely reached the floor, giving Alex a nice break as her foot hovered just over him.

“Do they have a cheese burger here?” asked Nerea. 

“You’re at a nice restaurant Nerea, pick something better than a cheese burger.” 

Nerea whined, swinging her feet and kicking it against her chair. Alex’s head spun, his body being wedged deeper under Nerea’s foot. She inched forward, the tips of her toes touching the bottom of the floor. 

Her toes were completely over him. Nerea’s foot sweat poured over his body. She shifted again in her seat, moving her toes around with them. The big toe pressed into Alex’s jaw and forced it open. 

Alex tried to close his jaw, but Nerea’s big toe was too strong and the angle he was at made it difficult. As he struggled, Alex’s eyes caught a glistening glob of sweat drip down from her big toe. It headed right for Alex’s mouth. He screamed, wiggling under the toe, but nothing stopped the sweat from rolling right into his mouth. 

Alex winced at the awful taste, but with Nerea’s other toes pressing into his chest he couldn’t take in enough air to spit it out. If he didn’t want to choke on the sweat he had to swallow it, and he did it quickly to get it over with. 

That was the first thing Alex drank since the water at the waterpark. His stomach growled, reminding him of how hungry he was. Drinking Nerea’s sweat reminded Alex’s throat how dry and raspy it was. The worst part was that his body actually liked the nourishment, and yearned for more. 

“No,” Alex whispered, the sound distorted since he couldn’t use his jaw. He refused to drink any more of Nerea’s sweat. 

Nerea shifted again, letting go of Alex jaw. “How do you say this?” she asked, likely pointing to something in the menu. 

“It’s spaghetti, same as English.” Madre said. “The waiter is coming, be ready to order.”

The waiter greeted them. He had a thick accent that didn’t sound like he was from Spain. Actually, given his accent and Nerea’s choice in dinner, they might be at some kind of Italian restaurant. Alex never thought of going to an Italian restaurant while he was on vacation in Spain, but he guessed if a person was already from Spain that they might find enjoyment at a different ethnic restaurant.

“Da bere?” asked the waiter.  

“Vino,” said Madre.

"Vorrei dell’acqua, per favore," said Nerea. 

Alex was stunned. They were all speaking slowly, but he couldn’t decipher anything they were saying. He mastered how to order in restaurants, he’d done so he could order well at bars, but it was like they were speaking a different language. 

They continued to order. It was harder to hear now that Nerea’s foot pressed into his entire body, but maybe they were speaking italian. 

“Vorrei una spaghetti, per favore,” said Nerea. As she spoke Italian, she spoke fast and concisely. She didn’t have the same blocky speech that she did when she spoke English. She wasn’t still learning Italian like she was still learning English. 

This girl already knew a second language, English was her third. Alex was amazed at how somebody so young could know so many languages. He cursed himself for not knowing one. If he knew either Spanish or Italian, he could speak more fluently with her and they wouldn’t have misunderstandings that resulted in him spending a dinner under her foot in her flat. 

The waiter left and Nerea continued to talk to her mom in English. She was getting better as the conversation went on. She spoke better in past tense, and her mom worked with her on pronouncing J’s correctly. She still struggled with saying, do, did, don’t and didn’t, but she was trying. 

Nerea scrunched her toes over Alex. It didn’t hurt as much as it did annoy him, but there was another problem. There was so much sweat that it was starting to expand Nerea’s nylon, making them stretch and cling onto Alex’s body. It pressed into his mouth, making breathing difficult.

With Nerea’s nylon wrapped around Alex’s mouth, each breath was filtered through a vacuum of sweat and foot stank. He breathed in tiny droplets of sweat, forced to swallow since spitting it out would only spit it back onto the nylon and onto himself. He pushed against the toes, but they didn’t let up. The foot was too sweaty anyway, and all pushing against the massive toes did was give Nerea a nice little foot massage. 

As Alex pressed against the giant toes and nylon, Nerea pressed harder against him. She rubbed her toes over him, really pressing her toes into him. It hurt, and Alex felt his nose bend and press into his skull. What was she doing? Was she telling him to stop fighting her, or did she just like the way he felt under her foot?

 This treatment continued until the food arrived. Nerea was too focused on the delicious smelling food to pay too much mind to Alex. His stomach growled as he listened to Nerea and Madre munch down on their dinners. He was so hungry, so starving. 

And it was boiling hot in the flat. It was hotter in the flat than it was when Nerea had sat on him in the jacuzzi. Sweat poured all over Alex’s body, drenching him in a thick layer of it. 

The entire day had been nothing but humiliating since he shrank— being yelled at and bullied by a bunch of Spanish people on the pool deck, being reduced to a doll by a 10 year old, what was one more thing? It was so hot, and Alex was so thirsty. He pressed his lips up against Nerea’s nylon and sucked sweat right off her foot. 

It was a disgustingly salty thing, but his mouth welcomed it. The foot sweat was thicker than water, but as long as Alex didn’t think about what he was drinking it wasn’t hard to swallow. If he were to be honest, he’d put a lot worse things down his throat over the years. 

Alex sucked the Nerea’s nylon dry, but he was so desperately hungry. He shoved his face into Nerea’s big toe, wrapping his lips around it and sucking as hard as he could to get any ounce of sweat from it. If he closed his eyes and listened to his nose smelling the food above, he couldn’t tell what he was doing. He smelled Nerea’s spaghetti, Madre’s steak. 

He licked Nerea’s toe. He did this several times before he realized what he was doing and stopped. Nerea scrunched her toes, this time hard enough to make Alex squeal. Alex would flush red with embarrassment if his face wasn’t already red from the heat. If she said anything, he’d come up with a lie as to why she felt him lap at her toe with is tongue.

Alex steadied himself for the rest of dinner and dessert, only licking up sweat when enough of it built up to not be noticed. Nerea did pay a lot more attention to him throughout dinner. She occasionally poked at him, pressed her toes over his body, and her toe did something that felt like she was petting him. 

Nerea stood up to leave, and Alex learned what it felt like to be completely crushed under her foot as she walked. His screams were muffled by her nylons and big toe. He wished she could hear him because maybe she’d fix his positioning. 

The pain was overwhelming, but not the worst pain he’d ever felt. It was like before when he was being sat on, only this time he didn’t have the support of the water making her weigh less. He was thankful she was only a child, being crushed like this by someone like her mother would flatten him. 

The weight alleviated as Nerea slid back into the car, but the pain still resided. 

The shoe dropped, and Nerea’s foot flung out of it. Nerea had kicked her flat off, letting her foot hang in the air before she brought it up to her seat to sit criss-crossed. She smiled down at Alex and blew him a kiss. Even though he was in pain, drenched in sweat and wrecked of foot odor, she seemed like she was in a good mood. 

At least the car ride was easy. Nerea didn’t talk much with Madre. The food must’ve been really good for her mom to go an entire car ride without complaining, and Alex thought about how he had to drink a little girl’s sweat for dinner because nobody thought to feed him. 

Nerea held Alex in her hand as she exited the car, picking him out from her flat before she slipped them back on. Going limp was a much better idea than going stiff. That way his muscles didn’t need to work as hard and he’d still look like a rag doll if somebody saw him.

Madre and Nerea went right into their rooms when they got back to the hotel. Nerea placed Alex on her pillow, her smile wider than he’d ever seen before. 

Now that they were alone, Alex was going to yell at her for keeping him in her sweaty flat all evening and not feeding him. But before he could, Nerea laid down on the bed and gave Alex a big, wet kiss on his cheek— which actually ended up being his whole face and neck consumed by her lips. 

“¡Te quiero, te quiero!” Nerea kissed him several more times, the spit from her lips causing his hair to stick up. What was happening? “I love you so much Alex. I didn’t think you liked being my doll, pero I felt you massaging my toes and giving them licks and kisses during dinner. You are the best doll ever.”

Alex was speechless as Nerea kissed him again. He worried that Nerea might’ve felt him drinking her sweat, but he never assumed she would’ve thought he liked it or was doing it to make her happy. 

“I’m going to have so much fun with you as my doll!” Nerea cupped Alex in her hands and pressed him against her chest in a hug. She twisted her body around from excitement, speaking fast in Spanish. Alex stayed still, humming to keep himself calm. Nerea had no intention of helping him grow back.

He had to escape. Tonight.