Roberta Lawrence cupped her palm beneath her plump breast, sampling its heft like a sandbag, and felt her six-inch-tall son Kyle slide another few licks deeper into her cleavage. She smiled to herself and combed her frizzy brunette locks through the recently manicured talons of her free hand. His tiny hands flapped uselessly at the sagging walls around him, only managing to tickle her in the process rather than convince her to end his time-out early.
But Roberta held firm and gave her breast another soft jostle. She’d allowed herself to cow to that prissy boy all his life, turning a blind eye to every indiscretion and act of disrespect. Now, the tables had turned, and this time, she had the law on her side.
The steel-white Reduction & Rehabilitation group therapy room took some getting used to with its bonsai trees and blaring fluorescent light; one’s eyes never quite adjusted even after nearly forty minutes of sustained wide-eyed discussion between the normal-sized caretakers and their shrunken charges held at varying levels of temporary imprisonment. However, after two weeks of this now, Roberta was learning to enjoy the experience. Maybe, just maybe, there really was something to all this oddity and its legal parent, the Shrink Act.
“Well, we’re almost around the whole circle. Why don’t we hear from the Lawrences again?” the group therapist announced, her twiddling fingers bouncing a pen off the edge of a clipboard. Her gaze, along with that of the rest of the room, turned earnestly to Roberta and the near-invisible lump of her six-inch son nuzzled between her tits.
Roberta smiled at them all, feeling her cheeks blush pink. Given how little recognition she received either at her office job or at home prior to Kyle’s reductive consequences, it was nice to see such a lack of judgment and even admiration in like-minded people. She cleared her throat.
“Let’s see, now,” Roberta sighed, nibbling her lip. She pressed her thumb on the tiny bulge in her blouse, jamming her son deeper into the tight valley of cleavage. “What was the question again? My main concerns as a parent about my… little ward?”
“Yes, essentially that,” the therapist said. “If there are none you wish to discuss at this time, that’s fine, though-”
“No, no. I’m sure I can come up with something,” Roberta said with a note of sarcasm, earning a chuckle from the full-sized parents and elder siblings that composed the guardians. “Let’s see. We’ll just start with the smaller things, shall we? I… know this was mentioned last week, during the full introductions, but my little Kyle… well, he’s not exactly the best student. The brightest bulb in the pack, shall we say. It’s a shame, really, because I know he’s got the potential; he used to bring home A’s and B’s when he was in grade school. But now he’s hit eighteen, and it seems like the illusion of manhood’s made him give up on his studies. All I see are D’s, sometimes F’s, even. To be honest, this new program with the six-month shrinking and all couldn’t have come at a better time. He could use some re-centering. Maybe a full reprogramming as a serious student, not just a citizen.”
Murmurs of agreement rang out around the room. Roberta’s words were all-too familiar to a good portion of the room and their own tiny delinquents.
“Of course that’s not all,” she continued. “Kyle’s always had a… well, let’s say he’s had a way with the ladies. It seems like I see him with a new girl every month. And sometimes I see some of those same girls back again, and in the same week. Though he won’t say, just like he never says anything to me about what’s going on with him, I just know he’s juggling these oblivious young women and using them as his playthings.”
Some commiserating frowns and nods joined in with Roberta.
The mother took a deep breath. With her thumb pressed on her six-inch boy’s rear end through the fabric of her blouse, she eased him back up toward the surface like an organic push-pop. She let her eyes wander the room as she did so, observing the other unique perches of the shrunken wards. It was easy to judge the current relationship health of the guardians and their shrinkers, merely by noting how they were held.
About half the room’s parents and guardians hoisted their diminutive dependents out in their lap, either cupped in a hand or crossed over a knee, where they could sit freely and contribute to the discussion. Others, probably in just a little more hot water, were gripped in fists, their tiny bodies coiled between parental fingers, but at least able to breathe normally. Finally, there were several, like Kyle, who were all but invisible, though displayed just publicly enough in their current predicaments to add humiliating insult to injury. Most of these unlucky kids were literally underfoot, either gently squashed by a bare sole removed from its shoe, or in fact sandwiched inside the footwear itself, with their tiny limbs protruding out from beneath a pudgy set of wriggling toes.
Roberta smiled again. These people understood her. They knew what it was like to raise a little brat and finally, finally have society on the side of the poor, stress-addled parents near the end of their rope.
“He’s said he’s still a virgin, the last time I confronted him, but… well, like I told him, do I look like an idiot?” Roberta questioned rhetorically. Mild chuckles of understanding rose up in answer; yet another relatable struggle.
“Where do you see solutions to these conflicts, Roberta?” the therapist asked. “If you feel comfortable saying.”
“I’m not blind, of course. I can see he’s eighteen. He’s an adult now, and might well be on his own very soon. But the thing of it is, as it’s been just the two of us since Kyle was five years old, well… he’s the man of the house. He ought to be acting as such. And though my time to teach him may be waning, I see it as my responsibility to correct him. To make him into a man.”
A few parents golf-clapped, while some even jokingly cheered in staunch concurrence. Roberta could see multiple parental toes squeezing around the heads of their shrunken children for emphasis, instructing them to listen to the woman.
“Hey, I’m sorry, but… is nobody gonna ask us what we think?” Kyle blurted suddenly, his grape-sized head popping up from between his mother’s breasts. He huffed, damp with sweat from both his own aching body and the dense weight of Roberta’s chest.
“You’ll have your chance, Kyle, rest assured,” the therapist explained in her sugar-sweet tone.
“See, this is exactly what I’m talking about. He thinks he owns every room he enters. Even when he entered the room from inside his mama’s bosom!” Roberta balked. She surprised herself with the candid stream of words; the woman generally considered herself a more timid figure, but somehow, the energy of this space and these supportive fellow disciplinarians were spurring her on. Opening her hand, she tenderly but firmly shoved Kyle directly back down into the musky depths of her cleavage. His protesting voice was muffled by the broad ceiling of her palm gripping his skull like a marble.
The room practically cheered again as it laughed along with her. Roberta blushed. It couldn’t hurt to egg them on a little more; plus, it just might put the fear of God in Kyle, which he seemed to be sorely lacking today.
“No more talking out of turn, Kyle, understand? I operate on a two-strike, not a three-strike system, remember?” she warned gravely. “One more slip-up, and you’re going in time-out.”
Parents muttered appreciatively, whispering to one another.
“So this, right now, isn’t time-out for him, is it?” one curious mother questioned.
“Not at all,” Roberta said with pride, which was a decidedly new feeling for her. She could still feel her son writhing about between her tits, resisting his status and stature alike.
“I wonder what is?” another parent snickered.
“Maybe a trip down below? A little time in the submarine?” a woman questioned. She extended her leg, revealing her shrunken daughter’s legs hanging out the leather portals of her summer sandal. “That’s what I call it whenever my little Ellie misbehaves. The submarine.”
Roberta regarded the rest of the room, raised an eyebrow, and let the crook of her smile tip up a little higher.
“No, not at all. I suppose I hadn’t considered giving Kyle a little toe-time, though I’m sure it has its many benefits. No, for him, time-out means he goes right where the sun doesn’t shine,” Roberta said casually. Just for good measure, she gave her rotund, pear-shaped rump a sporting slap with the back of her hand. What was wrong with a little white lie, when it obviously did so much good? “I know, perhaps a little unorthodox at first glance, but I can only recommend it to you all. Having a little fella down there? Let me tell you, it does wonders for the chaffing, plus if, say… you have a few too many beans for lunch, he’s right there to block any surprise expulsions of unpleasant air.”
There was a breath of silence across the room. Roberta felt her son stop squirming in her breasts as he listened. If anything, she felt him shiver, and probably with disgust.
“Sounds like you use live ammo in your personal R&R program, Roberta,” one man said. Several parents nodded in agreement, and a couple now wore devilish grins. Even the group therapist, for all her school-teacher charms, regarded the woman with esteem.
“You can certainly say that,” Roberta confirmed, squinting as she looked down to make out the hapless form of her shrunken son’s head poking pitifully out of the birthmark-speckled walls of his sagging, jiggling prison. She could see the terror and revulsion in his eyes. “Yes, you certainly can say that, indeed.”