Today had been one hell of a day at the construction site. In addition to the increasing pressure from her clients to finish the project by the end of the month, Kiki also had to deal with the intense 101-degree heat, courtesy of a typical July day in South Carolina.

Since she was a child, she aspired to prove herself as strong as the men around her. Growing up as the only girl among her five other siblings, she had cultivated a hardy attitude when dealing with men. She was never one of those "girly girls" as she called them; during her childhood, she often hung out with her brothers. Playing football, drinking beer, and even wrestling with them and the other men around had caused her body to develop into a plumper build than most girls her age. By age eighteen, she stood 5'9 with a plump, muscular frame, with her straight auburn hair tied in a ponytail.

As time when on, she retained this look as well as her attitude. She decided at age fifteen that she wanted to follow in her father's footsteps and become a construction worker. She had always been somewhat of a "daddy's girl"; however, the main factor that drew her to the career was the power. During each of her trips to his sites, she saw that her father was well-respected by his employees. She also noticed the lack of women on these sites. Thus, having decided that this was her vocation, she started her own construction company right after graduation.

Fast-forward forty-three years and here she was: standing in her office, drenched in sweat after a long, arduous day in the sun. The trailer was fairly compact, holding just two rooms: the lobby and her office. Inside the lobby, the air was dry and humid much like the atmosphere outside. The room had six small folding chairs, a coffee table with outdated magazines and, in the corner, an empty water cooler. Sitting next to the water cooler sat a shriveled, tiny young man.

Brandon, upon seeing Kiki enter, glimpsed quickly at her, and then looked down at his lap, his hands lightly grasping his knees. He was the newest addition to Kiki's payroll, a fresh graduate out of Midland Tech with an overwhelming sense of self-consciousness. Standing at a meager 4'8, with his shoulders slumped and his head often staring down at the floor, Brandon often found himself on the receiving end of ridicule from classmates to coworkers to even his own family. "Manlet", "Smalls", and his personal favorite, "Bite-sized Brandon", were just a few of the distasteful epithets he had thrown at him on a daily basis.

Since starting in early May, Brandon had garnered the attention of his coworkers. Word quickly spread of his clumsiness handling the equipment and his inability to lift anything heavier than 30 pounds. Kiki, feeling pity for the young lad, decided that maybe his efforts were better served on the admin side of her business. Thus, after a week of "Hell" (between the heat and the torment from his colleagues), Brandon embraced his new role as Kiki's assistant.

Kiki watched as the kid tried his hardest to contribute; however, even then, his efforts were still disappointing. Every time Brandon was ordered to file records, he'd slip and dropped them, and then would spend half the day collecting them up and trying to remember their order. Every time he was tasked with replenishing the water cooler, he would accidently drop the water tank. Even when he had the simple task of picking up lunch for Kiki and her crew, he would still stumble upon some way to screw up; in the case of yesterday, Kiki lent him the keys to her 2010 Ford Pickup Truck and tasked him with picking up a six-foot sub from Sub King. When he got the food and left the store, he realized that he had forgotten to grab a couple two-liters of Appalachian Dew. He placed the sub on the floor of the passenger seat and ran to grab the pop. When he returned, he placed the soda on the seat and pulled out of the parking space. As he was leaving the outlet mall, he drove a little too fast over a speed, causing the pop bottles jolted forward and not only crash the sandwich, but also explode and spray sugary beverage all over the inside of the car.

Today, he felt absolutely certain that Kiki was planning to fire him. Her face was red as a beet when she saw what happened. And, rather than forcing him to clean up as she usually does, she instead ordered one of the other workers to do so. She then turned to Brandon and simply replied, in a chillingly calm tone, "Go home. Come back tomorrow evening at 4:00."

Brandon arrived as instructed at 4:00 pm; when he got there, Kiki merely ordered him to find a seat and stay put; she had a few other tasks she needed to tend to first before their talk. She jolted out the door and Brandon sat in the chair with his hands in his lap. At first, the gripping fear of not knowing what Kiki had planned made him shiver a little bit, but after a couple hours, the feeling subsided.  Brandon had a small realization at that moment, "Why the hell was Kiki dressed like that?" He recalled that she was wearing an old burgundy fleece with blue jeans and large beige steel-toed boots. "Did she not watch the news today?", he wondered, "It's the middle of July in South Carolina… today's weather reports stated a high 110 and a low of 83." Soon afterwards, the thought quickly passed him and he went back to questioning what he was going to do once she fired him.

Finally, he saw the door open and hear a loud, exaggerated "Whew" from Kiki as she entered the compact trailer. The orange sunrays casted a shadow on the analog clock hanging on the wall; the time read, "7:12". As he thought, her face was red and glistening with sweat. Her sweater had perspiration stains around the collar and in the armpit areas. Her dark auburn hair, wrapped in a ponytail, was also shining with sweat. She looked over at him and nodded her head towards her office. "Come on, let's chit-chat.", she said with a grin. As Brandon passed her, the stench of hard labor overcame his senses. For a moment, he felt the solid foot of height difference between the top of his head and her breasts; he felt the 53-year-old woman's presence looming over him like an adult over a toddler. When he entered the office, he heard the lock click.

Kiki told him to sit as she closed the binds.  She walked over to her mini-fridge and withdrew a bottle of beer. She turned to Brandon and asked, "Want one?"

"No thanks.", he replied, "I don't drink."

She shrugged and then proceeded to twist off the bottle cap and took a sip. Upon reaching her chair, she allowed gravity to take control of her body weight and plunked herself into the wooden armchair, releasing an exasperated "Ahh, oh yeah" as she leaned back. She leered at him, the contemptuous smirk on her face pushing upward her plump red cheeks. Brandon sat, staring at the floor, occasionally glancing at her. They sat in silence for what felt like an eternity as she savored the moment and sipped her beer.

Brandon finally spoke, his voice coarse and mournful. "Ms. Kiki…I…I'm…sorry." The smirk still stood on her face. "I know I mess up a lot…bu…but I promise…I'll do whatever you want. Please don't fire me.", Brandon said. Tears starting to stream down his cheeks, and fall onto his pant leg, when he heard a large, hearty chuckle, followed by a loud thump. As he lifted his head, his nostrils were ambushed by the overwhelming scent of dirt and sweat. There, in front of him, were two dingy boot soles, caked with dirt. Among the dried mud and gravel stood a square box in the center of the sole reading: Size 11-12.

"Take them off." Kiki commanded.

"What?"

"Take them off."

Brandon rubbed the tears and snot from his face and sat puzzled at her request.

"Brandon, in case you haven't noticed, I tend to be…blunt and straightforward. Plain and simple, you may be the worst worker I have even hired in my thirty-plus years in this business." Kiki stated frankly. Before Brandon began to cry again, she said, "Here's the deal, sweetie: You seem like a good kid and honestly, I do not want to fire you. Which is why I'm not gonna."

Brandon's face lit up. "Really?"

"Really."

"Ev…even…after all my screw-ups?"

"Yep."

He was starting to smile before he heard the word "But…"He looked up at her again.

She took another sip and continued, "But…of course, there is a catch. Fact of the matter is…you haven't done any of the jobs I've given you right. So, I asked myself, "What to do with Brandon? He has a good heart and he really wants to work hard for me. It'd be a shame to let him go, so what could he do that would be a win-win for the both of us? Hmm." She leaned back on her seat again, her eyes focused on the ceiling as she jokingly pondered the question she already knew the answer too. Brandon's eyes watched as Kiki stared at ceiling, mud from her towering boots fell into his lap as she knocked them together.

"Brandon, let me ask you a few things first." she said, now looking into his eyes.

"How's your home life?"

"Good, ma'am."

"Folks doing good?"

Brandon paused momentarily when he heard that question. "I…I think so…I'm not very close with my parents to be honest."

"Mhmm. Do you live with anyone? Roommates or a girlfriend or a wife or something?"

"No ma'am. I don't. I live by myself."

Kiki nodded. "Ok sweetie, honestly that what I figured. You don't seem like much of a people person."

Brandon's head felt to his chest again.

"It's great though.", Kiki assured him, "after thinking about it, you're perfect for the new role."

"What role?"

Kiki laughed. She then took a deep breath.

"Sweetie, you're still gonna be my assistant.", she said in her low, southern drawl. 'It’s just that now, you're gonna be a different kind of assistant."

"What do you mean?"

"Take off my boots, sweetie."

Brandon gulped and his hands shook as he lifted them to the large shoes. He looked at her and began to untie the shoelaces of her left boot. As he slid the shoe off, a blast of humid, fragrant air took over the room. Kiki laughed as she saw Brandon's face immediately cringe.

"What'd you expect son? In those old boots for twelve hours in 101 degrees Fahrenheit." Kiki chuckled as she wiggled her toes cladded in a worn, moist white crew sock.

Brandon felt a jolt in his body.

"Oh, did I forget to mention my little "gift"?"

He looked at Kiki: her hand covered her mouth as if she was saying, "Oops"; however, the look of amusement and contempt still lingered.

"What gift?"

"Stand on the desk and I'll tell ya."

As odd as the request seemed and even though Brandon began to feel rather lightheaded, he obeyed. He took the piles of papers and the desktop monitor and carefully placed them on the floor. He then climbed up and looked down at Kiki, albeit not as far down as he anticipated. His body felt as if he was on a fast elevator dropped down; for some odd reason, Kiki seemed…bigger.

"Now, the other boot."

Brandon's gut told him not to do it. It told him that something was off…off since he first noticed her strange attire…off since he heard her ask him whether he lived with someone or not. He pushed through his lightheadedness and instinct to flee and untied the right boot. As he began tugging at it, he realized that the boot seemed to have grown much, much larger. The boot felt as heavy as a couch and its sole engulfed his torso. He wanted to say something…but at this point, he was at the same height as the sole.

"I said TAKE IT OFF." the giantess roared, slamming her boot on top of the subordinate. He tugged as hard as he could, and, as the boot lifted from the sock it encased, Brandon felt yet another drop in height.

"Ahhh, much better." Kiki whispered as she closed her eyes and wiggled her socked toes. She shifted her glance from the ceiling to her desk. Only a pair of dirty socked feet…and a tiny speck standing in between.

Brandon's knees collapsed. His eyes widened. There he knelt, his mouth agape, before the towering monoliths that were his boss's sweat soaked feet. It felt as if he had transported to an entirely new dimension: the size of everything in the room seemed to have been amplified 100x. The air changed from humid and dry to humid and moist. The limburger aroma wafting from the white cotton-encased monoliths dominated his sense of smell. Behind the behemoths, he heard and felt the land quake from the sonorous booms of their master.

Kiki was chuckling, tears of laugher streaming down her face. She wiped the tears from her face, and looked down at her new "toy".

"Dammit. I knew it was strong, but never that strong."

Brandon shriveled in fear. "What did you do to me?!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.

Kiki heard the tiny squeaks; although they were inaudible, she knew what they were. This was not her first time shrinking someone; in fact, since she was a little girl, she had always enjoyed using her gift. While she was never the type to play with dolls, shrinking people to doll size was a completely different animal, she always believed. Whereas girls play with dolls in order to fantasize about their dream lives, the entire principle behind minimization was power and domination. The first time she used it was when she was about eleven; after finishing a round of basketball with her big brothers, she collapsed on the couch and turned on cartoons while she removed her sneakers. When she took her socks off, Alvin and Dev began to gag.

"God, Kiki! It’s like something crawled into your shoes and died!", they joked. As they laughed, Kiki noticed that their heights had diminished by a foot. When she placed her feet next to them and wiggled her toes, they shrunk down to about a foot and a half. Since then, none of her family dared to mess with her; even her parents aired on the side of caution whenever she was around.

She was always selective in whom she shrunk. When dealing with the mean girls in high school, she shrunk them down to three inches and watched as they fought off squirrels the size of elephants. When she changed them back, they of course afterwards tried to report her to the police. Last she heard, Mindy, Sam, and Alex have been rotting in a mental facility ever since.

As she grew old, she grew wiser with her unique skill. Occasionally, she'd use it on a sexist employee or a cutthroat competitor; however, in those instances, she saw to it that no bodies were recovered.

This morning, she decided that using her skills once more to teach Brandon a lesson was justified. Thus, knowing that the effect of minimization was directly correlated to the amount of sweat and stench she accumulated, she decided today to sport nothing but clothes that would produce that desired effect.

Granted, the warm clothes made today's work almost unbearable, but, seeing as she had never made somebody ant-sized before, she smiled and assured herself that it was definitely worth it.

She had always thought Brandon to be cute, not in an attractiveness capacity, but more along the lines of a child or a puppy. It always warmed her heart a little to see him struggle to carry his weight around the workplace. Seeing him in his new diminished state, kneeling in awe at the colossal beasts that were her tired feet was absolutely fitting, she thought to herself. It captured their relationship perfectly: her being the seemingly all-powerful giantess, drenched in the sweat of her labor, and Brandon, the miniscule morsel of a man, captivated and dwarfed by the moist, pungent goliaths that were her Size 12s.

Brandon couldn't stop shaking. "Was this real?", he still wondered. "Am I really that tiny? And, if I am, will she turn me back? Can she? Will I be stuck like this forever?" As he stood on the immense wooden landscape that was Kiki's desk, he felt his new world tremor as two hands, almost god-like in size, descended from the heavens. They reached for the left foot and, grasping the tube of the cotton kaiju, adjusted the sock so that the worn, sweaty fibers were now tightly fitted around the foot. As she repeated this motion with her right foot, she chuckled. Her voice thundered down upon his insignificance yet again, "Ohhh man, are they wet and sweaty today." After fixing her right sock, she rubbed the sole a little and continued, "Girls, you were some working puppies today."

Her attention shifted then to her new servant standing before her. "So, now that you have grasped the…enormity of your new position, here's what you're gonna do, assuming that you don't wanna join the fate of the countless insects that have been in your spot in the past." she said with completely nonchalance as she leered down at the speck before her feet. "For thirty-odd years, I've busted my hump at these sites. On days like today especially, I'd always felt that I deserved a foot rub or somethin'. Lucky for me, you're here. Brandon, have you seem the amount of work I put into this job?"

He nodded.

In her southern drawl, she continued, "Do you see how much I sweat and slave at this site? Drivin’ those big machines and doing all that heavy liftin’ for hours on end?"

He nodded again, praying to God almighty that she wouldn't crush him as she inched her feet closer to them.

"My pups could really use some appreciation, darlin', don't cha think?"

The white cotton monoliths were riddled with boulders of lint and slightly caked with dirt. Far above, he could see the fabric covering the balls of the socks starting to wear. In gargantuan, red print, the word, "HANES", was sewed into the fabric. The fabric in the toe area was gray, with five spherical areas also caked with dirt. To a normal sized human, these were just an ordinary pair of socks one could pick up at any random retail store. To Brandon, these were his new gods, the entities that controlled his fate, and ultimately decided whether he'd live or perish.

Without waiting for Kiki to continue her talk, he dragged himself to the base of the right behemoth. As he approached the monster and the smell of limburger and vinegar intensified and engulfed him, his eyes began to water and the sour, bitter taste began to waft into his mouth. A couple of large cotton boulders fell from the heavens; even they were at least twice his height. When he finally reached the base of the foot, he pressed his hands against the thick white fibers and felt the sweat from the spongy fabric trickle down his arms. He hugged his body against the giantess' sock, and felt the humid, cheesy moisture envelop him as his clothes absorbed the sweat. Finally, he puckered his lips and kissed the beast. He heard booms thunder from high above as Kiki wiggled her toes in glee. She could barely see her new slave, but she knew instinctively that he had fully accepted his new master and had begun to worship her as his new god.