Beta in an Alpha World (Chapter 5) (Patreon)

It’s tough to know sometimes if I’m somehow personally responsible for putting myself into these types of situations, where – often without any warning – I seem to entirely lose control of a situation that then manages to backfire on me in the most embarrassing, disempowering, and sense-fluxing ways. Or maybe I just have really bad luck.

Whatever the reason, though, I found myself pretty blindsided by circumstance this time, only a couple weeks following that late night “incident” when my roommate came home drunk from the clubs. Maybe I was caught even more off-guard because I’d started paying such close attention to Izumi’s activities around our apartment in order to avoid any more stifling briny-scented encounters with her feet that, as a result, I unconsciously lost focus while at work. Which is never a good idea when you’re a Beta, no matter where you are. Still, I’ve worked at Scicroft for four years now, where all of the staff (of both size classes) dedicate themselves daily to developing new products and technologies for healthily bridging the gaps between Alphas and Betas. So if I should’ve felt safe to let my guard down anywhere, it was in a workspace full of deeply sympathetic, conscientious, and scientifically-minded individuals. Even if a lot of those coworkers happen to utterly tower above me, they’ve always been much better than Izumi at keeping track of their half-inch-tall peers.

At least until this particular day, when our department had its first new Alpha hire in a long time: an apparently super-bright developer named Bethany, fresh out of grad school and ready to impress. From everything I’d heard, she’d make a great addition to our team. I knew she was starting today, which should’ve given me even more reason to be hyper-vigilant around the workplace, but I wasn’t. So maybe what happened next, and continued to happen, was in some way my fault. My “introduction” to Bethany was more so with her shoes than with the woman herself, as I returned to my ground-level desk on our testing floor that morning to find it was now neighbored very closely by a pair of colossal feminine feet, housed tightly inside a set of tan-soled flats with clear plastic walls. Most of the contents of that footwear would’ve been visible, if not for the palpable warmth built up so stuffily within, causing the translucent surfaces that snugly fitted to her appendages to fog gray as if washed over with hot breath. Beads of perspired condensation within the shoes occasionally broke up that misty obfuscation, making Bethany’s thick blushing toes and peachy insteps easier to see. Not that I wanted to see that (at least I didn’t consciously believe so at the time), but it wasn’t long before I didn’t have much choice.

Right then, I should’ve just taken the closest elevator to the top of the desk surface where Bethany was now making herself at home, so I could politely get acquainted with her and also make her fully aware of my presence down here. But I simply didn’t do that, thinking there was no need to overwhelm her too quickly, while she was still getting used to these surroundings at her first-ever big job in the field. The price I paid for that passive choice was, instead, to be overwhelmed myself. I took just one glance along the brunette ponytailed Alpha’s prodigious silhouette, geared up so professionally already in her white lab coat, goggles, and gloves, and then went back to focusing on my own work for the time being. Bethany appeared so preoccupied already with whatever tasks she’d begun up there, evidently doing her best to establish a go-getter attitude from her very first hour on-duty, that she hadn’t budged since I’d come in, and hadn’t even turned her head.

Which meant I was in for all the more surprise when, just twenty minutes later, I wandered away from my desk just a yard or so across the greater expanse of the pristine white testing floor beyond. It’s usually easy for the Alphas working here to spot a Beta traveling across such stark-colored ground, and I’ve never felt insecure before while doing so. But that attitude was quickly made to change when I suddenly looked up to find myself engulfed in the fast-descending shadow of the newcomer giantess’s now-naked right foot. I peeped out an unheard squeal and made one pathetic attempt at dodging before I was flattened supine against the floor beneath the doughy wrinkle-rife midsection of Bethany’s unsheathed sole. She didn’t pull away at first contact, and instead just kept on committing to standing on me, which meant she hadn’t felt me under her foot. Not great. Now, as mildly inconvenient as it can sometimes be existing at a half an inch tall (okay, a lot inconvenient), I guess I ought to count my blessings – like in this moment, for example – that our bodies are at least built disproportionately tough for our statures. Because if that wasn’t the case, even a gentle tap under Bethany’s plunging ped would’ve instantaneously crippled me, if not left me pulped like a strawberry jam stain stuck in the dimples of her arch. So the good news was, I wasn’t left quadriplegic or dead.

Still, getting stepped on by a being hundreds of times your size isn’t exactly the coziest sensation, either. I was immediately forced spread eagle beneath some of the burliest brute-force tension I’d felt in quite a while, and definitely while on Scicroft premises. The flesh of Bethany’s bare foot was at least reasonably soft, with a spongy yield and a predictably buttery layering of that same sweaty residue which had so thoroughly fogged over the inside of her now-shed flats. In fact, this all-encompassing texture which had one surprising split-second swallowed me in darkness and pinned me to the floor would’ve almost seemed pleasantly cushy if I’d found myself lying upon her foot freely in isolation (not that I’d ever thought to do that before).