Three days later, Katy was sitting in the bright and colorful waiting room at the Playdate Factory. Sara sat beside her, flipping through the pages of one of her favorite books. Katy looked over at her daughter, in her cute yellow dress and pink pants, and could not help but smile. She was nervous about the consultation, but in an odd way, having Sara with her was calming to an extent.

She had seen many other people come in: women, men, sometimes both, leading their excited children to the check-in counter where they would then be directed to the same waiting area. One by one they had all gone, lead off into the facility by various employees until Katy and her daughter were the only ones left. Katy checked the time on her phone to decide whether she should say something to the receptionist.

Almost on cue, one of the doors opened and a tall, brown-haired woman appeared. She was dressed very professionally with a button-up shirt and pencil skirt, and she wore an open white lab coat.

"Ms. Smalls?" She asked, smiling warmly as she approached.

"Yes, that's me!" Katy quickly answered, getting to her feet.

The woman offered her hand, which Katy briefly shook.

"I'm Doctor Davis, and I'll be giving you your consultation today."

She turned and kneeled down to Sara's eye level.

"And you must be Sara, right?" She asked with a smile.

Sara looked up from her book and couldn't help but smile back.

"Uh huh," the little girl responded.

Dr. Davis lowered her voice to an almost conspiratorial whisper.

"Would you like to come and see our playroom? It's really cool!"

Sara's eyes lit up. “Yea!" She shouted, jumping off her seat.

Dr. Davis chuckled and lead the pair through the door and down a couple of hallways. The halls were brightly colored just like the waiting room, and were lined with doors, each of which had card readers installed on them. The door cards were printed with the names of the rooms beyond, Katy guessed, with names like 'Preparation A' or 'Playroom C.' They stopped in front of a room labelled 'Consult,' and their guide unlocked the door with her ID card, pushing it open to reveal the room beyond.

It was a small room, but the cute zoo-animal wallpaper and piles of toys and activities made it immediately apparent that this was a room intended for a child's play. Sara's eyes lit up immediately and she gripped her mom's arm tightly with anticipation.

"Do you want to go play?" Dr. Davis said, closing the door behind them.

"Yea!" Sara said, taking off immediately. Soon she was rummaging through a drawer and extracting toys of various varieties. Katy smiled, her heart lifting to see her little girl so happy that she almost forgot the other woman was in the room until Dr. Davis leaned over and said quietly in her ear:

"If you'll follow me, we can begin the consultation. This room is locked, so she will be perfectly safe. We can watch her on the monitors in the next room while we talk."

Katy nodded, following Dr. Davis to the back of the area where there were 2 other doors. She turned back a moment to her daughter:

"Mommy has to go talk to the nice lady a little, sweetie. You'll be okay here?"

"Yes Momma!" Sara shouted back, not even looking up from her play. Katy breathed in deep and followed the other woman through the door on the left.

The room they entered was much like a physician's office: there was a desk and chairs, an examination table, counters with various implements on them, and a couple locked cabinets in the back with biohazard signs. Along one wall were a few monitors, and Katy could see her daughter playing in the room next door. Besides the door that the women had entered through, one other door lay near the back.

"Please, have a seat," Dr. Davis said, motioning to one of the seats opposite the desk while she, herself, took the main seat next to the computer. Katy obliged as the Doctor typed in her login credentials.

"First of all, Katherine, welcome! I'm glad you've chosen to come for a free consultation. What we will be discussing today may seem strange or odd to you, but be assured that I am here to guide you through the process and answer any questions you may have."

She turned to Katy and grinned.

"So, let me start with the biggest one: yes, we can actually make you the same size as your daughter. It's a proprietary process that has gone through both clinical and field trials and has been performed hundreds of times on happy clients. The procedure only requires a small injection before play can begin. Are there any questions?”

Katy had a million questions buzzing in her mind, but she had a difficult time selecting just one, so she shook her head.

Dr. Davis smiled and turned to the computer.

“First, we’ll need some basic information. Name?”

“Katherine Smalls,” Kathy replied.

“Age?”

“Thirty.”

It went on like that for a while. Many questions were the type you’d find at a physician’s office: Blood type, allergies, if she was on any prescription drugs. Until...

“Here’s an important one,” Dr. Davis said, stopping and shooting Katy a serious look.

“I need you to listen very carefully and think before you answer. Have you ever had any procedure that inserted a foreign object into your body? Examples: do you have a fake hip? Are there any bolts or rods inside you for whatever reason? Have you ever had a tooth post or teeth filling done with the old, non-organic material?”

Katy’s mind wandered, thinking back to the years of her life. Fortunately, she had always been in good health, even in the dental department.

“No,” she replied after a time.

Dr. Davis smiled and input a few more things into the computer. After a few moments she turned.

“Congratulations, you are approved as a potential client for our services. If you like, I can help you to book your first session right now.”

Katy looked at the woman. This was all happening so quickly: the visit to the facility, the strange questions, and now already on to scheduling. She was still unsure of the whole thing. It still seemed so foreign, and even a bit scary. She and her daughter had always gotten along just fine...did she really need to shrink? She could just walk out right now and take Sara for ice cream and to play at the park and just leave all this strangeness behind. But one thing tugged at her mind, and she knew she had to voice it.

“Does it really work?” she found herself asking the woman before her.

Dr. Davis smirked. “I told you, with a single injection we can indeed make you smaller for a time, matching your final height to that of your…”

“No,” Katy interrupted, looking the woman straight in the eyes. “Sorry, I meant, you know...like the commercial…the woman was so happy. Does it really work that way? Is it really like no other experience?”

“Ah,” the Doctor said, smiling more warmly and meeting Katy’s gaze. “I have been working here for months, and before that I was a child psychologist. I can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt that no matter how close you are to you child, there will always be a wall between you: that of parent and child. No matter how much you may try to be your child’s friend, this invisible wall will always maintain a sense of order in the relationship. And the largest component of that wall is size. As an adult, you always have dominance over your child, no matter what, strictly due to size.”

She shifted in her seat. “This procedure knocks down that wall and allows you to experience a closeness that has never before been humanly possible. People come to me and say, ‘Stephanie...there is nothing like it,’ all the time. And the fact that over 90% of clients return for a second session should speak for itself.”

Katy took it all in, processing. She wanted to believe it, wanted to get on board; after all, it was all for Sara’s benefit, right? Why was she so scared?

Doctor Davis eyed her carefully.

“Why did you come here today?”

Katy looked at the Doctor. Something about her warm demeanor made Katy want to trust her, and so with a sigh, Katy went into it: how she works late often and doesn’t always have as much time as she’d like to spend with Sara, how she’s had to use her nanny more and more often even though she didn’t want to, about how she sometimes felt guilty and confused about her complicated, nested rolls as both mother and breadwinner. Doctor Davis listened intently, and when Katy was finished, she rapped her nails on the counter in contemplation.

“Listen,” she said after a few moments. “I don’t have another appointment after this. How would you like a free demonstration?”

Katy looked at her inquisitively. “What do you mean by that?”

Dr. Davis smiled. “I can administer the treatment to you and allow for a short, twenty minute playtime, free of charge. Right now.”

Katy was taken aback. It had been clearly explained when she called that this meeting was only to consult with an on-staff doctor to determine eligibility and that she would need to schedule a session for the future. And to save on the cost, which was not cheap, was almost too good to be true. But she was still unsure, and still scared...yet….

“Yes, okay.” Katy said, forcing herself to take the plunge, feeling her face flush.

Dr. Davis nodded.

“Then follow me to the other side of the room, Ms. Smalls. Your playdate awaits.”