Scott’s clothes lay crumpled on the ground, without the teen boy himself in them anymore.

Ella’s jaw dropped, her eyes widening in blank terror.  She wanted to scream but couldn’t make a sound.  She was frozen.

Judy raised a hand, extending it toward her son’s girlfriend.  “Now… Ella, don’t be afraid.  It’s not what you think.”

“Y-Y-You k-k-k…” stuttered Ella in such a quiet voice it was barely audible, clasping her hands over her mouth, a few beads of sweat trickling down her forehead.  The scene before her was so surreal that she couldn’t even process it fully.

“No, honey, Scott’s not dead.  He’s fine.  He’s just…”

“Just WHAT?” screeched Ella, finally beginning to get her panicked bearings in order.

“Smaller,” stated Judy simply and softly, trying to ease the blow.  Ella frowned, cocking her head slightly at her boyfriend’s mother.  She couldn’t understand what had just been said.  Judy nodded reassuringly to her, knowing she would probably require proof.  Leaning over slowly, Judy plucked up Scott’s red t-shirt between her thumb and forefinger, flinging it off to the side, leaving only a pair of jeans and underwear laying there.  Poking at the folds of fabric, she sighed with relief.  “THERE you are…” she said happily, reaching her hand under a fold of the jeans.  “Thought I’d lost you there for a moment, sweetie,” she giggled.

Ella’s eyes boggled out of their sockets, and she rubbed at them with her slender fingers before blinking and taking another look.  But the sight was the same.  Judy was rising slowly to a full standing position again, her pointer finger and thumb clasped firmly around something small, peach-colored, and squirming.  It looked like it couldn’t have been more than an inch and a half long, if that, and from this distance, Ella couldn’t be sure.

And yet somehow she knew what it was, without even having to accept it fully in her mind.  Ella stared harder, watching the tiny little figure’s limbs flailing around wildly, a small patch of brown fuzz on top of its head whipping ever so slightly as Judy raised it in her thick fingertips up to chest level and gently deposited it into the wide, soft palm of her other hand.

Judy held her hand open, palm up, and stared down into the creased center.  Ella watched her gray eyes staring down, glistening.  She could see a great deal of love and compassion in them, and yet there was something else.  A raging glow in her pupils.  Hunger.  Desire for control.  A need for it, not just a want.  It sent a shiver down Ella’s spine.

“Ella, honey?” said Judy at length, looking back up.  “You can come over here.  It’s okay.  Come and see.”

“Mrs. S-S-Stevens…” stuttered Ella.  “P-Please…”

“There’s no need to be scared, honey.  I promise.  Just come here,” said Judy with a soft smile, her eyes practically sparkling.  “This is nothing new, trust me.  You just have to get used to it.”

“Get used to… to…” gasped Ella, walking closer to her boyfriend’s mother and coming to a standstill, her jaw dropping again.  In the center of Judy’s palm was Scott, completely naked, rolled up in a ball, his legs pressed to his chest and grasped in place by his arms.  He was so small that Ella could barely make out his expression, but she heard him cry out in shame and agony when her no-doubt billboard-sized face came into view.

“MOM!  STOP!” screamed Scott, bursting into tears with sheer embarrassment.  “Oh, God, no, no, no…”

“Shhhh… sweetie, sweetie…” repeated Judy softly, bringing her face down closer to her tiny, naked son’s body still sitting directly in the center of her wide, fleshy palm.  “You have GOT to get over this embarrassment thing, or you’re going to have a very difficult time in life, believe me.”

“MOM!  NO!  PLEASE…” yelled Scott upward to make sure he was heard, but he was silenced by the pointer finger of Judy’s other hand descending on him, her wide fingertip covering most of his face for an instant.

“Scott, you don’t have to get upset.  I changed you when you were a baby, remember?  I know what all of you looks like already,” continued Judy softly, removing her tear-soaked fingertip from her son’s face, which was by now streaked with wetness.  “He always gets like this when I have to do this to him, honey,” said Judy, looking back up at Ella’s still-frozen face.  “Don’t worry about him, he’ll be fine.”

“What’s going to happen to him now?” swallowed Ella, regaining some color in her face as the concept she was witnessing slowly but surely sunk in.

A sly smile crossed Judy’s lips.  “He’s going to time-out, of course.”