Julian Santos stepped into his office and let out the breath he’d been holding for the last hour.
A small voice came from his pocket. “Told you no one would notice.”
Julian closed the door behind him and said, “Don’t want to get fired.”
He dug Elena out and placed her on his desk. His office had no windows and while that once bothered him now it was a blessing.
“I still don’t see what’s so wrong with that,” she said. She stretched her arms out to the sides and traipsed along the ramp of a stapler. “This place doesn’t treat you right.”
He grunted but didn’t disagree.
While waiting the traditional fifteen minutes for his inbox to load, Julian watched her explore his 9-to-5 world. It was the first time Elena had gotten hit with a bout of sizeshifting.
Julian had woken up to her somehow trapped under him. Any precautions he could’ve taken were pointless since she’d definitely infected him and seeing as she’d never shrunken before he couldn’t leave her by herself.
All he had to do was get through the day without seeing or talking to anyone. A ping from his computer told him his email finished loading. He rolled his shoulders and started reading the subject line of the top email before a loud knock interrupted.
“Santos!” Richard barked from the other side. Richard was everything wrong with working there. Loud, mean, smart enough to impress his own supervisors but too stupid to make it past middle management hell. “My office! Ten minutes!”
Julian made an incoherent noise while Elena not-so-quietly muttered, “Asshole.”
“What was that?!”
“N-nothing!” Julian glared down at Elena, whose reciprocating smile was guileless. “Just a sneeze!”
Another knock like the tremblings of a volcano. “Better not have come in sick, ya’ hear?!”
Stomping footsteps signaled his departure.
Elena scowled at the door, uncaring about some relative giant stomping around. “You know, I am pretty contagious...”
“Elena, no.”
She put both hands on her hips and pouted.
“For the love of- getting people sick on purpose is wrong, El.” He rubbed his forehead, wiping off some sweat. His cuffs were pinching around his wrist, and the chair was creaking.
Elena, however, didn’t retreat. She paced back and forth across his desk, kicking stray paper clips and eraser residue out of her way with frustrated abandon. “The way he treats you is wrong, Jules.”
“Maybe, but that’s not illegal.” Julian sighed as his fiance paced back and forth across his desk. “He’s my best shot at Jenson. Look, I know Richard’s-”
“A dick? Yeah, and it sounds like he’d benefit from being smaller than one if you ask me.” Elena shot back and winked. “Come on, don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”
Julian swallowed. He had. A lot.
Whatever denial he had stopped short at her cackle as she bounced off his stress ball onto a small stack of rubber bands.
“You’re the devil,” he said at last. It sounded petulant even to himself. “I’m still not going to infect him on purpose.”
His fiancee glared up at him, pouting. “Fine,” she grumbled.
Julian sighed and, feeling vindictive, swiped her up in one hand. He smirked at her sudden thrashing motions, but loosened up. He loved Elena, as frustrating and pushy as she could be. Didn’t mean she didn’t deserve a scare or two.
Before she said anything he jammed her in his pocket, taking pleasure in her surprise squeak.
Julian rose from his seat and stretched. His whole body was lethargic; he’d always been a slow shrinker whenever he got infected, but by this point in the process he’d have lost an inch or two by now.
Elena shifted in place in his pocket, and Julian absentmindedly adjusted himself as he stood. It was as he was bending over to grab a notepad from his bottom desk he noticed his clothes weren’t loose, they were tight.
She’d infected him.
“Oh, you bitch.”
Elena laughed from within his pocket and wriggled more, seeming to crawl closer to the seam of his pants. His own body reacted favorably to this judging by the absolute monstrosity growing within his (now tighter) boxers. He was tempted to grab her and yell at her, but he didn’t have time for that.
With a huff and curse, Julian said to the empty room, knowing she’d hear him, “I swear, if I didn’t have to run I’d step on you.”
He ignored her tinkling laughter and her answering question that sounded like, “You promise?”
This proved how treasonous certain body parts of his were, and judging by Elena’s spurious wiggling, she liked the answer.
He opened the door and started power-walking the way to the elevator.
The sooner he got this meeting done with the sooner he’d make up some excuse and leave. He’d take Elena home and show her what taunting her giant fiance meant, when she was so small he dwarfed her twice over with just his cock at his normal size, never mind when he was-
Julian bit the inside of his cheek so hard he drew blood, and realized he was hovering too close to a pair of people waiting for the elevator themselves.
“Sorry,” he said, backing away. Thunder and lightning danced in his head as amazing sensations trickled up his body from his cock.
He spent the elevator ride alternating between wishing Elena would stop driving him insane with all her adventurous ministrations and wishing she’d just stop teasing him already. The others he’d shared the cabin with scuttled out as soon as possible: he didn’t miss how the clothing of the man seemed to drag behind him as he walked off or how the woman rubbed at her wrists where her bracelet suddenly pressed tight against her skin.
Ah, the shortened incubation period.
...fuck.
Richard’s floor was five floors above Julian. A fact he never failed to impress on Julian, despite the insignificance of it. It was, in fact, more of an inconvenience, considering he liked to frequently come down to Julian’s floor to order him and his team around like they didn’t already have work to do.
Rose, the young intern who Julian thought was too smart to serve as secretary for the blowhards of floor thirty-four, stared at him from behind her glass desk but let him know Richard was in his office.
Stopping at the door to Richard’s office he took a breath. He hated coming to see Richard. At least in his office, his small comfortable office, there was some measure of safety, of comfort. Richard picked out his guest chairs based on how offensive they were to someone’s spine.
His normal nervousness though, was drowning amidst the intoxicating, overpowering and incessant need Elena was stirring in his dick. It was taking everything he could not to unzip his pants and start jacking off, holding Elena against his cock as he showed her her place. His eyes moved sluggishly as his misjudged the door handle’s placement, hitting the surface with a dull thunk.
Before Julian could even comprehend how his own hands - big meaty paws that could have held a curled-up Elena like a King-size mattress - missed, Richard yanked open the door.
“Finally,” he spat. “Sit down, Santos. We need to talk.”
He was handsome, in a sense. Arrogance that could pass as confidence, a nice jawline, neat haircut, cold eyes that flickered like winter storms.
But looks had a way of waning with the moon and personality was always left. Whatever attraction Julian may have had towards him died by the second week of working there.
Julian walked into the room, ducking under the top of the door frame. He groaned, feeling Elena poke and prod at him in his pants, his erection pressing down the length of one pant leg.
He should’ve stayed home. Any minute now, Richard would notice the absolute freakshow standing in his office.
But when Richard sat behind his desk, all glass and chrome and discomfort seeping in from every corner of the room, Julian’s appearance was not the first thing he commented on.
“That girl you brought to the cookout last month,” he said, “What’s her name?”
Elena stopped. Julian gaped.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Her name, Santos, her name.” Richard sneered.
“E-Elena,” Julian stuttered, feeling like his normal five ten from half an hour ago. “She’s called Elena. She’s my fiancee.”
Richard nodded along, and disregarded the second part of Julian’s answer by asking, “She available Friday?”
“Sir, she’s my-”
“I know that, Santos. I’m not deaf.” He typed something on his computer and finished with a satisfied slam on his Enter key. Then, he frowned and shifted in his seat. “Some VPs are coming in from out of town and want to talk to us over dinner. I need a date.”
Julian looked down at his hands, the trembling shake of something he couldn’t place in his chest churning.
Richard snapped his fingers. “Fucking wake up, Santos!”
And, at last, he did.
“...I quit.”
Richard’s puce face, stuck in a faultline of anger, stopped moving. Julian watched him process what he’d just said and pinpointed the exact moment true rage entered the equation.
“What?” he said. His voice was deathly soft.
The soft rustle of clothing was all he heard, of power shifting balance.
“I. Quit.” Elena had moved little but he felt her crawling out from his pocket. Laughter bubbled up from his throat. Giddily, he repeated, “I quit.”
It was then, Julian giggling like an idiot and eight feet and climbing and looking like an absolute loon, that Richard finally seemed to see him. “You’re infected,” the man gasped. He kicked back from the edge of the desk as if any proximity would damn him any more.
And that made what Julian had to say all the funnier. “So are you.”
“What? What did you do?!”
“I quit, Dick.” Julian snorted, and for all that he’d felt strong and heavy and powerful with the size granted to him, nothing came close to the realization that he’d never have to look at the man’s face again. “By the way, might want to give the folks on my old floor the day off. Some of them looked a little tight in their clothing.”
Richard looked apoplectic. “You’re lying!!”
“Don’t believe me? Say, did your feet always dangle off the edge like that?”
The man startled back, feet kicking empty air, before his thrashing caused him to slip down and off the seat. The chair spun back while Richard started groaning on the floor.
Julian stood up from his chair, breathing easier than he had in years. His shirt was stretched to its limits, not even covering his belly anymore, his pants were bursting at the seams, and by all rights his feet were in indescribable pain, but still he felt amazing.
He came around the desk and watched the man who’d tormented his entire career dwindle down, falling into his own clothing like Alice down the rabbithole.
Julian bent down to rifle through the discarded remains of Richards clothing. He was careful to be gentle, but even so, when he felt the little pat-pat-pat of Richard’s attacks against his hand, he was a little rough in pinching the man between his thumb and forefinger.
He held him up aloft, at just above eye-level, ignoring the man’s protests as with the other hand he pulled Elena out from where she’d been huddled and pressed up against him in his pocket.
“Oh babe. He’s so tiny,” Elena cooed, seeing what became of his tormentor.
Julian looked at Richard, barely the size of a marble between his fingers. He thought of how everyday he’d spent tired and crushed and drained. And now he had him, literally in the palm of his hands.
“Guess what, Richard,” Julian drawled, smiling down at the man that used to grind him to nothing. “You’re taking a sick day.”
He wasn’t small enough yet, after all.