Falling In (Chapter 7)

Betty truly would’ve had no clue what to make of this weird turnabout, if not for her book-voracious interests during her adolescent years spent training to become an Emissary. She distinctly recalled reading the work of a Vault scientist from decades earlier (called a crackpot even back then) who’d run tests on mutated surface-world vermin, which he’d put in contact with various human artifacts from inside their underground community, which were clean of any radioactive influence. While he lacked the tools to prove his ideas at the time, Betty remembered the conclusions he’d drawn based on the data: that the vermin were especially drawn to these humanity-marked props, but not out of hostility or survival utility. It was as if they wanted or even needed to be in contact with these objects, and suffuse themselves in their corresponding essences. The stronger the “essence” they were presented with – in the forms of worn-out clothing, old shoes, and even samples of Vault citizen bodily fluids, all awash in fragrant chemically-complicated pheromones – the more intensely the creatures reacted. The harebrained scientist had then decided, prematurely or not, that these findings meant all animals which evolved amongst the fallout above had developed a deeply-buried genetic trigger that powerfully drew them to a superior unflawed species, like the Vault dwellers, and made them endeavor to bond by any means necessary. As if to “complete” themselves, in some way.

At the time, Betty had written off this research as outdated fiction, before moving on to other studies. There would’ve been no reason for her to ever command such questionable knowledge again, if she wasn’t watching such a perfect example of it happening right before her eyes. Now, witnessing this three-inch-high being so ethereally captivated by her puffy-curved peds while they dribbled off sweaty pollution, the scientist didn’t seem so crazy. Could it really be true after all? Betty didn’t wish to exploit or endanger Milo still, but once she’d latched onto this longshot possibility, she knew the curiosity would eat her up until she investigated. What could be the harm in running one last little test for today?

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Milo. I almost forgot to ask you something else…” Betty innocently drawled, after both of them had gone speechless for a while. “How did you end up getting stuck inside my boot, anyway?”

Slowly then, she edged both her burly size-14s in yet closer toward the puny thing’s spot on the edge of her mat, dipping them each down to a sideways plant, until she’d walled Milo into a loose canyon of her pink crease-rimpled sole crescents. The giantess wagged and bunched her toes next, causing those blushing underbellies to repattern their slick brine-piping wrinkles. She saw Milo shudder, though he tried to stifle it, as his attention swirled more urgently while taking in every enclosing detail of both her supersized bare feet. Through the language of his stifled shivers, she observed him respirating heavier, his jaw wavering, and his little limbs apparently restraining themselves from spreading out to reach her. Still it wasn’t a fear response, nor nauseous revulsion. Her adventurous fascination only increased.

“Oh!” Milo gulped, forcing himself to carry on a conversation as if he wasn’t currently penned-in by those sultry barricades of her ample perspiration-buttered sole terrain. “That’s, um… a g-good question.”

Though the three-incher did everything in his power to keep steady, all it took was that innocuous push forward by both Betty’s soles to put him even further over the edge. The podophilic pull had become druglike. Milo was literally fighting his own body right now to keep from quaking in arousal, reaching out with both hands to touch that swampy flesh, and audibly huffing her toejammy fog like a ravenous fiend. He’d staved off a direr need so far, but he knew he couldn’t last much longer. He had to get away from those feet, Milo thought. Whether that meant sprinting full-tilt, crawling on all fours, or begging Betty to hide them back inside her boots because they smelled so bad. Still, he was too weak to separate himself from such transcendental beauty. All he could muster was a last-ditch excuse:

“I was just… c-coming closer, to see you. That was all. We’ve… I mean, I’ve… n-never seen anyone or anything like you around here before. Nothing ever as big and tall, or with such… s-such…” Milo stammered, then bit his tongue before he could lick his chops over the sweat-brooding scent so warmly coalescing around him. “A-Anyway, I got up close, and suddenly there was a… a rat! A GIANT one! Almos as big as you! I was a-afraid it was going to hurt me, but I didn’t want to call for h-help, before we’d even met, so I… just h-hid inside that boot, at the last second. Then, the next thing I knew, you… well…”

“How interesting! I would’ve liked to have seen that myself. And I’m glad you got to safety. I certainly would’ve helped you, if you’ve shouted loud enough, even though I didn’t know you yet. But, you know what the strange thing is? I didn’t find any footprints from anything as big as what you’re describing. No, only much smaller prints that belonged to you. Or someone else like you,” Betty sweetly responded.

She smiled, not wanting him to feel threatened, even as she delicately rejected his lie. Meanwhile the girl continued dancing her toes to and fro – rhythmically alternating her soles from their smoothest S-contoured bend, then scrunching them back into a state of plush dimply-fleshed concavity. All this flexing activity of course resulted in fresh honey-slow drips of sweat birthing from her pores, gliding sideways down the breadth of either arch, and running deep through those squishy divot lines like microscopic riverbeds. And despite having been liberated from her boots a while ago now, Betty’s size-14s were still so vigorously charged from the day’s pounding labors that they just kept on radiating the same degrees of heat and stench like their own meaty-padded energy generators. Every element of this subtle yet enriching display only deepened Milo’s passionate appetite.

“Huh,” he drunkenly croaked. “You’re right. That’s… s-strange.”

“Are you sure you’re feeling all right, Milo?” Betty asked again. She thoughtfully twiddled the end of her dark-brunette ponytail between her fingertips, still addressing the tiny creature with conversational affability. But her barely-secret theory about him was increasingly becoming a certainty. “Are you sure you don’t need me to get you anything? Something to eat? A drink of water?”

“N-No, no, really! I’m fine! I just-”

“What about my feet?”

“Yes,” Milo choked before he’d even consciously thought through what he was saying, albeit honestly. Upon realizing it, he flushed crimson and winced harder than ever. “Huh? W-Wait, please, I-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Betty softly interrupted. “We’re just getting to know one another better, finally. I asked you a question, and you answered. Now I can ask you another one. You’re not afraid of my feet, are you?”

“No,” he whispered. Once Milo had let that first little epiphany slip, he could feel the rest of the truth poised to tumble out of him like hourglass sand. His pulse raced at this inevitability, but at the same time, it came as outlandish relief.

“And you don’t think they’re disgusting, either, do you?” she continued. She sped up her toe-curling habits. “Even after you were inside my boot this whole day, while my foot was getting so hot, sweating and smelling all around you?”

“No.”

“Do you wish you were that close to my feet again, like when you were stuck in my boot? Do you want to touch them? Maybe breathe them in really deep?”

“Y-Yes,” Milo divulged, his voice cracking now in embarrassed despair.

“It’s all right. Don’t feel bad,” she soothed. This was all happening so fast, and while Betty was still taken aback by the uncanniness of this entire situation which seemingly proved a long-dead loon’s kooky theories correct, she was engaged now with the same scintillated attention that made her power-traipse across this valley to begin a new civilization. But this latest task now interested (and flattered) her more than any other she’d performed today. “I just want the truth. To get to know you more, so we can be friends, and then just maybe, I can also be friends with anyone else like you who lives here. I hope you might want that, too. Now, I only have one more question for you: why aren’t you touching my foot yet?”