By mid-morning the next day, it was all finally over.

All of the eight contestants plus Tom had been returned to full-size and their things had all been gathered together. After a final breakfast together in which only lighthearted conversation took place the nine of them went to the front reception area of the compound to await the two vans Betty had sent for to bring them to the town. Once they got to the town they would be going on trains and busses in all different directions, most of them eventually taking planes, all heading for some place or another they each called home.

It was a bittersweat moment for Hailey as she stood among her former competitors, things in hand, waiting for the vans as if they had been just out at a theme park. Many of these people had been towering giants to her, others had been tiny toys, some both. Many of them had even been inside of her, but she could hardly believe that now looking around at them. Jerry and Dale, both short-time flings, stood several feet away. Little Marie gave Hailey a goodbye hug, which astounded Hailey given that Marie had been one of those people she had used as a dildo durring her flirtation with power at the hands of Betty.

“So you headed back to Indiana?” Tom said, approaching Hailey.

“Yeah,” Hailey said, but without any enthusiasm. “I suppose I am.”

“Back to the taxi I guess,” Tom commented.

“Yeah,” Hailey said again. “I don’t know if I’ll stay long, though. I’m thinking about moving.”

“Oh?” Tom asked. “Where to?”

“I don’t know…” Hailey said, “I heard your area is pretty nice!”

Tom chuckled. “I warn you,” He said. “I’m hard to keep single but I’m also hard to keep hitched.”

“What, you don’t think we have a real shot?” Hailey asked, looking a little worried.

“I didn’t say that,” Tom said.

“You still have feelings for Sherri?” Hailey asked.

Tom laughed. “It was just a fling with us. We were fuck buddies, that’s all,” Tom said. “The attraction was there…but we knew it wouldn’t work with a serious shot.”

“And now she has Jerry…” Hailey said.

“Ah, don’t think about him.” Tom said, taking Hailey’s hand. “You’re all right, lady.”

“So you want to give it a shot?” Hailey asked. “Making it out in the real world?”

“What the heck?” Tom grinned, then he and Hailey pulled in for a kiss.

For Dale, this day could have not come soon enough. Though he felt he at least made up with Vera at the very end the gulf between him and every other person made it so awkward that he couldn’t even manage but a brief handshake to any of them. The whole experience—particularly those moments with Betty—was a severe shock to the psychie and he wondered if he would ever be the same again. He felt like it had been a damaging experience on the whole but thre was a part of him—just a small part—that said that this experience knocked down something inside him that should have been knocked down long ago, and that without it he could now grow to become a better person. He didn’t understand it that much, never having been too good with the psycho-babble, but even in all this he felt optomistic.

Marie was in high spirits as she clutched her bright luggage and waited for the van. It had been quite an experience, and though she definitely felt uncomfertable many times and there were many things she would prefer not to repeat, overall she felt it was a great experience. She felt some degree of affection with all her former competitors and even asked many of them to keep in touch.

Jerry had said his goodbyes to Sherri already. It was a bit of a sad experience because they both knew that they probably couldn’t make it out in the world. It was a very fun time while it lasted, but both of them were starting to build lives in very different places doing very different things. Dispite this, they were determined to remain friends, and they had exchanged contact information with Jerry pledging to write as soon as he got back home.

Paul and Vera had been inseperable since the night before. They simply laughed off all the cold looks from Carla and even got warm smiles from Marie and Hailey. They were already talking about plans of how they could be together. Vera was very attached to her school and to her team that she coached, and Paul was really tight with his firefighting unit. But Paul felt that this love with serious and a love of this kind required sacrifices. He knew it would be tough but he was prepared to leave his unit and take a new job in the vicinity of Vera’s hometown. Of course, this would not happen right away but he had a feeling it would come in a short matter of months.

Andy was possibly the only one in a truly sad mood at the end of the game. He tried to tell himself that he was excited about going back to his job and to his life, but it felt empty in his mind. Though he had a decent-paying job he rarely felt that rush of satisfaction he got from solving problems that he felt all the time when he first started a few years back. Truth be told, the experiances he had with Carla were the best in his life, and though he figured she would never agree, he was prepared to throw all of it away and live with Carla, doing whatever it took to please her. That would make him very happy, but still there would be something missing—all his life he had dreamed about shrinking machines and being shrunk, and now he was one of only a handful of people in the world who had ever experianced it, and now it was being taken away from him. Shrinking machines didn’t exist in the outside world. There they were fantasy, and Andy wondered if with enough time out in the world he would start to think that his time on the shrinking show was only something he imagined in his wildest daydreams.

Marie was looking for Carla, since she had not had a chance to say goodbye to her yet, when she felt a tap on her arm. She turned around and Jerry was standing behind her, smiling as he slid something in her hand.

“What’s this?” Marie asked, looking at the piece of paper Jerry had given her.

“It’s a check,” Jerry said quietly, trying not to attract attention. “A piece of my second-place winnings.”

“Fifteen thousand dollars?” Marie exclaimed, reading the number Jerry had written. “I can’t except this, Jerry!” Marie tried to thrust it back to him, but Jerry pushed her hand back to herself.

“No, I want you to have it,” Jerry said. “It’s for everything you did for me on the last competition. I would have been a goner without your help, I wouldn’t even have finished, let alone come a stone’s throw from winning.”

“Jerry, I can’t…” Marie said.

“I’m still walking away with eighty-five thousand.” Jerry said. “What you have is more than Carla got for third place, and quite frankly, I think you should have been in the final competition, not her. You were cheated out of your chance at winning, and this is for that.”

Marie said nothing for a moment, unsure whether to accept it or not. Then, finally, she slid it into her pocket.

“Okay,” Marie said, leaning over to give Jerry a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

Andy was hearing the quiet conversations around him without really listening. He was still feeling sad about leaving and knowing Carla would not be in his life, and even if she was it would not be the same. He was thinking about his job with a morbid matter-of-factness and wondering how he could ever go back after experiancing this.

Suddenly, Andy felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around and there was Sherri, her face burning with a feverish excitement that surprised Andy given the more somber mood that surrounded the end of the game.

“What?—” Andy began, but Sherri cut him off.

“Come with me. Hurry!” Sherri said, “Bring your stuff!”

Wondering what the heck Sherri could be wanting to show him but also filled with excitement that he may get to do one more thing at this magical compound, he picked up his bags and followed Sherri at a jog back into the compound.

Sherri led him through the front gate and past the main reception area, down a side hallway and into a small room that may have been someone’s office. Standing in this room, packages beside her, was Carla. She was grinning. Andy’s excitement and curiosity were building to a level where he was actually shaking.

“Listen to me.” Sherri said, drawing his attention her way and speeking very seriously. “What we’re about to do will have serious consequences on your life outside the compound but you might find it extremely enjoyable if you accept.”

“Okay…” Andy said, daring to believe what Sherri was about to say.

“How would you like to go home, with Carla, at a size of four and a half inches tall?” Sherri asked. Andy’s mouth dropped open—he must be dreaming! There was no way Sherri could be actually saying what was coming out of her mouth!

“Uh—um…YEAH!” Andy exclaimed.

“We can shrink you, right here, and you can go home with Carla as a shrunken man,” Sherri said. “Nobody would know about it but us three, not even Betty. Are you prepared to do that?”

“Yes, yes, oh god yes!” Andy gushed.

“Okay,” Sherri said. “you have to understand, though, that this change is considered permanent. Once you leave this compound you cannot be re-enlarged, since the only shrinking machines are here.”

“I understand,” Andy said.

“Also, you will have to leave everything you know behind,” Sherri said. “You won’t be able to see or talk to anyone you know. You will have to send them a messege telling them you’ve moved to another country or something. Are you prepared for that?”

“Yes I am.” Andy said, adamantly, anxious to get on with things.

“So you are prepared to live with Carla as a four-and-a-half inch man?” Sherri asked. “To accept the full-time limitations and dependencies of being such a small man, and to give up everything that you know as your life?”

“Yes, yes, please,” Andy said, almost pleadingly. He looked at Carla. She was standing with her arms cross, her sinister smile failing to mask her obvious excitement.

“Very well,” Sherri said. “You will say a final ‘I do’, and I will shrink you. Do you accept the size-change and all its consequences?”

“I do.” Said Andy, firmly and without hesitation.

“Okay then.” Sherri said with a tone of finality. “Say goodbye to the full-sized world.” A feeling of anticipation unlike anything Andy had ever felt was growing over him making each moment feel like hours.

And the last thing Andy saw was Sherri smiling at him as she adjusted the shrinking controls before a blinding flash filled the room.

Andy was looking at two pairs of giant, sandaled, female feet. His breathing came fast and short—he was hyperventilating from euphoria! The two women towered over him—just like he knew it should be—and they were both looking down at him with wild smiles of amusement.

“Aww,” Sherri said, as Carla wiggled her toes in a wave formation, sending Andy further out of his mind. He watched as Sherri bent down to pick him up, her giant hand closing around him and lifting him off the ground.

Andy felt that he might just come with no physical stimulation at all has he looked from one giant face to the other, both women beaming at the little man who had made the ultimate decision to give up a normal life to stay that way.

“Better put his stuff in your pocket, I don’t think they make anything in his size,” Sherri almost laughed out loud. A chuckelling Carla bent down and picked up Andy’s two suitaces and effortlessly slid them into her side pocket. She then laid out her hand, ready to accept Andy.

“Safe travels, little man,” Sherri said, giving Andy a little peck, her soft lips covering most of his body for an instant, causing him to blush. A moment later Sherri put Andy into Carla’s hand—Carla’s hand, the place where he belonged, and the woman he belonged to.

“You’ve made the right choice,” Carla said, beaming down at her man-toy as he looked up in wide-eyed reverence to her. “Who do you adore?”

“Carla!” Andy shouted.

“That’s right.” Carla said. “And who do you serve?”

“Carla!” Andy repeated.

“And don’t you forget it!” Carla smiled. “Now, I have the perfect place for you to hide on the way back.”

Without saying anything else Carla slid Andy into the v of her shirt and under her bra, resting him gently between the cup and her breast. She smiled as she felt Andy excitedly slide into place, making himself comfertable against the giant warm orb. He hugged it with all his little might to show his support of Carla and his excitement to start his new life.

Carla turned to Sherri. “I can’t describe what this means to me,” Carla said, grinning broadly.

“Just be good, alright?” Sherri asked grinning. The two women exchanged a hug and a peck on the cheek.

“I’ll never forget this,” Carla said. With one last smile at Sherri she picked up her luggage and headed out the front door to the sidewalk at the front.

Just moments before the two vans had arrived and the drivers were in the process of loading the luggage into the back of the van. Carla slipped into the group and handed her luggage to one of the drivers, trying to mask her huge smile and fit in with the crowd.

No one missed Andy as they got onto the van—the riders of one bus figured he was on the other and vise-versa. In fact no one that day would give a second thought to Andy’s whereabouts, ignorant of the fact that he was a teeny tiny man who was going home with his giantess mistress.

The contestants gave one last look to the compound as the vans pulled away and headed back out onto the dusty rural road heading back to the small town. For better or for worse, the Shrinking Show had changed each of their lives, and even if they never would go back, they knew it and Betty would remain in their thoughts forever.