Dan was practically frantic with desperation. This experience was quite unlike anything he could have imagined, it was as if he had been placed in a cramped, dark stuffy box and tossed around like a soccer ball.
With every footstep Fancine took, Daniel felt a sickening accent, and a jostling, crushing landing afterwords. The enormous weight of toes above him crushed and mashed him into the padded fabric of her footwear, it was a torment with no end, a dark, confided, claustrophobic hell, and there was no escape.
“I can’t breathe…I need air…it’s so stuffy.” Dan coughed, clawing at the ground he was mashed into and desperate to feel clean, fresh air once more, but denied with every thundering footfall.
Even the smell was overwhelming his senses. It wasn’t erotic and alluring as he once imagined it would be. No, instead it was nauseating.
Dan had once thought he would be warm, comfortable and safe, like being wrapped up in a beautiful foot-buirito. Now he was just hot, bruised and afraid!
Every once in a while the atrocious jostling would come to an end and Dan would be offered a brief moment of crushing respite. The enormous weight of her big toe pinning him effortlessly to the fabric insole was intense and no matter how hard he struggled against it, he couldn’t free himself neither could he convince the brute of a toe to ease up on his small frame.
“Oh, that would be lovely, thanks!” Dan could hear Francine’s voice up above, muffled by great distance between them and the fabric of shoe and foot atop him. Whatever was the reply, he couldn’t make out, neither could he hear the goings on of the outside world. Fran’s muffled voice was his only link to the world outside.
“I can’t take this! Let me out…Francine let me out of here! I’m dying in here…help me…somebody help me!” Dan began to scream, thrash about and claw at the nylon of Francine’s foot, all in vain impotent despair.
“I’ll see you later than, thanks.” Francine’s voice thoomed, and then the carnival ride from hell began once more, and Daniel Gillman once again felt his stomach leave his body only to come crashing back as the world around him quaked terribly with every impact.
This went on for an inordinate length of time, there was no way for Dan to sense the passage of time, every footstep melted together in a monotonous and continual battery of his senses. The closest he came to allerting Francine to his presence was a momentary stop so she could readjust her foot in her shoe. A tease of fresh air seeped in before the faint trace of light was taken from him again, leaving him in darkness once more.
In the chaos Daniel had been shoved out of place and pinned against the toe section of Francine’s boot by her big and second toe. It was a position change and allowed him to move his aching limbs. This too would only be a brief respite, as a simple curling of her toes as if to scratch an itch greedily collected him back where he belonged, pinned under her big toe once more.
“No! Stop…I’m in here…don’t do it…” Dan’s voice cracked and he coughed, his lungs pleading for fresh air.
Depression set in, his most passionate fury hardly an aggravation for Francine.
When Dan believed his body could no longer take the assault, he was given an elongated rest as Francine seemed to stop. A great weight was taken off him, as he seemed as if floating in mid air. Dan could only deduce that Francine was sitting down now. The rhythmic shaking of his prison, maybe the causal bouncing of her crossed legs? He really had no way of knowing.
Fran had remained mostly stationary for quite some time, and there was a lot of conversation, the only part of it he could hear of course coming from Francine herself.
He of course took every chance he could to rally for her attention. When there was a break in the conversation, when she stopped shaking her foot long enough to gather his senses, and when her toes would cease their endless assault on him and remain still long enough for him to catch a full breath.
Nothing helped.
“I don’t even really like feet! Okay!” Dan screamed into the void. Oh sure, that was a lie, but it was closer now to being the truth than it ever had before.
“You know….and another thing…we really need to…Donna…and I don’t think….” Dan had given up shouting long enough to focus in on the conversation, picking up about every other word thanks to the ambient noise around them drowning Fran’s voice out. But he’d heard all he needed to.
She was talking about Donna, his Donna!
“Donna…” Dan whispered. If she knew what he had been reduced to, if she could see him now…less than a man, less than an insect. Reduced to lint gathered under her mothers toe?
It was humiliating in a way he had never felt before. He’d traded his humanity for nothing more than a fetish.
“... really better off….and now that….can’t imagine why he’d do that….”
Now they were talking about him? Dan sank, what was left of his will to fight left him, and he let his body sink into topar.
Who was she talking to? Who was so important that she could share this sensitive information with? Dan knew Francine, she wouldn’t share information with anyone that would hurt her reputation, or that of her family? That meant whomever she was lunching with, had to be somebody close and personal?
It didn’t matter, he would never live long enough to see their face. It was maddening! He had all but exhausted himself throwing a tantrum in hopes of being noticed, and was about to surrender to sleep, when life giving cool air quickly invaded his prison cell, followed by a blinding light
Dan could see the trace outline of Francine’s foot slipping free of her boot. For a moment he had been taken along for the ride, only to fall and roll back to the toe section due to the incline of her shoe. He was still trapped, but he could breathe, and see once more! In comparison, it was heaven. But more importantly, there was now hope!
“All I'm saying is the Man has to be a little strange in the head to do a thing like that.” Dan could hear Fran's voice clearly now, as if he was standing right next to her, just as loud and obnoxious as ever.
“I know Ma...” The second voice was familiar, very familiar...Ma? It was Donna!
“I'm serious Donna, do you realize the effort he had to have put into it? Port-a-Sizer's don't just SHRINK people on their own. They make them like that for a reason.” Fran spoke with a condescending tone.
“H…he had to have been planning this for a while then...” Donna sounded confused, lost, frightened.
“Mhmm.”
“Well...well maybe he's still at home then! Somewhere hoping I find him! Maybe it can be reversed!” There was a spark of hope in her tone.
“I don't know...how could he survive? You may have even...well...” There was a pause, neither voice spoke. Daniel could hear commotion amongst the silence and soft jazz music playing in the background. There were other distant voices, clanging sounds, and such. It took a moment for him to get the strength to crawl towards the opening of the shoe. But once he did, he almost wished he had not.
Miles above him, towering well out of reach, was the rim of Fran's pump. A sinking helpless feeling overcame him.
“Aww come on! Give me a god damn break!” Dan kicked the inner wall of her shoe, and let out a string of profanity. With intense vigor he threw himself at the vertical wall before him, as if he expected to climb the wall like a spider. But he simply slipped down onto his stomach. He jumped, reached and strained, until he had exhausted himself once more. But there was no chance he was ever going to climb that wall. It was many times higher than him.
“I can't give up. Donna! Donna! HELP!” Dan backed up and took a run at one of the shoe walls, body checking it as hard as he could! Without stopping he ran at the opposite wall, body checking it, and then back and forth, back and forth. But his efforts didn't even budge the shoe. The man made testament to orthopedic style and easily held him within its belly.
As he heaved and panted, he once again focused on the ongoing conversation between his wife and his mother in law, silently rooting for Donna as if her victory over her mothers condescension meant life and death for him…as it very likely did.
“You might have to face the fact that he's just gone sweetie. What good would calling the police do? Even the best investigators wouldn't be able to find him. He could have been eaten by some bug, stepped on...” There was a grave tone to Fran's voice.
Was she really trying to convince Donna to just give up, to abandon all hope and count him as lost? He wasn’t gone, he was right under their noses! He needed help!
“Donna…Donna I’m here baby, right here…don’t listen to….” Dan’s voice was interrupted by Donna’s much more commanding tone.
“We can't give up mom...we just can't.” Donna was crying audibly now.
“Don't give up...I'm right here...hun I'm right here....” Dan whispered, tears falling from his face too now.
“And we won’t. We'll go home and look again...I don't know...we'll bring a magnifying glass? We'll think of something...but Donna...you have something else to consider too.”
“Hmm?” Donna sniffled.
“What Dan did...it's very illegal. Tampering with a port-a-sizer is a federal offense...and you know...”
“What are you suggesting, mother?” Donna sounded horrified.
“Now calm down Donna. Listen to me. If you call the police, and they DO find him, it won't be a happy ever after. They will take him away, arrest him. And where will that leave you?”
“But he needs help...”
“And we will help him...IF we can find him. But we have to keep this a secret, for his sake.” “
“No!” Dan screamed. “Donna! Call them...please...Donna don't listen!” Dan was terrified at what he was hearing. Donna had to call the police, a simple body check...forensic investigation...hell dusting for prints...all he needed was to be under the “microscope” long enough to be found! Donna and Fran alone would NEVER find him!
“I...guess you’re right.” Donna broke into tears once more.
Dan’s heart sank. He fell to his knees, a crushing feeling of defeat and hopelessness embracing him.
“She’s going to convince her to give up on me…the bitch is going to manipulate her until she gets her way, just like she always does.” Only this time, Dan wouldn’t be there to pull Donna out of the hole her mother trapped her in. “Francine, you bitch!” Dan shouted, and in his rage didn't notice the looming shadow until it was directly over top of him.
He looked up in time to see Fran's toes pointing downward entering the shoe.
“Oh God!” Dan crawled and scrambled he was worth, to escape from the shadow of Fran's foot. “Wait…wait no stop…I’m here god damnit!”
For a moment he almost thought he was going to make it to the toe section, however to his horror Fran's toes overcame him, and he found himself under her foot!
“Wait...stop…not like this!” Dan screamed, until the unearthly weight of his mothers foot forced the air out of him. He was pinned, much worse than before now.
Fran's foot pinned Dan under the boney ball of her foot. The weight of her foot alone was enough to cause Dan extreme pain. His face smooched against the insole of Fran's pump, his other cheek against the fabric of her nylons.
“Mmmmfpt!” Dan cried, but only silence awaited him, total silence.
Dan struggled with renewed vigor! This caused Fran to adjust her foot until it was comfortable. Once she was satisfied the aggravation was conquered, she settled in and again there was silence, no movement...nothing. All he could do was wait...wait for her to stand, or to even so much as press down absentmindedly.
“Mmmmm!!” Silence
“Mmlp…mafft!!” No response.
Nothing but complete and total sensory deprivation if not for the overwhelming and powerful pulse of Francine’s heartbeat felt through her pulse.
Dead…silence.