Again, I was surprised by how fast the process was; bureaucracy, in my experience, was a thing of many forms and periods of waiting, often followed by even more waiting. Outside of the changes I had made, getting Miranda had been a process of several days, assumably with whatever work she may have done on her end to help the process along; for Sydney, I had expected at least a week.
Instead, when I called the DMC, I had an appointment made for an hour later.
As it turned out, Sydney was on a list of Mins with that, by default, accepted anyone interested in her as a potential host. Since I was already in the system at this point, all we needed was that one meeting, and, if she agreed, I could walk out with her.
Miranda only snorted when I explained this to her, looking amused at my ignorance from her lofty position atop the left armrest, sitting just in front of my hand. My agreement to help her get revenge had helped her relax around me, somewhat. There was still a wary look in her eye when she saw me, but she seemed willing to have an actual conversation with me now.
“Of course she’s on the list, Ian: everyone I’ve ever met there was on the list. Hell, I was on the list.”
I didn’t say anything, absently watching her little legs as they dangled in the air, but Miranda glanced at my face and continued to explain, her tone serious now. “No one wants to be there, Ian, and when you Min, you feel… abandoned. The world hates you, your friends and family give up on you, and you’re left in the Kennel to rot. Everyone has heard a story of someone whos ends up living in a bird cage or something, just a living decoration for their Master to enjoy, but even so most would take that, because at least then they’re wanted. Someone looked at hundreds or thousands of Mins crawling around their feet and picked you out, out of all them clamoring for attention; and maybe it’s because you’re blond, or you have big boobs, or a nice voice, and sure, maybe you end up spending your days on that perch, singing sweet songs and being fed table scraps, but at least it’s you doing it, at least you are the one worthy enough to get even that much. Even if he looks at you like a toy, well…”
Miranda trailed off, before finishing bitterly, “At least he’s looking at you.”
She didn’t say anything for a minute.
“I always knew, you know.” Miranda started abruptly, staring off toward the door. “That you’d take me, I mean. We never talked much, but your Change came up awhile ago, so you were safe, and your willingness was… obvious. When you’re first picked up, they always ask if there’s anyone who might be able to take you in, and I knew, in that instant, that all I had to was ask. Mia was right, most Mins would kill for an opportunity like that.”
“Why?” I croaked, my voice hoarse with the weight of the question that had been burning in me for weeks now. “Why didn’t you? Why did you wait so long to ask?”
She sighed. “Fear, at least in part. Fear, and me lying to myself. I… never really liked you, Ian, you know that. You were always nice enough, but you’d look at me and you were always so… intense about it. Hungry, even. There are creepier ways a man can look at you, I admit, but it was more than just wanting to see me naked, or to rape me, it was like you wanted to own me, to put me a box on your shelf or something.”
Miranda paused, and blushed. “I’ll admit, part of me thought it was nice, to get that much of reaction from you, to have a man just look at me and fall madly for my charms, but it was also scary Ian. You never pushed me, you never did anything you shouldn’t, but it was like being a piece of meat in a room with a well trained dog: even if it’s not doing anything, you know it’s just a few words away from gulping you down. And then I Min’d and…”
She shuddered. “It scared me. You scared me, Ian; you still do. Even now, you’re still that dog, just as hungry as ever, still patiently eyeing me, waiting for that word to pounce. Only now you’re a dog as big as a house, looming over me with drool dripping from those big sharp teeth of yours, so close I can feel your breath threaten to knock me over, and there’s nothing holding you back: no leash, no collar, nothing but your willingness to obey.”
Almost unconsciously I found myself brushing a finger under my lips, looking for anything wet, and she laughed, sounding slightly hysterical.
“It’s… a little intoxicating, really, to have something as big as you are listen to me, to have that kind of power under my command.” Miranda smiled at me, excitement dancing in her eyes, mixed with with something darker. “But it’s dangerous, too: it’s all too easy to forget that the power isn’t mine, not really. You’re just letting me use it, and you could just as easily take it away.”
“I wouldn’t-” I begin, only to stop after a moment as I realized how intensely I was staring. WIthout realizing it, I found myself licking my lips, and she giggled.
“Face it, Ian,” Miranda said, patting my hand gently. “You would. You really would.”
Then the amusement left her face. “As for the other reason… just before it happened, Jarrett and I got in a fight. A big one. I left that day angry, and when he didn’t answer the request, I thought… he was just mad at me. That he was trying to punish me, and after a day or two, he’d come get me. Days turned to weeks, and there was still no word. It was a month in when I finally accepted the obvious: Jarrett didn’t want anything to do with me. If he had, he would have picked me up that day, fight or not.”
Slowly, I lifted up my hand and moved it towards her, one finger extended. Miranda watched it for a moment, face carefully blank even as her eyes glittered with the faintest hint of tears, but ultimately gave a little half shrug of her shoulder that I took as permission. Gently, I ran the finger tip down her back and she stiffened for a moment at the touch, before relaxing and leaning into my touch.
“That realization hit me harder than I would have liked,” Miranda continued, her tone admirably calm. “And it took me a while to get over it. Him. I… I thought were were getting pretty serious, before all of this. We were arguing about me moving in with him. He was for it, I wasn’t sure yet.”
She let out a shuddering breath. “Can you imagine, Ian? How fast everything changed? Just a day ago he was almost begging me to move in with him, but when I needed him to take me in, what does he do?”
She laughed again, sounding at the edge of tears. “He just gave up on me, Ian! He didn’t even have the courtesy to give me a ‘No’!”
For a minute, I thought she was going to cry again; I was sure she was at the edge of it. For whatever reason, though, Miranda pulled herself together, and wiped her face with the face of her arm instead.
“If… if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to be alone for awhile, Ian.” No matter how she phrased it, it was a question, and both of us knew it. I didn’t have to listen to her, and more than that I didn’t want to listen to her. I didn’t want to let her go, much less when she was feeling so vulnerable… but she wanted to, and we were doing so much better, now; I didn’t want to ruin everything just because I was impatient.
When I laid my hand back on the armrest, Miranda smiled up at me, surprised and pleased all at once. Guilt bubbled in my stomach at the fact that respecting her even that much was something so hard for me to do, and so unexpected for her to receive, even as her joy soothed the edge of my shame.
“Thank you, Ian.” She sniffled a little. “I appreciate this. I’ll… I’ll be back by the time you come back from the Kennel.”
And then, before I could say anything, she slipped off the chair, slid down my leg, and ran off into the house.
xxx
Scale Woman nodded to me politely. “Good to see you again, Mr. Hunter.”
“And you.” I replied briefly, since I still had no idea what her name actually was.
She huffed slightly, apparently just as unimpressed with me as ever. “If you’ll follow me, you meeting is rig-”
“Wait.” Scale Woman raised an eyebrow at my interruption, but let me continue anyways. “When I called, I had a… request.”
I had asked for Sydney by name when I called, but before I hung up I took a risk and asked that my interest in her in particular be kept from the Min. The man on the line had given me some bland reassurances, but I didn’t actully know if they had followed through on it or not.
Something about that must have interested her, because the boredom in her gaze vanished, and she examined me with mild interest.
“Yes, Mr. Hunter, your… request.” She emphasized the word with a mocking grin. “Rest assured, we did not tell her you were looking for ‘Sydney Wilson’, but simply that her criteria met your interest.”
“And she believed that?”
And there was the contempt again. “Sydney is the largest Min in our facilities, one of the largest Mins on record, to be frank. She’s used to getting more attention than the norm.”
Apparently done with the conversation, she turned on her heel and strode off, forcing me to follow her.
xxx
As it turned out, Scale Woman hadn’t exaggerated: the Min waiting for me atop the table in the meeting room was the biggest I’d ever seen, bar none. Miranda was on the high end, I knew, but Sydney must have been twice her height, easy; it was no surprise she was able to so easily push her around. She was also, I realized as I took in the form of the lithe creature before, drop dead gorgeous: warm bronze skin complemented by night black hair, long enough to reach her feet and artfully arranged to give her modesty, which only served to highlight all the features it hid. Over all, the effect only served to grant her an appearance even more sensual than just bared skin would have provided.
Sitting there, legs demurely folded beneath her as she waited for me, Sydney Wilson looked like nothing less than a fey creature out of a story, an exotic beauty that, in other circumstances, I would never be worthy to even approach.
Part of me wondered if I would see her adorning the cover of a magazine or two, if I was to investigate her in any depth. The rest of me had realized that this creature, small as it was, had hurt Miranda, and that anger helped shield me from being overwhelmed by her charms.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Scale Woman watch me with what I could only believe was approval on her face I proceeded to the chair without making a fool of myself.
Sydney straightened up and began to examine me in turn, and I took the time it afforded me to examine my feelings on her. Normally, I knew, the idea of someone hurting Miranda would have filled me with a burning rage, but looking at this woman, it was somehow too… personal an emotion to feel for her. She was too small for me to truly hate in that way, too weak. I didn’t like her, but I felt no overwhelming desire to cause her pain, either.
I’d do it, of course, but it was good to realize I wouldn’t end up killing her in some fit of rage; that’d be far too quick for what I had in mind.
“I have one question for you.” Sydney said, in a melodious voice. “Will there…”
She sighed suddenly, and slumped on the table, the ethereal air she had maintained gone in an instant, leaving only a Min as it left. She looked tired and defeated as she stared at me, and held her arms up as if to accept handcuffs. “Will there be diapers?”
What.
“What?”
“Five months ago, an old man came and tried to take me.” Sydney gritted out through clenched teeth. “He delighted in telling me about how he’d keep me in a cradle, make me wear diapers, feed me from a bottle, and in general treat me like an infant, and how wonderful it was that I was so large.”
What the fuck.
“I turned him down, obviously, and you’re the first person who has met me since then with a desire to take me home. I’m willing to put up with a lot of things, Mr. Hunter,” Sydney continued, staring me in the eye. “I doubt you’re going to be kind to me, and I accept that, but being infantilized like that is where I draw the line.”
“I’m not going to put you in diapers.” I sputtered incredulously.
I planned on humiliating her, obviously, and hurting her, but I had no interest in that.
She stared at me critically, but the sheer disgust at the idea must have been clear on my face, because after a moment she nodded. “Then I accept your generous offer… Master.”
Fun fact: DMC stands for Department of Minimal Control. Yes, the name is a tad ironic, and people are aware of that. Though the slang for shrunken women in this setting is ‘Min’ in common usage, more technically it stands for a ‘Minimal’. It’s also a verb, though, for ‘Minimizing’, which is the technical term for a woman shrinking and becoming a Min.
Surprisingly enough, I didn’t actully consult a Random Name Generator for Ian’s last name.
BTW, I’m curious: what is the impression you’re all getting of Ian’s personality thus far? I know what I’m going for, but I’m not sure how well it’s getting across.
though the bondage jewelry is a good idea too. I’m also fond of the idea of somehow being trapped inside a jewel or a gem
