Fantasy Foot League (Chapter 5)

            The distance between his ears and Kayla’s lips was so vast, and the echo effect so warped due to their difference in size, Cody let himself believe for a few precious seconds that he’d just misheard her. And even if he had heard her right, it was only a ruse to freak him out again. She hadn’t really succeeded in doubling the length of his purchased enslavement to her feet, the shrinker told himself. Sure, mostly only desperate penniless people worked at this place, but they were still human beings. Could one customer’s ranting, without the millimeter-sized plaything himself even having the chance to testify, really condemn him to another unspeakable half-month of this sole-pounding sweat-soaked strife?

            “You… you c-can’t DO that!” Cody squeaked, hating the way his voice cracked as if to instantly sob.

            “Oops, sorry. You’re a liiiiittle too… well, little, for me to hear your baby-bird bitching noises,” the giantess taunted, cupping a hand around her ear. Stepping high over her flip-flop, and allowing the windy momentum of her swinging sole to make Cody fly out of the toeprint crater without even touching him, she scooped up the transmogrifer and held the barrel just above his head. “Much as I enjoy the idea of you just screaming your midgety head off when I can’t even tell what you’re saying, though, I think I’d be disappointed if I didn’t get to hear whatever hilarious bullshit you’re about to come up with to walk back everything you said before. So let’s hear what that foot-licking little mouth of yours has to say.”

            One zap later, and Cody was no longer imprisoned on an earthquaking flip-flop isle, but regrown to a ten-inch stature that made Kayla’s withered insole more like a mattress. Such an ascent should’ve brought him relief, but in fact he’d never felt smaller, not even during that interminable hour spent as a one-millimeter speck waiting for his tormentor’s return. Having already kicked off her other shoes, Kayla slammed both naked arches to the floor on either side of where Cody was sprawled not three seconds after she enlarged him, causing him to blanch and yelp all over again, which only renewed her giggly triumph as she angled both peds sideways and rapidly bore those brawny tan-glazed sole crescents in toward their limp ten-inch target.

            “Well? Is that it? Nothing? Did you really run out of funny things to tell me?” Kayla challenged. “Or would you rather just get back to doing what a loser like you does best?”

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            He’d really thought she was bluffing. Over and over during his endless week in her clutches, Kayla had threatened to use her superhuman bitching powers to create such havoc over at the shrunken volunteer rental service that the seven days of humiliation Cody had earned for his poor fantasy league picks would turn into a much longer sentence at her feet. But he’d underestimated her, yet again. No matter how much of a pain she could be, it just didn’t seem possible she would or even could go that far. Yet following a lot of strongly worded emails and theatrically enraged phone calls to the corporate office, Kayla smugly showed him – on the same day he was gratefully returned to his normal size, no less – that the agreed consolation for her allegedly unfortunate customer experience was no less than fifty-two weekends of free miniaturized service from her sister’s humbled boyfriend.

Naturally Cody thought this was a prank at first. He’d even laughed in her face. But after being shown all the legitimate paperwork, and having a furious back-and-forth with the establishment’s proprietors that proved to him the frightening depth of the hidden fine print when it came to his legal responsibility for customer happiness as a transmogrifiable plaything, he realized that it wasn’t a joke on her part to rub salt in his humiliated wounds. Every Saturday and Sunday for a whole year, he would officially belong to Kayla, and there was nothing he could do about it. It had only been a week since his once lighthearted league punishment ended, and Cody thought he’d be spending his next Friday night recuperating and thinking up a worthy consequence for the loser of next year’s competition. Instead, he was hunkered in a living room armchair with his head hung as though in mourning, trembling and sick to his stomach at the thought of the resumed atrocities that awaited him tomorrow.

“What, you’re just going to SIT there? You’re not even going to go out and party tonight? You know, really enjoy your off-time as much as you can before you get back to work tomorrow?” Kayla interrogated, suddenly standing in the doorway with her arms crossed and a victorious grin on her lips.

Cody flinched at the sound of her voice, which made her snicker. And since he wasn’t even looking up at her, if he’d closed his eyes and concentrated, he might’ve convinced himself that the self-satisfied boom of Kayla’s proclamation was already coming from a body hundreds of times bigger than him, capable of taking a single step forth overhead and then plastering him flat into the carpet under a meaty single-soled dogpile of stenchy humidified pressure. For all he knew, there was yet another clause he’d missed in his once-temporary contract, and she was about to shrink him right here and now instead of tomorrow. What’s more, Cody was feeling too defeated to even get more upset at that possibility. At least the nauseating suspense would be killed then.

“Guess I’ll take that as a NO!” Kayla added in response to her victim’s glum silence. Laughing, she invited herself into the solemn space, plopping down on the couch and resting her bare size-9s up on the coffee table. Somehow it felt to Cody like she’d casually taken out a gun, not intending to use it yet, but simply allowing its presence to make him sweat. He did his best to keep his gaze fixated to the floor, but the athlete’s wrinkly tan soles were close enough in his periphery that he could still perceive his part-time owner’s spirited toe scrunching and arch flexing, and it made his gut knot all the harder. “I guess it’s not a surprise. Who would even want to invite someone like you to parties, when you’re about to spend all your weekends getting kicked and stomped and smushed around under somebody’s feet? Talk about lame. I mean, who could blame anybody for thinking you probably still smell like my gym socks? Nobody needs that kind of energy at a party. Yeah, on second thought, it’s probably for the best if you just sit tight right there, and think about your game plan for tomorrow. When you’re back in the trenches, where you belong. See, Cody, when you’re getting ready for a tough game, it’s important to get into the right mindset, and visualize your path to the win. Don’t worry, there’s not going to be a way for you to “win” once you’re down there again taking care of my feet, I’ll make sure of that, but the least you could do is try to pep yourself up, so that you’re actually useful. That way, I won’t have any reason to go complaining to your bosses again. You probably wouldn’t like that, would you? Anyway, I hope you don’t think it’s insulting that I’m giving you such obvious stupid-idiot advice like this. But let’s face it, if you knew anything about sports, you wouldn’t even be in this situation now. Would you? So I’m kind of your only hope.”

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Cody grumbled, forlorn and more than a little afraid of her. “Can’t you just leave me alone? You already got everything you wanted.”

“What, you really think I could be doing something more fun right now than watching you squirm over there?” Kayla balked, then to prove her point, abruptly swatted one of her feet in Cody’s direction. She didn’t even come close to actually smacking her sole into his body, but he still winced again, much to her guffawing satisfaction. “Hey. THIS is quality Friday night entertainment, as far as I’m concerned. Even if I can’t shrink you or change you into funny things yet, screwing with you when you’re regular like this is almost as hilarious. Almost, but not quite. Look on the bright side, too. You definitely won’t get bored, that’s for sure, especially since the whole family’s going to get their turns with you. And I want you on your BEST behavior for them all. I talked you up a whole lot to them after that last week, about how great you were at being an insole and eating my toejam and slurping sweat out of all the little pockets I couldn’t reach. So don’t go making a liar out of me, Cody, or else I’ll have to teach you a lesson. And I think you know by now how great I am at teaching you lessons. Speaking of which… now’s your chance to show me what a good job you’re going to do tomorrow!”