“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.”