Daniel finished his stretching exercises and took off down the sidewalk of his suburban neighborhood. It was a perfect morning for jogging. The sky was sunny and blue. The temperature felt just right. Starting a bit late afforded him the luxury of avoiding his neighbors. Most had already left for their 9 to 5 jobs. Being a fashion designer had its perks. His working hours were whatever he wanted them to be. But of course there were still deadlines that had to be met, that is, if he weren't currently on vacation.
The morning breeze flowed through his hair while he ran down the sidewalk at a leisurely pace, jogging past large three-story homes. Daniel couldn't help but reflect on the last four months of his life, the last month in particular. It all started with a divorce. Thankfully, it wasn't one of those messy, nightmare divorces; but it was hard to call the experience pleasant. He and his wife had cited irreconcilable differences as the official reason for their parting. It wasn't a lie. They really didn't get along any more. There were reasons of course, but neither he nor his wife felt it was necessary to share those particular details with other people, certainly not strangers in a court room. They divvied up their savings and belongings before going their separate ways for good. Despite her harsh feelings toward him, Daniel didn't begrudge his ex-wife. He didn't really want to see her again, but he wished her well just the same. Maybe someone else could give her the happiness that he wasn't able to.
Their last fight before the divorce was explosive. It ended with screaming, though mostly it was her doing the screaming. She never wanted to see him again. That was what she told him. He'd tried to explain, tried to tell her how much he loved her. If she could have only understood that he did what he did out of admiration, but she wouldn't hear of it. No amount of explaining or begging would have changed her mind. So, he left. It was painful. For all intents and purposes, she had crushed him.
Three months after that, the divorce was finalized. Daniel was officially single again. But that was only the beginning. He decided to swear off relationships for good. Finding love and getting married was supposed to lead to the ultimate happiness. Those were the rules, traditionally speaking. Well, no more of that. Daniel decided to attain his own happiness, all by himself. Hoping and waiting for some stranger to come along and make him happy was nothing but a foolish dream.
Moving to 'Small Town, USA' was the first step. It was a big step. Not only did it put distance between him and his ex-wife, but he knew for sure that he would never see her again. There was absolutely no way his ex would ever willingly choose to be four inches tall. That was the end of that, period.
The thought of being four inches tall would probably scare the crap out of most people. That's fine. He couldn't blame people for feeling that way. They just didn't understand all of the benefits. He got to live in a bigger house. His money went a lot farther than it used to. Some of the other residents of Small Town even made grandiose claims, such as saving the world. Reducing was the future of human evolution, and would save the planet from mankind's wicked polluting ways. The problem of population control was solved. It wasn't long before numerous politicians were singing the praises of reducing. To hear them tell it, you'd think it was all their idea. That was fine and all, but the saving the environment spiel didn't matter much. Being rich and living in an amazing community was the real draw. It really was a community. Criminals were not allowed. Everyone was four inches tall, so they were all in the same boat. It was a little strange at first, that everyone was exactly the same height. Back in the old world, at a height of 6'4", Daniel towered over most people. His new height came with a pleasant surprise; people were generally more sociable when they didn't have to stare up at you all the time. Everyone was on equal footing, so to speak.
There was an adjustment period at first. The reduction process was effortless enough, but the resulting change in his physiology was definitely noticeable. His body felt different. It was difficult to describe. It just felt odd at first. Everyone assured him it was perfectly normal, and that it would pass.
Moving into his new home was no trouble at all. The house came fully furnished, which was a huge time saver. And shopping for furniture was never his cup of tea anyway. All that remained, was getting the supplies he needed to continue his work. Daniel was a little concerned his creativity would take a hit after being on vacation for two months. His fears proved to be unfounded. After setting up his new computer, he got right to it. Working from home felt very natural. It was a large home, large for one person at least. There were bigger homes available of course, but surely a three-story house was enough for one bachelor. He had all the space he needed for his job, and for his rest and relaxation.
Before he knew it, his late-morning jog was nearly over. He could already see his house again. There was a large commercial truck parked in front of his mailbox. It wasn't UPS or FedEX. It looked like the kind of big box truck you would see delivering appliances. A uniformed man was standing in his driveway with a clipboard. The man looked relieved to see him returning home.
"Oh good, we thought we missed you! Gotta get that huge box out of the truck before we can make our other deliveries." The delivery man held out his clipboard. "Sign here, please."
"Uh, I didn't order anything. Are you sure you're at the right address?"
"Yes Sir," the man smiled politely. "This here is a personal delivery from, hold on a sec."
Daniel waited as the man took a pair of glasses from his shirt pocket and scanned the invoice on the clipboard.
"Right, there it is. This is a delivery from a Ms. Alexandria Smith to a Mr. Daniel Carson."
"It's from my boss? She didn't mention she was sending me anything..."
"Right, well, there you go. Sign here, please."
Daniel took the clipboard and signed on the dotted line. The man hurried back to the truck where his partner was waiting at the rear. The box they were pulling out was definitely too big to fit through the front door. It would have to go into the garage.
"Let me open the garage. You'll have to leave it in there. There's no way that's going through the front door!"
He ran inside his house looking for the spare garage clicker. It turned up in a drawer in the kitchen. The delivery guys were already moving the box into the garage by the time he got there. They waved goodbye as they returned to their truck to leave.
"Don't worry, it's not too heavy. Have a nice day, Sir."
Daniel waved back as they drove off. The box took up most of his garage. Between his electric motorcycle parked on one side of the garage, and the huge box on the other, there wasn't room for much else. He pushed the clicker again to close the door. What on earth did Alexa send him? The box was longer than it was tall. There was no way to tell what was inside simply by looking at it. It was just an ordinary brown cardboard box.
"Might as well open it," he shrugged.
Daniel grabbed his favorite carving knife from the kitchen, then ran back out to the garage. Though the box was very large, it was sealed in the normal manner. A line of clear packing tape ran along the folded flaps on top. He suddenly realized he would need a ladder to climb on top of the box.
A wooden stepladder was stowed against the wall in a corner of the garage. Daniel realized it must have been another one of the furnishings that came with the house. He had neither purchased nor owned a ladder before. Setting the ladder up proved simple enough. He folded it open beside the box, then climbed up top. The cardboard seemed sturdy enough to support his weight, not that a 4-inch tall man weighed very much. He slipped the knife between the seams of the flaps, sliding it through the tape. Moving from one side of the box all the way to the other proved more of a chore than he expected. He had to drag the knife the whole way as he crawled along. Then he had to cut the tape on each side of the box. It was safe to say he had never had to work so hard to open a package. Alexa was definitely getting a piece of his mind if there wasn't something worthwhile inside.
The tape's sticky hold on the cardboard was finally severed. He placed the knife on top of the ladder, then set about the task of lifting the flaps up to get inside. Daniel moved to one side of the box, so that he could stand on a side flap while he folded over one of the long flaps. The long cardboard plank folded open, falling on top of the ladder. A metallic clang rang out from the garage floor as the knife fell.
"Great, now how do I get back on the ladder? Whatever, I'll figure it out later."
Daniel looked down inside the box. It was full of packing paper. Plain brown paper, like the kind of paper grocery sacks were made of.
"Whatever's down there, I guess I have to dig for it."
The inside of the box looked rather deep. Daniel decided against trying to climb down and risk getting trapped. Better to climb back down from the top, then maybe cut open one of the sides. Folding the long flap back over into the closed position was much more difficult than folding it open had been. Thankfully, the flap hadn't knocked over the ladder. He climbed back down, then grabbed the knife from the garage floor. It would probably need sharpening after all this cutting. Moving to one end of the box, Daniel reached above his head, sticking the knife into the corner of the box. He pulled the knife downward, then did the other corner. With that done, he folded the entire side down.
"I guess that was the easy part," Daniel laughed. "Look at all that damned paper!"
After five minutes of pulling out folded and crumpled sheets of brown packing paper, he was finally ready to receive his prize. With the flaps closed, it was too dark inside to get a good look. They were blocking the garage's overhead lights. Back up the ladder he went to fold the flap open again. Getting a package from Alexa was proving to be a real pain, something he would make certain she was aware of.
"Let there be light!" Daniel joked as he folded the long flap open once more. The ladder was no longer a concern this time around. He could drop down inside the box, and then exit through the side that he had cut open. With no lingering fear of getting himself trapped, and then having to wait for his neighbors to make the embarrassing and grisly discovery of his decomposing body, Daniel finally turned his attention downward.
"What the..."
"Why would she..."
Daniel felt his heart beating faster, too fast. It didn't make any sense. He knew what he was looking at, but his mind refused to believe it. His synapses seemed to be misfiring. What he thought he saw couldn't actually be what Alexa had sent him.
"Sh-She would never... Sh-She doesn't know about m-my... Fetishh--"
Daniel stuttered himself into a stunned silence. It was the first time in his life that he had ever stuttered. Alexa had successfully rendered him dumbfounded. He was shocked at what he saw. His knees suddenly felt weak. Daniel lowered himself, taking a seat on the side flap he'd been standing on, never taking his eyes off the shoes resting in the box below.
They were a full-sized person's shoes, a woman's shoes. The ballet flats were bigger than he was. At four inches tall, he could fit inside them. He could crawl inside... Inside Alexa's shoes...
Daniel felt himself getting hard. His jeans felt uncomfortably tight. Images of his boss flew through his mind. They'd worked together for nearly four years, almost as long as he'd been married. She liked to wear her long hair pulled back in a neat pony tail. The dark color of her hair always seemed to fit her perfectly somehow. It complimented her brown eyes and pale skin. Daniel imagined Alexa wearing the ballet flats with her typical business attire, dark slacks with a lightly colored blouse and dark blazer. She always dressed very professionally at the office. But she never wore flats... He'd never seen her in flats. Every memory he had of her was of her wearing high heels. Alexa was a tall and slender woman, nearly six feet tall without wearing heels.
"Jesus, she must be a giant now..." Daniel muttered to himself. Her impossibly large footwear only served to ram the point home. For the first time, he realized how truly small he really was.
Daniel noticed there was something else in the box that he hadn't seen before. There was a large envelope tucked beneath her shoes. Maybe there was something inside the envelope that could explain this insanity? Daniel lowered himself into the box as far as he could while still hanging from the edge of the side flap, then finally, he let go and fell the rest of the way onto his feet. It wasn't a big enough drop to cause any sort of injury. He grabbed the corner of the large envelope, and began pulling it from beneath the soles of Alexa's shoes. Even the envelope was bigger than he was, but thankfully it didn't weigh much. He dragged it out the back of the box through the opening he'd made earlier, then slit the envelope open with his trusty kitchen knife.
It looked like there was a postcard inside the envelope. No, it wasn't a postcard. It was a photograph. And there was a handwritten letter stuffed inside too. Daniel tugged the photo free from the envelope. It was a picture of Alexa sitting at her desk in her office. She must have asked someone else to take the picture for her, unless she had one of those super long selfie sticks, but there was no evidence of such a device in the photo. Besides, she wouldn't buy one of those gaudy things. Alexa didn't have one of those big clunky wooden desks that most executives seemed to like. She preferred a more modern looking desk, with a glass top and steel frame. Her legs were clearly visible in the picture. She was wearing her typical black business suit, sitting at her desk with her legs crossed. There they were on her feet. She was wearing the black leather flats that were now parked in his garage. The flats were a low cut style, designed to show off as much foot as possible. In the picture, Alexa's right leg was crossed over her left, pulling up her pant leg just enough to reveal her shapely ankle. Her right foot was suspended in the air, and her shoe was dangling from her toes. The shot clearly showed her bare heel and bare arch. The way she was smiling in the picture... He knew that smile. He'd seen it before. She always smiled that way when she was being sly. It was like she wanted him to understand that she KNEW he was staring at her partially exposed bare foot.
"This can't be real. I'm dreaming or something. Any minute now, I'll wake up in a sticky puddle."
Daniel pushed the photograph out of the way as he unfolded the handwritten letter. The letter was written on standard 8.5" x 11" paper, which was also bigger than him. It seemed everything from Alexa's world was now bigger than him. He started to read, but hesitated. Whatever she wrote to him would undoubtedly change his life. She was his boss. They'd known each other for years. Now she'd seemingly uncovered his deepest, darkest secret; not that he understood how. The whole thing reminded him of the night that he left his wife. She'd come home early from work, only to catch him masturbating with one of her shoes. The look on her face as he clumsily pulled his dripping penis out of her shoe was one of utter shock and horror. After that, they'd fought. He had desperately tried to explain to her that she was his goddess. He needed to worship her. It was a compulsion that he could not control. For five long years, she'd denied him his fantasies of kissing and licking her divine feet. He'd needed some release from his fantasies. Her only response was a slap to his face. It hurt. She didn't hold back. Even now, he could still remember the way his jaw ached the following day. But her words, her words stung much deeper than any slap ever could.
"Get away from me you disgusting freak!"
Those were the last words his ex-wife ever spoke to him. All further communication was handled through divorce lawyers. After the divorce was over, there wasn't any more communication. If Alexa's letter was anything like that, Daniel didn't know if he could handle it. But if Alexa thought he was a disgusting freak too, then why would she send him her shoes? Why would she even do something like that to begin with? He had so many questions. He had no choice but to read her letter.
"Dan, I haven't heard from you in more than a month, nearly two months now. I know that you're on vacation and all that, but it's like you fell off the face of the Earth or something. I was worried! I was so worried that I did something that I probably shouldn't have. I spoke with your ex-wife. She told me what happened. I listened to her story. I guess she thought she was warning me that you're defective or something? I think I hate her! I didn't want to say anything while you were still married, but I never liked that woman. She seriously divorced you because you masturbated with her shoe? What the fuck? Who cares? I wanted to beat that smug look off her fat little face. The way she talked about you STILL makes me mad! I don't care what that awful woman said to you. There's nothing wrong with you! I hope you don't do something stupid because of that awful woman. Don't let her ruin your life. Hurry up and come back to work. It's been hard not having you around for so long. At least call me or something, so I won't be so worried.
PS - Stop staring at the photo long enough to read the note on the back! ;)"
Daniel couldn't believe what he was reading. He was always friendly with Alexa, but never anything more than that. Her letter made it sound like she cared about him more than his wife ever did. If only he had met Alexa first, his life might have turned out completely different. Her letter said there was more, more on the back of the photo. It was hard to believe there could possibly be more. He lifted and flipped over the photo to read the back.
"These are my comfort shoes. Slipping into them after a long day in heels always feels sooo good! I hope you'll enjoy them as much as I did! Plus, driving in heels kinda sucks. Flats are way better for that. Maybe I wouldn't have to wear heels all the time if you weren't so damn tall! Ha! I included a photo of me wearing them so you'd know these really are my shoes. I'd never try to trick you or anything like that. You're taking away my favorite shoes, so now you have to buy me a comfy new pair to keep my tired feet happy. XOXO"
Two things were immediately clear to Daniel; Alexa had a huge crush on him, as difficult as that was to fathom, and she didn't seem to know he had been reduced to four inches in height.