Social Progress, by Ann, revised by Aaron Farkas

[farkas17]

Don't know if anyone remembers the short story "Social Progress" from over a decade ago, by someone named "Ann," but the alt-world setup in which all males are progressively shrunk has always intrigued me, and I finally decided to write a vastly expanded and revised version. See below for an excerpt.

In the mid-21st century, the particle physicist Henry Stanton postulated that atomic waste could be eliminated by shrinking it down to sub-atomic levels. His hypothesis remained only a theory until an engineer who also worked in the laboratory, Eileen Fuchs, managed to build a prototype of a field-collapser that could accomplish the task. Stanton disappeared mysteriously while working in his laboratory, and soon after that, Fuchs submitted a patent for the device. Repeatedly passed over for promotion in a male-dominated field, she had other uses for what she named the Fuchs Diminisher.
*
Dale Parker couldn’t believe what he saw in his newsfeed. “Look at this, honey. Some woman says she invented a machine called the Fuchs Diminisher. They ran the first test on a volunteer last night. They got the guy down to three feet tall, then brought him back to normal size.”
Jennifer Parker read the item, then grinned. “You know what I’d do if you were just three feet high?”
“What would that be, little lady?”
“I’d pick you up and show you what real power is! I’d squeeze you around the middle, the way you do with me, until you begged for mercy!”
Dale, who topped 6'2", laughed at the absurdity. “I wonder what they’re going to do with that machine. I don’t see any practical purpose.”
----------
Dale Parker was talking with his wife again. “President Clark’s a liar! She swore that fewer than 10,000 men would be shrunk in the next decade. The report I read yesterday says that over 50,000 have been shrunk already just this month.”
“Hmm, that seems about right.”
“Huh? They can’t even find out if the women were making false charges. This ‘victim identity protection provision’ is bullshit! Last week, the editor of Public Interest, Neal Bloom, disappeared. His staff was shrunk to doll size when they tried to conduct an investigation.”
“Well.” Jennifer was polishing her nails. She was trying not to look too concerned, though in fact the news pleased her. “The way I figure it, those men must have done something pretty bad to get punished like that.”
“Really? Like what?” Dale walked over to her and placed a heavy arm around her waist.
“Physical coercion. Sort of like what you’re doing now.” She tried to shrug off his arm with her weaker one. “I’ve been patient, but we’ve put up with this for too long.”
“You mean something like this?” He slid both arms around her, hoisted her off the floor, and squeezed—his old maneuver.
“Stop that!”
“Or else what?”
Jennifer just looked away and let him manhandle her. That night in bed, she thought and thought about it. Finally she decided she had no choice if she wanted any change.
Dale had no idea what effect that evening’s events night had. He’d learn when he was dragged into custody by one of the new all-female reduction squads and charged with molestation. The new laws no longer required a stepped-down shrinkage for first offenses, and Dale was given the full treatment. When he first looked up at his giant wife and saw her smile down at him, he tried to run, but she scooped him up in one hand and squeezed him lightly in her hand.
“You’re hurting me!”
“You mean like what you did to me?” She increased the pressure, the eased off, then closed her fist again. Dale squirmed uselessly in the grip of his wife. Then she lowered him to her thighs and started playing with him.
By the next morning, he was so exhausted that he fell down when he tried to run away from the bedroom. He picked himself, but she easily spotted his fleeing form and was on him in a moment. She held him close to her face as if she were going to bite him in two.
“C’mon, Dale, really? I thought you had more sense than that.”
“No, please—I won’t do it again.”
“I just don’t feel I can trust you any longer, dear.” She immobilized him by tucking his legs into her cleavage while she called Dale’s female boss at the firm and told her that Dale was to be put on leave for a while.
“Let me guess,” said Dale’s boss, who just last year had shrunk her partner so that he came up to her thighs. “He’s been downsized.”
“That’s right!” Jennifer gazed at her little man, who was futilely trying to push his way out of two breasts that threatened to engulf him. That afternoon, she shoved him into her purse for safekeeping and went out to buy a birdcage, which from then on housed her husband on the bedside table, right where she might need him for certain favors.