Several months had passed since Karen had swallowed up her first homeless guy. Those months had been wonderful for her. She and Mike had discovered that it was his saliva that made people (except her, for some unknown reason) shrink down. They had tested it on both homeless men and homeless women with equal results. Only Karen seemed immune. She also delighted in the experimentation, because those who served their science, also served her appetite. Karen supplemented her diet quite nicely with homeless people.

Some months into this 'science diet', however, Karen heard a knock on her door. Opening the door (after peering through the peephole), she saw a middle aged man, dressed in a suit and looking like either a bureaucrat or a banker, flanked by a police officer.

"Yes?" Karen asked as she stood in her doorway.

"Miss Karen Harper?" the man inquired.

"Yes," she answered, "who are you?"

"My apologies," he replied, "my name is Howard Steele."

He waited for a moment to see if the name meant anything to her. When she did not react, he continued, "I am the city manager."

*Bureaucrat, then*, Karen told herself, but other than that, the title meant nothing to her. She was a veterenarian and not into politics, except to think how much of a drain bureaucrats were on too many tax dollars.

"I would like to have a private talk with you about a recent drop in the city's homeless rate, if you don't mind."

That caught Karen's attention. She thought that she and Mike had been pretty careful, and she couldn't fathom that the city might have surveillance cameras under the city's bridges.

"What do you mean, 'private'?" she asked.

The city manager smiled, "Nothing that you should be worried about as far as legalities are concerned."

He turned to the police officer.

"Jeff, could you go down to your squad car. I think everything will be okay here. I will be down when I am done."

'Officer Jeff' nodded and headed down the hall of Karen's apartment building, down toward the parking area.

Karen was now quite weirded-out. She was a slight bit less uneasy, now that the cop was leaving. She knew that what she and Mike had been up to was quite illegal. Those with more sympathy for the homeless might even call it murder. But if the cop was leaving, she at least could be sure that she wasn't being arrested for murder, yet.

"There, you don't have to be afraid of that," the city manager said. "While I know that ACLU-types might howl bloody murder, those of us who actually have to run things are quite relieved to have a few less bums to worry about."

"Now, would you invite me in?"

He was being polite, but it wasn't very proper for a middle-aged man to invite himself into the apartment of a girl of Karen's age, and certainly not one who was in her pyjamas. Besides, her apartment, while sparse, was not exactly ready for company.

Karen hesitated for a second or two.

"Will you give me a moment?" she said, nervously.

"Sure-sure," the man answered, casually.

She took a few moments to remove her stray garments and put on something a little more solid. She stuffed Mike into the familiar sock drawer. She didn't really think about how that place had not proven to be safe the last time. Her mind was preoccupied.

As she was doing these things, she tried to think about what this visit meant. Was he here to blackmail her? She didn't have anything of any value - maybe he was a dirty old man who wanted to threaten to expose her if she didn't offer him up her body. She couldn't make him disappear the way she had the cable creep, given that the cop was outside and knew that this guy was here. What was more, a 'city manager' sounded a bit more important than a cable guy - more likely to be missed.

She opened the door again and let the man inside. She offered him a chair that she had just before been used as a place to put her clothes. These were now in the laundry hamper.

"How can I help you?" she asked, hesitantly as he took the seat.

"Well, Madam Harper, let me get straight to business. You should have been a bit more careful about your...er... 'hunting activities'."

"You were picked up by some of our surveillance cameras. Thankfully, the police reports came straight to me and I was able to keep the knowledge about this very limited. I can't say that I have completely figured out how you do it - or why - but you have been shrinking people - people who don't seem to come back to the streets...?"

"Uh...-...huh." Karen replied slowly, not so much as to confirm the truth of what he said, but to acknowledge that he had said it and that she hoped that he would state his intention.

Mr. Steele smiled in a way of reassuring her, though not very effectively. "Well, I certainly don't want to stop you for keeping on doing that. I am happy to have the bums off the street, but I would like two things."

Here it was. Karen was sure that he was going to ask her to do some old-man nasty. Well, best have it on the table.

"I am dying to find out how and why, but also how I can help you do it more, and keep you off the police's radar."

"Okay...?" Karen asked, waiting for him to add that he would like a blow job, or for her to undress in front of him.

He looked back at her for a second, and then he laughed.

"You're wondering if I have other conditions?"

For Karen, this was getting weirder by the second. She was relieved that he wasn't going to have her hauled off on murder charges or blackmail her to go down on him, but what the hell did this guy really want?

"I don't know... how can I trust you?" she asked.

He sighed.

"I'm sorry," he said, making himself a little more comfortable by releasing his shoulders. They had been a bit tensed up. It had the effect of reducing the tension between himself and Karen. If this guy was a bureaucrat-politician, she could certainly see him ingratiating himself effectively. She didn't trust the guy, but he was trying to make it less uncomfortable at least.

"Ever since I learned of you and what you have been doing, I've been dying to meet you and learn more. Shrinking people down is a... fascination of mine. While I've never really thought it possible in science, and I don't believe in magic, I've always had thoughts about shrinking. That may sound odd to you, but look, imagine how odd it is what you're doing."

"You have a 'fascination' for shrinking people, even though you thought it was impossible," Karen recited back at him.

"Yes," he said, shrugging his shoulders, holding his palms upward.

"You are a perv!" she responded, with a tone of disgust.

"Hey, I only think about it - you're the one doing it. Besides, at least I'm not buggering little boys or whacking off while wearing a Mickey Mouse outfit. You don't want to know what some of the city councilmen are up to... er... but that's a conversation for another time."

"Suffice to say: Yes, I find it fascinating and I want to help you do what you're doing so that you don't get caught at it. Is that so wrong?"

Karen finally relaxed a little. She supposed by now that he wasn't a rapist. He was just a little strange, but probably with no harmful intent toward her.

"We can talk, but go down and tell your cop that you're leaving so that he can go home. Then you can come back and we can talk."

Mr. Steele pulled out his cell phone. He dialled and spoke into it: "Jeff, go ahead and go home. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Don't worry. Jeff knows what side of his bread the butter is on. He'll go home and just assume we're up to something he'll get a bonus for later."

It wasn't what Karen had wanted him to do, but very well, it seemed alright.

"What do you want to know?" she asked.

"I'm curious how you shrink people down and what you do with them afterward."

Karen thought about this question. She really didn't want to tell him the answer to either. The former question would disclose the special power that really lay in Mike's bite, leaving him possibly the target of whatever this Steele guy was up to, and the second answer could land her in jail on murder charges. Thinking this through, she said nothing.

"I don't want to tell you," she said.

"What guarantee can I give you that I can be trusted?" Steele said, trying to bargain. "The fact that I'm here - rather than the police or, worse, the Feds - means that I'm not trying to lock you away. I'm on your side!"

She didn't respond for a bit, but then she had an idea. This man could actually probably be pretty useful to her. Her activities of the past few months had grown very addicting to her. Being someone who devoured lesser humans was something that just did not get old for her. The pleasure of feeling living people struggle inside of her stomach was amazing, but still second to the psychological gratification that it gave her.

But, as she had found out this evening, her activities had not gone unnoticed, and that was a problem. This guy could probably make those problems go away, if she played him right. Of course, he might also be playing her for his own gain. She needed something to hold over him...

"You fantasize about shrinking people down...?" She asked him to reconfirm.

"Yes, I do," he said.

"You like the idea of having power over little people?"

"Oh, no, not at all!" he answered. "Having power over people is my job - it's work; a burden. The idea that fascinates me is the loss of control when being shrunk. That's far more cathartic."

Karen frowned a bit as she caught onto what this was all about. Steele took it that she didn't understand what he meant.

"'Cathartic' means that..." he attempted to explain.

"I know what the word means," she said, cutting him off. "You have a fantasy of losing control to someone more powerful than you. You probably are even enticed by the idea that I might shrink you down right now and do what I do to the homeless people."

He was going to confess an agreement, but she kept on with her analysis:

"It frightens you as well; it gives you a knot in your belly that I might actually do it, even if it would be stupid for me. Bums can go missing without anyone caring. Yet, the police know that you're here and if I 'disappear' you, someone is going to come after me. So, I won't do that."

"I will also not let you in on my secret, unless you give me some proof of a secret of yours - a secret that would bring you down. I need to be able to blackmail you with something serious if I'm going to tell you anything."

She stepped toward him, closing the distance she had maintained between them by half.

"I promise it will be worth it," she said, looking into his eyes.

"Give me power over you and I will let you in on my secret. Until that time, please leave my apartment."

* * *

A week later she had it in her hands. It appeared that City Manager Howard Steele was pretty risqué. He had been blackmailed before by some hooker who had secretly taped the S&M affair he had had with her. He had bought the tape from her, but had failed to destroy it. Thanks to the tape, he had had the ability to enjoy the original experience a second time, watching it on a television. It also, now, allowed him to give into Karen's bargain.

He was back at her apartment. This time he assured her that the police didn't know he was here.

"I'm only going to show you half of my secret, Howard," she said.

She had grown comfortable with him, now that she knew that she had the upper hand. Not only did she have the blackmail tape, she also knew what his psychological buttons were.

She LOVED this. It was one thing to have great control over a friend or a homeless person; it was quite another to have power over one of the most powerful men in the city.

"Get on your knees," she told him.

He did as he was told.

She pulled out another little homeless person that she had recently caught - caught with a bit more care to keep her activities hidden.

"You wanted to know what I do with them?"

Howard Steele would have answered, if he had not been transfixed. Seeing her handiwork on a security camera was one thing. Now he saw her holding the little man, while he knelt before her; subject to her in several different ways, he knew it was quite another. It was also the case that he still didn't know how she did it, or what her plans with him were. She could take the smart route and use him for his power, but maybe - just maybe - she would also shrink him down and have her way with him. The possibility of the latter both terrified and enthralled him.

Slowly, he nodded an affirmative.

"I do anything I want with them, really," she said, toying with the little man in her hand.

She was sitting down in a chair, facing Howard, who was kneeling on the ground.

"One thing I really like, is to have them down at my feet."

As she said this she placed the man on the ground as she gently kicked off her house slipper and placed her bare foot on the man so that he was trapped.

"Go ahead and have a close look," she suggested.

Howard didn't need to be told twice. He bent forward, his face coming very close to her foot. The little man struggled. Howard wasn't sure what captivated him more; seeing the little man or kneeling down at her foot.

She kicked off her other slipper and set that foot on his shoulder. She now had both men, large and small, under her foot and in her power.

"Go ahead and take him," she said, releasing the pinning pressure on the little man. Howard gently took hold of the little man. It was not unlike holding a mouse, except the little man was smaller and not really warm or fuzzy.

"Hand him up to me," she then commanded.

Howard did as he was told from his crouching position under her bare foot.

"You want to know what I do with them?"

He nodded.

"This."

With a slow motion, she held the little man over her head. She opened her mouth and dropped the man into it. Closing her eyes, seemingly forgetting about the larger man at her feet, she savoured the little man in her mouth for a few moments before she swallowed and sent the homeless man into her stomach the way countless had gone before him.

Howard stared, enthralled by the scene. The lovely young woman who had such power over him had completely ingested the little man...the way his dark fantasies had hoped she would. As soon as he regained immediate control over himself he buried his face in her foot, kissing it with complete abandon.

Karen smiled down on this. Soon her days as a midnight huntress of the homeless would be over, and she would be able to go after larger prey.