Blinking in disbelief, his jaw having fallen, James stared down at the tan carpet of the living room and the black mouse-sized Ruffington — the dog, once robust and large, was now no more than 2 to 3 inches in length… its bark pathetically small and ineffectual, squeaking repeatedly.  James heard his wife’s utterance in a way he had never heard her speak — a tone of absolute shock, of unmitigated horror.

            “Oh — my God!” Karen exclaimed, standing about ten feet from the shrunken pet dog, which scurried about in the middle of the living room.  And then it came close to her daughter’s pink-socked feet.

            Watching while sitting on the sofa, James had a close-up view, less than a yard away from his standing stepdaughter.  It was one of those surreal moments, James hearing the trauma and emotion in his wife’s voice, and yet simultaneously a part of James’ brain was finding itself sexually aroused by the sight of the diminutive Ruffington playing on and jumping around his stepdaughter’s feet.  She towered over the shrunken dog, her athletic legs rising high into air.  It popped into James’ imagination that if there were a tiny house on the carpeting and a white picket fence, it would be like Adelaide was a bona fide giantess.

            “A-A-Addie — what have you done?” her mother said, her voice shaking.  “I told you a million times, you don’t shrink living things.”

            The beautiful 17-year-old crossed her arms defiantly, snickering.  She then yelled, “You don’t run my life, Mom!”

            Brian, sitting behind his stepdad on the sofa, leaned forward, saying, “Wow… that’s wicked cool,” his eyes mesmerized at the spectacle down at his sister’s feet.

            James, completely enthralled as well — having understood nothing from the last two comments from the two females — then saw Adelaide lift her foot, the contours of her exquisite arch and toes hugged closely by her pink sock.  His eyes then widened seeing his stepdaughter playfully and gently nudge the miniaturized animal — the dog prancing about, seeming to enjoy the novelty of giantess-sized feet.

            “See, Mom… Ruff likes being tiny,” Adelaide said happily, giggling briefly.  “He loves it when I play with him with my toes.”

            “No.  No!” Karen shouted, stepping closer to her daughter.  “You make Ruff big again!  And I mean right now, young lady!”

            Unaffected by the urgency in her mother’s voice, Adelaide answered confidently, “I could un-shrink Ruff… but I don’t have to.”

            “What?” her mother said, sounding as alarmed as when she first saw the dog shrunk.  “What did you say to me?  You better not have said what I think you said.”

            Adelaide’s tone suddenly switched to that of rage, as she clenched her fists, yelling, “Fuck this, Mom!  Fuck you!  You act like everything I say to you is wrong!  Like I can’t say what I think, unless you first say it’s okay.”

            Karen watched her daughter storm off toward the stairs.  “Addie, stop!” she shouted.  “You will talk nicely to me, your mother… and you will use your Magicka… right now… to make Ruffington his normal size.”

            James watched his stepdaughter’s eyes narrow as she yelled at Karen.  “No!  No way do I have to do what you say, Mom.  No fuckin’ way!”  The teen then quickly ascended the stairs to the second floor… a moment later her bedroom door slamming loudly shut, sounding as if it was right nearby.

            “Brian,” Karen said.  “Go to your room.”

            “What?  But I didn’t do anything,” he answered.  “Addie’s the one that used her powers.”

            “I don’t care,” his mother said.  “Do what I say, now.”

            Brian got up off the sofa and walked to the stairs, climbing the steps slowly.  After he disappeared, Karen reached down toward the floor, speaking to her husband, “James, help me out here.”

            “Help with what?” James answered, seeming surprised by the request.

            Continuing to bend over, Karen said sweetly, “Here Ruff, come on…  Here little Ruff.”  Turning for a moment, she said, “I don’t know.  Get that glass jar in the kitchen I use for canning.  Come on!  Make yourself useful!  Geez, you’re such a —”

            James jumped off the sofa and hurried into the kitchen.  Okay.  Okay, he thought, beginning to open the white, wooden cabinets one by one.  “I don’t see anything….  No wait.  I found it.”  The man’s eyes widened as he took the large 6 ½ -inch-tall glass jar from the shelf.  It looked identical to collages he had seen online of shrunken men trapped within.  He began to twist off the metal lid.

            “Come on!” Karen prodded.  “Bring it here, quickly.”

            Returning to his wife, he handed her the jar as she carefully inserted her fingers inside the glass walls, allowing the tiny, black Labrador retriever entrance as she slowly tilted the container upright.  Karen raised the jar before her pretty face as she spoke solemnly, “I never thought Addie had this in her.  Never have I seen her shrink something that is alive before.  Growing up, she was a rebellious child, always wanting things her way… but she knows better than this.  I raised her better than this.  You never shrink living things.  Not animals, not people, not even little bugs that are already small — well, you know what I mean.”

            James’s mind was too occupied with the image of his lovely wife holding the shrunken K9 in the glass prison to actually have interpreted the words she spoke.  It was like the shrinking fantasies he had shared with her — fantasies she had seemed to hold very little interest in.  It mattered not to James, for the view he now took in of Karen’s blue eyes scrutinizing their shrunken pet… her long, feminine fingers wrapped around the base of the glass jar — it was a memory he knew he would never forget and which held countless masturbatory opportunities while he was alone downstairs.

            “Do you think that, too, James?”

            “Huh?  You said something?” he answered.

            “James… eh, I’ve been talking for the last couple minutes.  I said...  Geez, why do I even try to have an adult conversation with you?  It’s only the welfare of our family that’s at stake.”

            “No, I’m listening.  I was just —”

            Karen set the jar down on the kitchen counter, looking curiously at her husband.  “Don’t — don’t tell me this has to do with your fantasies… James?”

            The 35-year-old man looked off to the side, pretending to be deep in thought.

            “You’re thinking about shrinking right now, aren’t you?” Karen asked, trying to suppress her laughter.

            “Yeah, well…” he said, gesturing with his hand.  “It’s pretty hard not to think about shrinking when there’s an actual shrunken dog here on the counter.”

            Suddenly the reality of the moment fully entered James’ consciousness, his horniness peaking.  The thought of being shrunk himself was an idea he entertained within his mind since he was child.  But he would never dare try to communicate his secret fetish with his stepdaughter, even though she possessed the magical prowess to make such fantasies a reality.  He didn’t think it was the responsible, mature thing for him to suggest it to his teenaged stepdaughter — even if his intention was for her to immediately hand him over to his wife.  But even more pressing was the fact that he was honestly terrified with the notion of being shrunk in the presence of Adelaide — her uncontrollable temper, her volatility of mood.  It didn’t matter that she was more beautiful and curvy than any woman deserved to be, with an ample bosom that would cause any red-blooded man to melt seeing them jiggle for the first time whenever she went up or down the stairs.  No.  Discussing shrinking with Adelaide was definitely out of the question for James.  And yet his extreme apprehension regarding his stepdaughter held its own masochistic excitement and pleasure… it was like a moth flirting with a flame.  Get too close and what you called your ‘life’ could vanish into oblivion in an instant.

            James turned to his wife.  “Karen, come downstairs with me.  I know you’re not interested in the idea of men shrinking, but I think you might like some parts of these stories I read online.”

            “We’ve already discussed this, James, before we got married.  I’m happy you like it, okay… it’s just not —”

            “I know.  I know,” James said, taking his wife’s hand, leading her to the basement door.  “Just leave the dog on the counter.  He’s not going anywhere.”

             The two of them descended the stairs, James flipping the switch as the spacious, yet unfinished basement was illuminated.  James unfolded a metal chair, setting it beside his usual computer chair.  “I don’t entertain much,” James said, with a sheepish grin.

            Karen sat down, crossing her legs, watching as her husband turned on the monitor and proceeded to log on to his favorite story website.  “So, James… this is where you wank off when we’re not having sex, huh?”

            “You know it,” James returned, amused by his wife’s candor.

            Clicking on ‘most recent’ stories, James scrolled through a long list.  “See, there are many stories that people write, and these are just the ones written in the last 7 days.”

            “Mm-hmm,” his wife answered, bouncing her calf.  “Go on.  I’m listening to you.”

            He smiled, pausing for a moment.  “And… I, of course, have some favorite stories and authors that I enjoy reading.”  Turning to look his wife in the eye, he continued, “As I told you before, the family scenarios can be rather stimulating.  I think I recently read one where the husband gets shrunk by his wife.”

            Karen leaned in closer to the monitor.  “That’s great, James,” she said, ignoring his less-than-subtle attempt at making her want to shrink him.  “So, what is this number here?”

            “That tells you the number of reviews for that particular story.”

            “So, I can leave a review?” Karen asked.

            “Sure, but you’d want to read the story first.”

            Karen sat back in her chair, holding her chin with her thumb and index finger.  “I don’t know.  Sounds like a lot of work.  What do I get out of it?”

            James laughed, knowing his wife was purposely giving him a hard time.  She had always been accepting of his fantasies.  There was no judgment.  It was just the apathy that James found frustrating, and yet at the same time he found it strangely attractive… even sexually stimulating.  “Well, I know you love to read your books before you go to bed,” James commented.  “So, it’s not that you don’t like to read.”

            His wife abruptly stood up.  “James, you have fun.  I’m going to go talk to Addie.  Get her to re-enlarge our dog… get her to give me the credit card she stole from me.”

            “Are you sure she took it?  Maybe you lost it.”

            Karen shook her head.  “There’s no other explanation I can think of.  It was right there in my purse yesterday.  I remember it very clearly that it was yesterday morning when I saw it.  I’m sure my credit card is hiding in Addie’s room somewhere.”

            “Well… okay…” James said.  “But try to be… nice… in how you go about things.”

            A look of annoyance came over his wife’s beautiful face.  “Nice?  You want me to be nice?  Addie is completely out of control — with what she did to Ruff.  And she refused to re-enlarge him when I told her to.  No, I am going to order her to undo her Magicka.  Her behavior has never been this bad — such disregard for parental authority.”

            James watched his wife walk back up the stairs, enjoying the sway of her hips as she disappeared from view.  Oh, man, I really hope that goes well, he thought.  I would try to assist Karen, but Adelaide’s view of me is not substantial.

            His attention returned to the computer screen.  His eyes scanning the titles of various new and updated stories, he found himself beginning to feel flushed with arousal.

            *Click-click*

            Oh, this seems interesting.  Yeah, I could read this.

            James heard the sound of footsteps coming back down the stairs as he continued reading.  Maybe she changed her mind, and reading a shrinking story suddenly seemed intriguing to her.  Still looking at his monitor, he heard the footsteps stop behind him.  “Karen, I found a story I think is really hot.  I am totally going to read this one.”

Moments passed without a word spoken.  And then the silence was cut with the sharp, unmistakable voice of his stepdaughter.  “Giantess… world… dot net.  What’s that, Jim?”