Chapter 1: Introduction
The first thing Jimmy noticed was the silence.
Not true silence—there was a low, panicked hum of voices, the distant wail of sirens, the rustle of fabric like sails in a wind—but the absence of the deep, bass-line rumble of male voices. The city street he knew had been replaced by a warped carnival.
He stood on his own front lawn, the grass tickling his ankles. He’d torn the seams of his sweatpants just stepping out the door. Everything was wrong. The houses across the street seemed smaller, their doors like dollhouse entries. And the people…
Women. Everywhere. They moved like ancient goddesses, towering seven, eight, even nine feet tall. They wore flowing dresses and cinched corsets that strained over dramatically curving hips and frankly enormous busts. Their shadows stretched long and dark across the asphalt. Between their legs, like ants scurrying through a forest of sequined ankles, were the men. Tiny. Shrunken to the size of children, their voices piping up in frightened squeaks.
Jimmy looked down at his own hands. They were huge, veined, capable of palming a basketball with ease. His body was a landscape of dense, chiseled muscle, a statue carved from flesh and bone. He felt the cool morning air on skin that was now stretched over a frame nearly eight feet tall. A profound, dizzying bewilderment held him still.
“Jimmy.”
The voice came from above him, a familiar tone now resonant and deeper. He turned.
Elena stood on the porch, which groaned under her weight. She had to duck slightly to clear the doorway. Her nightgown was a lost cause, stretched transparently over curves that defied logic. Her breasts, heavy and full, were easily the size of beach balls, straining against the thin cotton. Her hips and ass had widened into a powerful, lush shape that made the simple act of standing seem like a monumental display of architecture. Her long dark hair cascaded over shoulders that were now broad and strong. Her brown eyes, the same intelligent, kind eyes he loved, were wide with shock and fear.
“What is this?” she whispered, her voice a trembling alto. “What happened to us?”
“I don’t know,” Jimmy said, his own voice a baritone rumble that felt strange in his chest. “You’re… you’re huge.”
“You’re bigger,” she countered, a faint, hysterical laugh bubbling up. “Look at you. You’re the only… Jimmy, every other man is…”
She gestured helplessly at the street. A tiny man in a business suit was shouting up at a towering woman in a pencil skirt, his words incomprehensible from this distance. The woman sighed, a sound like a gust of wind, and bent down with a slight wince of her back, scooping him up with two hands and placing him on her shoulder like a parrot.
“This is insane,” Jimmy breathed.
The attention started slowly, then all at once.
A curtain twitched in a house down the block. Then another. A giantess watering her flowers straightened up, her hand pausing, the hose pouring water onto the sidewalk. Her eyes locked onto Jimmy. They traveled the sheer, impossible scale of him, from his broad shoulders down the tapered V of his torso to his legs, like tree trunks. Her mouth fell open.
Elena moved quickly, her steps causing the porch boards to protest. She came to his side, placing a protective hand—a hand now as large as his head—on his bicep. The gesture was meant to be possessive, but it only framed him, presented him.
“Don’t stare,” Elena hissed at the neighbor, but her voice didn’t carry.
More faces appeared. Women of all ages, all now statuesque and voluptuous, clustered at gates and windows. A murmur spread, a wave of whispers that sounded like leaves rustling in a storm. The hunger in their gazes was a physical thing. It wasn’t just curiosity. It was a raw, desperate need that made Jimmy’s skin prickle.
A group of three women began to approach. They moved with a new, careful gravity, their hips swaying. The one in the lead was the most striking. She was tall, even for this new world, with a severe, elegant frame. Platinum blonde hair was pulled into a tight bun. Sharp gray eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses scanned Jimmy with a precision that felt more invasive than the others’ awe. She wore a lab coat, tailored to fit her new proportions.
She stopped a few yards away, her two companions hanging back, their eyes devouring Jimmy.
“Fascinating,” the blonde woman said. Her voice was cool, clinical, a scalpel of sound. “Absolute outlier. Phenomenal.”
“Who are you?” Jimmy asked, his arm tightening instinctively. Elena’s grip on him tightened in response.
“Dr. Lorelei Vance. Virologist and geneticist. I’ve been surveying the… population adjustments in this sector.” Her eyes never left him. They cataloged every detail, from the auburn stubble on his jaw to the way his sweatpants hung. “May I ask your name?”
“Jimmy. This is Elena, my girlfriend.”
Dr. Vance’s gaze flickered to Elena for a microsecond, acknowledging her as one might a piece of furniture, before snapping back to Jimmy. “Jimmy. You are unique. Do you understand that? In all my observations, you are the only adult male whose growth paradigm inverted. The only one who grew.”
A cold knot formed in Jimmy’s stomach. “The only one?”
“Globally, as far as I can ascertain from fragmented networks. The virus, for lack of a better term, had a near-universal gynotropic growth effect and an androtypical shrinking effect. Except in you.” She took a step closer. Elena stiffened. “Your genetic material is now the most valuable commodity on Earth. You are the last alpha male. A prototype. Perhaps the future.”
The words hung in the air, heavy and absurd. The last alpha male. Jimmy saw the way the other women behind Vance leaned forward, hanging on every word, their eyes glowing with a possessive light.
“What do you want?” Elena demanded, her voice shaking with something more than fear now. Jealousy.
“I want to understand,” Dr. Vance said, her clinical tone softening by a single, calculated degree. A smile, thin and professional, touched her lips. It didn’t reach her eyes. “I have a secured laboratory. I can run tests. Blood, tissue, cognitive. For your own safety, Jimmy. The world is… unstable. There are many who would simply take what you are, with no thought for study or preservation.”
“He’s not a specimen,” Elena snapped.
“Everyone is now,” Vance replied coolly. “But he is the master specimen. Come with me. Let me help you understand what you’ve become. What you mean.”
Jimmy looked from Vance’s intense, analytical face to Elena’s fearful, possessive one. He looked down the street, at the towering women now edging closer, their expressions a mixture of worship and covetousness. He saw a tiny man weeping on the curb, ignored by the giants around him.
The weight of his new body, of the stares, of the term “the last alpha male,” settled on him. It was too big, too strange. But in Vance’s offer, there was a thread of logic. Understanding. A way out of this terrifying, open circus.
He nodded slowly, the motion feeling monumental.
“Just some tests,” he said, to Elena, to himself.
Dr. Lorelei Vance’s smile widened, finally reaching her sharp gray eyes. It was a smile of pure, undisguised possession. “Excellent,” she said, turning to lead the way. “The future starts today.”