“Time… out?” asked Ella, confused.

“Thought it was just for little kids, huh?” said Judy with a wink.  “Nope.  I realized a long, long time ago that disciplining your children properly has to extend well beyond when they’re small enough for you to physically carry to their bedroom for a timeout.  He breaks bigger rules, I have to find bigger ways to remind him of his boundaries.  And…” chuckled Judy.  “…obviously that means I have to get a little creative.”

“MOM!  PLEASE, I’M SO, SO SORRY!” screamed Scott in another bid for release, still balled up to avoid being fully seen in his nude state by either his mother or girlfriend.

“Hush, sweetie,” said Judy curtly, her fingers slowly closing over her wide palm, casting a shadow over her son’s naked body.  “The women are talking right now.”  An instant later, Scott’s screaming fetal position form was trapped in a prison of flesh inside his mother’s warm, steadily perspiring hand.  Judy gave an extra little fist pump to squeeze her son reassuringly, then kissed the edge of her fingers gently, knowing he’d hear the sound.  “Sit tight, sweetie…” she whispered lovingly.

“Mrs. Stevens…” continued Ella finally, regaining a regular breathing pattern.  “I d-don’t feel like I should be here, this is none of my business…”

“Nonsense, honey, of course it’s your business.  You love my son, don’t you?”

“I… what? I mean… yes!  Yes, of course I do.”

“And he loves you back.  I know he does.  Which is why having you here is going to make this punishment stick all the better.”

“Why?”

Judy lowered her voice, and moved her face in closer to her son’s girlfriend’s ear.  “Because he will never want you to see this ever again.”

Ella gulped hard.

Taking a few steps over to the couch, Judy took a hard seat, then opened her hand again.  Scott rolled around for a moment, dazed and disoriented, before finding himself residing in the center of his mother’s palm again, shivering from the terrifying darkness of a moment before.

“Come join me, honey,” said Judy, patting the couch cushion next to hers.  “Come take a front row seat.”

“No… goddamn it, no, no, no…” repeated Scott mindlessly, staring up at the impossibly titanic form of his restrictive mother’s torso, which filled his entire field of vision like a softened, feminine spire of Mount Rushmore.  This process was always reason enough for dread.  But it had always been in the privacy of the house, with no one else around.  Now, he was about to be humiliated to within an inch of his life in front of the girl he loved.  And to top it all off, he had to look up at her beautiful, mountainous form and somehow find a way to hide his embarrassment.  His skin crawled to stare up Ella’s swimming, wide blue eyes and gargantuan pursed lips, her glowing blond hair falling innocently over her shoulders like mile-long ropes of silk.  It was so surreal having to see her like this and, admittedly, painful; the very thought of having his girlfriend witness this particular aspect of his private family life was something he reserved for his worst nightmares.  And it was coming true right now.  It was enough to make Scott want to throw up, and yet he couldn’t, so frozen was he in the moment of pure, stubborn disbelief in reality.

Cautiously, Ella stepped over to the couch and took a seat, careful to not slam down too hard for fear of jostling Mrs. Stevens and subsequently, her inch-tall boyfriend.  It was almost more than Ella could bear, and for the moment all she could do was watch, her jaw hanging open slightly.

Calmly, Judy reached down toward her ankles with her other hand, slipping her fingers into the back of her leather heels.  With a quick lift and pop, her wide, dry heel came loose from the shoe and her foot slipped out.  Sighing deeply, Judy pressed her plump bare foot against the cool hardwood floor, splaying her toes, which were painted purple, against the ground.  Mrs. Stevens had always had large feet, and while they weren’t fat, having three children over the years had caused them to become slightly more bulbous and wide.  Readjusting to having her foot out in the cool air rather than the muggy environment of her leather heel, Judy rubbed the ball of her foot against the floor a few times, creating a distinct squeaking sound.  As if sending a warning bell to her tiny son, still perched helplessly in her hand.

Satisfied, Judy grasped her abandoned shoe with her free hand and brought it up higher, setting it calmly on her lap, a mere few inches below her other hand.  Scott heard the sound of the shoe clopping on the fabric of her skirt in the valley between her legs as she set it down, and proceeded to peer slowly over the side of his mother’s hand for a better view.  He didn’t want to see it, and yet he had to.  He was running out of time.

“Careful, sweetie,” said Judy, seeing her son’s adventurous motion to the edge of her hand.  She instantly cupped her fingers up, causing Scott to roll helplessly back into the center of her warm palm.  “Don’t want you slipping out of my hand, do we?”

“MOM!” screeched Scott, his throat going dry with fear and exasperation.  “This can’t happen NOW!  It… It just CAN’T!”

“And why is that?” asked Judy condescendingly, pursing her lips into a soft smile.

“I’m EIGHTEEN, MOM!  Oh… oh my God, this is… t-this… and ELLA, oh my… oh my GOD.”

“Hush now,” commanded Judy softly and authoritatively down to her inch-tall boy.  “You may be eighteen, but to me, you’ll always be my little baby.  And you may not be a… real baby… anymore, but lucky for me,” she said, smirking slyly.  “I can still make you little again.”

Scott knew by this point his options were all but expended.  The tears flowing freely now, he buried his face in his hands, trying to choke back the sobs.  For the instant, all he could do now was wait and try not to die a horrible, horrible death of embarrassment.

“Now hold still and let mommy do what she has to do, sweetie,” cooed Judy, trying to soothe her son’s tears.  “Ten minutes.  That’s all, and then you can come out.”

“Out of where?” blurted Ella, finding the strength to speak again.

Judy grinned widely, showing off her stunningly white teeth.  “Watch, honey.”  Lowering her cupped, palm-up hand toward the empty heel, Judy tipped her fingers downward, tapping them against the inside of the shoe.  The fabric was wearing away into frizzy sprigs of fur inside, but the large, white printed number 12 indicating the size of the shoe was still easily visible.  With a final tap of her fingers, Judy tipped her entire hand at an angle.  Yelping with shock, Scott went tumbling down the long, fleshy slope of his mother’s flattened hand before slamming hard into the fuzzy base of the heel.  Rolling head over heels, Scott continued down the angled decline of the two-inch heel’s instep, crashing headlong into the dark, pointed leather toe at the end.

Righting himself, Scott gasped and coughed from the effort to stay focused.  Inhaling deeply, the sour, leathery scent of his mother’s aging shoe fogged thickly around his face.  He covered his mouth, but it didn’t do much to fight off the wafting aroma as he began coughing from the salty stench.  Grasping desperately at the helter-skelter fuzz coating the instep of the shoe, Scott began clawing his way back up the slope toward the higher vantage point of the heel.  It was difficult to get a grip, and with a disgusted shiver Scott realized it was because much of the fur was greasy and damp with sweat from Judy’s sole, as she had been wearing the heels around all day at work and was often required to spend a great deal of her time actually walking around the building in them.

Judy watched her tiny son fighting his way up the steep hill of her nauseously scented and over-worn heel’s instep, smiling calmly and almost proudly, while Ella looked on, wide-eyed and gape-mouthed, from the couch, still unable to react fully to the unbelievable sight unfolding before her.  Just as Scott reached the heel of the shoe and raised a fist in protest against what was happening to him, Judy, with a giggle, tilted the shoe back downward, toe end toward the ground.  With insufficient friction to stay up, Scott’s face was slammed hard against the base of the shoe as he slipped quickly downward into the darkness of the narrower toe section yet again.  He could feel the oily lubricant of his mother’s salty residue coating the slicked, furry surface of the heel’s instep, and it made him want to vomit as it was thoroughly slathered on his unfortunate and nearly bruised face.  He shivered to consider just how little his mother seemed to care that he was essentially bathing in her own disgusting, leather-filtered sudor.

The tip downward of the shoe was followed almost instantly by a loss of gravity for Scott as the heel plummeted back for the floor, clacking hard against the wood.  It was such a familiar and terrifying sound to him, except now it was much louder and all around him, even coming through the thick padding of the expensive leather.  Jostled a final time against the side of the shoe, Scott crawled forward on his hands and knees, unwilling to pull himself up again.  He was on the floor, in his mother’s heel.  Any resistance at this point was 100% moot.  He closed his eyes and clenched his fists.

“You see, honey,” said Judy soothingly, using as explanatory a voice as she could to calm the nerves of the terrified teen girl next to her.  “Men are all alike.  Some of them may act all high and mighty, telling you what to do, putting people down, disobeying simple instructions just because they feel like it.  But at the end of the day, if you have a good way to remind them of their place, they’ll always listen.  And they will remember it,” whispered Judy with satisfaction. 

Gingerly lifting her plump, pale foot from the ground, creating a soft suction pop as she removed it from the hardwood, she held it just above the mouth of the empty heel, wriggling her long, thick toes triumphantly.  For a few moments, Judy made a showy spectacle for her son to further stew in his horror and degradation: her pale sole wrinkled threateningly, her cream-colored skin glistening in the light bounced off of it from the room's lamp, the dry scuffs of peeling skin on her heel looking almost battle-hardened.  Her rotund, juicy toes, most of which were about the size of Scott's entire body, wriggling violently as if preparing to pounce on helpless prey and devour it. 

Feeling his heartrate quicken, Scott swallowed hard and felt another hot tear roll down his cheek.

Judy pointed a bright purple-painted big toe as if preparing for a swan dive, and promptly dropped it down, sliding it into the heel smoothly and forcefully.