Careful What You Wish For (Chapter 13) (Patreon)

Suddenly Kayla’s fingers parted, and Cody found himself in stomach-revolving freefall. The absolutely-blazing anguish of having all four limbs cleaved away in sequence and then covered over without a drop of morphine to help was still bolting through him in miniature riptides, which he didn’t think could get any worse, but it turned out that plummeting what felt like the equivalent of ten stories toward the ground could indeed sour his feelings further. Cody spun end-over-end and landed hard on the buoyant liquid-dampened swampland of a grayish insole which stunk instantaneously of caked-in arch brine, bouncing and rolling to a stop with his face impotently pressed into the depression formed by the giantess’s heel. Because this region of the weathered inlay was especially sunken from repeated wear, the terrain was even stickier with the sponged-in remnants of her last grungy outpouring. Now afflicted with the sensation of being dropped from the top of a tall building as well as the lingering throes of his limblessness, Cody could only retch and sputter face-down in the muck, lacking any way to even push himself up for relief. Every time he thought Kayla had brought him to his lowest existential point, she found a way to push him further down.

“Who would’ve ever thought, huh, freak?” Cody’s power-mad owner chuckled with booming glee that seemed to shake him inside the vessel of her flat as though she’d seismically stomped her foot beside it. “You know? Who would’ve thought from the minute we first met that we’d end up like THIS. Me, standing above you, your giant GOD, with total control over every feeling and thought you have and everything that’s ever going to happen to you again as long as you live. And you, bawling your creepy little face out, with all your annoying arms and legs popped right off, while you suck out whatever nasty juice is left in that shoe for you because you literally only exist to be a toy for my feet. I definitely couldn’t have guessed it, that’s for sure! I mean, yeah, I thought you were lame when we first met – definitely not good enough for Ashley – and I had a feeling you wouldn’t last. Then you just stuck around anyway, like the loser who can’t take a hint that they’re not wanted at the party, and I could never figure out why that was. But now? I know exactly why you stayed! Because you were ALWAYS going to end up down there, below me. Tiny. Soft. Broken. In my shoe, where you belong.”

None of Kayla’s beliefs were news to Cody at this point, yet it still stung all the same to hear her voice smugly echoing all around him with the resonance of an atomic aftershock. He almost might’ve preferred that she just step on him again and get it over with, if only it would spare him from hearing her callous bellows for a while, or from feeling her pitiless gaze fixated upon his miserable Biblically-martyred arm-and-leg-free stump of a body lying prostrate in a putrified graywater puddle of insole gunk.

“Hey, look, I’m not saying I’m one of those weirdos who believes in fates and astrology crap,” Kayla happily continued, “but I AM saying that a thing like you, Cody, can really only have a couple possible uses in this world. Maybe just one use. And we found yours, together. Like destiny, I guess, if you really want to call it that. What else would you have been any good for, anyway? It must feel good to know that your existence finally has a purpose. That you can bring a little bit of joy to somebody’s life, finally. Because I’m not too embarrassed to say this: I never liked you. And I still don’t like you. But God, I sure do love watching you suffer like this. It… feels good. Every drop of blood, sweat, and tears my feet squeeze out of you makes me feel better. Even better, honestly, than it feels to have you smushed flat in the bottom of my shoe like a cozy little pillow for my soles. Speaking of which, though, I’m going to head out again soon, and I think I want you to be at the front. Under my toes. I mean, that was what you wanted earlier today anyway, right? And now I’m giving you exactly that! See, you can’t say I don’t do things for ya sometimes. Only, unless you have some freaky starfish superpower to grow back your arms and legs, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you’re going to have to work a little bit harder to get yourself up there in time before my foot comes down on you. Because if you’re NOT under my toes when I put the shoe on, well… I don’t mean to scare you, Cody, but there juuuuust might have to be a punishment or two! I don’t think that’s so unreasonable. Do you? Look, I know there’s not much going on in that head of yours, but I suggest you start using it to think of ways to get moving, and pronto. Bonus points if it makes you look even more pathetic while you’re doing it.”

Believing Kayla when she warned him of future punishment, as if she hadn’t already garnished him with perhaps the most extreme tortures any living being had ever endured in a single lifetime, Cody impossibly summoned just enough stamina and mental computing power to realize that literally the only way to transport himself to the toe section was via inch-worming. It wasn’t technically a long journey, maybe six inches to reach the toe-shaped bowl dips at the front of the flat, yet it might as well have been six miles for how spiritually shattered and pain-wracked the shrinker felt. But he had no choice. Gritting his teeth and grunting like a crippled animal, Cody began rhythmically arching his back and belly-flopping his limbless remains forward by fractions of an inch that made him feel as though the squashy sweat-saturated padding of the insole was made of broken glass.

“Wow, look at you GO! You’re really making it, aren’t ya, little guy! HA!” Kayla mused, eerily genuine-sounding in her encouragement, even between gut-busting laughter. “I’m so torn. It’s like, I want you to make it all the way there so I can watch the whole thing and hear all the hilarious noises you’re going to make while you’re worming – I did tell you that you make a seriously fugly worm, didn’t I? But on the other hand, I also REALLY hope you give up and stop right where you, because then I get to punish you! Well, let’s face it, I get to punish you whether you make it or you don’t, but let’s just pretend that you have a chance here, just for funsies. Let’s just play make-believe, Cody, that the last person in your life and honestly in the whole universe that you could’ve ever wished to have you stuck in her shoe and obeying her every command WON’T still screw with you even if you do a perfect job. Okay? Just keep telling yourself THAT goddess you wished for likes to have mercy on shrunken creepy stubby wormy crybaby foot-freaks. Trust me, you’ll probably be happier for it. At least for another minute. Speaking of which, I’m putting my shoe on in sixty seconds, so you’d better pick up the pace. Or… don’t. I’m going to have fun either way.”