She licked her lips as she made her decision. She’d gotten this far; was too late to turn back, anyways. He still wasn’t aware of her, and the knowledge of this fact drove her wild. What would he do if he did? Freak out? Kick her away and walk out? Or would his lips curve in an evil, satisfied smirk?..
She stepped into the shadow of his sole, her knees trembling; it may have been just a shoe sole, a cold, hard object, but beyond this sole there was Trevor. And that made it a sight to behold for little Vivienne. She noted where the tread was flattened and rubbed off; noted the little creases and breaks in the rubber; and, of course, there was the dirt, from dust that ate into the sole in layers and streaks, to sand and dry mud, to squished and disfigured pieces of litter. Paper, dead leaves, tiny stones and, of course, that damn discoloured gum. She blinked; for a moment she thought she recognized a human silhouette in that flattened gum. Immediately her mind was flooded with images of herself, impossibly flat, squished down, hopelessly stuck to his sole, forced to endure the agony of every single step… no longer a woman, just dirt on his shoe, crushed and smeared. Destroyed. It would be so easy for him. She was his teacher, she tried every week to lecture him on something, she was, technically, in a position of soft power over him most of her time, and yet it would be so incredibly easy for him to reduce her to nothing.
She gulped and took another step forward. She stood an arm’s length away from the sole, then got a bit closer yet and finally started working at it with her jacket, scrubbing off the old dirt. Her efforts had pathetic results, as the sole was way too grimy for her to be able to do much with just her jacket. Without thinking, she spat on her jacket multiple times, hoping the wetness would help. It didn't.
Still, she kept rubbing, trying to take off as much dirt as she could, while he continued to quietly work. It didn’t even cross Viv’s mind that at any point he could move again and drop the foot on her, and then she'd really become like that dirty piece of gum; but even if the thought came, she’d probably ignore it. She was getting into the groove of it again, quickly calming down and feeling like herself again; work helped her concentrate.
And this was hard work. A girl around an inch tall stands little chance of dealing with a sole that dirty. She tried her best as she kept working away at it in a frenzy. Her jacket ripped, turning from an elegant piece of clothing into a tattered rag covered in coarse, sticky dust. A lot of the debris were embedded into the rubber, and so at one point Valerie dropped the jacket and started picking away at the trash with her hands; her manicured fingers dug away at the edges of the stones and sticks lodged into the tread of his sneaker sole. A couple of times, the sole moved as the man idly rocked his foot, and Vivienne would always freeze; then, later, she’d come back to her senses and continue working on it.
It was painful, slow, humiliating, and yet so... liberating. She kept thinking that he didn't even know. Couldn't know. She kept wondering if he'd ever notice that someone humbly serviced his old sneakers.
She started at the region that she could reach easily, but as she got through it she realized that to do the rest of the sole she’d either have to reach above her head or kneel and slide further down under his propped up sole to get to the heel section.
And, of course, there was the gum.