Only now, when Dylan was made to sprawl on the ground by the very feet he’d insulted not one minute before, did he notice the black stripe running up the back of each of her legs. The shimmer upon her skin twinkled again as a reminder. August was wearing sheer stockings, so clear and thin as to be like gossamer, but not bare like he thought. Dylan’s stomach swam.

            He was momentarily relieved when the bespectacled giantess halted her march and peered down at the carpet, directly at him. At least she saw him; those potentially murderous leather clogs wouldn’t grind him into paste without her knowledge. Then, feeling monumentally stupid, he was flooded with fear once again. Of course she saw him. She was the one who’d done this to him. He understood.

            Ordinarily when wronged, Dylan would puff up his chest, clench his fists, and unleash a verbal barrage. That usually did pretty well to shut up opponents and get him what he wanted. Somehow, though, it seemed less effective in theory to shake his fist at a pair of shoes six times his height, belonging to a woman of almost unfathomable scale. His throat went dry.

            August Turner stooped down on the carpet, resting her arms on her knees, and observed her inch-tall victim from above. The shine of her nude stockings glistened again, as if throwing Dylan’s mistake in his face.

            “It appears you’ve run out of that bravado of yours,” August declared. In keeping with the respectful bookstore environment, she maintained her soothing indoor voice. However, her words still carried great resonance in Dylan’s tiny ears, and made his spine tingle. She managed the first little smile he’d seen on her. “I’m glad, because while this isn’t a library, we like to think we cultivate the same sense of peace inside the Little Delights Bookstore. I’ll thank you to keep your voice down in the future.”

            Her calmness unnerved Dylan greater still. She wasn’t speaking to him any differently than she had at the desk, save for the note of self-satisfaction in her tone. For her, there was nothing remarkable in her choices.

            “We’ll begin the payment of your late fee now, if you don’t mind. Come here.”

            Thin, lotioned fingers the length of pillars descended from on high. August’s thumb and index finger hovered just far enough apart to contain a hapless inch-tall man. Her eyes were bright and determined. The closer her hand drew, and the more intricate details Dylan could distinguish in the creamy flesh of her creased palm, the realer the scenario at last became. The concept of running screaming away only occurred to him as August’s fingertips pinched around his sides.

            Her strength was like iron, keeping him firmly cinched against her digits, and he understood within an instant of the giant woman’s thumb pad pressing on his ribs that there wasn’t a hope of resistance. Still, he tried anyway, wrenching and squirming as she lifted him off the carpet. As she stood up from her squat and returned to her staggering full height, however, he curtailed his wrestling. Even if he beat her fingers, there was only a spinning death plunge awaiting.

            Casually as if she was returning a book to its shelf, August strolled to her desk at the back of the store. She let her arms hang at her sides, still with her miniature detractor contained in her feminine fingertips. Dylan wasn’t sure if he was more nauseous from the arcing swing of her arm, or the tug of gravity toward ruin far below. Even from the height of August’s thigh, a fall would be incredibly fatal.

            August took a seat on a stool behind the desk, concealed from view of the rest of the store by a high stack of books. She cupped Dylan in her palm and curled her fingers up high enough to create a bowl shape, ensuring he couldn’t crawl out either direction. Not that he intended to try. Dylan shivered in the giant clerk’s hand, still doing his best to process the impossibility he was currently involved in.

            “I assure you, your shaking isn’t necessary. I have no intention of harming you,” August explained in whisper. “Certainly not permanently, anyway.”

            Permanently? What was she going to do?

            “It’s only fair I inform you, though, that we take the late fee policy very seriously, particularly on that book you borrowed,” she continued. “In accordance with its lines, you can say goodbye to fresh air, light, and especially freedom.”

            “What does that mean?”

            “Don’t speak out of turn,” August corrected, almost kindly. She planted a shushing fingertip over Dylan’s head. Her smile widened. “It means you are mine now, Dylan. An unusual perk of working here, I admit, but one that greatly benefits the staff. You wouldn’t believe how much it improves one’s mood when you have a handy little shrunken slave servicing you as their full-time job. When this happens, which isn’t often, we tend to gift you out eventually: to our mothers, friends, daughters. However, I do believe I’ll be keeping you for myself.”

            “H-How long?” he muffled from behind her large finger.

            “Forever,” she said, and actually chuckled. “I thought that was obvious?”

            Dylan shuddered, a knotted mess of confusion and fear. He wrung his still-trembling knuckles.

            “That’s all for now,” August said. She picked the shrunken boy back up in her fingers, and ascended from the stool. “I’m going to store you away for a little while, until I can decide how best to use you. After all, you’re not the only customer I need to take care.”

            Before he could summon a word of protest or tears, Dylan was brought to bear before the rotund wall of August’s narrow thigh. The upper hem of her sheer stocking, wrapped tightly around her skin, became visible for the first time. With her opposite hand, the woman briefly peeled away the delicate fabric, opening just enough of a spread to fit someone of his size.

            “Wait-” Dylan swallowed a gasp as he was jammed with practiced dexterity into August’s stocking.

            Once the boy was inside, August wrapped the mouth of the legwear back over top of Dylan. The nude fabric, though thin as spider’s web in appearance, was surprisingly taut. The nylon hugged the clerk’s every curve and bend along the svelte geometry of her shapely leg. At first assuming he’d merely slide straight down the vertical shoot of the nylon, straight to the top of August’s foot and likely his crippling, Dylan was confronted instead with the opposite physics problem: he was stuck in place.

            Facing the soft yet tense wall of August’s leg, Dylan was fastened by the clenching force of the nylon. His face was pressed flush to her warm thigh. She smelled of melon soap, possibly the powdery addition of some female hygiene product. Not an unwelcome smell, really. He supposed he was just lucky he weighed so little at his new one-inch height, or he’d probably be dropping like a rock now.

            Lucky.

            What a stupid conclusion to make about this scenario. This giant psycho had just promised him in a lullaby voice that she intended to keep him as a shrunken servant forever.

            For.

            Ever.

            The word was incomprehensible to Dylan, like trying to imagine the length of infinity. It simply wouldn’t compute in his mind that, three minutes before, he was an autonomous college freshman just trying to replace a useless textbook and give the staff a righteous earful; the trajectory of his entire life had since spiraled into the hateful and impossible.

            Bold and confident, as if she hadn’t just ensnared a tiny man inside her nylon, August strode back into the hustle and bustle of the bookstore. She happily addressed customers, pointed out aisle numbers to confused visitors, and even re-shelved the leather alchemy tome which had started all this trouble.