STRANGE PERFUME
By SWMan (completed by TDL)
Chapter 4
About an hour later, Ray brought a small paper plate into the bedroom with a piece of chicken, some chopped up vegetables and some potatoes, as well as a thimble full of milk. After placing the plate and some tiny utensils beside her, he backed away.
"I . . . I'm gonna sl-sleep on the couch to-tonight, so you . . . you c-can use the bed." Clearly, he was still troubled by their argument, as he couldn't even gather up the courage to look her in the eyes. "I-I'm uh . . . I'm gonna l-leave the door open if . . . well i-if you . . . if you need . . . anything." Laura refused to glance up at him, staring down at the plate he'd set in front of her, making no effort to touch the food. Ray turned away and closed the door partway so she could have some privacy, feeling worse than before he'd come in. Everything was ruined. The perfume hadn't made her want him, instead it made her hate him and refuse to speak to him. Picking up the receipt that came along with the perfume, he crumpled it and tossed it across the living room. What was he going to do? In using the perfume, he'd shrunk her so small that she was right, from now on he'd have to take care of her constantly. That wouldn't hurt his work, since he could easily do it here at the house like he'd wanted to, but what was he going to do about Laura? She was miserable now, and the thought of her being that way only made him feel the same.
"B-Be careful wh-what you wish for, yo-you might just g-get it," he said to himself dejectedly as he flopped down on the couch. Placing his face in his hands, he sighed. What was he going to do, he thought over and over. Any hope of Laura ever caring for him was gone now, but as he sat there, he realized that the least he could do would be to make things right. Getting up, Ray crossed the room and picked the receipt up off the floor and unfolded it. At the bottom, there was a phone number to call if there were any problems.
"Y-Yeah, I'd say I have p-problems," he muttered as he walked back over to the couch and reached over for the cordless phone, dialing the number, wondering if they would be open this late. After all, he was on the West Coast, and the address indicated that they were based out of Michigan, which made it an hour or two ahead of his time. The phone rang several times and when it picked up, a pre-recorded message indicated that the company was closed for the evening. Well, I'll just have to call back in the morning, he thought to himself as he placed the phone back on the charger. Hopefully they have some sort of antidote or something that can reverse it. I'll just have to ask them for it, return her to normal and deal with whatever she decides to do to me.
Ray doubted that she would call the police, after all, who would believe her if she started claiming that he'd shrunk her. That wasn't what he was bothered about though . . . it was the fact that his attempt to show Laura that he loved her, and that he wasn't a weirdo had backfired on him. Instead of making her love him, the perfume had in fact made her hate him. She'd never want anything to do with him ever, and that realization depressed him even more. Ray lay down on the couch, turned off the light, and closed his eyes. As he drifted off to sleep, he wished there could have been a way to make things work.
Laura looked over at the small plate of food and sighed. At her size, even the smallest piece was large enough to be a complete meal to her, but Ray obviously didn't know that. Reaching over, she picked up the utensils and frowned at how ridiculous they looked in her tiny hands. They were much larger than she would have liked, but Ray had probably gotten them from a doll set or something earlier while she was sleeping. At least he was thoughtful enough to not make her eat with her hands.
"Great," she muttered to herself, "forced to spend the rest of my life eating scraps with Barbie dolls utensils. Or he could spray all my food with that stupid perfume." No, that would probably make me shrink more, she thought. Even he's not that stupid. As she thought about it though, a part of her regretted that thought.
A sound from outside the bedroom caused Laura to glance up at the door. The lights in the next room turned off and she heard what sounded like Ray getting settled on the couch. Laura stared at the door as she ate her food. For a single guy, he'd done a pretty good job on the food, she thought to herself. The chicken had been seasoned nicely with garlic and something else that she couldn't figure out, and the vegetables weren't burnt which, unlike meals that she'd had before with some guys she'd dated, was a surprise. Of the few guys she dated previously, none of them could cook to save their souls. Most of the time he would take her out to some ritzy place and try to dazzle her with his ability to order the perfect meal and blow a wade of cash to try to impress her. However, in the kitchen every one of them were all thumbs and would usually resort to a micro-waved meal, but that wasn't what she wanted.
Laura always preferred a simple life, only splurging on extravagant stuff every now and then on special occasions. That was part of the problem she'd had while dating. The guys just couldn't get the idea that a girl would want simple over rich and flashy. Most of her relationships would deteriorate over that problem, resulting in none of them lasting more than a couple of months. Her idea of a perfect life was to find "Mr. Right" settle down and have a family. Laura's girlfriends all laughed at her for wanting to be 'bare-foot and pregnant', catering to her husband's every whim and having no desires of her own, but that wasn't the case at all.
Laura wanted to find a guy who cared about her for who she was, not for her body or what they could give her. She didn't want lots of money, since she'd already seen how it had destroyed the marriages of other members of her family, and she knew that marriages based on physical attraction never lasted. No, money could be lost, and physical attributes changed with age, it was love and devotion that made a relationship work, and that was what she wanted. Yes, she wanted kids, and the thought of being pregnant intrigued her, but it wasn't why she wanted simpler things. For years, Laura had envied her grandparents. They lived in a simply little house up in Oregon, tucked away in the woods. Grandpa Andy, as she had always called him, had been an accountant for a small firm in a nearby town, making enough to support himself, Grandma Chrissie, and her mother, but not much more. What surprised her early in life was how much love filled the house every time she would go up with her brother and parents to their house. Grandma Chrissie doted on her grandchildren and yet openly showed her affections for grandpa Andy, in front of the entire family. Mom would tell her how grandma and grandma had raised their six children, making do with things that most people would consider just short of primitive, but looking back, her mother admitted that while they never had a lot, they had enough.
Thoughts of her grandparents brought a smile to her face and she wished that she had been so lucky in life. "Yeah, all I ever found were guys trying to impress me with their money, or weirdos like Ray here. Of course, Ray takes the cake. Nobody ever shrank me before," she muttered dejectedly, even as a small part of her regretted calling Ray a weirdo. "Not that I'm gonna be able to worry about things like that anymore," she said, tossing her fork into the small mound of potatoes on the plate.
Glancing beside her, Laura saw the perfume bottle that Ray had left when he'd walked out of the room, and a thought began to form in her mind. Standing up, she placed her arms to her sides, letting the enormous shirt she wore drop the to surface of the nightstand. Walking over, she turned the perfume bottle and pointed it at the dress.
"If I'm gonna be shrunk, the least I could do is have something to wear," she said as she pushed down on the spray button. A cloud of the perfume exploded into the air in front of her and she made a mad dash to avoid being caught in the cloud. The last thing she needed to do would be to be shrunk even further; as it was, four inches tall was going to be a nightmare getting used to. She watched as the cloud settled on her dress, gradually reducing it smaller, closer to her own size. After waiting a minute or two for the perfume to dry, she picked it up and held it in against herself to see how it looked. It wasn't perfect, she thought, but as she slipped it over her shoulders, she found that it hung on her like an oversized nightshirt, which was better than before.
"At least I'll look decent," she said as she sat back down. Glancing over at the perfume bottle, an idea began to form in her mind.
It took Laura an hour or two to get the perfume bottle off the nightstand, climb down, and drag it across the carpet into the living room. At four inches, a room that was twenty feet across felt more like a cross-country hike than a few casual steps that it once had at her normal size, and that was just the bedroom. Walking from the hallway into the living room was three times that long, and coupled with the need to drag the bottle with her, Laura was forced to stop every few feet to rest. It wasn't that the bottle was heavy, just that it was extremely large and hard to move. It was about the same size as she was, and the glass was so smooth that it was incredibly hard to grab onto something. Just to be safe, she'd wrapped some pieces of a paper napkin that Ray had given her for her meal around her hands. It wouldn't do her any good if some stray drop of the perfume happened to touch her skin while she was walking along.
The climb up onto the couch had been even worse. At her size, finding places to grip wasn't a problem, but pulling the bottle up with her was. After several tries, she realized that this wasn't going to work. Sitting down on the plush carpet, Laura cursed her tiny size. Only a few inches taller and she could probably get it up to the couch, but at four inches tall, it was all but impossible . . . that was, until she noticed the pillow that lay against the side of the couch.
The couch itself was only a foot off the ground, one of those legless monstrosities that had been popular a decade back. Once Laura had positioned the fluffy pillow correctly, she hopped up on it and pulled the perfume bottle up until she was shoulder-high to the top of the couch. Although Ray was sprawled on the couch, there was enough room for her to lift the bottle up and push it onto the cushion beside his leg. After grabbing a hold of the side, Laura was able to pull herself up and drag the bottle with her, climbing up onto Ray's chest and positioning the bottle so that it pointed directly at him.
"Okay, mister. You shrank me, so it's only fair that I return the favor," Laura said as she pushed down on the spray button and watched as the mist floated over, landing on Ray's chest and face. He moaned softly and twitched his nose, but other than that Ray continued to sleep, oblivious to what Laura was doing, so she hit the spray button again . . . and again . . . and again . . . and again. Once she was satisfied that she'd given him a good dose, she pulled the perfume bottle down by his feet and hopped off, turning to watch what would happen.
It took about ten minutes for Laura to really notice any difference in Ray's height. The first clue that the perfume was working was evident as she watched his hands slide up into the sleeves of his shirt. Next, his shoes dropped off his feet to tumble to the floor, and his feet rapidly disappeared into his pants. Slowly at first, but faster with each minute, Ray's clothes began to crumple and flatten as his body dwindled inside them. About half an hour later, Ray's head slipped completely inside his shirt and Laura could no longer see him.
"We're not done yet, mister," she said vindictively. "You're gonna find out what it's like to be the same size as I am." Climbing over the clothes that Ray wore, Laura headed towards his shirt, where a mound could be seen. After unbuttoning the shirt, she was able to see Ray, completely naked and gasped slightly. Although she didn't know why, she found herself intrigued by his body. Guessing him to be no more than thirty years old or so, she was surprised at how handsome he was, not bulging with muscles, but with a body that was trim and attractive. A part of her wondered why she'd never noticed him before.
Blushing at her reaction, Laura shook her head, "Come on girl, remember, this guy shrank you down because he wanted you, are you going to let him get away with that?" Hitting the spray button again, Laura watched as Ray dwindled further until he seemed to be about the same size as she was. She tried shrinking him further, but it seemed that Ray was right; four inches appeared to be the limit of how small someone could shrink with this stuff.
Setting aside the perfume, Laura sniffed at him, "See how you like it, Ray."
Previous
Next
Back to Main Story Page
It took Laura an hour or two to get the perfume bottle off the nightstand, climb down, and drag it across the carpet into the living room. At four inches, a room that was twenty feet across felt more like a cross-country hike than a few casual steps that it once had at her normal size, and that was just the bedroom. Walking from the hallway into the living room was three times that long, and coupled with the need to drag the bottle with her, Laura was forced to stop every few feet to rest. It wasn't that the bottle was heavy, just that it was extremely large and hard to move. It was about the same size as she was, and the glass was so smooth that it was incredibly hard to grab onto something. Just to be safe, she'd wrapped some pieces of a paper napkin that Ray had given her for her meal around her hands. It wouldn't do her any good if some stray drop of the perfume happened to touch her skin while she was walking along.