Chapter 14 -  Missing

Paige laughed to herself thinking about what she had done. “I'm good.” she said out loud. “Let's see how smart he is now that he's glued to his wife's toenail.”
She sat down and opened her notebook. She pressed a few keys and a screen popped up with a series of smaller video feeds. She looked at the first block, a man in a lab coat, the next few were just empty offices. She was about to shut it off and head home, when she said “What the fuck?”

She leaned in closer and saw a man putting files into a briefcase from a file cabinet. “Oh no you don't.” she said, closing the notebook. She grabbed a silver case from her desk drawer and darted out of her office and down the hall to the elevators. “I should have taken care of this when I had the chance.” she said angrily to herself as the elevator came to a stop. She got out in the underground parking lot and waited in the shadows. A few minutes later, a man exited the elevator and walked briskly past her and down the centre of the access lane. She took a few steps and the man stopped, turning around to see who was behind him. He gasped at seeing her and clutched his briefcase.

“What do you think you are doing Ed?” she said as she sauntered toward him slowly.
“Stay away from me!” he shouted as he backed up.
“You have no business with those files.” she told him.
He turned and ran to his car. He fumbled for his keys and tried to unlock the door. He was a lover of classic cars and drove a sixties era Citroen that he had restored. He just wished he had taken his BMW today. It had key-less entry. He heard her clicking heels as she approached. He unlocked the door, but her hand grabbed his hair from behind before he could get into his car. 

She leaned against him, holding him on the side of his car, then took a small syringe in her right hand and said “A big problem is about to become a very small problem.” and pushed the needle into his neck and pressed the top. He grabbed his neck as he felt a burning sensation. He turned around, and saw that she was already taller. He stared up at her as she got taller and taller. The pain was incredible, as the antibodies collapsed his cells. Paige stood with her hands on her hips, looking at him until her disappeared into his pile of clothes. She shook her head as she saw him appear out of his shirt sleeve. It always amused her as they looked up after being shrunk. There was always a stunned and shocked look on their little faces.

She bent down and pinched his head between her thumb and index finger. She lifted him up to her face and said “All you had to do was play along and get that ass hole Wiley off my back. But no, you had to chicken out.”
“Don't......don't.....hurt me!” he yelped. “Wiley's on to you!”
She raised a brow and said “Yes, but right now, he's, well, kind of stuck on someone else.”
“What did you do?!!” he screamed.
Paige couldn't keep it to herself. She was so proud of her handy work on Wiley, she brought him closer and whispered. “I shrank him to, like, a millimetre tall, then I glued him to his lovely wife's toenail with nail polish.”
“What?!!” he yelled. “I can't believe Jennifer let you do that!!”
“Let me?” she asked with a great deal of sarcasm. “She doesn't even know that he's there. That's the best part. I bet she been calling him and sending texts, wondering why he is ignoring her. So sad. He's going to get crushed like an ant. It's just a matter to time.”
“Wiley is a good guy. Why did you do that to him?” he yelled.
“Enough about Wiley. You should be concerned with what I'm going to do with you.” she said, giving him a little shake.

She exhaled loudly, looking around the parking garage. “I'll give you three choices.” she said. Extending her index finger in front of him, she continued “One. I'll leave you here to fend for yourself. Two, I'll shrink you down to the size I made Wiley, or three, I'll just do something randomly nasty, like sit on you of something.”

Waiting for an answer, she looked at him and said “I'm waiting for a choice.”
“What happens for two?” he asked. “Are you going to glue me to your toenail?”
She raised her eyebrows as she thought about the idea, but her thoughts were interrupted by her phone. She ulled it from her shirt pocket and read the text. It said “update needed. progress?”
“Fuck.” she said to herself as she opened the case she was carrying and held him over it. “Even though I'm finding this mildly amusing, you know too much, but I'll have to deal with you later.
She placed him inside the case and closed it, snapping the clasp shut. Davidson pounded on it from the inside, but she had him cold.

Walking back to the elevator, she put the case in the hem of her skirt and used both hands to reply to the text. “heading there now to check.” she entered and hit send. She got back in the elevator and pushed six. Her phone beeped and she read the message “buyers anxious. cannot keep stalling. money transferred as requested. provide status.”
She put the phone back in her pocket as the door opened. She headed down a long hallway towards the lab area.

A woman with long brown hair sat in the passenger seat of a black sedan parked on a dimly lit street on the lower east side. She pressed a phone number on her phone and waited for the other end to answer. “What's our status?” the man on the phone asked.
“Nothing yet sir.” she replied.
“Is she stalling?” he asked.
“I think so.” the woman replied. “I need to get someone in place to put some eyeballs on it.”
“Make it happen.” he replied. “If she has already developed a serum, we need to act fast.”
“I understand sir.” she said. “I will keep you informed.”

She pressed end and sat in the seat, just staring out the window. “Everything okay ma'am?” the driver asked.
“Yes. Fine. You can take me back now.” she told him.

Back at the fund raiser, Jennifer Wiley walked up the stairs to the ballroom, totally oblivious the fact the husband, who she thought dodged the dinner, was firmly cemented to her toenail. Luckily for him, she was wearing strappy high heels and her toe was not covered. She walked through the doors and surveyed the crowds of people, feeling a little awkward not having Everett with her, he was usually the greeter and knew most of the contributors, but he was with her. He felt every step she took.

A tall redhead walked up and kissed her cheek and said “Jennifer, so nice to see you. I guess Everett is off pressing some flesh?” 
“Donna. Hi. So nice to see you too.” she said. “Oh he's stuck somewhere.” she told her. “I've been calling and sending texts, but I can't seem to get a hold of him.”
“Oh. Okay, well why don't you come and sit with us then.” she told her, taking her arm. “He can catch up with us when he gets here.
“That would be nice.” she said.

Wiley had been trying to break free of her toe, but Paige had put an extra drop of lacquer to make sure he would stay in place. Miraculously, the lacquer dried with a series of holes around his head, letting him breathe. Paige had probably expected him to suffocate and be eventually washed away, or just scraped off by an errant brush of one of her other toes. In any case his world was now the surface of Jennifer's toenail, plain and simple. He took a breath as he was raised with incredible speed as her foot hit the top of her stride and then descended to the floor. It was almost like being on an amusement park ride, when there's a spit second where you feel like everything stops just before you head down again. He heard the click of her spike heel on the stone floor, then the ball of her foot landed with a boom. Her toe lunged forward and up again as he prepared to take another step. Wiley seemed to just stare out into space as his wife made her way to the table. He felt terrible about how he had let his job take over his life and that she would now be left waiting for him to treat her the way she should have been treated all along.

All he could think about was how beautiful she is and how he's never been there for her. Even though he was in a very precarious position, and would most certainly be crushed at one point, he didn't care. He was with her now and that's all that mattered.

“I love that dress.” Donna said as the walked. “You must work out like crazy to stay that slim.”
“Oh stop.” Jennifer replied with a chuckle.
“Seriously, you look fantastic.”  Donna said. “Believe me, if I could stay that slim, Pete would never make it to work.”
The two ladies chucked together as they mad their way to their table. They sat down beside one an other and greeted the other people at their table. Jennifer crosser legs and bobbed foot up and down gently. Wiley felt the rocking motion and thought to himself how totally insignificant he had become. Nobody would ever even think of looking for him there. Why would they? It was the most ridiculous and humiliating predicament he had ever experienced.

As the pair chatted, Donna couldn't help but notice her bobbing foot. She leaned in and said “Jennifer, I don't want you to think what I'm going to say is weird, but you have gorgeous feet.”
Jennifer looked down at her bobbing foot and then back at Donna. She frowned a bit and said “Thank you, I guess.”
“I've weird-ed you out, haven't I?” Donna said sitting back against the chair back.
Jennifer put her hand on her arm and said “Of course not. Don't be silly. I just never thought about my feet being something people would find attractive. I'm flattered.”

Donna laughed and said “That's not what I meant. Pete has an enormous foot fetish and I have small feet. I'm jealous, that's all.”
Jennifer covered her mouth and laughed. “Oh my God, I'm so embarrassed. I thought....”
“That's so funny.” Donna laughed. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything.”
“Don't worry about it.” Jennifer replied. She looked down at her bobbing foot once again and then said “So your man is into your feet?” she asked.
“Well yeah, but he just wishes I had feet like you have.” she replied. “You wear size nine right?”
“Nine and a half.” Jennifer replied.
“So how long has he been into it?”  Jennifer asked out of curiosity.
“We met in college. I kind of knew he had a few fetishes, even back then. I'm pretty open minded, so it doesn't bother me.” she replied.
“A few fetishes?” Jennifer asked, genuinely intrigued.
Donna looked around to make sure nobody was listening, then leaned in and spoke into Jennifer's ear. She sat back after telling her, with a smirk on her face and folded her arms. “Really?” Jennifer asked, looking quite shocked. “I've never heard anything like that.”
“People think it's kinky, but there a lot more to it that that.” she said.
Leaning closer to her, Jennifer said quietly “I only wish Everett was into my feet, or even what you just said, or anything for that matter. The only thing he's into is his work.”

Donna felt a little sorry for her and said “Maybe things will change?”
“I doubt it.” she said. “Now I'm the one that's jealous.”
Donna leaned in and said “Listen Jennifer, I've done quite a bit of research on both subjects. It's not just about a particular body part like feet that men find so attractive.”
“No?” Jennifer asked.
Donna leaned in a little closer and said “There are a lot of men that like being dominated by the woman they love.”
“Oh.” Jennifer replied. “I didn't realize. I mean. I uhhhh....would have never thought. And the other thing, I guess that's the same?”

Nodding, she replied “Pete's been fantasizing for years about me being able to shrink him. He had a hard time telling me about it, but finally did about five years ago after I found some stuff in his browser history. Our sex life has never been better. We have fun with it and role play.”
Jennifer looked across the table and saw two women whispering to each other. Feeling a little embarrassed, she said “You seem quite uhhhhh.....comfortable talking about it.”
Donna looked to her left and said “Don't worry about them....they're a couple of old hags. I learned a long time ago that if you let the Agency steal your man from you, it will.”

“It's didn't freak you out finding out like that?” Jennifer asked.
“The shrinking thing?” she said. “It did at first. I was more upset that he didn't feel comfortable telling me and felt like he had to hide it. That's not what a marriage is supposed to be.”
“So you confronted him with it?” she asked.
“No. I didn't want to make it out to be something dirty, or wrong. I went out to a salon and had a pedicure done, then that night, when we went to bed, I made sure he saw that I had gotten a pedicure.”
“What happened, what happened?” Jennifer asked, in suspense.
Donna looked around again then whispered to her, “I told him that I got a pedicure, then I told him that I wished that I could make him six inches tall and have him do my pedicure.”

Jennifer looked at her, waiting, then said “And?”
“And nothing.” she replied. “I took over. I pushed him off the bed, told him to get on his knees and kiss my feet.”
Jennifer was stunned. “What did he do?” she asked.
“He did exactly what I told him to do, then I fucked his brains out.” she replied with a sly grin.

Jennifer exhaled and put her hand on her neck. She couldn't believe what she had just heard. She looked down at her foot and flexed her toes, thinking about how she could get him interested. “Maybe my feet are a good place to start.” she thought to herself.
Donna put her hand on he shoulder and said “Don't be afraid to tell him what you want. You might be surprised.”