Toni was impatient for the dinner to be over.  There was nothing wrong with the dinner itself, nor did she particularly mind most of the people in attendance.  She just couldn't wait until tomorrow, the day her grandmother had promised would change her life.

She turned to look at Paul, seated next to her.  He seemed to be having mixed emotions, too; genuine pride at receiving the congratulations of so many family members and close friends complicated by the notion of so many well-wishers gorging and pickling themselves on his parents' dime.

Just you wait, thought Toni, tomorrow we'll show them all what the power of love can do.

Her hand touched the pendant strung around her neck on a braid of fine platinum and gold.  The "groom's gift," it far outshone their actual wedding bands, family heirlooms that Toni had insisted they use.  Paul had agreed to them after Toni had told him they were from her grandmother, but she suspected the enormous diamond pendant was his way of compensating for the rings' antique simplicity.

Toni hadn't been offended.  If her grandmother was to be believed, soon no one would be impressed by a mere diamond.

The parade of relatives had been exhausting.  There was Paul's cousin Noreen, who was too cheap to get a sitter, so her brat Avellyn ("not 'Evelyn,' Aay-vel-in!") wouldn't stop squalling all the way through the salad and soup courses.  Then there was Paul's brother-in-law Frank, who saw every gathering as an opportunity to plug his Acura dealership.  And, of course, there was Toni's own father, who, despite all the cancellation refund deadlines having long elapsed, still contrived to get her alone for one last plea for her to reconsider.

"C'mon, Tone," he said as they huddled around the corner from the coat-check.  "I don't even know where you met this guy.  Don't try to sell me that crossfit class line again.  He couldn't bench more than your Aunt Petunia."

"Does it really matter?" she replied with more patience than she felt.  "We've all had months to get to know each other."  Toni had had no difficulties curbing and assuaging her father's reservations, but she still didn't want to reveal (to anyone, much less her father) that she had actually met Paul through an anonymous online forum devoted to an obscure sexual fetish.

"I suppose not, Sweetie," he said.  "I just don't want to see you get taken advantage of.  It's a crazy world, and if you're not careful people will step all over you."

It was the same bullshit he always used to hem her in, but this time Toni didn't bristle the way she usually did.  Just one more day, she thought.

She spotted Paul at one end of the bar and pretended she had something urgent to tell him.  He was standing next to Tom, his best man.  They hadn't seen each other since high school, and Paul still occasionally referred to him as "Tommy."

Tom had arrived at the dinner over a half-hour later than the rest of the principals, and it seemed at first that he had forgotten his date.  It turned out that she had just been in the bar the whole time.  It was clear that had Tom not been standing next to her with her arm around his waist, she would have fallen off her stool long ago.

Even though Toni had only met Tom once briefly over a year ago, he brightened significantly at her approach.  "Here's the blushing bride!" he said too loudly, making Paul wince and Toni roll her eyes.  Tom's date had no reaction beyond a slightly deeper slump.

"I don't blush easy, Tom," she said sidling up next to Paul and casually squeezing his ass.

"Toni," said Tom with a grin, "I'd like you to meet Gloriana."  Toni could hear the recent rehearsals behind the last word.

"Delighted," said Toni, extending a hand.  The occasion called for an embrace, but that was clearly beyond Gloriana's capacity at the moment.  Toni helped her out by reaching forward and to clasp Gloriana's hand atop the bar.

"Pleased ta meetcha, Tina," slurred Gloriana.  "Congrats on getting this boy to the altar."  She started to pat Tom on the chest, but then stopped just short and pivoted to Paul, grabbing him by his upper arm.

Paul forced a grin on his face.  "That's kind of you, Gloria," he said, "but I'm the one to be congratulated.  I didn't deserve it, but Toni made me the happiest man on earth when she said yes."

Such false modesty, thought Toni.  She saw in Paul a man who deserved the entire world, including her.  Tomorrow they would start reaping the rewards of their love.

Paul and Toni turned to head back to the dining room, but she spotted someone standing out on the patio having a smoke.

"I'll catch up with you," she said to Paul with a peck on his cheek.  "Won't be a minute."  She pushed open the heavy door and stepped out into the warm June evening.  The smoking woman started when she saw Toni, then narrowed her eyes at her.

"Hello, Petunia," said Toni.  "Enjoy the dinner?"

The older woman exhaled smoke through her nose.  "No one can make a decent chowder anymore," she sniffed.  "It's a lost art."

"I'm sorry the venue is disappointing," replied Toni, "but I'm not marrying the chef."

"You really think he's the one?"

"I know so."

"What a waste.  You deserve someone better, even if you don't deserve the rings."

"How many times do you have to read Grandmother's will before you get over that?

"I was her daughter!  And I'm not foolish enough to throw away her gift on a complete loser!"

Toni just stood, there, marveling at how twisted by jealousy her aunt had become.  Even if she had tried to explain to Petunia how perfect Paul was both for her and for Grandmother's vision, Petunia would refuse to hear.

Toni slowly shook her head.  "I take it, then, you will be there tomorrow to see the prophecy fail?"

Petunia pursed her lips in contempt.  "Of course!"

"Nice try," replied Toni with a sneer.  "Did you really think you could keep me from noticing that you sold Grandmother's house, even if you didn't list it?"

Toni was surprised at how much she enjoyed seeing Petunia's eyes go wide when she called her bluff.

"I hope they nuke you!" hissed Petunia, flicking the remains of her cigarette at Toni and stalking out of the restaurant.

"Don't forget to write!" Toni called after her.

Returning to the dining room, Toni smiled serenely at the oblivious celebrants.  She was young, but she knew enough to savor the pangs of anticipation she was feeling now and would never feel again.

- - -

Toni woke to the smell of bacon.  She rarely made bacon at home, but Paul insisted on every indulgence when he made breakfast for her.  She hardly bothered with her hair and face before grabbing her robe and walking out to their kitchen.

She noted the plates of fruit already on the table in the nook, but she headed straight for Paul at the stove with his back to her.  He didn't flinch at all when she placed both her palms in the small of his back and ran them up over his shoulder blades and around his upper arms to his chest.  Eventually, he just rested his hands on the front of the stove, neglecting the bacon while she took what she needed.

"Don't you want to save some of that for tonight?" he chided.

Toni hugged him tight from behind, recognizing that this was just more of herself saying goodbye to their old life.  She knew better than to trouble Paul by simply saying so.

Paul served the bacon and they both sat down at the nook.  Toni sampled the melon balls as Paul tore into the bacon while it was still hot.  She loved watching him eat; his appetite was infectious.

"You know," he said after a savory swallow, "after we get back from the honeymoon, I wanna re-do the windows in here.  Natural light would really open the space up."

Toni admired his industry; she had definite plans for it, in fact.  She nodded approvingly.

"Really?" he asked.

"Sure."  There was no point in explaining now that she never intended to see the inside of their house again.

They continued to nervously avoid the day's proceedings as they showered, dressed, and drove to Toni's father's house.

"Don't be late," she said with a twinkle and a kiss before getting out of the car.

"If I am, it'll be Tommy's fault," he said wryly.

Toni swallowed and set her shoulders before entering the house she had burned to escape for so long.  She had prepared herself to be welcomed inside by her father, but in fact it was worse; the door was answered by his sister Fran.

"Here she is!" bellowed the short woman with the encaked face.  Toni didn't have time to register how little her childhood home had changed before Fran hustled her upstairs, where her cousins exhausted their meager stores of creativity trying to fit Toni into the absurdly elaborate gown her father had bought.  She eventually kicked them out of the room and abandoned the train and any ruffle or belt she couldn't fasten by herself.

When she emerged from the room, her father finally appeared.  If he noticed that the gown now took up less than half the volume it had at the first fitting, he didn't mention it.  Toni was nevertheless dreading the words he did say.  "If only your mother were alive to see you today."

Toni had no good response, despite having had the very same thought for months now.  It still gave her vertigo of sorts.  Had her mother in fact beaten the cancer two years ago, would the details of Grandmother's vision have changed, or would today even been happening at all?  Toni smiled the pained smile that had become reflexive regarding the subject of her mother.

Her father rescued her from the moment.  "At least Petunia will be there to represent her side of the family."

"Yes, I'll be glad to see her there," said Toni, enjoying a better memory.

Her father checked his watch.  "We better leave soon if we want to keep you under wraps."

Toni nodded, content to let the tide take her ashore.  She barely noticed as her father and his family packed her into the car, drove over to Holy Cross, and escorted her into the sacristy that on Saturdays served as a holding pen for impatient brides awaiting their cue, if not a pee break.

Toni's father had wanted to hold a full Mass, but Paul had rejected that even before Toni could say a word.  All that kneeling would have been unbearable to anyone, let alone someone swaddled in a wedding gown.  It still seemed an eternity to get everyone in place before her father returned to walk her into the spotlight.

The sea of faces turned to Toni, but she barely saw them.  It seemed to her as if she were floating down the aisle, seeing only the grinning face of Paul at the far end, magnified out of proportion, a Cheshire Cat head polluting the edifice of solemnity.  That's right motherfuckers, she thought, get ready for the Paul & Toni show!

She became conscious of her father's hand digging into her arm as she willed herself towards the end of the aisle, of the ceremony.  She slackened her pace to keep time with the processional, and she finally turned to look at the pews reserved for family.  Noreen and spawn were right on the aisle, Vera and Frank in the next pew, underdressed as always.  No sign of Petunia; she had almost certainly gotten on a plane no later than this morning.

Finally Toni reached the end and she felt herself exhale when her father let go of her arm and took his seat in the first pew.  She handed the bouquet to her cousin Marie, an utterly political choice as her Maid of Honor.  Marie's father Pete had been somewhat estranged from Toni's father, and Toni had wanted all of her father's family here today.  Uncle Pete had some connections at a swanky lakeside country club, and everyone had been ecstatic when he agreed for the reception to be fully catered there.  Everyone except Toni, who expected to see very little of the chocolate fountain.

Paul's grin retreated to a smirk as he reached out with both arms and took Toni's hands in his.  Father Michael started droning on, and again Toni's world shrank to just her and Paul.  We're almost there, Toni thought, her blood humming in her ears.  How many Ephesians still lay between us and our destiny?

It had fallen to Toni to insist upon the one deviation from tradition that cost her real political capital.  Both families had been eager to nominate precocious waifs to act as ringbearers, and Toni absolutely refused to let her grandmother's rings out of her custody, even during the rehearsal.  She had wanted to hold onto them all the way until the ceremony, but of course her stupid gown didn't have any pockets.  So that morning she had surrendered them to Paul, who had been hoping to delegate them to Tom until the proper moment.

"It's traditional, Tone," he had said.  "It's about the only job a best man has, and you want to take it away from him?"

For the hundredth time, Toni had been tempted to fully explain her concerns to Paul, and for the hundredth time she decided not to strain his credulity at a fraught moment.

"Alright," she had relented, "Just don't let him have them until just before the ceremony starts."

Her grudging words echoed in her head as she searched Paul's eyes, the cue fast approaching.  Don't fuck us now Tom, she wished fervently.  The time came, and Toni's heart stopped as Paul turned to Tom, who looked momentarily stunned.  Then he smiled and reached into his tux jacket and brought out the case.  Paul opened it, and there they were, looking the same as they had when she last seen them that morning.

Toni had worn both rings at various times in recent months and she knew that there was nothing intrinsically special about them.  It was the commitment they symbolized, Grandmother had said.  That's where the power lies.  Toni's scalp tingled as Paul slid her ring over her finger.  A calm descended over her as she plucked Paul's ring from the case held by Tom, then she fitted it over Paul's trembling fingertip.

Father Michael started up again, but Toni's patience was exhausted.  Grasping both of Paul's hands she pulled him close for a passionate kiss.  She heard the priest stumble over his homily and fall silent, along with scattered hoots and claps from the congregation.  When she opened her eyes, she glimpsed Tom grinning, but then she could only gaze at the shuddering form of Paul.

His breathing was labored, and his eyes frantically searched hers.  His gut clenched, and beads of sweat appeared on his brow.  Finally, realization of her agency dawned in his eyes.  "What did you—" he muttered before another convulsion seized him.

Toni's vision dimmed and her blood rushed in her ears, and Paul and the congregation and the church fell out of her awareness.  Pain bit into her shoulders and ribs and chest, and she grinned at the knowledge that her fucking ugly gown was to be her first victim.  Its death cries as she burst through its hand-sewn seams were drowned out by her own shout of joy.  The skirts, the lingerie, the overpriced shoes, all ripped and ruined as her expanding body left human proportions behind.  Only Grandmother's ring, of course, kept pace.

Toni wrenched her eyes open to glance at Paul, his own tux in tatters.  The first of many damage deposits to be lost today, she thought giddily.

They were both over eight feet tall, and their growth was accelerating.  Another wave of delicious pain ripped through Toni, provoking a grunt deeper than she had ever uttered.  She turned her gaze to the pews and found her father, staring up at her in astonishment.  Their eyes met, and he took an involuntary step backward.  Sound instincts, she thought.

She cracked her head on the ceiling and reflexively hunched her back to conform to the once-cavernous dimensions of the cathedral.  Grimacing at her bad habit, Toni threw her head and shoulders back and exploded through the reinforced concrete.  Passing fifty feet in height, Paul stood up through the collapsing rubble, his eyes blinking from the sunlight, the masonry dust, and the sight of his nude bride rising into the sky.

Toni grinned at her stunned consort and turned to survey their new realm.  The city that they had both grown up in would be the first to witness their glory and suffer their appetites.  And they continued to grow.  One hundred, two hundred, three hundred feet tall, passing all points of reference.

Bewildered, Paul gingerly lifted his feet out of the ruined cathedral and sat down in the relatively open parking lot, his gigantic ass flattening a dozen cars.  Toni discovered that, as she focused her attention on one spot or another, she could hear the slightest sound or voice, however tiny or distant.  So it was that she knew seven people had been crushed to death by Paul's lovely, immense butt.  Just as Grandmother foretold, she thought, we are gods walking the earth.

Something stirred at Toni's feet, and she directed her gaze downward.  There, next to the wrecked altar, squirmed the tiny figure of Father Michael.  Puny next to the ball of her foot, he appeared to Toni no more than half an inch tall.  The barest movement of her foot, a reposition for balance, and the priest who had admonished her throughout her childhood would be pulped.  Her chest filled with justice and glee.

She squatted down over the altar, her shameless thighs and labia spreading as she came.  "I apologize, Father," she thundered, "I realize this isn't your preferred view."

Toni settled on her haunches and drunk her fill of the priest's terror.  "I just want you to know that I still remember my catechism.  I have a new one for you.  Drink this in remembrance of me, which I'm afraid won't be very long in your case."

A geyser of urine sprayed forth from Toni's gaping crotch, knocking Father Michael off his feet and flooding the altar.  As her piss inundated the doomed priest and all the sacred frippery, Toni enjoyed a memory from when she was six and had discovered an assembly of ants on a neighborhood sidewalk.

Although the tiny priest had undoubtedly perished under her piss, Toni needed this first judgment to be final and beyond appeal.  She stood back up, and with a nudge of her foot she destroyed the foundation holding up the remainder of the cathedral, bringing it all down on top of the ruins that still trapped dozens of their guests, whose death rattles filled her ears like the cracking of a hundred insect carapaces.

"Isn't it wonderful?" she gushed, looking around for Paul.  He wasn't in the parking lot anymore, but she saw someone trying to flee on foot and her pursuit instinct took over.  She raised one mighty foot, but then she was grappled from behind.  Astonished, she whirled around.

"Have you lost your mind?" bellowed Paul, the largest creature on earth.  "You just killed everyone!  Our family!"

Toni blinked.  She had known Paul would need some time to adjust, but now she was fearing the worst.  They would soon start being recorded, if they weren't already.  If they were to rule this world, appearances would have to be kept up.

"What's wrong?" she asked as quietly as a seven-hundred-foot-tall person could.  "This is what we've always dreamed about.  The very first story you ever wrote for me was just like this."

Paul's jaw dropped.  "That was a fantasy, Toni!  Just a fantasy!  We play with evil fantasies so we can be good people in real life!  Are you telling me you don't get that?"

Toni began to feel sick.  This isn't happening, she thought.  He's going to say he's kidding.  Any moment now.

Paul's face withered in disgust, as he slowly shook his head at her.  "You're not really this evil, are you?" he said.  "You really didn't plan for this?"  He gestured at himself and at her.

Fighting back tears, Toni nodded.  "Good and evil, those words don't apply to us anymore, Paul!  We can rule the world, kill whoever we want, make it work right!  Grandmother's prophecy wouldn't have worked if we weren't destined for this."

Paul scowled.  "Prophecy?" he spat.  He held up his left hand, brandishing the right.  "You mean these ugly things?  I can't believe you did this to us!"  He yanked the ring off and flung it at her, then turned around and knelt down by the ruined cathedral, lifting girders and sifting through the rubble.

The love of Toni's life was over seven-hundred feet tall, nude, and bent forward, performing feats of godlike strength, but she couldn't look at him.  Instead she was staring at Paul's ring, lying atop the rubble at her feet where it had fallen.

She felt as if an icicle had pierced her heart.  The greatest gift anyone had ever been given had just been thrown back in her face.  The sirens and screams faded from her consciousness, and the chill sunk into her stomach as she realized just how alone she was.

Toni looked up at the swarm of news and police helicopters approaching.  They're coming for you, said a voice in her head that sounded like Petunia.  Toni snorted.  Let 'em try, she thought.  Remembering her contempt, she burned through the chill in her gut, transforming it into bile.  He's still a slave, she thought, expectorating her disappointment.  I loved him enough to make him a god, and he turned his back on me, turned back to his chains.

She knelt down and picked the ring up off the ground, then slid it over her fingertip and down against the other ring.  She barely registered that the rings nested securely together, the filigrees interlocking.  Then she stepped forward and grabbed Paul by the shoulder.

He stood up and spun around, looking down into her bitter eyes.

"You aren't the man I loved," she said, then spat a barrage of phlegm into his face.

Paul's eyes went wide, first with fury, then with alarm.  He hunched over as a shudder passed through him.  Toni continued to glare at him, all pity burned away.  Then Paul began to emit a drawn-out grunt, and Toni struggled to keep her composure as he unmistakably began to shrink.

Toni's lips curled into a sneer as Paul dropped below her height and dwindled more and more rapidly.  The holdout skeptic in her tried to cavil that she, too, might begin to shrink, but Toni's awakening sense of self -divinity dismissed this possibility, as if her simple denial was sufficient to prevent it.

Whatever the cause, Toni stood as tall as ever, hands on her hips, as Paul fell beneath her ankles and rejoined the ranks of mortals.  Squatting down once again, Toni saw that Paul's excavation had revealed an intact corner of the cathedral where several guests had sheltered relatively unharmed.  Her heart sang when among the survivors she spotted her father.

She reached down in to the alley behind the church.  In turn, she plucked out two dumpsters, broke through the securing chains with her fingernail, then emptied their contents onto the street.  Then she turned back to the wedding party, grinning.

Paul was still mired in Toni's loogie, which hadn't diminished any more than she had.  She collected Paul and the other guests in her -sized hand, then tumbled them all into the dumpsters.  All except her father, whom she pinched between the tips of her thumb and forefinger.

Standing up, she placed both dumpsters on the roof of a nearby office building.  Then, just so she wouldn't have to worry about any distractions, she bent forward and found the limo that was supposed to take them to the reception and placed it atop the adjacent dumpsters, one axle on each lid.

Folding her arms in front of her chest, Toni brought her squirming father up to her face for her consideration.  She had imagined this scene many times, but she had never taken into account the fact that she would be under world-wide scrutiny.  Her rehearsed lines seemed at that moment wretchedly personal and almost petty.  She wondered if she shouldn't save her father and other select guests for a more private delectation.

Looking down at the wrecked cathedral and the growing audience of emergency vehicles, she drew a deep breath.  She glanced at the dumpsters awaiting her pleasure while her father buzzed in her pinch.  She decided that if this day had proven anything it was the folly of relying on best-laid plans.

She brought her father closer to her ears.  "What's that, Daddy?" she bellowed, then looked down at her towering nude form in mock inspection.  "Why, yes, I am going out dressed like this, if that's alright with you."

Toni swung her bug-sized father around close under her gaze, close enough so that she could savor his expression of rage and confusion and fear.  "This is for Mother," she hissed, bring her curled forefinger next to his head.  It was the softest flick she could manage, but the impact of her nine-foot-long fingernail nearly rendered him unconscious.

Rolling her father's limp form between her fingertips, Toni wondered what it would feel like to crush his body.  She knew she would have several such opportunities—as many as she liked—but the experience of squeezing her first victim to death with her bare fingers would stay would with her forever.

Her father's eyes blinked open, and she recognized the cloud of indignation that had preceded so many of his tantrums.  Recalling all the times she had looked up into that cloud hoping for a sunbreak of love or mercy, Toni knew how she would dissipate it for good.

"You're done, Daddy," she said with a murderous scowl.  She squatted down and set her father in the middle of the street, then stood back up and looked down on him, her hands perched on her hips.  He got unsteadily to his feet, then shielded his eyes from the sun as he craned his neck back to look up at Toni.  For several moments, she stared down at him, tottering between her feet, a grin slowly spreading across her face.

She saw her father's arms reflexively lift up, as if they could ward her off, then drop halfway down again.  Never taking his eyes off her, he cringed then tried to assert his dignity by stiffening his spine.  Finally, exquisitely, she saw the fear consume his posture and he turned to flee as fast as his battered, bewildered, late-middle-aged body could propel him.  Succumbing to raw instinct, she raised her foot and brought it down on him fast and hard, grinding him out of this world as she had so many furtive backyard cigarettes.

A wave of warmth spread up from the ball of Toni's foot, racing along the tendons in her arch, calf, and thigh until it reached her crotch where it blossomed into giddy ecstasy.  She embraced the realization that Grandmother's prophecy didn't require her to share her power with a loved one; her self-love was sufficient.

She deserved it all.  She deserved to take the world she had known and dispose of it as she willed.  She deserved to take her pleasure from anyone she chose.  And she was going to celebrate her omnipotence in the most spectacular way imaginable.

Turning back to her imprisoned guests, she lifted the limo off the dumpsters and flipped one lid open.  Reaching two fingertips inside, she plucked a guest at random.  She held him by his head as his tiny arms scrabbled to find purchase on her slick nails.  She couldn't make out his face, but from his suit she thought she recognized someone who had been introduced to her as "Bob."  Whatever.

Toni slowly started to flick her wrist in a circular motion, and Bob's dangling body began to twirl in wider and wider arcs.  His hands grappled even more frantically, and she could feel his screams against her fingertips.  A short giggle escaped her, then she accelerated her wrist movement, almost immediately Bob's head detached from the rest of his body, which flew all the way to the other side of Brookline Street.  She rolled the head around like a peppercorn, then flicked it in no particular direction.  She couldn't stop grinning.

Out of the corner of her eye, Toni noticed someone trying to escape from a dumpster.  "Uh-uh-uh," she tutted, grabbing him by the leg and dangling him in front of her face.  She gave contented sigh when she recognized Frank, the Acura dealer.  His eyes bugged out, staring at the ground spinning seven hundred feet below.

Toni tossed Frank up twenty feet, and she again focused her attention so she could hear his cries of terror as he tumbled through the air.  She whipped her palm underneath him so she could enjoy his startled grunt as she caught him, only to scream again when she tossed him back up into the sky.

She caught Frank again and held him between her fingertips.  Eyeing the distant river on the other side of the freeway, she brought Frank close.  "Whaddaya think?" she taunted.  "You think I could hit the water from here?  I'm only a girl, after all.  You should probably make like a ball; less wind resistance."

Whether he ultimately doubted her throwing arm or the cushioning effect of the river, Frank failed to maximize his aerodynamics and didn't even make it across the freeway.  He bounced off an apartment building and fell into the street below, not even leaving a satisfactory splatter of blood on the building facade.

As she gazed at the distant site of Frank's demise, Toni noticed an unexpected movement and sound from the top of a building less than half the distance away.  Many of the surrounding buildings had people on their roofs watching her, but unlike the others the person standing in this condo rooftop garden wasn't pointing a camera or a weapon at her.  Instead, he was clapping and cheering.

Leaving the block of the ruined cathedral for the first time, Toni's legs snapped utility wires and collapsed signal poles, and her heedless feet broke through the police cordon, crushing dozens of first-responders and journalists.  She didn't pause to enjoy any of these atrocities, however, so curious was she about her new acolyte.

As her attention on him became obvious, the man stopped clapping and let his arms fall to his sides, but he stood his ground as she advanced upon him.  The condo building only came up to about mid-thigh on Toni, but she refused to kneel or bend, instead looming over the building and looking down past her breasts upon the puny man, whose view of Toni now significantly consisted of staring up at her yawning pussy.

He could not fail to note, however, the flash in her eyes when she recognized his tuxedo.  He had somehow survived the cathedral collapse and escaped the footfalls of the titanic bride and groom, but rather than flee to the hills or spill his guts to the National Guard, Paul's best man Tom had simply walked seven blocks and found a spot with a good view of the action.

Without preamble Toni reached down toward Tom, who took an immediate step backward, but only one.  He stiffened as her fingers approached, but then she lay her hand flat on the rooftop, her palm open next to him.  He shook his head wryly, then threw himself forward and pulled himself up into her hand.  He didn't try to stand up, but instead crawled to the center of her palm.  Toni curled her fingers into a fist around Tom, then stood back up.

She looked at her fist and wondered at her capacity for mercy.  Tom wasn't moving within the narrow confines of her fingers, but neither was he limp with terror.  If she spared Tom, would that unleash remorse for the crimes she had already committed?  Would she have to kill him to keep her resolve?

She turned and looked back towards the demolished cathedral.  The emergency workers had abandoned their perimeter, and while a few were trying to locate survivors in the rubble, most had devoted themselves to simply aiding the evacuation of the rest of the city.  Disdaining this exercise of frantic and futile urgency, Toni understood that questions of mercy and resolve were no longer her concern.

She walked back to the office building where she had perched the surviving guests.  A platoon from the SWAT unit fired a volley at her swaying ankle, which didn't break her stride but did divert her footfall far enough to crush them like kevlar-coated cockroaches.

As Toni approached her ad hoc dumpster prison cells, she spotted yet another guest trying to flee.  She easily identified Noreen exploiting lifeboat ethics, being helped out of the dumpster by one gentleman while another handed her the brat.  Toni took no small amount of pleasure from Noreen's white eyes when she stopped next to the building and cast them all into her shadow.

None of the escapees moved as Toni brought her fist right under her face and uncurled her fingers, concentrating her immense gaze on Tom, lying on her palm.  He didn't try to sit up, but rather propped himself up on one elbow to return her regard.

"I'm a little disappointed in you, Tom," she said, enjoying his blanched reaction to her enormous and inescapable judgment.  "Deserting the wedding before fulfilling all of your duties.  I had been looking forward to your toast."

Tom swallowed and found his nerve.  "It wasn't much, just a funny story about Paul making a fool of himself.  Compared to today's fuck-up, it doesn't even rate."

Toni drew a deep breath, but only Tom seemed to enjoy the effect it had on her chest.

"What 'fuck-up' are you referring to?" she asked intently.  The vicinity of Toni's eruption was still a cacophony of sorrow and terror, but to her ears only Tom's voice carried any force.  Her palm formed a swaying platform twenty feet above the office building roof, and her pliant skin made for unsure footing.  Tom nevertheless got to his feet, squared his shoulders, and faced her godlike scrutiny.

"Dumping you, of course," he said.  "He coulda had you and the world, and the threw it all away."

Tom flinched as Toni let out a sharp snort.  "I take it, then" she said, "that you approve of my...new world order?"

"Fuck, yeah!"

She looked into his tiny face and saw nothing but awe and enthusiasm.  One more detail nagged at her.  "Did Paul ever tell you how we met?"

Tom shook his head.  "Nope.  I asked him a few weeks ago, but he kept it mysterious, like he was onto something too good to let me in on."

"He never talked to you about...macrophilia?"

Tom's face curdled in disgust.  "He's into fucking dead chicks?" he said.

Toni scrutinized Tom's face for several intense moments, but she couldn't conclude that his misapprehension was anything other than genuine.

"No," she said, "but pretty soon it won't matter what he's into."

Toni lowered her hand to the rooftop, and Tom gamely vaulted out of her palm.  "Tom," Toni said, "if you don't mind, go ahead and grab Noreen there."

Toni herself plucked the tiny infant between her fingertips, but the man who had been holding her refused to let go.  Toni raised her hand thirty feet above the dumpster, then with the slightest jostle shook the man free.  She remembered to pause and enjoy both the screams of the man as he fell as well as those on whom he landed.

She turned to Noreen, who was standing in front of Tom, held by both her arms.  Her defeated sobs were becoming less enjoyable with every passing heave.

Toni held the squalling infant under her mother's face. "Tom," she said, "what do you think I should do with this?"

Noreen tried to turn and face Tom.  "Please," she whispered, "tell her to let us go."

Tom guffawed in her face.  He shook his head and looked up at Toni.  "I'd get rid of it."

"No!" cried Noreen, furiously trying to wriggle out of Tom's grip.

"Hey, Noreen," Toni said innocently.  "What's her name, again?  I forgot."

"Ayvellin," sobbed Noreen.

"Hmmm," said Toni.  "I don't think that sounds right.  I think it should be something more like...'Smear.'"

With less effort than it took to crush a pea, Toni's fingertips pressed together and sprayed Noreen and Tom with blood and gore.  As she watched Noreen collapse and Tom wipe his eyes, Toni licked her fingers clean.  She tingled all over.

Noreen's wails punctuated the moment, but quickly got tiresome.  "God, that's worse than the brat," said Toni, reaching for the distraught woman.  She plucked Noreen by the ankle and dangled her in front of her contemptuous sneer.  With an impatient shake of her hand, Toni opened her mouth and tossed Noreen inside, tucking her between her gum and her cheek with her tongue.  Keeping her eyes on Tom, Toni closed her mouth and began swishing Noreen over her teeth and under her palate and against her cheek.

Tom had forgotten about the relatively modest amount of blood on his face and was now staring up at Toni in awe.  Toni couldn't be sure, but she thought she saw Tom's jaw twitching.  She puckered her lips and pushed Noreen's head out into the daylight.  The smaller woman managed a sputter and a quickly muffled yelp as Toni sucked her back inside.

Impatient to make her point, Toni shoved Noreen between her molars and crunched down.  There was barely anything to swallow, but Toni expected there was still some of Noreen staining her teeth when she grinned down on Tom.

Tom held each of his hands to the sides of his head, fingers pressed against his temples.  "That was fucking in-TENSE, man!" he chortled.  He walked to the edge of the roof and looked down the street and over the city.  Then he craned his neck back to look up at Toni's triumphant face three hundred feet above.

"I guess that's the way it's going to be from now on," he said, gesturing helplessly at Toni and grinning.

Toni had expected (and looked forward to) abject submission from those with functioning survival instincts, but Tom's mellow endorsement of her dominating cruelty was surprising and, well, touching.  She knew she couldn't have a peer-relationship with anyone so puny and vulnerable, but it irked her to think that she should have to restrain herself in any way, that she couldn't simply acknowledge that she found his gesture charming.

She reached down and plucked Tom from the rooftop, his chest, arms, and head protruding up from between her fingertips.  She held him high, as if appraising the coloration of a vintage Burgundy.  She noted his trembling with indulgence.

"Thank you, Tom," she said gently.  "We could not have asked for a better Best Man."  She brought him under her nose and, with the lips behind which Noreen had so permanently disappeared, enclosed Tom's head in warmth and affection.  She could not see his expression, but she felt his tiny arms on her upper lip return her embrace.

Feeling more liberated than ever, Toni set Tom back on the rooftop, inclined her head with a coquettish smile, then indelicately swept both dumpsters into her fist before any more escapes could be attempted.

"Now let me see," she said, peering into the rancid steel pens, "where was I?"  A gratifying chorus of panic rang up out of her clutch.

A dull rumble interrupted Toni's reverie.  Has the Army arrived already? she wondered, looking in the direction of the freeway.

But the sound was larger than any armada of vehicles could generate.  It was a building collapsing, the very office building from which she had just removed the dumpsters.  Did I do that? Toni thought carelessly.  Oops.

Then her face fell in amazement as she saw an enormous torso and limbs extending out of the dust cloud.  A person—a man—was rapidly expanding in size, destroying the office building and invading her world.

Curling her fingers around her captives, Toni strode around the spreading rubble towards the man's head, anxious to take his measure before he could get to his feet.  Her thundering heart slackened only slightly when the dust cleared and she saw that the new giant was Tom.

Did this mean that—Toni exhaled sharply as she extinguished from her mind for all time such niggling concerns, cavils, and doubts.  Prophecy, destiny, fate—she accepted and moved through and past them all.  Her love had given godhood to Paul and her contempt had taken it away.  Now Tom was her god-consort, and she questioned this no more than she wondered if she deserved to draw her next breath.  She shook off uncertainty forever as easily as she had brushed off the fragments of the cathedral.

Tom beamed as he found his feet and rose up out of the ruined office building.  Waves of warmth passed through Toni as she enjoyed the sight of his self-assured grin, his reckless shoulders, his—oh, what a beautiful cock.  Longer than a charter bus, the sight of Tom's dick swinging above the crowd of tiny onlookers made Toni's eyes sting with anticipation.

He met her eyes and didn't hesitate a second before taking five thunderous steps to her and wrapping his warm arms around her and pressing his mouth to hers.  Tom flowed into Toni's throat and back out through her sinus while his chest, hands, and cock pressed into her tingling skin.  Toni nearly lost her balance, and when she heedlessly reached out toward another condo tower she ended up spilling the dumpsters into the penthouse.

Tom pulled his mouth away from Toni's as his hands seized her ass cheeks.  "Thanks for the invitation," he said.

Standing up straighter but not wriggling out of Tom's grasp, Toni pulled the outermost ring off her finger, then clasped Tom's left hand.  Sliding the ring over his finger, Toni replied, "Glad you could make it."

This time, Toni leaned into Tom for the kiss.  He dropped his finger to her crotch and slipped it inside her.  His tongue also probed the corners of her mouth, and she felt light when she realized he was searching for remnants of Noreen.

Reluctantly pulling away, Tom lifted his hand as if to make a point, then brought his finger under his nose and took a deep sniff.  Then he closed his eyes and stuck his finger in his mouth.  Smacking his lips and giving a deep smile, Tom nodded to Toni.

"Before we get this party started," he said, "I gotta try something."  He turned away, then looked back over his shoulder at Toni.  "I fuckin' hate cops."

Tom bounded straight at the safety perimeter the police had set up ten blocks away.  Toni focused her awareness at the tiny officers holding the line, some of whom were already trying to flee.

Rather than trampling the doomed crowd, Tom got down on one knee and Toni got to admire his curved back and fine ass as he raised his house-sized fist above his head and brought it down again and again, transforming tens of veteran public servants into truckloads of butchered meat and entrails with each strike.  Cops hiding inside vehicles had their shelters smashed together or hurled into buildings.  Those who dared to open fire on the titan were lofted into the air screaming and decapitated with a snap of his incisors.

Toni was simply enchanted.  Tom's appetites inflamed hers in ways she didn't know were possible, and it all made perfect sense.  This world needed nothing but Toni and Tom, and they had all that they needed.  We are that we are, she thought.

Through the haze and glow of her sublime arousal, a voice came to Toni.  Several voices, furtive and desperate.  She took a deep breath.  Ah yes, she thought, I almost forgot.

Turning to the nearby condo tower, Toni removed her hand from her crotch but continued to caress her nipples with the other.  Bringing her leering face down over the shattered penthouse provoked a wave of anguished cries from the surviving wedding guests.

"You guys were trying to sneak off to the no-host bar, weren't you?" she sang at them.  Someone bolted for the door, but in a flash Toni dropped her tit and shot her fist into the penthouse, collapsing the entire corridor.  More masonry fell as she withdrew her hand, pinching the hollering fugitive between her fingertips.

She only glanced briefly at her captive—a cousin's boyfriend, Jimmy something—before pulping him and rolling his remains into a ball, as if she were disposing of a booger.  Flicking the wad back into the wreckage, she popped her eyes at the terrified guests.  "I'm afraid the ceremony still has a ways to go," she boomed down at them.  "Let's all get back into our dumpsters, shall we?"

Toni's palms tingled as she saw the cowed guests returning to the containers under their own power.  I can make them do anything, she thought.

Scanning the corners of the penthouse with her focused attention, Toni heard the frantic breathing of someone hiding in the kitchen.  Refusing to display impatience or irritation, she let the other guests finish returning to captivity, then collected the dumpsters in one hand while delicately reaching into the kitchen.  A hysterical shriek let her know that her hand had been spotted and she swiftly snatched the last holdout and lifted them out of the penthouse.  When she saw who it was, she decided against an immediate demonstration and instead curled her fingers around them, making a prison of her fist.

"Oh, Tom," she called, her gentle tone rending the sky above the doomed city, "are you quite finished over there?"

Tom still had his back to her, but she read no impatience in his posture as he got to his feet and turned around.  Toni noted with satisfaction the blood stains on his cockhead, and there were some undifferentiated gobbets of matter clinging to his pubes.  She realized that for all her atrocities so far, she was still daintily unmarked.  Perhaps Tom would enjoy decorating her.

"I've got a present for you," she said, holding out her fist.  Tom's affable grin never wavered as he approached, and he guilelessly opened his palm to her, his eyes widening in delight when Toni tumbled Gloriana into his grasp.

He wasted no time.  "Get that dress off," he rumbled at the terrified woman, whose only movement was uncontrollable trembling.  "Didn't I say I was gonna eat you out tonight?" he continued.  "So let's get on with it; take it off or I'll rip it off."

Toni took no less pride in Tom's ability to command obedience than in her own as she watched the pea-sized woman expose her curves.  Toni's smirk was the very definition of self-satisfaction.

"Tell me when I hit your spot," Tom said, then tossed Gloriana in the air like a beer nut.  He expertly caught her on his tongue and snapped his mouth shut.  From the pronounced movements of Tom's jaw and tongue, Toni imagined that Gloriana was in the middle of an ear-popping, rib-crushing maelstrom.  Then, without ceremony, he swallowed.

"Hit my spot, anyway," he said, clucking his tongue.

Toni glanced down and Tom's insistent shaft, his pisshole glistening in the sun, she realized that whatever he had gotten up to with the police, Tom still needed a more torrential release.

She looked around until she spotted a relatively open area—that schoolyard will do.  Then she reached down and grabbed Tom's cock and led him to the site of their next demonstration.

Toni smiled when she saw that several tiny citizens—not police or soldiers—had refused the evacuation and were trying to follow the giants surreptitiously.  You pays your money you takes your chances, she thought, flattening several inconvenient play structures with her feet.

Tom must have harbored a grudge against P.E. teachers, too, as he took no small amount of pleasure from demolishing the gymnasium.  She opened her hand and grasped the dumpsters with her fingers, then spilled all their contents into her palm.  Selecting the one prisoner who still had any meaning for her, she turned her palm on its side, letting the dumpsters and the remaining guests plummet hundreds of feet to the hard turf below.

"On your back," she said to Tom, whose face brightened at the premeditation in her voice.  He sat down on the shattered remains of the wedding party, then stretched out across the fields, his hands clasped behind his head, which had settled atop the tennis courts.

Toni knelt down next to Tom's groin, then placed her hand at the base of his giant cock and opened her fingers.  Shivering and naked, her ex-husband slowly uncurled himself, only to wail in despair at the tower of animal flesh looming above him.

"You see, Paul?" she purred down at him.  "There is no good or evil, here or anywhere else.  There is just life and desire and power.  Always has been, always will be.  And now you're going to taste it all."

She held her hand still long enough for Paul to see her bring her leering face down over Tom's crotch and her bloodstained lips part to engulf Tom's cockhead.  Then she flipped her palm over and pressed Paul to the underside of Tom's ballsack, kneading him against the hot hairy folds as she brought her head down Tom's shaft and back up again.

Feeling Tom's lust surge against her palate was a sublime joy, and knowing that the whole world was watching, powerless to stop them, made it even more delicious, but these pleasures would be had again.  Time for the Bride's Dance, she thought.

She pulled her head up for good and ran her hand up the length of Tom's cock, sliding the tiny Paul along the underside.  Tom grunted and winced, and she feared she had waited too long.  She quickly took Paul between her thumb and forefinger, then—gently holding Tom's raging erection still—brought Paul to the purple head.

"Whatever yer gonna do, Babe," said Tom, "you best get on with it, if ya know what I mean."

"Just finalizing the divorce," she replied, holding Paul up and waving him at Tom as if she were tuning a radio dial.

"Oh, that's wicked," laughed Tom.  "Hope you brought your scuba gear, dude!"

On his back, Tom's boner wasn't truly vertical, so Toni had to pull it forward as she fit Paul into Tom's pisshole.  Paul had stopped struggling, whether from exhaustion, despair, or perhaps he had finally accepted the truth of Toni's words.  Or maybe he was simply looking forward to getting shot up into Toni's subway-tunnel-sized cunt.  All that mattered to Toni was that she was able to slide Paul's tiny legs and abdomen into Tom's cockhead before the eruption.

With Paul secure in his cockpit, Toni straightened up on her knees then threw one leg over Tom's abdomen, facing away from him.  She tried to imagine Paul's perspective, her titanic thighs on either side of while her mountainous ass and engulfing pussy descended toward him.  In her mind's eye, Paul flailed his tiny arms at her grasping lips as they slid over him and around Tom's cock, terror and ecstasy merging into one.

And then she came down hard.

Once SLAM twice BAM and again THANK YOU MA'AM.  Tom arched his back off the ground as he spewed into her.  He grabbed her ass cheeks and pulled her up and town, trying to spread her further apart with each thrust.  His bellowing grunt lacked either consonants or wit, but it was pure.  She leaned forward and rode that pole, which did not falter once the flood had subsided.

Toni opened her eyes and looked out over the world they now owned.  Even with the global reach of modern media, there would by many who wouldn't believe the images and lamentations.  There would be occasion for many more such demonstrations, more carnal joys accompanied by choruses of dismay.  And Tom would be with her for all of it.  He would never question their absolute dominion.  He would be firm, and steady, and right...there...  OH.  MY.

Toni fell forward onto her hands, panting.  Her legs complained as Tom finally pushed her up off him completely, then he scooted backwards out from between her legs.  She closed her eyes and tried to collect herself.  She was about to roll over onto her back when she felt Tom lift her ass up and spread her legs again.

Her sensitive asshole detected no passengers as Tom's cockhead gently worked its way into her, but she liked to think Paul's remains helped grease the way.  She lowered herself onto her elbows, letting her dangling boobs sway with the rhythm, and she wished her father were alive to see this.

Opening her eyes, Toni was surprised to see a scattering of people on the street before her, some no more than thirty yards distant.  Some even had their hands down their pants, but all of them were staring up her in awe.

Tom's tempo was increasing, but she still had the time to grip him with her ass and feel its resonances pass through her.  All those tiny worshippers, she thought, wondering what it feels like to have the world's largest cock up my ass.  She hoped they could read it on her face.

She reached out toward one of the little dudes tugging his pud.  He didn't flinch or flee, but somehow his wide eyes went wider as she lifted him off his feet.  She brought him to her face, and some instinct compelled him to quicken his stroke.  "I'm afraid these seats are reserved for tipping customers," she said, and popped him into her mouth.

The guy probably didn't have time to bring himself off before an unprecedentedly intrusive thrust by Tom forced Toni to clench both her eyes and her teeth, masticating the masturbator.  When she opened her eyes, Toni was pleased to note that none of her lewd audience had fled.

Tom's final surge into Toni couldn't match his first, but she still felt him paint her rectum, and when he finally withdrew his monster dong, she kept her legs spread as she sat back upright, hugging her boobs to herself and letting it all drip out.  If any tiny cultists raced forward to catch the rain, she didn't notice.

Tom walked around in front of her, took her by the hands, and raised her up to stand with him.  His kiss was less hungry but just as sincere.  "This is the best day of all my life," he said.

"The first of many to come," she said, resting her face on his hairy chest, listening to his racing heartbeat slowly decelerate.

"How do you know?" he asked, letting his hands drift down her back to caress her ass.

Toni pulled back to look Tom in the eyes.  "My grandmother had a vision that one of the daughters of her line would rise to immense power, grind the world as it was under her heel, and remake it with her own hands.  She saw this daughter choose a helpmeet, and the certainty of her choice would usher in a new era."

"Me?" he said, a gobsmacked look on his face.  "The Usher of the New Era?"  He shrugged and grinned.  "Why not?"

Why not indeed, thought Toni.  At first she didn't understand how her confusion and disappointment in Paul didn't dispel the "certainty" element of the prophecy.  Now she understood that the necessary certainty was her conviction that she deserved better, and that belief had never faltered for a second.

A supersonic boom heralded the arrival of the first military strike aircraft.  Tom quickly spotted them and pointed out their angle of attack.

"Evacuation must be as complete as it's gonna get," he said.  "They're gonna hit us with missiles."

"Won't do them any good," replied Toni.

"They'll move up to nukes next."

"Almost certainly."

"Can we take a nuke?"

"Grandmother said we would be beyond the wrath of gods and men."

"But, will it hurt?"

"I don't know," said Toni.  "If it does, what do you think we should do?"

Tom's eyes flashed.  "Hurt 'em back so hard they never try it again," he said.

Toni smiled and took Tom's hand in hers, and they both turned to face the oncoming strike.