Chapter 1

“No, no, not that way, Billy!” came Alexandra Stetson’s imperious voice as she peeked around the end of the sofa that she was holding aloft. “You need to turn it sideways like this so that it’ll fit through the door frame!”

“I’m…trying to mom!” replied Billy Stetson through the effort of lifting, frustrated that his stepmom still wasn’t cutting him any slack, even though he was doing her a favor, moving all this furniture around in her house. “It’s just that this sofa…is…a little heavy…ok?”

“Turn it to the left,” ordered Alexandra. “No…no, your other left. Ok, that’s good…now push!”

Billy took a deep breath, positioned his feet, and pushed with as much strength as he could muster. At 5’3, and 130 pounds, and 25 years old, Billy was shorter and smaller than most women his age, let alone the men. He was used to feeling physically inadequate, but he had a plucky attitude, and reflexively resisted any efforts to condescend to him. This made spending time around Alexandra especially trying, since talking down to him had long been one of her particular fortes.

From the combined efforts of the two of them, the sofa squeezed through the door frame, and Alexandra started to ease her end down to the floor.

“Alright, good! That worked — now let’s just set it down here for a minute to rest.”

A moment later, Alexandra and Billy were leaning slightly on opposite ends of the sofa, breathing heavily from the exertion. Billy’s eyes met his stepmother’s; he couldn’t deny that, even in her mid-forties, Alexandra looked pretty good. She had short-cut, jet black hair that she got professionally dyed (since her hair had started to gray from its original brunette), and the color went well with the striking blue of her eyes. Alexandra wasn’t a large woman by any means, but she was nearly the same height as her stepson. At just under 5’3, he only had her by a centimeter or so. But she certainly outweighed him; she wasn’t obese, but she had a healthy 10 or 15 pounds on him.

“Why…are you out of breath too?” asked Alexandra, breathing heavily as she leaned slightly against the sofa.

“Uhh…because I just helped you move a big couch up the stairs?” suggested Billy, feeling a twinge of annoyance. He knew what was coming.

“I know that,” replied Alexandra immediately. “I just think that you probably shouldn’t be so winded after such a short little task. I’m 44, Billy — I’ve got an excuse.”

“Mom!” protested Billy indignantly, drumming his hand on the sofa, “Are you serious? Look at this thing! It’s…it’s a really big sofa, ok?”

“Now Billy,” said Alexandra, inclining her head slightly, “Don’t get all defensive. I know you’re not the biggest, strongest man around, and I know you get touchy whenever I bring this up, but I really think that you could use a good workout routine. Your job is sedentary enough as it is, and I can see you getting a little flabby.”

“Wha—mom, come on!” objected Billy, slumping his shoulders slightly. “You always say this…but two years ago you were saying how important it was that I get a good job, and what did I do?”

“You got an impressive internship at a respected software engineering company,” nodded Alexandra. “You’re full of potential, Billy. No one would argue with that…and if they tried to, I’d shut them down.”

Billy couldn’t help but crack a little smile, even as he blinked slowly and shook his head, staring off into another part of the room. Even though his stepmom always seemed to be on his case about something or other, there was no denying that she always had his back…perhaps too much, actually. A year before, when he had let slip to her that a coworker had teased him about his height, she had actually written an angry email to his supervisor, demanding that the coworker apologize. It had been a bit of an embarrassing episode for Billy, who had wished that his stepmother could just let him deal with things himself. But Alexandra Stetson was not going to sit back and let her stepson operate independently. She had been his primary caretaker ever since he was 5 years old, which is why Billy had always simply referred to her as “mom.”

“But really, though,” continued Alexandra, straightening up, “I worry about you sitting down all day with your face glued to that screen. It can’t be good for your health if you don’t balance that kind of a job with a rigorous exercise regimen. Just because you’re small doesn’t mean you can’t be strong, you know.”

“I know, mom…I know,” said Billy, trying not to sound too tired or irritated. He knew that she just wanted the best for him, and he appreciated the support and care that she gave him. He just couldn’t help but wish, though, that Alexandra would just let him spread his wings a little and venture out on his own. He was already doing pretty well for a 25-year-old. He had that nice software engineering job, and he had recently bought an apartment down the street. Why couldn’t she see that he was perfectly capable of succeeding on his own?

As he continued leaning on the sofa, still catching his breath, Billy suddenly began to feel strange. It began with a slight tingling at the base of his neck that seemed to quickly permeate through his entire body…and accompanying this tingling sensation was the unmistakable perception that his head was starting to feel compressed, like it was being tightly wrapped with rubber bands. His heart, which was already beating fast, beat faster still, and he felt a sudden cold sweat break out on his forehead, which joined the warm beads of perspiration that were already there. His stomach lurched, and for a quick moment, Billy thought that he was going to be sick. He stood up straight and swallowed, his brow furrowing in confusion.

“Are you ok?” came Alexandra’s voice. Billy looked over at her; she was peering at him curiously, her own brow knit slightly in concern. The odd feeling, whatever it had been, was suddenly gone…it had vanished almost as soon as it had come.

“Y-yeah,” said Billy, a little shakily, “Yeah, I’m…I’m fine.”

“Are you lightheaded?” asked Alexandra, taking a step towards him.

“N-no…no, I’m fine, mom…really,” said Billy, holding up his hand as he backed away a step. The feeling had gone, but after it had passed over him, everything seemed…well, just a little different. Billy couldn’t quite put his finger on it. But he didn’t want his stepmom getting all nosy and prodding into his business like she usually did.

“All right then,” said Alexandra, nodding a bit curtly, not having a problem showing that she didn’t appreciate him rebuffing her concern, “So maybe we can move the sofa over against the wall, where it belongs?”

“Uh…yeah, sure,” said Billy. This weirdness was troubling him — what was going on? Billy couldn’t help but think that it was just sitting there, waiting for him to notice, but for the life of him, he couldn’t seem to pinpoint what was wrong. He mechanically went back into motion, helping Alexandra pivot the sofa against the wall, and it was only when they both stepped back, close to each other, to examine how the sofa looked from a distance, that Billy suddenly realized what was wrong. His stepmother had never looked quite as tall as she did now…Billy glanced down at her feet, and saw that she was wearing flats. That wasn’t why she looked taller. He straightened up all the way, standing as tall as he could, but it wasn’t enough. There was no mistaking it — he was looking up at his stepmother’s eyes. He was shorter than her…he had shrunk.

But…no…that couldn’t be. How could such a thing be possible!? Billy felt his heart quicken unpleasantly, though its increased rate was also tinged with a strange, thrilled kind of bizarre excitement, as he glanced side-eye at Alexandra, determined not to give anything away. She had been staring straight ahead the whole time, stroking her chin with her hand.

“I don’t know,” she was saying, “I’m thinking maybe the stark black doesn’t go so well with the cream-colored walls.”

“Uhhh…maybe not, yeah,” said Billy hollowly, not really knowing what he was saying. He was trying to covertly measure himself up to his stepmother, to make sure that he wasn’t losing his mind. He backed up slightly, pretending to turn his head a little to look at the sofa; what he was actually, doing, however, was gauging his own height against hers. Yes, there was no doubt — her shoulders were just about even with his chin. Billy had been taller than her ever since he had turned 17! How could it have been possible that, in the span of a couple seconds, he had shrunk down…?! By at least a couple inches, at that!

“Now, see, but if you go over here,” continued Alexandra, striding over to the wide-bay windows on the other side of the room, “The natural light really makes the black cushions stand out…and I think, from this angle at least, that it works really nicely.”

“I’m…uh, yeah, I think it does too,” said Billy, blinking and wiping his brow. He felt like he was sleepwalking through a surreal landscape…he had just shrunk!?!

“You don’t even know what I’m talking about!” chided Alexandra, putting her hands on her hips. “How can you agree with me if you haven’t come over here to see how the light looks from this angle?”

“I…uh, y-yeah…yeah, sorry,” muttered Billy, shuffling over to where his stepmother was standing.

“I don’t want you to just tell me what you think I want to hear, Billy,” Alexandra was saying, shaking her head at him, “I genuinely want your input here! If you’re just gonna parrot back what I’m saying, then you can just go on back home.”

“Ok, ok, mom, geez, I’m sorry,” said Billy, putting up his hands. He took a deep breath, fully intending to rally himself and keep up the facade of normalcy, at least until he could figure out what the hell was going on. But as he drew in his deep breath, he found himself noticing the thick curves of his stepmother’s thighs, readily apparent in the skin-tight jeans she was wearing. They just looked…bigger to him…and somehow more solid. And it wasn’t just her thighs…his eyes darted upward, drawn by the slight bounce and jiggle of Alexandra’s large breasts, which were stretching the confines of her red blouse. Billy had known that his stepmom had big boobs ever since he had overheard one of his high school classmates talking about how big they were one day. Billy hadn’t said anything to this classmate, but the words had echoed in his head ever since:

‘Have you guys seen the jugs on Billy’s mom!? Wwwwwoowwww! Ms. Stetson’s got some tanks!’

Billy had always felt slightly nauseated by the thought of his stepmom being sexualized, especially by boys his own age…but for some reason, his classmate’s words came back to him suddenly, right in this very moment. Alexandra’s breasts looked…well, very big. Bigger than usual.

‘Of course they look bigger,’ said Billy to himself, feeling irritated at the sudden and strange places his mind was going to, ‘And of course she looks bigger in general…it’s because I shrunk! It’s as simple as that.’

He quickly reminded himself, however, that he needed to keep up his front of normalcy, so he turned toward the sofa, putting his own hand up to his chin as he pretended to analyze the lighting. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his stepmother watching him.

“I mean…I don’t know,” he mused, trying to buy time with filler words. “Like…I can see what you were saying before, you know? About how the sunlight, uhh…hits the black cushions and all? It’s just…hmmmm…I’m not sure. Maybe the colors work just fine?”

His mother didn’t respond immediately to him, and so he turned back to look at her expectantly. She was standing there, staring at him, her mouth pursed and slightly twisted, with an odd and curious look in her eyes. Billy became afraid — she had noticed something. He knew it. He had to somehow distract her.

“Like, I don’t know, mom,” he continued, walking away from her and going toward the opposite corner of the room. “If you stand by the window, the sofa looks pretty good…but if you stand over here…I’m not so sure. It looks a little out of place, I think…color-wise, at least.”

Alexandra slowly walked toward where Billy was standing, her eyes never leaving him. Her movement was all under the pretense of looking at the furniture from Billy’s perspective, but at this point, he could tell that she was just trying to get a closer look at him. Before she got too close, Billy was on the move again, going to the third corner of the room. He was running away from her, but he had to disguise it somehow.

“But over here…haha, I mean, we have a whole other situation going on,” he laughed, trying to make it seem like he was getting into the lighting scheme of his stepmother’s upstairs bonus room. Billy could tell that she wasn’t buying it, but he had to keep trying. “There aren’t any windows over here…and…and it’s not on the opposite wall, either, so you don’t get the, umm…the reflective light coming in off the opposite, uhh…wall.”

“Billy,” said Alexandra, the sudden emphasis in her voice more proof than Billy needed that she had noticed something about him. She had turned and was striding towards him again, although this time, her strides had more purpose. Once again, Billy noticed the thick, powerful curve of his stepmother’s thighs, stretching through her jeans as she walked towards him…and the bounce and sway of her chest, as her large breasts jiggled and quivered under her red blouse.

“And I really don’t think, though,” Billy persisted, turning to escape to the last corner, and feeling the heat rising in his neck and face as his stepmother approached, “That we can say anything until we’ve looked at it from all four corners of the — ”

“Billy!” Alexandra exclaimed even more flatly than she had before. She reached out and grabbed his arm, preventing him from escaping.

Billy knew why she was accosting him this way, but he kept trying to fake his way through the adversity, furrowing his brow and opening his mouth in complaint:

“Mom! What’re you doing!? What’s up with you?”

“Hold still,” she commanded, standing up to her full height as she took his other arm in her grasp, squaring him up to face her directly.

“Uhhh…what are you doing?” Billy repeated, feeling the stark reality of his situation swallowing up his attempts to resist. His heart was truly racing now.

“Stand up straight, Billy,” said Alexandra, shaking him slightly by both shoulders. “As tall as you can.”

“Mom…what is this?” he asked lamely. It couldn’t have been more obvious what it was about. He was staring straight into her chin. Quite obviously, she was at least a couple inches taller than him.

Silently, Alexandra extended her palm across the top of his head, and then brought it even with her chin, measuring his height against hers. Billy said nothing — there was no hiding the fact of what had happened now. All he could do was look up into his stepmother’s striking blue eyes as she looked down on him wordlessly. The seconds passed by with agonizing slowness, and Billy began to actually worry that his usually-snappy and quick-witted stepmother was taking too long to respond. It was also that look on her face, and in her eyes…a curious look, one that was deep and impenetrable…and impossible for him to evaluate.

“Come on,” she said suddenly, seizing him by the hand as she strode out toward the door.

“Wh-wha…? Wait…wait, mom!” he protested, actually stumbling a little from the sheer force and pace of his mother’s momentum. She was stronger than he remembered. “Where are we going!?”

“Where do you think we’re going?” she responded immediately. “To the doctor. You just shrunk, Billy.”

“I…I what?” he asked, trying one last time to downplay what was happening as he moved his legs quickly to keep up with his stepmother, and to prevent her having to drag him.

“Don’t play games with me,” snapped Alexandra, pulling him down the stairs and making a beeline for her car. “You know as well as I do what’s going on.”

“I…mom, what?” Billy kept on. They were at the car now, and Alexandra suddenly loosed her grip from Billy’s hand, sending him lightly careening into the side of the car.

“I’m taller than you, Billy,” declared Alexandra emphatically, once again stepping up close to him, more or less pinning him against the car as she measured his height with her hand again. “And it’s by quite a bit, too. You shrunk…like 10 minutes ago. And we’re going to the doctor, right now, to find out why. Now get in the car. I’m driving.”

Billy didn’t have a choice — he was literally and metaphorically cornered. Sighing, and blinking at the ground, he rounded the car, opened the door, and got into the passenger’s seat. It wasn’t lost on him that he had to hop up a little to even get into the car itself.

About an hour later, Billy was sitting on the doctor’s exam table, his shrunken legs swinging slightly off the end, as he hunched his shoulders in perplexed concern, waiting for the results of the blood tests that the doctor had just performed. The exam-room official measurements showed that he was now only 5 feet tall, even, and weighed 120 pounds. Alexandra sat in a chair by the door, staring straight ahead, her lips pursed, evidently deep in thought. It was a tense situation, and neither of them spoke.

A soft but firm knock came at the door, and it opened straight away. Dr. Bassett walked in with a clipboard. She was Billy’s primary care physician; he had been seeing her regularly for checkups ever since he was 10. She was a few years older than Alexandra, but just like her, Dr. Bassett had aged well. She had long, wavy blond hair that spilled down the back of her white lab coat; her rectangular glasses lent an additional prop of authority to her already-confident gait and complexion. She wasn’t wearing heels, and didn’t need them, standing at 5’8.

“So,” said Dr. Bassett, immediately setting the tone with the single downhearted syllable. “The preliminary blood work has come back, although, of course, we’ll need a few days to get the true results back in full.”

“Uh-huh?” said Billy expectantly, wishing that he could have been acting braver in this moment. The truth, however, couldn’t be avoided. He was scared.

“And…well, we’re not really sure what has caused this…reverse growth spurt to occur,” said Dr. Bassett, looking from Billy to Alexandra, and then back to Billy. “There are several possibilities that we’re exploring, like amino-protein receptors misfiring, for instance, but it wouldn’t really do to go into them in too much detail right now.”

“B-But…uh…ok, I mean…ok,” said Billy, discombobulated and nervous. Dr. Bassett had always looked huge to him, since she had been 5 inches taller, but…well, this was the first time seeing her in his shrunken state. The office nurses had taken all his measurements, not Dr. Bassett. And now that he was seeing her in person, he felt terribly intimidated.

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” asked Alexandra, her voice maintaining a remarkable calmness despite the situation.

“Well, there are some indications that we could talk about,” said Dr. Bassett, turning to face her. “Although, again, we’re not exactly sure of anything at this moment.”

Alexandra nodded, indicating that she should continue.

“I don’t want to discourage you, Billy,” Dr. Bassett said kindly, with a definite touch of pity as she turned back to face him, “But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t tell you the implications of what we’re finding so far.”

“O-ok?” he said, his mouth going dry.

“From the protein disarray we found in your blood, combined with some irregularities in your hemoglobin charts, there’s good reason to believe that this wasn’t your last…shrinking episode.”

“What!?” cried Billy, now making no bones about showing how he truly felt. “B-But…but that’s crazy! You mean…I’m gonna keep shrinking!?”

“There’s no way to tell for sure, Billy,” said Dr. Bassett in a soothing voice, taking a step closer to him (and seeming huger to him in the process), “But yes — those are the biological indicators we’re working with right now.”

Billy looked in wide-eyed shock at his stepmother, who returned his shock with a long, deep look from her blue eyes. She was surprised too, yes, but there was something else going on inside her head that Billy couldn’t quite put his finger on. She was looking at him closely, almost studying him, like she was trying to decide what she was going to do next in regards to him. Billy found himself wishing, for once, that she would overreact about his condition — if she had cried, or had an angry outburst in response, it would have been somehow easier for him to deal with than seeing her sitting there quietly, just watching him closely. He felt little chills go down his spine, and he didn’t know why.

But all of these thoughts flashed through his head so fast that he wasn’t even fully aware of having them. On the surface, he was too busy being shocked that the doctors not only didn’t know what was going on, but also were fairly confident that he was going to get even smaller.

“Can you hop down from the table for me for a moment, please, Billy?” asked Dr. Bassett in a kind voice.

“Be careful, please,” warned Alexandra as Billy jostled himself slightly to get down. It was a more complicated task than it had been before, but not complicated enough to elicit that kind of comment from his stepmother.

“Mom,” he said irritatedly, “I’m literally just getting off the table. I’ll be fine.”

A couple seconds later, he was standing before Dr. Bassett, feeling smaller than ever. He was staring straight into the top of her rather large chest, and he couldn’t fail to notice that the top of his head barely even came up to her chin. She had always looked big to him — but now, she looked positively enormous.

“Fascinating,” muttered Dr. Bassett, taking note of the height comparison for a few long moments, before she brightened up again, smiling down at him.

“Ok, well that’s all for today, Billy,” she said genially, bending down slightly to speak to him. “Try not to worry, ok? We’ll see you again in a few days. In the meantime, of course, if you experience another episode —”

“We’ll call you straight away,” finished Alexandra, who was already swinging on her purse. She reached out her hand, taking up Billy’s unwilling hand in her own. “Come on Billy,” she said, “Let’s go.”

A few minutes later, in the car, Billy broke the awkward silence between them.

“Um, so…ok, mom, you’re…dropping me off at my place, right?”

“Excuse me?” she asked, implying that he had just proposed something ridiculous.

“I’m…a little exhausted from all this, to be honest,” said Billy genuinely. “I kinda just wanna go back to my place and take a nap…and take it easy.”

“You have to be joking,” replied Alexandra, shaking her head as she watched the road. “Leaving you all by yourself the same day something like this happens? Not on my life. You’re coming back home with me, where I can monitor you.”

Billy turned to look at his stepmother incredulously. He was an adult! She couldn’t treat him like this!

“Monitor me!?” he exclaimed.