Chapter 5 – Designs Revealed

“Well aren’t you cute”, Kaitlin said, giggling, “but…how did you get in there. And where’s my other shrinky?”

Goodspeed simply shrugged his shoulders with palms extended, giving the I don’t know body language. The less she knows, the better. And maybe that little cretan will act as a distraction for her at some point.

Kaitlin gave him a pointed look, “Well, you didn’t just get up here on your own!”

Just then, there came a knock at the door. Sydney had arrived.

“Hmmm…hold on a sec”, said Kaitlin loudly, swiveling around and bending to remove the towel that had been pinched under the door.

She sighed as she stood up with the towel in one hand, opening the door with the other.

“Hey girl”, said Sydney with hands on her hips, “what took so long? What’s with the towel?”

“Oh, this?”, Kaitlin said, waving Sydney in and looking at her towel, “Just making sure our shrinky didn’t escape.” She smiled mischievously and nodded towards the glass jar on the stand.

“Hmmm. Why would our shrinky escape? And where’s Good…ohhhhhh. Oh cool, you already shrunk him”, she said through her breath, recognizing the shrinky in the jar.  She smiled down at Goodspeed, bringing her face inches from the open container.

“Hi there, little guy”, she said, reaching her forefinger into the container and playfully nudging Goodspeed’s belly and abdomen with the back of her fingernail. Goodspeed had started walking towards the finger, thinking she was going to use it to allow him to grapple onto it and out of the jar, but he was mistaken.

To Goodspeed, it was more than a playful nudge, catching him in the groin and lower belly and lifting him slightly off his feet, racking him with sudden pain.

“Oops, sorry, did I hurt our little guy? I guess I didn’t realize my own strength”, Sydney said and both girls giggled, Kaitlin having moved up beside Sydney.

“Grab it Syd. Go ahead and bring it down here”, said Kaitlin as she sat down on the matted material, “I need to stretch a little. We can have some fun with it before I take my shower.”

It? Did she just call me it?, thought Goodspeed. It was clear Kaitlin no longer even viewed him as a person. He hoped that Sydney felt differently. She had atleast acted playfully towards him, which was a step up from Kaitlin’s apparent apathy.

“Suuuuure”, said Sydney. She plucked Goodspeed’s legs and brought him out of the container. Holding him up, one of his legs came free and for a couple moments, Goodspeed dangled there in front of her appraising face. His heart skipped a couple beats as he thought she might drop him.

Adjusting her fingers, Sydney pinched Goodspeed around the waist and brought him upright. She brought him to her other hand and cupped him gently in it, as if protecting a baby bird from falling. Having secured him, she slipped off her heels and put them on the shoe rack, then sat down cross-legged while she watched Kaitlin spread the towel out under the door.

“How come you’re putting the towel back? You think he can escape the both of us?”, asked Sydney with a confused look.

“There’s another shrinky around here”, Kaitlin explained, “one of the ones that you gave me earlier.”

“One of the twins?”, said Sydney, surprised, “Wow, I thought they’d have been long gone by now.”

Finishing up with the towel, Kaitlin turned to face Sydney, then sat down across from her, legs spread open, her feet almost touching each of Sydney’s knees where they were bent. “No, wanted to save it for dinner too.”

“Hmmm, well where is it?”, asked Sydney.

“Escaped, I guess. I put it in the jar and then, when Good came in and shrank, I looked for him, then the next thing I know, Good was in the jar and wouldn’t tell me where the other one was.”

“So it’s a mystery, huh? Alright, well, let’s have some fun now and save the other one for a little hide and seek later.”

Kaitlin nodded in agreement.

“So, Good shrunk down on his own? You didn’t have to use a shrink patch?”, asked Sydney.

Kaitlin’s cousin, Katarina, was a chemist who worked in bio mechanics, an experimental medical science field for the main pharmaceutical firm working on the vaccine for MSD. The bio mechanics had worked on the gene which was known to cause MSD in their duties of trying to develop the vaccine. They had secretly determined what triggered the gene from it’s dormant state. A small portion of the lab was aware of this and an even smaller portion was aware of the offshoot shrink-patch and shrink-weed projects. Both products were biogenetic augmentation catalysts; they would introduce the MSD gene into a host if it did not have it as well as causing the gene to trigger. As part of the experiment, Katarina had distributed a small amount of the experimental items to some female friends and relatives on the condition they keep it hush-hush and let her know of the results.

“Haha, no. When I finished my cardio, I went to look for Good and just found a puddle of his clothes over by the wall units”, replied Kaitlin happily.

“That’s great! Glad we didn’t have to go to our fallback option. I hate to waste those unless we have to. After he told me about those tickling sensations, I was pretty sure that he was going to shrink sometime today at the latest, but you never know. Thanks for keeping an eye on him”, said Sydney.

“Girl, you don’t know the half of it”, sighed Kaitlin, “I followed him all around Wrigley field, even asked some random guy to look out for him when he went into the bathroom. Thank god he only had to go once. I’m sure he thought I was going nuts, hehe.”

“Yeah, better safe than sorry”, Sydney said, grateful, “wouldn’t want to mess up our dinner plans.”

“Speaking of dinner plans, how about we work up some appetite before we eat?”, said Kaitlin, furrowing her brow.

“Suuure”, purred Sydney, setting the shrinky onto the ground in the open space between Kaitlin’s outstretched legs.

Goodspeed had heard the entire conversation, though it had been muffled somewhat by Sydney’s hand. He couldn’t believe the girls were talking so casually about their ‘dinner plans’, (ie. -  him). They had known that he had the virus and had discussed plans for shrinking him as a fallback. What the hell?! He also had no idea about a shrink patch or shrink weed. Neither of the girls had mentioned anything like that before. It sounded diabolical to him. No wonder they had wanted to be out with him so much lately. No wonder why Kaitlin had acted so crazily paranoid at the ballpark. She hadn’t cared for him in the slightest, he realized, she and Sydney were just marking their territory.

Facing Kaitlin once he was set down, he turned around to get a good view of Sydney. She was wearing a dark choker around her throat and a black frilly armless dress with straps that went over her shoulders and criss-crossed her nearly bare back.  Attached to the choker via a strip of leather was a large glittering diamond which lay between her breastbone at the base of her throat. The hem of the dress seemed to go to mid-thigh if she had been standing, but since she was sitting cross-legged, it was riding up, showing much of her tanned, toned legs. She wore black sandals, baring her toes, with toenails polished black to match her dress.

“Sydney…why? Haven’t I been a good friend and colleague? Didn’t you girls like me at all?”, Goodspeed yelled up to her.

“Oh, you’re alright, Good. In fact, you look quite delicious standing there so small with your, ahem, bits hanging out.” Goodspeed hastily covered himself, causing Sydney to grin. She continued, “but Kat’s my girl. My number one. And you…you were in the way. You know how long it takes to get promoted there. Let’s just say, we wanted to expedite things a bit. We were actually just discussing our plans when you told me about your little ‘itchy’ issues, so things just sort of…worked out.”

“Worked out?”, repeated Goodspeed, incredulous.

“Um, yeah, and you know how we both love eating shrinkies. I mean, how can things have went better?”

Goodspeed shook his head, trying to clear his mind. This had to be some kind of nightmare.

“In fact”, added Sydney, “I bet you’ll be even better than Garrett, and you know how much I liked him.”

The comment staggered him. “Wh…what? You ate Garrett too? Seriously?”

“Oh come on Good. He’s out with me the night he disappears. I get promoted into his vacant position. You think that was all coincidence, haha?”

“I-what..I guess”, he stammered, struck by her callousness.

“If it makes you feel any better, I think Kat kind of liked you”, Sydney said with a smirk.

“As if!”, Kaitlin responded defensively, “He’s not really the type of guy I’d date. Now, eating…?

Goodspeed got the gist, nervously asking, “Is there anything, anything I can do to change your minds?”

“Hmmm”, said Sydney, thinking as she looked over to Kaitlin. She uncrossed her legs and it was at that moment that Goodspeed realized that underneath her dress, she was going commando. His eyes bugged as he got a glimpse of her heavenly nether region, which looked to have been waxed clean and smooth.

Sydney brought her feet towards each other, her legs bent at the knee, then continued, “For starters, you can kiss my feet”, wriggling her toes.

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