Falling In (Chapter 5)

The giantess’s eyes went wide and her jaw dropped during the intervening moments of silent astonishment, wondering if she was just hallucinating him as a result of the heat. Yet as focused as the girl had been on her Emissary chores earlier, she hadn’t neglected her own vital needs, so it couldn’t be hunger or dehydration or any variety of delirium making her see this remarkable little creature. Who, aside from his miniscule toy-like proportions, didn’t appear at all like some of the freakish mutants that Betty had heard legends about, while the world was still rehabilitating from its nuclear facelift; roughly her same age, and actually sort of cute, he looked pretty much like any other normal Vault dweller she could’ve grown up with. Or at least one who’d first taken a compressive nine-hour bath in hot raunch-reeking saltwater. It was only when the tiny boy, shaken from his abyssal daze by such an abrupt reintroduction to the outside world, thrashed and spluttered in the grime puddle that Betty was totally convinced of his realness. Immediately after accepting he was a legitimate live thing, then, her mind reeled at the stunning implications of this find. She’d been wearing her boots ever since this morning, and kept them strapped tight around her busy feet until this very moment. Which meant he’d somehow survived being in there this whole time.

At once amazed and horrified, Betty cupped both hands over her mouth. Her gaze was glued to the three-inch fellow in piteous fascination, aware of nothing else but this unexpected life form sprawled in a gruesome pond of her boot sweat. Again Betty wasn’t quite aware of the rest of her body, or indeed the fact that her now-bare feet were propped on either side of the puddle, looming over him once more. After the initial wave of disturbing embarrassment passed through her, knowing that this little stranger had been suffering her personal dirty-soled fumes in a closed vacuum for so long, the girl got ahold of herself again. Taking a deep breath, she shifted into survivor mode, and called upon the many skills she’d acquired to make herself a better Emissary candidate. She wasn’t exactly accustomed to caring for such a diminutive person, but as far as Betty was concerned, his bug-like powerlessness made him no less deserving of dignity.

“Oh my GOSH! Are you all right?” she gasped, finally breaking the silence. It felt right to ask this, though she would’ve been shocked if the answer to her question was at all positive.

“Y-Yes. I’m… I’m… f-fine,” he replied, coughing out a vinegary swallow of liquid grunge, then seemed to actually settle down. His expression wasn’t quite readable, but he didn’t appear distraught. “Thank you.”

Delicately, Betty plucked the little thing up from the swirl of her boggy afternoon sweat, cradling him between her fingertips, and laid him out to dry on her sleeping mat. He appeared to be breathing regularly, albeit fast, and a gentle fingertip over his chest confirmed his heartbeat was fine. Naturally, he was still doused as could be in her repulsive arch-flesh excretions, and his complexion matched the ruddiness of her tired feet, but as far as Betty could tell, he wasn’t in mortal danger from his crushing voyage. Which really was amazing, considering what he must have just been through while riding around inside her shoe all day on the muggiest most-intensive day of work she’d ever carried out. But it at least came as a mild relief to her, knowing she hadn’t accidentally killed a puny stranger before she’d even been in the settlement zone for a full day. And now that Betty didn’t have to worry about his health so immediately, she was free to think through the many other equally-shocking implications of this surprise. She’d found no other animals living in the valley, and aside from a few clues she’d found suggesting that rodents or small reptiles may have recently passed through, she found no obvious signs of habitation. Now she guessed it probably wasn’t those kinds of creatures after all, but instead something much more like this puny sweat-soaked victim she’d spent most of the daylight hours unknowingly trouncing underfoot at high speed. Her curiosity was instant and enormous. How many others like him were there? And where could they be found? But, first things first:

“Well, hello there! My name is Betty Sherman. I’m a citizen and Emissary from Vault 124, here to assess this site as a potential settlement zone for our civilization’s return to the surface!” the giantess happily declared, waving at the boy laid out between her beleaguered size-14s. Then she gritted her teeth and shook her head, since it was still difficult getting over the guilty humiliation of what this runt had been through today, even if she hadn’t gorily smashed him. “And, I’m REALLY sorry about… you know… everything. If only I’d noticed you, I would’ve let you out of my boot much sooner. That’s all my fault. Please, who are you? What’s your name? And where did you come from?”

“My name is Milo,” he stated, and though seemingly at ease, kept himself tucked into a defensive ball. Which Betty interpreted as understandable fear of her gargantuan self, when really, Milo was just trying to hide the orgasmic evidence of how he’d spent these wild past hours. “I’m, um… not from any Vault.”

His long-delayed exit from her boot felt like a total system reboot, clearing out his lungs and taste buds from the sharpest tang of the giantess’s sweaty putrescence, even while plenty of it still clung to his body in sticky streaks. Though he longed for more of the forbidden once-unthinkable pleasures he’d enjoyed under her giant toes, he could think a bit clearer out here again, and so had the presence of mind again to be cautious with his replies to her. Even if this girl came off as apologetic and benevolent on first impression, he had to protect his fellow three-inch-tall remnants if at all possible. And almost equally as crucial, Milo couldn’t ever let Betty learn just how much perverted satisfaction he’d gleaned from worshipping and humping her titanic foot for half the day. No matter how kind she seemed, discovering his fetish-awakened debauchery might just be enough reason for her to execute him on the spot anyway.

To that end, he forced himself to steady his breathing, speak clearly, and remain dead-set on the giantess’s green-eyed sightline above. Even while that deeply-ingrained yearning was instead nudging at him to gaze upon the much-closer double monuments of her naked feet propped up so unabashedly before him. Milo had gotten to know the soggy-textured toes of her right foot rather intimately today, of course, but no other regions below, and he hadn’t been able to see anything for many hours in the pitch-darkness. Now that the humongous objects of his inexplicable obsession were shoved out right there, however, gloriously nude in the baking sunlight and shimmering with umpteen glosses of perspired slop, it took herculean willpower on his part not to stare them down in boggled lust. Even in his peripherals, while Milo peered up at Betty’s smiling face in between her verticalized peds, it was impossible not to passively admire these twin landscapes of filth and flesh: the plump bulb of each toepad atop its trunk, the variations in rosy pink and pressure-yellowed skin tone, the liquid-gleaming wrinkles thickly lining both broad soles, and the deep meniscus of either beefy arch curve. None of these were details that the boy would’ve ever given more than a moment’s platonic observation in the past. But after he’d followed that insane impulse last night, tracking the virulent stench right into her boot, where he ended up stuck for most of a day spent squashed underfoot and climaxing on repeat, every aspect of those peds had become an intoxicating necessity for him. He was different now. Everything was different.