Alex was beginning to wonder when his life would finally come together. He was most of the way there, at least. He was living in a nice place, thanks to his wonderful, beautiful girlfriend Jessica, who had graciously offered to let him move in after he had to leave his job suddenly. Jessica made enough money to support both of them comfortably; she was not even thirty and already she had a prestigious position in a highly regarded research lab.

But it had been almost a year and Alex was still unemployed and was feeling like a loser and a bum. But Jessica, the angel that she was, always reassured him that he wasn't when he admitted as much. She understood and completely sympathized with his situation.

It had been another otherwise uneventful day for Alex, part of which had been spent on half-heartedly looking at different employment listings online when Jessica got home. She was just in time for dinner, and she seemed like she had something on her mind.

"Hey, Jess," Alex said when he looked up to see her walk into the kitchen smiling.

"Hi, sweetheart," Jessica said, grinning. She gave him a hug and a quick kiss before putting her bag down on the counter. "Smells good!"

"Thank you," Alex said proudly.  Even if it was just chicken fettuccini that he had made. He made Jessica a plate and handed it to her before making his own.

"Hey, so..." Jessica had started before trailing off.

"Yeah?" Alex asked as he sat down with her at the table. Jessica smiled sheepishly.

"Well, there's kind of this thing at work, and...well, I don't want you to think...I just think you'd be perfect for it is all."

"What do you mean?" Alex couldn't understand what she was talking about.

"So, my team wants to start clinical trials on this new drug we're working on, and we're looking for paid volunteers. You fit all the criteria of the people we're looking for, so I was wondering if you would be interested. But I'm worried you're gonna be...maybe not offended, but I know it might seem like a desperate option to some people, to get paid for medical testing. I just don't want you to think I'm looking down on you for suggesting it."

"Oh. Huh," was all Alex said at first. He actually had never thought about doing something like this before. And he wasn't sure if he was opposed to it. He asked Jessica more questions about it; about the drug, the possible side effects, the requirements, etc. The substance would be used to treat skin imperfections: dryness, mild acne, as well as promoting skin elasticity to reduce early signs of aging. It was fairly simple: All Alex would have to do was take a daily dose of the drug before bed every night for two months and fill out a weekly report of his results. So he agreed to apply for one of the testing groups.

A few weeks after all of the required paperwork and a physical assessment had been done by his doctor, Jessica called Alex herself to tell him he was approved. Alex would be starting the regiment the following week. To his surprise, he was paid, very generously, in advance. This was going to be great.

It started without a hitch. The first few days Alex was taking the pills, he didn't notice any changes, but he wasn't surprised. He figured it would take a little longer for the pills to kick in.

On day four, Alex had slightly more trouble than usual reaching something on the top shelf of the kitchen cabinet.

"You got it?" Jessica asked, looking from where she was seated at the table. Alex got a hold of the glass he was reaching for just then.

"Yep!" He didn't think anything of it.

On day six, Alex noticed his clothes were a little looser and chalked it up to weight loss, which was one of the possible side effects. He could afford to lose a few pounds, so he wasn't worried about it. That evening, he was surprised to notice that evening that Jessica, who was several inches shorter than him, was looking at him at eye level as they were about to leave for a date.

"Hey, when did you hit a growth spurt?" Alex asked. Jessica laughed.

"When I bought these new heels," she explained, looking down and putting one foot out to show off her shoes. They didn't look that tall, but looks must have been deceiving. Alex complimented them, and they had a very nice date.

Day ten was when Alex started to really notice a change. His skin might have been a little more smooth than it had been before, and he hadn't had any problems with acne since the trial started. But that's not what he was noticing.

Day ten was when Alex realized that his clothes were looser again. When he woke up that morning, the sweatpants he had worn to bed were almost falling off him when he stood up, and they were long enough now that he was stepping on the cuffs. He thought this was a little weird, so he tightened the lace inside the waist and went to look at himself in the bathroom mirror.

Alex was shirtless as he examined himself. He was a little surprised that he didn't look significantly different than he had almost two weeks ago, despite the obvious change in how his clothes were fitting him. Puzzled but unable to come up with an explanation, he planned to go clothes shopping after breakfast. Alex forgot to set his alarm the night before, so Jessica had already left for work by this point. He was pleasantly surprised to find a bunch of fresh-baked muffins on the kitchen counter, under a cover with a doodle of a heart stuck to it. Alex smiled.

Alex returned home that afternoon with a couple new shirts and a belt, not wanting to spend too much too quickly. He took care of chores around the house, taking a couple breaks to play with his phone and one to get a snack. On his snack break, he went to the fridge and noticed something else. He couldn't see the top of it. He thought he could before. He could have sworn. He wasn't wearing shoes; maybe he was remembering a time when he was?

Alex tried to stretch up, standing on the balls of his feet. He still couldn't quite see the top of the fridge. Again, he was confused. But he still wasn't sure, so he decided not to worry about it anymore. He was probably just mistaken.

Jessica came home that evening with pizza, as usual for that day of the week. Alex was sitting on the couch, in the middle of a video game.

"Hi, sweetheart," Jessica said to him, leaning down to give the back of his head a kiss as she passed behind him to the kitchen, causing Alex to smile.

"Hey," he said back. "Be there in a minute," he told her.

A few minutes later, Alex sat down at the kitchen table across from Jessica, who was already eating. But when he looked at her he felt something was off. something felt different than usual. He felt weird in his seat. Or maybe something was different about Jessica? But he couldn't see anything about her that had changed.

Alex started eating and listening to Jessica talk about her day, but he couldn't shake the feeling. His unease must have shown on his face because Jessica asked him if something was wrong.

"I don't know," Alex admitted. "I just feel kind of weird. I've had a weird day."

"What do you mean?"

Alex's lips parted to explain, but he suddenly felt self-conscious admitting to the weird things he'd been noticing. He'd probably sound silly if he said them out loud. So he just shrugged and stayed vague.

"I don't know how to explain it really. Only...that it's been that kind of day, I guess."

It was less than an hour later when Alex finally thought he knew what was happening. After dinner, Jessica had gotten up first and gone into the bedroom to relax on their bed and Alex had gone back to the front room to finish what he'd been doing in his game. After he had turned the game off, Alex decided he wanted to join Jessica in the other room. But when he went to go in, they almost bumped into each other as Jessica was headed out.

"Whoops!" they both said, jumping back. Then they both chuckled.

"Sorry," said Jessica.

"Me too..." Alex said, trailing off as he suddenly tried to comprehend what he was seeing.

Jessica was taller than him.

It wasn't by much; she had just a couple inches on him, whereas before he had almost six on her. It was just enough that he had to look up slightly to meet her eyes.

Alex looked down. She wasn't wearing shoes. Only socks, just like him. He looked up at her again to make sure he was seeing this right.

Jessica also seemed to have noticed, but she didn't look confused like he was. Her eyes were wide and her eyebrows were raised in surprise and possibly even awe. They silently stared at each other for several long moments.

Alex decided to just say it.

"I think I'm shrinking?" He said it like a question, because he couldn't really believe it, couldn't understand how something like this could ever possibly happen. He was waiting for Jessica to laugh, to let him have one last moment where he could be convinced for a moment that he was wrong before he had to face the truth.

"Um." was all Jessica could say. They both just continued to stare at each other for a few more moments. Then Jessica's surprised expression broke; her brows furrowed, only not in confusion, but in concern.

"Um," she said again. "Yeah. It looks like you are."

More silence.

"How?" was all Alex could say. He wasn't really expecting her to have an answer. But as it turned out, she did.

"Well. It's time for me to come clean. It's the pills you've been taking. The benefits to the skin that were mentioned in the paperwork...are actually part of the side effects. The main effect, I guess you would say, is the overall shrinking of the body." As Jessica explained, her expression was at odds. Half smiling, half grimacing; the kind of face you make when you're admitting to doing something that was so wrong that you're hoping the other person will find it kind of funny and maybe won't be angry with you.

So far, Alex wasn't angry. He was just baffled.

"What?" he asked. It seemed he couldn't say more than one word at a time.

"Well," Jessica said, sounding like she was about to give another explanation, but then it seemed like she wasn't sure where to start. After a moment, she provided a couple example questions for him to choose from.

"How is this scientifically possible, or why weren't you told this at the beginning?"

Nothing really made sense about any of this. But there was no point in denying the truth that was looking him nervously in the eye. He was shrinking, slowly it seemed, but surely.

"Give me the science, I guess." Jessica seemed pleased to get a chance to go into Science Mode.

"Well, you'd actually be surprised how simple it is..."

The woman was explaining how a couple pills a day could make a person safely shrink without any repercussions to their health, but Alex just couldn't make himself focus and unintentionally ended up just tuning her out. He was so used to looking down at her, that looking up made him feel weird. Maybe weirder than he should feel, considering that the new difference in their hights was far from what could have been natural for them.

Alex was only just beginning to understand how a simple, small difference in hight could completely change the feeling and dynamic of a relationship. He had never been the kind of misogynistic idiot that thought a man should always have power over women, and certainly never once felt he had any kind of dominance over Jessica. But now that he was just a little shorter than her, he suddenly felt like he had just a little less power than he did before. It was kind of weird, and yet it should have been totally expected, that being smaller physically made him feel smaller on the inside.

"...and that results in the consistent reduced ratio of the entire mass of the body," said Jessica, finishing her long explanation.

"Well, I didn't really get any of that," Alex admitted. Before she could try to dumb it down for him, he continued. "Am I gonna be okay? Am I in danger of any kind of major health risks or anything?"

"Yes, you'll be totally fine, nothing like that to worry about," Jessica assured him.

"Is this permanent?"

"You might be surprised to learn, no, actually!" Jessica seemed excited by this, and Alex couldn't help but smile a little. She was such a cute science nerd.

"Once you stop taking the pills, you'll grow back to your previous hight at about the same rate you shrunk."

"Okay," Alex sighed, relieved things could go back to normal. Now, he could be upset. He finally moved past Jessica so he could sit down on the bed.

"Why the hell wasn't I told about this!?" He wasn't angry at her--yet--but he couldn't believe that this had happened. "Is it because of the fact that I probably wouldn't have agreed in the first place? There's no way this can be legal! Why didn't you tell me this when you first brought it up!?" He loved Jessica a lot, so he couldn't help but feel a little betrayed by what she'd done to him.

"Well, that's the other thing, sweetie...there uh, is no clinical trial. I made it all up so I could try it out on you."

Alex was stunned.

"I'm sorry?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry. Really, I know this was a really awful thing to do to you without your permission. My only defense is that I knew you would be perfectly fine and it would be completely reversible. And since you're in between jobs right now, I figured it would be a perfect opportunity."

Having given her defense, Jessica stopped talking and waited to be yelled at.

The yelling wasn't coming. Alex didn't really know what to say. But, he was surprised to find he wasn't actually all that angry. Sure, he wasn't thrilled that Jessica had gone behind his back and tricked him like this, but...he had to admit, this seemed pretty harmless overall. He sighed.

"You really shouldn't have done this. At least, not without asking," Alex told her.

Seeing she wasn't being yelled at like she had been expecting, Jessica smiled a little despite herself. "I know. It was wrong. Again, I'm sorry."

Now it was Alex's turn to smile in spite of himself. "Saying sorry means you regret what you did," He told her. "I don't think you regret it at all."

Jessica smiled a little wider, notably not arguing with this suspicion. "To be fair, it was to prove a very scientific hypothesis," she said, mockingly serious.

"Which was?"

"I thought it would be cute to watch you get smaller and smaller."

Alex made a face at her in response, which made Jessica giggle, which made Alex smile again.

"So, how much smaller would I get if I kept taking it?" Alex asked curiously.

"According to our studies, it would stop when you got to be around eight to six inches."

Alex was stunned into silence again for a moment. "Really?" he asked, in total disbelief.

"Really. And you'd still grow back to your normal size."

"Wow," Alex said. He suddenly felt like he was in a science fiction story. This was something so incredible that he could hardly believe it.

"Maybe..." Alex began, starting to say something he wouldn't have thought he would be saying at the beginning of this conversation.

"Maybe what?"

"Maybe...I could keep taking it."

"Really?" Jessica asked excitedly.

"Yeah! I mean, how many people get an opportunity to do this kind of thing?"

"Well, sometime in the future, maybe a lot of people. We've figured out how to do it, but so far we haven't really thought of many practical uses."

"Well, I guess I'm going to be one of the first! At the very least, this seems like it's going to be really cool."

"I think so too," Jessica agreed, smiling down at him.