"Because in addition to being unsafe for the residents, it's a liability issue, Bob." Grace's exasperation was just barely contained in her voice, but only because her fingernails were expressing it on the desktop in a series of rapid, rhythmic, angry, taps.

"Imagine if, in the middle of the night, one of those seventy five millimeter tall people got up, went to the door of their pod, opened it, and fell to their death. Is that the kind of story you want to read about in the morning paper, Bob?" Although a bit more of her anger was sleeping into her tone, the concern was a genuine one. It hadn't happened at her placement center, Grace was far too methodical for that, but at a placement center in a neighboring state, there had been an incident.

A door to a pod had been left open, while the placement center employee dealt with some other issue. The resident in that pod, whether deliberately or accidentally is unknown, had fallen out. From there all it took was the placement center employee being a little too oblivious when returning to that pod to reduce that resident to a red smear under a work clog.

"Bob, we've been over this. The only real measure we have preventing that right now, is that most of the residents can't open the door on their own. That's not good enough to ensure there won't be problems in the future. We need coded locks on each pod, or at least key locks."

Grace wanted to throw the phone, it was difficult enough dealing with the central office, but the budgetary director often made things even more confounding.

"Yes they need to lock, Bob. You purchased an abandoned strip mall that is somehow in the bad part of town, and in the middle of nowhere at the same time. What if somebody were to break in? There's nothing that would stop them from just walking into the pod area, opening a door, reaching in, and abducting a resident. They wouldn't even need to abduct them, there's no building alarm so they could do whatever horrible thing they wanted to do in the building. Who knows what that sort of pervert would do with a shrunken person?" Grace asked, fully aware of what that sort of pervert would do with a shrunken person.

"Look, Bob, right now the only security freature these pods have is that they're connected to the wifi, and I get notifications on my phone when the doors are opened. That's it. We don't have locks or cameras or anything else, just my phone going off saying 'Door A3 was opened at 4pm'." Grace explained. "Because it doesn't tell me who did it, or …"

From outside Grace's office came the sudden, rapid chiming of the receptionist bell was only slightly muted, but it was still audible.

"Bob, I gotta go, someone's at the front. No, I don't know what happened to my receptionist working today, you made me fire Celeste, and Eliza is flakier than, well something flaky. Please just read the white paper that I drafted on this, it's already in your inbox." Grace really wanted to add that it had been in his inbox for a week, and was in his inbox multiple times since then.

Grace wasn’t a fan of the placement center’s check in process. Basically Eliza would take someone in, they’d be brought back to Grace’s office for processing and then admited to one of the resident’s pods while they waited for permanent placement. When it came to admitting new residents or the day-to-day operations of the facility, Eliza could technically do almost everything Grace could, but Eliza had one too many brushes with nearly crushing, drowning, or in one particularly alarming case, incinerating new residents. Grace preferred to keep Eliza at her desk, focused on her phone, and what her admirers were texting her. As Grace made her way to the front of the center, the bell continued to ring.

Emerging from the hallway that led to her office, the supply closet, and the temporary placement pods, Grace was a bit alarmed to see no one sitting at Eliza’s desk, and even more alarmed to see someone standing on it.

The person standing on the desk, and rapidly pressing the receptionist bell with his foot, was the largest shrunken person that Grace had ever seen. She couldn’t be sure, but he looked almost three hundred millimeters in height, wearing clothing fabricated from what appeared to be a bag originally stitched to hold a moderately priced bottle of liquor, forming a kind of deep purple tracksuit. His hair, probably longer tha he would’ve like, Grace noted from the fact that the natural brown color had pushed the platinum blonde out, creating a two-tone hairstyle that looked unkempt.

“Holy shit, at least some good came out of this.” He said, preempting Grace’s introduction. Grace had enough experience with men staring at her chest, and shrunken men staring at her chest to follow his gaze, although he wasn’t being particularly subtle about it at all.

“Eliza, has this man been checked in?” Grace asked, more than a little loudly, hoping Eliza would pop up from under her desk, or from the restroom, or even down from the ceiling at this point.

“Ain’t nobody here but you and me, sweetness.” The tiny man said, finally relenting on the receiptionst bell.

Grace shuddered internally and contemplated picking up the man and chucking him outside the door to the placement facility as hard as she could, but restrained herself. Instead she walked around behind Eliza’s desk to see if anything was amiss. Once there she found a sheet of paper, an index card, folded in half to stand on Eliza’s keyboard. While grace picked it up the man on the desktop did his best to look unconcerned.

The note unfolded to read; “Gone home for the day!” Below that, furiously scratched out; “Friends called from out of state.” below that; “Didn’t want to interrupt your call.” and finally at the bottom, in more fresh ink; “Doctor’s appointment.”

Grace crumpled the paper in her hand, and a scowl must have crossed her face. Because the man on the desk piped up again.

“Whoa, scary. Bad news?” He asked. “I can help make it better.”

The ‘chuck out the door’ option was looking better and better.

“No, Mr…?” Grace inquired.

“Justin. Justin Sullentropp! Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of me?” He asked incredulously.

Grace stared, trying to come up with a more polite way to say the first thing that had entered her mind. When she didn’t respond he tried again.

“Justin Sullentropp, you know? The hottest new singer in the county? I’ve been on all the radio stations, and I’ve played at every club in this town!” He sounded hurt that Grace didn’t recognize him.

Grace wanted to ask him who still listened to the radio, but thought better of it.

“Well, Mr. Sullentropp, let me be the first to welcome you to the placement center. I apologize for the delay in getting you checked in. If you don’t mind my asking, how did you get here?” Grace asked.

“One of my, uh, one of my friends dropped me off.” Justin said, suddenly unwilling to make eye contact.

“Okay…” Grace said, willing to let the topic drop for now, the processing system didn’t care too much about how the resident arrived anyway. “Why don’t we head back to my office and we’ll get you checked in?” Grace offered.

“You can take me anywhere, sweetness.” Justin said.

“Please, call me Grace.” She said through gritted teeth.

Grace reached out and picked up Justin by the torso. She was unaccustomed to someone so large. Previously the largest resident that had ever been admitted to her center was about two hundred millimeters, and Justin was clearly in excess of that. As delicately as she could manage, she carried Justin back to her office where she set him down on the desktop. She sat in her chair and began working.

The check in process was fairly banal, basic questions about who, when, where, and how were covered in short order as Grace entered the information into her computer. As much as Grace disliked Justin, the process of entering him into the system was proceeding without too much incident, although virtually all of his answers were supplemented with unwanted comments that made the bile rise in the back of Grace’s throat.

Of particular note to Grace was Justin’s size. While she had heard of people shrinking to outlier status, either significantly smaller or significantly larger, most of the people that had been admitted to her center fell within a reasonable deviation of the mean. Justin was too tall to be measured by her standard calipers, Grace had to break out a ruler from the office desks original function. The ruler, made of rusting steel, was so old it lacked metric measurements, requiring Grace to do a bit of mental math to come to Justin’s new official height; two hundred and seventy seven millitmeters.

Near the end of the process, an error occurred in the archaic in-between system that communicated Grace’s more modern program with some of the federal government’s significantly more ancient code, preventing the process from completion. Grace almost swore aloud, knowing this would extend her time Justin, especially given the documentation for the in-between program was all hard-copy.

Grace turned away from her computer to a filing cabinet behind her, and sifted through the folders filled with miscellanae related to the operation of the placement center. Procedures, back up plans, emergency plans, processes, contact numbers that had been out of date when the center opened, and of course, software documentation for the inbetween program. Grace quickly diagnosed the problem an replaced the file.

Grace turned back from the filing cabinet only to find Justin, completely naked, lounged across her keyboard, his head propped up on his arm, a grin across his face, and an erection raging between his legs.

"Mr. Sullentropp! What are you doing?" Grace exclaimed.

"What?" Justin asked. "You don't like what you see?" He waved the arm not supporting his head in the general direction of his dick.

"I'm at work, and you're like not even a foot tall!" Grace said, trying to comprehend the audacity someone would need to strip naked and present themselves to another human being a half dozen times their size. Or just another human being for that matter.

"Oh, are you not into dudes?" Justin asked, still naked, still unconcerned with his nakedness. "I mean, I don't mind. I could help you with that."

Grace's jaw dropped.

"'Help me with that'? With what? Being gay? What the fuck makes you think that I need help…" Grace stopped. Her brain trying to work through the indignation of being told she needed help to not be a lesbian and tripping over a mental obstacle called 'Tony'. "Wait a fuckin' minute, I have a boyfriend, you asshole!"

"Well he's not here, is he?" Justin offered. "Come on, lemme at that pussy!"

An image of Grace's fist dropping onto Justin's prime body, crushing him dead in a single blow flashed in her mind. The only thing stopping her was the fact that he was reclining on her personal keyboard that she'd purchased when the one that had been issued to her, apparently a relic from the late fifties, had finally crapped out.

“Jesus fucking christ, dude. Just put your fucking clothes back on and get off my keyboard so I can get back to work.” Grace sighed, exasperated and disgusted.

“Fine, you wanna be a cunt, be a cunt!” Justin said, rolling off the keyboard, before getting up and walking to the edge of Grace’s desk. When he realized he had no where to go, none of his indignation had faded, but with nothing to vent on, he simply sat at the corner of the desk, facing away from Grace, and pouted.

Grace sighed, again in disgust. She went to resume entering Justin’s information into the system, but paused before her fingertips hit the keys. She pulled a cleaning wipe from the tub on her desk and thoroughly wiped down the keys with pleasantly lavender scented, germicidal, solution before going back to work. The rest of her work went uninterrupted, but Justin somehow made the process diffiult just with his presence.

Finished with the data entry, Grace stood from her desk and ignored Justin’s quizical glance as she walked by him. Normally Grace would carry the resident to their pod, but Justin complicated that two fold. For starters, he was too large to actually utilize the pods. The pods were designed for a maximum height of around two hundred millimeters, and Justin was near enough double that. The other complication was Grace wanted as little to do with Justin as was humanly possible.

Grace left Justin in her office and made the short trip to the supply closet. She would need to find a better solution for Justin in the immediate future, but given his unique situation, it was unlikely he’d spend too long at the placement center. She just needed a way to keep him relatively comfortable and safe for the night and she’d deal with a more permanent solution in the morning.

She found a rather large plastic crate, the kind of thing used by government organizations for decades before finally being retired to some kind of, well, underfunded stock room for an underfunded social program. She also seized a set of three paperclip holders, dumping the contents onto the supply closet’s shelf, to serve as resceptacles for food, water, and any biologicals Justin would need over the course of the night. Grace was finding it really hard to give a shit for Justin’s comfort, but some part of her hated the solution of treating him like a wounded animal, even if it was only for one night. Finally she grabbed a bottle of water and one of the meal kits for residents; a pre-prepared single serving of, according to this container, meatloaf and vegetables.

She returned to her office, crate in her hands, containers in the crate, and was alarmed to see her desktop devoid of Justin. She almost panicked, almost dropped the container and called out to find the little fucker, but almost immediately on stepping into her office she heard a voice come from under the crate.

“Hey! Watch where you’re going! You could’ve stepped on me!” Justin screamed at her.

Grace sighed, both relieved that Justin hadn’t disappeared somewhere into the center, and paradoxically disappointed that he was still here.

“Please don’t wander around on your own, Mr. Sullentropp.” Grace said. “You could get stepped on…” She acknowledge. “or worse.” She muttered under her breath.

“What did you say?” Justin demanded.

“I have your sleeping quarters for the evening. It’s not the best, but your situation is unique and we’ll have to work with what we’ve got. We’ll find a better solution tomorrow morning.” Grace said, her voice returning to a pitch perfect customer service cadence.

“I have to sleep in a fucking box?” Justin protested.

Grace ignored him and returned to her desk, simply stepping over Justin as she did. She didn’t care that he might catch a glimpse up her pencil skirt, she valued showing him how small and insignificant he was to her more. At her desk, before she sat down, she pulled the fleece lined blanket she kept for warmth in the poorly insulated office from teh back of her chair and began to use it to line the interior of the crate. With most of the crate lined, and excess available to be used as a blanket, Grace placed the three containers in the crate, one distanced well away from the other two. She had plenty of bottled water, and more than enough meals that were deliverable to the residents, but all of the pods had functioning plumbing; Justin would have to make do with a paperclip container.

Grace brought the prepared crate back down off the desk to where Justin had been observing her, and tilted it toward Justin.

“Go on, get in.” She ordered.

“Why do I have to sleep in a box?” Justin asked, refusing to move.

“Because it’s the middle of winter, and this office doesn’t retain heat or air conditioning well. While I don’t really like you, I absolutely don’t want you to freeze to death.” Grace said, and then when Justin’s expression lit up in some kind of misinterpretation, she clarified; “Too much paperwork.”

Justin scowled, but didn’t say anything as he climbed up over the lip of the crate into the soft fleece of Grace’s blanket. For all her disdain, Grace was happy to see that Justin seemed to be enjoying the small comforts she could offer, although she made a mental note to have the blanket washed, re-washed, and washed again when Justin was long gone.

Grace carried the crate as gently as she could manage to the corner of her office that had a vent nearer the floor. She placed the crate against the wall, as close to the vent as possible, affording Justin as much of the heating system as could be managed. Before Justin could strike up any more offensive conversation Grace walked back to her desk and got the meal kit and a water bottle. She uncerimoniously dumped the meal kit into one of the empty paperclip containers, and filled the other with water.

“What the fuck?” Justin protested after seeing his evening accomodations closer resembled a gerbils than a humans.

“Look, I know it’s not great, but it’s for one night. You won’t fit in one of the pods where the other residents stay. This will keep you warm, fed, and give you a place to use the restroom if you need to. Like I said, tomorrow we’ll have a better solution.” Grace said.

She didn’t wait for Justin to object, instead returning to her desk and turning off her monitor, and gathering her things.

“I’ll be back bright and early tomorrow morning.” Grace said, slipping on her jacket.

She double checked her desk, realizing Justin’s makeshift clothing was still there from when he disrobed on her keyboard. She picked it up and walked back over to the crate. Justin was leaning against the side, only slightly shorter than the wall of the crate. Grace dropped his clothing into the crate.

“And please do me a favor, don’t pull that shit with Eliza. She’d lose her shit.” Grace said.

Justin didn’t reply, instead walked away pulling a section of the blanket over him.

“Okay, goodnight.” Grace said, unconcerned.

She made her way out of the office, turning off her own office lights, but leaving the center’s lights on, as normal. She passed the reception desk, and exited into the cool winter night, after briefly checking that no one was outside waiting for her.

The ride home was boring and Grace’s time at home seemed too brief. She swapped out her black heels for comfortable slippers, her pencil skirt swapped out for sweatpants, her blouse and jacket for a ratty tank top that she wouldn't be caught dead in out of her apartment.

She had thoroughly set about destressing, texting Anthony, putting a mediocre dinner in the oven, and curling up on the loveseat to await Anthony's arrival and watch horror movies.

In truth, hours passed. Anthony worked a later shift than Grace did, and it wasn't uncommon for him to head home before coming over.

Only after watching a few episodes of a comedy show did her wait get interrupted. It had grown dark out, but Grace's phone buzzed to life. She expected to see a text from Anthony, announcing his evident arrival, but instead saw a notification she never wanted to see at home. One of the pod doors at the placement center had been opened.

Grace considered herself many things, but rash was not one of them. The system that reported the doors was not the best in the world, nor was it the most robust. It was perfectly reasonable to guess that one door sensor being tripped could be an error. The sensor that had been tripped was on the bottom row of the pods, on a pod that was uninhabited. Still, she didn't set her phone down. 

Just when she felt that she could relax, and chalk it up to an electrical problem, or a false signal, a new notification came up. Another door, on the bottom row, opened up, this one had a resident in it.

Grace leapt from the loveseat faster than she'd ever done. She snatched her jacket near the door, and flung her slippers off slamming her bare feet into a pair of winter boots that were waiting for worser weather. The door slammed behind her, lights, television and all still on as she bolted to her car.

Being pulled over would’ve been disastrous. Grace would’ve been forced to explain her job, the warning indicators on the pod doors, the nature of her suspicions, and all of that had the potential to snowball into unwanted attention to her own activities. Although she had only ever taken a plaything from the placement center once, a test run, really, to see if she could appropriately obfuscate her actions, that had been a willing volunteer. It would still not do to have her personal life investigated as a matter of interest to some malfeasance at her office.

She pulled up to the otherwise desolate strip mall and checked her surroundings. A robber wouldn’t find anything of real value in the placement center, and there was nothing around it to steal either, but Grace’s paranoia wouldn’t allow her to proceed until she confirmed there was nothing moving in the dim street lights still active in the area.

More confusing was the scene at the placement center itself. A few of the lights in the center never turned off, long fluorescent bulbs that cast harsh white light over everything in the area as a safety measure, so even though the center’s lights had been flipped off, the reception area was clearly visible, and there was no indidication of what Grace had expected.

The glass to the windows and the door was still intact, the door itself still closed, everything looked as Grace had left it earlier that night.

Grace hurried inside, cursing the lock as she worked the door open. She immediately locked it behind her as well, no reason to invite anyone else in.

The center's lights, fluorescent tubes, were on all the time, so it was immediately clear that no one was in the receptionist area. Grace sped back to her office, only quickly glancing inside to see that nothing wasn't amiss.

As she crossed into the pod area, however, she knew she forgot something, and standing in the doorway to the pods, she immediately recalled what she'd forgotten, and was mortified to confirm one of her worst suspicions.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Grace asked, too stunned to act.

The lights in the pod room were as clear as they were during the day, so she had no trouble identifying what was going on, but it still left her beside herself. Sitting in the middle of the room, as naked as she had left him in the crate, knelt Justin. Under him, pinned down at the head by one of Justin’s feet, was one of the other residents, tears pooling under her face on the floor. Grace recognized the woman, Bethany,  a former graduate student that had been working in biology when she caught the virus and shrunk to sixty five millimeters. She had only been at the center for a week. Justin’s erect penis sliding back and forth between Bethany’s raised buttcheeks as Justin’s other hand held her hips up.

“Oh, hey, the lesbian’s back.” Justin said, barely pausing in thrusting against the woman as he did. "What are you doing back so soon, tits?"

“Please help me!” Bethany cried out.

The sudden plea for help snapped Grace out of her stunned state and she immediately closed the distance to where Justin was assaulting the woman. Neither of the shrunken people seemed accustomed to the sesnation of someone so much larger than them moving with such speed directly at them, and both Justin and the woman cried out in shock, Justin falling forward over the woman as he did.

Grace didn’t waste any time, and snatched Justin up off of Bethany. Grace spared him no gentleness, but still his squirming and shouting in protest had little effect on Grace. He continued to spew protests and profanity as Grace more delicatly picked up Bethany, still weeping.

The temptation to spike Justin into the cold linoleum floor with all her might was almost overpowering, but as angry as Grace was, she was never rash. Bethany might agree with what she did, but still provide witness against Grace if criminal charges were to be brought. Justifiable homicide was still homicide, and it would be extremely problematic if Grace’s cabin were to come under investigation.

“Beth, look at me…” Grace said. “Did he…?” She didn’t want to finish the sentence, and the implication was enough.

Bethany shook her head, now cradled in Grace’s hand, she clung to Grace’s finger.

“No. No, not yet. He had just pulled me out of the pod when you got here. But if you hadn’t shown up when you did…” Bethany’s words caught in her throat.

“Hey, I know, I know, look, I don’t think its best that you be alone, but I’m the only one here, and I don’t want you to have to be anywhere near him.” Grace started. “So I’m going to put you in one of the top row pods, and let you get cleaned up. Take a bath, try to put this behind you for a bit, the police will be here before too long and you’ll need to talk to them.”

From her left hand, Justin laughed.

“What the fuck are they going to do?” Justin said laughing. “When was the last time a fucking shrunken guy went to jail?”

Grace scowled at him, but did not respond directly to Justin. “Don’t you worry about that, when the police get here, just tell them everything you know. I’m going to take him back to my office to wait for the cops.”

Bethany nodded, and Grace did her best to keep her comfortable while opening one of the vacant pods on the top row. It was difficult, she didn’t want to put Bethany down, for fear of Bethany becoming inconsolable, and she didn’t want to put Justin down for fear of him making a break for it. Even through the difficulty, Grace managed to open the pod and set Bethany in.

“I’ll be back to talk to you when the cops get here, and I’ll make sure I have some clothes for you when I do.” Grace said before gently closing the door.

Grace stood by the bank of doors leading to the residents’ pods, leaning against the wall. Right now, the placement center was about eighty seven percent full on pods, and Justin had managed to open at least four. The fact that he hadn’t terrorized more residents was dumb luck. She turned her back to the wall and slid down to the floor, holding Justin in front of her. She stared at the largest shrunken person she’d ever encountered, naked in her hand and still fully aroused.

“You know I’m just gonna say she was into it.” Justin said. “It ain’t hard to walk after one of these.”

Grace silently considered his words for a moment, and his actions. Complicating the whole affair was her own course of action. She considered for a brief moment, simply doing what she’d told Bethany she’d do. Call the cops, throw Justin in a desk drawer and lock it until they arrived, then deal with all the fallout of this absolutely fucked up situation. But she hesitated. Grace wanted as little police involvement as possible. Both as a general rule, and a point of personal preservation, Grace avoided speaking to the cops. Suddenly she had an idea.

“You really fucked up.” Grace said.

Justin’s confident expression faded, only just a little, but it was there. Grace stood back up and proceeded back to her office, idly carrying Justin in one hand at her side the whole time.

Grace sat down in her chair, and let Justin fall from her grasp to the office floor between her booted feet. The floor was a clean, but extremely worn linoleum, checkered in black and white squares, each bigger than Justin's body, and provided very little cushion as he hit the ground.

Before he could finish his scream of terror from the sudden drop, the sole of Grace's boot was on him. Even through the worn insole and rubber, Grace could feel Justin's body underfoot, and his legs suck out from under her heel. With her normal playthings, the boot would've been too thick, too rigid, and too large to really get any sensation through it, but as she'd expected, Justin's relatively larger size allowed for some unique advantages, for her, anyway. Grace expected Justin wasn't enjoying the experience as she was.

As she increased the pressure, she was satisfied to learn that she could feel a broad outline of Justin's body, something she'd never be able to manage with the smaller toys.

The rubber sole didn’t completely envelop Justin, and Grace was thrilled to find she could hear his screams from under her boot. The soft rubber, coated with bits of dirt, little pebbles, moisture from the snow and ice outside, but still didn’t completely smother Justin, allowing him to take pained breaths, and to scream as the boot pressed into him, and with every moment dragged him over the linoleum. To Grace, these were subtle movements of her ankle, to Justin, it was wrestling a giant, rubber mattress that was committed to crushing him.

Grace’s mind raced with the possibilities, but one stuck out at the moment. With her left foot still keeping Justin pressed into the floor, Grace pulled her right foot up on her opposite knee and slipped the boot off. The boot came free with a hefty tug, sweat and the fluffy interior of the boot making it a bit more difficult. Grace would’ve normally regretted going out, even in the cold winter night, without socks for her feet in these fur-lined boots, but suddenly the glistening skin on the sole of her foot, suddenly exposed to the cool air, seemed like an advantage.

She took her foot off Justin, elated to see his body already bruised and covered in abrasions from her boot, but even more so for the brief glimpse at his face. Gone was the arrogance. There was no look of anger or rage. Instead, for the couple of seconds that Justin has free of Grace’s boot, his face was a contorted, dirty, bloody-lipped mess of uncontrolled fear.

As much as Grace enjoyed that look, that expression of utter terror, that look in Justin’s eyes that told Grace all she needed to know. Justin knew. Even if he didn’t have the words to express it, even if he didn’t have the time or breath or wherewithal to actually state it, Justin knew his position. Grace wondered if he knew it because of what he’d done to the other residents of the placement center, but even if Justin didn’t, he knew it because of his immediate position under Grace. Being put under her boot had reminded him of who he was dealing with; someone bigger.

Grace took her time in dropping her bare foot onto Justin. She wanted him to really have an appreciation for her unwashed sole descending on him; the sheen of sweat that covered her foot, the bits of lint and dirt that clung to it and under her toes, the heat that radiated from her foot, and of course the smell. Grace took pride in her hygiene, but there was no avoiding it, walking around her apartment barefoot, cramming her bare feet into fur lined boots, driving the thirty minutes back to the office, and all the walking around since had resulted in a pair of hot, sweating, stinking feet.

She wiggled her toes as they closed in on Justin, she made sure that her size advantage was clear, her toes well above his head, and the ball of her foot closing in with his face. As her sole descended on him, Grace was ecstatic to feel his hands, more clearly than she could with any other plaything, contact with her skin, and subsequently slide off in the sweat as she pressed into him.

This time Justin’s screams were silenced as Grace’s sole enveloped him from above. His hands, slipped off her skin, were spread eagle as her foot continued to drop, and smother him from all sides, spreading over him like a tide of flesh. 

Immediately, Grace knew this would be an experience to be savored. She’d grown accustomed to the feeling of fifty millimeter tall people, even hundred or hundred and fifty millimeter tall people under her feet, but this was rewarding in a new way. He was still small enough that he was utterly helpless against her foot, but large enough that every twitch, every suppressed motion of his limbs was transmitted through her sole. She could feel everything and loved it.

Just as quickly, Grace recognized a blossoming warmth between her legs. Although Grace was normally very strict about separating her hobbies from her work, however much the two seemed to overlap, this was registering as everything she typically enjoyed in the privacy of her cabin's basement, and the anger at Justin for complicating her life, assaulting a resident, and being, in general, an annoying little shit, really made the risk worth it.

A part of Grace was also disappointed. The sensation of such a large victim struggling under her foot was so novel, enthralling, and rewarding that it was a shame she'd be unable to really explore the opportunities it would present. Grace's mind went briefly to some of the possibilities that were squandered; she imagined his tongue would feel especially good in a variety of applications, she wondered if her own tongue could be forced inside him, even a little bit, without permanently damaging him, the thought of being able to cram him inside of her and feel every feature of his face as he fought against her, the more unique scenarios that Grace understood would never be realized now, the angrier she got.

"Goddamnit, you really fucked up." Grace said, almost to herself as much as the man under her right foot. The shrunken asshole had given her a bad feeling when he'd shown up in that box earlier, but Grace had ignored her own instincts.

She lifted her foot, just enough to allow him to breathe, before pressing it back into him. The office's linoleum flooring provided no comfort for him as she made sure that her foot was not only suffocating, but painful as well.

Grace shifted the pressure in her foot, savoring the feel of the diminutive man's face conforming to the ball of her foot in different measures. She allowed his face to slip to the side, then lifted enough to push back down to crush his nose directly.

"It looks like we're only going to get a short time together." Grace said, again almost to herself, there was no way Justin could hear her, both his own screams and the sweaty skin of her sole preventing her from being audible.

"So let's make the most of it." She said, pressing hard enough that she could feel the cool linoleum against her skin, and Justin's body straining to hold it's shape under her strength.

Grace was accustomed to the limits of shrunken people, she’d pushed her smaller toys to their extremes more than often enough, and she’d accidentally gone beyond those limits plenty of times, lost in her own lust, she’d felt a tiny body burst under her sole, or saw the tell-tale spurt of red from under her thigh. At first, she had been shocked to learn just how frail they could be, especially the smallest ones. But Justin was proving to be an exception, his size granting him more resilience than even Grace has expected, allowing her to indulge in activities that would’ve been brought to a messy end almost immediately with any other toy.

When his struggles to push her foot off of him weakend, and his writhing attempts to slither out from under her sole slowed, Grace recognized the signs of fading consciousness. She let up, her heel still pinning him to the floor, but raising the ball of her foot to allow him a breath.

For a moment she waited. Obscured behind her foot, she couldn’t see his face any longer so she wasn’t sure what his reaction would be. But, in the stillness of the office, no fans running, no computer on, Grace could hear his ragged breathing. Even with her foot above him, she could hear his breathing growing more and more rapid, shallower and shallower. Grace could feel the tugging at her heel, as he tried to free himself from under her, with every ineffectual pull his body from under her heel, his breathing grew louder and more desperate.

Grace could have listened to that panicked respiration for hours, but she was eager to see what else could be drawn out of the man who had thought himself above consequence only minutes ago. She allowed the ball of her foot to begin slowly falling back toward his upper body, and was rewarded with a satisfying scream of terror, complemented with desperate, monosyllabic pleas to ‘stop’ and ‘no’ and ‘please’.

Grace ignored them all and let her foot continue its unstoppable descent back onto Justin’s body, the feeling the wet warmth of his body as he had apparently abandoned trying to push her off him, and focused his desperate efforts to sliding out from under her heel. It didn’t work as she pressed back down, silencing his cries and stilling his efforts.

Without relieving the pressure of her foot on him, Grace began to slide her foot back. As she did, she marveled at how she could feel his head against her sole; his hair, his forehead, his nose, his lips, and his chin all slid up her skin.

His face appeared between her toes, next to her big toe, which was only slightly larger than his flushed red, sweat drenched, bruised and scuffed face. As his head emerged from under her foot, or at least, emerged between her toes, he resumed screaming.

"Hey, shut up a moment." Grace said.

Surprising both of them, the simple command worked and his desperate screaming gave way to labored breathing.

Grace took her time, while this whole incident would need to be wrapped up before Monday morning, and she'd need to find a solution for the resident that Justin had assaulted, for right now, Grace could enjoy the expression of manic fear on the face looking up at her between her toes.

"Do you regret what you did?" Grace asked, breaking the tense silence.

The look of shock, confusion, and sudden anger that washed over Justin's face was enough to bring a laugh out of Grace's throat, and that was enough to push Justin into an indignant, if entirely impotent, rage.

"Fuck you, crazy bitch! I'll fucking kill you!" He screamed, straining against her foot still covering most of him. His forearms, and a bit of his legs still stuck out from under her foot, and as he raged, his limbs thrashed, equally as ineffectual as his words, but it was still hilarious to watch. Grace gave him a few moments of waving and kicking, letting himself tire out.

“Oh, no.” Grace said, when he’d returned to simply struggling to breath, instead of struggling against the impossible weight of her foot. “Such a dirty mouth. We’ll need to correct that immediately.”

Grace leaned forward in her chair. She brought her face directly over Justin’s, and brushed her hair from her face and back behind her neck. It was a bit of strain to look straight down at someone under her foot, but Grace managed.

“Perhaps we should wash your mouth out? I don’t have any soap, but I think I’ve got an idea.” Grace offered, her tone had changed, almost instinctively from sitting in her office chair. She spoke to Justin as though she were still speaking to a placement center resident, some who had recently shrunk, and couldn’t adjust to their new life.

“What… what are you talking about?” Justin’s fury was gone almost immediately, replaced with an audible nervousness that shook his voice. Grace wondered if the sight of her face, so far away to him, moving into position above him, had triggered the change in his tone and attitude.

“Like I said, it seems you’re having difficulty with your transition and new surroundings, I think helping you understand your new place will improve your attitude significantly. To start, I’m going to wash your mouth out, so open up.” Grace said subtly aiming herself over Justin as she spoke.

Grace pursed her lips, making her intentions clear as she looked under the rims of her glasses, down her nose, at the dawning realization materializing on Justin’s face. He began to shake his head back and forth in protest, but didn’t seem to be able to find the words to vocalize it.

All of his head shaking did nothing to stop Grace from using her cheeks and tongue to push the saliva in her mouth to the front, building up at her lips as she did. She fought a smile as Justin’s mouth gaped wide in horror, a reflex that would serve her purposes very nicely.

With a gentle push from her lungs, the relatively small glob of spit fell from between her lips. The misshapen blob of fluid crossed the gap between Grace’s lips and Justin’s still shocked face within a second, but it seemed to hang in the air, dropping slowly like a balloon deflated.

Grace was disappointed to feel the wet slap of her own saliva on her big toe, a very near miss as spit splashed against her French tipped toenail, her skin, and only a portion of it landed on Justin’s face.

The splattering against his cheek and eyes brought Justin out of his horrified trance and he started screaming again, fixated now on the spit still sliding down Grace’s big toe, closer and closer to his face.

“Oh, shoot. I missed.” Grace lamented, although genuinely disappointed in her accuracy, she hadn’t dropped her customer-service voice, giving the comment an air of sarcasm. “Well, we can’t let anything go to waste, budget cuts are a bitch.”

Grace didn’t give Justin any time to contemplate what she meant as she angled her foot forward, catching Justin’s head between her toes and clenching them down on his shoulders at the same time. In an instant his face was smothered both in between Grace’s toes and with the remainder of the spit that she had accidentally deposited on the side of her big toe. Justin’s screams returned, muffled and muted by the oft neglected skin between Grace’s toes. She made sure to flex and wriggle her toes, as much as her toes’ grip on Justin’s body would allow, rubbing the spit and stink into his face, and being none too gentle with him in the process.

She only released him from her toes’ clenched grip when his screams and flailing had finally subsided a bit, the threat of passing out closing in. She let him fall back to the floor, but didn’t let up with her foot, returning him to a world view framed by her toes, looking up at her giggling countenance. Justin’s fighting seemed to be all spent and he simply lay on the floor, his gaze unfocused, his breathing shallow and irregular.

“See? Sometimes, when you’re smaller than you’re accustomed to, certain changes in your life are unavoidable.” Grace coached, almost the same words she’d provided to a woman who had been an architect, a man who had been a police officer, and countless others. “Now, let’s try this again, open your mouth.” Those words were relatively new, however.

Grace decided against trying for a precision strike this time, and instead opted for a surface saturation approach. Grace let her tongue roll out of her mouth and hang above Justin’s face. Though only the tip of her tongue was visible to her, Grace could at least see the drool forming and watched it fall in a long stretching string to her target.

The strand broke mid-fall, but Grace continued to let spit flow from her tongue. The saliva rained down on Grace's toes, the top of her foot, the floor, and, most satisfactorily, Justin's face. This time, however, he clenched his eyes shut, and kept his mouth sealed as Grace let more and more wash over him.

When she was satisfied with the deluge of spit she'd rained down on Justin, Grace sucked up the remaining saliva hanging from her tongue and pulled her tongue back into her mouth.

"You were instructed to keep your mouth open, Justin. You're going to need to learn to obey the bigger people in your life from now on. You could be in danger if you don't, someone might tell you to get out of the way and then accidentally sit on you, or even…"

Grace lifted her foot off of Justin just a bit, enough to allow him to draw a deep breath, despite her saliva still coating his face. But her foot only raised enough to reposition itself, denying Justin the ability to escape as a deeper shadow feel over him, the ball of her foot again hovering over his head.

"Step on you." Grace finished. She didn't stomp on Justin, that wasn't necessary. Grace simply let her foot fall, and then made sure Justin's head was completely smothered.

Grace twisted her foot to really work the saliva into Justin, like she was gently snuffing out a cigarette. To Grace, the action was gently, almost delicate, informed by her experience with smaller playthings, but she knew Justin wouldn't be experiencing a gentleness. To him it was likely a violent attack from a stenchy sole, and a pungent sheen of spit to add to the humiliation.

She could feel his head, turning side to side as she twisted the ball of her foot over him, the skin and spit grinding into him. With each cycle, Grace applied a little more pressure, testing the limits of Justin's, relatively, larger size. Grace could feel his body threatening to give way under her increasing pressure, and stopped applying more, but she kept her foot pressed into him, holding it still. Justin hadn't had the chance to scream, and what muffled grunts he'd managed had completely stopped.

For a split second, almost too brief to even register, Grace thought she could feel something new. Up through the skin of her sole, Grace could've sworn she felt the heartbeat of the shrunken man beneath her and it was such a beautiful sensation that she felt the warmth between her legs dampen.

When she lifted her foot up this time, she could feel Justin’s body stick to her sole, the sweat, and spit, and grime gluing him to her skin. Grace could tell that his legs dangled while his upper body remained stuck. Although Grace could feel his limp form peeling slowly away from her sole, she shook her foot, like she was clearing a bit of trash stuck to her and was satisfied to feel him fall free.

She set her foot back down next to Justin, framing his battered body between her feet. He had landed ungracefully, his arms and legs at random angles, half on his side, and a bit curled at the torso into a fetal position. Grace couldn’t be sure, but it didn’t look like any of his limbs had been broken, even if he was covered in bruises and abrasions. He still breathed, and although it was difficult to tell with her spit and sweat, the floors dirt and grime, and his own matted hair and swollen features, it looked like he was still conscious.

“I hope you’re able to internalize this lesson quickly. The sooner you pick up on this, the better the rest of your life will be.” Grace said. “However brief” She finished, a little quieter.

“Now, the instructions you were given were ‘open you mouth’. Let’s try it again.” Grace said. Only a moment later, his jaw moved, and although clearly in pain, he opened his mouth.

Using her bare foot to roll Justin back into a supine position. She deftly used her toes to move his arms out of the way, off his chest. Then, with a kind of slow, deliberate pace, she placed her foot back onto him, again letting his head remain just visible between her toes, next to his big toe. She applied more and more pressure, enjoying the look of discomfort, and pain spreading over his face, even as he maintained a wide-open jaw.

“Very good, now I want you to swallow as much of this as you can. If I think you’re holding back, I’m going to have to do it again.” Grace said.

This time Grace didn’t just use the saliva in her cheeks, she deliberately swished the contents of her mouth around, allowing more and more to build up. All the while she forced Justin to watch as she prepared, as her sealed lips moved around, as her cheeks and jaw moved. Once satisfied with the volume of spit built up, Grace pursed her lips over Justin again. She spit with as much force as she could manage, and still keep on target.

Like a bullet the glob flew from Grace’s lips. It’s sheer size meant that when it impacted, it hit Grace’s toes, some of it splattering even to her little toe, as well as further up her foot. It also splashed to the floor above Justine’s head. But Grace’s aim was much better, and the collateral splatter was only incidental to the bulk of the saliva hitting its mark dead on. Justin’s face was awash in a torrent of spit, no part of him from his collar to his hair escaped the deluge. And even though he tried to keep his eyes shut against the onslaught of fluid, he obediently kept his mouth open, allowing Grace’s spit to fill his mouth and nostrils.

Grace tried, and failed, not to laugh at the sight of Justin’s entire head covered in her spit.

“Direct hit.” She said through her laughter. “Now swallow it.” She said more sternly.

It was clear that it wasn’t an easy command to comply with. Justin spent seconds in an apparent daze, his vision completely obscured by her saliva, breathing inhibited by both the pressure from her foot and the spit, but Grace was satisfied to see his mouth close and at least a portion of the expectorant slide down his throat, resulting in a coughing and gagging fit almost immediately after. There was no escape from the sensation for Justin though, as more slid into his mouth, from his own face, and from the sides of Grace’s toes. Since he had no way to wipe it away, he was left with only two options, obediently swallow as much of it as he could to continue breathing, or risk Grace’s wrath again by spitting it up, Justin chose the latter.

The sight of Justin fighting not to throw up, and to swallow enough of Grace’s spit to allow himself to breathe again was enough to send Grace’s left hand into the waistband of her sweatpants. She’d resisted indulging herself so far, but the entertainment was getting too good to continue withholding. Her fingers got to work methodically rubbing around her clit and down to her now soaked pussy.

Grace leaned over to the desk drawer, with her free hand, quickly producing from the utilitarian steel desk an old, but still very functional digital camera. The thing had no internet access, no Bluetooth connectivity, hell, it didn't even have a USB port. But it was decent enough for her use. She pointed the camera at Justin, between her toes and snapped a photo. The screen captured the moment perfectly. Her toenails, polished to a shine and slick with spit catching the flash of the camera, her skin, pale from too many indoor movie nights shining bright, and Justin’s face, darkened as though deep in hole, staring back up.

“Very well done, Justin. I’m happy to see you making progress. Let’s document this happy moment. Smile for me.” Grace commanded.

When Justin hesitated, either still dazed from the experience, or unable to hear Grace’s command over his own coughing, gagging, and ragged breathing, Grace applied more pressure with her foot, her toes pressing down around him.

“Don’t slip back into disobedience, Justin. I gave you an order.” She stressed.

Grace smiled as she saw Justin struggle to comply, even through the mask of spit, his reddening face broke into a painful, coughing fit, but the spread of a forced smile was there. Grace snapped another photo, this time doing her best to spread her toes and let the light of the flash illuminate Justin.

She lifted her foot completely from Justin’s body, setting it beside him again and was delighted to see another photo opportunity. Not only did Justin look ragged beyond belief, but the relatively poor state of the office linoleum, combined with the spit and sweat from Grace’s foot, left an outline around Justin’s beaten form in the vaguest shape of Grace’s bare foot. She pressed the button and reviewed the newest image.

Grace savored the next few minutes, posing her foot with Justin’s exhausted form, catching a shot of her big toe obscuring his head, one with him caught between her clenching toes, she flipped him around against her still booted foot, and eventually took that off to sandwich him for a photo between the soles of both her feet, which only led to even more photos of him at the mercy of her feet and amateur photography.

Adding to the degradation were the occasional command, Grace made Justin get to his knees and place a kiss on her toes, or drag his tongue along her foot, licking from her sole, she made him stand on shaky legs, while she pushed her big toe under his junk for the camera, which had deflated over the course of his beatings. And then Grace issued the most humiliating instruction of all.

“Jack off on the toenail.” Grace ordered.

When he didn’t immediately comply, her foot came down again, harsher and quicker than it had previously. She didn’t waste any time, lifting and stomping her foot down again, and again, and again to show her displeasure. After she lost count, she put Justin’s head back between her toes.

“I gave you an order, and if you keep fucking up like this, the last photo I get of you will be unrecognizable.” Grace threatened, her fingers slipping inside of her as she did.

She was careful not to actually crush Justin, or beat him into unconsciousness, but nonetheless the beatings he endured under her stomping foot were savage. When she pulled her foot off him and kept it hovering in place, ready for his unwilling participation, it took the shrunken man many stumbling, falling attempts to actually stand back up.

When he finally managed to climb to his feet, although he leaned on Grace’s foot for support, his left arm holding him up, he quickly took hold of his dick with his right and started tugging away. Grace laughed and caught a photo of Justin pulling his flaccid penis, trying desperately to obey Grace’s most recent order with a body that might not be able to comply.

To Grace’s surprise, Justin’s body did comply, and rather quickly his cock started to grow in his hand. Grace was impressed with how quickly he could get it up, especially given his battered state, but if there was one thing Justin seemed to be an expert in, it was jerking off. She pulled her foot away, leaving Justin standing shakily under his own strength, and repositioned her toes. The nail of her big toe rose up from between his legs and she was able to deftly rest his cock, even as he stroked it, on the shining nail.

“Very good, Justin. See? This is how things should be; you with your cock not even bigger than my toenail, desperately trying to get off, just because I told you to.” Grace gloated. “You might be in for a reward if you can finish fast enough. Now hurry up, we haven’t got all night.”

Justin continued to beat himself off over a foot that had just stomped him almost unconscious, a foot that had pinned him to the floor and seemingly tried to snuff the life out of him through crushing and asphyxiation and even holding him in place to facilitate drowning in spit.

From her vantage so far above it was difficult to tell if Justin was actually beating off faster, but it was clear her abuse had started to take a very deep toll. Even above the extremely soft sounds of Justin’s masturbation, Grace could hear his sobbing.

“I said ‘hurry up’ this is getting boring.” Grace said, a threatening menace creeping into her voice. “If you can’t unload in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to make it a non-issue and crush your dick and balls with this very toe.”

She bounced her big toe up, eliciting a cry of shock and pain from the otherwise sobbing Justin. He noticeably picked up his speed in response though, and Grace didn’t have to wait thirty seconds, it only took him a few more before he tensed up, and Grace was treated to a tiny spurt of semen on her toenail. She snapped a photo of Justin, mid orgasm, disappointed in reviewing the shot that his semen was completely indistinguishable from the remaining saliva on her toes. She regretted not ordering Justin to lick them clean ahead of time, but that might have taken hours.

Her impromptu photo shoot only ended when her phone buzzed. She pulled her hand out of her sweatpants, wiping them off on the leg quickly before picking up the phone and glancing at the caller ID.

“Hey, Tony. Yeah, I’m sorry to ditch like that. Work had an emergency I had to see to. I should be home in a few hours. Don’t wait up. Yeah, love you too, bye.” Grace said.

Before she set the phone back down she glanced at the time.

“It’s getting late, Justin, we should wrap this up.” Grace stated rather flatly. “But, before we do there’s a few more photos I want to get.” She said with more enthusiasm.

Grace reached down and picked up Justin’s collapse form. He was the largest victim of the virus she’d ever encountered, but even still, she could easily pick him up with one hand. As she lifted him up, he was almost limp, her fingers wrapped around his chest, under his arms and brought him up to her face. As she did she knew what to expect, but wanted to make sure Justin had been thoroughly debased of any notion of self worth.

She brought him, chest first under her nose and took a few dainty sniffs of his dirt, grime, spit, and sweat encrusted form.

“Oh! My god, Justin, you absolutely reek!” She exclaimed with mock surprise. She almost immediately jerked him away from her, letting her lips curl in a sneer of disgust that didn’t quite hide her amusement either.

“You smell like feet! Nasty, dirty, unwashed feet!” She stated through an unrestrained sadistic smile. “You really should learn to take better care of appearance too, Justin. If you don’t, getting placed with a nice family will be difficult. The only people who will want you might be perverts willing to do some truly horrible things to you.” She cautioned.

She brought him back to her face, and pressed his cheek against hers as she posed for a smiling selfie, and upon reviewing it, found Justin blankly staring into the lens.

“Hey! Come on now, give me a smile for the camera!” Grace insisted and pulled Justin cheek to cheek for another photo.

This time on reviewing she saw the same forced, pained smile across Justin’s face and it brought laughter to hers. She wasted no time in her next shot, pushing Justin’s face deep into her pursed lips for an intense kiss. The camera caught his hands pushing at her chin as his face was buried into her crimson pursed lips. The next photo was more fun, Grace opened her mouth and encircled Justin’s head with her teeth. He remained quiet, save for his continued weeping, throughout the process and Grace got several shots of him in various poses inside her mouth. Her final photo came as she held him close to her face and snapped a shot of her tongue running up his body. When the taste of him hit her tongue, however, she spat and yanked him back out, genuinely disgusted at the taste of feet and grime.

She set the camera down, satisfied with the memories she'd be able to revisit, and stood from her chair. She brought Justin back up to her face to facilitate easier conversation.

"So, I have to know; why the fuck did you do it?" Grace asked, curiosity getting the better of her wrath.

Justin didn't look like he understood, his face had been so thoroughly abused that no one would've recognized the vain muscician that had tried to come on to Grace only a few hours ago. Most of his features were obscured by swelling and bruises and cuts and abrasions.

Grace shook him to break his trance.

"Why did you try to rape that girl? You had to know there were going to be consequences. You can't be that fucking stupid, can you?" She asked.

"Why do you care? You were flicking the bean that whole time! You didn't have to fuck me up like this!" Justin protested. "And besides, what the fuck makes you any different?"

It was the final disappointment for Grace. Justin truly was a lost cause. As a human being, he was a misogynist and a rapist. As a plaything he was too dense to learn.

Grace let him fall from her grip. From so high up, he had plenty of time to scream as he fell, before impacting hard against the cold linoleum. When he hit the ground, it sounded like something finally snapped, from the looks of it, an arm, and he screamed in pain even more.

Justin squirmed on the ground, and Grace couldn't tell if it was just pained writhing, an attempt to stand, or a misguided attempt to flee, but she no longer cared to entertain Justin's delusions.

Grace lifted her right foot above him, the same one that had been his abuser all night long. She deftly dropped her heel onto his legs and quickly applied enough pressure to turn the bones into powder, the flesh below the knees into ribbons. As Justin screamed in agony, Grace's foot was already hovering over his head.

"What makes me different, is that I'm not the one being crushed underfoot." Grace stated as her sole dropped slowly onto Justin's upper body. The ball of her foot pushed his head into the floor, but this time, even though she worked slower than ever before, there was no restraint. Even though she couldn't see him, she had been here before with smaller disobedient things, and this would end no differently.

The accompanying sound, less a crunch and more a squish, as her skin met the linoleum and everything that had been Justin spurted out from under her sole in all directions and oozed up between her toes, was unexpected in it's nature, but she had felt his skeleton fail, and with it any resistance. Although there was no question in her mind that Justin was dead, it felt only right to snuff out the last of him dropping her heel onto the rest of his remains and crushing it as well.

Grace stood for a moment in the rapidly cooling mess that had been Justin. She knew she still had work to do. A mop and bucket from the supply closet was in order for the floor, the utility sink for cleaning up her foot, and she'd need to come up with a plausible story for Justin's disappearance, although that should be fairly easy. It wouldn't be hard to believe he'd simply fled after being confronted with his actions.

Grace contemplated actually trying to simply deny his existence, wiping his entry from the system like she's been planning for, but she remembered his victim was still an issue, and thought better of trying to make two residents disappear without a trace.

Three and a half hours later, with an interview with the police behind her, she’d told them that Justin had made a break for it when she called them. A counseling appointment was scheduled for Bethany, with a reputable therapist. And the office floor shined with the cleaning power of lemon scented abrasive cleaner, so much so that one of the nice officers had complimented her on the scent. Grace was finally ready to go home. She'd managed to convince the home office to allow her to close up for the following day, and after reloading all of the food and water dispensers for the residents, Grace found herself sitting in her car outside the placement center.

She pulled out her phone and dialed Anthony. After a few short rings he picked up.

“Hey, yeah I know it’s late, I’m sorry.” She said. “Look are you up for a bit? I need to destress in bad way. Yeah, right now. I mean, if you’re too busy, I got a sock drawer. Okay good, I’ll see you soon. I’m stopping by Taco Hell, you want anything? Two Infernoritos and an order of the Nachos Diablo on the side? Will do, see you soon.”

Grace replaced her phone in her pocket and noticed the camera still there. She took it out and turned it on, immediately greeted with the last image she took. She smiled at the awkward photo, but resisted the urge to reach back into her pants. The photo was a bit closer than many of the others, and showed Justin in the last few moments in portrait, although the top of his head was obscurred by Grace’s own out of focus lips and teeth. Behind him, Grace’s tongue provided a glistening wet backdrop, and then there was Justin’s face; beaten, bruised, swollen and covered in spit, sweat and dirt. Across his face, at Grace’s command, a smile showed no mirth, only horror and dread and what had happened and what he likely knew was coming.

“You really fucked up.” She told the picture. “And I’m kind of glad you did.”

Grace turned the camera off and put it back in her pocket. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to use her position at the placement center once in a while. She knew she could easily make someone disappear from the system, but the right circumstances to make that happen would be rare. She knew it would require someone to be admitted to the center with a minumum number of witnesses to their situation, which was rare. It would require planning, and for Grace to be ready to pounce on an opportunity when it presented itself, but it wouldn’t be impossible.

Her phone buzzed, and Grace produced it from her pocket to see a message from Anthony, thanking her in advance for the food, complete with an animated depicition of a cartoon dog with hearts for eyes.

“Still, at least I’ve got you, Tony.” She said to herself.