(Originally written by Alistair)
“So, I’m curious about Norah’s job. What other kind of jobs did she have you fill in?” You could see in her eyes that “curious” could probably have been replaced with “angry”. Obviously Quinn cared a lot about people’s treatment of tinies, and hearing about Norah, unintentionally or otherwise, taking advantage of tiny guys seemed to make her pretty mad.
“Yeah, sure Quinn, let me think,” you put your hand on your chin and started to think, before thinking of a good one. “Ok, before I start this one I’ll remind you that most of what I went through on these jobs was not entirely Norah’s fault, she didn’t really know what she was getting me into most of the time.”
Quinn simply shrugged and stared at you expectantly. Clearly your reminder didn’t really sway her.
“Ok, so it all started when I was 16, after I had promised myself I wouldn’t help Norah out with these jobs anymore, she came to me with a listing she urgently needed to fill.”
(FLASHBACK START)
“No Aunt Norah, I’m sorry but I just don’t want to help out with this anymore! The last job you sent me on ended up with me being turned into a professional volleyball player’s insole for three weeks!” You whined up to Norah from your position on her open palm.
“But Hunter, if YOU don’t do this then I look bad to my bosses! I really need your help here,” Norah whined, pouting and gave you her best puppy-dog eyes. “I know the last job was horrible for you, but this one’s nothing like that! It’s just a cleaning job at a bowling alley, I swear no one will use you as clothing on this one. Plus the pay is super good, and on such short notice I can get you paid double! Please, please, please Hunter. I really need your help on this one!”
Norah didn’t happen to mention that her commission for this job would be much higher than what you’d be making on it, even with the double pay.
Norah’s pleading, along with her puppy-dog eyes, eventually wore you down. “Fine! I’ll do this one for you Aunt Norah, but only if you promise I won’t have to go near anyone’s feet for this one, I still get shivers whenever mom walks past me in bare feet after the last job.”
“Oh thank you so much Hunter! You’re really saving my ass here. I promise you won’t have to go anywhere near feet, or anything associated with feet, it’s just a cleaning job,” Norah’s smile beamed down towards you. She finished with a smirk. “I mean, come on. I’m not a complete scatterbrain.”
*****
“She is a complete scatterbrain,” you thought to yourself, enraged.
Somehow Norah had managed to misread “bowling alley shoe cleaner”, to just “bowling alley cleaner”. She had just convinced you to sign up to clean stinking bowling shoes for a week! On top of that, your work contract stipulated that you would stay on the premises for the whole week, so Norah had just dumped you on the counter and had just left you as you were going over the details in your head! You had no way of getting out of this.
As the swinging door closed behind your aunt as she left to go finish her morning jog, you were left to look up at the sneering face of your new boss for the week, Abby.
Abby was a short, thin woman who possessed a frame some would probably call cute. She was still massive in comparison to you, like every woman you encountered, but she did tower over you slightly less than most women. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her brown eyes were framed by a pair of large, square glasses. Her freckled face was currently pulled into a sneer that told you she probably didn’t like tiny guys such as yourself very much. No wonder Norah told you their last cleaner just didn’t turn up one day, with a boss like Abby you didn’t even want to turn up on the first day.
“Let’s hope you do a better job than the last guy,” Abby looked down at you with her pointed nose held high in the air.
“I’m sure a little bug like yourself will feel right at home in amongst the shoes of us regular people. Well at least, you better be, because that’s where you’ll be sleeping while you’re working here.”
As she chuckled at her mean-spirited taunting, you stood there, flabbergasted. She actually expected you to sleep in the shoes that have been worn by probably hundreds of people? Norah owed you big time when you got out of here.
“So there’s a small bucket and cloth down there for you, as well as a tap designed for someone your size to use, so there is no need for you to bother me while you’re here. If you happen to be in a shoe when I rent it out to someone it’s on you to get back out and continue working. I’m not paying you to lay about in a shoe that’s being used, so if I find out that you have been I’ll dock your pay for that day, got it!
“You little things are only useful for certain things and this is one of them, so don’t mess it up or I won’t hesitate to find another use for you for the week, a few of the older shoes could use a new insole, and maybe I just “forget” about doing that and tell Norah that you just left without any warning,” as she finished her threats you were genuinely terrified, you had never met a woman who had such an open disdain for tiny guys like this. What had Norah roped you into?
“G-Got it B-Boss,” you stammered out, wanting nothing more than to get your head down and get this week over with as soon as possible.
“Good, finally Norah has found a little bug who knows his place,” Abby smiled down at you, seemingly content with your subservience. She roughly pinched your torso between two fingers and carried you behind the counter to the shoes rack. Even from this height and distance you could see the small bridges and ladders that were placed throughout the massive rack of shoes specifically for tiny guys such as yourself to move around between the shoes. You saw a small water tap and pump for cleaning products, as well as a small bucket and cloth at the bottom of the rack. Most importantly, however, you could almost see a literal cloud of stench and sweat rising off of the shoes lined out on the rack, there were hundreds of pairs of varying sizes. This would be a difficult, long week.
As you gathered your cleaning equipment, although calling a small piece of rag and a tiny sized bucket filled with water and cleaning products “equipment” may have been a stretch, you mentally prepared yourself for a week of nothing but smelling the stench of old foot sweat. Lowering yourself into the first shoe your senses were assaulted by what smelled like years worth of wear on these shoes. This was going to be a long week.
*****
Four days had passed. You had cleaned so many shoes you had lost count, and you were convinced you would never get the smell of feet out of your clothes, or even your own skin for that matter.
Abby fed you once a day, leaving a small corner of a sandwich on the ground near the water tap. Otherwise she interacted with you very little, except to occasionally throw out a belittling taunt every once in a while when there weren’t customers.
On occasion Abby would come by to inspect a shoe after she had saw you crawl out of it, clearly checking your work, before staring down at you with a neutral expression before grunting and placing it back on the rack, never actually commenting on the quality of your work. You assumed this meant it was good because she hadn’t made good on her threat to turn you into an insole yet.
You had a few close calls on the first night, almost getting trapped in a shoe that Abby was fetching for a customer, but you always managed to get out in time before Abby had picked it up each time. After that you learned to try and clean the extremely large or small shoes during busy times since they were less likely to be picked.
By this point you were incredibly tired and aching, it was gruelling work having to clean the shoes for the entirety of the bowling alley’s opening hours and the smell of feet constantly surrounding you made it difficult to sleep.
You just hoped you could get through the next few days without incident, then Norah would pick you up and you could get out of here with some compensation for your suffering.
1) You find the old cleaner, engrained into one of the insoles of the most used pair on the rack.
2) Abby decides that you have done a bad job today, you spend the rest of your time in this job as an insole.
3) Abby thinks you’re doing a good job, she has you clean her shoes as well.
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