Lilliana's Gift (Chapter 4)

And this was but the first step of an apparent lifetime subdued here, a thought the little prisoner still couldn’t quite fathom yet. For now, he simply endured the pounding of Haley’s peds off through the crowd, trampling and squeezing him into a sorrowful ball with every unaware crash back to concrete within the stuffy, curdled netherworld of the inner sanctum that was the girl’s pinched digit shafts. Each rise of her foot off the ground, too, was a repulsive reminder of his new position, as Haley’s toes would temporarily relent on the pressure, letting the shrinker’s already-exhausted body come unstuck from the opposing flank of her hulking digit, un-numbing and refilling his lungs with damp piquant aura for just long enough to keep him cogent, before her boot impacted surface again and made her wet toes inflate together all over again.

Though David had arrived at the parade expecting it to feel longer than it really was, as he’d mainly come to support Haley, he never could’ve dreamed it would feel like this much of an eternity. For over three hours, this initial bout of unwitting servitude to his lovely but unfortunately grunge-footed friend dragged achingly on. In time, David became grateful at least for the part of Lilliana’s present that kept him invulnerable to harm and mostly to pain, as he otherwise would’ve been snuffed to a stain within a few steps of being squelched betwixt burly hocks of sweaty toe-pudge.

Nevertheless, the act of being immobilized in absolute darkness and foot slime, accosted by poisonously repugnant stench, and monotonously punched to and fro between those two aggressive surfaces of snow-white skin, simply because Haley happened to be a restless sort who generally kept her wriggly toes busy even while standing still, meant that David was never afforded a rest. And that tortuous combination just about made up for the lack of body-breaking agony anyway.

Eventually the din of music, voices, and footsteps beyond the thick bounds of his prison faded, however, as Haley departed from the parade. David was left instead with a quieter but nonetheless disturbing chorus of spongy squishing as every step caused the giantess’s hefty sole and toepads to knead her moist socks and grisly insole, purging fresh sweat back up out of the material and creating a suction sound as though she was unsticking her naked feet from muddy quicksand. A similar effect took place even between her digits, softer but no less unappetizing, as the growing volume of gummied sweat caused David’s micro-body to adhere just a split-second longer to the dank flesh of her fourth toe before it unpeeled to flex again with a gooey saltwater splash.

Lost in this sea of sensory torments, his body already sore from intra-toe pulsing and his nose on fire from the cheesy chemical brunt of the malodor, David tried to find succor by wondering after his oblivious friend’s own feelings, though of course this just made him feel all the worse. What must she be thinking at his abrupt and almost-callous disappearance from an event that was so important to her? He hated to think that Haley would feel insulted or hurt at his departure, and just hoped she’d managed to have a good time, despite the fact that her darkness-heavy fashion sense in such sweltering weather had only intensified what was already sure to be a hell-on-earth for him into the foreseeable future and beyond. She was currently punishing him with a smelly pulverizing vengeance unlike any he could’ve imagined, and she hadn’t the foggiest idea it was happening. Nor, indeed, would she likely ever discover it, if Lilliana was sincere in her intention to make David a permanent unknown fixture of his friend’s mealy toejam-sluiced digits.

A delirious while later, right as the shrunken whelp was going through the stages of grief due to the mess of fusty ripeness and liquid-lint wreaking havoc on his perceptions, the boot’s stampeding rise-and-fall came to a final rest. The descent into the sweat-smogged leather pit was reversed now as Haley dragged her colorfully socked foot and her clandestine prisoner out of the shoe with unnecessary roughness, as she was desperate to air out her peds following such a long and steamy bake, and of course had no reason to be gentle in their extraction. Thus David was treated to a horrific clamp from her soggy toes while she yanked the boot off, the grasp so taut that her joints popped and surely blanched even paler, though of course the little guy could see nothing but rainbow fuzz-tinted glow above, if he was lucky enough to spy through the parted crevice between her digits at all.

Next the socks were tugged away, just as violently, in a rush of warm skunky wind, and suddenly there was nothing but open air separating David from the towering brunette’s angelic face so high above. At least most of the time, though on each occasion that Haley’s toes enclosed to take another barefooted step across her apartment, the way the opposing canyon bulwarks of tender skin cells and sweat-crusted flesh creases caved in on one another made it seem like horizons crossing, or even planets crashing together.

It was tempting to shriek for aid the moment David saw light again, but he held his tongue for now. He’d need to save his energy for the hail-mary the next time Haley stooped near enough to her foot that there might be a ghost of a chance she’d hear his pleading screams. Naturally, David had to believe in Lilliana’s power, expecting she wasn’t bluffing about keeping him hidden, but he just had to hope anyway, because otherwise his spirit would be crushed as well as his body, without even the need of a good curb-stomping under an island-sized black leather boot, and no invulnerability spell could defend from that.

The shrunken victim was correct about one thing, at least. Haley had wondered what became of her friend after he flaked, checking her phone incessantly through the evening and pacing nervously around her room after she didn’t receive an explanation, which ironically only deepened the little man’s anguish, while her soles shuffled along the floor and her toes fidgeted with carpet fluff, thus quashing her friend between them on infinite smelly repeat with greater vigorousness the more she worried.

Her curiosity and even anxiety at David’s disappearance also prevented Haley from cleaning herself up after the parade like she’d planned to, and by the end of the day, she was too tired to even bother with a shower until morning, which only added more humid seasoning to the salt-and-spoiled-dairy-scented miasma of B.O. foot-funk that had replaced every molecule of oxygen in David’s puny lungs by now. Though the boots and socks had gone, the heat and presence of that walk in the sun was tattooed now into her body, much like her artful ink, or the mini-man whose had merged forever with her gnarly-flavored toe skin. It was a small mercy when at last Haley crawled into bed and fell fitfully into slumber, since this meant her toes relaxed somewhat, giving David the chance to shakily recuperate while continuing to imbibe the increasingly stale aroma of half-melted leather insole, bitter sock scraps, medium-rare summer sweat, and of course the intensifying musk gelled into every skin cell of her toes.