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Unfortunately for me, it would be awhile before my mom realized what she’d done. My timetable for that day is pretty fuzzy, since I had no way to keep track of time, and the whole ordeal lasted far longer than just a few minutes. It’s similar to people in isolation chambers, who I’ve heard quickly lose track of time the longer it’s been since they’ve seen a clock or sunlight. Except my situation was both completely isolating and frustratingly intimate. There wasn’t a single person in the world who knew that I was subdued beneath my mom’s wrinkly, leather-smelling feet—including her. I couldn’t talk to anyone, and nobody would talk to me. But at the same time of course, there were a pair of larger-than-life feet that seemed to be glued to my face, violating my personal space.

The first half hour (or maybe it was a full hour, or only 15 minutes) were uneventful; my mom kept her feet flat on my face, and I lay there silently and unmoving. She would hum along to her music, and I’d hear the occasional clatter of her typing away at her keyboard, clicking her mouse, sometimes talking with her colleagues on her phone. At one point the receptionist even came into her office to deliver some papers to her, but apparently she never noticed the boy beneath his mother’s feet. As the minutes wore on, my face steadily got warmer, as the heat from her feet being stuck in her leather boots got transferred to my head. And the smell was inescapable. My nose was positioned right beneath her arches, except it was slightly smushed down because her arch wasn’t tall enough. I couldn’t breath through my mouth, since my mom had set her soles down while my lips were still closed, so the only option for me to inhale air was beneath my mom’s feet. Air would seep in through the cracks around the edges of her sole, and then pick up all the cheesy molecules from her wrinkled surface, before getting sucked into my nostrils and filling my head with the soured stench of my mother. And I couldn’t even see through anything throughout the whole ordeal, since the balls of her feet were nestled right on my eyes. When her feet had initially came down, I reflexively closed them so nothing would get in my eyes, but then her sturdy foot kept my eyelids shut. So for what felt like the longest time, I couldn’t see anything, I couldn’t move; I could only smell, and it was the most humiliating stench I could remember ever smelling in my life. But that wasn’t true for very long.

But after awhile her feet seemed to grow restless. I felt movement for the first time since she’d first placed them on me, and my precious little heart had hoped that maybe my ordeal was about to be over. But the slight motion of her foot didn’t amount to my rescue or the end of it all; she was just scraping her sole along my face, unconsciously shifting about. Although it allowed me to open up my left eye for the first time in half an hour, seeing nothing but my mom’s legs in front of me while the underside of her desk cut off any chance of face to face interaction. I could see the red nail polish on her toes as they clawed at my cheek for whatever reason. Her nails were well maintained, but it seemed like it had been awhile since they were last cut, since their edges dug into my skin, lightly scratching my skin and nearly causing me to whimper. But then the foot lifted itself off my face, as my mom crossed her legs and readjusted herself in her seat to get more comfortable. Sitting for hours at a desk every day had its drawbacks, but luckily for her she had my face to help take the edge off, even if she didn’t realize it was my face.

The foot that was still on my face slid over during her readjustment, to make a bit more room for her other one as it dangled right above my eyes. It was like it was taunting me, as she wiggled her plump toes above my face, knowing I couldn’t get up, while her other foot squashed my nose and made sure to keep the oxygen entering my lungs laced with the scent of her foot. But apparently having my pointy little nose digging into her sole got uncomfortable for her, because she moved it downwards so that my nostrils could instead get nestled into the crevice between her toes and the ball of her foot. The only small, silver lining was that there wasn’t anything obstructing my view anymore, but that small degree of freedom had been traded for a worse fate for my nose. With her toes now getting cozy with my poor snout, they seemed to soon realize its potential. Like someone fidgeting with a button on their shirt, or prodding at a piece of food stuck in their teeth, her toes used my nose as a way to relieve their stress. At least, that’s what I figured they were doing, since I couldn’t think of any other reason why they started to play with my nostrils.

At first, she would just pinch my nostrils shut, squeezing her son’s nose between her toes and flattening it as much as she could. And since my mouth was still obstructed by the lower part of her sole, my only chance for air was whenever she’d graciously release me, before squeezing back down again after only a second. And she seemed to like to squeeze it for a lot longer than she’d leave it open, which trained me to inhale as quickly as I could with every chance she released me again. At one point when she was on the phone with of the magazine’s journalists who she didn’t seem to like very much, her discussion grew more and more frustrated with whoever was on the other end of the conversation. At the end of the call, after finally growing impatient with her subordinate, she began lecturing them, and her feet seemed to adopt the attitude the rest of her felt. I watched as the foot hanging above me clenched and her skin turned white, as if her toes were fingers, strangling someone angrily within their grasp. But the foot that rested on me wasn’t any different, except for the fact that there was actually something they had been holding onto for the past few minutes. Between her powerful big toe, and the collective weight of her other four, my mom pinched my nose together with the force of someone trying to permanently glue it shut. I wanted so badly to breath in again. Not only did her toes make sure there wasn’t any conceivable way that the smallest amount of air might get through to me, but for the first time, the pressure she gave off actually hurt. As she continued scolding the poor person at the other end of the call, she foot twisted my nose back and forth, like she was trying to tear it off my face. With her employee not actually present, my nose became her secret avenue of channeling all of her anger and frustration, so much so that she even pressed down even harder with the rest of her sole. She wasn’t even aware of it, it was just her unconscious reaction to how pissed off she was. The muscularity of her foot was so ridiculously strong against my head and neck, it caused my arms to fall asleep, unable to even move anymore. If I had ever been able to get up before, I definitely wasn’t able to now, since her giant foot pressed me roughly against the carpet, her heel on my lips and her sharp toenails digging into my cheeks while she compressed my nose into a singular little stub. My lungs were on fire by now, and my diaphragm desperately tried inflating over and over, but without the tiniest whiff of air to show for all its work. Although my arms were dead, my legs weren’t, but their thrashing about didn’t actually budge her chair, since it was wedged right up against my crotch, so my legs weren’t able to kick it or anything actually useful. I started to wonder if this was how I was going to die, strangled to death by the furious toes of my own mother, completely oblivious to my plight. I wanted to yank my head free, but her lone, powerful leg had enough force in its muscles to make sure my head wasn’t going anywhere. Tears formed in my eyes as I wondered if this was it; I couldn’t even whimper because the noise would’ve required more air than I had available at this point. With my vision slowly starting to darken as I was on the verge of passing out, she finally hung up the phone and released my nose, and all the built up stress from the call instantly released with the press of a button. Immediately I gasped for fresh air, my nostrils flaring as wide open as they could possibly stretch so I could suck down as much oxygen as I could from between my mom’s pungent, stinky toes. Her feet had granted me life, literally allowing me to continue living, and my lungs were hungry for as much sustenance as they could get, no matter how sour and tainted her dirty feet made it. I breathed in quickly and with so much force, I literally cooled down the surface of her skin because of all the muggy warmth that I gratefully gulped up. For the next few minutes, I didn’t even care how bad the stench of my mom’s feet was—I had been on the precipice of passing out, and any kind of oxygen I could get was worth it. And yet despite it all, despite having toyed with me with her toes and rubbing her leather-scented soles all over my face, all over the course of what felt like at least an hour… she still hadn’t noticed me.

The next half hour or so gave me time to simmer down. My mom’s feet still occupied my face the entire time, and I had once again grown tired of their smell. But at least I could breathe normally again. I actually fell into such a relaxed state after having panicked so much earlier, that my eyes began to flutter and I started drifting off to sleep. If I was really going to spend the entire day like this, which I was beginning to think might happen, then I wasn’t opposed to at least sleeping through part of it so the time could faster quicker. But just when I was on the verge of actually falling asleep, my mom had to go to the bathroom, so she looked under her desk to grab her boots and gasped when she saw her bare feet planted on her boy’s face.

“Oh my God, Timmy!” she cried, immediately recoiling her feet from my head as my eyes flashed open, bringing me back. “I… I’m so sorry,” she said, curling her toes anxiously. “I completely forgot you were even here, and I… oh God, Timmy, I’m so so sorry honey!”

I had spent so long under her feet, I wasn’t expecting her to notice me until her lunch break, or even the end of the day maybe. “Um… it’s okay Mommy,” I said quietly, scratching my nose. Breathing in pure, untainted air felt weird, and cold, after hours of only being able to inhale the warm stench of my mom’s feet.

“No, no it’s not, I don’t know how I didn’t even realize you were there, sometimes I just get so in the zone you know and… ugh, I’m really sorry Timmy. I know my feet couldn’t have smelled very good either, that probably didn’t help, huh?” I shook my head. “Here, come on out from under there,” she said, scooting her chair back to give me the ability to crawl out. I pushed myself up, ready for my freedom, when I heard a knock at my mom’s door, before it opened, and I heard someone walk in. Instinctively wanting to hide me from anyone noticing, she scooted back in and swung her feet back in front of my head, quickly planting them back on my face and pushing down, forcing me back onto the floor. My mom looked up in surprise, “Oh, Kali! I forgot about our meeting,” she lied. She hadn’t, but she shared my desire to not have anyone find out about me staying under her desk. Especially with how many people had filtered in and out over the last few hours without ever seeing me.

“I hope that doesn’t mean you’re not ready?” I heard a woman say, somewhere above and behind me.

“Of course not, we can go right ahead, but can I have just a few minutes first to finish up this outline I was writing for Patrick?” She really just wanted time so I could come out from under her desk and she could put her boots back on, and then pretend like I had been in and out of the bathroom all morning. It wasn’t the most convincing lie, but nobody would question it if they didn’t have a reason to.

“Yeah, sure! Just let me know when you’re ready,” she said, and went to take a seat on my mom’s couch, opening up her packet so she could go through it again. My mom froze; she hadn’t expected her boss to just wait for her in her office. And technically they were already running behind for their meeting anyways. He’s already had to endure my feet for the last few hours… another 30 minutes or so won’t kill him, she told herself, maintaining her feet’s position on my face as she pretend to finish up an email on her computer so it wouldn’t look like she was lying.

“OK, so uh…” she said, breathing in deeply as she prepared for the next half hour, “yeah, let’s get started then.”

“Great!” her boss said, sliding over a chair so she could sit on the other end of my mom’s desk. Except this time, with my mom’s feet still on my face, the situation was different, since she knew I was there—but it didn’t matter. She didn’t want her boss realizing that one of her employees had trapped their son beneath their feet all morning. So she just had to keep her feet firmly planted on my face, and go on pretending like I wasn’t even there, while I prepared for another round of stinking confinement beneath my mom’s feet.

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