Fantasy Foot League (Chapter 1)

            Cody missed the days when coming last in the league just meant the loser had to dance on a street corner for an afternoon while wearing a skirt and holding a sign declaring how much they sucked at fantasy football. The stakes were raised each year, however, with none of the competitors ever daring to refuse the sacred rules of their league, and this time – though Cody wished he could go back in time and crack himself across the skull for his draft picks – he was the definitive loser.

Which was why he now found himself standing at two inches tall and glumly sharing a miniature glass-ceilinged apartment for a week straight with two willing strangers while displayed on the shelf of an establishment which sold rentals of transmogrifier-adjustable shrunken volunteers for customer servitude. This meant that, if someone decided to purchase him for that time, Cody would be at the mercy of an unknown giant, effectively enslaved for God-knew-what purpose, until the terms of the bottom-place punishment were fulfilled. Still, trying to look on the bright side, the two-incher was glad at least that his league mates hadn’t forced him to advertise his humiliating week-long stint on any social media, which meant that if he just kept his head down, and maybe put on an uninviting face, no customers would select him, no one he knew would ever learn of this low point, and he could return to normal at week’s end without having to debase himself as a bug-sized butler.

That hope was promptly shattered, less than a day into his sentence, when Cody looked up from his cot toward the translucent cage roof and found himself meeting the gaze of none other than a suitably gargantuan Kayla: her dark eyes wide at first with shock, then recognition and amusement, while her lips widened to a smug billboard-worthy grin. The golden-tan titaness may as well have had her nose pressed to the glass like a child ravenously eyeing candy shop fare, and Cody immediately considered hiding, before realizing this temporary habitat was intentionally built with no places to conceal oneself, such that the customers could study the shrunken possibilities to their heart’s content like zoo animals. Cody heard the button click outside as the see-through roof retracted to grant better access, and a looming Kayla addressed her sister’s two-inch-tall boyfriend at the apex of his cheek-reddened embarrassment.

“Well, I guess this makes my decision easy, doesn’t it?” the giantess drawled, her gaze happily piercing through Cody with all her pent-up distaste for him as fuel. She drummed her behemoth fingers on the edge of the little apartment walls, allowing her shrunken audience to feel the reverberations thrumming all the way to where he sat, even without her having to touch him. Though of course she was allowed to do that if she liked, and Cody knew it. He never would’ve pictured Kayla, of all people, shopping at a place like this, yet his last-ditch prayer that he was merely imagining her was shot once the roof slid away and her warm victorious exhales steamed inside the habitat. “What, you’re really THIS hard up for money, Cody? I mean, I guess I’m not surprised, either, that you’d resort to basically selling your body somehow. You never did seem smart enough to get anything better for work. I just… you know… didn’t expect to find you here. Lucky me, huh? And lucky you, too, because I’ll bet by the time I’m done with you, your work ethic will be much better. Plus, that ego of yours will be smushed down to a size that suits you better. This size, for instance.”

Gulping, and realizing that Kayla wasn’t just teasing him but in fact intended to rent him, Cody pushed down his instinctual combative response, knowing she held all the cards in this situation, and did his best diplomatic impression while the shame of her finding him still stuck in his craw.

“Kayla, I’m… only here because of my fantasy league. I came in last,” he humbly declared. “I didn’t choose this. I don’t want to do anything. Please, can’t you just forget you saw me here?”

“Ohhh. I see! So you’re bad at games and at finding work. Got it,” Kayla replied. By now, Cody’s two roommates were curiously standing by and witnessing this exchange, which only added to his consternation. Because the others alternatively had elected to be here, whether for money reasons or out of some subservient urge, Cody could tell they were probably interested themselves in being chosen by Kayla – judging solely on her looks rather than personality, after all, they could certainly find themselves in the hands of much less attractive giant beings. What idiots they were for that folly, Cody thought.

“I’m serious, Kayla,” he groaned.

“Duh. So am I, loser,” she retorted, and abruptly the sarcastic cheeriness left her voice. “You really think I’d rent you for a week if you wanted it to happen? Since when have I ever cared about making you happy? And you might be pathetic, Cody, but you’re at least not the type of pathetic where you’d just stick yourself in a place like this unless you didn’t have a choice. No, the fact that you’re here because you lost some stupid made-up game is what makes this so much sweeter. That, and how I’m going to make sure you feel the full weight of being the itsy-bitsy numbskull loser you really are. Best of all, some stranger sent me a coupon for this place that expires today. Just think if I’d ignored it and we’d missed our chance to bond like this. Hey, Ashley’s always saying she wished we’d do that, right? I have a good feeling that you’re going to be worth every penny, Cody. And, if you aren’t worth it at first, then I’ll force you to be worth it by the end. That transmogri-whatever has to be good for something. So just sit tight right here, then, and I’ll be back after I buy you for as long as I possibly can. We have to make every second count.”

At a loss, a pallid-faced Cody hopelessly watched the resolute giantess flip him a triumphant middle finger, before vanishing from the overhead visibility range. The shrinker experienced sickening stomach-butterflies, while in the distance he heard an upbeat Kayla pointing out which of the many shrinker-inhabited cages she intended to rent from, followed by the issuing of her transmogrifier. Who’d sent her a coupon, Cody frantically wondered? One of his league mates, somehow knowing she was the last person on Earth he’d ever want to serve while diminished to this powerless scale? No matter who was anonymously at fault, it hardly mattered now; his more anxious concern was instead what she’d expect of him for the next goddamn week of probable torment. Many of these diminutive employees, as Cody understood it, ended up as household custodial workers, sometimes giving manicures or becoming pieces of furniture until their time was up, which sounded livable if not boring, but then again most customers here didn’t have Kayla’s inherent creativity and underlying cruel streak. Something told him he wouldn’t just be dusting tabletops for her, though Cody was loathe to fathom what exactly it would be. And his nauseated suspense wasn’t destined to last long, either.

“Oh, I knew this day was gonna turn out kick-ass, from the second I woke up. I just had no idea how, until I saw your sad droopy micro-face through that glass looking like the last dumb kid to get chosen for recess teams,” Kayla taunted upon her return, brandishing the transmogrifier where Cody could see it. She grinned again, shaking her head in wild-eyed wonder as the future possibilities almost-tangibly ran through her mind. Suddenly her other palm hovered over the open habitat roof like a descending UFO, fingers splayed to capture her temporary two-inch property. “So, Cody, are you ready to get going? I want to start training you up as soon as possible, so I can be sure I squeeze the best of you out of this week. Believe me, I’m not anticipating there being much “best” in you at all, but if there is some, we’re going to find it. Only, don’t act like you’re not curious. It must be eating you up inside. What, oh WHAT, is Kayla going to do with me now, you must be wondering? Well, go ahead and ask me, Cody. I want to hear you say it. And, as of sixty seconds ago, you belong to me, so I’d advise you to listen to your owner. Thing.”