Ron knew the fishing line he kept in his garage was perfect for the task at hand. A month or two before, he would have simply walked out there 
and gotten it. Ron's legs were just fine, moved as well as ever, give or take a bum knee. Problem was, for the last month or so those legs had 
been about three inches long and they supported a body no more than six inches tall. He was standing in a dollhouse on a high shelf and was 
trying to figure out how to climb down, get to the garage and retrieve the fishing line. 
---
Ron once stood six foot one. He had been married for the past 20 years to Amanda, a five foot six blonde. Their marriage had gotten into the 
comfortable rut that so many do, with its share of quirks that bond a pair together. One thing Ron liked to do was kiss Amanda as soon as 
possible after she had brushed her teeth, so as to taste her at her freshest. Of course, she wouldn't let him do that unless he had brushed 
first, which meant that he usually got up first to get the bathroom before she did. On one particular morning, Ron walked up to the bathroom 
door, put his ear against it, heard the sound of brushing, and waited. A moment later, the door opened, and Amanda pretended to be startled as 
she looked up into the eyes of her husband. Then their eyes locked together, and she closed hers as their faces came together for a kiss. Amanda 
had no reason to believe she had just looked up at Ron for the last time. 

Ron looked down into his wife's eyes as he leaned down to kiss her. As their lips touched, he felt a spark, not unlike the static electricity one 
gets touching a doorknob after rubbing one's feet on a carpet. Then came a feeling of current flowing through his body. He ended their kiss, 
breathing a bit more heavily than he usually would and feeling a bit depleted. His clothes seemed a bit loose, the sleeve on his shirt a bit 
long.

He looked into Amanda's eyes -- not down into her eyes, but straight across, as though they were... the same height? It seemed dizzying to Ron. 
He braced himself against the bathroom threshold, and shook his head as he tried to reorient himself. At that moment, Ron had no idea that the 
same thing had just happened to men all over the world -- whether or not they had just kissed their wives or girlfriends, whether or not they had 
wives or girlfriends. 

Ron gathered enough of his wits to look at Amanda again. Her eyes were filling with concern. Her brain hadn't made the connection that Ron was 
smaller. At that moment, she had only perceived that he seemed sick and disoriented. Ron saw her reaction and decided to make a joke. "You must 
have some really high heels on today", he said between gasps as he managed a smile. 

Amanda answered. "You don't look well. I really think you should go to the doctor." 

"No, I'm fine, Amanda. Then Ron felt a chill, then a shudder, and he found himself looking straight into his wife's lips. "This is scaring me", 
Amanda told him. "We are going to the doctor." She grabbed Ron by the hand and marched him to the car. She wasn't normally this take-charge. 

Ron and Amanda arrived at the doctor's office to find it full of men, four or five feet tall, who weren't that height when they woke up that 
morning. To Ron, now just five foot three, the nurses and receptionists seemed a bit more in charge. One told Ron to put on a hospital gown and 
wait in the examining room. He did and was amazed to find how much it covered. 
After hours of waiting, the male doctor, hands engulfed by a growing white coat, did the standard "Say aahhh", looked around in Ron's mouth, and 
slumped his shoulders. "It's happening to every man I've seen, and to me too. There's no explanation, no signs of illness. They all feel fine, 
just a foot or two shorter. I don't have anything to prescribe, unless you need something to calm you down. Put your clothes on and get your wife 
to take you home." 

Amanda and Ron rode in silence. About halfway home, Ron felt that strangle tingle again. He uttered a "Whoa", as his arms, legs and head 
retracted into his clothes. In an instant, Ron had gone from five foot three to four foot two. Amanda's face lost its color and it took all of 
her concentration to get the car off the road and check on her shrinking husband. Once in a parking lot, she looked him over. "I'm beginning to 
wish we hadn't sold the child seats after the twins outgrew them." 

As Ron experienced the new feeling of looking up at Amanda, he found himself thinking that something had changed. Of course she seemed bigger to 
him, but something else was happening. Despite her obvious look of worry, Ron thought her very attractive, moreso than he had in years. He tried 
to think of what she could have done to her look, and could think of nothing. 

As Amanda steered back onto the road, she noticed cars stopped in the middle of the road, pointing every which way. Apparently some men were 
trying to drive home when the latest shrink spurt hit them. 
"I'm fine", Ron insisted as Amanda tried to help him out of the car. Ron hopped out and his pants fell to the ground. He tightened his belt to 
the last notch and managed toclomp into the house in his oversized shoes. 
Once back in their living room, Amanda pulled Ron up onto the sofa and held him. Ron sighed and adopted the unusual position of leaning into the 
arms of his wife, who was now much taller than he was. "The doctor said he doesn't know a cause or a cure". 

"How long can it go on? When would it stop?" Amanda asked as she rubbed Ron's back. 

Just then Ron let out a moan. The tingling enveloped his body again and his arms and legs pulled farther back into his clothing. Ron was now 
three feet tall -- half the height he'd been when he woke up. Ron saw that his face was now even with where Amanda's right breast filled out her 
purple sweatshirt. Amanda looked down just in time to hear another moan, this one higher in pitch, as Ron's clothes seemed to collapse around 
him. Now he was just two feet tall and just his head stood out from the pile of fabric. He pulled up his T-shirt and tried to cover himself as he 
clung to Amanda's sweatshirt. Then another moan, in what sounded to Amanda like a chipmunk voice, and Ron stood just a foot tall. Then the 
chipmunk voice let loose again, and Ron's world expanded one last time. 
Ron shook his head to clear the dizziness. He looked over and saw that he was clinging toone of the belt loops of Amanda's jeans. He was now naked, standing on the pile of what had been his clothes. On the sofa, Amanda's thighs were 
almost as tall as he was, and each of her buttocks were big enough to be a recliner. Ron now stood just six inches tall. 

Ron inhaled, noticed the scent of Amanda's perfume, and then it hit him. A powerful wave of desire for his wife, as powerful as anything he had 
felt for her when they were a new couple. Seemingly enlarged to the height of a ten story building, the woman who had been his wife for 20 years 
had suddenly become in his mind, the greatest bombshell he could imagine. Not that he hadn't been attracted before. Not that they hadn't 
sustained their relationship for two decades. But the feelings that were washing over him right now were indescribable. He covered himself to 
keep Amanda from seeing the reaction of a certainpart of himself. Gasping for breath, his heart pounding, Ron became lightheaded and fainted. 

Amanda had heard the strange sounds and had seen the clothes collapse. Then she saw a tiny, naked Ron climb out, stagger, and collapse. She 
screamed. The scream didn't wake Ron up. Amanda scooped up her tiny husband and placed him on a pillow. What could she do? CPR was impossible 
with this size difference. She waited to see whether Ron would wake up. 
After an hour, Ron's eyes fluttered open. He sat up and saw that he was sitting on a pillow on the sofa where he last remembered clinging to 
Amanda. A torn piece of a handkerchief covered the lower half of his body, apparently for privacy's sake. Then the wave of desire hit him again, 
and before he looked up he knew he was in her presence. 
Amanda's face was directly above him, carrying a glow he had never seen before, or at least had never perceived. Her eyes were blinking and 
watery. Clearly she'd been crying as she worried about her husband. 
In spite of his situation, the feelings churning inside him for Amanda were making him smile. He waved and shouted at his now seemingly gigantic 
wife. Then he reached up and kissed her nose. 

Amanda smiled, reached down with a finger and tickled his belly. She had Ron back. But how could ever they be a couple again? 

Finding the answer to that question drove Ron crazy over the next few days and weeks, thanks to the enormous heart-pumping arousal that he felt 
whenever she was in the room. He wanted to be with her, even if he couldn't figure out how to do that. Ron paced the floor of his dollhouse at 
night, trying to figure out why he was feeling as horny as a teenager whenever she entered the room. 

Then it hit him. Pheromones. 

Amanda was still pumping out enough pheromones to interest a six-foot-tall man. Since Ron was just six inches tall now, he reasoned, that same 
dose of a woman's attraction hormones was now enough to fill him with enough unrequited desire to utterly take over his mind and soul. 

The other thing that was bugging Ron in his dollhouse was what to do with his life. He had owned a business, he was a husband and father, he had 
hunted and fished and played golf and a million other things. He'd thought about taking up mountain climbing. Now all of those things were 
foreclosed to him. Amanda was taking care of him as best she could, but any sort of adventure to life seemed to be over. Any of his old 
challenges were too dangerous, and there was nothing inside the four walls of his house that could ever be as exciting. 

Then he thought about his overwhelming desire to be with Amanda. She was huge. She could hurt him without meaning to. His desire may have 
increased a hundredfold, but expressing his love to her physically was clearly out of the question. 

Or was it merely a question of engineering? 

Which is what got him thinking about that fishing line in the garage. 
---
Ron's heart began pounding. He knew Amanda was about to come back in the room. 
A distance had built up between them. Amanda found it hard to talk to a man who answered her in a voice somewhere between a chipmunk's chatter 
and a bird's chirping. She felt alone and unsupported as she tried to keep their economic needs met. She fought the temptation to thnk of Ron 
just as a burden. Every other woman on earth had the same problem now, she thought. But every once in a while, Ron showed a little bit of that 
spark that made her laugh, and for just a moment, it all felt better, more like the way things had been before. 

Still, Amanda was showing signs of getting used to Ron's new size. She had even renewed one of their marital quirks. Fresh from brushing her 
teeth, she bent over the dollhouse and kissed Ron on the lips. Or as close as she could get. For Ron, it was sort of like being under a mint-
flavored tornado, as Amanda seemed to suck his breath away. 

"I still love when you do that", Ron shouted at Amanda. "I still love you." 

"I love you too", Amanda whispered back. 

"I know you've been working so hard to keep everything going. I'm going to make that up to you. I'm going to find a way to make things easier for 
you, and someday, I'm going to show you love again, the way a man loves a woman." 

Amanda smiled. "Yes, someday they're going to find a cure for this terrible plague or whatever it is that made all the men six inches tall." 

Ron shook his head. "No, I mean whether they find one or not. I'm going to be a man, and I'm going to make you feel like a woman." 

Amanda's face flushed, and she covered her mouth as she giggled. "Somehow, I just don't think that'll work." 

Ron looked into Amanda's huge eyes as deeply as he could. "I'm not an invalid. I'm not disabled. Everything works. I'm just..." he still had 
trouble admitting it... "six inches tall. Somehow, I think it can work. But all I really want you to do right now, is think about it. You know 
that when you think about doing something... different..." 

"When I think about doing something, it's as exciting for you as if I actually do it." Amanda had no trouble finishing the sentence. Ron had used 
that line over the years whenever he wanted Amanda to do something a little adventuresome -- usually in the bedroom -- or to let him take a 
chance in business. From when they met in college, Ron loved it when Amanda thought about his crazy ideas, in business or in the bedroom, even 
when the result wasn't what he wanted. She didn't always do what Ron suggested -- and once she responded with a slap. But he did get her to roll 
it around in her mind, to own the idea herself, and often that was enough to draw her in. 

Amanda laughed. "I love you to death, but I think you're crazy. I mean --- what, how -- wouldn't you get..." 
"Just think about it, Amanda. And know something else... you are more beautiful to me now than you have ever been. Walk tall and straight, and 
carry yourself proudly. I don't know what it is, but somehow I believe I've been placed beneath the hem of your longest dress for a reason." 
She turned and left. For Ron, it felt like a thunderstorm that was moving away. Somehow, he knew lightning was going to strike. 
----
Amanda tried to figure it all out. How would it work? She tried to get her head around the concept and couldn't. How would she deal with not 
feeling the weight and presence of a man above, beneath or beside her? Could she lose herself in the moment without putting him in danger? It 
just seemed so... silly. But in the end, she decided, all she was doing was risking looking silly. He was risking a lot more for her. And he was 
so certain of success. She had to give him a chance. She remembered back to the first time they made love. His skills were considerably less than 
perfect, and her pleasure was not necessarily at the center of his thoughts. She remembered feeling a little sore the morning after. But she 
didn't give up on him then, and she wouldn't now. When that thought established itself, Amanda straightened up unconsciously. Her face changed to 
a serene look. She felt ten stories tall, tall enough to touch the clouds. 
As Amanda warmed up to the concept, Ron was starting to have his doubts. He knew the physical dangers, but something else was gnawing at him as 
well -- the idea that he could actually disappear into Amanda. For a moment, he would not exist as a separate being -- only as a part of her. 
What would that make him when he re-emerged -- assuming that he did?