Baker's Dozen (Chapter 1) (Patreon)

MONDAY

When I first awoke, I was so bewildered by the absence of my bed and familiar surroundings amidst the pitch-darkness, at first I didn’t even notice the faint slit of light boxing in a distant ceiling. I couldn’t see my own hands in front of my face, let alone the stiff terrain. Wracking my brain, I tried to recount the previous evening’s activities, but I’m not the type to spend nights passed out in pub alleys, which made this all the more alarming. Had I been drugged, or was I just still dreaming?

Strangely, neither of these questions was answered when the blackness subsided as the roof was literally ripped from the enclosure. Abruptly I became aware I was in a brown cardboard canyon, a box seemingly large enough to contain a battleship, though even more notable than this bizarre environment was the reason the top was removed, or rather the person. I wouldn’t have even recognized as human a being so terrifying humongous, easily one thousand feet tall in my estimation, if I hadn’t spent most of the past few months haunted by the bittersweet memories of that face: Amber, my ex-girlfriend.

There was no questioning it was her, since every detail was precisely as I recalled, from her sleek raven-black hair and piercing gray eyes to her dimples that plumped when she smiled as smugly as she was now. She was even still dressed in her work-apron from the bakery. The only fact that made it difficult to believe I was looking at, or rather up at, a girl I once loved so much was the simple fact that she was an absolute colossus. It was nearly impossible to imagine, since Amber was in fact considerably shorter than me at five-foot-four, but no matter how much I blinked, there was she in mountainous form, crouched above what I now realized was a shoe box, and this surreality was doubly confirmed when her plush lips parted to speak.

“Well, look who’s finally awake. It’s about time,” Amber whispered, though at her towering size, her voice boomed and reverberated like rolling thunder. She ran her fingers through her shoulder-length locks, tucking a few hairs over her ear as she studied me. “How are you liking your new vacation home, Oscar?”

“I… I d-don’t understand… w-what’s going on. Is… is this… am I asleep?”

“Nope, you’re the opposite, actually,” Amber replied. “And you should get used to it, too, because I’m going to be keeping you very busy from now on.”

Before I could stammer out another question, my gigantic ex-girlfriend arched up from her crouched position. I watched her ample figure ascending, a truly epic gesture for someone of such immense scale, until she was standing utterly above me and took a seat in a swivel chair larger than any manmade monument. Her legs extended toward the edge of the shoebox, below where I could see, but I heard the thump of her toes on the other side of the cardboard wall, and felt the floor tremor.

Gradually I was coming to recognize that everything, not just Amber, was this big, and we weren’t in a dreamscape, but instead in her parents’ basement. Then it began to dawn on me that in fact I was the one who’d transformed, though I couldn’t comprehend the idea that I’d shrunken to a third of an inch tall without risking insanity.

“God, today was rough at the shop. You have NO idea,” Amber groaned, carrying on as though nothing was wrong and this was just another typical grouchy after-work chit-chat. “I was on my feet all day, and people kept whining and complaining that their bread wasn’t warm enough or the cakes were lopsided or whatever. It feels like I walked through a swamp now, except it’s just… me. Ugh, I swear, if I have to take another step today, I’m gonna get a million blisters. So, it’s lucky I just so happened to finally get that enchantment book working, because now I have YOU here to help me out, Oscar, just like you used to. Well, of course it’ll be a little different, in that we were boyfriend and girlfriend before, but now that you’re nice and small, instead you’ll be spending every minute of every day, and most of the nights too, taking care of my poor tired soles and toes like the little shrunken foot-bitch you were always meant to be anyway.”

I was too dumbfounded to speak. I always knew my ex was interested in witchcraft, but I always thought it was mere theories or silly fun. Yet here I was, suffering the proof that her dastardly curiosity had paid off.

Meanwhile the pounding on the cardboard continued up as Amber raised her feet off the floor, until I saw ten rotund boulder-sized forms wriggling under tight gray cotton sock wrapping just over the horizon of the shoebox. She was clumsily grasping the edge with those toes I knew so well, moving the structure as well as me back and forth so I was made to roll like a marble from corner to corner. I couldn’t help but notice dark moist patches left in the cardboard once Amber unclenched her toes again, then steadily commenced sliding her right foot into the box itself.

The shadow of my ex-girlfriend’s wide-arched foot, clad in a skin-tight smoky-gray ankle sock that stuck snug to the curves of her arch and bulbous toes, cast a shadow over me that made my stomach churn. Of course for a long time those feet brought me nothing but kinky joy, as Amber used to begrudgingly indulge my fantasies, rolling her eyes while I massaged and occasionally worshipped her supple soles, callused heels, and swollen digits. Sometimes I’d even pretend she was a giant and I was but an insect under her grungy foot, something that annoyed her even more. Now, however, staring up at a foot fourteen stories long hovering right above me in easy dive-bombing crush territory, I felt nothing but dread from those old wishes.

My horror only increased, too, when the previously-breathable air was quickly replaced by a familiar scent, albeit plague-like in its intensity now. Even from the top of the box, oppressive heat radiated from Amber’s socked foot, not to mention a sour musk that wafted down in a fog containing the essence of salty sweat, stale bread, and gritty fluff from her favorite worn-out high tops, not to mention a miasma of other flavors I was too busy coughing to recognize. Naturally, it was also plain that the socks were soaked dark from the ankle-down with perspiration, not to mention spotted with bits of insole cotton and bread crumbs.

“Still like what you see, huh, Oscar?” Amber teased. She flexed her deep arch through the damp cotton until it contoured to her wrinkly flesh, then flared her toes again so the fabric snagged in the soggiest crevices between, waving her beastly foot above me like a hammer about to drop. “You were always sooooo eager to pull my socks off after work and stick your face against them, instead of actually listening to my problems like a real boyfriend. I swear, sometimes I think my feet were the only things you were interested in when we were together, just so you could pretend you were tiny under them. So I’m just giving you exactly what you want: my feet, and only my feet forever. Don’t freak-out, though. The enchantment makes you kill-proof, so I’ll be able to stomp on you all day long now, and you’ll be ready to go again the next day. Oh, right, I didn’t mention that yet, did I? I’m going to be taking you to work with me from now on, walking on you ten hours a day down in my shoes so you can help make my job a little more bearable. Believe me, it’ll be more than a full-time job for you, too. You don’t have to worry about starving, either, since anything you put into your body now will keep you going! I mean, it’s still gonna taste like my nasty ol’ toejam when that’s all you have to eat, but your little body won’t know the difference! You’re welcome, by the way. I’ll just assume you’re saying “Thank you, Amber, for making my disgusting dreams come true!” since you’re too small for me to hear now anyway. Well, enough talk. I’ve been dying to try you out all day.”

I sunk to a bow, watching in gob-smacked terror as the pillars of my giantess ex-girlfriend’s fingers curled into the mouth of her sock and began to roll it over her heel, peeling the garment off inch by inch. Layers of dark cloth sopping with her sweat clumped together, causing large dollops of saltwater to plunk down into the shoebox. I dodged these easily enough, but knew it would be impossible to avoid an entire foot of that magnitude. Trembling in fear and revulsion from the imposing shape and its overpowering stench, I couldn’t help but also feel the slightest erotic twinge at viewing my ex’s admittedly-lovely foot from so close up, especially now that I was somewhat reassured it couldn’t crush me to death in one leaden pounce.

Sickly enraptured, I watched the pinkish curve of her heel emerge first, puffy from previous blisters and corns, then the creamy expanse of her doughy sole, rife with luscious wrinkles, each one heavily greased by sweat, and finally those happily wriggling toes. Like her sock itself, Amber’s monstrous bare foot was doused in perspiration, not to mention dotted with equal volumes of bakery crumbs and juicy toejam like smeared blackberry jelly, thickest between the digits, but speckled all over her skin. Naturally the vinegary smell increased tenfold now, smoking me out with the hardworking fumes of Amber’s difficult day. There was still a hint of that mouth-watering fresh-baked bread aroma, though the much more chemically potent flavor was the stinging zest of her sweat and the mustiness from being cooped up in her high tops all day in that sweltering shop.

Then her foot descended, quickly, and I had no choice but to collapse.

Amber’s meaty sole hit me like a freight train, instantly pinning me flat to the cardboard floor. As her weight settled down against the base of the box, the slab of her arch molded over me, thick and balmy and absolutely mind-bending in its grisly odor, not to mention the spongy texture and globs of toejam liberally painted over her pale wrinkles. All I could see, feel, or smell now was the unbelievable mass of my ex-girlfriend’s after-work foot, just as sweaty and tender as I remembered, but increased to a level even I, with all my fetishes, had to admit was heinous. It was the most repulsive thing I’d ever experienced, to have nothing but a megaton ceiling of sole-brawn pivoting and twisting against me while wiping off the fruits of her labors. Amber began to gently push my third-inch body around the bottom of the box, effectively using me to massage herself. I could hear her sigh with contentment, achieving the only kind of relaxation a person as small as me could possibly offer her plush behemoth feet.

Helpless, I surrendered to the control of her incredibly strong sole and did my best to filter my breathing so the heat and dank smells wouldn’t cause a blackout, though it was difficult. Within minutes of this torment beginning, I desperately wanted out, and then it occurred to me that this was just the beginning. Only now, as I was being cruelly manhandled by enormous ex’s jam-littered naked sole did I truly understand that I was beaten. She’d made me hers, and there was no escape. I might’ve cried, but Amber was rubbing me into her wet flesh so aggressively, which only caused more fluid to drip from her pores, that I honestly couldn’t have distinguished my own tears from the brine of her foot-sweat which now coated my body, along with toejam flecks like polka dots.

At last Amber retracted her bare foot from the box, batting me with her beefy big toe as it passed overhead. I rebounded off the wall of the box, dizzied but undamaged, just like she promised. At this point, though, I wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or a curse to be immune to destruction via giant feet.

“You better get some rest, Oscar. You’ve got a big day ahead of you tomorrow. And the next day… and the next day… and the day after that. Forever,” Amber murmured with a delighted smirk. She waved her loose sock around like a flag, then flung it into the shoebox. I only avoided getting buried under the sodden cotton like a deflated hot air balloon by diving to the side. “Here’s a little souvenir to help you get used to your new life. I’ll be back in the morning, six o’clock sharp, for work, and I’ll expect you to be ready to do exactly as I say, or… well, let’s just assume you don’t want to find out what happens if you upset me. Again. Sweet dreams, Oscar!”

With that, my ex-girlfriend slammed the prison of the shoebox shut and stalked away, sealing me in darkness with the marinating stench of her dirty sock and a nightmarish future.