Extra Room in Back Shrunken First Semester chapter 9 by maximally

The package came on Saturday, one week to the day after Max woke up three inches tall.

He knew what was in it before Victoria even opened it. It was a gray mailer with a pink logo. The return address was some lingerie company in Ohio with the word Comfort in its name. Victoria carried it in from the porch with both hands, like a birthday cake, and set it on the kitchen island right next to his ramekin.

"Look, mijo," she said brightly. "Mama got something in the mail."

"Cool," Max said. "Great. Love that for you."

She slit the tape with one berry-red nail. Inside, folded in crinkly tissue paper, were three pairs of full-coverage cotton briefs: a lavender, a cream, and a plain, practical black. Each one was enormous. She held the lavender pair up to the window, and it unfurled like a sail, and the morning light came through the fabric so he could see how thin it was. There was a little printed tag on the waistband.

BREATHABLE • ULTRA-STRETCH • EXTRA ROOM IN BACK

Max had seen that phrase on her phone screen at eleven o'clock on Thursday night. He'd been trying to forget it ever since.

"Oh, those are so cute," Izzy said from the fridge, where she'd been standing with the door open for two full minutes, not getting anything. "Are those new?"

"Mama just thought she could use some comfier underwear," Victoria said airily. She folded the lavender pair over her arm. "For around the house."

"Totally." Izzy finally took out a Monster and shut the fridge. She cracked it open, took a long sip, and nodded at the briefs. "For, like, an hour. To start."

Victoria didn't say anything. She just smoothed the fabric over her arm with her thumb.

Max looked at the legal pad by the fruit bowl. Number twelve was still circled in purple. Twice. There was still a heart next to it.

Somebody had added a checkbox.

*

They did it upstairs, in Victoria's bedroom, at eleven o'clock sharp, because Victoria said that was the best time for "a nice, calm hour."

She'd changed into the lavender briefs in the bathroom. She came out in them and a loose white T-shirt, which hung down just past her hips, and stood in front of the full-length mirror on the closet door, turning from side to side. Max sat on the edge of the vanity and watched her do it. He didn't have a choice. The vanity was where she'd put him.

From this angle, the briefs looked a lot less like a sail and a lot more like a tent.

Victoria was six-foot-one and two hundred and fifty pounds, and every one of those pounds had settled into her hips and thighs and the great, soft shelf of her ass. The full-coverage cotton stretched over all of it in a smooth lavender curve. The extra room in back turned out to be a deep, generous pouch of fabric over the seat, cut a little looser than the rest. Even so, it wasn't loose. It just meant the cotton didn't quite press flat against her skin.

There was a gap. Maybe a quarter of an inch.

He didn't need to measure. He was three inches tall. It was more than enough room.

Victoria took a deep breath at the mirror. "So. Where does Mama put him?"

"I mean, it's your call," Izzy said from the bed, where she was sprawled on her stomach with her chin on her hands like she was at a sleepover. She'd brought the legal pad. "But, like. The folder had a lot of opinions."

"What kind of opinions?"

"So, there's front." Izzy held up one finger. "That's, like, the most popular in the stories, but honestly I think that'd be weird for you guys? Like, family-wise."

"Absolutely not," Victoria said, scandalized.

"Right. Totally. So then there's side." A second finger. "Like, tucked in the waistband at your hip. He could, like, see out. That's the beginner version."

Victoria turned and examined her own hip in the mirror. She pinched the lavender waistband between two fingers and snapped it lightly against her skin.

"He'd fall out," she decided. "The first time Mama bent over to load the dishwasher, he'd fall right out and Mama would step on him."

"Yeah, that's fair." Izzy held up a third finger and said, very casually, as if it had only just occurred to her, "Or there's back."

The room got very quiet.

"I mean, that's where the extra room is," Izzy added helpfully. "That's, like, literally what it says on the tag."

"Izzy," Max said from the vanity. "Izzy. I am going to kill you."

"Aw, he's nervous," Izzy cooed. "That's so normal, Max."

Victoria turned all the way around and looked at herself over her shoulder in the mirror. She looked for a long time. She ran one hand over the curve of the lavender cotton, testing the slack. Max watched her find the gap and slip two fingertips into it, then pull them out again. She was thinking. He could see the little crease between her brows.

Then she turned and looked at him on the vanity.

"Back," she decided.

"Mom, no—"

"Back is the safest, mijo." She crossed the room in three long strides and scooped him up off the vanity before he could even try to run. "He can't fall out. Mama can feel him the whole time. If anything goes wrong, Mama will know right away."

"Literally what I said," said Izzy.

"Isabella, you said three things."

"I said three things, and you picked one, Mom. That's all you." Izzy rolled onto her back and stared innocently at the ceiling. "I'm just here for emotional support."

*

She did it very carefully. Max would give her that.

She held him up to her face first, gave him a little kiss on the top of his head, and told him, very seriously, that Mama loved him and this was just an hour, and she'd set a timer, and if he really, really needed out, he could wiggle three times. Then she turned around. She hooked the waistband of the lavender briefs with her thumb and pulled it out from her lower back, opening a dark gap of cotton above the vast, sweaty top of her ass crack, and lowered him in feet first.

It was like being lowered into a sleeping bag that was still warm from someone else.

The fabric closed over his head. The light went lavender and dim. Under his feet, the top of her butt was smooth and hot and slick with sweat, and it curved away beneath him in both directions. He slid down a little at a time, until his feet found the deep crease where her cheeks met and settled there. His back was pressed against the inside of the cotton. His front was pressed against her.

Then she let go of the waistband.

It snapped back against her lower back above him, and the whole pouch of fabric pulled taut. Suddenly the quarter-inch of extra room was gone, and he was held flat and snug against the sweaty curve of his stepmother's ass, his face pressed into the top of her crack, wrapped in stretchy cotton from his ankles to the top of his head.

He couldn't move his arms. He couldn't really move anything. He could just barely turn his head.

"Is he okay?" Victoria's voice came down through her body. "Mijo? Wiggle if you're okay."

He wiggled once.

"Ay." She giggled, delighted, and the whole world jiggled around him. "Oh, I can feel him. He's like a little... a little phone in Mama's back pocket."

"Timer's going," said Izzy. "Sixty minutes. Have fun, Max!"

*

The first ten minutes were the hardest.

It wasn't that it hurt. It didn't. Victoria walked carefully, the way you'd walk with a full cup of coffee, and every few steps she reached back to check on him. It was the heat. It built up inside the cotton, close and humid, until he was slick with sweat and he couldn't tell where his skin ended and hers began. It was the smell, too: fabric softener and cocoa butter, and underneath that, the private, salty scent of his stepmother that lived down here and nowhere else.

And it was the motion. Every step she took, her ass rolled. Left cheek, right cheek, a slow and heavy rhythm, up and down and side to side, so he got squeezed and rocked and released over and over again like a pea rattling around in a bouncy castle. When she went downstairs, the rhythm got faster and bumpier. Then she sat down at the kitchen island to answer emails.

That was when he learned that sitting was different.

The weight came on all at once. The stool's seat pushed up through the cotton, and her whole butt spread out over him and around him, both cheeks mashing in until he was buried in her crack, flattening down into a hot, soft vise. He couldn't breathe for a second. Then she shifted forward to reach her coffee, and he got a gulp of air through the fabric, and then she settled back again.

He wiggled three times.

"Aw, mijo," Victoria said sweetly. She reached back and patted her own hip. "It's only been twelve minutes."

He wiggled three more times, harder.

"Mama knows. Mama knows it's new." Her voice was soothing, the voice she used on the phone when she was talking down a nervous client. "But you can do this, sweetie. Mama believes in you. Just breathe."

"Mom!" His voice came out as a tiny, muffled squeak through the cotton and her own flesh. "Mom, I want out! Please!"

"Shh, shh, shh." Pat, pat. "Forty-eight more minutes. You're doing so good."

"That's not—the deal was—you said three wiggles!"

"Mama said three wiggles if you really, really need out," Victoria said patiently. "And Mama can feel you, mijo. You're not hurt. You're just a little scared. That's normal. Izzy said that's normal."

"Izzy said—"

"So we're going to stay right here, nice and cozy, and you're going to be Mama's brave boy." She shifted her weight on the stool, and he got squashed flat again. "And when the timer goes off, Mama will take you out and give you a big kiss. Okay?"

It was not okay.

Max lay pressed into his stepmother's ass crack in the hot lavender dark and listened to her start typing again.

*

At minute thirty-four, Victoria stood up to make lunch.

She'd made beans the night before. Lupe's recipe, from the Tupperware, which she'd been eating every day that week. Max knew because he'd smelled them on her breath every time she kissed him goodnight. He hadn't really thought about what that meant until now, when she leaned over the open fridge to dig for the salsa, and her ass tilted up and stretched the cotton taut over him, spreading her cheeks just enough that he slid deeper into her crack. Somewhere inside her, very close to his face, there was a long, low rumble.

He felt it before he heard it. A deep, ominous gurgle that rolled through her body like distant thunder.

Max went very still.

Oh no, he thought. Oh no, oh no, oh no.

"Hm," said Victoria absently, still rummaging. "Where did Izzy put the..."

The gurgle came again, closer this time. The muscles all around him tightened, then went soft.

BRRRAAAPP

Small and polite, it was not. It was nothing like Lupe's little puff in the recliner. It hit him full-on from point-blank range, a hot, wet blast that had absolutely nowhere to go. The cotton held it in. The extra room in back, the room meant for him, filled up with it in a single second. It was humid and heavy and it was beans, garlic and onion and cumin, packed into a space the size of a sandwich bag. It soaked into the fabric and his hair and every single inch of his skin.

Max made a noise like a squeaky toy being stepped on.

He wiggled. He didn't count. He just wiggled, frantically, over and over, as hard as he could.

"Oh!" Victoria straightened up so fast she hit her head on the freezer door. "Oh, mijo! Oh, Mama's so sorry! Mama forgot!"

"Out," Max gasped. "Out, out, out—"

"Oh, sweetie." Her hand came back and rested on him. It pushed him deeper into the cloud. "Ay, it's okay. It's okay. It's only natural."

From the stairs came the sound of someone sitting down very suddenly on a step.

"Was that number eleven?" Izzy called down, wheezing. "Mom! Did you just do number eleven?"

"Isabella!"

"I'm just keeping track!"

"It was an accident!" Victoria called back. Max could feel her face going hot through the skin of her back. Then her voice dropped, softer. "Mama's sorry, mijo. Mama really is. But you know what? You handled it so well."

"I didn't handle it! I'm dying!"

"You're not dying, sweetie. You're wiggling." She drummed her fingers on her hip. "Dying people don't wiggle."

There was nothing he could say to that. There was barely any air to say it with.

*

The timer went off at twelve-oh-one.

Max heard it through the cotton, a cheerful marimba tone from Victoria's phone on the kitchen counter. He went limp with relief. It was over. One hour. He'd survived. He was going to take a shower for three days straight, and then he was going to find the laptop and burn it, and then he was going to find Izzy and—

The timer stopped.

Victoria didn't reach for her waistband.

"Mijo?" she said softly.

He wiggled once. Yes. Here. Get me out.

"You did so good." He could hear the smile in her voice. "You did so good, sweetie. Mama's so proud of you. You know, Mama was worried. Mama really was. But you were so brave."

"Thanks," he squeaked. "Can I come out now?"

There was a pause.

It was a long pause. Long enough that his stomach sank down to his toes, which were still pressed into the crease of her ass.

"It's just," Victoria said thoughtfully, "Mama hasn't even had lunch yet. And you're all settled in now. And it took you so long to get settled."

"I'm not settled. I'm very unsettled."

"And Mama can feel how much calmer you are now than you were at the start." Her thumb rubbed a slow circle over him. "You stopped fighting it, mijo. Mama can feel that."

He'd stopped fighting it because he was exhausted and half-suffocated in bean fumes.

He didn't say that.

"So maybe," Victoria said sweetly, "we just keep going a little longer. Just until lunch. And then we'll see."

"Mom—"

"Shh. Mama's got you."

She picked up her phone. He heard her thumb tap the screen once. The timer did not start again.

*

The next hour went by in a hot, slow blur.

Victoria ate lunch on the stool, sitting on him. She did the dishes, and her ass rocked back and forth as she scrubbed, cheeks squeezing him with every scrub. She folded laundry on the bed. Then she lay down on her side on top of the comforter to watch half an episode of something on her phone, and he was squashed between her and the mattress until she rolled over onto her stomach. Then there was only her, plush and endless, and the ceiling of lavender cotton, and the sleepy rise and fall of her breathing.

Twice, she said, "Still there, mijo?" He wiggled once each time. He'd given up on three.

Somewhere in there, she started humming. It was some old ranchera song that Lupe used to play. It came down through her whole body, low and warm, and he felt it in his bones.

At some point he realized he'd stopped thinking about the timer. He'd stopped thinking about anything. He was just there, held and rocked and breathing her in, and the thing he would never admit to anyone was that it didn't feel quite as bad as it had an hour ago.

He tried arguing with himself about that. He lost.

*

Socks on the hallway floor. Then a knock on the doorframe.

"Hey," said Izzy. "So. Not to be weird. But it's, like, one o'clock."

"Mm-hm," said Victoria lazily, still on her stomach.

"The timer said an hour. At eleven."

"Mama knows, mija."

"So it's been two hours."

"Has it?" Victoria sounded genuinely surprised. She propped herself up on her elbows, and the whole world shifted around Max. He was squeezed, then released, then squeezed again. "Ay, time flies. He's just been so good, Izzy. He hasn't wiggled in forever."

"Wow," said Izzy, sounding absolutely delighted. "Two whole hours. On the first day. That's, like, a record."

"Is it?"

"There's no record. I made that up. But it should be." Max heard the scratch of a pen on paper. "I'm gonna write it down."

Then Izzy's footsteps came closer, and the bed sank under a second, lighter weight. Through the lavender cotton, Max felt a finger tap him twice, right on the top of his head. It wasn't Victoria's.

"You good in there, little bro?" Izzy asked sweetly.

He wiggled three times. Then three more. Then he just kept going.

"Aw," Izzy said. "He's so happy, Mom."

Victoria sighed contentedly and laid her head back down on the pillow. "Mm-hm," she murmured. "Mama's going to need more of these briefs."

Izzy was already typing on her phone. Max could hear the little clicks through the cotton.

"Way ahead of you, Mom," she said. "I just ordered six."