LeShae paused after setting her foot down, her first step toward the front of the salon completed. She stared down at her boot, not moving a muscle, trying to wait for signs of life from the shrunken hair stylist between her toes. She hadn’t felt anything yet, and just as she was beginning to get nervous, a second thought crept into her mind. She was stopped, mid-step, staring at her foot. She probably looked strange, and if the cameras caught her on tape, it would certainly be enough to get her questioned, at least LeShae thought. Thinking quickly, she shifted her torso around some, using her free hand to check her pockets, as if she had lost something. Afterward, she checked her pocketbook and retrieved her cell phone. If Erin was alive or not, she had to keep moving now, spending any more time here just made her look worse. Maybe she was just over thinking the whole thing in her panic. Then again, she was actively kidnapping an innocent woman.
The next few seconds were likely as stressful for LeShae as they were traumatic for Erin, as the woman tried to walk normally, but as carefully as possible, to avoid killing the tiny girl, or at minimum, avoid squishing her guts into a mess between her toes. Step by step, LeShae gracefully carried herself to the receptionists’ desk, where a few cards had been placed. She grabbed the one with the manager’s number on it, dialed, and waited for a moment. After several rings, the voicemail chimed in, with one of those unskippable, generic recordings. LeShae began to tap her foot impatiently, and had gotten through several earth-shattering thuds before she realized what she was doing, and cringed. The chances of Erin surviving to reach her car in the parking lot were not high.
But there was a Starbucks next door.
LeShae quickly left a voicemail, explaining how she was abandoned under the hair-dryer for far too long, how Erin had ‘suddenly disappeared’ and how ‘unprofessional’ it was. She finished her lengthy message by informing the manager’s voicemail that she ‘refused to pay for service like this, after being regular customer for months’. After being sure that she’d made a convincing enough story, she ended the call and headed for the door.
***
Erin wasn’t sure if being here was better than being in a different part of the boot or not. LeShae’s toes were, from any other perspective, clean and pedicured perfectly. Her skin was soft and dry, had no distinguishable odor, and had a smooth, round shape. She’d be a shoe-in for a foot model by anyone’s standards. But not from Erin’s perspective. From Erin’s perspective, LeShae’s toes were massive, powerful, damp walls of flesh that actively tried to crush her. Squeezed together within the confines of the boot, the two largest, longest toes had become Erin’s prison. Whimpering, moaning, and groaning in pain from her wrecked shoulder, Erin fought to get free from the grasp of the toes. She’d become wedged between them with LeShae’s first step, and now her slim torso was keeping her stranded there.
Her body faced the big toe, with her back against the next closest of the remaining toes. Each were taller than her, the biggest of which easily two stories high. She didn’t want to imagine being smaller than the woman’s pinky toe, she felt pathetic enough as it was. Her breasts were squeezed against the wall of toe-flesh, and already becoming sore. Her shirt was moist with what she hoped was her own sweat, but knew it was equally mixed with LeShae’s own sweat. Her toe sweat. Erin gagged.
Despite her eyes having adjusted to the pitch black surroundings, there was no seeing anything. Her arms were free below her elbows, but she had very little range of movement. The ridges that made up LeShae’s toe prints were several inches apart, enough that Erin felt confident that she could climb them, and maybe reach the top of the foot. She also felt less resistance to her right, which meant she might be able to pull herself deeper between the toes, where there could be more space to ride along. Either option could mean accidentally tickling the giantess, and Erin had no clue if that was the right option. As she pondered what to do, she felt a powerful crushing sensation against her chest and back, causing her to cry out in pain. The toes that surrounded her shifted, and that sudden feeling of momentum returned.
Gritting her teeth and preparing for the worst, the tiny girl braced herself for what she assumed would be the next of an ungodly number of these experiences. LeShae’s footsteps, from inside her boot, were punishingly brutal, and Erin knew that she wouldn’t survive more than a dozen or so of these. As the toes relaxed during the mid-step flight, Erin began wiggling and shifting her body to and fro, up and down, left and right as much as possible, trying to make progress on moving somewhere, anywhere else. Her only reward was another spine-cracking thud as LeShae’s foot hit the ground. Before Erin could recover, the embrace of those hot, sweaty toes returned, and Erin was ready to give up on surviving.
*Thud.*
‘What did I do to deserve this?’
*Swing!*
‘Did she really hate me that bad?’
*Thud.*
‘Will I grow back to normal, when I die?’
*Swing!*
‘Will…anyone…find me…?’
*Thud.*
‘Am I…the only one with…’
*Swing!*
“I wish I…had…just…”
Erin’s brain began to shut down. Even in her own mind, she was no longer making cohesive thoughts. Memories from her life sped through her mind, sprinkled with images of LeShae, some of her smiling, some sneering, others of her carelessly looking away. Erin felt her insides giving in, and the contents of her stomach were expedited through her mouth onto LeShae’s toe, and the tiny girl fell unconscious.
She couldn’t have been out long, because when she came around, she was still absolutely inside of LeShae’s boot, and the woman was still walking. Initially, Erin wanted to scream out, desperate to be free, but she realized she was no longer standing. She was laying on her side on the floor of the boot, with almost enough space to stretch her legs. When she did, her bare feet felt the same wall of flesh her hands had felt before she fainted. Above her, she could feel moist flesh, and she immediately recoiled. She had fallen under LeShae’s toes.
The freedom of movement was nice, but each slam of LeShae’s footfalls were more jarring, with nothing to hold her in place when the foot hit the ground. However, she was no longer being crushed. She was, unfortunately, covered in her own vomit and still trapped. Ultimately, anything was better than being between those deathtrap toes. Curling herself into a ball, she tried to weather the storm that was LeShae’s casual stride.
***
LeShae had become increasingly concerned that she’d accidentally become a murderer. She considered whether or not this was going too far. Sure, she could convince anyone that she didn’t know Erin’s shrinking was an allergic reaction to something LeShae was exposing her to. But could she convince them that knocking the shrunken woman into her shoe, and then walking around with her trapped at her toes was the best decision? Nope, if Erin was alive, she wasn’t going back to her normal life, ever. If she was dead, well, she’d drop the tiny, dead body off somewhere and try to forget it ever happened.
As she waited in line to order coffee and a light snack to settle her nerves, LeShae looked down at her boot again. In a matter of minutes, she’d know if the shrunken woman was dead or alive. She found herself secretly praying that Erin was alive. She hadn’t felt any movement since she took her first step—things weren’t looking good.
After placing her order, a vanilla latte and a pecan tart, she waited for the barista to give her the items, and took them to a discreet table outside. Placing them on the glass table, LeShae took a seat, double checked to see that no one was watching her, then crossed her legs, occupied foot left to dangle. With that, she unzipped her boot, and slowly, carefully began to pull her dainty foot out of its prison.
“You better be alive, you little bitch…” She said out loud, louder than she probably intended to. It didn’t matter, she was alone out here. Slipping her foot out of her shoe the rest the way, she examined her bare foot, spreading her toes as she looked around them. No sign of tiny girls. Her mind was racing, heart rate increasing. Looking at her boot, still in hand, she gently tilted it to hopefully give Erin a gentle slide out of the boot and into her cupped palm, waiting below. For a moment, there was nothing but a few particles of dust. Just as LeShae was about to check her toes again, she saw a tiny, rag doll-like figure tumble out of her boot.
Gasping, LeShae slowly brought her hand closer to her face, eyes wide open as she examined her captive. Erin, groaning, slowly sat up in time to see LeShae’s massive face filling her vision.
“LeShae…?” The shrunken girl squeaked out, unsure if she could be understood, or even heard at this size. The giantess stared wide-eyed at the tiny occupant of her hand. She couldn't even feel her, much less understand her. She opened her mouth to speak, but instead was interrupted by a familiar voice.
“Something stuck in your shoe?” Another woman’s voice rang out, and LeShae, before even looking to see who it was, turned her hand over, intending to drop Erin back into the recesses of her boot. Then, as if to occupy her hands with something, she reached over to the square paper bag that held her pastry, grabbed her crusty, warm tart, and set it on top of the paper. In the process, a few of her fingers pressed into the sticky filling, and LeShae licked her fingers clean casually.
“Yeah,” She responded, looking up finally. “Hey, Dash.” The red-headed twenty-something approached the table as the patio door closed behind her. She was holding her own drink and had a pleasant smile on her face.
“Mind if I join you?”