Deviant Downsizing (Chapter 13)

“That’s what I thought,” Lori resolutely declared, while Mason continued to squirm and cough. Though she made no effort to withdraw her feet away from him, either. “They do have an impact on you. There’s no way around it. And nobody could blame you for that reaction, either. I’m sure I’d feel exactly the same, if I was in your position! Putting on my shoe while you were inside, and… stepping on you like that, was a terrible wake-up call for me. It made me realize just how little I’ve been paying attention ever since you shrank. I’ve been so caught up on making sure you were taken care of, and trying out new ways to help you grow again, that I didn’t ever think to notice how AWFUL it must’ve been for you, every time I propped my feet up on this table after work, like I always do. It really was so careless and selfish of me. God, just thinking about it now makes me sick to my stomach. We both know that my powers mean I produce a lot of heat, and most of it is burned off down there, at my feet, which means they get pretty… rough… after a whole day in my shoes. That’s all on me. But, in a way, I guess it also turned out to be lucky, just like how that accident with you in my shoe helped us crack the code. Because the answer to this problem was right in front of both of us the whole time, and I was just too foolish to see it. And you were too good of a son to ever mention how horrible it was for me to lay my dirty feet down next to your house. But not anymore. From now on, we have to be totally attentive and honest with each other, on the same team, like we always have been. That’s the only way we’re going to get through this. Especially now that we know the cure for finally drawing out your powers, things might get… difficult, for a while. It’ll all be worth it, though. I promise.”

“The… c-cure? W-What does that mean?” Mason dumbly repeated in between eye-watery sneezes over the grody yet arousing aroma from his gigantic parent’s sweat-tangy peds. Subconsciously, he already comprehended everything his mother had just said, and knew precisely where their pivotal chat was going now. Still, this turnabout was so surreal that he didn’t dare believe it was actually happening until he heard it bluntly spoken by Lori herself.

“It means my feet are the only way to fix you. We know that now. We… have to use them, to force your powers to come out, once and for all,” the giantess softly uttered with reverential gravitas. “And I did tell you that I was going to make you better again, no matter what it takes. That’s what good moms do.”

“H-How are you going to-”

“I think you know already, kiddo,” she kindly yet firmly interrupted. Not only keeping her huge capsized feet poised so boldly before her sprawled offspring, Lori actually nudged them another inch closer to him on the table. Suddenly, they were near enough that he could only see her face over the united crests of her tapped-together heels, while the whole rest of his view was dominated by pure sole-bulk vista. “We’re going to keep you down there, at my feet, in the way they are right now. Hot, dirty, sweaty… unpleasant. Up close and personal. We may even repeat that little accident with my shoe again, in a safe way of course, but still the conditions have to be… intense enough to work. We’re going to do whatever we have to do to trigger another episode in you, only an even bigger one this time. Enough to give you permanent control of your power. And we’re going to start today. Here. Right now.”

Galled to his core, on the verge of fainting from horrified amazement just as much as sensory overload among Lori’s scummy underfoot fog, Mason battled to form a reaction. His mind had gone blank from sheer disbelief over his mother’s bombshell, as well as the ever-closer presence of those balmy perspiration-slobbering peds themselves. This couldn’t be real. It was like his worst nightmare and wettest dream, come true all at once. But even if Mason felt simultaneous stomach-knotting dread and head-swimming horniness over this misguided revelation for the so-called “cure” to his power issues, he knew there was no way he could allow this to happen. For a hundred different reasons, but the most important were plenty: there was no guarantee this would actually work, spending more time around Lori’s feet while she paid attention to him would only multiply her odds of noticing his arousal, and an encore of those same “intense” in-shoe conditions was just as likely to induce a nasty mind-scarring phobia of her feet rather than a philia. Frantic, he shakily arose and backpedaled away from his mother’s sideways-planted soles, with his trembling arms held out as if to brace for a car crash.

“M-Mom, no. No way! You can’t do this,” he blabbered. “T-Think about what you’re saying! How is THIS supposed to… look, you’re right, I was just trying to be nice before, but you said it yourself. Because of your powers, your feet are… rough. They sweat like crazy, the smell is ridiculous, and the heat almost made me pass out all by itself. I’m not even touching them now, like I was in your shoe, and I can still feel ALL of that!”

“I understand why you’re not too happy about this. Really, I do. It’s not going to be fun for you,” Lori assured him with genuine sorrow, even while not knowing that her statement was at least half untrue. She leaned forward, still with the undersides of her immense size-14s displayed in their dingiest saltwater-rheumy state, and reached out slowly toward her shrunken son. “But the other deviants I spoke with all agree with me. This is the ONLY way forward. We’ve been trying to help you for almost two months now, and so far, nothing else has even come close to working. I didn’t want to scare you before by telling you this, but the fact is, I’ve never known anyone with a power that took this long to come out all the way, once it revealed itself. You’ve been stuck in the middle for too long. And now that we finally know the way to fix you, no matter how awful it might be for a little while, we can’t just ignore it. I won’t ignore it.”