James’ brain went off a cliff, neurons firing haphazardly — desperate to bring order and sense to the reality that his stepdaughter was standing behind him, gazing upon the computer screen with his shrinking fetish website in plain view.  His body jerked into motion… his fight-or-flight response in automatic overdrive… the ‘flight’ reaction winning by a long margin.  Reaching toward his large 27-inch widescreen monitor, he attempted to block his stepdaughter’s view — but failing miserably, the whole screen toppled over, falling backwards onto his desk in a loud crash.

            “Oh!  It’s okay!  My monitor is not broken,” James exclaimed anxiously, really having no idea of the condition of his LED screen, other than seeing that the power cord thankfully had dislodged itself resulting in a discreet black rectangle.  Fumbling with the cords, not plugging anything in, just moving his hands around randomly... he then slowly turned around to face his beautiful stepdaughter.  “So, uh… Adelaide.”  He swallowed hard.  “You didn’t see… that much… did you?  I mean, you couldn’t have seen everything, right?”

            The buxom teen crossed her arms, smirking as she laughed quietly to herself.  “Oh, Jim, Jim, Jim,” Adelaide cooed.  “What am I going to do with you?”  She then casually walked over to the other side of the basement, opening the dryer as she bent over.  “I put some clothes in here last night… didn’t get a chance to take them out.”

            “Oh — I see,” James said, painfully aware of the nervousness in his cracking voice.  “You just needed your clothing.  That’s good.”  He stood there by his computer desk, looking down at the floor helplessly.  He could sense that he must be turning bright red, for his face was becoming increasingly and uncomfortably warm.   I thought Karen was the only one who did laundry, James’ thoughts echoed in his mind.  I guess that’s not the case anymore.

            Hearing his stepdaughter approaching, he glanced upward watching her curvaceous figure as she sauntered past him holding a white laundry basket.  And a moment later, the sounds of her footsteps walking up the staircase filled the empty basement.  After she had gone, James collapsed into his computer chair, cradling his face in his hands.  Oh, no… no, no, no, his thoughts whirled in his head.  She saw everything, I know it.  She was standing behind me for like an eternity — reading everything I was reading.  And… that collage with the shrunken man holding onto the girl’s purse was on the screen for a while.  She saw that, too.  Great.  Just great.

            James stood up, repositioning his computer monitor in the center of his desk, making sure it was plugged in.  Pressing the ‘power’ button, it turned on.  “Well, at least this still works,” he said to himself, turning it off again.

            Taking a seat, he took a deep breath.  Adelaide saw the name of the website.  She even said ‘giantessworld . net’ out loud — asking me what that was.  She could be looking at the website right now on her phone or in her room.  Karen said Adelaide had a computer with Internet in there.  James rested his forehead on his hands.  “I’m screwed.  I’m fuckin’ screwed,” he muttered.  The embarrassment alone is enough, but now I have absolutely zero authority over my stepdaughter.  How am I supposed to help Karen discipline her daughter when she’s holding the knowledge of my shrinking fetish over my head?  It’s like she’s castrated me without even trying.  It’s all my fault for not being more careful.

            An hour passed and then two.  The 35-year-old thought of going upstairs on several occasions, each time talking himself out of it.  And then his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his wife’s voice.  “James!  Come on upstairs!  Addie re-enlarged Ruff.  Come see.”

            “I believe you!” James shouted back, not wanting to budge from his seat.

            “Come on, honey.  You’ve been down there a long time.”

            He begrudgingly got up, walking over to the stairs as he flipped the lights off.  Climbing to the top, he saw his wife over in the kitchen.  Adelaide was sitting in the living room on one end of the brown sofa, one leg tucked underneath her.  A pair of pink ‘beats’ wireless headphones were over her ears, her attention focused on the phone in her hand.

            Walking into the kitchen, James quietly asked, “Did you talk with Adelaide?”

            “Yes,” Karen replied.

            “Well?”

            “She agreed to restore our dog to normal size… so I’m happy,” Karen said, a look of relief and a smile on her face.

            “That’s all?  She didn’t say anything about downstairs?”

            “Downstairs?  What do you mean?”

            “Oh, nothing,” James said quickly.  “I’m going to go upstairs and see how Brian’s doing.  Is he in his room?”

            “Should be — unless he’s out playing baseball.  I don’t know.”

            Stepping through the living room, James hurried up the stairs.  He walked past his stepdaughter’s bedroom with its ‘KEEP OUT’ sign, and then arrived outside his stepson’s room, looking inside.

            He knocked on the door frame.  “Hey, there, buddy.  How you doing?”

            Lying down on his twin-sized bed, reading a comic book, he glanced over.  “Oh, hi, James,” he answered pleasantly.  “You can come in, if you want.”

            James sat down on the edge of the bed.  “So, what ya reading?  Anything fun?”

            “It’s the new Avengers comic.  It’s pretty good,” Brian said, handing his stepdad the comic.

            “Oh, yeah,” James commented.  “Any favorite characters you like?”

            “Iron Man is cool, of course.  I also like Scarlet Witch, since she has magic powers… reminds me of my sister.”

            Flipping through the pages, James said, “Yeah, she’s hot.  I mean, Scarlet Witch is hot.”

            Brian smiled, holding out his hand as James returned the comic book.  “So…” James said, blinking nervously as he swallowed.

            “I know why you’re here, James.”

            “You do?” he answered, sounding surprised.

            “Yeah, you want to know how I felt about seeing Ruff get shrunk.  Mom already talked to me about that.”

            “Oh… so…”

            “I’m glad Ruff is back to his normal size,” the 14-year-old said.  “Though I have to say, it was pretty awesome to see how small Addie made him.”

            “So you don’t have any fear…?” James asked.

            “What do you mean, fear?”

            “You’re not afraid that… that your… sister would shrink you?”

            “Oh, no,” Brian answered.  “She would never do that.  Well… I never thought she would shrink Ruff.  So, maybe she would.  I hope not.”

            Sensing his stepson’s discomfort, James said, “Oh, I’m sure she would never do that.”

            Brian scooted closer across his bed, speaking quietly, “James, I’ve had some dreams about my sister shrinking me.  I think that’s because when I was younger, my sister would shrink my toys and make them big again.  She did that a lot to practice her Magicka.”

            “How did you feel about that?”

            “I thought it was cool,” Brian said.  “Except whenever I wanted to play with my action figures and my sister forgot to un-shrink them.  That made me mad.”

            “Yeah,” James said, with a chuckle.  “I can see how that could be frustrating.”

            “Last week… uh… I dreamt that Addie shrunk you, James.”

            “You what?” James said.  “Adelaide shrunk me?”

            “It was kind of a scary dream, because she was angry with you… and you were so small.  And then she was chasing after you.  And I woke up right after she captured you in her hand.”

            “That sounds like a fun dream,” Adelaide commented, entering her brother’s room.  “Too bad it’s just a dream, huh?”  The 17-year-old began to walk about the bedroom, her skimpy shorts and skintight T-shirt demonstrating the definition of a ‘voluptuous’ body.

            “Hey, don’t touch that,” Brian said suddenly.

            “What?” Adelaide replied.

            “That’s what you always tell me when I’m in your room, Addie.”

            “Don’t worry, little bro.  I’m not going to touch anything… Though I might shrink something.”  She giggled as she eyed a collection of green-plastic inch-tall army men on her brother’s shelf.  “You still have these, Brian?”

            “Hey, I still play with them,” her brother answered.  “My friend still has his, too.”

            “Sounds pretty boring to me,” Adelaide quipped.  “Though I do like how tiny these little guys are.”  The teen then looked over at James sitting on the edge of the bed.  “Oh, Jim…” she said, gasping, feigning surprise.  “I didn’t even see you.  You were being so quiet, it’s almost like someone had shrunk you.”

            James looked at his stepdaughter’s exceptionally beautiful face as she smirked at him.  “Yeah, I don’t think we should be talking about that,” he replied.

            “I’m not so sure, Jim,” Adelaide said.  “That website you were on… well, I didn’t know you were like that.  How long have you been reading those stories?”

            James, wishing he could just stand up and go to his own bedroom, answered, “Again, I don’t think we should talk about this… in front of your brother.”

            “Talk about what in front of me?” Brian asked.

            “It’s nothing important, Brian,” James snapped, appearing agitated.

“Well, it is rather amusing to me,” Adelaide said, smiling, as she stepped toward the doorway.  Turning, she added, “You’ve made it so much easier for me to tease you.  I could even torment you, Jim, if I wanted to.”

James watched his stepdaughter walk out into the hallway.  He then got up and followed her down the hall, nearing her own bedroom door.  He said firmly, “You are not in charge of this house, Adelaide.  Your mom and I are in charge.”

The teen spun around to face her stepdad.  “Is that so?” she said, tilting her pretty brunette head to the side.  “Mom told me she earns 4 times as much as you do.”

“It doesn’t matter that I don’t make much money.  I work full-time.”

“Well, you’re certainly not in charge of this family… are you?”

James felt his frustration building.  Knowing his anxiety was always waiting behind the scenes, ready to sabotage his confidence, he acted on his anger, “I don’t like the tone you are taking with me.  You better listen to your mom, and give me more respect.”

“Fuck… you!” she yelled.  “Fuck you, Jim.”

“You can’t talk to me like that!”

“Or what?” Adelaide said.  “What are you going to do?  Huh?”

James stood there staring at his stepdaughter, his confidence waning.  Karen then came up the stairs.  “What is with all the yelling?” she said.  “James, what is going on here?”

James turned around and began heading back to his bedroom, hearing his stepdaughter’s voice.  “That’s what I thought, Jim.  You are running away again.  You’re afraid of my anger growing too big for you.”

Stepping into his room, James stopped by the side of his bed, holding the back of his neck.  “Who does she think she is?” he said, under his breath.  Sitting down, he saw his wife enter their bedroom.

“James, why are you arguing with my daughter?  Did she say something that made you upset?”

Taking a deep breath, James answered, “I have it under control, Karen.  I know what I am doing, okay?”

“Since when have you been the take-charge kind of man?” his wife asked, moving to her dresser, opening the drawer.

“He’s not, Mom,” Adelaide said, walking into the room.  “He knows deep down that he’s a small… little… tiny man.”  Turning her gaze toward her stepdad on the bed, she added, “Jim is very afraid of me.  Isn’t that right… Jim?”

James stood up, looking at the smug smirk on his stepdaughter’s gorgeous face.  “I am not afraid of you,” James stated his lie as convincingly as he could.

“Ohh… you are such a bad liar,” the teen said, laughing, holding her hands in front of her mouth.  “The next thing you’re gonna say is that you don’t gawk at my butt or my breasts when I walk past you in the house.”

“Adelaide, stop it now!” Karen ordered.  “Go back to your room.”

“I will, when I’m ready,” she said.

“I think I’m going to go for a walk,” James said, sitting back down on the bed.  “I’ve had enough of Adelaide’s disrespectful attitude.”  As he reached down toward the floor, he saw his blue and white Nike sneakers suddenly begin to shrink — their size dwindling until they had shrunk to one-sixth of an inch long.