Nexifem Inc. - Chapter 22

Chapter 22

CLYTAEMNESTRA:

Our lives are based on wealth, my king,

the gods have seen to that.

Destitution, our house has never heard the word.

-“Agamemnon”, by Aeschylus

“Come on, precious,” Kelly said. “Do it for me. It’ll be so forward-thinking of you.”

Chad gave in, coaxed by Kelly’s gentle hand. The width of her palm easily matched that of his lower back. He stepped onto a large silver platter sitting in the middle of the table and knelt down into a compact posture. From Chad’s perspective, the table seemingly covered the square footage of a small bedroom. His girlfriend loomed at the edge of this space, casting a shadow over the platter, blocking the cool over-head lighting of the studio greenroom. Kelly carefully lowered a polished ornate silver lid down over the tray, sealing Chad into darkness like a roast chicken.

“Thank you Chad,” Kelly’s said. Her voice came from somewhere outside the metal dome that now sat over his form. “Oh gawd, I’m going to be so rich because of this.”

Chad knew she would be. A week earlier Kelly had told him that Nexifem’s marketing division had contacted her with an offer. Kelly’s eyes had been wide and bright with excitement. “They want to pay us $5 million for this one marketing event!” Kelly had exclaimed.

But Chad was dubious from the start. “You mean they’ll pay you,” he said. “You’re my legal guardian now. Ms. Everhart’s been trying to get me to come in to the office for two days. Don’t you think it’s a bit odd that they made you this offer now?”

“Oh, don’t be such a sour-puss,” Kelly laughed. “It doesn’t suit you, my little manlet.” She patted his head with two fingertips and then sat down on the floor beside the sofa, where Chad had been relaxing and watching television. This brought Kelly’s eyes down closer to Chad’s level and she smiled at him.

“I can buy a way bigger house with that money,” Kelly explained. “In the nice part of town, with a big yard. Maeve could even get her own place and you’d be free to wander around my place naked.”

Chad watched as Kelly’s eyes lost focus. She was envisioning it as she talked: the house, the car, the lifestyle. Chad knew he couldn’t say no to her.

“That would be pretty nice,” Chad admitted. “You’d live like a queen.”

Kelly’s eyes refocused on Chad. “Yes,” she said. “Now you’re getting it, my little prince. I can finally live like a queen, and you can serve me as my little chamber boy trinket. My influencer account followers will grow for sure if I can post images from my own house, especially if I get a pool for swimsuit shots. You need money to make money. Plus, I set an example for a lot of older divorced women you know - not just college girls.”

Chad noted how he wasn’t a ‘king’ in his girlfriend’s mind, but a prince - maybe. In fact, Kelly had quickly relegated his symbolic role down to that of a servant, before getting carried away with the idea of her future wealth. Despite this slightly humiliating verbal tease, her enthusiasm was arousing. Chad felt himself getting hard under his tea-towel kilt, imagining himself rubbing oil over Kelly’s bikini clad body beside a turquoise blue pool and climbing over her curves in the sun.

———

That’s how it had happened. How he’d found himself at a huge film studio downtown, riding in a big silk-lined bag Kelly carried, hidden from view. Now he was here, in the dark, on a silver platter.

It had all been very secret. Kelly said that even she had little idea what was planned. Only that it was going to be be “very big” and that she would possibly be famous after today. Beyond that, everything remained obscure.

Chad was worried, but he also knew he wanted to make Kelly happy. She had taken care of him, even if she increasingly relished in his smallness and shrinking to a somewhat unsettling degree. Still, when he’d seen the Nexifem logos lit up on the walls of the massive soundstage building, Chad had almost bolted. Kelly had calmed him down with sweet whispers in his ear, and given him an apple slice to munch on, while petting his back.

Chad felt the platter underneath him suddenly shift. Someone had moved it and lifted it.

“Hello?” Chad said. “Who’s out there?”

There was no answer. Only the sound of high heels clicking on a hard floor. At least the ride was smooth. Whoever was holding the platter was carrying him very carefully, like a waitress with a platter full of drinks.

Chad heard new sounds now, music in the distance, women chattering, and other people walking. It sounded like he was backstage. Chad could hear the confident articulate voice of a female emcee or host talking in the distance. He felt a rising sense of panic. What kind of marketing event was this? The idea of a photo shoot or a commercial recording flitted through his mind.

The volume of these sounds increased and Chad heard applause washing over the metallic dome that ensconced him in darkness. He had been carried out onto a stage and not just any stage. He realized he was on one of the evening talk shows that championed the ‘fempowerment’ movement. A number of such shows had popped up in recent years, with a variety of stylish or celebrity hosts. Some were comedic in tone or mainly served as marketing platforms. Others were more classy or serious, attempting to bring on academics or political guests. Chad listened closely, terrified that he was being brought out onto one of these shows, trying to figure out which one he was on.

It was a nightmare come true. Thousands of people would see him at his new diminutive size, probably millions if any clips went viral. Why had Kelly agreed to this??

But he knew the answer: Money, fame, and her embrace of the new order.

Chad sat down in the darkness, crossing his legs and listening carefully.

“Welcome back!” The host’s smooth and cheerful voice was amplified via the studio’s high-quality audio equipment. “Today we’re talking about exciting radical futures and just how far the fempowerment movement can take us toward a better world. What is the next level? Where can women make helpful changes to push toward a better future? We’ve got some big surprises for you today, including something that may shock many of you.”

Applause rose in response to the host’s words.

“How many of you have wondered or speculated just what might happen if the vulni-chic movement went even further?”

The sound of clapping and voiced affirmations rose like a wave.

“How many of you have noticed just how many young men are choosing supplements and lifestyles that seem to limit their size, so they can appeal to potential girlfriends, their wives, or just fit in more with the trends - even to get jobs?”

Chad heard a laugh come from nearby, outside of his silver-domed prison. It sounded familiar, before the applause rose in response to the host’s question.

“Oh god, no…” Chad whispered in the darkness.

“Well ladies, let me show you something that will blow your minds!” The host exclaimed. “Today we have some special guests, including one man who has willingly gone all-in for vulni-chic in order to please his employer and girlfriend. He’s responsible for a big push forward in the incredible cutting-edge research at Nexifem!”

Chad was abruptly blinded as the cover was lifted off the silver platter. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust amid the sensory overload of studio lights, amplified microphones, and a roaring cheer from all around him.

“Let me present, Chadwick Eaton!” The emcee’s voice rose in ecstatic announcement as the lid was removed. “He’s not even two-feet tall!”

Chad heard a variety of responses as he blinked against the bright lights. He was seated in the middle of the silver platter, wearing his custom improvised kilt made with a tea-towel, pinned efficiently by a small golden-coloured safety pin and little else. It was a garment he’d taken time to perfect, eventually managing to make it quite practical for his uses in Kelly’s home. Now it felt like he was almost nude under the gaze of hundreds of attentive women.

“Oh my gawd!!” One woman shrieked.

“Holy fuck!” Chad heard another, before the roar of reactions all began to merge together.

Chad saw one woman swaying unsteadily on her feet in the front row, clearly in shock at the sight of him. Other women were simply emitting cooing “Awwwwwww” sounds.

Chad glanced down and realized the platter was resting on a table with an elegant white cloth draped over the top. He slowly rotated, taking in the audience. Behind him were seated a number of women, who looked down at him with grins and other thrilled or hungry expressions. All six women were clapping.

Chad knew almost all but one of them.

Seated in a semi-circle of chairs around the round table were Kelly, Ms. Belmont, Ms. Everhart, Tiffany, Vicki, and a beautiful woman with straight jet black hair so dark it seemed unnatural. The strange lady wore a cool detached expression as she watched him, nodding slightly in approval.

It all felt like some nightmare come true. Chad was ogled by the women seated at the table, who all loomed over his seated place on the platter. Meanwhile, an audience of hundreds of women gasped and cooed and hooted and swooned, all gazing at the stage, at Chad, with fixated amazement. Television cameras on booms lowered and moved closer to the table, covering the scene from various angles. Chad’s image was being broadcast to the world.

The host, who was wearing a dark purple skirt-suit and big hoop earrings, tossed her long blonde hair. She turned toward Chad and for a moment, he could tell that even she seemed a bit shocked by the sight of him. But a wide smile spread over her attractive face.

“Hello there!” She exclaimed.

“H…Hi,” Chad said, barely able to summon up the sound, but microphones around the table must have been set up to capture his speech. He heard his soft small voice amplified for all to hear.

A wave of laughter and gasps washed over the audience. Ms. Belmont laughed mockingly behind Chad and he heard Kelly inhale, clearly aroused and fascinated by the spectacle before her.

“My name is Kathleen,” the host said. “Have you ever watched our show before?”

Chad reluctantly nodded. He had indeed caught bits of the Kathleen O’Connor show in the past. But had always turned away in disgust or annoyance at its brazen and scandalous content, the aggressive and combative guests, and the host’s support for shocking causes.

“Oh good! We have a fan,” Kathleen laughed along with the audience.

“With us tonight we have several of Chad’s co-workers, bosses, and his… well is ‘girlfriend’ the right word to use?”

The crowd giggled and clapped.

“We also have the CEO of Nexifem Incorporate, Ms. Cassandra Payne, with us today,” Kathleen said. “As some of you may know. Ms. Payne is not an easy person to book for an interview, so this is a very rare occasion. You are really witnessing history here, isn’t that right?”

The dark-haired woman, who was obviously the CEO of Nexifem, nodded. “That’s right, Kathleen,” she said. “Chad here is sort of like a fulfillment of Nexifem’s long-term corporate vision for a better world.”

Chad swallowed. Ms. Payne’s voice was smooth and silky, intellectual and confident. This was the woman at the very top of Nexifem, the mind behind the corporate mission. As much as any of the other women seated at the table, Ms. Payne was responsible for everything that had happened to him, to the whole world, over the past months and years.

“You see,” Ms. Payne continued. “We think the customer is right. They should have the choice to become like Chad here and fulfill their vulni-chic dreams. Chad willingly came to work for us and was a participant in our earliest trials. He was also very helpful in the development of Voluptupram - integral, actually. The choices he made should be made available to all men. It’s a free market, after all.”

The audience began to clap and cheer, as Chad shook his head. He was being framed on national television as a supporter of Nexifem. He felt a sense of horror knowing that any man who watched this show would not see the truth, would not realize how distorted Ms. Payne’s version of events was. Nexifem was shaping the narrative again, and it was happening live, using Chad as the primary vessel. This wasn’t just advertising, it was propaganda framed as consumer choice. But Chad’s small body language cues were ignored by the thrilled audience.

“Partly thanks to Chad, women are now assuming almost all the positions of power in our society,” Ms. Payne concluded. Her voice dripped with detached satisfaction. “He’s so eager to please, that I’m sure he’d even agree to shrink again for us here, right on live TV.”

Ms. Belmont nodded, adding, “I can remember when Chad first came into my office after shrinking, all wide-eyed and barely up to my boobs. Yet that wasn’t enough for him. He clearly wants to be extra vulni!”

This was too much. Ms. Belmont’s arrogant tones filled the studio, bringing back a host of memories. Chad shook his head adamantly and stood up on the platter, feeling its cold metal against his bare feet. But standing only brought his eye-level to the same height as the seated women around the table. Ms. Belmont’s lips curled into a knowing smile as she locked eyes with him.

Tiffany and Kelly cooed softly as Chad stood up. “Look at his little outfit,” Tiffany said. “It’s so perfect!”

“Isn’t it?” Kelly said. “He helped pick out the tea towel he wanted.”

Vicki and Ms. Belmont burst into laughter and Chad felt the heat of embarrassment creeping into his cheeks. The cameras moved in closer near the table.

Ms. Everhart shifted her hips in her seat slightly, tilting her head as she looked at Chad. “We have the technology to make him smaller, right here on live television,” she mused. “But it’s up to Kelly. Still, Chad has signed his employee contract. He has legally expressed his willingness to continue the experiments. So in theory, he is already in favour. He tends to get hesitant like this before each major step. So I’d take all that performative head-shaking with a grain of salt.”

Kelly bit her lower lip gently, looking at Chad. He met his girlfriend’s eyes, feeling her maternal aura of concern, but also noting the pink flush of excitement in her cheeks. Chad felt afraid to speak, to protest, in front of an entire studio audience of women who supported Nexifem’s mission. He didn’t want to upset his girlfriend, or ruin her chance to make so much money. He’d agreed to do this.

Chad felt torn. He felt fear nibbling at his mind. He walked across the platter closer to Kelly.

“Awww…” Tiffany sighed. “Look, he has a connection with her.”

“Do it for me, sweetheart?” Kelly whispered, her voice carried clearly by the microphones.

The audience sighed and clapped. Some supporting cheers echoed out, “Do it!”

Ms. Belmont slowly licked her lips and shifted her hips in her chair, visibly restraining herself from interrupting the moment.

Nexifem’s CEO sat to the side with a cool expression, watching the scene unfold in an almost clinical manner. Ms. Payne flicked her eyes to meet Ms. Everhart’s and the two women nodded subtly to one another.

Chad let the world fall away, and fixed his gaze on Kelly’s face, on her caring expression. He clung to their connection as fear and humiliation clawed at his insides. Chad slowly nodded. A roar of feminine cheers from that rapt audience washed around him. Vicki laughed and clapped. Ms. Belmont closed her eyes and one corner of her upper lip lifted in a sort of sneering smirk. Kelly simply smiled and nodded, her eyes locked on Chad’s.

What choice did he have? He needed Kelly’s approval. He had promised to help her with this. Did he really think saying no would change much at this point? Nexifem had re-written his entire life, transformed him into a tool, a corporate asset. Kelly was increasingly a part of that structure, now eager to receive money and fame from Nexifem’s media empire. Eager for Voluptupram and a new house, for new comforts and status.

Chad felt humiliated. Was he still a person in Kelly’s eyes or an object? The taunting ridicule of Ms. Belmont and Selina echoed in his mind, driving a wedge of doubt into his thoughts and his belief in Kelly as a girlfriend. She rarely called herself that now. She saw herself as his ‘mommy-girlfriend’, his protector. And now, was he just a route to influencer bliss?

An inner feeling of defeat washed over Chad as he agreed to this further step. He was on live television agreeing to help these women in their frightening ambitious project. It was bad enough when he had held the dark secret of his Nexifem life, but now it was being broadcast and made public. He would be seen as a traitor to men and male status by many who he had once counted as peers and friends.

Chad heard a mechanical whirring and clicking as an enormous device lowered robotically from the rafters above the stage. It was like some sort of giant microscope lens - conical in shape. The metallic gray parts of the machine decreased in radius from the top down, until the device came to a single focal point, where small intricate metal braces surrounded a red crystal that looked like a giant sort of ruby the size of a golf ball.

The huge ocular array was suspended nearly a foot above Chad, shiny and polished. The crowd murmured at the impressive technological display.

“Is this what you used to shrink Chad before?” Kathleen O’Connor asked. She was striding around the machine. The cameras moved with her, taking in different angles.

“Well, no,” Ms. Everhart answered. “In the past we used a variety of technologies, most of which remain a company secret. But we’re always pushing the edge of innovation. Our research budget is now the largest of any private firm in the world and larger than many small countries' entire gross domestic product. This is one of our latest concepts. We’re hoping to one day miniaturize some of its components and make it a bit smaller. But our CEO here, Ms. Payne, insisted we give it a trial run here on air! Chad is still one of the few men suited biochemically for this demonstration.”

“We believe it could have tremendous applications, far beyond the fempowerment and vulni-chic trends and demands, including some innovative industrial applications,” Ms. Payne added.

“Wow!” Kathleen exclaimed. “Well, let’s see what it can do!”

Chad looked up at the dark ruby-like crystal suspended above his head. It was nearly the same size as his skull. He fought a sudden desire to run.

As if hearing his thoughts, Kelly’s palm suddenly came against his side, nudging him closer to the centre of the table, right under the array.

“I’ll be right here, honey,” Kelly said. She smiled out at the crowd as they responded predictably.

Kathleen chuckled, “You’re a natural at this. Are you sure you aren’t a marketing employee of Nexifem.”

All the women around the table laughed and Kelly shook her head. But for a moment, Chad had almost believed it was possible. “Not yet!” Kelly exclaimed, before announcing her social media handle to the show.

Chad turned and saw Ms. Everhart lift a small remote control in her hand.

“Time to shrink, boy!” Ms. Belmont said.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe this is actually happening,” Tiffany said, her voice breathless as she stared at Chad.

“No, wait!” Chad cried, panicking at the last second, unable to control his voice. But it didn’t matter. The microphones didn’t pick up his plea and he knew his voice probably hadn’t carried more than a few feet.

An eerie humming sound began to fill the air and the red facets above him began to glow and shimmer.

“Too late!” Ms. Belmont taunted.

A bright red ray shot down from the conical machine above Chad, bathing him in its crimson light, seeming to make his body partially translucent. It felt like some terrible weight bearing down on him, within him somehow. Chad felt pinned down. He couldn’t move, couldn’t run. A tingling sensation began to ripple through his body, washing down over him from the crown of his head to his toes, getting stronger and stronger.

Chad could feel the machine altering him in real time, reconfiguring his molecules. This wasn’t like the Adtenuo machine. He was very conscious of everything that was happening, too conscious. The red ray of light wasn’t just projecting something into him, but was also pulling something from inside of him, taking something from him. Chad felt himself becoming less, reducing, shrinking.

The humming sound intensified, creating a resonance that vibrated Chad’s skeleton, making his teeth chatter.

The audience stared in rapt attention as Chad began to shrink. The already shocking small man on stage began to dwindle in the light of the huge machine suspended from the rafters. It was a sight out of science fiction.

Chad saw the platter seem to expand around him on all sides. The women seated at the table began to loom taller from his perspective, getting bigger and more imposing. Their faces began to rise above his eye-level. Their shoulders seeming growing wider, higher. Chad could see the shape of Ms. Everhart’s nipples pressing against her tight top, rising closer to his eye-level, as she operated the controls of the shrinking apparatus. Soon, he was no longer able to look straight into the eyes of any of the women seated around him. He was shrinking down in size as they looked down on him. His tiny frame was getting closer and closer to being a mere one foot in height.

Kelly’s expression moved between deep arousal and worry. Tiffany looked fascinated. Vicki had a grin on her face and Ms. Belmont looked down at him with hunger, nodding in approval at what she saw. Ms. Payne simply scrutinized the sight before her, a slight smirk on her full lips.

Ms. Everhart turned a knob on the controller and the humming slowly faded alone with the red glow that clouded Chad’s vision. He collapsed to knees, his body sore and tingling.

There was a moment of quiet, and then a roar of noise rose up from the audience. Cheers, conversation, expressions of concern for Chad’s wellbeing, laughter, and more. Kelly and Ms. Belmont reached out toward Chad at the same time, and Ms. Belmont pulled her hand back at the last second, letting Kelly cup her palm around her tiny boyfriend, protectively.

“He’s now 12 inches in height, almost exactly,” Ms. Everhart said.

“That was…incredible,” Kathleen said. The unflappable professional host seemed shaken by what she had seen. “You actually shrunk him down, right in front of us, like in a movie or something,” Kathleen said.

Ms. Everhart was nodding. “This is very valuable insight. This technology is extremely expensive and not really practical for use, but it does prove a concept,” she said. “We had to make special upgrades to the studio’s power supply just for this demonstration.”

Ms. Everhart was typing something into a digital tablet, seemingly recording some sort of data.

“Settle down, settle down everyone!” Kathleen said with a forceful yet jovial tone.

Slowly the audience began to settle down.

“We’re going to be following up with interviews with each of these ladies,” Kathleen continued. “Each of them knows Chad here in a different way, as a formal co-worker, as his boss, or in his personal life. We’re going to hear how his behaviour improved with shrinking, and how vulni-chic lifestyle can compliment work and office culture. But I think we’ve put this tiny guy through a lot today. I know Kelly here has asked us to let him go rest somewhere and we understand. We don’t want to hurt the little thing. What do you say ladies, give a hand to such an eager ally of fempowerment? To Chadwick!”

The room erupted into applause again. Chad was still reeling from what had just happened to him, struggling to accept his new size. On his knees in the centre of the platter, he looked around, bewildered and frightened. He was so small now, almost half the size he’d been ten minutes prior. He was a mere toy. Before he could react any further, someone lowered the lid onto the platter, sealing him back into darkness.

He felt himself getting carried off stage again, the sounds of applause fading behind him as the show went on.

“Tell us, Vicki, what was Chad like when you met him?” Chad heard Kathleen ask.

“Well, he was a pretty small man - in more ways than one, if you get my drift…”

Laughter faded as Chad was carried further into the backstage warrens of the studio. The only sound he could make out were the high heels of the PA who had whisked him away with practiced timing. Then there was a slight shudder under his knees. Chad tilted his head. The platter had been set down. The sound of the heels moved off into the distance.

It was quiet now as Chad sat in darkness.

“H…hello…?” He asked.

There was no answer. In the dark, it was impossible to tell how small he was. There was no sense of scale. This was a small comfort, but Chad clung to it. He imagined himself big again, being his old height of 5’2”. But the idea seemed to dissolve in his mind as quickly as he summoned it. The horror of shrinking was too fresh. On his knees, Kelly’s hand had almost been able to completely cover his body in the moment before he’d been taken away.

Chad tentatively stood up in the dark. His head brushed the underside of the silver platter-lid and he took care not to stand fully upright. He was too ‘tall’ for the space to fully stand up. Chad sighed and perked up his ears. It was quiet.

“…is anyone out there?”