RR Lori Warren - Chapter 22 (Patreon)

Chapter 22 - Lost…

October 24th, 2005

Lori's heart pounded in her chest as her mind ran frantic. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the empty nightstand. It stood there innocently, devoid of the small heatbox she had placed there before her shower. A feeling of unease settled over her and the room suddenly felt colder than it had been just moments ago.

Desperation crept into her gaze as she fixated on the nightstand, as if hoping that by sheer willpower, Michael would materialize once more. She could almost see his cherubic face, the innocent expression that melted her heart every time. But the nightstand remained stubbornly vacant.

In her haste, Lori yanked open each drawer of her dresser, the sound of rustling fabric and rattling buttons mingling with her growing anxiety. Doubts crept in like shadows, whispering that perhaps she hadn't placed Michael on the nightstand after all. The drawers revealed a collection of clothes—yoga pants, leggings, jeans, shirts, sleepwear—but no sign of the missing heatbox. No sign of Michael.

A lump formed in Lori's throat as she scoured every inch of her bedroom. The drawer that held her underwear was Michael’s home away from her bottom so naturally it received the most scrutiny, her trembling hands sifting through the garments in a desperate search but it proved just as fruitless as the other searches. Panic gnawed at her.

Lori turned her attention to her unmade bed, a jumble of blankets and sheets that where Michael had to be, right? With a sinking feeling, she peered under the covers, half-expecting Michael to be hiding in the folds. Yet, the creases yielded no sign of the missing heatbox.

Lori's mind raced with unsettling thoughts, and her eyes darted around the room in a futile attempt to locate the missing object.

“This is ridiculous, where could it have gone?”Lori turned each of her slippers upside down, hoping to see Michael tumble out.  She started retracing her steps, but immediately became frustrated by the simplicity of her earlier routine. How could this have happened? Literally, there was no opportunity in her mind where she could have misplaced Michael.

And then all the sudden, she remembered.

“…Isabella.” Lori said out loud.

Lori had passed Isabella on the stairs; as Lori was heading down with the laundry basket, Isabella was going up.  Could it be that her daughter had entered Lori’s room without permission?  Could it be that Isabella had taken the heatbox with Michael inside?  Could it be that Isabella decided to keep him and try to hide it from her?  Lori honestly had a difficult time even getting past the first assumption, let alone the following.  Isabella was the good one out of the group.  She’d caught Gina smoking cigarettes last year. Victoria was failing 2 classes in school.  But Isabella?  She was the shining example!  It just couldn’t have been her.

Would Victoria trespass?  Yes.  Would Gina?  Maybe.  Isabella on the other hand, Lori just couldn’t picture it.

Still, Michael was not where she left him and time was ticking; he should have been tucked away safely in her bottom by now!

The girls were still dancing downstairs when Lori descended the staircase. Her speed prompted Gina to stop dancing long enough to look back, perhaps fearful that her dear mother was falling down the stairs.

“Where’s your sister?” Lori asked her eldest and youngest daughters.

Victoria asked, mouth full of potato chips, “Which one?”

Lori rolled her eyes and huffed, “Well, you’re watching one of them dance right now. How many sisters do you think you have, dear?”

While dancing, Gina responded, “She’s up in her room, I think.”

Lori bounced back upstairs and quietly approached Isabella and Victoria’s side of the second floor.  Once only a few steps from the bedroom door, she could hear Isabella’s voice but she couldn’t tell what she was saying or who she was talking to.  Lori pressed her ear against the wooden face of Isabella’s door and could now hear the periodic squeaks of the teenager’s noisy desk chair.  She could also make out her words a bit clearer now.  It sounded like Isabella was talking on the phone.

“Yeah, Abby.  It’s seriously so tiny

….

“…no, Abby.”

….

“…hahaha….nope, even tinier than that!”

……

“…Well yeah, I’m having a hard time believing it myself.”

…….

“…uh-huh”

….

“…Yeah, suuuper pathetic.”

…..

“Yeah.  Here, I’ll send you a picture of it if you don’t believe me.”

Lori’s hand rushed to her gaping mouth to shield the gasp and her eyes widened.  She felt sick to her stomach and dizzy. Her sweet Isabella had really taken her Michael!

‘How does she even know about him?’ she thought in disbelief. ‘All his paperwork is in with my documents…every call with Dr. Walker has been outside or in my car far away from the girls…there’s absolutely no way she’d be able to see him when he’s doing his 12 hours tucked away in her bottom! She was having a difficult time with this. As far as Lori knew and would love to continue believing, her innocent 17-year old daughter hadn’t even expressed interest in boys, let alone ones much older and much smaller!  If Isabella had somehow become aware of Michael and was curious, she couldn’t blame her.  He was incredibly small but Lori could tell he was handsome.  And naked, for God’s sake!

Lori had dreaded the inevitable day when she’d walk in on Isabella lip-locked with a boy and his hand up her t-shirt but nothing like this…then again, a month ago Lori would have considered the idea of a tiny little man like Michael living between her buttocks an impossible idea.  Whatever Isabella had planned with little Michael couldn’t have been good; perhaps the lens through which she’d viewed the situation was dirtied by how much pleasure Michael had been giving her lately, but in her mind, taking a tiny naked man that wasn’t yours couldn’t have been done out of very pure intentions!

But still, this wasn’t just any boy, like a big highschool football player or wrestler…or some older college boy that Lori would have to eye suspiciously as he put his hand around Isabella’s waist in front of her at dinner.  This was Michael.  It wasn’t as if he could take advantage of her or harm her in any way like a real boy could.  There at least was no reason to worry for her well-being…but Michael on the other hand…

Her head was spinning with the right things to say and do.  The right thing to say would hopefully come, but the right thing to do in that moment was open the door, so she placed her hand on the doorknob and began to twist.  Before the door opened, Isabella broke the few moments of silence that Lori spent disbelieving the situation.

“There, I sent it to you.  See?

……

“No, it’s on page 5 of the syllabus…”

…

“..Yeah.”

…

“Yeah seriously! It only counts for 5% of the project so—”

….

“Yes, I know! You don’t have to tell me! How are you going to make that such a tiny part of the final grade? I—”

….

“No, I’m not going to either.

…

“Okay great.

….

“Uh-huh.”

…

“Uh-huh……yeah.”

…

“Yeah, I’ve already worked on it even longer than you….like 2 hours or so.”

…

“Sounds good.  Yeah, I think we’ll be alright.”

…

“Okay see you then, byeee.”

Lori slowly let the knob return to its resting position and let go.  It didn’t seem like Isabella had Michael.  She didn’t have much time to reflect on this though because she heard the sharp squeak of Isabella’s chair and then soft footsteps approaching the door upon which Lori’s head rested.  Lori moved as quickly and quietly as she could to her bedroom door.

Luckily for Lori, Gina’s door was in line with her own, otherwise Isabella might have seen Lori dart suspiciously into her own bedroom.  She shut the door and heard Isabella’s soft footsteps going downstairs.  Lori sighed in relief.

She felt a little guilty jumping to conclusions like that and suspecting Isabella, and now those feelings of dread were returning to her.  If Isabella hadn’t taken Michael, where on earth was he?? Lori was absolutely certain neither of the other girls had been upstairs yet so it couldn’t have been them that took Michael.

Lori ripped the sheets and comforter off her bed and shook them out over the carpet.

Nothing.

She took every item out of her drawers.

No heatbox.

She again investigated each of her bedside slippers, lifting the soles to see if the box had somehow been compressed underneath.

No Michael.

She looked in the bathroom, in her closet, under her bed.  She checked everywhere but there was no sign of him.  There hadn’t been any pets in the house for some time…no one else knew about him.  Her windows were all shut. She supposed he could have gotten out from underneath her door if he really wanted to, but that didn’t explain where the heatbox was.  Where could he have gone?

Lori would have bet her life that she didn’t put him back in her bottom; she was sure she would remember that…but how many times over the years had she caught herself searching high and low for a set of car keys that were in her purse, or worse yet in her coat pocket?  Lori lowered her hands to the undersides of her hefty ass cheeks, snug in the backseat of her denim jeans.

Sometimes it was impossible or inconvenient for her to check up on him throughout the day so she devised a way of communicating with him through bouncing her buttocks.  He learned it quickly, and it only took about a half-day or so of repeating it to teach him.  The pattern was:

LEFT, LEFT, RIGHT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT

Lori had taught this pattern to Michael a few weeks ago.

She lifted the dense flesh of her left ass cheek and let it bounce with force back to its resting position, then quickly lifted it again.  The bountiful flesh moved with little resistance due to the growing perspiration created by the stress of the situation. Then she did the same on her right glute.  Two distinct bounces.  Then she bounced her left ass cheek once and her right ass cheek once.  One final bounce on her left ass cheek.

The way her fingers bounced the flesh of her ample bottom was very distinct from the other movements he’d experience during her normal day-to-day, so he never seemed confused or mistaken.  As instructed, any time she did the “bounce check”, he always responded by thrashing wildly to let Lori know that he was okay.  She would let him know that she felt his movements by giving one big bounce on both of her cushiony cheeks at the same time, and only then would he be allowed to stop thrashing around.  And then that’d be that.  She’d have confirmed that he was safe and sound in her bottom without even having to stop what she was doing.  She’d even done it once or twice during a boring conversation at a boring work party.

But this time, as she did the bounce check, there was no response.

Michael wasn’t on her nightstand.  Michael wasn’t with Isabella.  Michael wasn’t in her bottom where he belonged.  Where was he?

Lori knew she hadn’t taken him outside of the room, or at least she was almost sure she hadn’t.  She went downstairs, seeing the girls still dancing.  Isabella had now joined her sisters, no doubt due to the revelation she’d shared with her friend Abby over the phone.  Lori would have to pretend she didn’t know about it.  She filled a glass of water and wet her lips.  A pervasive thought entered her mind and honestly she was surprised that it didn’t happen sooner. Had he run away?

No! He wouldn’t dream of doing that!

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

The wash was done.  She finished a few more sips of cold water and set the glass down, trying to imagine where on earth Michael could be as she entered the laundry room.  She opened the lid of the washer and removed all her wet, cold clothing, transferring it to the dryer.  She initiated the washer fill and mixed in the detergent, going over in her head what in heavens she was going to say to Dr. Walker.

Sure, the literature that the doctor gave her said that losing a subject was not the end of the world; she would be provided with a new subject, but Lori didn’t want a strike in her record.  Even worse, she didn’t want to have to start over from “square 1” with a brand-new subject. She’d made so much progress with Michael and taught him so many important lessons.  And they’d developed a wonderful rapport! Starting over with a new subject would be exhausting! Lori then picked up Gina’s hamper and started tilting toward the washer’s open mouth.

The garments inside the hamper sifted into a flowing sea of flexible bright pinks, blues, and reds… stripes and polka dots and blacks and the whites…and amidst the waving ocean of delicates, Lori saw brown.

It was a rigid, unflexing brown that didn’t flutter like the fruity colors that surrounded it.  Lori froze.  A few pairs of panties and socks had tumbled into the mouth of the washer, but Lori stopped before the rest fell in.  She set the hamper back down and the brown disappeared under the settling vibrant colors.  She moved a few undergarments and found a small sliver of the brown. It was almost entirely concealed by a bra cup; clearly Isabella’s considering how much bigger it was than the others.  She moved the bra aside with precision like an archeologist uncovering a buried artifact and there it was.

It was the heatbox.

Somehow the heatbox had ended up in the girls’ laundry hamper!

Feelings of excitement and euphoria faded just as quickly as they appeared when Lori inspected the box.  The flap was already opened, and a quick look inside revealed that it was completely empty.  Lori started frantically sifting through the underwear, shirts, bras, and socks that filled the hamper, hoping against hope that Michael had been stuck in one of the folds of fabric.  She whispered into the dirty laundry but heard nothing in response. She didn’t find him.  Her hope turned to horror when her eyes wandered up to the washer and dryer.

The dryer was noisily spinning her wet clothes.  She quickly opened the door to stop the drying cycle.  Scalding hot water rushed into the washer, mixing with the caustic detergent strong enough to clean clothes and probably destroy tiny boys like Michael.  She stopped the process immediately but if he was already in there, the damage was done. There was non way the poor boy could survive such a hostile environment.  Lori grimaced as she stood up and looked in the dark hole.  She was about to reach in and start removing soaking wet clothing when she heard something loud from the living room.  If nothing else, Lori was an optimist so it was beautifully relieving as it was alarming all at the same time.

“Oh, god! Bug!  Bug!!  BUUUUGGG!!!!!”

Lori's heart raced as the shrill cry echoed through the living room. She frantically tossed the laundry hamper aside, colorful underwear flying everywhere as if a pinata exploded as she sprinted toward the girly screaming. The urgency in Isabella's scream intensified Lori's fear.  Somehow she knew it wasn’t a bug.

As Lori burst into the living room, Isabella was perched on the couch, legs tucked protectively underneath her, pointing frantically at the carpet.

"Eww, it's moving!" Isabella's disgusted exclamation cut through the air. Gina and Victoria were still standing near the television, the Wii Dance song preview repeating over and over again as the standing girls tilted their heads trying to understand the tiny thing they were looking at down on the carpet.

Lori's gaze zeroed in on the disturbing spectacle, and her eyes widened with horror. There, amidst the chaos and commotion of Isabella’s squealing, was Michael. Shrunk to a fraction of his normal size, he was backing away from the colossal teenagers, desperately trying to avoid being trampled.

Gina, regaining her composure, took a step back, a look of reluctance on her face as she glanced down at her bare wiggling toes. "Get it, Vicky," she urged, glancing at Victoria. "You’re wearing socks."

Lori's breath caught in her throat as she watched the miniature Michael navigate the hazardous terrain of the living room carpet, his tiny form stark against the vastness of the room. He was trying to create some distance between him and the towering teenagers but Victoria closed the gap he’d created with a single step.

"Eww, why is it standing straight up? And why is it tan?" Isabella's voice quivered with revulsion and drawn-out dramatics.

"I dunno..." Victoria responded nonchalantly, her voice devoid of emotion as she raised her right foot, adorned in neon-green socks that seemed to glow against the muted color of the carpet.

"Get it before it runs away, Vicky!" Isabella squealed, oblivious to the fact that the perceived bug was actually Lori's misplaced and shrunken subject.

“Don’t worry, Bella. I’ll smoosh it.” Michael collapsed, defenseless and defeated before Victoria as the titaness’s neon-green sock cast a looming shadow over him. The foot descended, ready to capture and decimate its prey.

"STOP!" Lori's urgent shout pierced through the chaos, commanding the attention of the three daughters. Three pairs of eyes shifted from the mysterious bug to Lori, their expressions transitioning from focused determination to surprise. Michael remained transfixed upon the looming foot that threatened to flatten him.  Victoria's foot hovered, stopped in mid-air, directly above the miniature Michael, eclipsing him in its shadow.

"It's okay, Mom. I got it," Victoria reassured Lori, returning her focus to the impending landing zone of her foot. She pinned Michael down underneath her foot, and Lori watched Michael disappear into the neon-green fabric of Victoria’s sole.

“DON’T HURT HIM!” The volume and urgency in Lori’s voice caused all three girls visible bewilderment.

“Him?” Victoria looked up, confused by the pronoun choice and leaving her foot atop Michael with just enough pressure to keep him from running away.  “Uhhh…is it a pet or something?” Victoria asked.

Lori briskly walked past Isabella, still petrified on the couch, toward Victoria.

“Oh wow he’s really moving a lot under there.  He must be one of those tickle-bugs!” Victoria exclaimed with a flutter in her voice, trying to contain giggles while Michael undoubtedly was fighting for his life under her.

Lori dropped to one knee and grabbed Victoria’s thick ankle, unpinning the girl’s foot from the carpet.  Victoria’s chubby toes were slightly clenched and Michael, embedded in the creases, clung to the dingy neon cotton. He had become wedged beneath the natural curl of Victoria’s toes. Humiliating as it might have been to be wedged between a teenage girl’s toes, Michael should have considered himself lucky to align with this particular nook considering any other location might have been the end for him. When Victoria relaxed her toes, Michael separated from the cotton and fell back onto the carpet with a light thud.  Michael lay there, trembling and staring up at Lori and the girls, scanning wildly.  For the first time since she’d met him, he actually looked happy to see her.

Isabella, still hesitant, leaned forward from the safety of the couch, her curiosity mingling with and overpowering her lingering sense of trepidation. Gina’s eyes remained fixed on the diminutive figure, sporting a faint flush on her face perhaps stirred by a mixture of intrigue and amusement. “Holy crap!” Victoria, having set her foot down inconsiderately close to Michael was now squatting, her intent gaze focused on the shrunken man.

Lori's hand rushed in quickly to scoop a trembling Michael up from the carpet when Gina's hesitant voice broke the silence. "Ummm... mom... is that a person???"

Silently, she scrutinized Michael's entire body, turning him gently in her hands, her fingers tracing the contours of his miniature form. A quick inspection revealed no visible damage, prompting Lori to release a relieved sigh before redirecting her attention to Gina.

"Gina..." Lori began, not sure where the sentence would take her, "...girls, it's complicated." Her fingers closed around Michael, holding him firmly in her hand, as if shielding him from the impending storm of questions. "But I'll do my best to explain."

~