I sat at my desk, watching time tick away. In fifteen minutes I would be free to go home, take off this stifling suit, and relax away from the prying eyes of my supervisor. Even though I had finished my work an hour ago, I knew she liked to patrol the cubicles toward the end of the day and I had to act busy. If not for her and the questions my empty chair would have caused, I would have knocked off early and hoped no one would notice.
A shock of light blond hair appeared over my cubicle wall, startling me. It seemed unfair that someone almost seven feet tall would be so good at sneaking up on me, but Regina had perfected it over years of skulking about. She leaned forward against the divider that did not quite reach her chest so she could loom over me, and adjusted her rectangular glasses to better focus her steely blue eyes on me. Her frame was intimidating on its own, but she had crafted a demeanor to be downright terrifying to the average person. I, however, was used to people using their size to bully me into submission, and her unstated threats were wasted on me.
“I need to see you in my office,” she demanded. “Now.” I had not done anything wrong that I could remember, but arguing with the boss was a bad idea, especially her. Suppressing a sigh, I locked my computer and got out of my chair while she stood there, watching me. Her eyes followed me while I walked out of the cubicle, and she did not start moving until I was beside her. This was another of her physical intimidation tactics: in heels, she towered over me to the point that my eyes were below the waist of her black skirt. We walked together, and while she pointedly looked down at me while we walked I gave no outward sign that it bothered me.
At her office she reached out and opened the door for me, then braced an arm against the frame so I would have to walk under it. When I was through she followed, hunching over significantly to keep from banging her head against the top, and shut the door behind her. “Please, have a set,” she instructed while walking around to her chair. “There’s no need to stand for me.”
I eased myself into a chair in front of her desk, and immediately remembered why I preferred to stand. Everything in her office, including the guest chairs, were designed for someone closer to her size, so my feet did not even reach the ground. Having her tower over me while standing was one thing – I was used to people being taller than me, even if she was an outlier – but I felt like a kid with my feet swinging in the air like this. She knew this, I suspected, and liked using it as a backup when her own height failed to make people feel inferior.
Her office chair strained when she sat down and leaned back like a queen sitting in judgment over her court. There was no front panel on her desk, which she said was symbolic of how she had nothing to hide but coincidentally allowed her to show off her legs while sitting at it. She only encouraged this idea by sitting sideways and stretching out her legs, crossing one over the other and wiggling her feet. Admittedly she had very nice, long legs, but it seemed inappropriate to treat them like an exhibition during meetings with employees.
Regina opened a folder in front of her, then laid her forearm on the desk and leaned forward. “Sorry if I scared you by suddenly calling you in here, that wasn’t my intent,” she said, her voice softer than before. I had given her no signs I was scared, and everything she did was calculated to make people uncomfortable, so I figured this was another tactic of hers to make me feel like I should be afraid. “Since your product is going into QA on Monday, though, I figured it’d be a good idea to finish up employee evaluations for your team before the weekend.” If this was just a review, then I really did have no reason to be worried. I was the team’s all-star, and my feedback would reflect that.
“First, let’s see what the other department heads have to say.” She pushed her glasses up her nose and scanned the top page. “Not a lot, which is normally a good sign. Common threads are praising you for your initiative, your inventive ideas, and saying that you’re real easy to work with. One of them even recommends you for a promotion, though he knows he’s not supposed to do that. Seems like you’re an outstanding employee!” I grinned and started planning how I would decorate my new office.
“Now let’s see what your other teammates have to say.” She turned the page and my mouth went dry. “You didn’t think I’d rely solely on the opinions of your friends and drinking buddies who got promoted ahead of you, did you?” Regina smirked and began reading. “It says here that you were ‘seldom available’ and ‘rarely listened to feedback from others.’ Other complaints say that you were ‘dismissive or combative’ while others were speaking, and one even details how you listened intently, then reported their idea as your own and got all the credit!” Nothing she said was wrong, but I still did not like hearing it. “Now, I’m not one to play the gender card, but a quick review of your team shows that everyone else on it was a woman! Surely that’s a coincidence, though.”
She turned another page, and my promotion started to feel further away. “Here is every complaint that you filed while working on this project,” Regina said. “They’re anonymous by default, but it seems you forgot to re-enable that after your first one, which was asking for a transfer on the very first day you were assigned.” I was not going to come out of this looking good. “After that you filed weekly requests for me to be fired, saying I was too demanding, or micromanaging you too hard, or deadlines were unreasonable, or a whole host of other things. Now, I considered that maybe you’re just a grumbler, but I couldn’t find anything else written in a similar style, even when you were working for someone who got fired explicitly for working his employees too hard and setting deadlines that couldn’t be reached in normal work hours.”
Regina clasped her hands together and leaned forward, glaring at me. Even though she was mostly legs, she was still a good bit tall than me while we were both sitting. “Do you know what this suggests to me?” She slapped the stack of papers with a dull thud before proceeding. “That you’re a diehard misogynist who tried to get me fired. You may not go around ogling women and telling them to smile, but you have a documented problem working with and for women. After six years, you ought to know we don’t tolerate prejudice here.”
I gulped and began planning where I would apply next. In a few minutes, I had gone from a certain promotion to sure I would be fired. “Stand up,” Regina commanded, and I complied, hopping off the chair onto the ground. She was just the right height to look in the eyes, which did not make me feel any better. “I’m well within my rights to fire you right now, and with the case I’ve built no one would challenge it. I have an idea that I think would be more educational, though.” Regina was being unusually indirect, and it made me uncomfortable.
A moment later I was looking up at her while she sat, and while I tried to understand what was happening my eyes went below her desk. By the time I realized I was shrinking I was already below her knees and still going. Everything in her office grew to gigantic size while I dwindled the length of her shins, and before I knew it her shoes were taller than me. I kept shrinking until I was shorter than the toes of her shoes, where it mercifully stopped.
Regina spun in her chair, and the floor shook when she set her feet down next to each other. “Come closer,” she ordered, and I did so. Her office’s carpet had turned into an obstacle that came up to my waist, and I fought my way through it toward her. I stopped at the edge of her desk, thinking that would be good enough, but the quake from her stomping her foot made me think otherwise. “Closer!” she demanded. “Get within arm’s reach of my shoes and we’ll talk.”
Now that I was small enough she could step on me, disobeying her could cost me more than my job. I trudged through the carpet, fighting against each fiber that tried to hold me back. It was tiring and took several minutes just to move the width of her desk, but after a struggle I reached out and grabbed the sole of her shoe. She looked down at me with a smug grin, reveling in her physical dominance over me.
She had been trying to intimidate me the whole time I worked for her, but this was the first time it had really worked. Her shoes alone dwarfed me, with obelisk heels that were three times my size, and I would have to jump if I wanted to climb on top of her toes. Regina’s ankles were a whole other matter, requiring a whole expedition if I wanted to reach them, and were she not wearing stockings it would have been impossible for me to reach the towering peaks of her shins. I was nothing but a bug to her now, and from her expression I could tell she knew it.
“I’m willing to let you keep your job,” Regina began, “provided you can make it to the end of the day without getting stepped on. That’s only five minutes, so I’m sure a resourceful guy like the other department heads described will have no problem making it.” She raised the foot nearest to me and crossed it over her other leg, letting it dangle in the air. Idly she swung her toes, making her foot dance in the air while I watched, almost transfixed by the spectacle.
Quickly I realized the best way to get through this was to get as far from her as possible, so I started running away. High, thick carpet fibers impeded my progress, but I did my best to weave between them. It felt like I was making good progress, and it would not be long before I was beyond the impressive reach of her legs.
An immense black wall set down in front of me, stopping my progress. The gentle curve and shiny leather told me this was her shoe, and after a quick glance back I saw she had barely even moved. Getting to a safe distance would be more difficult than expected, and she would not make it easy.
Regina flicked her foot inward, striking my body with the protruding sole of her shoe. It hit me hard enough to lift me out of the carpet and throw me several inches, where I rolled to a stop atop the fibers. She flexed her toes, making the shoe bulge with the movement, in what seemed to be an intentional taunt toward me.
She was making this difficult, but I was not going to give up so easily. I got back to my feet and started running the other direction, intending to press myself against the wall of her desk. After just two steps I sank between the carpet fibers, but I was undeterred by the sudden return of difficulty. If I had fought through it to get to her, then I could do the same to get away from her, especially now that my life was on the line.
I as almost to the side of her desk when the shadows around me deepened and the floor around me trembled. The bright red ceiling above me was at a steep incline, leading to the ground with a bold black outline, and behind me rose the monolith of her heel. Regina had missed stepping on me by mere inches on either side in what I suspected was a demonstration of her power. After all her attempts to intimidated me, she had finally found a way to drive her total physical superiority home.
Still, I knew I had to get out of here. If she moved her foot forward or back a few inches I would be smashed, and she knew that as well as I did. I turned around and fought my way through the carpet, pushing through fibers that would take too long to go around. It was exhausting work, but I needed to get out of the imminent danger before she capitalized on it.
After a struggle, I emerged from beneath Regina’s shoe. Her chair creaked while she adjusted, drawing my attention, and I froze while I looked up. She had uncrossed her legs, and her other shoe was racing down at me at incredible speed. There was no way I could get out from under it as it sped toward me, and I watched with horror as it drew closer. It was moving much too quickly for her to even divert it, much less stop, and I realized the horizontal lines drawn across her sole as tread would be the last thing I ever saw.
Her shoe hit the ground with tremendous force, shoving me even further into the carpet. Its power compressed me further, and I felt incredible pain as my spine compressed along with the rest of my bones. While her shoe settled the weight increased, quickly becoming unbearable. There was a quick twitch while she shifted her weight, and it overwhelmed what little resistance I had left. Regina’s shoe crushed me, turning my body into a small splatter shared between her shoe and the thick carpet.
Regina heard the tiny crunch from beneath her shoe and grinned. She had not been sure how useful the power to shrink someone would be in the corporate world, but that had sealed it. That would show him for trying to get her fired, and hopefully deter other people from making similar fraudulent complaints. For good measure she twisted her foot, grinding the body into paste to make sure the job was done. It was a few minutes after closing time, but she had been just as fair as him. With a pleased sigh, she got up and grabbed some cleaning supplies to wipe his guts out of the carpet and off her shoe before going home.