I could always feel their return long before I ever actually heard them speaking or saw the door burst open. It was because of the design of the sorority house that as they climbed up the stairs it sent reverberations through the wood floor of their room. Then once they were on the second floor I could hear the booming falls of their shoes upon the ground. It was only a few of their massive footfalls before the door would burst open like a thunderclap and their cannon-like voices would burst across the room.

My two 'masters' as they preferred to be called were two sorority sisters, one of whom I had shared a class with two semesters ago. She was the one who had put me in my current state: I stood at only a few inches tall, roughly rising to their shins and ever since she reduced me to this height they had kept me as a slave. The girl responsible for all of this was named Stacey, and she was the smaller of the pair; smaller being a very relative word.

In comparison to me Stacey was enormous. At my size she seemed to stand hundreds of feet tall. I remember when she had first shrunk me one day after class, I had quickly gained a crick in my neck as my eyes rose up from her carefully maintained flats, up her designer jeans, across her light pink cardigan, and finally came to rest on her cherub-like face framed by her shortly cut blond hair. That day she had merely plucked me off the ground and placed me inside an interior pocket of her purse. The branding and training occurred that evening under the watchful eyes of one of her older sorority sisters. After that horrible experience, it was only a few times of her having to raise her foot above me for me to realize where my new place in life was.

Today, I scurried out of the way of Stacey's fashionable cowboy boots that landed with floor-quaking thuds as she walked over to her desk while my other master came into view. Claire was taller, from what I could tell she was probably only an inch or so shorter than I had been at my old height. Claire kept her rich chocolate-colored hair at shoulder length, and her face was shaped more like a smooth oval accentuated by her sharp chin, and pale blue eyes. Whereas Stacey was always bedecked in tight designer jeans, fashionable footwear, and pearls, Claire dressed much more simply. Today as she walked in she was wearing a pair of cheap blue jeans, a plain white t-shirt, and a pair of brown sneakers that landed squarely down before me while I tried to maneuver out of the way of the two giantesses' feet.

I gulped as I realized I had strayed directly into Claire's path somehow. I prayed, as I stood between those gigantic sneakers, that Claire had something she needed done otherwise I would be swiftly punished for disrupting one of my masters. Claire craned her head down to look at me, casually lifting up her sunglasses so her pale blue eyes could rest on me directly. “Slave,” Claire's voice hammered down on me from on high, “There's some gum stuck to the bottom of my right shoe that I need you to get rid of.”

I smiled wide as I then turned to follow her to her desk. It took me a few moments to catch up with her massive and powerful strides. What took her a few simple steps took me several minutes. Still though, I was suddenly very thankful that I had accidentally run before Claire's feet instead of Stacey's. Claire didn't enjoy punishing me, but if I had been before Stacey though retribution would've come swiftly in the form of a kick launching me across the room or her chewing me in her mouth. While I was certainly not indestructible at my height, for some reason or another probably an unintended side affect of the spell they used to shrink me most likely, I was somewhat more resistant to injury than I was at my previous size. I could still be stamped out by their crushing weight but a swift but light kick wasn't an immediate death sentence.

Claire was already seated at her desk when I arrived. She was seated somewhat back from it lounging with her legs crossed and stretched out before her. I came to her shoes, and inspected the soles to find a large piece of squashed green gum stuck to the bottom of the right one. Slowly, I began to peel it back by hand, surprised that it still held its spearmint scent as it began to give way from the gold colored rubber of her sole. I knew that the Reeboks she was wearing were one of her favorite pairs of sneakers. They were a light brown color with gold trim, that she wore whenever the weather was too warm for boots but not warm enough for flip-flops. She alternated these with her black sketchers that I also was forced to keep neat and tidy. Eventually, the gum gave way and I came out from underneath her desk to place it into her garbage can.

I sighed, Claire didn't even look down at me. I couldn't explain it but as their shrunken slave there was something rewarding in them actually acknowledging that I had performed the task they had asked of me. Perhaps, I often wondered, it was the size difference that made just their mere acknowledgment of me that special.

As my whole body was cast in shadow though, I started to remember that sometimes their acknowledgment of me wasn't always good. Stacey was glaring down at me, her sharp blue eyes piercing into my very being, then her voice crashed down all around me, “How long does it take to remove gum from a shoe, Slave?”

I gulped, I knew that this wasn't an actual question, it was merely Stacey expressing her anger at something I had failed to do for her. I looked down at the wad of chewing gum I held in my arms, then back up at Stacey, and then to Claire who was still just sitting in front of her computer. Claire didn't even stir as Stacey stood next to her yelling down at me, “You know that when I wear my boots that I like a foot massage, Slave!” Stacey then stamped her booted foot down next to me with a massive crash, “And now my feet hurt because I have to get going to dinner and they weren't massaged.”

Stacey then bent down toward me as her hand came rushing down around my body. She plucked me up by the waist before dangling me over the garbage can where I almost immediately dropped the wad of gum as she then swung back around to her desk. I could feel each of Stacey's enormous steps through her body as she then opened up a small purse and stuffed me inside of it, not bothering to stick me in a pocket. As the purse zipped closed and I began to jostle along with all of its contents, I realized that my insecure and unsafe ride was Stacey's punishment for failing to massage her feet.