It’s the year 2017 and Arthur Spence is half way through instructing a college class of students. It’s the first day of the semester, an orientation day, so many of the students have questions.

Some more than others.

“Believe me”, Arthur said, looking out to his students, “it’s not the ideal situation for any of us… Us males, that is. But the law is the law…”

A male student stuck up his hand.

“It’s a bogus law”, he said. “Just because it’s a law doesn’t make it right.”

Around the young man, numerous heads nodded in agreement, all of them male. The female faces around the class, just grinned. Several of them even went red in the face.

“I agree”, another male student added, “How can I be expected to live a productive life with a law like this hanging over my head?”

Arthur couldn’t help but chuckle. It wasn’t the first time he’d addressed questions about the Lotto in a school that mixed both sexes and it wouldn’t be the last.

“What was your name?” Arthur asked the young man.

“Colin” the young man answered.

“Well, Colin, I’d venture to guess that you’ll never have to deal with the consequences of this law… chances are that no one in this room will even ever even meet anyone directly affected by this. I might remind you that the Lotto is once a year…and that there’s only fifteen Lotto winners from across the globe. That makes it virtually impossible for any of us to ever have to worry about it.”

Arthur continued answering questions about the Lotto as he slowly roamed through the classroom of roughly ten young men and just as many young women students.

The LAW that Arthur referred to, of course, was passed in 2012. And although new, it had proven very popular with the press and with the winners of the Lotto.

The Lotto was held every June first. All women between the ages of eighteen and forty were eligible to win the Lotto. The Lotto did not discriminate between race, religion, income or what have you. If you won the Lotto (as fifteen women did every year), you were indeed a very fortunate individual. Last year, for instance, only two
women in all of North America won the Lotto, the others hailed from Greenland, Australia, South America and China.

What did the Lotto strive to accomplish? Well this was a topic of some contention, but if you boiled it down to it’s root intent, the Lotto was to provide a public display –
equilibrium of sorts – between the sexes.

You see, it was generally agreed that women, throughout the ages, lived under the leadership and dominance of men. All this changed in 2012, when the Presidents and Prime Ministers of many countries (the majority of whom
were female) voted together to reverse the trend of female submission, symbolically at least. Yes, that’s fine and dandy you say, but what does the Lotto winner ‘win’ exactly?

I was getting to that…

The happy Lotto winner, upon learning of her win, has exactly four days to select her choice of male, whether it be workmate, schoolmate, Uncle, Brother, Father, boyfriend, best friend or worse enemy. This selected male
quickly undergoes a series of injections that gradually reduces his size to his keeper’s pre-chosen desire. Over the period of between one and two months, the male becomes smaller, until arriving at his final size which
he is destined to stay at for the remainder of his natural life. He will stay with the Lotto winner and enter a life of servitude, attending to her every need. Obeying her every whim. The degrees of size reduction in the male have varied from one foot lost in height (a bit of a disappointment to that particular Brazilian lotto winner, when she learned that she couldn’t change her mind to make him smaller) to a woman from Finland, (whose choice of male fell to less than four inches in height).

All sorts of stories began to circle the globe… For instance, there was talk about a woman from Paris who had shrunk her brother so small that she actually
lost him. While another woman from Brazil, began walking her new possession just as she would walk a dog. The small man, not much taller than her knee, had no choice but to obey her every command. Not just when the cameras were rolling, but for every moment of the woman’s life. Others, however, fared better. In fact, since the law was enacted, the vast majority of young women and their shrunken counterparts have gone on to lead happy, nurturing relationships. There has been discussion (and considerable media attention) given, however, to those who have not led a happy life. But more on that later.

Let’s return to the classroom…

Additional male hands shot in the air, voicing their disapproval over the law, how unfair it was and how if it ever happened to them, that they
would revolt, even become violent to their ‘keepers’, proving once and for all that this law was a violation of human rights. Well, that had been the thought of many of the chosen men in previous Lotto’s. Revolting was one
thing, and at first, it was an option. Several men would struggle against their women owners, before the size reduction began. What they all seemed to forget, was that the tides would soon turn. Several days later,
sometimes several weeks, the young women would reproach their chosen male, now bigger in stature. And stronger. Much, much stronger. Reports of injuries to the men as they began their shrinking process was not at all
uncommon. On several occasions, men had been known to disappear all together.

Several of the young women in the class laughed at this. They enjoyed hearing these stories and would occasionally cut out news clippings from the paper, hanging them for all the males to see. The fear on their male counterparts faces was priceless. Even so, for the female students, it was as much a fantasy as reading the Cinderella story. Nice to read about in a book, but realistically… fifteen in the world? It would never happen to them. For now, it was something to titter about, vaguely amused to read about the reversal of the two sexes and how much controversy it created.

Though it statistically happened to so few people, the Lotto seemed to put the male world on guard if you will, all of them fully aware that it could happen to any of them. As a result, violent male crime against women
dropped by fifteen percent across the globe.

Back in class, Arthur concluded the task, unhappy that the open discussion he had brought up seemed to leave so many questions in the student’s minds…not to mention the hostility. With that and as the students left the
class room, he began to pack up his teaching manual as he prepared for a walk across campus.

“This is for you” a voice sounded.

Arthur spun around and saw that Clare, a student he met last semester had placed an apple on his desk. It was a bit of a running joke between them.

“Ah”, Arthur said, “My daily dose of vitamins. Thank you”

Clare smiled and disappeared from the room, where three other girls casually waited for her in the hallway. She was one of many who found Arthur attractive. Beth was another. And Melony too. These girls were a full twenty years younger than he was, but who was he kidding, many of them were beautiful.

Arthur, being one of the younger instructors at the college at forty years of age, was often the receiver of casual, sometimes lusty glances from his
female students. He’d always been good looking and had played that up in his younger years, going from girlfriend to girlfriend. That all changed eleven years ago, when he married his long-time girlfriend Fiona.

Together, they had a ten year old son and a house in the suburbs where they were quite happy. Arthur’s plan was to work until he was fifty, then retire with his wife.

As he strolled through the halls, Arthur couldn’t help but glance back at several of the students who passed by. Their youth and beauty was striking. Breathtaking in some cases.