Shrunk! Shrunken First Semester: Teacher's Pet chapter 1 by maximally

Max woke up with his face mashed against a cold, hard slab of plywood. His head throbbed, his muscles ached, and his stomach felt like it was trying to eat itself. The lingering taste of stale beer and something else he couldn't quite place clung to his dry mouth. When he tried cracking his eyes open, the pain around his temples only got worse. Whatever he’d done last night, it couldn’t have been good.

 

He had no clue how long he’d been asleep or where he’d woken up. The only thing he knew for sure was that it was Saturday, September 30th. As of today, he’d been attending Ventus University for one month—and so far, things weren’t exactly going the way he’d always hoped.

 

He’d spent most of his senior spring dreaming of college life: living on his own, meeting new people, maybe even finding a girlfriend. Now, just four weeks into his first semester, he’d made frustratingly little progress. He was barely passing his classes, hadn't tried out for any teams or clubs, and hadn’t made any friends—aside from his roommate, Zeke, who was stuck with him either way. Worst of all, he hadn’t been invited to a single party—not until last night. Sure, maybe some of that was on him. Whenever he wasn’t in class, he hid in his room, gaming and binge-watching anime. Still, he couldn’t help thinking his choice of school wasn’t helping.

 

Like many former women’s colleges, Ventus still had an overwhelmingly female student body—something Max had considered a major win when he’d applied. With four girls to every boy in any class, he’d assumed he might have a better chance of finally finding a girlfriend. The school’s strong academic rankings, athletic performance, job placement numbers, and sunny Southern California campus didn’t hurt either. The only real catch was the school’s infamous House System: a network of powerful sororities that dominated every aspect of student life.

 

The school’s website bragged that at least 80% of female undergraduates belonged to one of the major houses—Diana (the “Jock House”), Minerva (the “Nerd House”), Juno (the “Goth House”), Fortuna (the “Hot Girl House”), and Proserpina (the “Loser House”). By the end of orientation, Max realized the whole campus social scene revolved around the first four, especially Diana and Fortuna. As a guy, he was banned from joining any of them, so his only shot at getting invited to parties or having any kind of social life was to befriend as many house girls as possible. For a guy who still got tongue-tied talking to any woman who wasn’t a blood relative, that was a tall order.

 

As a result, his first month at school had mainly consisted of going to class, studying, gaming, sleeping, and waking up to do it all over again—which didn’t represent a significant shift from how he’d spent most of his teens up until that point. The only change was that he was now surrounded by constant reminders of everything he was missing. Every weekend, as the campus came alive with at least four or five wild parties, all he could do was sit in his room in the Unaffiliated Students Dorm and long for some kind of breakthrough. Then, last night, he’d finally gotten one.

 

Yesterday afternoon, Max came back from class to find his roommate waiting. Zeke was a stocky, fluffy-haired Mexican-American nerd—just as much of a dorky gamer and anime addict as Max, but way better-looking and far better at talking to girls. Thanks to this, he was already becoming a campus social butterfly, racking up party invites at all the big houses and never missing a chance to rub it in.

 

But last night, Zeke had a different message. He was heading to another party, and this time, he’d gotten permission to bring Max along. Faced with the prospect of entering a new social situation with only his roommate for backup, Max did what many anxious, introverted college guys might do. Egged on by Zeke, he decided to pre-game—and by the time they left for the party, the less experienced drinker of the two had more liquid courage than he knew what to do with.

 

Now, about fourteen hours later, Max’s memory of the rest of the night was a blur. If his current state was any indication, all he had to show for his first big college party was the mother of all hangovers. Then he tried opening his eyes again, and everything got even weirder.

 

“What the…”

 

As Max’s eyes adjusted to the light, three things hit him all at once. First, he wasn’t in his dorm room. Second, he was completely naked. Third, and most critically, he was tiny. Like, action-figure tiny.

 

“Oh, fuck…”

 

Like any modern teenager, Max had seen plenty of news stories about people getting dosed with drugs at college parties. Still, he’d never heard of anything like this. He was lying on the top of a giant coffee table—and based on the relative size of his immediate surroundings, including several pencils and a half-empty can of Red Bull, he couldn’t have been more than a few inches tall.

 

“This can’t be happening…”

 

And yet, somehow, here he was—wide awake and shivering, cold air prickling every inch of his bare skin. His heart hammered in his chest, and the room spun around him, making it almost impossible to think about anything except his sudden, totally inexplicable transformation.

 

The more he saw, the more questions flooded into his mind. How had this happened? Was there any cure? And where the heck was he?

 

Rubbing his eyes and taking another look around, Max immediately got several clues about his current location. To his right was a huge flatscreen TV hooked up to a half-dozen gaming consoles, current and retro. To his left were several bookshelves packed with manga and steamy-looking romantasy books. Behind him, above a navy blue couch covered in more empty Red Bulls and crumpled-up classwork, two huge posters of Mount Lady from My Hero Academia and D.Va from Overwatch loomed like giant billboards. Putting all of this together, it didn't take a genius to figure out that he had woken up in House Minerva—the sorority known to everyone else at Ventus as the "Nerd House."

 

If the jocks in House Diana were the strongest girls on campus, and the e-girls in Fortuna were the hottest, the nerds in Minerva were quite easily the smartest. They dominated every serious field of study, boasted some of the school's best and brightest alumni, and, as a direct result of their relentless course loads, were also frequently some of the slobbiest and least sexually active young women around. Most spent all their waking hours either obsessively cramming for classes or immersing themselves in their favorite games and anime, leaving little time for things like dating, partying, or good personal hygiene. In other words, despite their firmly established place in Ventus's top tier of well-funded, prestigious sororities, the majority of the house's undergrads were far from traditional collegiate popular girls. While they weren't nearly as bad as the straight-up femcels in House Proserpina, the general consensus was that they didn't get out much.

 

Realizing where he was, the freshly-shrunken freshman couldn't help feeling a little relieved. If he had any shot of finding a way back to normal, it would probably start with one of Minerva's many certified brainiacs—and in here, he didn't have to worry about overbearing jocks, kooky goths, bratty e-girls or fetid gooners. The only question now was whether to try venturing into the hall or stay put.

 

Fortunately, or unfortunately, before he could spend any more time trying to game the whole situation out, he heard a door opening on the other side of the room—and when he turned around, he couldn't help grimacing.

 

"Oh, fuck," he whispered, staring up at the dark-skinned amazon in the doorway with a mix of awe and terror. Between her statuesque figure, striking good looks and characteristically severe demeanor, there was no mistaking her for anyone else. This was Veronica Maxwell—the dorm mother of House Minerva and the single biggest hard-ass at Ventus.

 

Wearing her usual tight white button-up, equally tight black pleated skirt, stockings and pumps, the 6'4", 300-pound 32-year-old Black woman looked like nothing short of a goddess. Every inch of her voluptuous body radiated raw feminine power, and her clothing did very little to hide it. As she stepped into the room, curves jiggling enticingly with every step, she scanned the space with practiced precision—and when she locked onto the three-inch-tall young man on the coffee table, she scowled.

 

"Well, well, well," she said, adjusting her glasses. "What do we have here?"

 

It didn't sound like a joke. It sounded like the first line of a report.

 

"Uh... hi!" Forcing a smile, Max offered a half-hearted wave. "V-Veronica, right? My name's Max. We met at the STEM info session a couple of weeks ago?"

 

"Max?" For a moment, Veronica seemed to hesitate. Then her face hardened. "Ah, yes. You were the one who couldn't stop staring at my chest. And now you're doing it again."

 

"W-what?!" Max shook his head, already feeling sweat forming on his neck. The angle was indefensible: her standing over the table, the white shirt fighting a losing war across her chest, him naked and three inches tall and looking up because there was no other direction. "N-no! I mean—"

 

"Save your breath," said Veronica, stepping up to the table. Each step sent a dull shock through the plywood. "Are you aware that entering this dormitory without a female chaperone as a male student is an offense punishable by expulsion? To say nothing of your... dress code violations."

 

"Y-yes," said Max, remembering his nakedness and cupping both hands over his groin. It did not help. Her shadow had already eaten him. "The thing is, I can't remember anything about how I got here. I just woke up like this."

 

"You 'just woke up like this.'" Veronica's scowl deepened. "You really expect me to believe that?"

 

"It's true!" Max implored, slowly backing away. The coffee table's finish stretched out around him like a polished parking lot. A pencil nearby was the size of a fallen tree. "There was a party. My roommate got me in. I blacked out. That's all I've got. H-hang on, what are you... whoa—"

 

By the time he realized he'd reached the edge of the coffee table, she was upon him—stooping down and snatching him up in her hand.

 

For Max, the experience of being carried by another human being was deeply surreal—especially this specific human being. Her palm was hot and faintly damp. The lines of her skin were shallow canyons. She did not squeeze enough to break him. She squeezed enough to end the conversation about whether he was going to run. When her fingers closed, it wasn't a grab so much as a decision: he fit in the gap between them, and that was the end of his opinion about where he went next.

 

The smell of her arrived with the heat. Clean cotton. Warm skin. A workday already living in the shirt. Perfume applied that morning and losing to it. Under that, something denser. Body. Not filthy. Not fresh. A grown woman who had been awake for hours and did not waste time reapplying the idea of herself.

 

"You," said Veronica, turning and strolling out of the common room, "are coming with me."

 

"W-wait!! Please!" Squirming against her grasp, Max had no luck hiding the fear in his voice. The hallway unrolled under her pumps in lurches. A door number passed at the height of a billboard. Carpet fibers stood up like a badly mown field. "This isn't my fault; you've got to believe me!"

 

Already halfway down the hall, Veronica shook her head. "I told you to save your breath." Then, because the chemist in her would not leave it alone: "You can spend it explaining who poured your drinks. After I have you somewhere I can measure you."

 

"P-please!" Max stammered. The drop to the carpet looked fatal. Her hand was the only climate he had. "I'll do anything!"

 

That got her to glance down.

 

It was brief. It was not kind. Something moved behind the glasses anyway—a flare she shut down so fast he almost missed it. When she spoke again, her voice had gone a half-step lower. She cleared it as if it had been a cough.

 

"That's what I'm counting on."

 

They passed closed doors, a bulletin board the size of a highway sign, a laundry smell that was all detergent and unwashed hoodies. Somewhere a kettle clicked. House Minerva was awake and ordinary and completely unaware that its dorm mother had a naked freshman in her fist.

 

She stopped at a door near the end of the hall and put her shoulder to the wood.

 

"Do not scream," she said, still in the faculty voice. "If someone else finds you, I stop being the person who can control what happens next. Do you understand me?"

 

Max swallowed against the salt of her palm. He could have made a sound. The hallway still had that kettle in it. He did not. "Y-yes."

 

"Good."

 

The lock turned. The click went through him like a dropped gavel.

 

She set him on the desk blotter instead of the bed.

 

"Don't move."

 

Max didn't. He couldn't have gotten far anyway. From the blotter, her room was a museum arranged by someone who had stopped pretending she didn't have a type.

 

The walls were covered in posters featuring giant, voluptuous anime women dominating tiny, scrawny men. Her desk was stacked with smutty books and comics with titles like My Shrunken Lover and Giant Girls, Tiny Guys, Vol. 2. The nightstand by her bed hosted a sprawling collection of sex toys—many of which appeared to be molded in the shape of doll-sized men in a variety of subservient-looking positions. Max's stomach dropped in a way that had nothing to do with the hangover. He knew those titles. Not all of them. Enough of them. Enough that the shame arrived with a nasty little spark of recognition, like getting caught in a tab he had sworn he was only "curious" about.

 

Veronica followed his eyeline and did not explain the walls.

 

She took out her phone.

 

The first photo was of him beside a ruler she pulled from the drawer, the metal edge cold against his arm. The second was a three-quarter turn she ordered with two fingers. The third was his face. She named the files in an undertone, almost to herself.

 

"Subject M. Calhoun, Max. Live. Unprecedented."

 

"S-subject?" Max tried to fold in on himself without looking like he was hiding. "Veronica, I— I really don't know how I got like this. There was a party. Zeke said we were invited. I blacked out. I woke up on the table. That's all I've got."

 

"Mm." She opened a hardcover notebook already waiting under a stack of problem sets, flipped to a clean page, and wrote while she talked. The pen looked like a fence post. "Last clear memory."

 

"Leaving the unaffiliated dorm. After... a lot of drinks."

 

"Who handed you a cup you didn't pour."

 

"I don't— there were a lot of people. Girls. I think Juno was there? Or people who dressed like it. I wasn't keeping score."

 

"Aftertaste."

 

Max swallowed. The stale beer was still there. Under it, something metallic and sweet he hadn't wanted to name. "Yeah. Something. I thought it was just mixers."

 

Veronica's mouth tightened. Not a scowl this time. Interest, filed and dangerous. She adjusted her glasses and looked at him over the rims the way she looked at a result that refused to match the answer key.

 

"There are a few ways this could have happened," she said. "Serums. Pills. Powders. Most of the documented campus variants are sloppy. Unstable. They don't leave a subject intact and talking on a coffee table twelve hours later." She tapped the ruler once against the desk, a small precise sound. "This looks custom. If it is, I want the formula. If it isn't, I want to know which idiot is cooking in my building."

 

"So there's a way to undo this?" Again Max forced a smile, because it was the only tool he had that had ever worked on adults. "T-that's great. I mean— if anyone could figure it out, it's—"

 

"Don't get ahead of yourself." She said it without heat, which was worse. "You are an unauthorized male in a house dorm. That is still a process. I can write it up as a research incident. I can write it up as misconduct. I can walk you down to Student Conduct in a specimen jar and let them decide whether you're a student or a biohazard." A pause, just long enough for him to imagine the jar. "Dorm mother's discretion."

 

Max's hands were still useless over nothing. "I didn't sneak in. I swear. I wouldn't even know how to sneak in like this."

 

"I believe that you are an idiot," Veronica said. "I have not decided whether you are a liar."

 

She leaned in to check his pupils with a penlight. The beam was a white sun. Her breath arrived first: coffee, toothpaste, and under that the same warm clean-sweat note her clothes had been containing all morning. Up close she was geometry. The swell of her chest under the tight white shirt filled the world to either side of the light. He tried not to stare and failed in the exact way she had already accused him of, and something in her throat moved like she'd noticed and filed that too.

 

"Hold still."

 

He held still. She turned his head with a fingertip on his temple, then wrote alert, oriented, no obvious trauma, extreme allometric reduction ~1:24, skin intact. Her handwriting was viciously neat.

 

When she set the pen down, her nipples had gone tight against the shirt. She did not comment on it. She did not unbutton anything. She stood there breathing a little too carefully, a thirty-two-year-old chemist in house-mother clothes, looking at the first live tiny she had ever seen in a room that had been rehearsing this moment in paper and plastic for years.

 

"You know," she said, and her voice had dropped half a register before she caught it and put the professional edge back on, "you're the first shrunken guy I've ever seen in real life."

 

"Oh. R-really?" The warmth of her breath still reached him on the blotter. Max gulped. "S-so you know how I ended up like this?"

 

"I know the categories." She capped the pen. "I do not yet know you."