Zoe was an entire inch shorter than her cousin, a detail that hardly mattered in most situations. However, to the shrunken woman at the mercy of her toes, every inch counted.
Erin cursed herself for not simply trying to make it to higher ground when she had the chance, instead of climbing into yet another woman’s shoe and hoping that things would end up any different. She could note that while LeShae’s ankle boot had been dark and she hadn’t been able to see what was coming next, Zoe’s mule allowed her toes to freely and easily slip in and out of her shoe, which she clearly took pleasure in doing. Before Erin had really a chance to dive out of the way, Zoe’s foot had slipped entirely out of the cavernous toe of the shoe, and her toes her come to rest further along the insole near the heel, precisely where the shrunken hairdresser had been standing. The shadow of Zoe’s foot darkened her world, and in short order, the young blonde’s flesh settled gently on top of her, burying Erin between Zoe’s neatly trimmed and painted toes.
Maybe it was just that pain mattered very little anymore, or that Erin had no outstanding issues with Zoe like she had with LeShae, but Erin could not find herself upset with Zoe for burying her between her toes. The giantess couldn’t have been aware of what was happening on the surface of her patent leather slip-on, and Erin was the one who chose to climb into it. Now she was prying her bruised arm from under the gigantic girl’s toe, inhaling the cocoa butter-infused scent of Zoe’s foot lotion. Whimpering to herself, she could barely catch a glimpse of the clueless woman, idly scrolling through one of her social media accounts, a slightly bored look on her miles-away face. Feeling helpless, Erin continued trying to pull herself to freedom before the toes became more active.
Zoe herself was usually vibrant and excitable, ready to move on to the next experience as soon as possible. She rarely spent much time idling about or procrastinating. She was a bit of a gossip and tended to play second fiddle to LeShae’s much more domineering personality. The two had always been close, especially when LeShae realized at an early age that should could manipulate Zoe into doing whatever she wanted, and Zoe was happy to tag along, if it meant hanging out with her cousin. It worked extremely well. She often accompanied LeShae to the salon Erin worked at, and Erin had even cut her hair a few times, though never without her cousin with her. As she waited for LeShae to return, or for Dash to leave, she began to idly curl her toes, playing with them against the insole of her shoe.
Much to the dismay of Erin, despite Zoe’s toes being a marginally less distressing experience for her senses, she found that Zoe was much more active with her feet, leaving Erin to suffer that much more torment at her toes. Just as she was pulling her arm free, the soft flesh keeping her stuck in place began to shift, pulling the speck sized woman along with it. The toe prints pulled at Erin’s body, dragging her deeper and deeper between them, until what light Erin did have was completely darkened in the shadow of Zoe’s toes. Now, no longer buried under one of the toes, Erin could move more freely, but only found herself curled up between the two largest toes, lost in the valley of Zoe’s toe cleavage.
As the mountain-like digits curled further in, the space between Zoe’s toes got smaller, and Erin began to panic. She was already in a considerably tight space, but now it was just getting tighter and harder to deal with. The Space around her was getting congested, and the rippling toeprints began to push against her. Moving became more difficult, and soon, so did breathing.
“ZOE! HELP ME! HELP! PLEASE STOP!” Erin screamed with what breath she had at the towering, clueless blonde who was innocently scrolling through Twitter, occasionally peeking at LeShae’s bedroom door to see if Dash would show any signs of finishing up. When she didn’t, Zoe turned her attention back to her phone, and toes curling still against her shoe in slightly annoyance.
The pressure only increased further as Erin felt her rib cage threatening to collapse because a 20-something was subconsciously squeezing the life out of her between her normally petite and pedicured appendages. Painted as red as the blood Erin was sure was about to burst out of chest, the any other time someone would have called these powerful pillars of destruction delicate and cute, two adjectives that Erin would never use to describe any toes again, ever.
She felt faint. With her supply of oxygen mostly cut off, and what little she could get failing to reach her brain efficiently, Erin gave up trying to scream, and for an umpteenth time in the last day, accepted death as the only release from this torment. Her eyes closed.
And as though the goddess herself had heard Erin’s admission of complete submission to her toes, Zoe relaxed her unwitting grip on Erin, and the shrunken woman breathed in a painful, heavy breath. The color returned to her tear-streaked cheeks, and she opened her eyes again. The dizziness had not yet subsided, but she could see again, the space between Zoe’s toes allowing light to flood between them, like sunlight washing over a dark valley.
She didn’t have time to appreciate it. Her body, now at it’s worst state yet, ached to rest, but her mind knew that it would not come until she was free from the wrath of Zoe’s playful, unaware antics. With a new, albeit temporary, lease on life, Erin pulled herself off of the wall of toe-flesh and swung her arm up to the next highest toe print. It was not unlike climbing the zipper of LeShae’s ankle boots, though Zoe’s toeprints were closer together, and had more give.
Her swollen shoulders and joints fought against her motives with every move she made, begging her to simply stop and rest. Escaping from this woman’s toe cleavage was less of an exercise of physical endurance, and more of an exercise in mental fortitude, mind over body.
And it was not as though Zoe made it any easier. She may not be squeezing her toes together now, but even the tiniest shift of her feet was enough to warrant Erin’s heart to beat heavier against her surely cracked rib cage. Humbling now more than ever, was still that this escapade was wholly unnoticed and unconsidered by the woman’s whose very toes Erin tried to escape from. This was not arduous, life-and-death struggle that Erin’s perspective made it seem. This was a wounded bug at the feet of a goddess.
Finally deciding that standing around wasn’t going to make either of the women she was waiting for move any more quickly, Zoe slipped her foot back into her shoe and turned towards the couch.
Just as Erin began to find confidence in her eventual escape from this hellish climb, she felt a much more significant shift in the position of Zoe’s foot. She braced for impact, afraid that the toes were about to engage in a much more lethal round two of curling, but instead, upon looking around, saw the yawning cave of Zoe’s shoe ahead, growing closer as Zoe’s foot moved inside.
“No, no!” She more thought than said, the dark cavern quickly encompassing the whole of her world. Zoe’s toes wiggled gently, nudging their way into place, and had Erin not already had a strangle hold on the toe prints of the big toe, she would have surely tumbled back into those terrible depths. As the toes settled, Erin pulled her ragged body the last few inches to the top, rolled over a few times, and tumbled gently right into the cuticle of Zoe’s big toe, against a parking lot sized field of pedicured, cherry red toenail.
Just in time for Zoe’s first step.
The cuticle made for a surprisingly durable handhold. The darkness of Zoe’s shoe didn’t allow for much to be seen, but Erin could feel the toes shifting and settling to compensate for each step. The gliding sensation was not unlike the one she’d had at LeShae’s feet, but Zoe was being less careful, she assumed, and Erin had a much better grip. That didn’t make the ride anything near pleasurable, but there was no chaotic tossing to and fro, and less worry for ending up crushed alive. She could barely make out the sight of the other, smaller toes following a similar rhythm, and the sound of the back of the shoe gently slapping at Zoe’s exposed heel was muffled by the foot itself. Overall, each step was tolerable and manageable, and she just needed to wait until the foot slipped free of its shoe again.
As she approached the couch, Zoe paused for a moment, then shifted to move into the open kitchen, immediately behind the couch. Grabbing a clean glass and a carton of fruit juice, Zoe poured herself some, put away the carton, then moved back to the living room, glass of juice in hand. For a moment, she went to take a sip of the juice, but her eyes fell on the breath mints she’d placed on the table earlier. Shrugging and flippantly changing her mind about the juice for now, she placed the glass on a coaster among the other various contents of the purse LeShae had dumped onto the table. Then she grabbed the breath mints, tossing one casually into her mouth and closing the lid, dropping it back on the table afterwards. Finally, she pulled out her phone, sat down on the couch, and returned to scrolling through her Twitter while happily crunching away at her mint.
It seemed that Erin had yet another chance to relax that she could not afford to take. Stranded inside the shoe, atop this unaware millennial girl’s toes, Erin knew that to finally free herself of Zoe’s feet for good, she had to take the opportunity to move. Begrudgingly, she pushed herself to up to her hands and knees, the ceiling of this daunting cave of a shoe only a few yards above and began to crawl over the cuticle of Zoe’s big toe, only taking a moment to survey the expanse of toenail that she fortunately didn’t have to cross. She thought, for only a second, about what kind of a nightmare-inducing experience it would be to endure a pedicure from this perspective.
Toenail clippers the size of airplane hangars, cutting through a toenail as thick as she was with each, a paint applicator with bristles taller than redwoods, thousands upon thousands of gallons of varnish, enough to drown in. Even if one were to survive, they would surely die when the paint dried, sealing them in place like a speck-sized ornament on the woman’s toes, fainting after inhaling the vapors in minutes, and dying within hours from suffocation or worse.
A chill ran down her spine, and it motivated her to keep moving. After crawling over the cuticle, she began to move along the top of Zoe’s toe toward the instep of her foot, praying to God that she could make it these last several hundred yards to escape this shoe. She reminded herself that this was her choice. She could have simply taken her chances in LeShae’s carpet, or obediently come to her when she’d asked.
Reaching the knuckle of the big toe, she pushed those regretful choices out of her mind, only to experience yet another tremor.
Zoe’s toes began to wiggle again, and she hoped that, for once, it was not a harbinger of terrible things in the near future. Her answer came rather quickly, and she recognized the sensation of Zoe’s foot moving. Her heart raced, was Zoe about to begin wiggling and scrunching her toes again? Was she about to start walking again?
Light blinded her, as Zoe slipped off her shoe, her slender foot angling downward for a moment to pull her toes out. Erin, unprepared, rolled back several yards, losing all progress as she grabbed ahold of the cuticle once again. Gripping it tightly, the wind whipped through her hair as the entire foot elevated, the air escaping her lungs and the gravitational force of moving so high into the air at such an intense rate threatened to expel the lack of contents from her stomach. Her unconventional air ride shifted in direction, and she went from vertical, to horizontal, and then upside down in mere seconds. Zoe’s foot was now vertical, with her toes pointed up, and seconds later, it all ended with a decisive ‘thud’ that caused Erin to lose most of her grip. She dug her fingers into the cuticle flesh and found the strength to pull her other hand up to grab ahold as well. Now dangling with both hands from the cuticle of Zoe’s big toenail, she got her first look around at the new environment.
Zoe had slipped off both of her shoes and kicked her feet up onto the coffee table, ankles crossed, leaving Erin on the top-most foot. Below her, the slightly pale surface of Zoe’s instep, the toes of the other foot gently resting against it, gently wriggling every few seconds.
All she had to do was slide down Zoe’s instep, avoid her other toes, and reach the table. From there, she would just wait until LeShae returned like she should have in the first place.
It felt like the first break she’d gotten all day. She may not want to submit to LeShae’s whim, but at least she would not be killed unwittingly. As grim a thought as that was, she’d, at this moment, would rather die because LeShae willed it, instead of at the feet of her clueless cousin. LeShae might have said she didn’t want to hurt her, but actions dictated otherwise.
Death by design over death in vain of survival. What a morose, disgusting choice.
And so, she began to climb. Using the same ridges of the cuticle and toeprints that she’d used to escape the valley of toe cleavage that had imprisoned her earlier, Erin clambered across the surface of Zoe’s big toe, pulling herself back, pulling herself over, and slipping down rather athletically to land directly in the space between Zoe’s toes again. This time, however, the foot was vertical, allowing her to stand on the surface that had previously been a wall, and apprehensively take a break, while she sorted out a plan.
The view from here was astounding. She had an unrestricted view of Zoe’s body, her legs extending for miles across the space between the couch and the table. The bright red capris paralleled the sense of danger and warning that would come from attempting to cross them in any reasonable amount of time. Beyond them, Zoe wore a white tank top, tucked neatly into her pants, and a short denim jacket. Her face, failing to hide her sense of boredom, was gently freckled and framed by long blonde hair that tumbled gently onto her shoulders. Her lips were unpainted, she wore very little makeup, apart from some eyeliner and mascara.
Erin took a moment to examine her immediate surroundings as well, now that they were illuminated by the light of LeShae’s living room.
Zoe’s toes were a similar shade as the rest of her skin, slightly pale with a few normally unnoticeable freckles. They had a soft shape to them, if not evidenced by the pedicure, they were well taken care of. Even from here, deep between the typically most unnoticed parts of a girl’s anatomy, there was very little evidence of dry or dead flesh. Very little dust, debris or lose sediment had gathered, and already had what little sweat from being in her shoes accumulated between her toes been reabsorbed or evaporated.
Her eyes closed. She needed to rest. Just for a second.
Her knees pulled up to her chest, and she leaned into the warm flesh against Zoe’s second toe, forgetting the severity of her situation for a moment to simply allow her body to recuperate, even if temporarily.
Mistakes were made.
The foot shifted violently, and, as usual, Erin was unprepared. She lost her place amongst Zoe’s toes, tumbling backward. She lost her purchase on Zoe’s flesh, and the falling sensation she’d experienced so many times returned.
As she fell, she wondered if this would be the final blow to her body that would kill her. The table below was made of glass, and there would be no recovering from that kind of an impact. It would be a quick death, and Erin would no longer be tortured at the hands and feet of these women. She watched the sole of Zoe’s foot fall by, regretting that that foot would be the last thing she saw before she died.
And no sooner did she have that thought did a cold embrace overtake her, and Erin lost consciousness.
Shortly afterward, consciousnesses returned to the shrunken girl, and she was floating on her back, staring up at the ceiling.
Wait, floating?
Glass walls surrounded her on all sides, and the water was a pale yellow and decidedly citrus-flavored. Instead of squelching onto the glass table like she expected, Erin had fallen into Zoe’s glass of fruit juice. Surrounding her, a veritable ocean of fruit juice. Her tattered shirt had floated off some distance during her unconsciousness, and Erin had no will to swim after it. The mercy she had been shown by fate was debatable, and the sense of a slow, painful death instead of a the quick, nearly painless one from a fatal impact began to creep back into her mind. Adrenaline from the cold rush surged through her veins, but she had not the will or actual energy to take advantage of it. She was now only regretfully awake, trapped in a glass, with the slender soles of Zoe’s feet dominating her immediate view. She pounded her fist against the surface of the lake she floated in angrily, time and time again. Some deity in the heavens wanted this, and when she got there, she would raise hell to see them punished.
“Ugh…DASH!” Zoe called out, growing more frustrated that Dash was taking her time in LeShae’s bathroom after being told to hurry. She received no answer and rolled her eyes into the back of the skull, sighing heavily. She considered storming in there herself, but that would help very little if Dash was actually still on the toilet, and it was not something Zoe wanted to see. Instead, she grabbed LeShae’s TV remote and flipped over to Netflix.
As she was settling on a TV show to satiate her boredom until her cousin arrived, as if on cue, the doorknob turned and LeShae stepped inside, clearly frustrated at the lack-of phone in her hand. With a medium-small, one-bedroom apartment, she immediately noticed Zoe there, legs crossed up and heels up on the glass table.
“Feet.” LeShae spoken with a warning tone, and Zoe immediately dropped her bare feet back to the floor.
“Hey girl…sorry,” Came Zoe’s response, with only an ounce of plausible credibility in the apology. She grinned some, muting the TV. “What’s up?”
“I can’t find my fucking phone. I thought I left it at Starbucks, but…hey, wait.” Mid-sentence noticed that the breath mint container that she had intentionally left on the floor and open was now on the table and closed. Her heart skipped a bit. “Did you take one of my breath mints?”
“Yeah, you left the on the floor…I took one as a tax for cleaning up after you.” Zoe grinned. LeShae’s eyed widened.
“And…and you ate it already? With that juice?
“I didn’t drink any juice yet…something going on with the mints? Tasted fine to me…”
“Yes! No…! I just…You can’t come in to my apartment and take whatever you want, Zoe!”
“I eat your food all the time, and you eat mine, ‘Shae…what the hell is your problem all of a sudden?”
“Well, not anymore, I eat my food, you eat yours. Period!” LeShae scrambled over to the table and grabbed the box, inspecting it closely for any signs of a shrunken woman. There were none.
“What the hell, LeShae?!” Zoe stood, putting her shoes back on. “I don’t know what your issue is but call me when you’re not being a bitch.”
“Just leave, Zoe!”
“Fuck you too!” Zoe’s words had much less malice in them, and she seemed more hurt than angry. Shoving her phone in her pocket, she headed for the door. As she grabbed the handle, she considered telling LeShae about Dash still using her bathroom. …Nah. If LeShae was going to be a bitch, she could use a Dash of surprise in her life now and again. Huffing, Zoe stormed out and slammed the door.
Now, assuming she was alone, LeShae plopped down on the couch. Either Erin was still somewhere lost in her apartment, or she was digesting in Zoe’s stomach. Either way, she wasn’t where LeShae wanted her, and that was problematic for everyone. Especially…him.
“God fucking dammit.” LeShae swore, running her hands through her dark hair and trying not to panic. She took a moment to look over the table but found no shrunken woman. “Erin…look, I don’t know if you’re still here or not. I hope you didn’t get eaten or stepped on by Zoe, but please, please, if you can hear me, get somewhere safe. When I find you, we’ll have a long talk. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, I swear.” Sighing, she noticed the glass Zoe had left, still full of juice. Reaching for it, she raised it to her lips.
“Alexa…unmute the TV.” She spoke to her voice-activated assistant, loud enough to be heard from across the room.
***
Erin had listened to the full discourse from her citrusy ocean of juice. She was a little too focused on her own thoughts to consider LeShae’s for more than a moment, but she did note that she seemed genuinely worried that Zoe had eaten her. Now, if she could get out of the glass, maybe getting LeShae’s help wouldn’t be the end of the world.
“LeShae! Help me! I’m in the juice!” She called out as LeShae finished her short monologue, hoping that she could garner the attention of the original giantess that had gotten her here. This, again, was the best chance she’d had since leaving Starbucks to get help, and she wouldn’t squander it.
Her heart began to flutter when LeShae took notice of the glass and reached for it. It was a retelling of the situation at Starbucks. She was mere inches and seconds from getting the attention she so desperately needed, but so insignificant that it may not have mattered. The glass lifted higher and higher, until LeShae’s face filled her view.
“Please LeShae, I’ll do whatever you say, I’ll be good, I won’t run away again! Please just see me!”
LeShae’s lips parted.
“LeShae! HELP!”
“Alexa…unmute the TV.” The words struck Erin’s ears with a force neither her ear drums or her heart could handle. She felt an extreme pain from hear ear, and cried out in pain, wincing and turning away from the source of the impact, LeShae’s mouth. The words caused ripples in the juice Erin was stranded in, and they pushed her back the other end of the glass. When Erin opened her eyes again, a familiar, dreadful sight awaited her.
LeShae’s pink lips had parted fully, the edge of the cylindrical glass prison Erin was swimming in had come level with LeShae’s mouth. The glass was tilting gently toward the woman’s massive lips, and the dark gateway leading into the depths of the mouth and beyond had opened. Not only had LeShae not heard her, but she about to take a very generous swallow of the juice, and likely Erin along with it.
“LESHAE! PLEASE DON’T DRINK ME!” Being swallowed alive was perfectly in line with that fear of a slow, painful death by an unwitting giantess that Erin was trying to avoid. The last thing she wanted was to die in a pit of acid in the stomach of some woman who arguably wanted to see her suffer. Unlike with the incident at Starbucks, Erin was actively swimming in the drink being consumed, not on the lid or the lip of the cup or its owner, respectively. There was little to no chance of escaping without LeShae noticing her.
Kicking and screaming with no real consideration of efficient swimming techniques, Erin paddled weakly away from the current that was pushing her toward LeShae’s lips. Hoping for a moment that maybe LeShae was looking into the glass for some reason, she turned her head to check. Erin immediately regretted her choice to look back, LeShae’s lips now parted more than ever. Despite them likely only being open enough to allow in a healthy few gulps, for Erin, the mouth was a black chasm of no return, hued with the pink and red of LeShae’s tongue and gum line. The first quarter-mouthful had already swirled and pooled within the mouth around the tongue, and as the glass tipped further, it was obvious that there was no intent for this to be a light sip, LeShae was drinking enough juice to swallow her emotions right along with it. Unfortunately, Erin was every bit as much a part of the cause of the emotions LeShae was having, as she was apart of the juice she was drinking.
Above, the very tips of LeShae’s teeth, two brilliant white incisors, were visible, and only further exacerbated Erin’s anxiety of disappearing into the woman’s hungry mouth. She’d nearly ben fed to this goddesses’ slim, powerful belly once, and as the current pushed her closer and closer to her demise beyond those lips, and ultimately within the thirsty woman’s stomach, the sense of helplessness overtook her, as did the darkness of LeShae’s mouth.