Mark was very much in love with his girlfriend. She was very beautiful to him. It was not that she was a bombshell with voluptuous curves. Quite the contrary, she was lithe and graceful. What frustrated him, however, was that she did not really realize it, and had a difficult time understanding how really deeply in love with her he was. This made it difficult for him to advance their relationship to where he would like it to go.

Mark had discovered many years ago, since childhood, really, that he was attracted to the idea of submitting himself to a more powerful person. Given his sexual preference for women, the ultimate desire in his mind was to be enslaved by a lovely woman. His girlfriend, Sarah, had all the physical attributes that he might like. He imagined her dressed in the manner of how the Goddesses of Ancient Greece went attired. In her graceful motions, her visage, and her intellect, she resembled, in his mind’s eye, the Goddess Athena very much.

Unfortunately, however, these features aside, she embodied none of what constituted a Greek Goddess. She dressed in drab clothes: khakis and off-green t-shirts. She also had none of the ego that she would need in order to enact the Goddess, or be the mistress, that Mark longed to submit himself to. She was humble and self-effacing. She was convinced that she was little more than a wallflower that people simply passed by and did not think about. All his attempts to have the sort of relationship he yearned for were met by puzzlement and misunderstanding.

She, of course, loved her cat very much. Sarah had no inclination toward marriage or motherhood, and showered all the sorts of maternal affections she possessed onto this feline. This made Mark insanely jealous. Sarah treated the cat – Whiskers – exactly the way that Mark wanted to be treated, with the caveat, of course, that Mark also wanted sex. Sarah cared for this cat, showed him much affection, played with him and slept together with him. She also giggled with delight when the cat licked Sarah’s toes. All the attempts that Mark had made to do the same were met with disgust.

Unfortunately for Sarah, Whiskers died some five months into her relationship with Mark. Mark had certainly not caused this; he had actually liked Whiskers, completely aside from his jealousy. His ability to play with Whiskers and show affection to, and receive affection from, the cat had been a part of what had made Sarah like him. But Whiskers’ death left her completely miserable. She appreciated his comforting her, but she was generally inconsolable.

This gave him a very strange idea. Just two years before shrinking technology had come on the market. It was used in industry, especially in computer hardware and consumer electronics, in order make the product components ever smaller so as to make the devices ever more capable. This technology made it possible to reduce anything in size to whatever size was necessary. They had also developed growing technology as well, but it had fewer applications.

This new technology had a few drawbacks, however. It was still very expensive, and it was not yet made reversible – something to do with molecular structure that Mark did not quite understand. Something could only be shrunken or grown once. After that, the molecules were permanently out of phase with something that made it impossible to do again. Mark’s brain had never been geared for physics.

It was, however, completely usable on biological objects. They had used the growers on livestock in order to make more meat, but that had not yet been made an economically viable means of creating more food. Feeding cows with feed rather than using growers on them was still cheaper. Scientists had determined that this seemed to not have any detrimental effects on the cows’ behavior or, more importantly, their meat. When that was discovered, it had become a research bonanza. There were wealthy CEOs and other power-mongers who longed to have a slight height advantage over other people in addition to their wealth advantages. The government, however, had determined that it was not yet determined to be safe on living people.

Charlie knocked on Sarah’s door. Charlie worked in a computer manufacturer’s shrinking lab. The company he worked for reduced microchips down to nanochip size and assembled the components into processing units. A week earlier, his college buddy, Mark, had come to him with the weirdest request. He would have totally said no, but Mark put up a lot of money – and his BMW.

Sarah opened the door.

"Oh, hi Charlie," she said, surprised.

She had met Mark’s friend at a few parties before, but was not otherwise acquainted. Charlie and Mark had been gaming friends even after college, but Sarah had not been interested in any of that.

"Hi Sarah," Charlie said, "I’ve got a special delivery for you."

He handed her a cardboard box. She looked at him, but he just shrugged and stepped away.

"Be careful with that," he said, "it’s very fragile. You’ll find instructions inside."

"Anyway, see ya!" he said as he turned around and walked away.

Sarah saw him walk over to what looked like Mark’s car, but didn’t see Mark in it. *Had Charlie bought the same car?* she wondered.

She shrugged. That was not half as puzzling as the box. It had Sarah’s name written on it in black marker.

*Had Charlie become a mailman?* She thought he worked in electronics or something.

She set the box on her coffee table, moving some clutter out of the way. She was not the tidiest of people. She took a knife and cut open the packing tape. There was Styrofoam packing inside – the type you found around electronic gear when it was packed to keep it safe. When she removed that, she saw what looked like cloth cushioning.

"Hi Sarah," Mark said, emerging from hiding inside the box.

Sarah jumped, startled.

"Oh, sorry!" Mark apologized, "I didn’t mean to scare you!"

He felt he needed to shout so that his tiny lungs could be heard. He was roughly two inches tall.

"Mark?!" she said, astonished, "Is that you??"

Mark nodded.

"But... what..why??"

"Ehm... because after Whisker’s death, I thought you needed a new pet."

"You thought I needed a new pet, and that’s why you’re standing an inch tall?" she asked in the deadpan voice of incredulity.

"Two inches, actually," he replied, evading the question.

She looked at him in disbelief.

"Sorry," he said, hanging his head, "I thought you’d be happy."

She did not know what to make of this. She loved Mark a lot. He was the best boyfriend she’d ever had, but this was weird – weirder even than when he had wanted to suck on her toes. She just didn’t get it.

He was pretty cute like that, though.

"So what am I supposed to do with you?" she asked.

"Anything you want," he answered, smiling.

*There it was,* he thought, he had submitted himself to Sarah. He was not totally hers to do with as she pleased. Somehow the moment was not as cathartic as he had hoped it would be. She simply started at him, not knowing what to do with him.

"You’re just my pet?"

"Yes... if you want me..."

He hadn’t thought that she wouldn’t want to have him as a little pet.

Mark grew quiet. It wasn’t really possible for him to rationally explain it. From any rational perspective what he had done was really stupid. They had been dating for not even six months yet, and here he had made a commitment probably greater than marriage – because one could get a divorce, whereas a shrinking was irreversible – without even asking her what she thought about it.

"I just want to be your pet..." he said sheepishly.

She picked him out of the box.

Picking up the little Mark was not unlike the feeling of holding a little bird – delicate, slightly warm, and moving. She held him up just in front of her face where she could inspect him.

"Wow, you’re really tiny!" she said.

Had he mastered his wits, he might have claimed the reverse about her, but he was in too much awe to master his thoughts like that. He was only five of her inches away from her face. Her head was the size of a small house. He gazed from the inspecting windows to the door.

"And I get to do with you what I want?" she asked.

He looked inside her mouth as she talked. He had not thought of it before, but if she had wanted to, she could have just popped him into her mouth and swallowed him – just like that. That did not seem to be on her mind, however.

"Yes," he answered as he collected himself, "I’m yours to have and to own."

She merely looked at him, probably thinking about the responsibilities he had handed her as she literally sized him up. He wished what was going through her mind nearly as much as he wished that what was going through her mind was what he hoped it would be.

"You’re not a lot of good for me at that height, though," she remarked. "It’s not like you can get things down from the higher shelves for me anymore, nor can you do the dishes for me."

"I can show you love and devotion," he suggested.

"You could do that at five foot ten," she retorted.

"But I’ve got to be really cute this way."

She smiled. He had a point.

"Yes, you’re very cute," she conceded.