Meanwhile, back in the house, Betty was preparing brunch in her apartment for herself, Sherri, and their miniature male guests. She was in a good mood; the game was going very well, and the next competition was almost completely ready.

Paul stood on the table watching the giantess prepare the food. What she did to him was humiliating and unforgivable, but at the same time he did have to admit that there was some strange arousing element to it. In the beginning, he had not enjoyed it at all because he demanded to be in control and while Betty’s single finger had more power than his entire body he could not have that. But once he realised he didn’t have to be in control, he became more relaxed. He knew Betty would have her way with him no matter whether he resisted or not so he decided to let it happen. When it was happening, he realised what a sexy thing this was, being engulfed by female sex organs and soaked in female juices. This was not the way he would have preferred to be a part of a sex act, but he tried to enjoy it for what it was.

It all felt so surreel to Paul anyway. These past few days he hardly felt that he was even on his own planet and not off in a parallel dimension. This was not anything he had expected to experience in his life, but now that he was, he decided he would be a good soldier and stick it through to the end.

“Sherri should be here any moment.” Betty told Paul. Paul had to dash out of the way as Betty put steaming plates of food in front of Sherri’s and her places. The glasses that Betty filled with orange juice were twice as high as he was. The volume of juice these two ladies would be consuming was far, far greater than his body mass. It really was a surreel situation to find himself in.

There was a knock on the door. Betty smiled and walked into the living room, opening the door to let Sherri inside.

“Hi, good morning,” Betty said.

“Good morning,” Sherri said, walking through the opening into the living room. “How are you.”

“I’m fine,” Betty said. “I trust you’ve been watching the screens all morning, I’ve taken the morning off so far.”

“Yes,” Said Sherri. She was relieved that Betty hadn’t seen the incident with Carla less than an hour ago. Who knew what kind of teasing she would have had to endure?

“So did you pick a person to shrink?” Betty asked. “I left that entirely up to you, remember?”

“Yes I did,” Sherri said. “In fact, I delegated the task to Tom to give him something to do.”

“You did, did you?” Betty said with a little grin. “And did you bring Tom?”

“I did!” Sherri said, reaching into her shirt and under her bra. She withdrew Tom, now fully dressed and looking wholly nonchalont about the situation.

“So Tom, who did you pick?” Betty asked.

“I picked Carla just for the irony,” Tom said dryly. Betty laughed.

“Yes, that made my evening last night,” Betty said. “You and Carla made quite a pair. I thought she was going to run off and keep you for a moment.”

“I bet she would have if she controlled the shrinking machines,” Said Tom.

“Too true,” Betty said. “Remind me never to let Carla co-host this show, she’d be after my job.”

They all had a good laugh at that. “Anyway, to the kitchen,” Said Betty. Sherri followed her into the familiar kitchen where two plates of steaming food were waiting. Between them stood the four-inch figure of Paul.

“Hi Paul,” Said Sherri, smiling at the miniscule man who stood there watching them arrive. Paul held his hand up in a curt wave as Sherri and Betty took their places at the table. Once Sherri sat down Paul saw her putting another figure onto the table a few feet away. Who was it? wondered Paul. Maybe someone else had been eliminated—but when the man walked closer, Paul could see it was Tom.

“Hi,” Said Tom, as if this were no more unusual than meeting someone on a public square. “We never really met. I’m Tom.”

“Paul,” Said Paul, shaking his hands. This strange world operated on it’s own laws, and he figured he might as well go along with them.

“So how did you enjoy Betty’s nether regions?” Tom asked with a grin.

Paul wasn’t even sure how to go about answering such a question. “It was warm…wet…” He said.

Sherri and Betty laughed from above; They were watching the exchange between the tiny men.

“Paul was fun last night.” Betty said. “We could trade, if you like.”

“No thanks, I’m fine.” Sherri said. She had mantained friendly host-to-contestant relations with the eight of them, at least until Carla’s kiss. She felt it would be a violation of that if Paul was neck-deep in her vagina.

“Suit yourself,” Betty said. “Anyway, you still haven’t picked one that you want. I told you, I could get you any one of them all for yourself.”

Paul looked at Betty in disbelife. Was Betty deliberately skewing the game for her own pleasure?

“No, I’m satisfied, really,” Sherri said, glancing down at Tom and giving him a smile. Paul at least felt he could have respect for Sherri; the girl didn’t seem to want to cheat or use any contestants sexually besides Tom, who she met as an euqal in the first season anyway.

“We’ll be pulling in two more tonight if you change your mind.” Betty said. Paul assumed they were talking about the competition. He dearly hoped that Vera would not have to be subjected to this, though he was unsure if Betty treated women contestants like she did men contestants.

Sherri didn’t respond, she merely smiled. The two women started in on their food, the men sat around the plates. Paul felt awkward but tried to look neutral; Tom almost looked bored. He must be well used to this after all the time he must have spent small.

“So how close is the next competition to being ready?” Sherri asked.

“It’s done!” Betty said. “It’s going to be a blast…are you two men ready to do some test runs?”

Test runs, thought Paul wildly as the two giantesses stared down at him. What could Betty mean by a test run?

“Tom’s ready for sure,” Sherri said, showing a little grin. “I’ve tested parts of it on him already.”

“Ooh,” Betty said as both women giggled. “That sounds good.”

“You sore at all?” Betty asked Tom.

“Nah, just a little knocked around, that’s all,” Tom replied, making the two women laugh yet again. Paul was more confused than ever. Was the game sexual in some way? He dowbted it, yet after his experience with Betty the previous night he was ready to believe anything.

“It’s too bad you can’t be part of it,” Betty said, looking down at Paul this time, “It’s going to be fun. But we have a great place you can sit and watch it!”

Paul dearly hoped that this wouldn’t be anywhere on the body of these giant women, but his chances didn’t look too good otherwise.

Before long the women were done eating, the massive mounds of food and drink big enough to feed armies vanished. Paul and Tom had each broken off a few crumbs of food to eat and Paul found himself stuffed on a mere crumb of scrambled eggs.

After they had finished eating, Sherri voulintered to help Betty with the dishes. Leaving Tom and Paul on the table the two women scrubbed their plates and silverware. They chatted idly about things unrelated to the game for a few minutes. Working together, the two women had the dishes done in very little time.

“So, is it off to the game site, then?” Sherri asked.

“Indeed it is,” Betty said. “You grab your man and I’ll grab mine.” Paul felt once again the large hand of Betty wrap around him as she picked him off the table. They left the kitchen and headed out of Betty’s apartment altogether. Paul had no idea what lay ahead, but with more dread than anticipation realised that he would soon find out what this competition was all about.

Back at the house, things were starting to cool down after the fight over Andy. Marie and Vera had decided to go outside, taking little Andy and Hailey with them. The four of them sat together in the grass chatting. It was mostly Marie and Vera talking to each other, since Hailey and Andy were tiny and hard to hear.

“It was fun being shrunk,” Marie was telling her. “But I was really starting to get creeped out by it.”

“I would have never believed it, but I’m actually starting to see that,” Vera said. “I mean, I still wouldn’t want to be small if I could help it, but it’s not that bad.”

“Yeah, wait until we’re four inches tall, though,” Marie said. Everybody looked down at Andy just to take in how tiny he was.

“I’m pretty sure we’ll all be that size before long.” Vera said.

“I wonder if Betty even has the legal right to do all this?” Marie said.

“Who knows,” Vera said. “There probably aren’t laws on the books about shrinking machines because no one knows they actually exist.”

“And the public will think we’re actresses,” Marie said.

“Imagine that, Vera the actress,” Vera said. “It’s every young girl’s dream, isn’t it, to be an actress?”

“I wanted to be a dancer when I was a little girl.” Marie said. “I took dance classes through most of my life.”

“I did athletics,” Vera said. “I’ve always done sports.”

“Hasn’t it helped you in the game?” Marie said.

“No, my team still lost the watergun competition,” Vera said. “I don’t think it was mainly my fault, though.”

“I remember,” Marie said with a chuckle, “You were really irate about being shrunk to half-sized. Remember when we thought that was really small?”

“Yeah, strange,” Vera said, looking at the giantess reclined in the grass, “It’s still small, though, if you took this size out into the world.”

The two women continued talking for a while. Marie was glad she was friendly with Vera again; being in an alliance with Carla meant she had to distance herself from Paul and Vera and she had always regretted that. True, without the alliance she would probably not have made it to become Queen, but she regretted missed oppertunities for friendship all the while.

Though Vera was happy she was now getting along with Marie, she realised that they were two completely different people. Apart from being significantly older, Vera also had a different way of looking at life, something deep-seated that the two women did not share. Though they would get along Vera knew that Marie was not the kind of person she would be friends with outside the show.

Meanwhile, inside, Dale was walking the living room alone. He knew that a few of the others were outside but he still felt reluctant to join them. He still felt that sense of embarrasment about his size, his loss of manliness. He realised that by this point in the game it was quite silly, but he still felt more comfertable by himself.

As he walked in front of the couch, he noticed he was not alone after all. Someone his own size was lying on the floor. But that didn’t make sense, nobody was his size! When he walked up, he saw that it was Carla.

“Hey,” Dale said, happy he had someone his own size to talk to. Carla turned her head to look at him, then slowly sat up.

“Hey, Dale,” She said.

“How did you get this size?” Dale asked.

“Must have been somebody up at the house,” Carla said. “They shrunk me with no warning or explination.”

“Really?” Dale said, starting to get nervous. Were they doing that now, shrinking people just for the hell of it?

“I think I know why they did it,” Carla said. “I got upset over Andy betraying me,”

“Oh,” Dale said, feeling a bit relieved. “What were you doing?”

“You know, shouting, things like that,” Carla said, a little bit of a grin coming to her face.

“Well our chances are pretty stuck in the mud, aren’t they?” Dale said.

“Probably,” Carla said, pulling herself up to stand. “Now that I’ve lost my allies, and you haven’t got any to begin with.”

“Don’t remind me,” Dale said. “I’ve been off-stride on this game since the first day. I haven’t felt like myself.”

“Well, you’re used to being the big oaf, aren’t you?” Carla asked, grinning.

“Yeah,” Dale said. “I’m usually on top of things. What you’re seeing now isn’t who I really am.”

“Maybe what I’m seeing now is who you are when you don’t have your size to hide behind.” Said Carla.

“Hey,” Said Dale, annoyed, “You’re one to talk. You always flip out whenever someone shrinks you.”

“I never said I was perfect,” Carla said, shrugging. “Let’s face it, this game has brought out the worst in all of us,”

“You’re telling me,” Dale said, nodding solomnley.

“If you’re thinking about that scrap you had with Paul, forget it,” Carla said. “He had it coming.”

“It was still stupid of me.” Dale said.

“Who cares,” Carla said. “Paul’s a jackass, and if he were here right now he’d come up to our knees.”

Dispite Dale’s dislike of Paul, he was a little discomforted by the evil glint in Carla’s eye as she said this.

“What is it with you and shrunken men?” Dale asked. “You and Hailey and Marie?”

“I just like being in control,” Carla said. “I might not have even enjoyed it so much, but Andy was so enthusiastic that it was great.”

“Being with Hailey twice my size was scarry enough,” Dale said. “I can’t imagine being much smaller than that.”

“You might as well ask Andy,” Carla said bitterly. “He got himself shrunk to four inches tall and he’s been prairie-dogging in and out of Marie’s cunt ever sinse.”

“No thanks,” Dale said, chilling at the thought.                   

“I do admit things got carried away between Andy and I,” Carla said. “If I see him I should appologize.”

“Well you’re bouncing back quick.” Dale said.

“I’m not appologizing to Marie, just Andy,” Carla said, making the distinction clear.

“Does that mean the alliance is off?” Dale asked.

“Probably,” Carla snorted. “Fat load of good it’s going to do anyway now that Marie’s hanging out with Vera.”

“Well, since we’re both on the outside, do you want to form an alliance?” Dale offered before he could stop himself.

Carla considered him. “You want to? Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Dale said. “If either of us can do anything to help the other, we will!”

Carla thought about it for a moment. “Okay,” She said. “Sounds pretty straight forward to me, I’ll do it.”

“Excellent.” Said Dale. “Finally, somebody on my side.”

“Good.” Carla said. “Just one more thing, though. Where I come from, we like to seal deals with a kiss.”

Before Dale could do anything Carla plunged her lips against his, giving him a long hard kiss that caused him to stagger two steps back in surprise. Carla leaned against him, her body radiating a kind of intense energy. Dale willed the kiss to go longer as he stood there dumbfounded by the force of the sudden kiss.

Carla pulled away and smiled at Dale. He was about to say something but before he could Carla put her finger over his lips, silencing him. “Remember, whatever happens.” Carla said, then turned and walked away.

Dale stood there dumbfounded. He had felt a thrill of excitement when Carla had kissed him but also a sense of dread. What had he entered, an alliance or a partnership? He had seen Carla tower over him before—hopefuly she wasn’t indicating that she’d be taking him as hers no matter what the outcome of the competition was. Now even though he was helping Carla, he had special reason to want to remain larger than her.

Time was ticking on, and the competition was nearing. Marie decided that it would be a good idea to feed everyone lunch before it started. The smaller contestants filed into the kitchen and milled about together while lunch was being fixed. Vera was still watching Andy and Hailey as if they were her young children and Carla couldn’t get anywhere near them. Jerry arrived and made friendly conversation with Carla, surprised at how he was looking down at her for the first time in the competition.

When lunch was ready Carla and Dale sat on Jerry’s lap, while Andy and Hailey sat on Vera’s. Marie served the food to the miniature people, then sat down and proceded to eat herself. Hailey and Andy could not even reach the food on their own, so they had to get up on the table and sit by the plates. Andy had never been this small at the table before; it was the size of a cortyard now.

“Well, what do you think it’s going to be?” Marie asked. “Do you think it’s going to be voting, or a physical activity?”

“It’s been voting the last couple of times,” Jerry said. “I think we’re actually going to have to move this time.”

“But how will that work?” Vera asked. “We’re all different sizes, no game could possibly be fair.”

“Maybe fair is not on Betty’s mind,” Commented Marie.

“Or possibly they’ll make us all the same size for the competition.” Jerry said. Everyone looked at him in alarm. “Hey, it happened last season.”

“Yeah, but that was not until the very end,” Marie said. “And then they were all made sixteenth-size!”

“We might not get that small,” Jerry said. “But I have the feeling we’ll be shrinking.”

By the time they finished lunch it was already one-thirty. The typical nervousness that came into the group before any competition was settling in on them. Marie knew that she would still be Queen after the game, so she was not nervous. However, everyone else was. Undowbtedly someone would be eliminated in this game; the show had gone on so long and only one person had been eliminated thus far. But who would it be, and how?

“It might be a team game again,” Vera said as they waited in the living room. “It makes sense, six of us that are competing, three and three.”

“Will we get to choose our teams?” Jerry said.

“Maybe,” Vera said. “We chose teams before, remember?”

“I don’t think there are going to be teams,” Carla said, speeking up for the first time since they were all together.

“No? Well, we’ll see in a few minutes anyway.” Vera said.

Time seemed to drag and each of the contestants tried to relieve stress in their own way. Vera decided to do some pushups and other exersizes to loosten her muscles in the case of a physical competition. Jerry seemed to relieve stress by being extra sociable. Hailey and Andy weren’t that stressed—it couldn’t get too much worse than where they were now.

Finally, two o’clock approached and there was a sharp wrap on the door. Marie, who had been siting on the couch, walked over to answer it. Betty was standing in the door, Sherri behind her on her left side. Both women were full-sized and had big smiles on their faces as if they were about to receive a big treat.

“Good afternoon, contestants,” Betty said. “Have you been having a good day so far?”

There was a general nervous accent. “Good,” Betty said. “Because now it is time for the day’s competition. If you would follow me to the compound, then.”

Betty and Sherri turned to walk back to the main building. Marie led the troop of smaller people; Vera carrying Andy and Hailey with Carla and Dale jogging to keep up with the rest of the group. They entered the familiar door that went into the room with the shrinking booth. The room was empty except for the people in it; there were no booths, no boxes to put names. This seemed to preculde any kind of voting game, but what was it, then?

“The crew here at the compound has been hard at work building the setting for your next competition.” Betty said. “It will involve the six of you—those who haven’t been eliminated and who aren’t the Queen. But in order to participate, you must be shrunk to one-sixteenth size.”

A chill ran through the group. Their worst fears had been realised—it was time to shrink. Carla, Dale, Vera, and Jerry had not even been as small as eighth-sized yet, and now they were passing it straight by to become sixteenth-sized. Hailey would have her current size halved, but Andy would be the only one unchanged.

“I could have you all go through the shrinking booth,” Betty said. “But that would take too much time, so I’m just going to have our new systems shrink you right here in three seconds. Two, one…”

There was a blinding flash of light. The contestants blinked, and looked around them. To six people the world was utterly massive. Three gigantic women stood around them like vast statues, staring down at them. They were spaced a good distance from each other—they took up a lot less room this way.

Vera started to feel a little shaky in the legs. She was absolutely miniscule now, absolutely powerless. Dale’s breathing increased, and Jerry actually started humming nervously. Carla felt the tension inside of her but willed herself to relax. Hailey was shaking as well, but Andy was pretty much the same as he had been all morning; in awe over the giantesses piering down at him.

“You’ll get used to your new sizes quickly,” Betty’s voice boomed down from far above. “And if you’re lucky it will only be for the competition.”

Betty paused as the little people continued to look around them. She savored moments like this.

“At any rate, it is time to move on to the competition.” Betty said. “Marie, put your hands together like this.” Betty cupped her hands together and Marie immitated her. “Now, kneel over and put your hands on the ground. You’ll be carrying your teemates to the site of the contest.”

Marie was nervous at the thought of her task. Fit all six of them in her cupped hands? It was possible, sure, but if she made one mistake someone could fall off! She knew better than to argue with Betty, however, so she complied with Betty’s orders.

Kneeling down from the heavens, Marie put her hands down on the ground. The six shrunken people looked aprehenisvely at the gigantic fingers, then they slowly made their way to get on. Andy was the first one on, climbing against the heel of her hand. The other five of them climbed in much less enthusiastically.

“Be careful, please,” Marie said to them once they were all in. She raised her hands from the ground and soon they were all high in the air. It was very crowded in Marie’s palms and people were scrunched up against each other.

“Follow me,” Betty said, opening the door that lead further back into the compound, a place where the contestants had not been since their first day. Sherri held the door for Marie, smiling sympathetically as Marie slowly made her way through.

Andy swore he could feel Marie’s heart pounding through her wrists as she followed Betty and Sherri down the hall. There were a few doors on either side of them and straight ahead there was a fork in the hallway. The right fork would take them to the front entrance of the compound where they had all entered to be in this crazy competition. The left fork lead to the other side the compound, and no one knew what lied in that direction. Betty took the left fork.

They passed a staircase but did not go up it; they stayed on the first floor. They saw windows on the right side of the hallways but heavy curtians prevented them from seeing what was inside. They met another fork and this time turned right, now leading towards the front of the building but the side away from the enterance. Betty stopped at a doorway near the end of the hall. On it a label proclaimed “Room 102: Conference Room”.

“Here we are,” Betty said. “Once we get inside I will explain the rest of the rules.” Betty opened the door and walked in. Marie and Sherri followed. The sight that met Marie’s eyes was almost enough to make her drop her passangers.