Let me give you a hypothetical: What if…people one day started to shrink?

Seriously, consider that for a moment. How would they shrink? Who would be shrunken and who wouldn’t? How many are shrunken? How many are not shrunken, if any? What would their relationship be; that is, if there was any in the first place? How would this affect our culture, our governments, our way of life? Think on that for a moment, I can wait.

…Done? I hope so. I’m sure as hell not waiting anymore.

I don’t really need to ask what sort of stuff crossed your mind; it’s obvious really. Naturally those who wouldn’t shrink would take things over and preserve our way of life. Shrinking is an epidemic sure, but changing our way of life would take something a bit more cataclysmic than that. But that still leaves the question about what to do with the shrunken people.

I could probably toy around with letting you think some more on it but if it wasn’t already clear I’m not exactly a patient guy so I’ll skip a few steps if you don’t mind. Hypothetically, what if all the people who shrank were bad? All those who were tiny were either bad or immoral people and the ones large and in charge would be the kind, pure-hearted types.

Surprised? I would be. This little detail flips the whole thing on its head doesn’t it? Suddenly these afflicted people who looked like victims suddenly got a little less sympathetic huh? It’s a little hard to feel sympathy if something like this happened to a bad person.

Hmm… Maybe I should elaborate more instead of just saying bad. Let’s see…think of these shrunken victims as all the negative people in society. IE: Criminals, Corrupt Officials, Bullies…You know, stuff like that. And imagine their size in relation to how bad they really are. After all, a school yard bully may be a real pain in the ass but he has nothing on a serial killer. No reason they should be punished the same.

In this instance let’s say the bully shrank to about….Oh let’s say two feet tall. Still human-sized, albeit pretty short. If that was the case then the serial killer would be somewhere around the size of a grain of rice. Kind of a big difference isn’t there?

Now, with this in mind, let’s explore this hypothetical a bit. All the good people are in charge and all the bad people are literally helpless to do anything. What then?

Well first things would be hectic right? No one knows what happened and suddenly people are shrinking. There’s fear, panic, maybe even some hysteria. Then some time passes and people start to notice the patterns, like how an entire small town of nice people was untouched while an entire prison was shrunken. Little oddities like that.

Once people start putting the pieces together and calm down they then need to rebuild don’t they? They start to fill in the gaps left by all the shrunken people and, what do you know, suddenly things are running a lot more smoothly. Take out the elements of corruption and immorality and surprisingly enough things could go better than you hope. Society not only bounces back but it’s now better than ever.

Ah but what about our shrunken victims hmm? Everything’s back on track but it wouldn’t do for our kind-hearted giants to leave them to fend for themselves. But they are bad people so what to do? Prison could hypothetically work but many of these shrunken people weren’t incarcerated. Putting them in prison just for having the misfortune of being immoral enough to shrink would just be inhumane. Perhaps a settlement? Give them their own little city in someone’s backyard? An easy solution, but something about a town full of immoral people just seems like a bad idea to me.

Any ideas on your end? I already know how things play out but I’m curious what you come up with.

It’s definitely a complicated problem, probably even moreso since both sides are so clearly defined as black and white. Though the solution people finally arrived at was actually pretty simple: Simple coexistence.

Now, obviously both sides need to coexist on some level. What I mean is that people of different sizes start living together and helping each other out. Normal-sized people live out their normal-sized lives and take care of those shrunken and in return the shrunken ones contribute in any way they can. If they’re smart then maybe they can be teachers or accountants. If they’re skilled perhaps they could put their craft to use on a much smaller level. And if all else fails you could be put to work doing manual labor.

But what kind of labor?

Now that’s an easy one. Since their size prohibits most actual labor duties then shouldn’t their job be to help out whoever’s helping to care for them in any way they can? This can range from any number of things, from fetching little tools to helping clean hard to get areas to even something as simple as a massage. 

This should sound a little familiar, it’s basically servitude. If you don’t have any useful skills as a shrunken person then you were just expected to work as a slave. You work and in return you are given a place to rest and food to eat. Oh, but it isn’t enslavement because these people are good, and the tiny people are bad. They only have themselves to blame so maybe it’s more like…community service.

That right there is the mindset of the regular people in this situation. Because these people are bad and I am good this makes it okay.

Kind of sick right? But that’s just how it is. It’s far from a perfect system but in time it’ll get honed into what’ll end up being the new standards of living. The next few generations of children will grow up alongside people of mixed sizes and their actions will help shape things up for the future.

By now it’s probably obvious but I’ll point it out anyway. This isn’t a hypothetical. What I just gave you was a rushed, probably bastardized, summary of a few years when people first began to shrink. And the next generation bit I mentioned a moment ago? I’m a part of that. I’m a child born in this world I described.

When it’s all you know you really don’t think much of it. I mean, if you have the luxury of not shrinking then it really is no concern to you whether or not it’s a good thing. If it doesn’t affect you why worry right? So long as you were a good person all is well. If you ever became bad then the world would punish you. Aside from a few threats about how I’d be an ant if I ever acted up I had a pretty normal childhood. In fact it was pretty fucking great. I mean, it wasn’t a perfect world, but it was pretty nice.

But that’s just from me as a normal-sized person. The general consensus is that the smaller you are the worse of a person you are inside. True or not that’s accepted as fact. As a general rule, people weren’t too friendly to someone under six inches tall. Cordial sure, but they never seemed particularly fond of them. But I guess that’s the prejudice that’s born when size becomes a symbol of morality. Though I’ll be damned if it didn’t seem skewed in some ways. I know some really swell guys who one day woke up a foot tall and on the flipside I know some real pieces of work who are over six-feet tall. Maybe you can be a really crappy person but be good at heart or something? Who knows.

Actually, that phrase really does describe a lot of this now that I think about it. Why did people shrink? Who knows? Why does it only seem to affect based on your general morality? Who knows? Is it okay to act based on that idea? Who. Knows.

Now then, let me give you another hypothetical. In this world, what if a person shrank who wasn’t bad? What then? For that person, I can’t really imagine it would go well. No matter what people thought of them beforehand, the social stigma of size alone would override damn-near anything this person could say after they shrank. He would be shafted into the lower rungs of society on the assumption he was a shitty person and likely end up a servant for some giant person.

Kind of a scary thought right? Well let’s keep going. What if this person had a really good life? What if this person was well-regarded and had a bright future ahead of them? What if you knew them beforehand?

What if…It was me?

I should probably start with…Ah! I’m sorry. How rude of me. I started rambling but I never properly introduced myself did I? My name is Rob, and this is the story of how I became my bestfriend’s pet.

Actually, before I begin I should probably tell you some stuff about me so you can have a little bit of clarity. My full name is Robert Alexander Lindley, though I’d really prefer you to think of me as Rob. I’m a twenty-year old in his second year at college, studying for a film degree. I was a strapping young man, five-foot ten inches tall. Now I’m…well you’ll see. I also have a ton of hobbies totally irrelevant to the story so we won’t go over those.

Honestly, you really don’t need to know a lot about me for this. You probably have a decent idea of how I am already anyway. Who you do need to know though, are these people: Alicia, Kristen, Jaz, and Kari. They’ll be the ones I mention the most so learn the names, and to be safe I should probably say a bit about them too shouldn’t I?

Well first things first, Alicia is my Mom. For as long as I could remember it was me and her. Father’s not in the picture, not really a big deal, doesn’t bother me, neither should you. She’s a fairly young woman, she had me when she was nineteen so right now she still isn’t even forty. This actually gets awkward for me to think about because she’s this young some of my friends have uh…made it clear they find her attractive if you catch my meaning. I mean, she’s a nice-looking woman sure. If you’re into slightly older, curvy blondes with a fondness for black clothes...Actually, this is starting to feel awkward, let’s move on.

Kristen, Jaz, and Kari are all friends of mine. I’m kinda a girly guy so surprise surprise most of my friends are girls. Not all of them, just the relevant ones.

Guess I’ll start with Kristen. She’s a childhood friend of mine who I reconnected with back in middle-school. Really sweet girl, tall too, like…6”5” or something. Glasses, long brown hair, imagine one of those cute nerdy girl types and you can kinda get the idea. She's always been really reserved. Kind of a go with the flow person but every once in a while she can surprise you. 

Then there’s Jaz. Jaz was my best friend through High School and we managed to make it to college together. You ever meet a short, witty black girl? Then you’ve probably met Jaz. Great person but boy does she have a sharp tongue. That aside she’s a short, peppy, tomboyish, black girl. What more could I say? Well...I guess I could mention she's kind of...blessed in the chest area. Mayhaps she has a fondness for shorts and tight tops? Just throwing it out there

Lastly there’s Kari, my girlfriend at the time. She’s one of the bubbly, small white girl types, the kind who gets called cute more than beautiful if you catch my drift. Though that’s something I really like about her. Shoulder-length dark hair, short, loves skirts and is a pretty big nerd at heart (If you couldn’t tell by now my social circle leaned towards the geekier side of things). She looks deceptively young; like, she looks 16 but she's 23. Sometimes she rocks glasses other times contacts. Into a lot more stuff than you'd ever think too, you'll see what I mean.

Now with all that said I’ve just about covered all the major cast members. There are a few others but ah…we’ll get to that eventually. For now I bet you’re wondering which of those three I listed I ultimately end up serving. After all, all three of them sound like my “bestfriend” don’t they? I could be a nice guy and tell you but…nah. You can find that out when I get to it.

Anyway, enough beating around the bush. Story time!

It all started a year ago…Wow...Hard to believe a year ago I was normal-sized…Yeesh, time flies. The details are a bit fuzzy but I remember heading to school like it was any other day. I headed to my art history class and took a test, then returning to my general hangout area around campus while debating on going to my next class. If memory serves it was me, Jaz, and Kristen with everyone else out in classes. My memory may be a little fuzzy but I think it went something like this:

“Ugh...My class starts in fifteen minutes…” An audible groan came from my mouth as I mindlessly shifted through tabs on my computer.

“If it bothers you so much why’d you take the class?” Jaz mumbled, eyes locked onto her own laptop.

I sighed, “I needed the credits.”

“Then stop complaining. It could be a lot worse you know.”

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a 3-foot tall student hurrying his shrunken self to class. “Yeah…I know. Still…”

“You really outta appreciate what you have.” Kristen pulled her eyes from a book she was reading.

“What I have isn’t here.” I laid my head on the table.

Jaz chuckled, “That’s kinda pathetic. Anytime Kari’s not here you get all whiny.”

“That’s not true, I-“

“Probably because she keeps him in line.” Kristen smirked.

“God knows someone has to, it’s a miracle he’s not a foot tall or something.”

“Hey. I’m not that bad.”

They both kept ignoring me. “Nah, then he’d keep making excuses about how his legs wouldn’t take him to class.”

“Or he’d spend all day trying to look up Kari’s skirt.”

“You guys are evil.” I sighed, giving up almost immediately. “What did I ever do to you?”

“You started complaining.” Jaz offered a devious smile. I couldn’t see it because she turned her head to read again but I imagined Kristen had a smile too.

The abuse wasn’t new but it always found a way to embarrass me a bit as me and Jaz exchanged our little back and forth with the occasional inputs from Kristen. Time always flew when this happened. So unsurprisingly…

“Shit I’m late!”

“Better hurry, I think you’re getting smaller already Mr. Truant.”

“Not funny.” I hurriedly packed my things and took off running, aware of the small laughs from behind me. Embarrassingly, it was only when I was out of breath and thirty yards away before I remembered that this was a lecture hall class where attendance didn’t matter. Once I recalled that I was all about taking my sweet time.

“Maybe I’ll just cut it for today.” I yawned. After the test that morning I was exhausted. Usually I’m the kind of guy who tries to make it on time to everything but sleepiness has a special way of making you care a lot less about that kind of stuff. Before I knew it I ended up in a nice, secluded spot in the library and was getting cozy on a couch. A single nap never hurt anyone I figured. I could cut class this once. Before I knew it I was falling asleep.

You probably know already but it was around this point when it happened. With my eyes shut and sleep starting to come in my body started to feel strange, like it was heavier. At the time I shrugged it off as some form of exhaustion but looking back, it was definitely me shrinking. I was too tired to notice though, especially since everything on me was shrinking at the same time so nothing seemed off. In a way I guess that was for the best though. I mean, if I had my eyes open I would see everything growing around me. No telling how I would’ve reacted. I guess in that sense it wasn’t so bad. I mean, when I woke up I still freaked the fuck out.

I could probably recap it in detail but it really isn’t important. Just imagine a lot of shock and obscenities and you’re right on the mark. If it was a couple feet or something I wouldn’t have flipped out that much. But this was uh…a little bit more than a few feet.

I shrank so much…I mean, to such a pathetic size it’s hard to imagine I was ever the size of a person. When I woke up, a single cushion on that couch I rested on seemed big enough to fit an entire neighborhood…Or a few.

Remember before when I said someone as immoral as a serial killer would probably shrink to something like a speck? Well that was me. I was now a speck. It would only be later I’d get measured and find out my new height was a whopping two millimeters. But at that moment I was more focused on uh…handling it with grace.

-----

“FUCK! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck! This can’t be happening! This is fucking bullshit. What did I ever fucking do that was wrong?!”

-----

Grace and even elegance I’d say (And yes, that was a direct quote from me when I found out).  That kind of reaction would go on for probably half an hour before I regained enough rationality to realize I needed someone to come get me. Thankfully my phone shrank with me so I sent out a few texts to see who was still on campus. The text didn’t mention my size situation, I still didn’t have it in me to type it out. I just said I really needed someone to come get me. This all happened at about four in the afternoon so I knew some people were heading home and others came from  and I still remember clearly what came next.

First I got a text from Kari saying she had work and left early. Almost immediately after I got one from Jaz saying she was in class. Then came Kristen’s text.

“I’m on my way.”

It took about fifteen or twenty minutes but soon Kristen managed to find where I texted her. Since I may have neglected to mention my size she walked up and saw what looked like my bag and the place I described. She had no idea I was right in front of her, staring.

Wow, I just realized how creepy that sounded. Maybe awe-struck is the better word to use here. I’d never seen a giant person before so seeing one of my closest friends like that was more than a little jarring. She was just…massive. I can’t even put it into words. She couldn’t have been more than a few feet away but to me it was miles and miles away where she stood as this towering figure. To be honestly it didn’t even feel like I was looking at a person. I don’t even know how to describe it. She was just…big.

Maybe this’ll help. I couldn’t even see her face. If I looked up all I got was her chin and a bit of her nose. Imagine setting down a camera pointed straight up at you by your feet. That’s what it looked like. Only I wasn’t at her feet, I was actually quite a ways away.

I think you get the picture now. Anyway, enough of that, back to the story.

Although she was silent I could tell from the look on Kristen’s face that she wondered where I went. Sure enough, she pulled out her phone and I got a text asking what I already figured. When I started to type a reply though, that was right when Kristen decided to sit down. Couldn’t blame her really. It’s not like she knew I was on that couch or that I’d shrunken. For all she knew she was merely taking a breather on an available sofa. Not about to crush her friend under her butt.

If you couldn’t tell based on me telling the story this obviously didn’t happen. Mercifully, she sat on the cushion next to mine. But damn was it scary. The way the cushion just totally caved into her weight and smushed to accommodate her; that could’ve been me. Heck, I was on the next cushion over and her sitting down shook things up enough to make me fall flat on my ass.

That’s why I didn’t waste any time. Before she could lay down or something I called.

It rang twice before she picked up. I know that because her phone was the loudest damn thing I’d ever heard in my life. Kristen answering her phone when she did probably saved me from being deaf.

“Hello?”

“Hey Kristen, it’s Rob.”

“Hey, where are you?” As if I was suddenly nearby she turned to look around. “It sounds like there’s an echo.”

“Uh…” I laughed nervously, “Something like that…Promise me you won’t freak out.”

“Why would I freak out?”

“Promise me.”

My serious tone tipped her off that something was up. I could see her body tense slightly. “I promise.”

“Okay…” I had to take a breath. Saying this aloud would officially confirm everything. “I shrunk.”

Her eyes widened, “You…did…? Huh…” I clearly blindsided her.

“I’m as shocked as you are. You missed my great meltdown a few minutes ago.”

“Aw darn. And here I was hoping for a good show.” She joked, trying to lighten the mood. It was a nice idea, but I wasn’t laughing and neither was she. “So…how small are you?”

“I’m right next to you.”

Kristen turned her head to look at the cushion I was on. “I can’t see you.” Her eyes scanned all over for me.

“I can definitely see you though. I’m near the left-center if that helps you out any.”

Following my instructions, Kristen leaned over and looked directly at where I was. Up close I could see her eyes widen immediately. “Oh my God…”

“You have no idea.”

“How are you so…”

“Small? Beats me. Last I checked I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Nervously she extended a finger towards me. “Think you can you climb on?”

“Thankfully.” I was tiny as hell but I could at least say I was taller than a fingernail…Granted not by very much. I climbed aboard and braced myself as Kristen brought me closer to her face. Once more I found myself reminded just how small I actually was now. Carefully she kept her finger out and brought it just below her face, where all I could see was her enormous mouth wording out “Wow.”

By this point I was starting to adjust to some of the world like this but seeing a person’s face up close was…interesting. It really isn’t flattering, let’s say it like that. But I’ll give Kristen credit. Compared to a bunch of other faces I’d see down the line, she pulled it off really well.

What was probably more intimidating was staring into her eyes. They were two white ovals just piercing me with their gaze. She didn’t mean to of course but just by Kristen looking at me I felt an immediate desire to hide. Unconsciously I touched my own eye. I could fit two fingers on it. I pulled those fingers away and looked at them.  That was the rough size of my eye…Probably close to Kristen’s eyes. Yet they were over twice my size. If two fingers was the size of an eye then I was roughly a third the size of a finger. That comparison was all I could think about as I stared at my hand with growing horror.

“So…what now?” Kristen whispered as lightly as she could.

Her words snapped me out of the trance. “Can you please get me home. After that we can…I don’t know.” I sighed.

“Sure…” Kristen started to move but quickly stopped. “Um…”

“What is it?”

“Where…do I put you…?”

Oh yeah, I didn’t think about that. Where would Kristen put me? She couldn’t exactly drive while carrying me on her nail. The seat would be a bad idea as would pockets. “Maybe your ear?” I shrugged, “I can’t think of anywhere else.”

“It’ll have to do. Hold on.” Once again I braced myself as Kristen brought me to her ear. From there I hopped on down and found a nice little crevice in the outer edge, safe from the disturbingly copious amounts of ear wax filling the place. It got dark further in but from what I saw it just looked like a smooth, tan, cave with a thick, orangish goop caked to almost all walls further in.

“You think you’ll be okay in there?”

I nodded to no one in particular. “Should be.”

I could actually hear Kristen’s body shift into an expression, probably a weak smile knowing her. “Then…I’ll have to hang up now. I won’t be able to hear you when I do.”

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. This whole time our phones let us communicate but she couldn’t just hold it up to her ear until she got me home. I didn’t think about that. In other words, we couldn’t talk during the drive. Unless…

I covered my phone with my hand, shouting as loudly as I could. “Can you still hear me?”

No response. Maybe if I was deeper in her ear she could hear me but that’d involve swimming in pools of ear wax. No thanks. “I’ll be fine. If I really need you I’ll just call again.”

“Okay…Bye…”

“Why you saying bye? I’m right here with you.” I forced a laugh.

“True. I’ll chat with you in a bit then.”

“Til then.” I hung up and let out the sigh I’d been holding in.

The next half an hour or so was pretty uneventful. Kristen hurried to her car and started driving towards my place while I rested in her ear. I couldn’t talk to her. I couldn’t explore without risking getting thrown out. Heck, I wasn’t even able to stare longingly at the world outside. Nope, it was just me and my thoughts.

I honestly can’t explain everything that ran through my head at that time. I mean, I shrank after all. Once I was stuck with nobody but myself the shock started to settle back in and my thoughts started running wild. Ever have a moment where something major happens and for a while you just can’t stop thinking? Same thing. I needed a distraction. My first instinct was to try and find someone to talk with so I pulled out my phone to scroll through my contacts.

“Damn.” My phone was nearly dead. It would probably manage one or two more calls before dying on me. Meaning if I called someone I’d probably be unable to communicate with Kristen later when I’d need it. “God dammit, useless fucking thing.”

For a moment I had the urge to toss my phone but I quickly ignored it. Probably wouldn’t find it again. Really I should’ve been grateful it even worked. Phones nowadays were made with the idea in mind that someone might shrink on the spot. Beforehand they were damn near useless if you shrank. I knew that and was grateful I just…I really wanted to talk to someone. Despite being inside my friend’s ear I’d never felt lonelier.

I could go on detailing my increasingly depressive thoughts but really it all just amounted to the fact that my life was now significantly different, and not in a good way. By the time I finally arrived home all I could feel in my chest was this overwhelming dread. Kristen gently removed me from her ear and began to walk towards my home. All I could think about was how the second I went through those doors everyone will know what had happened to me. What would they do? What would happen to me? Would I have to quit school? Would I have to move out and work for some stranger? I racked my brain trying to remember shrinking cases and how they turned out. Despite seeing them near-constantly I never paid them any mind and as a result I now had no idea what to expect.

If I had it my way I’d have probably stood in front of my own door debating on knocking for who knows how long. Kristen on the other hand was much quicker to it. I jumped at the sound of my own door being knocked on. My heart felt like it was going to explode. For the first time in I couldn’t tell you how long I could feel myself shaking.

As if she could sense my worries, I heard Kristen’s voice gently whisper to me. “Don’t worry, it’ll be okay Rob…” I could feel the falseness in her words from a mile away but it still managed to calm me down.

After a couple knocks I could hear loud booms coming from inside the building. After a second I realized these were footsteps. They stopped just on the other end of the door and opened up.

“Hey Kristen, what brings you down here?” My Mom cheerfully answered the door.

“Um…Is it okay if I come in Misses Lindley?”

Mom must’ve picked up on her mood; I heard the cheeriness leave her voice immediately. “Sure, come on in.” Awkwardly Kristen entered and stood in the living room, just as unsure of what to do as I was. “It looks like something’s bothering you. Do you wanna talk about it?” Mom asked as she shut the door.

I could hear Kristen nervously gulping. In hindsight it was a really inconsiderate choice on my part to leave breaking the news to her. But at that moment I was just grateful to have a friend who helped me out during all this. “You…may want to sit down Misses Lindley…”

Mom’s eyes probably widened. That line made it clear that Kristen wasn’t the one in trouble like she thought. She braced herself and took a seat on our couch, “Is Robby okay?”

“He’s fine, but…maybe you should see for yourself.”

“See? See what?”

Gingerly, Kristen walked over to our coffee table and brought me as close as she could. I had no choice. Feebly, I climbed off Kristen’s nail and stood on the table. Mom watched with a confused look as she saw Kristen apparently put something down. She probably had a sick feeling in her stomach. But once she leaned in close enough there was no denying it. Her child had shrunken.

“Oh God…” She muttered, “Oh God!” Immediately Mom’s eyes started tearing up. She reeled away and hid her face behind her hands, audibly sobbing. I could only stare, unable to even comfort my Mother at this moment. Mercifully Kristen awkwardly stepped up and began to pat her shoulder. “It’ll be okay Misses Lindley…He’s…still a good guy.”

That sentence sounded odd to me. Then I realized what it meant.

I wasn’t sure how Mom would react to my sudden shrinking. It was a sad thing for sure, but did it warrant crying almost immediately? Hard to say, but I can tell you that she wasn’t crying because her son was now shrunken. That’s far from good news of course but society’s adapted well to its tiny inhabitants so it isn’t that big of a deal. No, the fact I’d shrunken meant something else; it meant I was a bad kid. This wasn’t a Mother crying because her son caught a bad disease or something, this was a Mother crying because she found out her child’s a delinquent. No, on second thought delinquent is too nice. If my size was any indication this was a Mother finding out her child was one of the worst living beings on the planet.

“It has to be some kind of mistake. It has to be!”

“I’m sure it is.” Kristen smiled weakly. But I could tell what both of them felt deep down: Sizes don’t lie. I know they felt that way because that’s how I felt. I didn’t think…No, I knew I wasn’t a bad person. But my size now said otherwise. I wanted to scream up and defend myself, explain it all as some kind of weird mishap and how I was innocent. But I was denied even that basic human privilege. Even if I got a megaphone and screamed as loudly as I could I doubt they’d have heard me in pure silence, let alone in the middle of a middle-aged woman’s sobs. Without realizing it I reached for my phone and checked to see if I could at least give a brief call or message. Of course by this point my phone was completely dead, used up when I coordinated with Kristen to get out of her ear.

I had no choice but to stand there and watch as my giant friend consoled my giant mother. This was the first time I was completely excluded from something because of my size, and it wouldn’t be the last time either.

Imagine how that must be like. Watching two of your closest loved ones faced with heavy evidence about how you were the worst of society, yet still trying to argue in their heads that you were not a bad person. This was probably the worst news a child could ever give to their parent. And not only was I not able to deliver it myself. I was unable to comfort her afterwards. Heck, I wasn’t even able to make it home by myself! I just…watched, even crying a bit myself.

I wanted to comfort Mom, but maybe even more than that, I wanted someone to comfort me. The sad realization that even a consoling hug was now impossible just seemed like the nail in the coffin. I collapsed, unable to stand anymore, and I let my own sorrows out alongside Mom’s.

Couldn’t tell you how long this went on for. I know I calmed down first, then Mom started to a little later. Eventually her sobs died down entirely and the only trace of her tears was a sniffle she had.

“Thank You Kristen. Sorry to break down like that.” Mom smiled appreciatively.

Kristen shook her head. “It was no problem Misses Lindley. I’d hope someone would do that for me.”

“Let’s hope you never need that. I’m sorry we kept you so long.”

“It’s okay. I don’t have that much homework tonight anyway.”

“I don’t wanna hurt your grades. Go ahead and head home. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you…sure?”

Mom waved a hand towards the door, “Go on. I’m a grown woman. I don’t need a kid comforting me all night.” A sad chuckle escaped her lips.

“If you say so. Call me if you need anything. Okay?” Kristen opened the door and turned back towards us. “Bye Misses Lindley…..See you later Rob.” She couldn’t see but I was waving goodbye as she left.

Now I was alone with Mom, both of us fully cried out and starting to regain our rationality. It didn’t take long before I heard her finally address me.

“We need to talk.”

This was a conversation I really did not want to have. Alas, I needed to have it. Now that we both had a good cry it had finally come time to discuss just what was to become of me. Well, after we managed to work out a way to communicate that is.

With my phone dead and my charger more than a little over-sized we had to get a little creative. Thankfully in the age of smart phones we found just the answer: an app that allowed a shrunken person to speak into the receiver where it would then repeat what was said loud enough for a normal person to hear. It even had settings to suit whatever size the person talking was.  Technology’s great man.

Once we had that fully downloaded Mom set her phone down and we only then finally gained the ability to talk to each other.

I climbed onto the phone and poked my head over the receiver, “Can you hear me?” From behind I heard my own voices projected to seismic proportions.

Mom nodded, “Yes, thankfully now we can talk.” Even though she said that neither of us seemed to know where to go from there. An empty silence hung in the air, neither person particularly wanting or willing to speak up. It almost looked like Mom wanted me to say something. What, I had no clue.

“…What happened?” She finally asked.

The events of the day played back in my mind like they had many times already. Nothing seemed unusual or special from any other day to me but I still began to recite it anyway. “I went to school like always. I had a test this morning so I was pretty beat afterwards. Because of that I spent a lot of my afternoon whining about my next class. When my next class rolled around I decided to take a nap and-“

“No, not that.” Mom cut me off. “What happened?”

“What are you talking about?”

Mom glared at me as if I knew exactly what she wanted me to say, “What happened to make you shrink? What have you done?”

“Nothing!”

“Well what did you think about doing?”

“Nothing! I swear, this has to be some kind of mistake!”

For a moment she made a complicated face. It looked like some combination of sadness, anger, and confusion. But most of all there was disappointment. You know the look. That one face your parents can make that hurts more than anything else they could do. Yeah, my parent was giving me that disappointed look, as if this was somehow my fault. “Look…I won’t be mad sweetie. You can tell me.”

“I am telling you!” I shouted, quickly frustrated by how much my own Mother didn’t believe me. “I haven’t done or thought of anything especially wrong in all my life. This is some kind of mistake!”

“No need to get defensive Robby. I’m not trying to accuse you of anything.”

That was it. Blatantly lying to my face like that just threw me over the deep end. “Like hell you aren’t! Be honest with me for a sec Mom. What are you really thinking right now? Huh?!”

“I’m thinking people who haven’t done anything wrong don’t come home the size of an ant.”

Ouch.

No, seriously, that hurt.  I asked for it but damn. That was as blunt as can be and she said it with no real love or warmth behind it. It was just an ice cold truth that left me dazed and unable to respond for a moment.

“I want to believe you dear, I really do. But there has to be something. Did you accidentally run over an animal? Did you get into a fight with Kari and say something bad, maybe have a few angry thoughts? Take a candy bar from a store?”

“No. Hell No. And Seriously? The worst thing I’ve done in ages is cut class this one time, promise.”

Mom’s eyes said she didn’t believe me for a sec. Course, who could blame her? My size said I was untrustworthy. The more I tried to plead for her to listen the more that became apparent. By this point she wasn’t even listening to my “Excuses”. I was already guilty of something as far as her and everyone else were concerned. As a parent she must’ve wanted to believe in me desperately, but all the signs told her not to.

“Okay.” Mom pushed her palms out to signal me to stop, “If you don’t wanna tell me or don’t know that’s fine. It doesn’t change the fact we’re going to have to get you registered.”

Oh yeah, I should probably explain. You know how every person has an ID, social security, and stuff like that right? Well if a person shrank then they have to deal with a similar kind of process and visit the Department of Shrunken Businesses and Services to get registered. And yes, I agree that name sucks, although it has earned the lovely acronym DSBS, or more commonly: “Dis BS”.

Sorry, got a little sidetracked. Anyway you go to the DSBS to register yourself as a shrunken citizen. Basically they update your information as a regular-sized individual with more…accurate information, after which you are then assigned a new ID card labelling you as a person “Size Challenged”. That’s just one part of it though. The main role of the DSBS is to assign shrunken individuals to their new lives. Part of the process to get a new ID involves interviews where they try to pin point and narrow down any skills you could have and then they try to assign you a job suited to your expertise. Think of it like an employment office for the short and tiny.

Where you end up is totally up in the air from that point though. Ideally a friend or family member offers to take you in but there are more than a few cases where a person gets assigned to a complete stranger. If there’s no one who needs someone with your skillset or if you have no skillset you’ll more than likely find yourself employed as an “Assistant” where you shall help someone and in return you are given room and board along with a meager supply of money. There’s no end to these positions. People who take care of shrunken people not only get their help, but they also receive funds to care for and pay them from the government. However these funds are the same thing so the more you eat and need stuff the less money you earn. Usually an Assistant’s earnings are laughably small…No pun intended.

Anyway, sorry about that little detour. Back to the story.

When Mom mentioned registration I cringed a bit. The fear of being reduced from a college-student to someone’s fancy slave repulsed me. But more than that, it made me nervous.

“You…know what that means right?”

Mom nodded with a sad look. “Yes…It’s very likely you’ll be going away.”

There was a reason why my house had no shrunken employees helping us out. We were kind of… black-listed. Once upon a time Mom joined the countless people who allowed shrunken people into their homes, and in fact we got one. Her name was Maria, a really polite girl who was a foot tall. For someone as short as she was she seemed really reformed so it was a real pleasure having her around. Then there was an…incident.

One day around a month in, while I was out at school and Mom was out at work, Maria finished her jobs and decided to enjoy some nice TV. It was so relaxing in fact that she ended up turning off the TV and taking a nap. An hour later my Mom comes home, also tired and wanting to relax with some mind numbing television. So after kicking her shoes off she walked over to the couch. She wasn’t paying attention. She didn’t notice the young girl cozily lying down on the cushion. She didn’t notice that Maria wasn’t at the door greeting her. She simply sat down and then it was too late.

The doctors said roughly 80% of the bones in her body were crushed. Supposedly death was instant but Mom swore she felt a second of struggling before that. Regardless, Maria was crushed. Both Mom and I mourned for a while but we managed to get past it, though the incident did ban us from ever taking in another shrunken person. Though even if we could, Mom refused to ever consider it again. Lest her careless would cost another life.

This left me, someone significantly smaller than Maria, living in this house impossible. Not only would it be highly illegal, but my Mom couldn’t trust herself with it anyway. So once I got registered I would be forced to move out.

I’d heard of parents kicking kids out of their homes before but this whole arrangement left a bitter taste in my mouth. I bet it was the same for Mom too. She did her best to give me a reassuring smile. “No matter what, you’ll always be my boy. I’ll come visit you. We’ll still keep in touch.”

“I’ll still be someone’s pet.”

“Come on, don’t be so dramatic. I bet you’ll end up in a really nice place. Maybe even a rich, pretty girl’s house, hmm?”

The joke did make me chuckle a little, “Kari would really enjoy that wouldn’t she?”

“Maybe she’d be the one you end up with?”

“Now that’d be something. Everyone already jokes about how she has me whipped.”

“See? It won’t be so bad. I bet after you get a good night’s sleep you’ll forget all about these troubles.”

Highly doubtful, but the sentiment was very much appreciated. “Maybe after we figure out where I’m sleeping.”

Mom shrugged, “No reason not to be in your room is there? I can lay down a pillow on your desk or something and it’ll be like you’re in your own bed.”

“Yeah, that does sound kind of nice.” I smiled wearily.

“Let me get right on that then.” Mom smiled down at me and headed to my room. Considering how this conversation started with her disappointed and interrogating me, it was really nice to reach this sort of peace. If I was going to leave home it would be best if I did so without hurting my relationship with my family. I glanced at the time on Mom’s phone and realized how late it had gotten.

All of sudden I could feel exhaustion coming on. It got harder to keep my eyelids open. My mind started getting hazier. I think I was half asleep when Mom came back and I just kind of went along with everything, not fully aware of what I was saying or doing. Next thing I knew I was on a pillow with a torn napkin as a blanket.

I  do distinctly remember Mom saying “Sweet Dreams” before I fell asleep though.

I would like to say after such a rough day that I slept like an angel, but then I’d be lying. I was in a deep sleep for sure, but it was far from peaceful. I couldn’t escape from all the worries plaguing me and even while asleep my subconscious was unable to figure out anything to calm me down. What was going to happen to me? Where was I going to go? Who was I going to live with? So many important elements of my life were changing all at once and I was in absolutely zero control of any of it.

No, I take that back. I did have a little bit of control. Tomorrow would be the day I go to the DSBS and get registered. Then after registration there’d be the interviews to determine what I’d be best at. If I wanted to avoid a menial job as a servant then that meant I had to really nail the interviews. Man, I was starting to wish I had more time to prepare.

After all, tomorrow would determine what my new life would be like. 

After eating breakfast (For the record mine consisted of exactly one Cheerio), we headed to the DSBS building as soon as we could. I was safely tucked inside my Mother’s ear so I couldn’t really tell you what it looked like sadly. Personally I like to imagine that it’s sort of like the DMV. It definitely had that same, soul-crushing atmosphere.

The first thing we had to do was fill out some paperwork. Well, Mom did anyway. I wasn’t even able to see it, though thanks to Mom mumbling all of it aloud I had a rough gist of it. They were pretty standard questions for a government office, IE: Name, birth date, ethnicity, size, et cetera. Incidentally this would also be the first time I heard my size classification. Depending on your size you were either classified as a Dwarf, Doll, Lilliputian, or Micro. Naturally I was a Micro.

Once we finished all that we had to wait until we were called in. Wish I could say me and Mom had some kind of interesting conversation during then. Maybe some kind of heartwarming pep talk or something, but nope. We waited in strict silence until I was called in.

We headed over to a door where this uh…very healthy-looking woman waited. I would describe her to you but…let’s just say I’m doing you a favor by not. We started heading towards her but before we could enter she stopped us. “Sorry Mam, no unshrunken people beyond this point.”

“Why?” Mom asked in an annoyed voice.

“Yeah, why?” I asked aloud to no one in particular.

I heard the woman shrug, “Sorry, that’s just the rules.”

Mom sighed, probably realizing that arguing would be pointless. Her finger gently poked into her ear and awaited me to hop on. Hesitantly, I jumped onto her fingernail where she then brought me to the awaiting palm of the woman.

For a moment I debated just staying defiantly on Mom’s finger and not going anywhere. With how small I was it wasn’t like they would be able to find me. That childish thought quickly left as I jumped down though. When they were both sure I was safely there, Mom backed away from the door with a soft wave. “It’ll be fine sweety. Don’t worry. I’ll be right here when you get out.”

Those kind words didn’t make me feel any better when the door shut.

The woman didn’t say anything at all when we were walking to her office. I looked around and noticed other offices with fellow shrinkees getting registered. The one that stood out to me was a woman who appeared to be three-feet tall crying. I remember jadedly mumbling how she had it easy. She could at least live a regular human life.

 It wasn’t until we were inside of the woman’s office that she lowered her hand onto her desk and said a word to me. “Off.”

I grimaced at her, commanding me like I was a dog. I did as she asked though. She quickly seated herself at the desk and laid down a phone nearby. I didn’t have to look to know it probably had the same app on it that my Mom used.

“Hello Mr. Lindley, my names is Jane Waller and I’m the worker assigned to your case.”

My case? It sounded like I committed a crime or something. Oh wait, she probably thought I did. “Hello Miss Waller. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“I’m sure.” She flashed a professional smile. “Are you ready to start the interview portion of your application?”

“Go for it.”

“Okay.” She pulled a paper nearby and read aloud. “Question One: What sort of skills do you have that you think would be useful for employment?”

I could tell right away all the questions would be direct like this. “Well I’m a college student. I have a basic understanding of film and filming. I have a full grasp on all  grade-school level subjects and if need be I’ve even taken a few psychology courses so I know a bit about how to help people through their problems.”

Jane nodded, taking notes on everything I said. “Those are good skills to have as a tutor or even as a teacher. Next question: Have you ever had any employment experience?”

“For a few years I worked as a landscaper for my uncle. It taught me a lot of practical skills and rural stuff. Aside from that I spent a month at McDonalds and that…wasn’t pleasant I’ll admit but I did what I could. Once I hit college I decided school was more important.”

“Okay. Have you ever worked with someone shrunken?”

“At work? No. Sometimes I worked with some students a couple feet tall at school though.”

“Mmhmm…” I noticed she took a lot of notes at that. “I think that should about do it.”

“That’s it?” I blurted. “That was a really short interview.

“You answered well enough that I don’t need to resort to my other questions. I’ll give you the results after your physical.”

“Physical?”

Jane nodded, “Normally we’d have opened with that but the room was in use so I got the interview out of the way first. Don’t worry, it’s basically just a measuring and some questions about your family history.”

I breathed in relief. “Okay, that doesn’t sound too bad.”

“It isn’t.” Jane smiled, extending a finger. “Hop on.”

One small walk later I hopped off of Jane’s finger and found myself at another desk.

“When you’re ready could you please lay down next to this?” She placed a ruler next me.

“Sure.” I said before going to do as she asked. When I laid down near the bottom of the ruler I distinctly saw her mouth drop slightly. “Wow, you’re the smallest case I’ve ever seen. Two millimeters tall. You can get up now.”

Somehow having a number assigned to it made it feel smaller than it was. I’ve long since made my peace with it though. I returned to the nearby phone and awaited more questions.

“Do any illnesses run in your family?”

“None that I can think of. I had a grandfather who caught Alzheimer’s a few years ago but that’s about it.”

“So this would make you the first of your family to catch a disease like this?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Has anyone in your family been a convicted felon?”

“No.” I wondered why that was relevant.

“I see…I think that should about do it. The rest I can get from the papers you filled out earlier.”

“So…I’m done?” I asked.

Jane nodded, “You’re done.  I’ll turn in your application right away and you’ll be fully registered as a Micro Citizen. Do you have any questions?”

I only had one. “When do I find out about my job placement?”

She stiffened, I could see it clear as day. “Your application will be turned in then we will await for a suitable response from a local agency. If the local agency can’t find one then your file with be processed in our national database. If it’s local it should take roughly a week. If it goes beyond that I couldn’t give you a solid estimate.”

“I see…So a week until I find out if I’m not an assistant huh?”

Jane nodded before a weary sigh escaped her lips, “I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you.”

I felt like I knew what she was about to say but I asked anyway. “Why?”

Her expression made it pretty clear to me she didn’t mean to say that comment out loud. I got the feeling if she could she’d have taken it back. But she couldn’t. Instead she was now forced to answer me directly.

At first she coughed to clear her throat, “You have a good application, you really do. If I had to be perfectly blunt you’re a prime example of a possible tutor. However…Your size will be an issue. If I can speak directly, mentally, you’re all we could ever hope for. But physically you’re not.”

I hung on every word she said, dread slowly filling me. “So what you’re saying is I’m too small?”

She nodded. “Most tutors get assigned to younger students but the smaller they get the more of a chance an…accident could occur, especially with child students. So we try to avoid hiring tutors and placing them in that situation.”

By this point I stopped breathing. “So I’m stuck as an assistant?”

Jane shook her head, “It’s too hard to say. Practically speaking you’re not…well-suited for the job at your size. There aren’t many jobs you could do as well as larger shrunken citizens. Because of this not a lot of people are willing to hire Micro-sized workers.”

“Then what? I won’t even get hired as an assistant?”

“I’m sure you’ll find a job eventually. It will simply take a while, and odds are that you’ll have to travel far away. But in the meantime you’ll be permitted to stay with your family on a temporary basis until you’re ready to be hired.”

This was a lot to take in at once. I sat there, unable to respond for a few moments as I processed what I’d just been told.  Long story short, I wasn’t going anywhere for a while. But when I would go, odds are it’d be far away. More than likely as a servant to some stranger. I could understand the logic behind it, but all the same I grew incredibly frustrated by the results of my interview. I looked up at Jane, hoping to see at least a consoling face. Sad to say, I didn’t get it. If anything her expression was completely neutral. I was just another case to her. A unique one sure, but nothing she needed to get worked up about. If anything she probably wanted to hurry this along so that she could get the next person.

Ultimately I just sighed. All the frustration in the world didn’t mean a damn thing right now. I could stare at Jane expectantly all day and get nothing. She was perfectly polite throughout all of this, but I garnered no sympathy from someone. In her eyes I did this to myself. So I just sighed, “Are we done?”

“Yes, let me turn in the paperwork and I’ll have you your new ID and you can be on your way.”

Maybe twenty minutes later (Actually longer than the interview) all the papers were filed and Jane returned to the room with my new ID, a single small card just on the tip of her nail. I think she commented on how hard it was not to lose it but by this point I was honestly clocked out. After bringing me back outside I was traded back to Mom where she placed me back in her ear and left. She might have said something now that I think about it. But again, I was not paying attention.

Not all was bad though. When we got home, I was in for a nice surprise. First thing we were got back in Mom placed me on our living room table and eagerly began fishing through her purse.

“While you were getting registered I realized you’d really need this so I went out and got it.” From her bag she pulled out something about five times my size.“Ta da!” She happily placed it on the table.

I stared at it blankly for a moment. What I was staring at was a fairly small item sealed inside plastic, that much was certain. It took a sec before I realized what it was. “You got me a phone?!”

There wasn’t a phone placed to conveniently enhance my voice but I saw Mom smiling down at me anyway. Quickly, she picked it back up and tore the case open with ease. “Try it out.” She urged after gently emptying it in front of me.

My phone had been dead since yesterday so something like this was fantastic. Gleefully I picked it up. It was certainly a phone, though the size didn’t match up completely. In my hands it was more like a tablet than an actual phone. But who cares? I had a working phone now!

“According to the clerk it’s very durable and powered by light so you shouldn’t need a charger. I even had them put in all your friend’s numbers so you can keep in touch!”

I didn’t know what to say. Sincerely. I just looked between the phone and my mother with the most gratitude I could ever remember showing her. My first text I ever made with that phone was a very simple message: “Thank you.”

Mom’s phone vibrated with my message. After checking it she smiled at me, “You’re welcome. Now, after all that I bet you’re tired. Do you think you’ll be okay for a while so I can run and pick up some stuff for you?”

“Sure.” I texted.

“Okay, you be a good boy while I’m gone.” She hurried back out. At the time I thought nothing of it but thinking back…she probably didn’t want to be in the house with me. Not after the Maria incident. So she probably came up with a reason to leave me so I’d be safest. Or maybe I’m thinking about it too much. Who knows?

The first thing I started doing after that was texting my friends. By this point word had probably spread about me so they all probably knew by now. If not it didn’t matter. I still wanted to talk with people; something to finally liven up my shitty day.

Most of it was totally irrelevant texts. Kristen asked me how I was doing. Jaz demanded I explain everything. John tried to talk like nothing had happened. Eric made a few jokes and I could list a bunch of other people who aren’t important. Nah, the only important messages I got were when Kari finally replied.

“Kristen told me everything. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m still a little worried but after talking with everyone I’m starting to bounce back a little.”

“That’s good, shame we can’t go out tonight though. After all this I bet you need it.”

That text reminded. Earlier, before all this, I’d actually planned to go to a movie with Kari that day. In all the chaos of the last couple days I’d totally forgotten. Course, at my size I wasn’t going anywhere.

“You can still come by if you want... ;D”

That wasn’t going to stop me though. I really wanted to see Kari. It took a little bit of convincing, but once I got Mom’s permission she ultimately agreed to come on by.

Small or not, that night I had a date.

She couldn’t have made me wait for very long, maybe an hour or two at most. But after the last few days…Yeah, I was really looking forward to some time with Kari. Of course getting all excited made it feel like it took forever. If memory serves she showed up at maybe three or four in the afternoon. Even though she had a spare key to the house she still daintily knocked on the door. As if I was just going to walk on over and open it like no big deal.

No, that wasn’t even an option anymore. After a minute or so she realized no one was going to open the door so she quietly walked in.

And my jaw dropped.

Not because she was a giant…Well yeah, that was definitely part of it. But more so because of how she looked. It was no secret to any of my friends, least of all Kari that I was a guy with fairly simple tastes. Give me a brunette with a ponytail, open-toed heels, and a dark outfit and I am raring to go. And of course, being a considerate girlfriend, Kari was wearing just that. Ponytail, heeled-sandals, black tights and a gray blouse that wrapped around her arms so that her shoulders were exposed. It was a look tailor-made for me. It was only natural I ogled her for a moment…or several.

Not that Kari could tell. She didn’t know where I was so she carefully examined everywhere around her before so much as taking a single step. Then she’d repeat this for the next step. From the safety of a table this was actually pretty funny to watch, almost like looking at a very overly-cautious burglar.

I went ahead and called to save time. “Hey Kari, glad you could make it.”

She answered her phone almost immediately. “Hey, where are you?”

“Nowhere you’ll step, you can walk without tiptoeing everywhere.”

Her eyes looked away for a second, mildly embarrassed. “You could’ve told me where you are before I walked in.”

“And miss that show? As if. I’m on the table next to the couch.”

Immediately Kari’s eyes darted towards the couch as if I’d suddenly be visible to her. “I can’t see you.”

“Gonna have to get closer than that.”

Quickly she walked up and peered at the table, scanning right over me once or twice before finally noticing me. “Wow. I thought everyone was exaggerating but you really are…small.”

“If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that the last few days.” I sighed, “Go ahead and sit down, I’m not going anywhere.”

She sat down on the couch near me. “So…how are you?” She asked, clearly unsure of where to go from here.

“Small.” I shrugged, “And bored. You up for a movie or something? I’m sure Netflix has just the thing.” I glanced up to see Kari staring right at me. “Uh…Kari?”

“Oh! Sorry, I just can’t over how small you are.”

“I may be small but at least I’m still big where it counts!”

“Not anymore you’re not.” She laughed.

“Hey! I’ll show you!”

“Oh will you now?” Her eyes narrowed playfully. For a second it felt like we both imagined trying it out. Wish I could say it wasn’t enticing. “Maybe some other time.”

“And not in my living room.”

Kari suddenly jumped and looked around, obviously forgetting where we were. “Oh yeah…” She looked so cute embarrassed.

I chuckled, relieved by how normal Kari was acting. “Moving on…Movie sound good?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “What do you wanna watch?”

“It doesn’t matter.” I shrugged, “Maybe the latest Hobbit movie? That just got on here I think.”

“Works for me…Um…Robby?”

Suddenly Kari’s voice seemed different, “Yeah? What’s up?”

“Do you mind if I…pick you up?” Her brown eyes stared at me with this eerie fascination, like I was the first shrunken person she’d ever laid eyes on. Granted, I was probably the smallest.

“Um…Sure?” I didn’t quite get the fascination though, “Just lower your finger near me and I’ll hop on.”

“Okay.” She nodded, lowering her finger. After climbing up I was quickly brought up right in front of her eyes. “Wow…” She mumbled for the second or third time now.

It was hard for me not to do the same thing. After all, I was staring right into the eyes of a gigantic, gorgeous young-woman who was literally all mine. Possibilities of just what we could do began to pop into my head. It began to sink in that this titaness in front of me was a girl. Almost unconsciously I leaned over her finger nail and stared down. Far away, probably a couple miles below, was hands down the biggest cleavage I’d ever seen in my life. They were just…I could probably make the rest of this story just describing them and say fuck plot…Man, that’s actually really tempting.

Anyway, you get the point. Really awesome boobs.

“Excuse me. What are you staring at?”

I jumped. In my mild perversion I forgot the two gigantic, larger than me, extremely obvious and impossible to miss eyes that looked more than a little amused. “Um, sorry I just couldn’t help myself. They looked so nice and-“

She closed her phone, making anything else I said utterly pointless. “Poor thing, they’ve gotta be so far away to little ol you.” Lustfully Kari guided my eyes with a finger to her chest. “So close, but so far. I bet you want to be even closer to them.”

I should probably mention something I may have neglected to note about Kari. She’s a hopeless pervert, the type of girl very quick to get aroused and even quicker to start teasing me. By this point I was already totally under her spell. I stared blankly wherever she guided her finger. Her lips leaned close to her finger and breathed out their heated words in a deafening whisper. “Well so do I.”

Then came something men could only dream of. I was lowered until I was staring directly at a field of breast just off Kari’s finger. She didn’t need to encourage me to jump off, I did so just fine on my own. First thing I noticed was how soft the ground was. When I landed I immediately lost my balance and fell over, landing flat on my back and staring at my girlfriend’s sky-filling face.

“Aw, are you okay?”

I struggled onto all fours and gave her a nod.

“Oh, I can’t hear you now can I? It’s okay; I downloaded this on the way.” Quickly she began tinkering on her phone. A casual glance showed that she was now loading the app people used to communicate with me. But where was she going to put it? I wondered.  

While I wondered she, as if it was totally natural, slid her phone into her cleavage, just deep enough so that the receiver was next to her breasts. “How’s that?”

I stared at it, a solid thirty feet away, and yelled “Perfect.” Immediately the machine picked up my voice and played it back, muffled by Kari’s breasts in the way.

She stared down at me with a soft smirk on her face. “Good.” Her eyes narrowed playfully, “So what do you think?”

“I love it.” I  answered. I mean, this was my girlfriend’s boob I was on. There were literally only one or two places I could enjoy more than this, and frankly I found myself wondering if I’d pay either of those a visit before the day was over. If not this was more than enough to make a man happy for a lifetime. I didn’t even know what to do. There were so many chances here, what should I do?

Of course as I struggled with this incredibly important decision Kari herself seemed to enjoy just watching me atop her chest. I couldn’t tell you with certainty but she probably really liked the fact I was small like this. In almost every way it was a horrible thing. But to her, the type of girl who probably felt self-conscious about her smaller body, this was probably the sort of confidence boosting, arousal-inducing things imaginable.

Neither of us really knew where to go from there though. What was the protocol for breastplay when you were a micro-sized person? Heck, what would you do as the girl? I can’t imagine it’d be comfortable staring down at your chest for an extended period of time.

“What’s it like?” She ultimately wound up asking me.

“Big.” Came my obvious answer. “Really big. Like, bigger than I could ever imagine.”

“…And?” She sounded unimpressed.

“It’s just…amazing. I mean, to you this probably looks like a few inches but to me this is an entire field. Maybe even a block of nothing but you. The ground’s so soft that I can barely find my balance, but there’s enough support so I don’t just fall every time. I can feel your heartbeats under my feet. Everything moves in tune with your breathing. It honestly doesn’t even feel like I’m standing on you. It feels more like I’m on some kind of weird landscape.”

Kari hung on to my every word, eyes growing notably more aroused the more I kept talking. “Mmmm…” She made a frustrated grunt. “You really suck you know that?”

“What did I do?” I laughed.

She replied very bluntly, “You always get me worked up.”

“And that means I suck?”

“Yes.”

“Alright.” I shrugged. “Well since you feel like that, wanna get back to trying to pick a movie?”

For a moment she just blinked at me. “Goddammit.” She sighed. “You always do that.”

“You just complained about me getting you all excited. This is what you get for complaining.” I grinned. Teasing Kari in a way was even more enjoyable than sitting atop her breast.

“Man I am so tempted to just…Ugh.” She turned her head, “I wanna watch a scary movie.” She immediately ordered in a childish voice.

“Sure.” Not like I could argue otherwise anyway.

Thus we ended up watching a movie. I had her put my phone on the table since the thing would not fit in my pocket.  After that I Didn’t even need to move. Thanks to Netflix we wound up watching the latest Friday the 13th, apparently a remake. For the most part it was a standard couple watching a movie kind of deal, minus the part where I was sitting on her chest of course. We’d watch, poke fun at the cheesy acting, and every time things would get tense Kari would notably tense up herself and get totally sucked in. Plus every time she jumped I got a nice little bouncy ride for a minute. All this was nothing new for me, except maybe that last part.

Actually, it was nice to see that even as a shrunken guy some things still remained exactly the same. Most people would’ve broken up with me outright just from the shrinking alone but Kari showed up all dressed-up for me and acted like she always did. For that I could never thank her enough. So I decided to repay her a bit in my own unique way.

You see, like many horror movies we soon found ourselves watching a sex scene. When that started I checked to see if Kari was really into the movie. By this point she was fully engrossed so she didn’t notice when I started to move a little further down. I treaded very slowly and carefully since the slightest fidget from Kari would be real bad news. In hindsight this was actually an incredibly bad idea come to think of it. Ah well, I’ll blame it on youth.

After a few minutes I climbed far enough down that I hit the edge of Kari’s top. Then I kept going under. I climbed my way down for a moment before climbing into her bra. Before I knew it my goal was in sight: Kari’s nipple. (Actually it was really dark and I could barely see it but that doesn’t matter much).

Upon arriving at this fabled spot I immediately noticed something criminally wrong. Despite watching a sex scene this nipple was not erect in the slightest. Thankfully I, being the noble guy I am, saw fit to rectify this travesty. I definitely in no way got excited by the sight of a giant nipple and acted like an idiot. What kind of guy do you take me for?

I approached it gingerly at first, hard not to when the thing is barely shorter than you are. As a small test I started with a couple pokes where my finger sank in effortlessly. Then pokes turned into my hands essentially massaging it. At first this didn’t seem to do anything. I couldn’t even tell if Kari could feel anything.

I was about ready to give up when I heard it: a small moan.

That simple sound of pleasure was enough to make me give it my all. Next thing I knew that squishy pillow I could poke seemed to get harder. There was still a soft feeling to it, but my hands were quickly stopped by a hard wall inside. That wall only got tougher and I kept going. I was starting to get into it too. By this point I experimented with a couple kisses and licks and then kind of ended up biting a bit. I can admit I was just doing what felt right by this point.

The moans started to come more and more, sounding increasingly frustrated each time. Those sounds were music to my ears. To me they were the satisfying sounds of proof that I could still get a girl going at my size. It was a very personal victory.

By this point Kari’s nipple was twice my height and about three times as wide, fully erect. It was also around this point that she finally caught on.

“Rob you ass.” She insulted me in a heated voice. I didn’t bother responding since I was too far from the phone to anyway.

Until this point I’d been just teasing Kari, having more than a little pervy fun while doing so. But I never expected what came next.

Kari got up and walked.

At the time I had no idea. All I was aware of was literally everything around me shook in tune with every step the girl made. I clung desperately to the nipple I was so eagerly playing with moments ago for dear life. Falling here would probably get me killed. But Kari didn’t consider that. Course how could she? Her mind was otherwise occupied courtesy of yours truly. There was no one to blame but me for this hectic situation.

Naturally I survived until Kari laid somewhere again. Then, again to my surprise, I felt a lot of motion  from her arms and then there was light. I couldn’t tell just from her arms moving and all the weird seismic sounds a giantess like her made, but when light flooded in I understood immediately that my girlfriend was now topless…And in another room. My room to be exact.

“You are such an ass.” Kari repeated again, glaring at me by her nipple.

Realizing I may have fucked up a tad, I stepped away into the open and began to apologize. At first my words didn’t reach her but Kari quickly realized I was talking and placed her phone near me again.

“I’m so sorry Kari. I kinda got carried away…”

She didn’t respond. She only kept looking at me. Her giant eyes immediately made me avert my gaze. I focused on anything else to avoid staring at those two massive pupils. I looked around my room and noted the door was shut. We were on my bed. On the floor was the clothing Kari removed so that she could see me.

“Hey.” I tried to break the silence. I tensed up and looked back at my giant girlfriend nervously.

“I didn’t say you could stop.” Her hand brushed her phone off to the side.

That was when I noticed that she didn’t look angry. She looked...horny.

There are times when a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. So yeah, I went back to massaging my girlfriend’s nipple. You can bet your ass on that. Not because she basically ordered me to keep going; but because I wanted to. It didn’t matter that I was a Micro-sized person atop a normal girl, able to crush me with the slightest movement. And the fact she casually brushed aside the only way I could talk to her was totally irrelevant. I worked to please her because it was my choice. I just want to make that totally clear as we proceed.

I went to work massaging Kari’s nipple (Again, my choice) and things only got more heated from there. As I worked to pleasure one breast I noticed Kari’s fingers casually working on her other. She did so almost silently, biting her lip and holding in any unorthodox sounds.

Watching her openly begin to pleasure herself made something in me click. Earlier I acted just to be a bit mischievous. Yet now I was starting to get into it as much as my giant girlfriend was. My mind started to get hazy and my actions more perverse and reckless. I can’t say with one-hundred percent accuracy but I’m pretty sure I started throwing my whole body against Kari’s nipple. And when my clothes felt like they were getting in the way they may or may not have come off too.

It’s actually kind of embarrassing saying it so directly so I won’t describe what exactly I started doing but I’m pretty sure you can figure it out. Let’s just say if I was full-sized we may have needed protection by that point.

It was certainly an interesting development to say the least. Things were always quick to ah…escalate between us but our sudden size difference made this totally different. Instead of being the guy on top playfully toying with his woman’s boobs I was instead on her boob, doing illicit things with her nipple.

Actually, considering how much Kari enjoyed being on the bottom being in charge of the situation seemed totally up her alley too. With me pretty much a slave to her sexual whims (By choice!) she only got bolder too. Her hand started to switch between her breast to gently teasing the edge of her crotch before returning back. From the corner of my eye I noted her finger looking damper each time she did so.

It wasn’t long before her hand just flat out never left her crotch. To make up for this her other hand started working with the breast I was on, kneading the ground beneath my feet as I worked my ass off pleasuring her nipple. Although it apparently felt good, it didn’t seem to satisfy Kari enough. That’s why things suddenly got…rough.

From my point of view I was continuing my fun with her nipple when I felt something push me from behind. I never saw it coming but I instinctively knew it was Kari’s finger pushing me against her nipple. The last thing I saw before my vision was filled with that vast pinkness was her face.

It was a face I’d seen before several times. Kari’s eyes were clenched shut. She was constantly shifting between gasping for air and biting her lip. Her head started to sheen with the beginnings of sweat. Her hair started to fall out of place. She looked…so goddamn sexy I wish I could just take a picture and stare at it.

Then I couldn’t see anything. I was being shoved against her nipple and twisted along with it between her fingers. All ability to move on my own had completely been taken away. Every time I would try to move my body would suddenly be twisted in a totally different direction against my will.

This probably sounds really scary but honestly, at first it wasn’t that bad. It was certainly rough but I kinda liked rough and Kari suddenly taking charge was more than a little hot. But everything has its limit. The first few minutes started off scary but then I realized it was weirdly arousing being manhandled like that. It was something new and I trusted Kari enough to know that I’d be okay. Her nipple was the cushion between her two fingers which roughly brushed against my body and held it in place. It was certainly a sexual act I’d never think of, but that didn’t make it outright bad.

But that was how I felt for the first few minutes. It didn’t end there.

Kari was relentless. There’s simply no other word for it. Even the best stuff you can do in bed is only good up to a point before it becomes bothersome if not outright painful. And once the novelty of this little act wore off that’s what it was: painful. The worst part was that I was powerless to do anything about it. Any struggles I made were unnoticed against the strength of this giant. Any cries I made to get her attention were totally unheard. The more I began to try and get out the scarier things seemed to get.

I was completely trapped, held against my will as my girlfriend pleasured herself. I could hear all the sounds she was making but from this dark place between her fingers and nipple it may as well have been a world away. My body began to hurt from the repeated abuse. I started finding it harder to breathe. I was suddenly all too aware of how easy it would be for me to get crushed right then without anyone even realizing. I was in danger, but I had no way of asking for help or anything. I was simply trapped until Kari was done.

It would be a long, long time until that happened. Some people tend to get off quickly. Others prefer to take their time, relish it, and slowly build up to an optimum climax. Kari is one of them.

Just try to imagine it. More helpless than you’ve ever been in your life, unable to even catch your breath, unable to put up even the most basic of resistance. All you can see is black all around you. Whenever a fraction of light slips in for a split-second all you can see is a shaded pink and maybe if you’re lucky, tan. Your body constantly being forcibly moved and casually crushed just enough so that it’d hurt but not break anything. Every few seconds the wind gets knocked out of you and you struggle for what little air you can so you don’t pass out.

Then, when you finally hit that point of just giving up and try to quietly wait it out in your happy place you get interrupted by the two senses you still had access to: smell and sound. The strangely aromatic scent of sweat mixed with bodily juices slowly rising from the area between her legs enters your nose and refuses to leave, mocking you with a familiar scent you knew all-too well at a normal-size. And the sound…Ugh, the sound. Constantly you would hear the sound of skin brushing against itself until it would be cut off by this wet, squelching sound, every once in a while accompanied by the faint sound of a gasp for air or a heated pant. Now multiply the volume of that by about a hundred to accommodate for size.

If you can manage to imagine all that first off props to you, second, I want you to imagine dealing with that for ten seconds. Then a minute. Then five. And so on. As time passes you must continue to struggle, slowly getting weaker and the small irritations of the pressure and breathing become totally unbearable, but you have no choice but to deal with it. And it’s not like this is some monster doing this to you. This is your lover, the person you look forward to seeing every day. The person who cheers you up when you’re down. The person slowly and painfully killing you without even realizing it.

It was just…hell.

What was probably the worst part though, and I do mean this. It wasn’t the pain. Nor the lack of control. None of that. It was what went through my head. I couldn’t think fully. I could barely assign words to anything. I couldn’t reflect on anything happening. I only had these vague feelings passing through my mind.

 I questioned how my life would be. Was this just a taste of things to come? Would the rest of my life be just being used like a tool to help get some kind of job done? No, not even that. If that was the case I’d be down pleasuring Kari myself but as the sick sound of her fingers sliding out liked to remind me, I was unable to do even that. I kept deluding myself that I could still make her happy despite my size but here I was powerless to do anything of the sort. Maybe that was my life now? Trying to do jobs and completely failing at them for reasons not even my fault.

What did I ever do to deserve this I wondered.

I probably stayed in this trance for ten or so minutes before something changed outside and got my attention. Kari’s fingers stopped twisting me, she started to pant faster, the sound of her fingers grew quicker and quicker. It didn’t take a genius to know what was coming. The sounds kept getting faster and louder until Kari’s whole body tensed up at once. Then she finally relaxed, exhaling loudly. Her fingers released me and fell to the bed beside her.

She had finally cum.

This should have been good news. I should have been happy, if, for no other reason that I was now free. To be honest I don’t know how I felt. Angry, sad, but mostly tired. Exhaustion seemed to override everything else right now. I collapsed atop Kari’s breast, not asleep, just lying down and resting.

Likewise Kari took a minute to breathe. I could tell by her breathing that she was quickly calming down. “Sorry, I…messed up.”

She did a lot more than that, but I wasn’t in much of a mood to lash out right now. Something about the last few minutes really put into perspective how bad it would be if I made my girlfriend mad. Plus I couldn’t really be upset. Once I regained my composure it didn’t seem that bad. She didn’t mean any harm and all things considered it could’ve been worse. Once I started panicking it felt worse than it really was.

“Just…be more careful.” I wearily replied. Kari didn’t respond. “Oh yeah, you can’t hear me anyway can you?”

“I…” Kari gulped. She seemed at a total loss for words. “I almost hurt you…You are okay right?”

“Yeah.” I answered even though she couldn’t hear it. “Let’s just forget that ever happened. Okay?”

“Oh yeah, I can’t hear you. Come here, I’ll put you on your desk.” Her finger came and took me to my desk nearby. A phone was quickly placed beside me as Kari shamefully began to slide back into her clothes.

“Don’t worry about it.” I sighed, “Let’s just forget this happened alright?”

She nodded. “Yeah…I think I need to go anyway.”

“I said forget about it. It’s okay.”

Kari shook her head with a bitter smile, “No it’s not okay. I could’ve really hurt you.”

“But you didn’t.”

“This time.”

“I trust you.”

“Well I don’t.” Kari hung her head, “I…lost control for a minute and I nearly…”

“Don’t think like that.  A million things could go wrong and none of them would be your fault.”

Kari gave me a bitter smile, “You’re such a nice guy…”

“Your nice guy.” I sighed. It was obvious I wasn’t going to stop her. “Text me later okay?”

“Sure.” Kari walked over and picked up me and her phone again. Before I knew it I was back in the living room where all this started, placed back on the table near my phone.

“Hey Robby…” Kari looked away nervously.

“Yeah?”

“If you did something bad…you’d tell me right?”

“Of course I would. I’d never lie to you. And I’d never hurt you if that’s what you’re worried about.”  

She looked away but I heard something drip from her chin. “I know I just-I don’t know.”

I barely heard the awkward “Bye.” as she hurried out the door.

I sat there in silence for a while after. Mom came back with some things for me but I only paid half attention. My mind was stuck on Kari the whole time. Mom showed me all these things to make life easier for me but I barely heard a word she said. Before I even realized it everything was dark and I was on the verge of sleep. I never informed Mom about what happened. I barely even said a word to her. I just wanted to try and work out what this all meant for me and Kari. Despite that, against my better judgment, exhaustion won out and I fell asleep, ending yet another fun, shrunken day.

Oh, and for the record. She didn’t text me that night.

For the next week or so nothing really happened. After the stellar ending to that interesting day things died down for a bit. The next few days Mom usually spent most of her time out, either working or out buying things to make life easier on me. Before I knew it I had my own bed, clothes and even a little TV to go with it. Turns out buying stuff for shrunken people is super cheap. Who knew?

We didn’t go all out with the new stuff though. After all, I wasn’t supposed to be around much longer. That is, until I got a lovely call from Jane. Unsurprisingly she told me that they’d need more time to assign me. There was no one in the local area in the market for a Micro. The new expected time table ranged anywhere from two weeks to a few months and I could wind up going anywhere from the next state over to another country.

All things considered, Mom took the news pretty well, though I could tell it bothered her. She constantly had to tiptoe around her own home and worry about every step crushing me. That is, if she was even home at all. Usually she didn’t trust herself to linger around for long. More than once I spent all day alone.

Honestly, if it weren’t for my new luxuries I’d probably have gone crazy but I managed to kill time lounging in bed watching TV or playing on my phone. I had a pretty nice set up on my old desk with a bed positioned before my TV and a small jewelry box with my clothes inside of it. Clothes aside, almost all of it was made for people bigger than me. Not many household items were made for people as small of me, though that just amounted to a bigger bed and TV so I couldn’t complain.

It didn’t do much to help though. After the whole thing with Kari we gave each other some space for a while. Even though she nearly accidentally killed me and I had every right to be upset I still cared about her. Nothing would’ve made me happier than hearing her tell me things would be alright. We hadn’t even talked since then, and I knew better than to try and force a chat. It left this weird void in my daily routine. It was no replacement for a girlfriend but I tried to fill the gap with simple things like internet and texting random friends. It actually served as a decent distraction.

Until I noticed something.

Up til now you notice anything strange? Perhaps how everyone was acting towards a certain Micro-sized someone?

If I may be blunt: People were being too nice to me. They’d been too nice to me from the get go. Think about it. My size basically labelled me as scum walking the Earth, but I could still text people and make dumb jokes like nothing changed? If they were my closest friends I could kind of understand things not changing but even my casual friends acted the same. Something didn’t add up.

The more I tried to talk with my friends the more obvious it was that something was up. Once I began to notice it everything started becoming real obvious. Long story short, they were just humoring me. People weren’t coming to me, I was coming to them. If I didn’t message someone first they’d avoid me like the plague. But when I did message them they’d humor the small talk for a minute just to be nice. People I could chat with for hours suddenly gave short, uninterested replies until I’d run out of things to say. Or more likely I’d get a message saying they were “Busy”.

 As time continued to pass it only got worse and worse. They were never outright rude or disrespectful to me, but it was clear I wasn’t someone they wanted to talk to. I was being out-casted.  

 At first I thought I was just being paranoid from being cooped up in the house for too long, but after a few more days I started giving up trying to talk to them. The more I tried the more their two-faced bullshit niceness irritated me. Maybe they didn’t want to be associated with someone my size or something. I can’t really speak for them. I just know that out of the dozens of friends I had, only a handful actually still treated me like one. Needless to say: Kari, Kristen, and Jaz.

Well, I’d assume Kari. We still didn’t really talk much though if anything from before the incident was an indication she still liked me. Heck, she even seemed fascinated by the idea of a Micro-sized boyfriend. If things were still okay between us then maybe we could salvage everything.

Kristen stayed pretty much the same too. She was always up for a chat. We still exchanged some playful banter here or there, maybe chat about the latest shows or something. Never talked about anything super meaningful but it was at least a real conversation and not her just humoring me.

Then there was Jaz…Oh boy…

You might recall I told you she had a bit of a sassy mouth on her. Well once the initial drama of me shrinking down wore off I never heard the end of it. Any time we talked I had to ready myself for any number of size-related jokes and insults. Her favorite was reminding me of my stature in relation to her smallest toe. In fact I believe the exact comparison was something like “Tinier than a speck of dirt on my pinky toe” but I could be paraphrasing. In its own way it was actually pretty refreshing. If nothing else it was a nice change of pace from all talk of my size being super serious and dreary.

And for what it’s worth, whenever Mom was around we still talked pretty normally too. I think it sank in after a while that despite how or why I shrank, my personality didn’t change any. I was still her little boy and I wasn’t going to suddenly reveal some supercrime I did when no one was looking.

Man, people asked me about that got old quick. If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me why I shrank I would be crushed under a sea of coins. Seriously, it gets annoying, especially when most of them take your denial as some form of guilt. Mercifully my friends I still chatted with seemed to notice and stopped asking.

These guys are probably the only reason I didn’t die or boredom. With more and more people basically avoiding me I found myself suddenly wanting human contact more than ever. Those small talks with my friends and family meant more to me than I could ever thank them for. But of course I soon got to the point where even that didn’t do it anymore.

I wanted to go outside.

The windows shining in the house started to mock me. I found myself annoyed whenever I saw something that reminded me of the beautiful world just outside my house. But there wasn’t much I could do. If I was outside I could easily go missing or a sudden gust of wind could wisp me away somewhere. Despite that I tried asking Mom once to take me out for a bit. “We” went shopping with my hidden away in her ear the entire time. Not exactly what I had in mind.

I remember bitching about it to Kristen one day when she came up with a great idea. “Why not just come to school with me?”

I slapped myself for being so dense. If I was with a friend I could head outside. And my school, where I hadn’t been in a couple weeks? Hell yeah. “That sounds perfect! When can we try?”

“Tomorrow if you want.”

“Tomorrow it is!”

I was so excited that night I could barely sleep.

It didn’t take much to convince my Mom to let me head out with Kristen. In fact, the second I proposed the idea she was totally on board, even recommending some things to do after classes so that I’d be out longer. She was probably planning to take this chance to relax in her own home without worrying about me but I didn’t hold it against her. She deserved it and this was too good a day for that.

Around ten A.M. my friend finally showed up and off we went. I of course had shotgun in her right ear as she drove. Surprisingly good internet in there by the way, had a fantastic signal on my phone. We didn’t really get a chance to talk much during the drive (Remember to always stay off your phone while driving kids). But once we arrived on campus she immediately whipped out her phone and called me.

“Hello?” I answered.

“We’re here.”

“Kinda figured when the car stopped. When’s your class?”

“Twenty minutes. What should we do til then?”

I shrugged, “Same thing we always do when we have time to kill. Find the group and hang around for a bit.” She stiffened when I said that. Maybe not enough for her to notice, but easily noticeable to me. “Something wrong?”

“Oh no. I was just surprised. I’d have thought you’d want to stay away from people with how small you are.”

“I’ve spent the better part of two weeks away from people. If I don’t see some people I might go crazy. What’s the worst that could happen?” The memory of that date with Kari came back to mind. I knew what kind of things could happen. But I couldn’t just live my life in fear like that. These aren’t monsters. They’re my friends. Even Kari meant no harm she just…had a moment.

“Alright.” Kristen shrugged. “I’m gonna hang up though. My hand’s starting to get tired.”

“Kay.” I hung up first and started playing on my phone again. Who would be there I wondered. Would I see the people who’d been clearly avoiding contact with me? Would Kari be there? How is she? Is she still upset? This would be the first time I would have seen her in weeks. Things got so quiet between us I was worried…Were we still dating? Was this a silent break-up? I dunno if I could take that.

Nothing quite so dramatic though. This early in the morning next to no one was at our usual hangout spot. In fact, aside from me and Kristen only Jaz was there.

“Morning Kristen.” I heard her familiar voice call out.

“Morning.”

“And Good Morning to our little bug too.” She snickered.

“It’s too early in the morning for you to be sassing me.” I replied instinctively. Then I texted that to her when I remembered she couldn’t hear me.

“I should probably take him out.” I heard Kristen mumble seconds before her finger poked its way towards me.

“Nah. He can stay there a while, maybe help you clean your ears or something.”

“Tempting but no.”

I hopped onto Kristen’s finger and was brought to a small coffee table in front of a couch. Side by side on the couch were my two friends. Already next to me was Jaz’s phone, all set for me to communicate.

“Aw for me? How thoughtful.” I joked after hopping onto it.

“Yep, I’m the sweetest, most thoughtful girl in the world.”

“Don’t forget modest.” Kristen retorted.

“You’re definitely something.” I nodded.

“Says the ant.” Jaz stuck her tongue out at me.

I shrugged, too lazy to make a comeback. “How you guys been? I haven’t seen you in forever.”

Now it was their turn to shrug.

“Same old same old.”

“Pretty much.” Jaz agreed. “Classes, sleep, games, the usual. How about you?”

“A lot less classes, a lot more sleep.”

“I bet. You’ve always been lazy.”

Kristen chuckled, “I think no matter what size you are that’ll stay the same.”

“Nah.” Jaz grinned, “Now it’s even worse. He doesn’t even have classes as an excuse anymore.”

“Oh! Speaking of class I better go before I’m late.”

“Better hurry. See what being late did to Rob?”

Kristen nodded, stifling a giggle. “Take care of him!”

“Sure.” Jaz lazily waved as Kristen ran off.

As I watched Kristen hurry to class I found myself smiling. “Some things never change.”

Jaz was still looking to where Kristen left. “Of course. We’re not the ones who changed.”

My smile drooped a little. “Yeah, I guess I am huh?”

“Still don’t know why you shrank?” Jaz’s eyes locked onto me with a surprisingly serious look to them.

“Nope. Woke up small and suddenly everything’s different. My case is still being assigned so I don’t know what to expect.”

“You’ll be fine.” Jaz smirked, “Cockroaches can survive anything.”

“Come on, I’ve had a rough few weeks. Not even a little sympathy?”

“Wouldn’t be me if I did that now would I?”

“Nah, would just be better.”

“Oh shut up.” She gently knocked me over with her finger, briefly scaring me with the sudden move. “Be nice to people bigger than you.”

“Pick on someone your own size.”

“Nah, it’s funner when I do it to someone smaller.”

I got up and brushed myself off. “Remind me again why you’re not as small as I am?”

“Cause I’m a good girl.” She made an innocent face and batted her eyes at me.

“I don’t think we have the same definition of good here.”

She shrugged, “Maybe, but mine’s right.”

I could only respond with some bizarre mixture of a shrug and a laugh.

“There you go.” Jaz smiled, “You got to relax more. You worry too much.”

“I will once I find out where I’m assigned.” I shrugged, “Til then I got to stay on my toes.”

Once again a massive brown finger knocked me over. “I said relax.”

“I don’t wanna!” I shouted playfully.

“Sounds like something Auntie Jaz should fix.” Jaz’s eyes narrowed as her fingers reached for me again. I braced myself, expecting her to pluck me up and do something to me. But instead she just brushed me off her phone and picked it up. I watched curiously as she began to tap away at the screen for a few minutes before setting it back down.

“What was that about?”

“I’ll tell you when I get a response.”

I didn’t know what she was up to but I didn’t like that gleam in her eyes.

Conversation died down a bit after that and we both ended up messing around on respective electronics. Every once in a while some people would show up and start to chat. Then when they realized I was there they tended to leave not long after. I tried not to let it bother me and went back to doing my thing, occasionally trading words with Jaz. Kristen came back for a few minutes an hour or so after she left but she quickly headed out again to another class.

Right around then Jaz shut her laptop, “I got a class I need to be going to too.”

“Oh yeah, this is your last class of the day isn’t it?” I only remembered since things were usually much less lively whenever Jaz left.

She nodded, “Yep, let’s go.”

“Wait, I’m coming too?”

“Duh. I’m not just gonna leave you out here alone. Who knows what you’d end up doing?”

I saw her point and ignored the implications of that last line. “Alright, lower your finger so I can hop on.”

“Only if you say please.” She slung a bag over her shoulder and grinned down at me.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

I sighed, “Please.” Figured I’d let her take this one.

“Well if you insist…” She picked me up and I once again found myself in a girl’s ear.

“Just once I want to ride on someone’s shoulders or something.” I grumbled until I found a cozy nook a few meters in.

“No funny business while you’re in there either! I’ll hear it.”

“No you won’t.” I laughed.

“Yeah I will.”

It was at that moment I learned that Jaz had really good hearing.

“Wait, you can hear me?”

“Mmhm.”

“Damn. Anytime I ride in my Mom or Kristen’s ear I have to use my phone the whole time. This is actually really convenient.”

“Yeah…I’m pretty great.”

I let that one slide. “What class we going to anyway?”

“American History.”

“Riveting, can’t wait to relearn the Revolutionary War and Civil War.”

“I’ll have you know we’re learning about World War I right now.”

“Awesome, let’s go.”

Her class wasn’t that far away, at least as far as I could tell. I did a round of Sudoku on my phone as she walked. Right as I finished I heard her open a door and a female voice in the distance started talking about last week’s assignments and I was already getting bored.

Actually that’s not true. Compared to sitting at home for hours doing nothing this was really interesting. Funny how nice the mundane things like school became once you didn’t have them. I wish I was half as attentive as I was during that lecture; maybe I’d have had more A’s. Course, even amazing attentiveness only lasted so long before I was back to browsing the web on my phone. Though, out of respect for my giant friend, I muted my phone. So I was at least being considerate.

“Okay, class dismissed.”

Jaz took a few steps outside when I heard a loud tremor from below. Louder that the tremors that were every other noise that is. It was amplified but I managed to identify it as a phone vibrating. Jaz pulled it out and I immediately heard a chuckle. Instinctively I knew what happened.

“Guessing you got your reply.”

“Yep.”

“So now you gonna tell me what you’re up to?”

I heard her say it, but I blinked because I was certain I didn’t hear it right. But she said it so direct and matter-of-factly there was no way to misinterpret it.

“You’re spending the night with me tonight.”

“…Huh…? What do you mean?”

“You heard me.” Jaz shrugged, “Tonight I’m taking you home with me and you are staying there until tomorrow.”

“No.” I shook my head, “I mean why?”

“Do I need a reason to invite a friend over?”

“Yes, you do.”

“Well too bad. I don’t have one and you’re coming anyway. Besides, I already told your Mom. She’s okay with it.”

I opened my mouth for a rebuttal but nothing came out. I knew better than anyone; once Jaz set her mind on something it was going to happen. Maybe if I really begged someone I could get out of it but I had no reason to panic like that. Actually, this was exactly the kind of thing I’d been wanting for a while now. Human contact, a different place, new things to do, I just never expected my wish would be granted like this.

“Sounds like I win this one.”

“I just figured I’d bless your place with my presence for a bit.” I leaned back against the ridge of her ear lazily. 

“Whatever you tell yourself tiny.” She started walking again, signaling the end of the conversation.

At first I played on my phone like I always did. Although it didn’t take long before my mind started to wander and I got lost in my thoughts. I really didn’t know what to make of this sudden development. I mean, a night in a girl’s home was anything a guy could dream of. Just two problems: the guy in question is both taken and the size of a bug. Would Kari get jealous I wondered. Maybe this was kind of thing we needed to get us to start talking again. If nothing else I’d spend the night in a different place and probably have a good time for a while. I knew Jaz would never hurt me. In fact, her attitude was so different from everyone else’s she was probably the most refreshing person to just hang out with. So why was I worried?

I didn’t even need to ask myself. I knew full well why. The last time I was alone with someone I nearly got crushed. She would never hurt me. She cared about me more than anyone else. And yet so far she’s the one who came closest to killing me. How close would Jaz come? Maybe she’d be the one to succeed. So far I’d been lucky. All it would take is one little mishap and…

I gotta stop thinking like that. I shook my head. Ever since that date with Kari I was all-too aware of how easy it was for me to die at any point. Usually it didn’t affect me, but right then, on the way to Jaz’s place, I grew increasingly worried. Once we were in Jaz’s car I fought the urge to try and back out of this. This was what I wanted…right?

The roar of the car’s engine made me jump. Although I couldn’t see anything I knew we were now moving.

“You’ve been quiet for a while.” Jaz noted.

“Just tired.” I lied. “Your ear is surprisingly comfy.”

“Duh, it’s mine.”

“Yeah yeah.”

Then came a moment of silence.

“…Don’t worry.”

The sudden soft tone took me by surprise. “Jaz?”

“You’ve been worrying too much. Ever since you showed up today you’ve been…off. Usually you never shut up.”

I immediately answered evasively. “I try to watch my mouth these days. Gotta be careful.”

“Or you’ll get crushed?”

“…”

“You haven’t been crushed yet have you?”

“…No?”

“And do you think I’ll crush you?”

“Of course not! You’re my friend! I’d never-“

“Then stop worrying.” I felt like she was somehow smiling at me. “Trust me.”

Trust her?

Trust…?

I didn’t say anything; she…had a point. I called her my friend but here I was acting like I didn’t have the slightest bit of faith in her. When did this happen? At what point did I stop trusting the people closest to me? Here I am with one of my closest friends and I’m panicking about whether or not she’ll crush me. People start losing their trust me in me and my first reaction is to start losing trust in my friends? I’m as bad as the people who brush me off.

That roughly summarizes my thoughts the second Jaz said that. It was such a simple, even cheesy, line but it left me totally speechless. That also apparently applied to Jaz since she was strangely silent afterwards too. She turned up the radio, which was all I heard until we made it to her house.

Wish I could give you some interesting description of her home or maybe some noteworthy entrance but the truth is actually pretty dull. We arrived. She told me we arrived. And she walked inside quietly. I knew she had an apartment with a roommate but said roommate was apparently not here so we just had that great silence again. After maybe a minute or so I heard the loud sound of a door shutting behind me so I figured we were now in a room, probably Jaz’s bedroom.

Then I heard the click of a lock.

“Why are you locking the door?”

“I don’t wanna be bothered.” Came the nonchalant reply.

“…Bothered with what exactly?” I cautiously asked, suddenly aware of the goose bumps on my arms.

“You.” Came another nonchalant answer.

My eyes widened, “What do you…” My sentence dragged when I noticed a giant brown finger just outside of the ear, wordlessly telling me to climb on. For a moment I debated on not doing so. I was small enough I could go deep enough into her ear that she couldn’t reach me.

Trust me.

What Jaz had said earlier that day echoed in my head. Before I knew it I was climbing down onto her finger. A moment later I was in front of her massive face, staring at me with a small smirk.

“Consider this an intervention tiny.”

“Intervention?” I repeated, dumbfounded, “For what?”

For a moment Jaz didn’t say anything. Wordlessly she lowered me onto a dresser beside her phone. “You’ve been doing nothing but be mopey all day. Now Auntie Jaz is gonna fix that!”

“I haven’t been mopey!”

After shooting me a skeptical look Jaz pulled a chair from a desk and sat in it, facing me. “Yeah you have. Normally you don’t shut up but every time you’re bummed about something you clam up. It’s not hard to notice.”

She hit the nail right on the head. Though I wouldn’t admit it so I quickly switched tactics. “It’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be.”

“Oh?” Jaz leaned back and propped her feet up near me. “Cause I think it’s a little weird that since you’ve shrunken all we’ve talked about is random little things. Willing to bet you haven’t talked with anyone about it.”

“I’ve done nothing but talk about it.”

“No, you’ve been asked about it. That’s not talking, that’s you answering a question to get someone off your back.”

“Well what do you want me to say?”

Jaz smirked, “Being honest would be a good start.” She shifted her feet closer to me. I briefly shot them a wary look.

I sighed and remained silent for a moment. We both knew she wasn’t going to drop this. I could be stubborn and she’d be just as stubborn until I caved. Hell, I could already feel myself beginning to cave in. I quickly tried to distract myself by taking in my surroundings.

It was a bedroom of course. In the corner sat a bed with purple…well purple everything. Beside it was a closet. Across from that closet was the desk I was on, atop it was a nice-looking tv. Directly behind me was a small mirror and some makeup. A little bit more to the side was a computer desk with the chair being the one Jaz herself was seated on now. On the walls were some posters and I think I spotted some small plushes gently hidden away. It was a fairly standard girl’s room, and it barely did a thing to stop me from caving.

 “I’m just…worried.”

“About…?”

“A lot of things. Of being crushed, people suddenly acting different, where I’m going to be assigned…” I sighed. “I never thought I’d end up tiny.”

“No one did.” Jaz looked away, “When you shrank everyone was surprised. You seemed like such a nice guy.”

After hearing that I made a bitter smile. “Do you think I am?”

She shrugged, “I’ve met worse.” a smirk sneaked onto her face. “Can’t imagine what it’s like being so small though. I mean, look at how big my feet are compared to you.”

Once more her feet moved closer, not stopping until her bare soles were towering directly in front of me. I grimaced at the sight of them and tried to avert my gaze, easier said than done though. Each foot was the size of a damn skyscraper. If Jaz happened to lower them there’s no way I would’ve been able to get out of the way in time. I’d be effortlessly smushed beneath her. If I were a smarter man I’d move but I simply stood there and tried to ignore them. She’d probably move them to wherever I was anyway.

“How big do you think they are? To you I mean.”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“I actually did some math when I was bored. My foot is about eleven inches long. You are two millimeters tall. About 25 millimeters in an inch making my foot something like 275 millimeters. Last I checked you were what…5”11”? That’d make my foot somewhere around 800 feet tall compared to you. And something like fifty feet wide.”

“Wow, you can math.” I rolled my eyes, “Why exactly is that important?”

“It’s not.” She admitted, “I just thought it was neat. That makes my big toe almost forty feet tall.”

“I get it, I’m little. You don’t need to use numbers to make that point.” I was starting to get annoyed.

“Relax, it’s just small talk.”

“You were the one who wanted to talk serious.”

“And now you’re too serious. Relax.”

“I was until you started on this.”

“No you weren’t.” One of the feet looming over me began to rock back and forth. “Like you said, you’re worried. I can’t blame you; I mean even right now it probably looks like my foot’s about to crush you, right?”

For a moment I stared at Jaz’s foot repeatedly move towards and away from me. I was almost certain it would come down each time it returned. “Yeah, glad you realize that. Can you stop doing it please?”

She ignored me. “Plus ever since you started shrinking everyone’s acted differently towards you. You probably have more than a few trust issues right now.”

“Yeah, so could yo-“

“And to top it all off you’re going to be assigned any day now and be sent off to do who knows what. Yeah, I’d be scared too if I were you.”

“Glad we’re on the same page. Can you move your feet please?”

“Nope~” Jaz’s feet briefly moved out of the way so I could see her grinning face behind them.

I sighed. “Why, may I ask?”

“Your situation’s tough Rob…But that doesn’t mean it’ll end badly.”

“Goddammit, you’re ignoring me again aren’t you?”

“It’s scary but you never know. Even if you end up as an assistant you might wind up working for a cute girl. She might treat you real nice and maybe even reward you if you do good.”

“If you’re going to ignore me can you at least try to slide into the conversation why you’re feet are still in my face?”

“Don’t act like you don’t like it.”

I froze. For that moment I had a mini panic attack.

You see, there is a little secret about me I may have neglected to mention. As the situation may have made clear, I have an interest in feet. Nothing extravagant. In fact it’s actually pretty minor as far as my tastes go. When given the choice I would choose boobs every single time. But it was the one thing I did my best to keep secret. Not even Kari knew about it. Hell, Jaz only knew because she stumbled on to my laptop’s browsing history and discovered a um…mild assortment of photos that may or may not have been focused on um….feet…(I would like to reiterate that it is near the bottom of my list of kinks).

The point is Jaz was quite literally flaunting this fetish in my face.

After a moment to collect myself I gulped, “Whether or not I like it is irrelevant. It’s bothering me.”

“Why? Cause you can’t touch them? Kiss em? Give em little licks?” She laughed. There was no rebuttal as I was too embarrassed and lowered my head.

“You can you know.”

“Pardon?” I snapped out of it.

“You can touch them. I’m not gonna get mad or anything.”

“I’m not about to sit here and start caressing your feet. That’s creepy. And I doubt Kari would be happy about it anyway.”

“Why? It’s nothing romantic. It’s practice.”

“Practice for what?”

“For if you wind up becoming an assistant.”

I laughed, “I doubt that if I got hired as someone’s assistant I’d be put next to their feet.”

“Why? It’s what I’d do.” She shrugged. “You may end up with someone who wants a foot rub once in a while.”

“Weren’t you just telling me how your foot is 800 feet tall?”

“Then you better get started huh?”

I didn’t move.

“Come on, please?”

“Was this whole thing just to get me to give you a foot massage?”

“…Maybe…” Jaz admitted.

“Not getting out of this am I?”

“Probably not.”

“Goddammit.” I sighed, approaching Jaz’s foot.

I stopped just short of my friend’s foot and took a moment to look at it. It was big obviously, but how huge it was continued to surprise me. Jaz told me in advance how tall her foot was but that was just a number. I couldn’t fully comprehend how big that really was until I up close. I strained my neck to look as far upwards as I could. As far as I could see was this wall of cocoa brown up to the ball of her foot. The toes beyond it were totally blocked by the rest of this monolith in front of me. Even further in the distance, miles and miles away, was the white of the ceiling. It was a honestly a little baffling. I had seen tons of stuff to make me realize what my new height was like but I had yet to actually see how I ranked up to something like a foot. Usually people kept their feet as far away from me as possible, for obvious reasons. As such this was totally new. I was amazed. What was in front of me looked less like a foot and more like a building.

Though all things considered it looked nice. I mean, as far as feet went. After shrinking I’d learned to cope with more than a few disgusting sights you don’t see at a normal height. Pores, dirt, veins, hair, you name it. None of that was present here. Jaz’s foot looked as smooth to me as it would to her. That spoke very highly of how she cared for herself. And I mean, I’m no expert or anything but they were uh…nice. I once went on record even going to so far as to call them beautiful but that was a long time ago. As gigantic as they were they seemed like just the right height if that makes any sense, with each toe being an appropriate size in accordance with both the foot and in relation to the other toes. There weren’t any, for lack of a better word, flaws with them. They were just really nice feet (Wow that felt weird to say).

They also had this weird sort of presence to them. It’s kind of hard to explain but being next to Jaz’s foot I was fully aware of just how easy it would be to just end me with it. Even the small movements they made just by her breathing were enough to knock me over and if it lowered there would be no way I’d outrun it. But here’s the thing, it didn’t worry me like you’d think it would. They had this really calming air about them (Speaking of, there was a surprising lack of smell to them). I mean, they could totally eviscerate me and no one would ever know but I had this weird confidence that that wouldn’t happen. It was actually a little comforting. Up close I could feel this gentle warmth in the air surrounding her foot. It was the kind of warmth you’d only feel when a person touched you. How long had it been since I’d known that comfortable feeling? These days whenever a person touched me they felt annoyingly hot to the touch or didn’t feel anything special at all. The last time I felt something like this was probably the last time I held Kari before shrinking. It was a weird feeling to suddenly be having, especially from my friend’s foot, but it had just the right level of heat radiating from it. It just…felt nice in a way I can’t really explain.

“Sorry, my feet are probably still hot from being in my shoes all day.”

“No, it’s nice.” I replied without realizing it.

I immediately regretted that when a loud cackle rang out in the distance, “Knew you were a foot boy. No more excuses then. Get to work!” Her foot shoved itself against me, demanding to be rubbed.

Whatever bizarre trance I was in was now over and I returned back to my normal skeptical self. Just my luck the phone nearby was just close enough to pick up my voice from here. Without much choice I finally began to massage.

If you could call it that.

Let’s be real here. I’m like, the size of an ant. Maybe smaller, maybe bigger, I don’t know how big an ant is. What was in front of me is the equivalent of a skyscraper, and a pretty big one at that. There was zero chance in hell I could do anything resembling a massage here. Just trying would be beyond pointless.

But, for some reason I tried, I actually tried pretty damn hard. Jaz’s sole was…tricky. You’d expect a foot to be relatively soft, especially a girl’s foot, and it definitely was. It just wasn’t as soft as you might expect. I tentatively pushed my hand against the bottom to see what I was up against and my hand definitely worked itself in a little bit but after a couple inches it was like there was a wall there. It stopped me from pushing any further and was a really jarring surprise when the rest was relatively soft. I pulled my hand out and watched as the skin I pushed in readjusted itself so that only a faint handprint was embedded in a miniscule portion of Jaz’s much bigger foot print. My hand reached out again and gently rubbed beside the handprint. Beneath my palm I could make out the many distinct ridges of the print lines, each line roughly as wide as my hand. Yet somehow it came together for a strangely satisfying feeling that was some in-between for ridged and smooth. It was helped by that same warmth I felt earlier radiating just under my palm.

Once more I was snapped out of my fascination, this time by the sound of my giantess friend clearing her throat. “As pretty as they are I don’t got all day there footboy.”

I sighed, but finally began to actually massage. I’d never actually massaged anything before but from what I knew of it I decided the best thing to do would be to grab some of the print lines with my hands and try to push them as well as I could for a few moments before moving to a slightly different location to repeat the process.

Jaz moaned loudly. "Mm…That feels nice…”

“You don’t need to play it up.”

“I know.” The pleasure in her voice vanished. “But I have to at least pretend since you’re doing such a bad job.”

“Then you come here and rub your feet!”

“Where’s the fun in that? Just massage harder.”

“Massage harder.” I grumbled under breath. “What do you want me to do, punch your damn foot?”

I was joking but it basically turned into that after a few more minutes of me failing. At Jaz’s request, and I’m really stretching the word request, I started beating on her foot with as much strength as I could manage. Right away I felt my knuckles start to hurt and what little stamina I had began to leave me but it seemed like it was doing much better than my basic rubbing was.

“At least now I feel something.” Jaz grunted. “I suppose it’ll do.”

She made me do this for ten minutes, ten long, tiring, pointless minutes of pounding on her foot and calling it a massage.

“Alright you can stop. This isn’t working.” Jaz’s finger played with her lips as she made audible thinking sounds.

“You think? What do you expect at my height?” I complained. After falling over and panting for air that is. Seriously, punching for ten minutes is hard.

“Hmm…Maybe…?” Jaz leaned over and began reaching near me.

“What are you up to n-OWWWWWW?!?”

For the record that latter bit was me screaming as I was lifted into the air.

No one had ever just up and picked me up before so it totally caught me off guard. I was held in place only by the two titanic nails pinching my shirt. If it tore…well judging by the height it was something around a 900 foot drop. I handled this about as well as you would expect.

“Please dear God Jaz put me down! This isn’t funny!”

Yep, I handled it marvelously. I remember flailing like a maniac and screaming several obscenities. In hindsight the flailing was probably more dangerous than Jaz actually picking me up was. And I was most certainly out of phone range by now so she couldn’t hear me anyway. I was so frantic I only barely realized where I was soon placed: between Jaz’s toes. Her big and second toe to be exact.

“Try there.”

“Try what exactly? Sorry if I’m having trouble keeping up after you threw me through the fucking air!”

Of course I got no answer, nor did I move. After that I needed a moment to myself.

A moment my friend did not seem to want me to have. “Get to massaging shorty! Feel free to clean up a bit too.”

I rolled my eyes, “Starting to feel pretty used right about now.”

Naturally I was more than a little worked up so I took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s do this.” And believe it or not, once I calmed down I went back to massaging. This time my target was the ground beneath my own feet, the space between Jaz’s toes.

If her foot was surreal before this was something else entirely. Her toes were close enough together it felt like I was in a canyon of…well skin. Both of Jaz’s shapely toes rose up as high as a building and were just far enough apart to make it feel like I was in a hallway. My eyes looked down past the edge of her toes once and I immediately regretted it. I didn’t peer directly over the edge but I knew I was pretty damn high in the air. Did I ever mention I was scared of heights? Cause I’m really scared of heights. Specifically the, “I’m in danger of falling.” kind of heights. I avoided that feeling by trying to throw myself into my task, as bullshit as it was. If I opted to look up I could see Jaz in the distance, leg outstretch and smiling directly at me, watching me the entire time like it was the most entertaining thing in the world.

“That actually feels kinda nice.” Jaz said after a minute or two.

“I said don’t play it up.” Even though I said that I had the feeling she was actually being sincere. That motivated me a bit to put some oomph into it. I hadn’t resorted to my glorious punching technique quite yet and it thankfully didn’t seem necessary.

“Maybe you’re not useless after all tiny.”

Wasn’t this an intervention? Seemed a lot more like I was being used for free labor. Regardless, I let her have her fun. And I admit; I wasn’t exactly hating it. It was actually kind of relaxing. I was keeping myself busy and even though I wasn’t talking to anyone I didn’t feel that same, depressing loneliness I did at home. All the issues I’d been having didn’t seem nearly as bad as they were. Something as simple and menial as this actually seemed to give me some clarity on things. For the first time in a long time I actually began felt a little optimistic again. Next thing I knew I was humming as I switched to rubbing the towering toes around me. Though the humming began to die down when I realized that there were nine more toes, and an entire other foot.

But I’ll be damned if it didn’t actually go by a little quick. Once I had a rhythm going the only thing that ever broke my pace was moving between toes. Whenever Jaz had enough she’d let me know then move me to the next spot that needed massaging, occasionally delivering the snarky remarks I’d expect from her. She seemed particularly fond of belittling me about the fact I was too small to talk back to her but I couldn’t tell you the details. Tuning her out was surprisingly easy despite how loud her voice was.

“Alright, that’s enough Rob.” Jaz interrupted me mid-massage and picked me up again. This time I found myself placed in her palm. The ground beneath me kept moving so I quickly seated myself and used one of her palm prints as a seat.

“You did alright…for a bug.”

By this point I’d totally given up responding to her and just let her continue.

“God, so small you can’t even talk to me. What a loser.”

She’d hand out a few more insults then probably place me down and start whatever next game she had in mind. That’s okay though. I was ready for anything.

“Hope you’re feeling a little better now.”

I was not ready for that.

She smiled at me. Not a witty or mischievous smile, but a genuine, heartfelt one. “You really haven’t changed have you? You’ve been like this as long as we’ve known each other.” I fought the urge to pointlessly ask her what the hell she was talking about. She chuckled as if she felt my confusion. “You always try to act like everything’s okay but you just wind up freaking yourself out. You gotta learn to take a moment and just breathe. Quit being stubborn.”

Wait.

Was that was this all was?

Was this whole massage thing just her way of giving me a “moment” to think?

…Nah, she had to be screwing with me. Any second now she’d stick her tongue out and laugh. The Jaz I knew was never this sentimental.

Except, her tongue never stuck out. She just looked…relieved. Was she actually...worried…about…me…?

“Moving on.” Whatever look she had reverted back to the one I always knew, completely ruining the moment.

“Now what?!” Likewise, I reverted back to my usual self.

“I told you.” Jaz smirked. “You might wind up getting hired by someone who’d reward you for doing a good job. You did a good job.” The hand I was sitting on moved, adjusting just slightly enough that my vision wasn’t focused on her face anymore. Now I found myself staring at her rather revealing top.

“And this is your reward.”

She had to be fucking with me; there was just no other explanation.

First she would make me look directly at her chest. Then she’d make some small vague comment that’d make me assume something and then she’d call me out on it and laugh at me. This was how it worked. She wouldn’t just up and show me her breasts and then have me play with them. Not getting into the fact that I was taken she had no interest in me and I no interest in her. Okay, admittedly there were some times in High School I was a tad interested but nothing more. This was totally out of character for her so she had to reveal the joke any second now. If she didn’t…I don’t even know what I’d make of that.

When the witty insult and laugh never came I felt my heart skip a beat. She wasn’t joking. I took a look at her face, hoping to see some mischievous expression waiting to unleash its wrath. But the expression I saw was one I’d never seen before. She still looked like she was confident but the usual charisma and energy in her face seemed lacking. Was she…embarrassed?

“Don’t go getting any ideas.” She made an obvious attempt to look away from me. “You just did a good job. It’s only fair I do something for you too.”

My heart skipped again. Was this real?

“But…we’re not…” I looked back down to her cleavage and fell silent.

“I can’t do anything else for you without risking hurting you so…we’ll just both put up with it.” She took a deep breath. “Here we go.”

I remember thinking to myself very clearly. This wasn’t right. I was with Kari. Even if we weren’t speaking right now I was hers and hers alone. Jaz is a lovely girl, beautiful even, but she’s not my girl. I couldn’t just…betray my girlfriend like that.

I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. Even if it had it meant nothing. I was too small to be heard and powerless to go against her as she dropped me into her cleavage.

To her she dropped me less than an inch. To me I fell over ten feet. Were it not for the extraordinary cushion that was a woman’s bosom I could’ve broken an ankle or something. Instinctively I tried to catch myself from falling and ending up gripping Jaz’s breast tightly with each hand. Her soft, supple skin immediately made the more primal desires within me react. Against my will I found myself…interested let’s say. I was still fully rational and in control but I couldn’t help but feel like on some level I’d let myself down.

To fully appreciate this whole scene let me paint you a little picture. Jaz was in her room, leaning back in an office chair with her bare feet propped on a dark wooden desk. Today her shoulder-length black hair was in a small ponytail and she had two small elephant earrings on. Her outfit was a pair of light jeans that stopped about mid-calf and a violet short-sleeve top that exposed most of her chest. Her chest, for the record, being somewhere in the D and DD range with me, smaller than her toes, on top of one of them. That was this situation right now, I remember it in full detail.

Anyway, back on topic I immediately realized that I couldn’t stay here. If I did I knew I would end up doing something I’d regret. For everyone’s best interest I had to go…but how? Without Jaz’s help I was stranded in this field that was a single breast. Realizing that, I turned my attention skyward and tried to signal her to get me out of there. She was staring right at me, smiling weakly.

“Heh, you look like an ant on my boob. You really are a loser.”

It was incredibly obvious she was trying to build her confidence up with her usual insults. If she was so embarrassed why did she do it in the first place? I didn’t get it. She obviously planned this out. Even if it was for my sake why put herself in this uncomfortable position?

 “Why are you just laying around? Too scared to do anything without my permission?” More of her usual vigor began to come back in her voice. “Need Auntie Jaz to boss you around like the bug you are?”

Not gonna lie. Something about the way she said that was kinda hot. But it was irrelevant. “Jaz, get me out of here!”

“…Or are my boobs not big enough?” By now Jaz had her usual expression back. “Didn’t realize you were such a pervert. Or maybe you’re just upset cause they’re not my feet.”

Ignoring the thunderous snickering, I stood up. “Come on Jaz, seriously. This isn’t funny!”

She naturally didn’t hear me. Though from my posture she probably realized I wasn’t too pleased. Her response was to use a finger to knock me over, face-first into her breast.

“Relax tiny. This is your reward. Enjoy it while it lasts. You earned it.” I got back up to try and yell at her again but was quickly knocked back down. “Nuh uh! Crawl around and enjoy your reward like a good boy!” I tried again with the same result. “Seriously, what’s the problem? I told you it’s okay. Are they not good enough or something?”

“God No.” I mumbled to no one. It was all I could do to just not run wild. Compared to Kari’s modest chest Jaz was outright stacked. Two…maybe even three times the size and all the more desirable, but they weren’t my girlfriend’s so I couldn’t. I just…couldn’t. Even if the world thought I was a demon, I wouldn’t betray her like that.

“Are you worried about Kari?”

My ears piped up, my fidgeting stopped.

“Relax, I asked her. She said it was alright.”

She asked her? What? That made no sense. How do you even…? She had to be lying. But earlier she texted someone…I thought it was Mom but if she texted Kari then that could be it; and if it was that just raised more questions.

“She wants you to enjoy yourself just as much as I do. She’s just…not up to it.”

I was confused. Kari gave Jaz permission because…? Was she scared she’d hurt me? Was Jaz lying? Was Kari even remotely involved in this, or perhaps it was Kari’s idea? What if it was Jaz’s? It was too much to take at once. All I knew for certain was that someone was concerned about me, and that this was meant to cheer me up.

I looked at the ground beneath me: a seemingly endless stretch of cocoa brown that was the size of a large building.

I gave up. “Fuck it.” My body naturally fell over and relaxed against the soft ground.

Jaz noticed that I wasn’t fighting her anymore and smirked. “Good boy. Now, when you’re ready I got a fun little game for you.” She leaned further back in her chair so that she was at an angle, making the ground I was on less of a field and more of a steep hill in an instant. My eyes followed that hill upwards and soon found Jaz’s face looked right at me. “You just got to try and make it to the top of my boob and reach my neck. Easy enough right?”

She took a small breath and immediately blew. In an instant a strong gust of wind came and threated to flip me onto my back. It died as quickly as it came but once I looked at Jaz again she was smiling. “My job’s to try and stop you.”

My eyes narrowed. “Cute.”

“Now come and get me tiny!”

The game had begun.

To be honest, I don’t even know why I bothered playing along with this. Wasn’t this supposed to be a reward? How was this a reward? I stopped bothering trying to attach a reason to everything by this point and just rolled with it. If Jaz wanted a game, fine. Challenge accepted. She’d regret ever taking me on! It didn’t matter that I was literally a bug on her boob she could just blow away without even trying. She messed with the wrong Micro.

I’m talking a lot of trash here but this was actually really fucking hard. Nice as they were, Jaz’s big boobs made this already difficult climb frustratingly so. Not to mention every time I moved about an inch or so Jaz would lightly blow at me, half the time sending me back to where I started. If I was lucky and managed to get a good grip on her boob, which I may add, was already really hard, then maybe I could hold on long enough to outlast it and keep going, though that’s a big maybe. Jaz apparently thought it was so fun she would blow as hard as she could or do it multiple times just to see how I’d handle it. Needless to say I ended up doing flips through the air more than once. On the bright side though, breasts make for the best cushion you could ever ask for.

You know, when I describe it the game actually sounds really annoying. I mean, it kinda was I’m not gonna lie. But there was something oddly addicting about it. I was actually enjoying getting up and trying over and over again and likewise Jaz seemed to never get tired of blowing me flat on my face.

My best attempt lasted somewhere around ten minutes. I stayed on all fours the entire time, slowing crawling from the edge of Jaz’s boob. I adopted some kind of rock-climbing technique where I kept low and constantly made sure my hands had a good grip before moving even slightly forward. These were the lessons I’d learned from trial and error. Of course Jaz was relentless. As long as she could she was trying to blow me back to the start. The closer I got the fiercer the winds became. I didn’t check my progress once the entire time. Looking up would just either discourage me or make me reckless. No, my attention was solely on the patch of brown I was on and nothing else.

I was in the zone man. I’d finally learned how to get a good grip on breast flesh and Jaz’s repeated blowing had her out of breath and weaker than ever. I had this. It was all mine. I crawled my way straight to the top and before I knew it I grabbed skin that was nowhere near as soft as the rest. I’d reached the base of her breasts and was mere inches from the goal. It was right there, and best of all I was now too close to her face for her to blow directly at me so I didn’t have to worry about that anymore. I’d won…or so I thought.

If you ever happen to find yourself playing a game where you must climb a giantess’ breast to reach her neck you may want to pay close attention to the rules. I did not. So I made a gross mistake. See, my job was easy, as was Jaz’s job. I just had to climb and she had to stop me. What I didn’t think about though, was how she would stop me.

What this means is little Robby never once expected a giant hand to show up from nowhere and smack him all the way  back to Jaz’s shirt. He also didn’t expect a finger to hold him in place while a giant black girl mocked him for being unable to lift her finger.

From beneath Jaz’s finger I heard her laugh triumphantly. “I win.”

“You cheated.” I grumbled like the sore loser I was.

Jaz pulled her finger off and rubbed her big grin in my face. “Can’t even climb my boob bug boy? That’s kinda sad.”

Was this really the same girl who was embarrassed like…half an hour ago?

“Anywho, hope you liked your reward.” Her fingers plucked me up again, “It was definitely too good for you. You’re lucky I’m so nice.”

Still not sure why that qualified as a reward but whatever. Jaz set me down on the desk again and brought her chair forwards so she could rest an arm in front of me. “But I won. Do you know what that means?”

“No, we never talked about what would happen if I win or lose.” I didn’t even know why I responded. She couldn’t hear me. Then, to my surprise, I heard my voice played back at a loud enough level Jaz heard it. I turned my back and saw Jaz’s phone. “Oh yeah, forgot about that.”

“I can tell.” She giggled. “Anyway, since I won, I get to do what I want for a bit.”

“You mean this whole time you weren’t doing what you wanted?”

“Nope! But that’s about to change.” Jaz raised a hand over me. “…I’d run if I were you…”

The next thing I noticed was Jaz’s palm smacking the table as hard as it could. Thankfully I was safe between two of her fingers but I knew that was my only warning. I turned tail and began to run as Jaz’s hand rose into the air again.

“Look out Lil Robby. Here I come~”

Have you ever been chased by a giant hand? Something literally hundreds of times your size coming solely after you, dozens of times faster than you at its lazy pace and quick as lightning whenever it got serious. Has the strength to probably crush a city in one finger. Completely blots out the sky in its shadow, goes on for what seems like miles in every direction…Any of this sound familiar?

No? That’s understandable I suppose. Well, it’s stressful. Like, really stressful.

I knew full well that Jaz was only toying with me and would never actually hurt me but each time a finger came down it came way too close for comfort. Close to the point that if I actually stopped running I’d probably get crushed on accident. So while it was all fun and games there was a definite bit of worry that if I slowed down I wouldn’t be around to regret it.

This wasn’t helped by how relentless Jaz was. She gave me no time to breath, constantly keeping a finger over my head at all times. It would only stop when she lowered it and even then it was almost immediately back in the air to loom over me once again.

“Run run little one, big Ol’ Jazzie is gonna get ya!” She teased as her pointer finger grazed my back. “You telling me that’s as fast as you can run? Come on. I’m not even trying.” Her thumb lowered right in front of me, blocking my path. I adjusted to try and go around it but it slid to the side and knocked me over. I fell flat on my back and saw Jaz’s thumb back in the air directly overhead.

“And squish!”

Quicker than I ever thought possible, I scrambled to my feet and managed to somehow get out of the way in time. I didn’t need to look to know another finger was already right above me.

“Don’t forget I have another hand~” I heard laughter as Jaz’s entire hand suddenly walled off everything ahead. I skidded to a stop and tried to turn around but her other hand did the same with everything behind me.

“I got you now bug boy!”

You ever see one of those adventure movies where a guy runs down a hallway that slowly closes in on itself and he barely gets out in time to avoid getting crushed? This was kinda like that. With each hand walling off my sides Jaz slowly began to bring them closer together, laughing her ass off at the sight of me running my little heart out trying to avoid getting squished between her palms. She pretty obviously slowed down enough that I could get out but it was cutting it close. I distinctly remember having to leap that last few feet and hearing the thud of gigantic fingers slamming into each other behind me.

After all that I had to lay on the ground to catch my breath.

Of course my friend/tormentor was having none of that. With my eyes focused on the ground I noticed a shadow on the ground and instinctively looked to see two of Jaz’s fingers standing on the ground in front of me.

“What have we here? A little bug?”

Before I could move Jaz’s fingers began to walk around me. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a bug as small as you before. Are you new around here?”

“What are you doing?” I asked between wheezes.

“Roleplaying.” She explained. Her fingers walked a full circle around before stopping just in front of me again. “Do you know who I am?”

I sighed, “I get the feeling I’m about to find out.”

“I’m Elizabeth, Queen of these lands.”

I could feel another sigh coming on. “…Really? We’re doing this?”

Jaz ignored me and stayed in character. “And you’re trespassing in my Kingdom. Are you aware of what I do to bugs?” Her index finger…No I guess in this context it’d be Elizabeth’s leg or something, raised over me, “I crush them under my feet.”

“Somehow I’m not surprised.”

“Though I’ll be nice and give you a five second head start~”

“Gee, how nice.”

Thus began another chasing session, this time with Jaz’s index and middle fingers running to hunt me down. To her credit though, it really did feel like I being chased by something with legs. Though the illusion was ruined anytime I looked behind me.

“Is that as fast as you can run? I’m barely even trying!”

“I don’t wanna hear it Jaz!” I screamed.

“Who is Jaz? I am Elizabeth, your Queen.” She giggled, stomping her middle finger to my right. “At least know the name of the woman who’s going to crush you. Or are you too stupid to even learn that much?”

“Oh trust me. I know.” I shot her an annoyed look. One day I’d get her back for this.

Unfortunately for me that meant there was a split second where I didn’t see where I was going. So I missed Jaz’s fin-…Elizabeth’s foot stomping right in front of me. Meaning I ran into it full force and fell flat on my back as a result.

Both “feet” stomped on either side of me. “Looks like I win.”

 “And all it took was being a thousand times my size. Congratulations.”

“Regardless, this is the end.” She raised her right foot…Or was it left? She raised her index finger over me and hovered it just above my body. She was just playing but I felt a trickle of sweat down the side of my face and all my hairs stand on edge.

“Unless…you do something.”

“Like what?”

“Kiss my foot. If you kiss my foot I’ll let you go.

“Wow, you’re really gonna push this aren’t you?” I rolled my eyes and decided to play along. “Sure.” I leaned forward and kissed Elizabeth’s foot, that is to say, the edge of Jaz’s finger.

Jaz grinned. “That’s a good bug. Know your place beneath me. From this day forth you’ll be my little servant. Every day you’ll entertain me and service my feet for the rest of your miserable days until I finally tire of you and end your pitiful life.”

The finger pulled away from me, “Ahh…I love a happy ending. Don’t you?”

“Is that what that was?” I asked sarcastically.

“Of course.” Jaz nodded. “The little bug got to be the pretty princess’ pet for the rest of his life and she lived happily ever after.”

“Really? Well as “the bug” I think that ending really sucks.”

She shrugged, “That’s okay. It doesn’t matter what bugs think.”

I ignored her. “Hope you had your fun.”

“A little. It’s fun trying to squish you.”

“Let’s not make a habit out of it. After all that I’m beat.”

“It’s almost time for bed.” She agreed, “We should probably eat first though. Whatcha want?”

Surprisingly I wasn’t hungry. Now that all the adrenaline was wearing off eating felt too tedious. I just wanted to sleep. “I think I’m good. Had a big breakfast.”

She frowned. “At least eat a crumb.”

I didn’t feel like arguing. “Sure.”

“Good. Lemme get changed and I’ll go whip up something.”

“Alright.”

Five seconds passed.

...Wait…

Changed?!

It felt like my jaw hit the ground. My face shot up and watched Jaz as she stood up and began to undress right in front of me. In the back of my head I knew I should look away but against my better judgment I stared as Jaz slowly began to slide her jeans off, revealing two admittedly short, but smooth legs leading up to a uh…pleasant rear.

“So she wears purple…”

I spent ten solid seconds just staring at her ass before I realized her hands went towards her shirt. I couldn’t fight it. My eyes followed as the shirt started coming off, revealing more and more of my friend’s slender back before finally just coming off entirely.

Right now Jaz was in front of me in nothing but her underwear.

I honestly did not know what to do. I mean, obviously I should’ve looked away but once a guy happens to catch something that gets his attention he doesn’t exactly stop looking if you get my drift. That was me at that moment. Jaz was just far enough away I could clearly see her full form, from the base of her feet to the top of her head, in all of its female glory. Two feet I was now well acquainted with, two smooth legs the size of a dozen skyscrapers, wide hips and a rather stereotypical ass, slender stomach and back, rather huge…assets, and of course a pretty face with black hair tied into a ponytail.

It’s a shame to admit but at that moment, for a split second, I totally forgot about Kari. All I was aware of was this…for lack of a better word Goddess in front of me. Everything about her seemed just…incredible. Not only her size in relation to me, just how she looked period. Was I really friends with this girl? I mean, I’m an alright-looking guy and all but how?

“Like what you see?” Jaz turned back to me and rested a hand on her hip. “This is your reward for playing along with me. Don’t get used to it.”

“Uh…thank you…” I muttered dopily. Until she put some clothes on I was not going to be thinking clearly.

Jaz smirked and shook her head before turning back around and heading to her closet. From it I watched her pull out a pair of gray sweatpants and red t-shirt. Unfortunately it left no room for cleavage or anything an observer might enjoy. I watched her redress herself and felt my intelligence return in relation to the amount of clothing she had on. Once Jaz was fully dressed I was properly rational and embarrassed.

“Be right back.”

She left the room, returning five or ten minutes later with a steaming bowl. I’d recognize the smell anywhere. “Ah the college student’s best friend: Ramen.”

“You know it. Here.” From the bowl Jaz plucked out a single small chunk of noodle and placed it in front of me. “Eat before it gets cold.”

“Yes Mom.” I immediately dug in, forgetting that I was tired and not hungry. Something about food in your face can do that. Small as it was, the noodle I was given was still three times my size so I came nowhere near finishing it. I broke off and ate whatever I could with my hands but when all was said and done it barely looked like I even touched it. Same couldn’t be said for Jaz, who downed her ramen like an animal. It was a surprisingly…unattractive thing to see after seeing her near-naked so I’ll do us both a favor and not describe it.

Almost immediately after finishing her bowl and putting it up, Jaz let out a yawn. “I think that’ll do it for tonight.”

“Good, I was wanting to sleep.”

Jaz smirked, “Long day?”

“You could say that.”

“Good day?”

“…You could say that.”

“Good.”

Wordlessly Jaz walked over to the dresser I was still on. “Let’s get you situated then so we can head to bed.” I heard the loud sounds of a drawer being opened and the ruffling of clothing. It only lasted for a second before it shut and Jaz placed something beside her phone. “Ta-da!”

I stared at it with a questionable look. “It’s…”

“Your bed!”

“…A sock…”

“Perfect!”

I tried to sigh again but instead I ended up laughing. “You really suck, you know that?”

“I am great you shut your mouth. If you don’t like it you just sleep on the hard wood floor.”

“It’ll do.” By this point I really didn’t even care anymore.

“Damn right it’ll do.” Jaz made a strut towards her light switch. With a loud click we were now in pitch black darkness. With neither of us saying a thing Jaz began to crawl into her massive bed and I began to situate myself on her sock. Surprisingly soft I may add.

“Nighty Night.” I heard her say.

“Night.” I muttered back.

Almost right away I felt sleep come for me. But before I passed out I wanted to whisper something.

“…Thanks.”

Despite how…eventful the day was and how much my hair probably turned gray that day. I really had a good time. It felt like I’d genuinely hung out with a friend for the first time in ages. For once someone not only stayed the same as I always knew them, but they even turned my size into something we could both enjoy. For once I felt like…

...Like maybe I wasn’t so screwed after all.

It was just a fleeting thought. Barely a second later I was out cold.

After all the stuff I did today, I wondered what would await me tomorrow.

Word to the wise. If you ever have a shrunken guest please be mindful of your morning alarms. Disable them, or at the very least inform your guest of them. Do not, ever EVER leave them on and say nothing. And definitely don’t have your guest sleep next to your phone that has all these alarms set to go off at the crack of dawn. See, Jaz forgot to do that and I still very much hold a grudge for it.

At 9:00 A.M. on the dot this screech violated my entire body and made me jump several feet in the air. I hadn’t even woken up yet and my day had begun with my ears ringing, head splitting, and I was fairly certain all the water in my body was vibrating. I’m not ashamed to admit I screamed. What I screamed I couldn’t tell you since I couldn’t even tell because it was so loud, but I can assure you it was an appropriate mixture of irritated obscenities and regular screaming. Couldn’t even tell you what it was that was drowning me out. I think it was a song but it was so loud and I was directly next to Jaz’s building-sized phone so it just sounded like a soul-piercing shriek.

Jaz took her sweet time turning it off too. Once I finished my little fit I looked over to see her rolling over and covering her head with her blankets. I didn’t quite have that luxury. But I did get to glare at her and resume venting until she saw fit to get up and lazily turn off her cell phone alarm.

“Sorry bout that…” She grumbled, half-yawning.

I opted not to respond right away and instead bask in my newfound respect for quiet. Once my ears stopped making me want to kill myself I looked around until I could find my own phone, placed near Jaz’s.

A mere text could not properly convey my fury but I did the best with what I got. I won’t say it exactly but I think each curse word came up at least twice. Alongside some other colorful insults. When I sent it I winced as the phone next to me went off again. Mercifully, it only vibrated. Jaz sheepishly touched the screen and glanced at it before swiping it away. “Don’t be so dramatic. I said I’m sorry. My bad.”

I tried a few more messages but it was clear she was too sleepy to even begin to care about what I was saying. I sighed, texting “What’s for breakfast?”

After reading it Jaz  booted up the app I could talk through. “Dunno, whatcha making?”

“After that hell? Probably puke.”

“You know…As nice as that sounds I think I’ll stick to cereal.”

“Sounds good.”

Jaz lowered a finger and I hopped aboard. Moments later I found myself on top of a wooden table. Wordlessly Jaz yawned again and headed into another room, coming back a minute later with a bowl and her phone, both placed near me.

“Can you…eat cereal?” She gave me a confused look.

“I can, it’s just really dry and hard to chew.”

“Sounds about right.” She nodded, spinning a spoon in her bowl thoughtlessly. “Here.” She pulled it out and brought it near me. I stared at it for a moment without thinking too much. Next thing I knew a piece of cereal the size of my body came gushing out in a wave of milk. Instinctively I hopped back. Luckily the milk was far enough away the wave was only about ankle high when it reached me.

“That one’s a little soggy now so it should be perfect.” She turned back to eating, uninterested in the fact I nearly got floored by a tidal wave of milk. Apparently early morning sass was not a thing, not that I was complaining. After all the lip she gave me the other day a little silence was really nice.

I’d never had soggy cereal before at my size so I was curious. Carefully I approached it (For the record this one was a cocoa puff) and gave it a few pokes. Usually cereal felt like rock but this time it was more like sponge. It squished beneath my hands easily, actually making me a little excited to try it.

“Can’t remember the last time I had cereal that was actually chewy.” I ripped a piece out with my hand and slid it into my mouth. It tasted even better than it felt. Chocolaty goodness filled my taste buds and before I realized it I was shoveling it in. I didn’t particularly care what mess I made or how I looked since they were both kind of irrelevant at my size. A couple dozen handfuls later I felt nice and bloated.

“Mm…that was good.”

“Glad you liked it.”

“Yeah, thanks.” I wiped my lips with the back of my wrist, noting how sticky my hands were. “Ugh, I need a bath or something.”

“Do you now?”

I did not like the way she said that.

I also did not like that she was now moving to pick me up. Except, she wasn’t using her fingers like she always did; she was using her spoon. I guess in that sense it’d be more accurate to say she scooped me up though wouldn’t it?

The spoon came at me and knocked itself into my shins, knocking me forward into a small pool of milk inside. Anyone could imagine what came next. Even so, I did my best to remain calm. “Jaz…What are you doing?” Behind me the phone only barely picked up my voice and projected it.

She smiled. “Giving you a bath.”

Then her mouth opened.

And I went in.

Just kidding. Jaz wouldn’t do that to me….immediately.

First her tongue poked out from between her lips, licking up the few milk droplets left on them. Just to be sure they did another run around before jutting out more to try and reach the spoon that was now moving towards it. I started shouting to try and get Jaz to stop. Of course I was now outside of the phone range so it didn’t matter. After a couple shouts I gave up and quickly put the effort into backing as far into the spoon as I could. A small fidget of Jaz’s hand made me fall and soak my jeans in milk but I kept crawling backwards, never losing sight of Jaz’s tongue. I could clearly see each taste bud and kept imagining all the little fibers rubbing against my body, soaking me in my friend’s saliva. My reflection glistened in the sheen of liquid on the tip of her eagerly approaching tongue, showing me just how nervous I looked. The closer it got the stronger I could feel the soft breeze of her breath.

At first Jaz only teased me by licking only the bottom of the spoon. Beneath my feet I could feel it pushing against the thin metal. Then it began to creep up along the edges, cleaning them off too before finally arriving at the tip of the spoon and slowly working its way towards me. I turned to try and keep backing up into the handle but Jaz’s thumb blocked my path. Figures she’d have already thought of that. I turned back just in time to catch a final glimpse of the pink appendage before it hit me. In one single, overpowering movement my entire body was pushed into the spoon and smushed against Jaz’s tongue. It held me firmly in place as she made exaggerated noises and continued to rub her tongue against me.

I didn’t know how to react at first. Of course this was the latest attempt to screw with me and I knew that. But this was her tongue! It was slimy and caked me in its juices and rubbing me against the innards of a spoon. I tried to push it away by my hands sank into the field of taste buds without moving it so much as an inch. Quite the contrary; because I was holding on to her tongue when I was a simple upward flick of Jaz’s tongue moved me from the spoon to right on top of it. I looked back at the spoon I was just on as Jaz quickly took it away. The ground beneath me began to move and I didn’t even need to look to know I was now on my way inside Jaz’s mouth. When I looked I just saw her mouth open as wide as it could be, giving me a full view of all the pink, slimy innards of her mouth alongside a set of, admittedly flawless, white teeth with some cereal chunks caked in between her molars. In the very back I could faintly see her uvula, even that being multiple times my size.

Then I saw nothing but darkness.

Her mouth had no shut, leaving me no way to see. The tongue I was laying on moved softly beneath me as I did my best to just hang on. It felt more humid than I’d ever felt before, like the air was more water than air. There was a constant stream from the top of her jaw of saliva just sliding down along her teeth, which softly grinded against each other. The sound of my friend’s breathing was all I could hear. Inside her mouth it sounded like a strong gust of wind blew far above me then worked its way down until it blew out into the cavern I was in. The only time this consistent sound wasn’t overpowering my ears was when I heard loud noises come from further down Jaz’s throat. I could vaguely identify them as the sound of her holding in a chuckle.

I couldn’t have been in there more than ten seconds before light filled my world again, but it may as well have been ten hours.

Once her tongue stuck back out Jaz pulled out and dangled me in front of her eyes, each eyeing me playfully. “How was that for a bath?”

Relief filled my body. I was sure I would be fine, but I still had that small fear of something going wrong. Compared to other things I’d dealt with at this size it wasn’t the scariest thing I’d ever been through, nor the most dangerous, but I still had only one response to give to my friend after that.

“Fuck you.”

She set me down near her phone again. “Sorry if I scared ya. Couldn’t resist.”

“I bet.” I rolled my eyes, surprisingly calm considering I was in her mouth not even a minute prior.

“Got any more weird games you wanna play? Need me to swim in a glass of water while you pretend to drink it? Hide me in your shoe and pretend to slip it on? Anything else you gotta get out of your system?” Okay, admittedly I was more irritated than calm.

Jaz smiled. “Nope. That was it.”

My eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe you.”

She shrugged, “I could mess with you all day but I promised to take you back first thing in the morning. Unless you want me to put you in my shoe.”

“Fuck you.”

“Whatever foot boy.” She got up and put her bowl away, returning with a new one. “Here.” She placed it back to me. “For your real bath. You need it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jaz smirked, “You taste like shit. Probably smell like it too.” Carefully she lifted me up again and placed me in the bowl. “While you’re in there I’ll be taking a shower. I better not find you peeping or you’ll regret it.”

“I doubt I could leave this bowl if I tried.”

Of course she didn’t hear me. Jaz left to take her morning shower and I began my bath. Rather considerately it was filled just enough so that it was about chest high and warm. Once I wormed my way out of my clothes it was a surprisingly nice way of bathing. After I was sure I was clean I spent the rest of my time trying to wash the milk from my stuff until Jaz came back…in a towel.

I tried not to stare but it was really damn hard not to when I knew full well she was naked underneath it.

“Don’t even think about it.” She warned after placing me outside of the bowl. Once I was safely out she turned to head back to the bathroom and I may or may not have stared at her ass for a moment when she did so. Don’t judge me.

I slid back into my soaked clothes since drying them wasn’t gonna happen and I had no spares. Aside from being a little hard to move in they worked just fine. Not like I moved much for a while anyway. Know that stereotype about girls taking forever to get ready? Well let’s just say while Jaz went and got herself dolled up I got an hour nap in.

When she actually did finally come back I couldn’t tell what she spent the time on. Like always her hair was in a ponytail, she had some glasses on, a violet t-shirt, and a pair of modestly short shorts…Shame I couldn’t see them past the table.

“Ready?” Her voice woke me up.

“Sure.” I hopped aboard her finger and found a cozy place in her ear. After getting my phone again that is. Honestly, it’s a miracle I didn’t lose the damn thing.

Anyway, we were off. Jaz was too busy driving to talk much so she decided her last act to annoy me would be to blare music. Compared to her alarm though I really couldn’t care less. Once I got lost in my thoughts I managed to tune it out fairly easily. Incidentally would the whole thing with Jaz’s tongue be considered a French kiss? I spent the better part of the drive debating on that. Frankly, I think not since my mouth was never open.

About twenty minutes later Jaz turned her radio down, “We’re here tiny.”

“Alrighty, just set me off on the table in the living room.”

“You aren’t the boss of me.”

I rolled my eyes and waited. First Jaz knocked on the door to no response. I explained that Mom probably locked in when she went out to work so I guided her to our spare key and voila, we were in.

After another hop onto her finger I was placed on the table in the living room just as I asked. “Thanks.”

Since I wasn’t in her ear she didn’t hear me. Nonetheless Jaz smiled at me, “Anytime. Hope you had fun. We gotta do it again.”

“Let’s not and say we did.” I waved, thinking to myself that she must never know how much I actually enjoyed that visit.

“Can’t stay for long. Gotta hurry to class. Bye~” She waved before heading out. I glanced at my phone. She was already late.

“If you were running late just say so.” I let out a small laugh.

Something about the last couple days were…interesting. I hesitate to say good. But definitely interesting. If nothing else I got some uh…unique experiences out of it. And despite nearly having a panic attack more than once it was pretty fun. Once you learn to roll with the punches even nearly getting eaten loses some of its impact. It was fun, and fun was what I really needed.

“Better text Mom let her know I’m home.” I quickly typed out a message and sent it. The screen in front of me lit up moments later with a message I’d never seen before: Message Failed to Send.

“That’s odd. She’s probably in a dead zone or low on battery or something.” I shrugged and thought nothing of it.

The next four hours or so were spent with me on that table playing around on my phone. I really should’ve just asked Jaz to bring me to my little set-up in my room. But I didn’t, so I dealt with it as boring as it was. At some point I fell asleep and woke back up…twice.

It was just boring until about four or so. Then I heard the door open.

In the doorway I saw Mom, dressed in a business skirt, entering.

I immediately typed out a text, “Welcome home.” and once again it said the message failed to send.

For a moment I stared at my phone with a frustrated look. Then I asked myself a very important question.

Did Mom know I was there?

Once I started wondering it quickly became clear that Mom in fact, did not know I was home; and why would she? I didn’t exactly have much of a presence and all my messages failed to go through. The only actual reason she would stop to think that I was there would be if Jaz had told her she’d be dropping me off early. Even if she did, that’s the kind of thing that’s easy to forget. Especially considering Mom looked tired after what was probably a long day at work (For the record she works as a secretary).

At first I wasn’t too worried. I fired off a few more texts to no response then finally tried calling, which also didn’t work. I figured her phone was dead so I wouldn’t be able to do much until it got charged. I would’ve called the home phone if we had one but once we got our cell phones…Yeah. Kinda regretted that decision then.

So I was in a house with a family member thousands of times my size whose pinky alone could destroy a neighborhood. Cool. What’s the worst that can happen?

As it would turn out, nothing happened. Mom walked in and kicked her shoes off with a dead look in her eyes. Then she just walked across the room without so much as taking a look in my direction. I just watched, kinda just sitting still for a moment. Screaming for attention would be useless. The thought crossed my mind that I could call for help but my nearest friend was Jaz and she was on her way to school and had a record of not answering while driving. Kristen and Kari on the other hand were in class right now and probably had their phones silenced. I probably still should’ve contacted them but I ended up deciding against it. Not one of my better choices.

I must’ve stood there tensed up for something like ten minutes before I heard the sound of running water in the distance: Mom in the shower. Once I realized that I relaxed a bit. This wasn’t an emergency or anything yet. As soon as Mom realized her phone was dead and charged it I’d be home free. Until then I was in a pretty safe spot on the table. All that was up here with me was a TV remote a solid mile away. I’d just wait.

At least that’s what I told myself. Even as I tried to relax I still felt anxious just under the surface. All I could think about was our old maid Maria and how she met her fate when Mom didn’t realize she was there. I supposed that, if nothing else, I wouldn’t get crushed by Mom sitting down. That rules out one possible way of getting crushed out of what, a hundred?

Maybe I was worrying for nothing though. I mean, one of the points Jaz was making was that I could trust people not to crush me. At least…I think that’s what she was doing. Honestly it’s still hard to figure her motives out. Regardless, I could at least trust my Mom to not do anything too bad. Not like I’d be around long to regret it if she did anyway right?

Wow that was morbid. Sorry. If it’s not clear already I ultimately survived this so uh…spoiler I guess? Sue me.

Anywho, Mom was busy relaxing in a prolonged bath after a long day of work and I tried to distract myself with some phone internet while I repeatedly tried messages. This kept going for about half an hour. I’d actually managed to calm myself down to a reasonable level when Mom showed up.

Naked.

If I wasn’t sure before I was definitely certain she didn’t think I was there then. Boy, you wanna talk about scarring images.

In her defense though she wasn’t completely naked. She had on a set of panties and was rubbing a towel along herself so that helped. Still, I saw some shit…Some stuff you should never see from your mother.

It’s actually kinda disturbing to think about so pardon me if I’m being vague. Though I’m willing to bet someone’s getting off to this right now so tell you what buddy. I’ll do you a solid and bite the bullet on this one and try to describe what I saw.

Picture a woman teetering on the edge of forty. So she’s still young but she’s got enough of that older woman vibe to her that you’re aware you’re looking at an adult. She had the kind of curves most guys would kill for but there was definitely a little pudgy-ness where in a younger woman it’d probably be flat as a board. Wet dark blonde hair that’s pulled back but still allowed to drape over her neck, as well as dark red nails that totally clashed with her natural skin tone. And of course she was soaking wet. Her breasts were big and sprawled out. I will not say more on that.

Personally I wish I could unsee it but you probably think it sounds kinda hot. That’s alright, just don’t ask me to describe it again.

Mercifully I only saw Mom bare for a moment before she properly covered herself with a towel and headed back towards the door. She began to bend over and I quickly looked away. When I looked back she had her shoes in her hand and headed back towards her room.

The whole thing definitely calmed me down but now the next thirty minutes were spent trying to get the image of my Mom naked out of my mind. Sad to say, didn’t work. It still haunts me. The only reason I didn’t try to deny it longer was because she came back, clothed this time thank God.

Now she was totally dry, with her hair in a ponytail and in some comfortable yoga pants and a blue t-shirt. In her hands was a bowl. Of what, I wasn’t sure. But I was sure she was heading right towards me. She placed that bowl on the table near the remote. After my fun morning with Jaz and her bowl of food I didn’t wanna take any chances on this one so I slowly backed away, careful I wouldn’t attract attention and make Mom think I was a bug.

Her phone was placed beside the bowl even closer to me. I tried one last time to text it but nothing. I was gonna have to wait this out.

For a moment I considered trying to get her attention though that dumb idea left my head almost the second I had it. Mom had started eating and turned on the TV. I was not going to get her attention no matter how hard I tried. It would be in my best interest to get as far away as I could. For some reason I was paranoid that if I turned my back I’d suddenly get smushed so I made an effort to keep my eyes on my giant mother as I backed up. It was a painfully slow process but over time the space between me and that bowl was increasing.

Mom ate rather lazily, picking up a spoonful of what looked like pasta and eating it every few seconds with her eyes soaking in television in the meantime. The only time her eyes broke off that screen were whenever she had to get another spoonful. Aside from that she didn’t really do much. Not once did she even seem to acknowledge the phone I desperately needed her to answer right now. Maybe every once in a while she’d dab her lips with a napkin or change the channel or something but that was it. No, strike that. She did go get a glass of water and bring it back. That was pretty exciting.

I would love to tell you that things stayed boring like this for a while but of course, they did not. That would make this whole thing not worth talking about. Maybe about…ten minutes in things got rough. By this point I’d already warily backed myself up somewhere around four or five inches to the standard person. Pretty good by my standards but still a little close to the danger zone. Though unless something weird happened I would be totally fine…right?

Well something weird happened.

It started off totally innocent. Mom grabbed a napkin to wipe her lip off as one should. She wiped her lips off and naturally wrinkled up the napkin in her hand. Okay, good so far. Then she put it down and it’s here where we have the problem. To her she put it down in a random spot beside her food. To me I was suddenly underneath a wrinkled napkin the size of a building with crumbs as big as I was all over the place. Luckily I was between two crumpled folds instead of being directly underneath so I could still move and such. I was just in a not-so-great place to be.

I had no time to waste. This was bad. Like, really bad. I turned and began to run so I could get out from here while I could. Theoretically given how frequently my Mom used her napkin I should have been able to get out from there no problem. Or perhaps she’d get a second napkin, that’d be a lucky break.

So of course that didn’t happen.

The walls around be caved in from the sides, giving way to some distinctly massive figures that grasped it from the sides. They closed in enough that even I ended up trapped between the folds of cloth and was brought along for the ride as the ground I was once standing on went further and further away. Or to put it simply, Mom grabbed the napkin, it tightened around me, and now I was along for the ride.

Once I was in the air I was certain I was a dead man. No way I was getting out of this. Once I looked through an opening and saw Mom’s lips I was even more sure. The massive forms came in close and everything around me made way to rub against her lips and clean off any debris from them. On the second wipe I too got to get up close and personal with them…and I did not come off.

I had my eyes clenched the entire time so I can’t say much for how it looked but I felt my Mom’s bottom lip engulf me. The casual swipe of her napkin forced me deep into its softness, allowing me to experience the wetness of her saliva along the top of her lip. Said saliva also made me a little stuck, stuck enough that I ended up dislodged from the napkin and stuck in a new place.

When I dared to open my eyes again I nearly screamed. Mom’s face was miles up in the air. If I fell then that was it. Though that wasn’t the main problem.

No, the main problem was the next spoonful of food I saw coming in.

I didn’t have time to fully process what was happening. I was aware that I was now stuck on my Mother’s lip right in the middle of a meal. I was aware that more food was coming in right about where I was. But any more than that was beyond me right now. All that was on my mind was survival, as futile as it felt. But how? I had no options. My phone was down by on the table. If I moved I’d probably fall off if not get crushed like a bug; and if I stayed still I’d be eaten if I wasn’t crushed anyway.

I was certain that next spoon would do something. Crush me, knock me into her mouth, brush me off, anything really. Mom’s lips opened to allow the spoonful of pasta to come in. Below me I glanced at the spoon and building-sized noodles just vanish inside, grinded into mush between her teeth. The spoon pulled itself away, now totally pristine and clean. That was when I had my idea, my incredibly stupid idea.

The plan, if you could call it that, was to wait until Mom would pull her spoon from her mouth. I would then hop onto it, ride my way down to the bowl, and work things out from there. It was suicidal. It was desperate. It was my best bet.

But I hesitated. I mean, wouldn’t you? From Mom’s upper lip to the spoon was easily a ten foot drop, and that was if it went perfectly and didn’t, you know, kill me. I had to build my courage up first. After three more mouthfuls of food I was ready. Then life decided to throw me another curveball. What came next wasn’t the spoon; it was her glass of water.

It legitimately looked like some kind of cylindrical tower filled with water. Like some sort of man-made lake building. The tip of that building poked against Mom’s bottom lip and the water came gushing in like a tsunami. That should’ve been fine. It was focused on the bottom lip. I was on the top one. Her lower lip could get as soaked as she wanted and I’d be fine. Things should’ve been A-okay. They weren’t.

See, the thing about water…it splashes, a lot, and when a drop of water is as big as you just imagine how easily one of those drops could knock you into the gushing river below. That’s exactly what happened. Next thing I knew I was smacked against the head and totally drenched in water, only vaguely aware I was falling. Then I realized I was underwater.

Now this is it. I’m dead right? I’m boned. No way out. I should be inside Mom’s mouth about to be gulped in a river down her throat. But that’s not what happened. Lucky for me, Mom seemed satisfied enough with her drink to set it down at just the right time so that I didn’t slide into her mouth but rather the glass. So in a way I guess I did get down from her lip then huh? Now there was the new problem of trying to escape from the glass of water. That wasn’t going to happen. Once I swam up to the surface and tried to stay afloat that was about all I could do. On all sides I was surrounded by perfectly smooth glass that went on for twenty feet straight up. There was no way to even attempt to escape. I was stuck there, treading water until Mom took another sip and finished me off.

I was stuck like that for…I wanna say fifteen minutes. Mom finished up her meal, not once touching her glass again, then went back to watching TV. The whole time it was a battle to stay afloat. I couldn’t even think about how futile my struggles were. After all, I was literally just trying to stay alive so I could die a different way. Not sure why I bothered but I’m glad I did. Because my big break finally came.

“I wonder how Robby’s doing…” Mom wondered aloud. Her words grabbed my attention. She reached a hand out towards her phone. “Oh, it’s off.” Mom frowned after picking it up. “Forgot I did that.” I heard the sounds of her phone reactivating.

Mom’s casual expression immediately changed once her phone was back on, no doubt reacting to all my messages I sent. It was too soon for her to have read them but after seeing twenty-plus messages from me she just straight up called me. Of course I didn’t answer on account of being separated from my phone. Mom stayed on the line, fidgeting more with each passing second. On its own that would be totally fine. How Mom fidgeted though, gave me one last headache to deal with.

She started off just tapping her foot. Then her finger. Then came some annoyed grunts as she redialed me. Then she grabbed the glass I was in and here things got interesting. Her finger traced along the inside of it, moving just for the little relief it brought here. Little did she know that was making my life a living hell.

Her finger was just far enough into the glass to touch the water. When it began to run itself along the edges it didn’t take long the water to start churning into a small whirlpool of sorts. I suddenly found myself being swallowed by the increasingly strong tides, helpless against them. All the time I spent staying afloat had totally drained me, leaving me unable to do anything as my Mother tried to call me only to fail time and time again.

After the third call she placed the phone down, face pale as a ghost. She started reading my texts and saw the messages I sent that told her I was on the table so her eyes immediately started scanning it. Her hands both returned to her lap where they could do no damage, probably saving me from drowning since her finger wasn’t churning the water anymore. Though I was weak. At this point barely even conscious. I was on the verge of passing out. If I wasn’t found soon this would really be it.

As fate would have it Mom finally found me. My dark clothes clashed against the water just enough to make me stand out, though I couldn’t tell you what she was saying. I’d begun to finally succumb to the water when she noticed me. Desperate, she poured the glass onto the table, dumping me onto the table. It probably hurt a lot but by this point I didn’t even feel it. I just wanted to lie there.

This was the second time someone near and dear to me almost ended my life. First my girlfriend. Now my Mother. I really wanted to trust people like Jaz said but it was seriously hard when this was the kind of stuff I seemed to keep running into. Once I had more strength I could begin to rationalize and work things out. But for the time being I wanted nothing more than for every single giant person to stay the hell away from me.

At my Mother’s incredibly loud pleas to answer her, I weakly showed her I was alive and asked her to give me a moment to myself. She seemed to understand. She got up and got some towels to dry the table off, saying nothing to me. This whole ordeal probably bothered her as much as it did me. After all, she almost killed her son. Not getting into the scars she still carried when she accidentally crushed Maria. I knew that. I understood it logically. I just didn’t care. I was too tired for this.

 “Honey…” Mom’s voice snapped me out of it. As a guess I figured I had probably been sitting there for about twenty minutes while she ran around doing whatever she was doing. She placed her phone near me, signaling that she wanted to talk.

“Yes?” I was a little better but still in no mood for chit chat.

“I…can never apologize enough Robby. I almost…I was so careless I could’ve…”

“Almost. Didn’t.” I spoke as little as I could, clearly showing her that I was upset; though in my own way I was still trying to comfort her.

“I’m glad you’re okay but…I…Even so I…I can’t risk endangering you like that again. I-I won’t risk my child’s life for anything. So…” A tear slid down her cheek. “So…I’m having you move out.”

My eyes widened. Never in a million years did I expect to hear those words. “You’re…kicking me out?!”

She shook her head. “Don’t think of it like that. This is for your own good Robby. I called someone who’ll take care of you.”

“Who did you call?”

“They’ll make sure you never get hurt. Unlike me…”

“Who did you call?!” I repeated, louder.

She ignored me. “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time now. We worked it out a while ago but I thought you’d be safe here…I was wrong.” Mom sniffled, a tear shedding down her face. “I’m so sorry Robby. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“Can you at least answer me before you ju-“

Loud knocks came from the door. Immediately Mom rushed to answer it. When she let the guest in I couldn’t believe it.

It was Kari.

“K-Kari!”

She turned her head to look at me. For a moment our eyes locked but her’s quickly left and went to my Mom for guidance. Though it looked like she wasn’t sure how to proceed either. “This is for your own good Robby.”

I never doubted that but her constantly repeating it was making me start to. “I get that. But can you at least tell me what’s going on before you kick me out of my own house?”

“I’m not kicking you out; I’m protecting you!” She cried back defensively.

“From what? A whole fucking world bigger than me? It doesn’t matter where I go. I’m in danger everywhere. At least let me stay in my own house while I still can.”

She opened her mouth to yell back but the second she did she immediately slumped over and sighed. “Please don’t make this any harder than it needs to be.”

“You’re the one who made this hard when you went and did this without even asking me!”

Mom didn’t reply. Slowly, she walked over to me and pulled her phone away, cutting me off. She tried to shut me up but I wasn’t done yet. Since she took her phone away I went and grabbed mine. I quickly dialed her number though she quickly silenced the call. I dialed again with the same result.

She looked over to Kari. “You can go ahead and take him Kari. Once he calms down he’ll understand.”

I looked expectantly at my friend, hoping she’d help me out, maybe reason with my Mom. She looked confused, though when she started walking over to me I knew it was over. I struggled and tried to keep shouting but to them I may as well have sat still and did nothing. Kari’s massive fingers reached over and plucked me from the table, quickly putting me safely in her ear while Mom explained a bunch of things about how to look after me. So once again, because of my size, what I wanted didn’t matter compared to the whims of the normal-sized people. I screamed at Kari to stop and listen to me but unlike Jaz she couldn’t hear me without some help. Any attempts to call her during this would be pointless too. I was just screwed. Grumpily I kicked one of the inner ridges of her ear and laid on the ground, fuming.

This was a scary incident sure. I could even understand where Mom was coming from with this. But the fact she did it without even consulting me showed zero concern for my opinion. Even if she did it purely with my well-being in mind the fact that I wasn’t even worth consulting about it pissed me off. Not helping was the fact Kari was the one she contacted. We hadn’t talked since she herself nearly killed me and I still didn’t have the slightest clue what was running through her head. If anything I’d expect her to want to steer clear of me like Mom did. But here she was, apparently going to take care of me.

I remember just lying there, frustrated and unable to do anything until Kari took me back out. I heard everything said clear as day. Mom handed Kari a bag with all my miniature things and kept listing off things to either be careful with or pay special mention to. A lot of it was really common sense stuff she didn’t need to mention but she was apparently being as thorough as possible. I listened to it all until she finished. Then her voice addressed me at long last.

“I’m sorry baby. But this is for your own good. I’ll always love you. You’re always going to be my little boy.”

The way she made it sound made it out like I would never see her again. That idea…really bummed me out. I was ready to crawl into her palm and hit her but just that one line drew all the fight out of me.

“Yeah…love you too Mom…”

Kari gave her goodbyes to my Mom and then we left, driving off to who knows where with neither of us saying a word. When the car eventually stopped she got out and started walking for a few minutes but there were still no words. It was beginning to look like I wasn’t even going to be addressed. Although, after a while I noticed a finger outside of her ear and knew it was my signal to get out. I climbed aboard and was placed on a table with Kari seated on a couch nearby. I recognized the room immediately as the living room in Kari’s house.

Of course a phone was next to me. I knew the drill by now. I strolled next to it and waited for Kari to start things off. I probably should have but I honestly didn’t even know what to say.

She looked at me, apparently doing the same thing I was. When it was clear I wasn’t going to be the one to start talking she sighed. “You probably have a lot of questions.”

“You could say that.”

“Well…You have a right to know. I don’t know why your Mom didn’t explain but here’s how it is. She contacted me and begged me to take you in until you get assigned. I don’t know what happened but she was really spooked and I…kind of ended up agreeing.”

I nodded, taking it all in stride. “I see…I’m surprised you did that. I mean…after what happened…Well, I’m just glad to see you again.”

A small smile crept onto her face, “Yeah…I’m not done though.”

“You aren’t?”

“No. You see…I’m not sure if I’d be the best choice to watch over you either so me and your mother kept talking and…more people joined the conversation.”

“Who?” I asked knowing full well who it had to be.

“Jaz and Kristen.”

“Of course.” I sighed. “So who’s going to be looking after me?”

“All of us.”

“Huh?”

“Well, when we all started talking about we all agreed looking after you for a longtime would be rough of anyone. I mean, you’re lucky something didn’t happen with your Mom sooner. So we decided we’d kind of split all of the responsibilities between each other. Sometimes I’ll be watching you. And other times it’ll be one of the others.”

“You guys put a lot of thought into this without asking me.” Not being included in all this planning still had me a little jaded.

“Sorry. We thought you knew.”

“It’s not your fault…” To be honest I didn’t even know whose fault it was. I was tired of constantly doubting people. “So how long am I going to be here with you?”

“About a week. I’m going to set up your stuff on my desk so you’ll have a place to sit and stuff and…yeah. You’ll just be spending the night for a week.”

“Yeah, it’s just one big sleepover til I get shipped off somewhere.”

Kari’s eyes immediately looked sad, “Don’t think of it like that. We’re all doing this because we’re looking out for you.”

“I get that.” I replied in an annoyed voice. “I really do. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m just waiting until I’m forced to move out to some person’s house and do whatever they want.”

Kari had no reply. After all, I wasn’t wrong. Plus with all that had happened in the last few hours I wasn’t particularly inclined to listen to anything she’d say anyway.

“…Moving on…We need to talk.”

Her tone changed and I immediately calmed down again. “Yeah, we do don’t we?”

I saw Kari clench her fist. “I’m sorry for what I did. It was stupid and…I won’t make that mistake again. I promise you’ll be safe here.”

I couldn’t help myself. The question came out of my mouth before I even knew it. “But what about us? Are we alright?”

For a moment she didn’t reply. Kari only gave me a bitter smile and seemed to look for the right words. “I still like you, a lot…but I don’t…I don’t think we should be together anymore.”

It was exactly the answer I expected, but it still hurt more than I could describe. “I…see…Are you sure?”

She nodded. “I’ve thought a lot about it and I just can’t see things going well if we stayed together. I mean, at any moment I could hurt you and if that happened…I couldn’t take it. I almost lost you already. I’m not going to risk that again. Plus…I mean look at us. You’re smaller than my pinky. It would never work between us anyway.”

“You don’t know that.” I replied stubbornly.

“I do.” She shot back confidently. “I know myself well, and I know how it would go. I don’t want us to ruin our friendship over a relationship that won’t work. I won’t let it.”

I couldn’t reply. I mean, how could I? I wanted to stay with her but she was totally right. Things just wouldn’t work. I barely teased her before and that almost ended badly. Plus she’d have to constantly look after me. Not to mention once I left we’d probably have to split anyway. It was probably better to do it sooner rather than later. I just wished it wasn’t so. As much as I cared about her...it could've been so much more. But one look at her told me that this wasn't going to be argued. Dragging out the topic would only make it worse for both of us.

I sighed in defeat. “Can I have a minute alone?” This was all too much. I needed a moment.

“Sure. I’ll leave my phone here so I’ll hear you if you need me. I’ll go set your stuff up in my room.” She got up and left, leaving me there to work myself out.

So to recap. This morning I was nearly eaten by my Mother. Kicked out of my house. Started living with all of my friends. Got dumped by my girlfriend. And it wasn’t even seven o’clock yet.

Fucking great.

I sat there, withdrawn, barely even aware of everything around me. My feelings were all over the place. I couldn’t think straight. I just knew one thing. I was depressed. Not because I got kicked out. I mean, that sucks but it really didn’t surprise me as much as it should have. No, my thoughts were all on Kari. She really hasn’t been present in the story so far but trust me when I say this: I loved that girl. She was everything I could ask for. I think I knew though… I think I knew deep down this was going to happen at some point. I think I realized that when she nearly crushed me. I just didn’t want to believe it. I wanted one of those movie-style situations where love wins out and even if I ended up totally hated by everyone I’d at least still have her. Losing that…hurt.

You know, all this talk about my break-up is kind of making me think of when I started going out with Kari. If you want, can I talk about it? Thinking back to these few days still kind of stings so I’d rather talk about some positive things.

Meh, I’ll tell the story anyway. What’re you going to do, stop me?

Anyway, I guess it all started back when I first started going to college. I was a (slightly younger) youngster who’d just graduated High School. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, what my plans were, or even what my major would be. I had a resounding one friend come to the same college I did and even she was more of an acquaintance than anything.

I found a cozy place in one of the school’s recreational buildings where a lot of the geekier people congregated and found a place to situate myself with a laptop. Thanks to my one friend I had with me, who was considerably more outgoing than I was, I ended up making a handful of friends and beginning to enjoy college life a bit. That area became my main hangout spot for my entire time there.

Things pretty much stayed like that for a semester. Then I met her.

The first time I saw Kari she was seated across the room, hanging around a girl I kind of sort of knew. At first I thought nothing of it. In fact I’m pretty sure my only thought was: “Oh, she’s kinda cute.” And left it at that.

Of course with a new semester comes new classes and it was in my new film appreciation course that I met her again. The room was full of people I didn’t particularly know so I sat myself near the front corner and leaned against the wall. As people poured into the room I spotted her again. She seated herself two rows back with her friends and class went on as usual. Like before I thought nothing special of it. My focus was actually more on the course than anything. This class was what lead me to deciding on a film major.

A month passed and things stayed like that. Then I received an invitation from a friend of mine to go to a Lock-In, basically a sleepover hosted by a club where people could goof off and stay up all night. I went ahead and agreed and sure enough, Kari was there too.

At first it was nothing special, just a bunch of people goofing around and me wandering around on my own. Around midnight I was going to head to my blankets and crash when I bumped into a group of seven people. In it were two of my friends, two people I didn’t know, two people I barely knew, and Kari. Once they saw me my friends urged me to join them in something called King’s Game. Basically adult truth or dare without the truth. I agreed and it quickly turned into a really fun time. As it got later and later we got stupider and stupider. Just to name a few things we did: a pillow fight, a human pyramid, improv comedy sketches, awkward lap dances, and much more.

I don’t know when but at some point during the game I began to take special note of Kari. She seemed really shy and reserved, much like the rest of us, but as we did stupider and stupider things we all opened up and bonded. I was so tired I can’t even remember much of what we said or did, I just knew she seemed like such a great girl and…yeah, I started crushing on her right about then. We had a really good time and when the party began to die down we all passed out all over the place.

From that day forward I had more close friends at school. That night of fun made us all something of a group and we began to hang out more. In my class I ended up switching seats to hang out with them and in my free time we lounged together between classes. College had officially become great.

There was just one little hiccup to all this. Kari had a boyfriend.

Once I learned that I honestly should’ve just dropped it, but I didn’t. As we became closer friends my feelings for her only grew stronger. But I wasn’t going to go and be that kind of jackass who takes someone else’s girl, especially when she showed no interest. It was just something I was going to live with until I found someone else.

That continued for a year. Over the course of that year Kristen and Jaz ended up transferring to my school since I wouldn’t shut up about how much I loved it and we all became a nice group. It made things even better there; I loved being at school more than being anywhere else because it meant hanging out with my friends. But…not everything was good. I was also dealing with a lot of stress. Why? Maria.

If you forgot let me refresh your memory. Maria was a shrunken girl my Mom hired to help around the house and circumstances…led to Mom accidentally crushing her. That in itself was bad enough, scarring Mom to the point she stayed away from shrunken people like the plague. But it got worse. We had investigators regularly coming by. Press eager to get our opinions on the incident. And worst of all: grieving family members. It took its toll on the both of us but we both put on strong faces and tried to move on. None of my friends even had a clue what was going on, I always had a smile on when I saw them. They had no clue that I was dealing with so much and I didn’t want them to worry so I said nothing.

Then the next Lock-In happened. It went pretty much the same as the first one, though now we all knew full well what to expect and how crazy things would get. We all also brought blankets and sleeping bags for comfy sleeping. Around 10 we started another round of King’s Game, every bit as crazy and silly as the last one.

By around two A.M. exhaustion gave me the brilliant idea of everyone working together to make a pillow fort for when we all inevitably passed out. They were all more than on board with it and we quickly ramshackled a terrible fort mainly consisting of blankets thrown over stacked chairs resulting in this shaggy tent-like thing. But we loved it. It reminded us all of the kinds of things we did as kids and it was a lot of fun. With that done we went back to King’s Game.

I can’t remember a lot about what we did during the game but I know I stripped. My reasoning was someone said I wouldn’t do it and I did it to spite them. Later I’d get lectured for it but oh well. It was another fun night.

When it came time for us to finally sleep we all crashed in the blanket fort for four or five hours before people started needing to clear out. One by one everyone who was there began to leave, taking their things with them. This included people who helped make the fort. As they left they took their blankets and the fort grew smaller and smaller as more and more woke up. By the end it was just a single blanket spread over a few chairs covering two people: Me and Kari.

We kept sleeping despite people trying to wake us up. Eventually they just gave up and left us be. Though everyone still talked right next to us, rather loudly I might add. Their chatter woke me up but I refused to move and properly get up. I noticed Kari did the same thing and we exchanged a grumpy look with each other as we awaited our friends to shut up so we can sleep again.

Once they’d left I sighed, “Thank God. Thought they’d never shut up.”

“Mmhm…” She grunted in agreement.

Any other time that would’ve been it. I would’ve fell asleep and that would be the end of that. But I didn’t.

“…Though…I wouldn’t trade them for anything.” Kari turned over and gave me a curious look. I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t sure what I was doing. I just kept going. “I…really don’t say it enough. But you guys mean the world to me. If I didn’t have you all I’d have lost my mind a long time ago.”

She stared at me and I felt taken aback a little. She never looked at me so directly before. It felt…different from our usual, casual interactions. She didn’t even say a word; her eyes just showed she was paying attention.

“You wouldn’t know it but things have been rough lately…if it weren’t for you guys I…I don’t even know what I’d do. I…”

“What’s going on?”

I was all too eager to answer. It came coming out all at once. I wasn’t overly emotional or anything. It was just me venting out every concern I’d had and all the problems I was facing. She was really surprised by it all but she sat there, silently taking it all in and commenting every once in a while if I got too self-derisive about it. She learned about my home situation. How I constantly put on a strong face for everyone else without actually sitting down and talking my problems out with anyone. I can’t remember exactly how it all came out but she learned more about me than almost anyone else ever had in that conversation. At some point it stopped being about just me too. Without even realizing it I was listening to Kari talk about her problems. Her concerns with a broken family, a friend she felt she was losing, her fear of the future. Much like she did for me I sat there listening, only piping in with words to comfort her.

We talked like that for hours. About everything. What was left of our pitiful blanket fort just seemed to be our own world where it was just us. People came in and out all the time but we didn’t so much as notice them. We just kept talking. I don’t know what possessed us. We were both drop dead exhausted from staying up all night yet something motivated us to just sit there and talk for hours on end when we usually talked for maybe ten or twenty minutes at most. For all the time we hung out this was the first time it felt like we really talked. We learned things about each other no one would’ve ever guessed but we took it all in stride.

I can’t remember much of what she said, but there was one line she said that really stuck with me. Once I finished explaining how I tried to be strong and do all this for my friends and family she just gave me an amazed look and said “You’re a good kid.” I don’t know why, but it’s what I remember the most out of all she said.

Similarly she went on about how she felt inferior and less-loved than her siblings because her parents had divorced and her birthmother was overly critical of her. She talked about how she was torn about it. I stared at her and without hesitation told her flat out “You’re amazing. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Even if you don’t think your Mom is happy you’re around I’m happy you are.” It was the closest I ever came to confessing my feelings for her.

It could’ve gone on forever, but eventually it came time for everyone to have to vacate the place. Our friends came to get us and we sadly had to stop and get up. Everyone made fun of us for sleeping in so late and quickly gave us an update about some drama that had apparently happened while we were off in our own little world. They agreed to fill us on at a breakfast restaurant and next thing I knew we were off. Me and Kari didn’t talk much to each other but the entire time we sat next to each other at every possible point. I could feel that something between us had changed. But she still had a boyfriend. Even if this changed things I couldn’t just take her away, as much as I wanted to.

After our friends filled us in on all the drama we ate and had a good time before finally heading home to catch up on all the sleep we didn’t get.

That night Kari messaged me online. “Hey.”

Usually she never messaged me, I hurriedly replied. “Yo, what’s up?”

“Dunno I just…I want to talk with someone.”

My eyes widened. “What about?”

Then she said it, something I never expected in a million years. “I broke up with my boyfriend.”

My heart pounded. I cheered. I was concerned. I didn’t know what to do. I just tried to play it off as best I could. “What? Are you okay?”

“Yeah…it’s been a longtime coming I think I just…I need a distraction.”

“Okay then. What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know.”

I laughed. “Helpful as ever I see. Well…” The details escape me but we ended up talking for hours about nothing. It was just idle chit chat but we talked until four or five A.M…two days in a row. We couldn’t get enough of talking to each other. Heh, it was actually the most I think I’ve ever talked to someone. When it came time for classes again we saw each other at our usual hangout spot and continued sitting next to each other.

Then one day we slowly slid closer and closer together, both of us on our laptops; I was almost certain she liked me but I had enough doubt in me that I was somehow mistaken that I didn’t say anything. In the most passive act ever I laid my hand out between us, with my palm open as if I expected something. In my head I thought it would look like I was just laying my arm down but it must’ve been really obvious what I wanted. After a couple minutes Kari’s hand went out to her side. A minute later it moved closer, another minute later it was on mine. I started to wrap my fingers around hers and she did the same. I gently pulled her towards me and she started leaning on me.

That was when we started going out.

It’s no exaggeration to say we suddenly became everyone’s favorite couple. We played off each other perfectly and never seemed to get tired of the other. We would frequently talk for hours then inevitably kiss for hours and when we were in a bedroom…Well you get the picture. That was how things were for a year until I shrank. You know the rest from there.

Sorry about the detour there. I got a little nostalgic. Back to the story.

I sat there moping around for an undetermined amount of time, mainly reflecting on my relationship with Kari. I must’ve been like that for a long time too, since she came back without me calling on her.

“Rob…” She probably didn’t know what else to do aside from give me a concerned look. I looked up at her and stared. This girl was my Goddess. I loved her to death and now she couldn’t be mine. What did this mean for us? She dumped me but still offered to look after me. Why?

“Hey…”

Kari’s ears perked. After all, this was the first thing I’d said in who knew how long. “Yes?”

“Why did you offer to look after me?”

She looked at me and answered without hesitation. “Because you’re my bestfriend.”

I sat there, speechless. It was such a simple thing to say but with all the doom and gloom in my head it was the best damn thing I could’ve ever heard. I won’t say it made me undepressed. But it definitely put me in a better mood.

Once I found my words I again I sat myself up. “…Thank you Kari.”

“Anytime. Hey, are you hungry?”

“Yeah.”

“Let me go make something. Then we can watch TV or something. That work?”

I smiled, “Sounds good.”

The rest of the day really wasn’t anything to hit home about. Me and Kari awkwardly watched TV for a couple hours then we wound up going to bed. No accidents. No interesting conversations. Just us passing the time. Course that’s to be expected when we’d just broken up. I’d be more worried if we acted like things were A-okay. When I woke up it was pretty much the same thing. The next day was like that too, and the day after. We spent a lot of time together but there was a definite awkwardness in how interacted. All our conversations, few as they were, were superficial at best. When we weren’t busy with failing to communicate it was either silence or TV. If she was even home. Often times Kari had to go, be it work or school. Sometimes I’d go with, usually I didn’t.

So needless to say I had a lot of time to think and work things out. Sometimes it helped my mood, sometimes it didn’t. I learned quick that any thoughts of Kari were a great way to get depressed so I did my best to keep her out of my head, impossible as it was given that I was, you know, living with her. Aside from that I thought a lot about Mom and my home situation and it started to dawn on me a lot didn’t really fit.

The situation was, as I understood it, that because she had her phone off Mom didn’t know I was home and almost killed me. Because of that she flipped out, probably got some PTSD from the last time she crushed someone by accident, and sent me away for my safety. A pretty bullshit situation but it kinda makes sense. Except…it doesn’t.

Don’t get me wrong when I say this but my friends wouldn’t offer to take care of me after a short phone call. That is way too big a decision to make on the fly. It had to have been planned at least somewhat ahead of time. Which begs the question, why? Well, I have a little theory. See if you can follow along.

I shrank, shocker I know. That brings up a few problems. First: Someone needs to look after me. Naturally the job falls to my parent. Unfortunately, my parent had a bad experience with a shrunken person. So she avoided me like the plague. That in itself could’ve been all the reason she needed to start working this out. But there’s another thing…what shrinking means about me. I’d like to think by this point you can see I’m not a bad guy. Maybe kind of an asshole but not much of a bad guy. But to Mom…Well it was heartbreaking. I assumed we just let it go and moved on but if she didn’t…I’m not saying that’s what motivated her but it fits. It’s possible this was all just precautionary too, shit she did when I first shrank and let it all go once things died down; and when our little incident happened it was the last straw for her to make it happen. It’s not that much of a stretch to see happening. Plus it would explain why three, admittedly able, young college girls were more qualified to take care of me than say…my own Mother? I can understand if she didn’t want to take care of me out of fear for my life but I never heard her say anything like that so what else is there to think?

The more I thought like that the more certain I was that’s what it was. It helped me figure something out…but it also meant a lot of people had been planning like this behind my back for weeks…I wonder how long they were? Since I shrank? Before or after I had my adventure with Jaz? How much of this was influenced by behind-the-scenes bullshit? For that matter, was there even any stuff going on in the background to begin with? Not to mention, how far did this go? Were my friends the first choices or did some of my extended family get in on this? I tried asking Kari but she didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. After the second or third try I just dropped it. I was probably better off not prodding the bull anyway. Something told me if there were answers to be had I wouldn’t be very happy hearing them.

Not that I was very happy anyway. I’ll be straight. I was depressed. Really depressed. Like, poetry writing depressed. Love song listening, leave me alone, please take me back depressed. Though my mood did lighten up anytime I happened to be near Kari if that helps. Forced as our interactions were, it was still time with a giant girl I had feelings for. Unfortunately I fell into that trap people who just got dumped fall into all the time: I kept telling myself that if I was nice enough and did a good enough job that she’d take me back. That went about as well as you’d expected, what with me always trying to be nice and talk to her. I didn’t even get to do much. The best I could offer came around day five of my week with Kari when she came home from work.

“My feet are killing me.” She complained to me after immediately falling onto her couch.

Like a trained little servant I immediately replied. “I could massage them for you.”

She glanced at me on the table and laughed. “Thanks, but I don’t want the smell to kill you.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

“Trust me.”

“Come on Kari. You’re already watching over me. Let me do something for you.”

There were a few more lines but in the end my little guilt-trip succeeded and next thing I knew Kari’s feet were looming over me. Not sure what she was so concerned about since there wasn’t much of a smell to speak of. Aside from looking a little beat up they seemed just fine, I might even go so far as to say they looked cute. Course my opinion may be a bit biased. Point is I wasn’t bothered by them and I went to work attempting to massage. Compared to Jaz Kari’s feet were a lot smaller and daintier but they still went up for hundreds and hundreds of feet. What I was doing was about as much of a massage as an ant tapping away at her foot. Damn if I didn’t try though. I worked like my relationship was riding on this and went all out. Sadly, it was pretty clear after a few minutes I wasn’t doing much, if anything; and unlike Jaz Kari wasn’t particularly eager to watch me work at her feet. A few more minutes passed before she pulled her feet back.

“Thanks for the effort.” She sighed.

Horrified, I immediately protested. “I can do it! Let me keep trying!”

Naturally Kari didn’t understand my sudden outrage and not massaging her foot. She gave me a weird look. “Why do you care so much? I appreciate it and all but it’s just a foot rub.”

I wasn’t dumb enough to let her know I was hoping this sort of thing would make her change her mind. Heck, I don’t even think I was dumb enough to buy that myself. But as I’ve made clear, I was not exactly thinking with my head right now. So I stubbornly kept arguing, probably creeping Kari out if we’re being totally honest. Eventually I did manage to convince her to put me to work at her toes, but it was definitely a long and repetitive chat I won’t bore you with.

Massaging her toes went a lot better since they were considerably smaller than the rest of her foot. Still building-sized of course, but it was at least manageable. I was between Kari’s big and second toe, gently pounding away at the ground all around me. I have to admit here there was definitely some of that stench she warned me about but um…let’s just say I might have not hated it so much as…liked…it...Anyway, it was also a little oily with some sock lint all over the place and I was nice enough to even clean some of that out. Kari kept a nervous eye on me at first, certain that the slightest move on her part would send me flying, which it would but she relaxed after a bit anyway. The massage seemed to at least have an effect when I was by her toes since she didn’t take me out of there after a few minutes this time. Actually, how long was I there? I was so busy constantly working and telling myself that it would change something about us that the time just flew on by. I had to have been there for hours, only moving between different toes. But Kari didn’t tell me to stop so that meant something I guess.

If we’re being totally honest here I loved it. I was too shy to ever tell Kari directly that I had a little thing for feet so being able to experience her’s like this was nice. It took a lot of self-control not to do anything stupid like start kissing it or something. Though I may or may not have snuck a couple in when she wasn’t looking. Can you blame me? Cut a guy some slack, I just got dumped and it made me feel marginally better. Though as with all things it had to end before long. Kari gently plucked me from in-between her toes and thanked me, quickly hurrying to make dinner since it’d gotten late.

Alas, the rest of the day was as interesting as the others were. I was quite convinced the week would come and go with neither of us really doing much of anything and resuming that awkward silence til the next time we happened to see each other. That is, until my last day at Kari’s.

It started off the same as any other day, me sleeping and Kari off doing her usual social responsibilities and what not. Then I was woken up her rather rudely saying “Get up!”

She’d always had a playful bossy demeanor to her so I treated it like nothing special. Lazily, I got up and was quickly picked up.

“Ready? We’re heading out.”

“Kay….” I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “Wait, what?”

“We’re heading out.” Kari repeated, this time placing me in her ear and rounding up all my things to put them away. Still somewhat half asleep, I was a little delayed in asking her anything until it finally dawned on me. After grabbing my phone (I basically kept the thing on my person at all times by this point), I texted her asking what exactly was going on.

“We’re going out.” She repeated a third time. “Tonight I’m dropping you off so we’re gonna do something nice before that.”

Well that was certainly all well and good but what did she have in mind exactly?

As it would turn out, “Heading out.” Meant going to the local 7-11, buying a few drinks and snacks, then driving over to a Red Box and picking up a few movies for a movie night. I expected, I don’t know, dinner, movies, maybe the beach? Though I guess my size ruled out all of those huh? Damn. Still, it was better than nothing I guess. I mean, it was still me and Kari being alone. Though last time we did a movie night…Well that mistake wouldn’t be happening again. That’s for sure. To be honest I was surprised she decided on this. It really felt like we were both biding time until I left to the next place. Not helping was the awkward tension you could cut with a knife.

More importantly this felt like my last chance, my last chance to win her back and my last chance to try and work through this wall between us. As much as it tore me apart inside I could deal with not dating Kari. I just wanted to at least go back to the lighthearted banter we had before we dated. Basically, I wanted an end to the totally reasonable awkwardness we had with each other for no other reason than it sucked.

Fast forward the hour or two it took to get everything Kari deemed necessary for movies and we were back in her living room in the all-too familiar positions of her laying on her couch and me on the table in front of her. On the screen was a superhero movie we both loved. Though since we had both seen it so many times before we were able to make fun of it the entire time. It wasn’t a conversation but it was at least better than strict silence while watching. It was fun, light-hearted, just the kind of thing I wanted. A definite baby step in the right direction.

After the first movie, during the switch between them, I finally spoke somewhat seriously. “Hey Kari?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

She put in the disc and turned around with a straight face, nonchalantly replying “Anytime.”

“No seriously. I…Things have been rough lately and this means a lot to me.” She didn’t reply but she didn’t do anything to make me stop either. She only listened. “I don’t say it enough but you mean the world to me. You…Kristen…Jaz…I think I would’ve gone crazy without you.”

Kari walked over to the table and leaned near me. Her titanic face loomed over like a mountain-sized blimp with two large, brown eyes staring intently at me. A finger gently poked over the edge of the table, slowly and considerately touching my back in what was probably the Micro version of patting it. “You always try to hold everything in…Don’t worry so much. Everything’s going to be okay Robby.”

Somehow, her saying that really made it feel like that was the case. “I hope so.”

“I know so.”

“How?”

One of her hands brushed her hair back and leaned onto the table, both of her eyes narrowed down at me. “Because you’re one of the smartest, sweetest people I know. And you deserve to be happy. I’m going to make sure of it.”

I laughed. “Good luck doing that if I wind up going to Europe or something.”

“Oh, you haven’t seen me serious. If I need to I will fly down there myself and get you back if things are rough.” Her voice gained something of a sassiness to it that was out of character for her. Wish you were there to hear it. She even did that hand thing sassy girls do when talking. If it wasn’t so heartfelt I’d have been laughing my ass off.

“All for little ol’ me?” I joked.

She didn’t smile. Her nod was totally serious. “Yeah. So don’t worry. Everything’s gonna work out. You’ll see.”

I nodded and we soon resumed the movies. Compared to the lengthy hours of talking we had last time I vented all my problems to Kari it was rather brief but it did its job. I felt better. Not depressed is a bit of a stretch. But significantly better for sure. I gave up any plans of trying to forcibly break that awkwardness between us after that. It’d go away on its own with time. Plus I had nothing to prove anymore. I was concerned about our relationship but that little reassuring spiel Kari gave me was all I needed to hear. As complicated and fucked as my situation made me feel I kinda felt like that, at the very least, things between us would be alright. You have no idea how much that one feeling comforted me. She was still an unobtainable goal; but she was also still my best friend. We were just going through a rough patch.

I began to think that maybe some time away from her might actually do some good. As hung up on her as I was I would inevitably relapse into the same desperate attempts to make her happy and do more harm than good. A couple weeks around a couple of other women might be just the thing to get a guy’s mind off his ex. Heh, if I was real lucky I might even get to see Jaz in her underwear again. Now that I was single I could actually enjoy the ogling without feeling too bad. There’s a thought.

A couple of movies and a few hours of poking fun at movies later we’d hit that point where it was finally time to get going. With a single push of the remote the TV flicked off and Kari’s finger laid behind me with a faint reassuring air about it. As always I was placed in her ear as she ventured to her car to drive off. Neither of us tried to force any dialogue this time around. Yet it didn’t feel awkward either. It was actually kind of disappointing in a way. Unless she stopped by I wouldn’t be seeing her for two weeks at least and with all we’d been through…I was a little mixed to say the least. But I did the adult thing and refrained from voicing these petty concerns to Kari. Conflicted as I was, I was at least in a passable mood. No need to ruin it.

The drive both ended too soon and took forever. There was a brief moment where Kari sat in the driver’s seat, parked, and not moving. Her hand brushed hair out of her ear and reached for me, signaling that it was finally time.

“Hope you had a good time.” She smiled down at me on her finger.

“I did. More than I expected after we started honestly.” I fired back a smile in her direction. “Oh yeah, you can’t hear me can you?” Her phone was nowhere near me so naturally that was the case.

It felt like she still got the message though. Her eyes looked at me with this apprehensive, but happy look. It was a complicated expression that seemed to tell me more than any words could. She leaned forward with her eyes like that and continued to smile. Her face came close to me, closer than it had all week. I could feel the warmth radiating from her body, gently embracing me in her aura. The soft breeze of her breath blew my hair back in a warm gust as her lips came closer until they finally made contact. I was immersed in her lower lip, embedded within a huge field of pink cushion while she gave me this last kiss. I returned the favor with my own lips, embracing the vastness around me in what was as close to a hug as I could hope for. The faint remnants of saliva made my whole body stick. My clothes stuck against my body as my hair started to look like a wet mess with the strong winds of her breathing coupled with the spit it pushed from her onto me. But none of it even registered. I was lost in this one kiss we shared. Our last kiss.

It could’ve have been long before I was pulled away and Kari was smiling down at me again, the same complex expression on her face. “Take care Robby. I’ll see you later. Okay?”

“I’ll hold you to that.” I mumbled to myself.

Kari got out of her car and quickly headed to the door of where she parked at. It was a building I barely recognized but even if I hadn’t I knew the woman who stepped out from the door as we approached. She and Kari briefly exchanged some courtesies, as well as the bag containing all of my stuff, before I was finally swapped between them.

“Bye.” Kari gave us both a wave and walked back to her car. Together with my new caretaker we headed inside. I was placed on a coffee table in a dining room as she placed her phone nearby. “I’ll go put your stuff up then we can hangout for a bit. Alright?”

“That works.”

Thus began my days of living with Kristen.

After a few minutes Kristen returned and sat by me, arms resting inches away. “You hungry or anything Rob?”

“I’m good. Ate a bit at Kari’s.”

“Thought so.” She rubbed the back of her head sheepishly, probably unsure of what else to say or do. “So how you been?”

“Not gonna lie, could be better.” I shrugged. “Could be worse too but that’s another thing.”

“Yeah, sorry about your Mom. We thought you knew…”

“Relax. If I was mad at you about that I’ve have already raised a fuss. If anything I owe you guys for taking me in.“

“You’d do the same thing if you were us.”

“Probably.” I admitted with a laugh. “Just take the damn compliment.”

“Oh?” Kristen smirked at me, resting a hand under her chin. “Or what?”

“Well shit. You called my bluff. Guess that’s that.”

She looked pleased that she won that little exchange. Her finger came down and patted my head gently. “Well thanks anyway. Glad you’re okay with staying here.”

“A week at a girl’s house? What’s not to love?”

Without breaking her expression Kristen’s finger stopped patting my head and pushed me over, holding me in place beneath her nail. “You can try if you think if you can get away with it.” She giggled with a wink, finger gently rolling me around before pulling back.

I sat myself back up with my legs crossed, a playful look on my face. “Don’t test me. I always like a good challenge.”

“And I always like stepping on bugs.”  Kristen laughed back. “Seriously though, I am going to be busy the next couple of days. You going to be alright if I leave you here for a bit?”

“Sure. What’re you busy with?”

“A test.” My friend sighed, deflating at the word. “I need to study for my test in two days. After that I should be around here a lot more so we can hang out and stuff.”

“A test huh? What on?”

She shrugged. “On American culture during the 20th century and how it evolved into what we have now.”

“On pop culture?” My eyes lit up. This chat just got interesting. “Want me to help you with that?”

At first Kristen gave me a questioning look but then they widened with understanding. “Oh yeah, you were a film major. You know all about this kind of thing don’t you?”

I grinned, playing at being modest. “I might know a little bit.”

“I’ll take any help I can get. Tomorrow you can help me out while I’m cramming. Sound good?”

I nodded. “Sure, but what are we going to do tonight then?”

“Sleep. You have any idea what time it is?”

I did not but a quick check of my phone fixed that up. “Damn, it’s 11 already?”

“Yeah.” I suddenly noticed the exhaustion in Kristen’s eyes. “So we can pick this up in the morning. Alright?”

“Sounds good.”

“Let’s go then.” She picked me up off the table and brought me to her room, placing me near my things she spent a few minutes setting up. Despite my apparent lack of sleepiness while talking the second I crawled into my bed my body suddenly felt heavy. I glanced over to Kristen, already dressed for sleep unfortunately, climbing into her own bed. She took off her glasses and placed them nearby before flicking off the light switch. “Night Robert.”

“Night Kristen.”

I remember feeling pretty good as I fell asleep that night. I may not be able to do much but I could at least help my friend study this one time. It’d been so long since I had gone to school I actually missed the chance to test and flex my knowledge skills. I was legitimately excited to study. Isn’t that weird?

Morning felt like it took forever to come, but once it finally did we got dressed, ate our breakfast, and sat down at the coffee table again with a couple textbooks and Kristen’s laptop ready to go.

“Okay, what do you need help with?”

“Everything.” She turned a little red as her eyes looked away from me.

“Okay…” I paused to think over where to start. “You know what the Sears Catalog is right?”

She nodded, “It was the first magazine you could order stuff from right?”

“Okay, sounds like you have that down…Can you name the Big Five?”

“Uh….Those are the movie guys right? Hmm…MGM…Fox….Universal………Universal….”

“Paramount and Warner Bros.” I finished. “Alright. Let’s focus there for a minute.”

This kept going all day. For both our sakes I won’t recap it all (Unless you want a rudimentary lesson on American pop culture; I’m more than happy to oblige). At first Kristen seemed really unsure about everything but as time went on she began to answer each of my questions with more and more confidence, even correcting me once or twice. She was a very quick learner. And it felt really good to actually use my head for a bit. All my lounging around had me a little rusty, not to mention no more school so I was falling behind my peers. So a chance like this to just help someone out and show I’m not entirely brain dead was a great thing. It was only an added bonus that it was a little something I could do to help repay Kristen for taking me in. Not to mention talking about this stuff was literally why I went to college. It made me feel alive just to start rattling off all those names, the Big Five, the original great directors, music producers, cartoonists, actors. I forgot I knew so much stuff people would consider random trivia. Kristen was definitely surprised. Though by the end of it she knew it about as well as I did.

We only took two breaks to eat, drink, and watch a little bit of TV so we wouldn’t burn out. Funny enough, those breaks felt like the longest parts of the day. They dragged and I was just eager to get back to showing off. Compared to my time at Kari’s, where I sat there thinking all day and unsure of what to say, you couldn’t even tell I was the same person. It was a lot of fun and while it was all going on, I completely forgot about any problems I had. This was the kind of distraction I needed to forget being dumped and kicked out…At least for a little while. Before I realized it night had rolled on by and Kristen went out to pick up some fast food for us to munch on. She asked me if I wanted to come with but I chose to stay behind and get a little nap in.

“Back~” Her amplified voice woke me up immediately. Lazily I got up and watched her walk over and place a bag of food near me.”

“Alright! How much of it is mine?” I stared jokingly at the bag taller than a house.

“All of it. Dig in.” Kristen quickly replied, pulling out a burger and a box of fries.  Almost immediately she pulled out a fry and a chunk of her burger and placed them both near me. I didn’t need to be told twice, I got to work eating my meager little portion of the meal. It must’ve been a long time since I had cheap food because it was delicious. Salty as hell, with some of those salt crystals a third my size, but still tasty. It didn’t take long before I was done with a barely noticeable dent in the fry and piece of burger, whereas in contrast Kristen had finished all her fries and was over half done with her burger. When she finished that she asked if I was done then ate my portion too so it wouldn’t go to waste.

“I’m pretty sure you just ate enough food to make four or five buildings.”

She made a face at me then stuck her tongue out. “Next time you won’t get any then.”

I laughed. “Thanks for the meal.”

“Anytime.” She dabbed her face with a napkin, thankfully without me on it this time. “Thank you for all the help.”

I waved a hand dismissively with a shrug. “It was nothing. Was the least I could do since you’re offering to look after me. Just glad I can help.”

“Still. I’d be screwed if you didn’t help me. I owe you.”

“Weren’t you listening? If anything I owe you.”

“I owe you.” She repeated with a stronger tone.

“Alright Alright.” I sighed and let her take this one, yawning after a moment of silence.

“Tired?”

“A little. All that thinking hurt my head.”

“That just means you don’t use it enough.”

“Hey!” I glared up at her playful eyes. “What’s that make you then, Miss I-Don’t-Know-The-Big-Five?”

Her reply was swift and brutal. “Someone too busy taking care of her friend to study.”

“I showed up yesterday!”

“Your point?”

“Fuck you.”

We both laughed. “I’m feeling a little tired too honestly. I guess we can head to bed early tonight.”

“Let’s do it.”

Not even ten five minutes later we were back in her bedroom in the dark on our beds.

“Night Kris.”

“Night Rob.”

Come the next day Kristen had to hurry off to school for her big test. She made me stay behind since a Micro guy in her ear who knew all the answers seemed like too much temptation.

“See ya Kris! You got this!”

She gave me a firm, confident nod before leaving. Off to take her test for…some class I wasn’t listening when she told me which one.

I stared at the door and sniffled. “They grow up so fast…”

Later the door flung open as an excited voice shouted: “I did it!”

I looked away from my phone to offer a congratulatory smile. “Congrats.”

Kristen walked over to me, eyes beaming. “My Professor graded it for me ahead of time and I got a 90! I aced it!”

“Of course you did. I taught you.”

She ignored my lack of modesty and nodded vigorously in agreement. “Yeah you did! Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!” Taken aback by her energetic appreciation, I didn’t even notice til I was airborne that she picked me up.

“Chill girl. It was just a test.”

“That was a third of my grade. Thank you!” She nodded again and next thing I knew her lips were over in an appreciative thank you kiss. She made exaggerated smooching sounds as she pulled await, a large grin on her face. I on the other hand was bright red and stunned. It didn’t take long before Kristen realized what she’d just done and act the same.

I decided to try and end the silence sooner rather than later. “Glad I could help with the test.”

“….Yeah. Sorry about that. I got a little excited.” She was still blushing.

“Hard not to around me.” I gave her a hearty laugh with a cocky grin. “You do that every time you get an A?”

“Of course not!” Her voice said no but her flushed cheeks made me want to keep pushing anyway.

“Can’t say I’ve ever been so excited about a good grade I kissed someone. Kinda sad really.”

“Shut up you ass.”

“Make me.” I stuck my tongue out.

She promptly took her phone away and gave me a sly look.

“Shit, she made me.”

“Thought so.” Her blushing died down as she regained a confident, victorious look over me. “Really though, thanks. I owe you.” Her phone came close by again so could respond.

I shrugged, laying down in her palm and staring upwards into her looming face. “No you don’t. You let me stay here. I help you with a test. It’s only fair.”

“Nope.”

“Goddammit.” I sighed, losing another debate to a giant girl. Kristen gave me a smirk as she placed me back on the table. “I’ll figure out something I can do for you later. For now…” She trailed off. “…You wanna do anything?”

“I dunno.” Came my immediate, apathetic reply. “Games maybe?”

“At your size?” Kristen raised an eyebrow. “Can you…push buttons like that?”

“Oh yeah. It’s actually really good exercise. I gotta run between all the buttons and jump with my full weight on them. I’ve actually gotten pretty good at it.”

“Really?”

“No you idiot!” I burst into laughter. “You see me? I’m lucky if I can push one.”

“Then what do you suggest?” She tried to hide her embarrassment but the tinge in her cheeks was a dead giveaway. I let it slide.

“I dunno. Board games? Word games? Mind games?”

“I think you play enough mind and word games.” She scratched the back of her head. “I don’t own any board games either. Just chess.”

“That’ll work.”

She looked surprised. “You know how to play chess?”

“Of course. I mean, it’s been a while but a relative taught me when I was a kid.”

“I gotta see this.” She snickered, leaving only to return minutes later with a smooth marble chessboard. It was really well kept I must say; shiny enough I could see my reflection in the white and black tiles. “I’ll set up all the pieces.” Kristen mumbled as her fingers quickly went to work placing everything. Not being an idiot I quickly got off the board and left her to it.

“You want to be white or black?”

“I’m white you racist.”

“Shut up.” She rolled her eyes with a sigh and started to set my side with white pieces. Before long all the pieces were set and it was game on. Kristen leaned on the table with her chin resting on her palm, eyeing me expectantly. “Your move.”

I stepped onto the board, move already thought out, just one rather obvious problem. All these pieces were taller than me. Even the pawns, the shortest of all chess pieces towered over me like a decent-sized house. Me attempting to move it went about as well as trying to move a house too. I pushed against the base of the pawn with all my strength but all it got me was a number of amused giggles from Kristen. That and I fell on my butt a couple times whenever my feet slid.

“Need a hand?” Kristen smirked down at me after a few more minutes.

My manly pride made me want to do this on my own but logically it was not happening. “Don’t make me say it…”

“All you need to do is ask.”

She was not going to let me walk away from this one. I sighed, “Can you please help me move this?”

“Sure.” She nodded, grabbing the pawn in front of me and moving it with zero effort. “One space or two?”

“…Two.” I should’ve been used to it by now but my pride took a bit of a hit there. She was going to pay for this. I was going to crush her for embarrassing me.

She moved the pawn and quickly reached for one of her own and moved it in the next moment. “Your turn again.”

“Uh…can you help me move that one too…?”

“Of course.”

The details of the game escape me but it was pretty close. For every piece one of us took the other took one as well. I was probably at a disadvantage not being able to look over the board like Kristen was but I dealt with it as best I could. My big break came when she didn’t notice her Queen was in danger. You better believe I took that thing the instant I could. After that the game leaned in my favor and I began to slowly capture each and every piece I could. Her resistance was slowly vanishing as I rode my momentum towards victory. After several more turns I had her. I just needed to place my Rook at the right spot and it was checkmate.

“Okay Kris, can you put my Rook over there?” I pointed to my desired spot. Wordlessly and even a little glumly she pulled it up and placed it across the board…In the wrong spot. “No, over there.” I pointed to it again. The place she moved it to was going to cost me my Rook if I left it there.

She paused for a moment, not reaching for the piece like I asked. Her face turned and showed me a mischievous glint in her eyes. “But if I put it there I’ll lose.”

“That’s the point!”

“Why would I let myself lose?”

“Cause it’s cheating?”

“All’s fair in love and war.” She giggled as she took my Rook. “Your move.”

As you might guess. The rest of the game did not bode well for me. Kristen only moved my pieces like I asked about half the time. The other half she moved them right to the slaughter. I quickly started losing, and she was not nice about it. She could’ve checkmated me early on but she took her time, slowly taking out each of my pieces until finally my King was all that remained. I should’ve admitted defeat since I wasn’t even really playing anymore but stubbornness made me keep trying nonetheless.

“Checkmate.” Kristen smiled innocently. “You did well.”

“Yeah yeah.” I grumbled, taking out my frustrations by walking onto the board and kicking her King piece. “I would’ve won if you didn’t cheat.”

She grabbed her King and slid it to the side, pushing me flat onto my back. She hovered the bottom of it over me like it was going to stamp me down, still smiling playfully. “Don’t be a sore loser.”

“You’re one to talk.” I brushed myself off and walked back off the board before she got any ideas.

“Want a rematch?”

“Nah, I get the feeling it’d go as well as the first one.”

“You never know til you try.”

“Trust me. I know.” I sighed. “Still, thanks for the good game.”

“Anytime! It was fun.”

Crabby as I was acting I did have to agree. Even if she did cheat in the second half of the game it was really fun. “Yeah, it was. Anyway. What now?”

Kristen gave me a shrug, “TV maybe?”

I groaned. “I have had enough TV to last a lifetime…Any other games you can think of?”

“Uh…” She made thinking noises while cleaning off all the chess stuff from the table. “Hmm….Truth…or Dare…?”

“What are you, five?”

The moment I said that Kristen’s eyes widened. “I think I know what we can do. Be right back. Gotta check on something…” She hurried away as I watched her with a curious look. Something gave me a bad feeling about this.

Sure enough my feelings were confirmed once Kristen came back ten minutes later.

With a dollhouse.

I had nothing but a blank stare as Kristen set the dollhouse on the table. She sat back down with a proud smile, eyeing me expectantly as if I’d suddenly marvel at her idea.

“The hell am I looking at?”

“A dollhouse.”

“Why?”

“I’ve kept since I was a little girl.”

“Why?”

“Because I like it. Plus it’s useful for times like these.”

“Why?

“We’re going to use it.”

“Why?”

“You have any better ideas?” She quipped, finally tired of my question.

“I think nothing would be a preferable idea honestly.”

Kristen rolled her eyes, “Just get in the house. It won’t be that bad.”

I sighed, shrugged, and headed on over. Not like I was busy or anything. To be fair the dollhouse actually looked rather nice, albeit old. It must’ve been one of those Barbie Dreamhouse Mansion things. It just screamed five-year old girl with bright pink walls, a red roof and judging by the windows a yellow interior. The colors were a little faded and I could make out the layer of dust on the roof but aside from that and a couple bits of chipped paint it was actually in really good condition.

You know what else? The thing was huge. Like, way bigger than a dollhouse had any right to be. Compared to a real-life house it was nothing but to me it seemed like a house made for giants ten times my height. Once I got to the door it felt like I was a toddler who couldn’t reach the doorknob by himself. But this was a dollhouse so I didn’t need a doorknob anyway. With a bit of heaving I push the door open and headed inside.

Ever heard of the uncanny valley? It’s this idea that no matter how close technology gets to recreating people in say movies, there’s something unnatural about it that makes your brain tell you that it isn’t right. That was how the dollhouse felt. There was no mistaking I was now standing in a giant living room but it felt so fake I found myself fascinated by every little detail. The tables, the furniture, the TV, even the floor was all made of the same cheap plastic with some basic textures applied to it all. In a weird way it was kind of refreshing. Even if everything around me was still gigantic this at least seemed…I dunno…easier? I could actually walk around this house and get by on my own if need be. In an actual building I’d need a chauffeur just go to a different room but give me ten minutes here and I can do it.  

“Having fun?” Kristen giggled from outside.

“Time of my life.” I dryly replied.

After a minute or two I heard her outside again, “Hold on. I can’t hear you…let’s see…”

I fell flat on back as the entire house rumbled like an earthquake was happening. I knew logically it was just something Kristen was doing outside but that didn’t stop me from hiding underneath the nearest table before a plastic chair or plate crushed me. Loud cracking and popping noises from above rang in my ears, making me curious enough to take a peek to see just what the hell was going on. Once I looked it became immediately obvious once I was greeted by Kristen’s smiling face in place of the roof. The roof was now gone and in its place my friend loomed over the entire structure like some kind of deity. I could see her hands on either side of her head. One had the freshly removed dollhouse roof, the other had her phone. She lowered her phone into the room with me, propping it against the wall.

“There we go. That work?”

Hesitantly I stepped outside into the open, marveling at how even a simple smart phone was bigger than damn near everything in this place. “Looks like it should.” Sure enough, it played my voice back with no problems.

“That’s good. Having fun?”

“This is surreal.”

“Why? Aren’t you used to stuff being bigger than you?”

“Yeah but this…It makes me feel like I’m a toy or something.”

She stared blankly at me. “Aren’t you? I mean, I put you in a dollhouse. Doesn’t that kinda make you a toy?”

“Last time I checked toys don’t move, breathe, or talk.”

She shrugged. “I dunno. You see some of those new toys out there? They can do some neat stuff.”

“Yeah…still not a toy.”

“You sure?”

“Certain.”

“Don’t wanna be my toy?”

“Not a chance.”

Her cheeks puffed out, “Too bad. I wanna play.”

Immediately my eyes rolled as I realized this was another case of me being stuck with someone else’s whims. At least I wasn’t bored anymore. “Sounds like this is going to suck.”

“Nonsense! Just hold on.” The giant girl watching from the heavens left, quickly returning with an old Barbie doll. She flashed it towards me like it was a trophy. “See?”

“Woo you have an old doll. What’re you going to do with that?”

She smiled, lowering the doll until it was propped on the little dollhouse couch across from her dollhouse TV next to the incredibly out of place smart phone. “I’m not gonna do anything. You are.”

“Of course I am…” I sighed. “What do I need to do?”

Kristen giggled, covering her mouth with her hand and speaking back in a high-pitched pretend voice. “Robby~ Come here~”

“Guessing that’s supposed to be the doll?” I pointed to the thing on the couch.

“Robby!”

“Coming. Coming.” I headed over to the couch, sighing yet again.

“There you are!” Kristen’s Barbie voice cheered. “I’ve been out all day and my feet are so sore. Could you rub them for me?”

“You’re kidding.” I looked past the roof towards Kristen but she maintained a straight smile and silently urged me on. After shaking my head and sighing once more, I walked over to the doll’s stiff, lazily propped feet by the ground and started pretending to massage them. They were slightly smaller than I was so compared to Jaz or Kari’s it seemed like an absolute cakewalk. That and, you know, she was a doll. “I take back everything I said before. This is surreal.”

“Mmmm~ That feels good!”

“I’m sure it does.”

“Be a good boy and I might even reward you later. Teehee!” Kristen started trying to giggle in her Barbie voice but it quickly turned into real laughter. Can’t blame her, I started laughing too. This was so damn weird. How could I not?

“Make sure to get in between the toes!”

I took another look at Barbie’s foot. All of her toes were drawn on with nothing separating them in any way, shape, or form. “…How?”

“Is that backtalk I’m hearing? Get to work!”

“Y-Yes Mam!” I pretended to get scared and hurriedly work, kinda getting into the pretend stuff a bit.” My eyes darted upwards into the soulless doll eyes and I had to fight the urge to laugh again.

After a minute or two of pretend massaging Kristen or rather, Barbie cleared her throat. “Nice job Robby. I think you deserve a reward.” Massive fingers grabbed the doll’s arm to move the hand up over her lips where I then heard loud giggling. “Follow me.” I played along, following the doll who was bouncing her way up the stairs. We ended up in the dollhouse bedroom. A sickening pink color was everywhere to be seen, the bed, the walls, even the shelves, but my eyes were focused on the Barbie Kristen placed on the bed. After a little bit more rearranging of her limbs she had her legs crossed while seated on the edge of the bed, head tilted so that lifeless blue eyes stared right at me. “Since you’re such a good boy Robby I’m going to let you have some fun for once.” Kristen’s fingers grabbed the doll from behind, plucking at her shirt until the loud sounds of it tearing off rang in my ears. The tattered garment was tossed across the room, leaving the doll’s bare, nipple-less chest out in the open.

“Always knew Barbie was a slut but damn.”

Ignoring me, Kristen chuckled in a deeper version of her doll voice. “Come here and have some fun~” She leaned the doll back against the bed and pulled her fingers back to watch.

I quickly climbed onto the bed and found myself eyeing the half-naked doll. As totally unarousing as this was I couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed with my friend literally looming over me and watching the whole thing. Even so, I made my way on top of the doll and stood before her breasts and gently placed my hands on either one.

“Don’t be afraid. Keep going.”

I rolled my eyes and started to rub roughly where the nipples would be on a real person. “Thank you.” I moaned the most exaggerated way. “This is nice.”

“Mmm…It’s nice for me too.” Kristen gave a similar moan. “Hey Robby…?”

“Yes Kri-…Barbie…?”

“Do you like being my pet?”

“Yeah.” I nodded, just flat out not caring anymore. “You’re really pretty and you have such nice feet and you take care of me and…” I was cut out by the roaring laughs of my friend who couldn’t hold it in anymore.

When she finally calmed down again she quickly resumed the act. “I’m glad you feel that way. Even though you’re small…I’ll always take care of you. You know that right?”

“Of course.”

She chuckled, “In that case. How’s about you come up here and give me a kiss?”

“You got it!” I stopped my token rubbing of the doll’s chest and hopped over the small boobs towards her face. My body kneeled over, bringing my face closer to hers. Her entire plastic head was only slightly bigger than my body so it wasn’t hard to reach for her lips and bring my face near them. I leaned in, of course not kissing the damn thing because who knows where it’s been, and made loud smooching noises.

Kristen lost her mind after that, howling with laughter and keeling back into her seat. I soon started doing the same thing. As hesitant as I was to even get close to the dollhouse this was a lot of fun. Weirder than weird. But fun.

“And so Barbie and her pet Robby lived happily ever after.” Kristen managed to say amidst the chuckles.

“And Robby got laid.” I added with my own laugh.

She wiped her eyes with a finger, slowly calming back down. “That was fun.”

“That was weird…and fun.” I admitted, wiping my own eyes.

“Knew you’d like being a toy.”

“Just for a pretty girl.”

“Whatcha trying to say about me?” She raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Am I not pretty?”

I saw a trap a mile away there so I went for the unexpected answer. “Very pretty. Just not a girl.”

Her eyes widened in surprise momentarily before she giggled once. “Shut up.”

I laughed, finally winning one of these exchanges. “Either way. That was a nice way to kill time.”

“Mmhm.” She nodded in agreement. “Ready for dinner?”

“Yep. What’re we eating tonight?”

“Tacos.”

“Sweet. Let’s go.”

The next couple hours were spent making and eating dinner. No more antics happened that day worth reporting either. We just ate, watched a little TV, then decided to head to bed. Can’t complain though. It was a nice, fun day with Kristen, with hopefully a few more to come while I stayed there. These few days were a really refreshing break from the train wreck that was my life.

I wondered what the next day would bring. Would it be another heart wrenching day where life somehow gets worse? Or would it be a pleasant day with my friend?

For a while things died down. We went back to some boring, relaxing days idly passing time through one thing or another until we got tired and decided it was time to sleep. School took up most of the time and usually once Kristen got back she wasn’t in the mood for much aside from lounging around. Though we did try a few things. Nothing got nearly as creative as our little dollhouse episode or our chess game (But I did get a rematch where I won) but they were a fun few days all the same. That’s not important though. What’s important is what came near the end of my week with Kristen.

The majority of the day was spent with her at school, relaxing in her ear while she went to her classes (I even got to go to that media one I helped her with). After her last class we stopped for lunch and I was put onto the table to stretch my legs out and eat a bit. Not even five minutes after we started a stranger walked up and handed Kristen a flyer.

“Here you go mam. Hope you’ll attend!” She had a fake smile plastered onto her face as she forced a paper into my friend’s hands.

“Huh? Oh sure. Thanks.” Kristen accepted it just so the pushy lady would leave. The second she was out of sight she took a lazy glance at it. “Hey. This actually looks kinda interesting.”

“What is it?”

She turned it around so I could see.

Tomorrow at 7 P.M! Come to the Library to enjoy our guest speaker, Size Relations Expert Warren Stewart.

“Size Relations Expert?” The name rang a bell but it took a moment before it fully registered. “Oh! This is that activist guy right? The one who’s always talking about size discrimination?”

Kristen nodded. “Yeah. He’s on the news all the time talking about it. He gained a lot of popularity since he shrunk.”

To those unfamiliar let me quickly explain. Warren Stewart was a politician who was…well a politician. He had nothing really of note other than being Senator for some state I can’t remember. But one day he shrank, a lot. To like, my size. And once that happened he lost his next election and started campaigning about size-based discrimination. At first he just seemed like a really bitter victim but over time he demonstrated to people that he was actually pretty serious about it. He even went and gained a degree in psychology just so he could better analyze interpersonal relations between those shrunken and those not. These days he appeared on all sorts of shows and at any number of places to share his story and research with the world.  I got to learn all about him during all that TV I was watching. But to be fair he was legitimately interesting and I was honestly curious about what he’d talk about.

“Wanna go to his presentation thing?”

She shrugged. “Sure. It’ll be a nice way to end our little week. Don’t you think?”

Fast forward a couple hours and we went to the library and found a seat near the front and awaited our speaker. I wasn’t in my usual spot in Kristen’s ear this time. I wanted to see the show so I was perched on her shoulder just high enough I could see the stage. The room quickly filled up with people of all ages, eager to hear Stewart’s words firsthand. That all began to die down into welcoming applause as a middle-aged woman walked to the center of the stage behind the podium with her hand outstretched in front of her. Although no one could see him we all knew Stewart was standing there and quickly welcomed him to our campus library.

The woman lowered her hand onto the podium as the screen behind them came to life, showing the older gentlemen I recognized as Warren Stewart climbing from her hand. A mic was connected to his ear so once he cleared his throat we all heard it.

“Thank you all for coming. As you are probably aware my name is Warren Stewart and here I’m going to talk about what it means to be a Micro-sized citizen. I’m not one for small talk so I’ll jump right into it if that’s alright.” As if on cue the screen behind him split down the middle, with his recorded image on one half and a power point on the other. The first slide of the power point was a picture of him prior to shrinking beside the woman currently behind the podium with him.

“This is me. As you can all tell. Prior to shrinking I stood at an even six feet tall. Now.” The slide changed to him standing on top of an office desk. “Now I am half an inch tall. A full-fledged Micro citizen. Now I ask. How is such a thing possible?” He paused for a moment to let the silence speak for itself. “As of right now we have no conclusive evidence as to how and why this epidemic affects our people. There is no distinct marker or common element between every single shrinking case. So why, do I ask, that we treat people differently due to their sizes?”

A hand raised up from the crowd. The voice was distinctly young, probably belonging to a guy my age. “We need to accommodate for their sizes. Once a person hits a certain size they can’t take care of themselves anymore.”

On the screen I saw Stewart smirk. “You’d be surprised what a person could do. If nothing else humans are known for their resilience and adaptability. Just because I shrank doesn’t mean I lost my ability to think. But this young man helps me to my next point. It is true that it is only natural to adapt society in such a way so that those at risk of being hurt are looked after. Plus as people we cannot simply shun them from society. In concept this makes complete sense. However in practice what it has led to is a rudimentary modern-age caste system.” The slideshow moved on to a side-by-side arrangement of people by size going from average height to micro-sized. “There is a lot of wordplay at work whenever this subject comes up but one cannot deny that a person’s stature in society seems almost entirely based in their size. All the world leaders and politicians are what we refer to as “Normal Sized” whereas household assistants, something of a working class, are made up of the smallest our world has to offer. Why? I would think that, as those who are physically incapable of manual labor, shouldn’t the smallest be the ones put in the more mental positions? Or better yet, strive for some sort of balance between all the sizes. But instead over 90 percent of all people below a foot tall find themselves in manual labor positions. Why?”

An uncomfortable silence hung in the room. Everyone knew what he was getting at but no one wanted to go right out and say it. If they did they’d be acknowledging it.

Of course our presenter had no problems diving right into it with one direct word. “Morality.” He let the word sink in for a minute before proceeding. “As human beings we naturally judge people based on their character. Those who are upstanding, good citizens who act friendly and towards the betterment of others are those we deem with good character. Those who break the law, cheat any system they can, and act hostile or violently are considered to have poor character. While this system did have its faults it was a system that encouraged people to decide their opinions based on physical evidence of a person’s actual personality. I can safely conclude that a person seen killing another has poor morals and that someone donating time at a charity house has good morals. Of course there are exceptions to these situations but for the sake of brevity let’s look past them for a moment. This system for character evaluation, the system I grew up on, is no longer in effect.

The uncomfortable air seemed to tighten. Everyone in the room felt like they were leaning forward, hung on every word Stewart said. Most of all me. I was fully entranced by this point.

“What we have now is a system that places a person’s actions second towards another supposed indicator of a person’s character: their size. An interesting theory that started to float around in the late 80’s was that a person shrinking was determined by their morals. There was a great deal of circumstantial evidence to back it up and over the years it has been more or less considered fact by many, though they wouldn’t admit it.” He waved a hand over the entire room. “Studies show that if I were to ask you if you believed a person’s size was based on some sort of inner morality or sense of right or wrong over three fourths of you would claim otherwise. Yet these same studies say that only a measly ten percent of those who denied it actually mean it. Now, I cannot claim to be a scientist so I don’t know all the logistics behind why some people shrink and some don’t. But I do have common sense. And I find it hard to believe that something associated with personality can evoke a physical change that had never happened before in the thousands upon thousands of years humans have existed. Though, for the benefit of the doubt let me ask you this then. What is morality? What is a good thing versus a bad thing? Where are the lines?”

He shrugged with a derisive smile. “You would think these questions would be easy to answer but morals are relative. Stealing is wrong but what if you steal because you’re trying to feed your starving family? It’s never right to use violence but what if it was in self-defense? Or perhaps the hardest question…” His voice grew low and more serious than it had been the entire presentation. “If there were two groups of people and one of them claimed to always be the morally and physically superior ones and the other, while having more than a few bad moral and physical examples, were all treated the same and forced to integrate as a rudimentary work force subservient to the “Superior” people. Well…which side is the wrong one there?”

The uncomfortable air felt like it was choking me. Sitting in this room with all these people listening to this, it was severely uncomfortable. I saw several people flat out get up and leave. No one said anything or blamed them for it either.

The silence was broken by hearty, cheerful laughter from Stewart. “Of course that’s the beauty of these things isn’t it? There is no real black and white when it comes to morals. And this is all not even delving into different cultures and customs and how what we perceive is right is not how another culture views it. These are purely questions from a Western mind. But perhaps you still aren’t convinced. I’m throwing a lot of fancy words at you but I’m not providing anything to disprove that immoral people are the only ones who shrink am I? Well…” The slide changed to a young girl I’d never seen before, a plain-looking blonde who looked to be in her mid-teens.

“This is Melissa Williams. She was four foot five inches tall. Now she stands at an astounding four inches tall. She was a straight A gifted student who was well on her way to graduating early from grade school. Was being the key word in that sentence. Upon shrinking she was immediately placed under the jurisdiction of the Depart of Shrunken Businesses and Services where they immediately pulled her from school for her “wellbeing”. Currently this model student now earns minimum wage as an assistant to her older sister. She wanted to become a Biochemist. Now she’s a maid with next to no chance of achieving her dream.”

This example really hit home for me. I too had to stop attending my classes for these reasons. It was like looking into a possible future for me, and it didn’t look good.

“What did Melissa do to deserve this? She did beyond excellent in school. She was beloved by all her peers. She was an active leading member of several clubs. Not even so much as a detention was on her record. Everyone who knew her could only say nice things about her. So why does her story have such a sad ending?” Stewart let the oncoming silence speak for itself.

“Perhaps another example is in order.” The slide changed yet again, this time to a middle-aged Hispanic man. “This is Carlos Estevez. While he was no genius like Melissa was he did well in school and finished college with a Master’s Degree in Engineering. He attained his dream job and started earning over 60,000 a year with benefits. Not long after he met the woman he would marry and start a family. His life was going fantastic. Until, of course, he shrank. Despite being a picture perfect example of the American Dream Carlos found himself three inches tall one morning and what would follow is simply appalling. He was almost immediately released from his job. His family became distant, even to the point where his wife filed for divorce. And of course, he was placed in the care of a nearby resident who took him in as an assistant. What was once 60 grand is now less than 10 grand a year. Simply because of his size.”

“I could go on, but I think my point has been made. Melissa and Carlos’ cases are not uncommon. Despite all the talk of protecting and caring for our smaller brethren the system that is currently in place is destroying people’s lives. I for one am not going to let it do that to mine, and I urge you to do the same. I say this knowing many will turn a blind eye or rationalize what I’m saying. But if this brief presentation has succeeded in convincing even one of you…Then I can take pride in that. I hope you enjoyed my discussions and maybe even provoked some interesting thoughts in our oncoming generation. If you have any questions I will be happy to take them momentarily in the main lobby.” The lights came back on, telling us to leave.

I could tell many didn’t try to think much on what he said. Preferring to simply put it in the back of their minds for comfort’s sake. But while they actively tried to suppress those thoughts I embraced him. He was throwing a lot of stuff people didn’t think about much but it made a lot of sense to me. I agreed. I didn’t want to end up like those people he talked about; and most of all…

I wanted to meet him.

“You sure about this?” Kristen texted me nonchalantly so as to not draw attention from those around her.

“Positive.” I replied. After the presentation people quickly started leaving, obviously wanting nothing to do with the man who brought up unpleasant topics. In a way they actually felt like they were avoiding him entirely. Why these people even bothered going to see him if they ultimately reacted like this I’ll never know. But at least it made it easy to reach him.

He was situated on a table in the main library area with the same woman who was behind him during his presentation behind him now. As Kristen approached him he seemed pleasantly surprised, eagerly greeting her. “Why hello Miss. May I help you?”

Kristen gave him a polite, careful, respectful bow, taking extra caution not to move too much since I was in her ear. “I found your presentation very fascinating Mr. Stewart. I wanted to thank you for coming to our school.”

“Anytime.” He replied heartily, his voice amplified by a phone. “I always enjoy giving these talks and educating the world about this issue.”

“Yeah. It actually really hit home for me. You see…A friend of mine actually shrank recently and since then…”

“Say no more.” He quickly cut her off. “I know all too well how painful those days can be and I’m sure your friend has had it very difficult. Though with friends around I’m sure he’s in good hands.”

“He actually wants to meet you. If that’s alright I mean.”

“Of course! When and where?”

“Well…Here.” I expected her finger to come and sure enough it did. I hopped down and was placed on the table near Warren.

His eyes immediately widened at the sight of me. “Oh my. I can’t remember the last time I met someone who was actually shorter than me.” He offered a warm smile and extended his hand out. With our height differences he was twice my size. When I reached to shake his hand it felt like a child shaking a grown-up’s hand.

“It’s a pleasure Mr. Stewart. I’m Robert Lindley.”

“Please, call me Warren.” He released my hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Robert. I’m glad you enjoyed my presentation.”

“It was very moving. I never thought about it all like that, even when I had shrunken down. I…I don’t know. I just suddenly felt like I had to do something.”

Warren smiled at me, his eyes saying he understood all too well. “That feeling is the whole reason I do these things. Every once in a while a fellow shrinkee or sometimes even a normal-sized person will feel moved and start helping the cause but there are still far too many who either turn a blind eye to it or play the system.”

“Yeah…” I couldn’t help but think back to all the people I’d basically lost since shrinking. All the friends and family who pretty much blocked me from their lives

It must’ve been obvious something was on my head. A hand grabbed my shoulder and snapped me out of it, allowing me to look up at Warren’s reassuring expression. “You’ve been through a lot haven’t you? I can’t claim to know what you’ve gone through but I can safely this to you Robert. It’ll be okay. When I shrank I was convinced my life was over. I looked up stories just like the ones I brought up before and was convinced my life would be ruined. So I fought it. I did my best and I bounced back from it better than ever. Though I can’t say I did it all alone. I have my wife to thank for a lot of it.” He gestured to the woman beside him.

“Your wife?!” I looked up at the woman who smiled knowingly at us.

“Yeah. No matter how tough it got she stuck with me and that gave me the strength to do anything. You’re never as alone as you think Robert.” He nodded his head towards Kristen with a smirk. “You have people looking out for you too.”

“I do don’t I?”

“But…If for whatever reason things get too tough for you. Give me a call. I’ll help you out in a heartbeat.” He gave me his hand again. I responded with a firm shake.

“It’s been a pleasure to meet you Warren.”

“The pleasure’s all mine Robert. Now if you’ll excuse me. I’m afraid it’s about time for us to be on our way. I have another presentation tomorrow.”

“Never a dull moment eh?”

“Not at this size heavens no.” He walked away with a laugh, signaling his wife to come pick him up. Once she did they quickly left and I motioned for Kristen to do the same.

“He was nice.” She whispered as she slid me into her ear.

“Better than nice. He was amazing!” I excitedly said, hopping inside and getting cozy for the ride back. I was in a fantastic mood on the way back. But of course…something happened.

About twenty minutes into the drive my phone went off. I of course checked it and saw a name I did not expect. When I saw it I hurriedly answered. “Hello?”

“Hello. Is this Robert Lindley?” A familiar voice responded.

“Yes it is. Can I help you?”

“Yes. This is Jane Waller of the Department of Shrunken Business and Services. You visited me a month ago for your registration as a micro citizen do you remember?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Then I’ll get right to the point. We’ve found someone who can take you in.”

“….Oh.” I froze in place. “…That’s good.”

The time had finally come. I was being assigned.

--------

The next day I was back at the DSBS building, inside Jane’s office, alone. Kristen was outside the office in the main lobby area of course but for the time being it was just me and Jane.

“Glad you could make it Mr. Lindley.”

“Of course…” My mood was expectedly poor. “So where am I being assigned?” I wanted to get this over and done with as soon as possible.

Jane seemed to share my sentiment, answering as quickly as she could. “England. Her name is Alicia Masters. Her size preference for assistants is almost exclusively for micro-sized citizens. You’re quite lucky. We’d begun to lose hope searching.”

“Yeah…lucky.” I could see the warning signs a mile away about a girl who was only interested in people my size. “I uh take it there weren’t any other matches?”

She shook her head. “I’m afraid not. I’ve already started to file the paperwork. Come tomorrow you’ll need to report back here so we can organize your travel arrangements and get you boarded on a plane right away.” She paused briefly, apparently unsure of what she was going to say next. “I would take this next day to say goodbye to all your loved ones Mr. Lindley. This may be the last chance you’ll get to see them for a long time.”

“I will. Thank you.”

I found myself outside her office surprisingly quickly. Or maybe it was a lot longer than I realized. This felt unreal. I was actually being assigned and to a place very far away.

“Rob….Rob…Rob!”

“Y-Yes?”

I’d zoned out and found myself in Kristen’s hands in the car. Judging by the way she was looking at me I guessed we were talking and I wasn’t even remotely paying attention to it. “Sorry. I must’ve zoned out there. What’d you say?”

She frowned at me. “Like I said. We’re heading to the beach.”

“Oh hey the beach that sounds like fun. It’d be a good way to spend the day.”

“I thought so too. Let’s go ahead and get to picking everyone up.”

“Everyone?”

She didn’t answer. She only gave me a cryptic smile as she slipped me back into her ear and started the car. I didn’t mind it at all. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who everyone meant. But I was still sad. Because…well…

This would be my last day with my friends.

Our first matter of business was to pick up Jaz and Kari. I can’t tell you much detail considering, you know, inside of an ear, but we picked them up and began heading towards the beach. It was at this point I was moved towards the dashboard next to a phone so I could join in on the fun everyone was having. I focused on everyone’s conversations so that I wouldn’t linger too long on my situation. It was some stuff you’d probably expect by now. Jaz was a little snarky but well meaning. Kari was sweet but excitable. Kristen was kind of reserved but played along. Overall it was pretty standard stuff for our group. I was a bit more quiet than usual but no one needed to ask why.

When we arrived I was stuck with Kristen picking a spot on the sand while Kari and Jaz went to change into their swimsuits. You might wonder why I didn’t try to get one for myself at some point to which I answer do you really think I gave a damn about my clothes by this point? I’m pretty sure the outfit I was wearing was the one I entered Jaz’s mouth with. Anyhow we picked a spot on the beach just in time for the others to return and damn. Just…damn.

They were both in bikinis, Jaz’s a dark blue set that seemed to accentuate her already large chest and Kari’s a more innocent white one that I’d see her in before. Both were smoking hot of course but that’s beside the point. They swapped out with Kristen so she could change and I was placed on the beach towel between my two friends who sat down.

“It’s nice out here.” Kari smiled, gazing into the ocean

“Yeah.” Me and Jaz agreed, looking in the same direction. My view was more of a field of mountain-sized sand dunes than an ocean though.

“Tomorrow huh…” Kari kept her eyes on the water as she whispered.

“Yep…Tomorrow’s the big day.” The thought was a little depressing but I was strangely calm. I’d spent so much time worrying about it but now that it was here I wasn’t really sure how to react.

Jaz laid down flat on her back with her head resting on her hands. “Kris said England?” 

“Uh huh. Her name’s Alicia Masters.”

“With a name like that she sounds like a real piece of work.” She chuckled.

“Probably.” I admitted. “It’ll probably be rough.”

“You don’t sound too concerned.”

“I am but…I dunno. It doesn’t feel real.”

“That’s called shock sweety.” Kari snickered.

“Maybe.”

Another voice called out from behind me. “It’ll all work out.”  I turned my head to see Kristen, towering right over me with her legs on either side of my body and in a rocking black two-piece.

“Welcome back.” Jaz lazily waved for Kristen to sit next to her.

“It’ll all probably work out. I hope.”

“It will.” Kari stated as if it were certain.

“Yup.” Jaz added.

“Mmhm.” Now it was Kristen’s turn.

They seemed so confident I laughed a little. “You guys seem certain. Something I should know?”

“Nope.”

“Nu-uh.”

“Afraid not.”

“Figured as much.” I sighed, a low smile on my face as I shook my head. “You all are too much.”

“That’s just cause you’re smaller than my toes.” Jaz waved her foot near me with a cackle.

“Smaller than your’s? Try smaller than mine.” Kari pointed to her daintier feet with a laugh.

“He was like a bug in my dollhouse!” Kristen chimed in too.

I lowered my head and resumed shaking it. “You guys are either the best friends on the planet or some real assholes.”

“Both.”

“Yep.”

“No question.”

“You guys are getting good at that unison thing.”

They all shrugged at once.

“So whatcha guys wanna do?”

Jaz sat up with a lazy look. “Sandcastle?”

No one said otherwise so next thing I knew we were making a sand castle. Or rather they were. Kari apparently brought a bunch of beach stuff with her, including a parasol and some fancy sandcastle pails and shovels. Thanks to my size I got away with being the foreman and complaining about every detail until they got annoyed. It was pretty fun. There’s something ironic in that I was about to be shipped off as an assistant and my last thing before that would be making people thousands of times my size work.

When we finished it was actually a pretty solid castle. At my size it looked semi real aside from the face I could literally pull the walls apart. It even had a cute little white flag on it. When I asked why a white flag Jaz grinned and said they were surrendering to the three giants who’d taken it over. Then I got to watch her step on it and get scolded by Kari because she wanted a picture of it. All in all it was a lot of fun.

I wish I could sit down and tell you at length about all these beach adventures we had and how it changed everything but really, we just had a good time at the beach all hanging out as friends. No awkward moments. No weird accidents. Just a guy and his friends playing around at the beach. I couldn’t have asked for more. But it had to end at some point, and it wasn’t any sort of special end either. We all piled into the car after a few hours and one by one my friends were dropped off. We parted ways, said goodbyes and all that lovely stuff. It felt weird thinking that this was probably my last time seeing them. It just seemed so…normal, and there was something relieving about that in a way.

When me and Kristen got back we went to sleep after a long day. The next day we woke up and I paid another visit to the Department of Shrunken Businesses and Services. It was finally time.

I sat there in Jane’s office with a blank look on my face. My heart was pounding to the point I was sure it was just going to fly out of my chest. It had been a couple minutes since I entered and she’d spent the time going through all my paper work silently. At any moment she’d organize it all and send it, and me, to my new home.

She broke the silence eventually. “There’s been a surprise development in your case Mr. Lindley.”

“There has?”

Jane nodded. “Yes. To be honest even I’m surprised at this one but just yesterday someone came and requested a micro citizen be assigned to their home.”

“Came…as in here?”

She nodded again. “Yep. They’re going to be who you’re assigned to now. It’s a much easier decision for us on our end you see. It saves us travel fare, passports, all the red tape that comes with sending someone like you overseas. I trust that’s okay.”

“Y-Yeah! I’d rather stay here if I could anyway.”

“I thought you might.”

“So…what’s their name?”

“See for yourself.” She slid a paper towards me; at the bottom was a signature I recognized.

Jasmine Truitt.

So there you have it. I may have gotten a little sidetracked with the story at times but in the end I ended up moving in with Jaz. Turns out her and the others were all considering it and after discussing it amongst themselves the night before our big beach day they made a group decision. I don’t know the full details behind it all but they all decided on Jaz and when Kristen dropped me off at her place I got a permanent residence on her dresser.

It’s been…about half a year since then. Aside from a little incident here or there I didn’t have any major trouble or drama. Unfortunately me and Mom still haven’t talked, nor the rest of my family for that matter. But I still have all my friends. I even get to see them a lot. Kari and I finally managed to put everything behind us and we’re back to the closest of friends. Kristen’s the same as ever, though she seems to really like putting me in that dollhouse whenever she gets a shot. And Jaz…well things between us have changed a bit.

-----

“Get to work! Don’t keep your Master waiting!”

“S-Sorry!” I gazed up at my owner fearfully. She towered over me with her arms crossed and a big frown on her face. Her foot was tapping impatiently. I knew what that meant. I approached her foot as quickly as I could and began to kiss it as she’d asked me to do. Its taste had become something I’d long since grown used to, I even kind of like it now.

Unfortunately Jaz didn’t seem to share my feelings. “Useless. Know what I do with useless bugs?” Her foot raised over me. I started to scream as it lowered, stomping into the ground with all her strength.

Next to me.

“And…Cut!” The frown vanished off her face as she lowered a hand back towards me. “I think that one was pretty good!”

I hoped into her hand without even thinking about it. “I swear your stomps get closer every time.”

“You’re just imagining it.” She shrugged. “I’d never crush my favorite pet.”

“I’m your only pet.”

“Details.”

I shook my head with a small smirk. “You’re unbelievable.”

“You love me.”

“Yeah…” I admitted. She seemed to like that. Her hands came close to her lips as her lips give me a big, affectionate kiss.

-------

Probably a teensy bit confused huh? Well at first when I started living with Jaz it was basically like the last time I stayed with her. The occasional weird chore with plenty of fun and interesting chats along the way. Then about a month it we kinda started dating. She actually really loved being this big, powerful girl and I gotta admit she plays the part well. I’ve actually grown fond of being her little plaything. It started off with innocent little role plays while we were together; like maybe I’d be massaging her feet and she’d call herself Goddess and get all into it. Next thing I knew she suggested recording it as an amateur video. Turns out there’s a whole community out there for people who are into being big or small. I mean, it makes sense I just never thought of it before.

We recorded one and had enough fun with it we wanted to make more, and people seemed to like them too which was nice. I particularly enjoy it since I got to use all the stuff I learned in film school while making them, all the while enjoying sweet footage of my girlfriend acting hot. It’s just a dumb thing we like to do. In reality Jaz is as sweet as can be. I get maybe one chore a day just to earn my keep, usually a foot rub or maybe play along with a game of her’s, the rest of the time is just us living together along with things couples may do. I won’t delve into that here.

That’s my story though. It was a pretty dark time in my life but in the end I think it all worked out. I’m actually pretty happy now and in a weird way this life is pretty stress free. I don’t worry about bills or anything. I get to mess with videos all day. And I still have something of a social life. It’s a drastically different life from a normal one, but I kinda like it. Being a pet isn’t so  bad.

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