"That went bad," said Rodney. He looked like a petulant action figure, with his little arms folded across his chest, his legs splayed and reaching nowhere near the edge of the seat. When Laura glanced at him, on the drive home, the thing that she noticed foremost was how much space there was around him. Open, empty footwells, a wide passenger seat, even an unobstructed view of the passenger door. To glance at her husband was almost hazardous, factoring how long she had to take her eyes off the road to pick out the tiny knot of angry man at the base of the backrest. He was nearly buried under the broad band of woven nylon seatbelt, as well.

Laura turned back to traffic and suppressed her smile. "Whatever made you think it would be a good idea to share that story?"

He strained mightily against the seatbelt. "You did! You told me they'd all find it amusing!"

"Oh, I couldn't possibly have suggested that. This was the first session, I hadn't met anyone. I had no idea what any of them are into." She pumped her brakes and made a show of swearing, to impart her husband with the impression that she was negotiating hostile traffic. In fact, the road was mostly empty.

The tiny man folded over the seatbelt and choked. "You said it was a hilarious story that anyone would enjoy!"

She looked up thoughtfully. "Did I? I think we're remembering things differently, sweetie."

They drove on in silence for a while, with Laura pretending to dodge cars and avoid rear-ending other motorists, for the simple pleasure of watching her petulant little man jerk violently in his seat. If he wouldn't ride in the MicroPassenge case, well, he had to understand the risks of trying to act like a big person, she felt.

"No, I see what I did wrong," Rodney said at long last. "This was my fault. I get it now."

Laura grinned at him. "That's awfully big of you, little man."

His face, ugly with anger, turn up toward her. "It was my fucking fault for taking advice from you. That was the stupidest decision I made."

"Excuse me?" She checked traffic ahead of her before fixing him with a long, steady gaze.

"I should've known you'd fuck me over in our first group session. Set me up for a bad first impression, make me look like the asshole."

"And why would I do that to you, sweetie?"

He laughed. "So you could set the stage! Now they'll listen to anything you gotta say, and blow me off because I'm just this little perv who made out with his step-sister's feet! Not even my step-sister, no blood or legal relation at all, but that's not what they'll think when they look at me!" Fitfully he punched the air and wrestled with his seatbelt some more. "They won't even see little-kid me doing it. They'll see me, big, grown adult me humping some small child's foot! That's what you set up!"

It was very difficult for Laura not to burst into laughter. She covered her mouth with one slim palm and turned slightly away as she snorted, but nonetheless managed to cough out: "I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about."

She repeated herself several times that evening, as he blew up at her at intervals. "Now I look like a big fucking pervert," he yelled over his workout, hefting small balls of lead around and fighting against rubber bands.

"You don't look like a big anything, trust me," she replied from her stationary bicycle.

"First goddamn impression," Rodney yelled up at her, while sawing through broccoli stems and chopping through florets. "First day, first impression. Hi, I'm Rodney, I fucked my sister's feet while she was passed out and helpless. Pleased to meetcha."

"I'm sure no one thinks that," she called back from the vegetable crisper in the fridge.

"Next week's going to be a fucking treat," he grumbled, splashing around in a pool of soapy, rapidly chilling water in the bathroom sink. "They're all going to give me a look when I come in. They're going to be on the edge of their seats, waiting to hear what revelation I dump on them next. What else am I into? Who else have I violated? What other family problems do I have?"

Laura slammed down her toothbrush on the vanity and glared down at him. "Look, what the hell do you want from me, Rodney?" Her words sprayed flecks of toothpaste around him.

"I want you to admit you did this on purpose."

She loomed over him, her head and shoulders seemingly supported by long, thin arms mounted on the sides of his sink, her blonde hair swinging freely and slightly kinked from being bound all day. "Okay, fine," she said, slamming her palm on the drain plunger. He scrambled away from the passage that sucked in all his water. "You're right. I encouraged you to tell that stupid story because I wanted you to look bad." Laura turned the hot water tap and found it scalding. She snatched her little husband up in spindly fingers that nonetheless overpowered him and regarded the powerful pillar of steaming water. It would shut him up. It would teach him to watch his mouth. She could almost see the water flowing around his bulging chest, between his powerful thighs, reddening the skin like a boiled lobster everywhere it touched.

Instead, she turned on the cold water and found a reasonable temperature to rinse the suds off him. The tiny man fought and swore and kicked and grappled, but Laura had no trouble at all with turning him this way and that, exposing his armpits and crotch to the cleansing stream. This, predictably, pissed him off all the more, but she gave him no mind as she spat and rinsed her mouth and toted him to the bedroom.

She tossed him into the center of the mattress. His tiny body was stunned into a momentarily stillness. "You're right, okay? You're kind of dumb, so I gave you bad advice to make you look like an idiot, and you more than lived up to that. If you're open to more advice, little man, never tell that story to anyone ever again." She pulled her top over her head, then tugged her sports bra off as well, revealing two glowing pink buds standing out from her chest. "Except me. Tell me that story when I tell you to, because I think it's hot. I love picturing a young, little you walking around tender girl's feet, stumbling around under the sheets, sneaking where you shouldn't be." She stared at him, where he sat upright in the center of the broad landscape of their bed. He made no attempt to flee or even crawl away; he only sat in place and gaped at her.

She turned and pulled her Lycra running pants off her narrow hips. They hissed over her thighs and slender calves and fell to the floor in a silken pool. Clad only in a thin, aging pair of white-and-pink cotton panties, she faced her husband and planted bony little fists upon her nonexistent hips. Her intense physical regimen and vegetarian diet had left her more than a little boyish-looking in appearance, with understated features and good muscular tone. Seeing Miriam enter the room, with her huge boobs and huge ass falling all over the place, had given Laura mixed feelings of sickening envy and basic disgust. She would never be able to hide Rodney away in her cleavage like that. But to be fair to Rodney, he wasn't the one drooling all over the cartoonishly voluptuous woman, and Laura wondered whether Lionel was catching the third degree from Margaret at this moment.

Laura stepped away for only as long as it took to turn off the overhead light and click on the lamp on her nightstand. "Tell me that story now," she said, stepping up to the edge of the bed. She could feel the hem of the mattress press against her thighs, the hardwood floor beneath her slim, flat soles. She raised one of her feet, stretching her slender leg with consummate control, and planted it in the quilted space between her hips and her husband. In the dim light her rosy, rounded toes flexed against the fabric.

"I don't want to," Rodney said. He spoke slowly and quietly, distracted.

"Tell me," she said, and her foot slid slowly over the quilt. Her toes curled and grasped at the fabric, crawling toward his little body. "Tell me the story of that strange, unrelated girl and what you did to her."

"I don't want to." Sluggishly he reached behind himself and scooted his pert little butt over the quilt, backing away from the huge foot.

"Tell me more detail," she said. Biting her bottom lip, she leaned forward and climbed upon the bed, rising to a standing position. Her rail-like body loomed over him in the dim bedroom light. Carefully she balanced upon one stork-like leg and tugged her panties off her hips, flinging them far over the edge of their quilted island. "Tell me how her skin smelled," she said, inching one bare foot alongside his knobby, sprawling body. "Tell me how that tight, fresh skin felt." She splayed her toes and pinched his head in them.

Rodney didn't fight back. He watched her scrawny toes widen and stretch and descend upon him. He let his limbs go limp as Laura lifted him away from the quilt, not entirely coordinated as she balanced upon one leg. Moaning quietly, he reached up to stroke her big toe. Tiny, transparent hairs bent and slipped away beneath his palm.

"Did I tell you to touch me!" she shrieked, kicking her foot out and waggling the tiny man's body like a rag doll. "Put your filthy hand down and tell me the story!" She opened her toes and he dropped quickly to the quilt again.

"I don't want to," he whispered. "You can't make me."

Laura's hand slid over her bony hip and down the flat plane of her belly to nestle between her thighs. Her fingertips plowed into her meticulously shaven labia, kneading the flesh as she stepped up and planted her feet on either side of Rodney. His diminutive body rolled from side to side as she stepped up with one foot and the other. He rocked and tumbled against the bridges of her feet as she shifted her weight and kept him from stabilizing himself.

"Tell me what you liked about it, little man." Bracing her fingertips against the ceiling, she slowly lifted one foot in the still, warm bedroom air. She saw her lean thigh tense and her calf working slightly as her thin, knife-like foot glowed softly in empty space. She knew that all he could see was a slightly wrinkled loaf of pale skin and toes like stubby fingers ending in pink pearls, blocking out any glimpse of her just as she could no longer see her husband beneath her slender foot.

She heard him say, "I liked how soft her sole was," and she slowly lowered her foot upon him. He moaned in the second before she covered his little body completely and drove him into the mattress. Her left thumb flicked at the nub of her nipple, and her right hand clutched her pussy possessively. She felt his tiny arm squirming beneath her sensitive skin, rubbing at his own crotch as he recited how her skin tasted like candy, how her ticklish toes would retract and flex and then capture his head. She moaned, then held her breath, pressing him harder into their bed, relishing his struggle to survive against her mere foot. He fought so hard, with his toned little body, his tiny developed muscles, yet it was such a fight against her inadequate paw, and she hated him for his weakness, and she loved how strong he made her feel. She loved how he had no choice but to recite this humiliating story while she stepped on him with her dirty foot, how he worked out and got stronger and built himself up, and yet his entire life rested beneath her sweaty, clammy sole while he babbled about fucking his young owner's foot. It was so hard to remain standing as she came.

* * *

"How about that little guy," Margaret said in her Audi. "Men are just the same at any size, aren't they?"

Lionel made agreement-noises and bounced gently in the crocheted hammock, resting against her sternum. He studied the wrinkles slowly forming in her neck, watched her throat work up and down while she talked and laughed.

"What a little pervert," she said.

"Nailed it in one," he called back over the engine's purr.

"Is he completely shameless? Does he absolutely have no shame?"

"Seems that way."

"You have to wonder what life has done to someone, to break them like that."

"You just never know."

"And that poor woman."

The light clicked on in Lionel's head and he realized they were talking about Rodney and not Brent. "She looked mortified, didn't she? It was a little comical, watching her slowly cover him up as he spun out of control."

She laughed, like he knew she would. Margaret had a sweet tooth for other people's anguish. "What she needs is a little more assertiveness, with that one. Don't let him go running off at the mouth, nip that in the bud. Put her foot down."

Lionel recalled that Laura had been wearing running shoes to the therapy session. He wondered what kind of people showed up to a group psychotherapy session in their workout clothes. It showed dedication, sure, but it rather did away with the social agreement that strangers be clean and presentable for each other, especially if they were going to form groups. He wondered whether the athletic couple likewise judged him for his scholarly appearance, and whether it were possible to attach a stigma to someone for looking too intelligent. If so, he probably wasn't going to get along with Laura and Rodney. Drawing a deep breath to disperse his newfound stress, he stuck one arm through a loop in his hammock and pressed his tiny palm to his wife's bare skin. The Audi shot smoothly through traffic, singing its quiet song through the dashboard.

It wasn't until dinner that Margaret turned on him. He'd loaded the rubber hose from the oak tun into her glass, filling it up one-third full with Sauvignon, and had barely shoved the spout to the OFF position when she called from the kitchen: "Is Miriam your type of woman?"

He froze for a moment, holding the flaccid hose from the small oak barrel, feeling exposed in the middle of the wide, round dining room table. "No, of course not," he said reflexively.

She snorted, way off in the distance, in the kitchen. "You're a terrible liar, Lionel. You were ogling her from the moment her western hemisphere entered the room. I don't blame you," she called out over the clatter of assembling silverware. "She's quite an unusual character, I think. I'm torn between thinking that dress was a symptom of a pathology of tackiness, which merits its own therapeutic sessions apart from today, or that it could have been intentional and proffering her monstrosity was an awkward beacon for a very specific type of man. What do you think?"

Lionel made a big deal of shaking the last drops of wine out of the hose, into her glass, before spooling it up. "I, well, I, ah…" he started.

"Speak up, Lionel. Don't be shy. We all have our kinks, our hidden proclivities. Did Miriam tap into something deep inside you?"

"Well, now, I wouldn't say…"

Metal scraped against metal as she rounded up the knives with which she'd prepared the evening's dinner and slid them beside the sink. "Lionel! It's a very simple question, yes or no."

"Well, no, Margaret, I wouldn't say I do."

The silence in the kitchen caused him to look up, and he found his wife staring at him, half-lidded, eyebrows slightly raised, wearing a smug smirk. He knew she felt she was calling him out on his bullshit. "She's quite a voluptuous woman, after all," she said, as though musing to herself. She moved a skillet from one part of the stove to another. "All those curves. That's what men like these days, I suppose. How do they put it: a little meat on their bones?" She turned, swinging the cutting board into the sink to brush off some stems and mop off some juice.

"Though it's not meat, of course. A woman like that gets all her curves from large deposits of fat. Yet there's still some comfort to be had in that." She toweled off the cutting board and replaced it, then shoved her hand into an oven mitt and retrieved a baguette from where it slowly baked. "Soft, warm padding, like a big, living pillow. Yes, I think that would be quite comforting, all that soft flesh, couching you and supporting you. There's something almost beautiful in the thought of floating inside a woman. Not like a baby, of course, not literally inside her, but resting upon her," she said, scraping a clove of raw garlic over the toasty bread.

"I could almost imagine your position, now that I'm talking about it. A tiny little man like Brent, embedded between those enormous, soft breasts of Miriam's? Yes, I can see that. I can see why you'd be attracted to that, Lionel." She loaded the French bread onto a platter and rounded the corner into the dining room, slamming the bread carelessly close to Lionel's tiny body. "I'm sorry I can't provide that for you."

Lionel gaped at her, struggling to speak as she glared at him, brushing her palms over her thighs for a moment. When he said nothing, she grabbed her wine and drained half of it in a toss. "Very classy, Lionel. Rub it in my face, why don't you." She turned and darted back into the kitchen, retrieving the rest of her meal.

"Margaret! I haven't said a word!" While he knew this to be technically true, he wondered how much he gave away through his silence. He paced by her dinner plate until she returned with a sirloin and mushrooms for one. "Most people are too large for me as it is, Margaret. Think about it: why would I go for someone who's even larger than the average giant? It's grotesque, Margaret," he called out emphatically over her plate, as she pulled out her chair and twisted to nestle her rather scrawny hips down.

She glanced at him before sliding the steak off the serving platter onto her own plate. Lionel jumped as the steaming beef smacked the porcelain, and he kept his distance as she sawed savagely into it. Her expression was nothing but business as she studied the grain of the meat and executed her cuts with ruthless precision. "Please don't insult me, Lionel. We've been together for too long to pretend we're strangers to each other. I can feel when your body goes stiff with attention." She glanced at him briefly. "Your whole body, not just your dinky little winky. I can feel when your temperature rises. I could feel all the air around you tighten and go still as you stared at her, for crying out loud." She slammed the steak knife upon her plate, then straightened up with artificial composure. Closing her eyes, she turned away and drew a long breath as a smile contorted over her jaws.

"But it's fine," she said dryly. "It's fine. You can find whomever you like attractive, Lionel." She waved him off as he protested, and she speared a button mushroom onto a rectangle of beef, seared on the edges and tender and pink in the middle. "Miriam's a novelty. It's cruel to call her a freak, that's beneath me. And if you want to stare, why, you can stare all you like. I know you're faithful," she enunciated slowly. Locking him in eye contact, she stuck the beef into her mouth and chewed slowly.

Lionel stood motionless, arms hanging at his sides. "I don't find her attractive, Margaret. I'm not sure why you're giving me the third degree on this, and you're being frankly insulting."

Margaret's jaw worked round and round as she stared at him. She wiped the corner of her lips with her knuckle and went for her wine. "Are you really scared to open up to me, Lionel? After all this time?" She sipped at her glass. "I suppose I've earned that. I've got all the power in this relationship, after all. I earn more, the kids love me better, the house is in my name, and I could crush your skull like a grape." She snorted as his shoulders slumped. "Just tell me what you find so sexy about her. Just be honest with me for once."

"I've only been honest with you, for as long as I've known you." He strained to keep the whining out of his voice. "When I tell you I don't find her attractive−"

"Are you going to tell me you weren't staring at her chest?"

Despite himself, he laughed. "Now, come on, that's not fair. They showed up 20 minutes before she did."

And despite herself, Margaret laughed. "I guess it wouldn't have been so bad except for those awkward noises."

"What noises?"

"That shrill beeping sound when she backed up into the loveseat."

Lionel laughed harder at that. "Okay, I'll admit, I seriously thought she showed up alone, until she pulled her husband out of her considerable cleavage. I'll admit I stared at that. I don't how how he survived that, honestly."

"That was a bit much," his wife admitted, pushing a few strands of steak to the side for him. She set her knife and fork down and watched him step up to the food. "He didn't seem very happy about being kept in there."

Lionel nodded, struggling to gnaw at the meaty fiber. "He really didn't. He couldn't breathe, and if I understand anything about morbidly obese people, they have a higher risk of skin diseases. You know, where their roles of flesh trap bacteria, especially in hard-to-reach areas."

Margaret considered this. "So what are you saying?"

"It's bound to get awfully stinky in there for him. Or in other places."

"Unless she makes him clean her up." They both stopped chewing and stared at each other. "Um. New topic."

"Yeah," said Lionel, setting his meat aside for the time being.

Margaret shook her head abruptly. "I'm sorry, did you want some wine?" She stuck her middle finger into her glass, then carried a droplet of ruby fluid to the edge of her plate. Her husband watched it bunch up and begin to run down the rim, and she watched him dart forward and lap it up before it thinned out and got away.

"You know I love you, Margaret," he said, sitting down. He rested his elbows upon the edge of her dinner plate. "I'm still interested in you. I'm going along with this therapy session because I believe in us. I want us to work, I want to figure this out."

She blew a long breath through her nose. "I do too, of course."

"So what was that about accusing me of being interested in Miriam?"

"Well, there's a lot of things I can't do or be for you." She half-heartedly struggled to slice a button mushroom in half with the edge of her fork. "Ever since menopause, it's just been harder."

"I know, sweetie."

"I miss feeling aroused. I still love you, I think you're a handsome goddamn man, but it's just not in me." She looked down at her own body. "I'm scared of how this could be affecting you, like, if I starve you of the affection you need… I guess I wouldn't blame you if your eye started to wander."

"That's ridiculous."

"Of course I'd kill you," she said, laughing. "But I'd understand why you did it."

"Sweetie." Lionel rose and took the short stroll around her plate to her left hand. "I'm not going anywhere. You're the only woman I want. I know you're feeling insecure right now, but please have faith in me. Nothing's changed for me! Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I know you say that…"

"It's true, Margaret. And you're not neglecting me and my needs, emotionally." He smiled at her, rubbing the length of her thumb with both hands. "You know I love it when you place me between your thighs and leave me there. Even when you're going to sleep, it's very comforting to feel your lips against my body."

"And I'm so dry now." She looked away. "I was so wet in college. You couldn't stop it."

"Margaret."

"My old, broken body."

"Margaret!" His unusually harsh tone snapped her out of her miasma, and she looked at him as though she hadn't seen him before. "Listen to me, Margaret. I love you. You are still the woman I married, the woman I chose all those years ago. You are still beautiful and young and vivacious to me, as much as you ever were. Are you hearing me?" He stood up by the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. She could have made a fist and snapped him in half. "I'm not interested in anyone else. We've finally got all this time to ourselves now, and I want to make the most of it. I want to explore everything we can do with it… and I want to explore you."

His overt attempt at a rakish grin made her giggle-snort. He pointed that out and she laughed harder, tossing her napkin at him. He crawled out from beneath it, laughing, and went for the rest of his steak. "Tell you what, my audacious little lover-man," she said. "You do the dishes and I'll let you show me a good time in bed. How's that sound?"

He looked at the mushrooms nearly as large as himself. "I'll definitely meet you halfway on that."

* * *

"Oh, there you go, yes, just hold still, now."

"Miriam! Stop it! Let me go!"

"I'm afraid I can't hear yo-o-o-o-ou."

"Miriam! Miriam, no! Oh, my God!"

"Ah, ah, just hold still for a second. It's so hard to reach you there! Just a minute… is that your head?"

"Aah! Aah! Get off me!"

"You know it's no use squirming like that. You can't get away, and you're likely to break something if you don't hold still. Now, knock it off before I have to get unpleasant."

"This is unpleasant! This is disgusting!"

"Brent, now that's not fair. It's really hard for me to get my butter-hole completely clean, and you spent more energy fighting me than it would've taken to just mop it down, so, you know what they say. You've made your bed, now lie in it. It just happens in this case that the bed isn't made, it's all wrinkly and stained in butt-oils and hair, but whose fault is that? Mmmph, there you go, just like that. Oh, no, don't wriggle like that yet, wait until I sit down."

"Goddamn it! Miriam, stop this right now! I'll call the cops, I swear!"

"Don't say things like that, Brent. If I thought you were serious, I'd twist your little spine."

"Augh, this is horrible! These were good pants, Miriam! I finally got some clean pants that weren't crusty with your cum, and you had to streak feces all over them!"

"Hold steady now, Brent! I'm coming in for a second pass."

"Don't you dare! Miriam, don't you−"

"Oh-ho-ho, you want to go up that hole, do you? Naughty man! I like the way you think, but that's very unhygienic. When you're done pleasuring my butter-hole, then maybe we'll think about washing you down and having another round, okay? But you've got to be more considerate of me and my vaginal health. Oops, you popped out again."

"Oh, my God…"

"Listen to you, you sound like you have asthma! Are you coming down with a cold?"

"Please, just give me a minute…"

"You know what they say: starve a cold and feed a fever! Let's get you nice and snug and cozy up inside me, okay? Mmm, yes, just like that. A little more… oh, I can feel your knees bending! Did you feel that? I squeezed your knees back! Was it tight? Do I feel strong? I guess you can't hear me under all that sweetness, but if you can, go ahead and start squirming now. You're not going to slip out this time. There, I'm sitting fully on the chair. Such small chairs, they can't seem to hold all of me. Look at me, spilling over the sides like this. It looks like a bad comedy! We're going to have to go shopping for new− Oh, my Goddess, yes, just like that! Yes, Brent, just like that! Keep fighting! Oh, oh gosh, that's incredible. Mmmph! Oh! Whoa, that was good! Oh! That's how you want to play it? Well, let's just see if ol' Mama Miriam can't clamp down on you and hold you still, you rascally little squirrel…"