But that wouldn’t be quite right. For one thing, nobody is really happy ever after. One suspects that Cinderella bickered with her Prince; one feels certain that Snow White and Prince Charming had to spend much of their first year of marriage simply getting to know each other. And how readily did Beauty take to the Beast, once he had become human again? The story is silent; we can only guess.

For another, the curse wasn’t broken. Adam was the size of Stephanie’s thumb. Whatever fate had brought him back to her had not cured him. The resumed their countdown to their separation, only now knowing just how painful it would be.

Adam and Stephanie desperately wanted just to melt into each other, but both knew within minutes of their uniting that simply being with each other would have to wait.

In real life, even in the happiest of real lives, there are still moments of doubt. There are still responsibilities to attend to. There are still promises to keep.

Adam had been the first one to broach the topic, some time after Stephanie had held him to her bosom.

“So…before we do anything else, we need to get you cleared,” Adam said.

Stephanie raised her eyebrows at this. “I don’t need to be cleared. I didn’t do anything.”

“I know,” Adam said. (Stephanie strained to hear him. He was so much smaller now. She wondered if they could rig a microphone for him. She wondered if that would help.) “Of course you didn’t do anything. Only now, you have proof. Me. And I want you cleared immediately, because…Stephanie, you’re everything to me. I don’t want you getting attacked because I can’t keep myself safe.”

“I should have kept you safe,” Stephanie said, darkly.

“I don’t know if you could have,” Adam said, his eyes focused somewhere beyond Stephanie’s lovely, imposing visage. “The people who took me….”

Adam let the words trail off, because he realized to his horror that he would have to explain what had been done to him. He’d have to tell the police about the torture that was inflicted on him. He didn’t want to.

He wanted to put it in a box and turn the key, lock it away forever.

But he had responsibilities. And he focused on his wife, and he knew that for her sake, he needed to tell the authorities his story. The blame had to go onto Marbas and Tanith and Andousha. They had to pay.

“Adam…were you hurt? Did they hurt you?” Stephanie asked. It had suddenly struck her, like a fist in the gut, that Adam had been kidnapped. Not that she hadn’t known something like that had happened. But here he was, back to her – and he had really been kidnapped. It wasn’t a hypothetical. It wasn’t a theory. It was reality.

She had been vilified. He had been hurt. Even before he said it, she could see it in the posture of her tiny husband.

“Yeah,” Adam sighed, and found himself crumpling into tears.

The flood of it all overwhelmed him. All the pain and torture flooded through him, and suddenly, he lost all control of his emotions. He was simply sobbing. After what seemed like forever, he felt Stephanie’s finger gliding up and down his back, softly, caressing him.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said, when he regained his composure. “I….”

“Never be sorry,” said Stephanie, who Adam saw had her own eyes filled with enough tears to bathe him. “It’s my fault.”

“No!” Adam called up, sternly. “It’s their fault. They hurt me. Not you. You went swimming, because I said you should. Maybe we were both dumb. But – it’s not your fault.”

Stephanie nodded, dumbly.

“It’s like – when a woman gets raped. People will say, ‘Oh, well, she was dressed provocatively,’ or ‘She shouldn’t have been out alone after dark.’ But so what?” Adam said. “It’s not her fault. She didn’t rape anyone. She’s a victim. Maybe she could have done more to protect herself – or maybe not. But blaming her just ignores the guy who raped her – because all he had to do to not rape her was not rape her.”

Adam felt righteously angry now. Angry at his kidnappers. Angry that his wife had to feel one second of guilt over his kidnapping. Angry that he ever had.

“They’re the bastards, Stephanie. Not you. All you ever did was love me. Even when I didn’t think I deserved it. I love you so much. Please. Don’t cry.”

He said that because it was now Stephanie’s turn to dissolve into tears of anger, tears of rage – at the people who had hurt her husband. She felt him, stroking her hand as much as his tiny body could – literally running up and down, sliding along it.

She bent down, at long last, and kissed him.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll call the police; we’ll go in, we’ll give statements. I’ll call our families and we can have a quick reunion. But by the time the evening news is on, I want you and I to be back here, at the house, alone. I’ve missed you so much…I just want to be with you.”

“And I suppose you’ll want a massage – I mean, it’s been a few weeks, right?”

Stephanie smiled just a bit. “Well….:”

Adam smiled at his wife, a smile that widened to a grin. “You’re asking me to do a lot of work. I mean, you’re the size of an aircraft carrier now, you know.”

“Details, details,” Stephanie said, wiping tears from her eyes. “I mean, if you don’t want to do that….”

“Did I say that?” said the tiny man on her table. “We’d best be back early. I need time to do this right.”

Stephanie smiled, then sobered. “You know, Adam…if you’re uncomfortable, if you’re not ready…I mean, you just mailed yourself to me. I don’t want to push it. So if you want to just come back and relax…I’m okay with that, too.”

Adam beamed up at her. “I know,” he said. “That’s why I want to massage you as best I can. I mean…you love me. I love you. I get to be with you again. And that’s all I ever wanted.”

*  *  *

By the time the press conference was over, the statements were taken, and the reunions with family and friends were complete, both Adam and Stephanie could have been forgiven had they chosen to come home and curl up, no matter how willing their spirits.

It had been a very emotional few hours. Adam had told off the world for ever suspecting his wife of hurting him, and then had told police just how he’d been hurt by those who really did kidnap him. By the time he bid his family adieu, the police in the city where he’d been imprisoned had raided the lab, and confirmed its existence – including some notes that conclusively proved Adam’s story true. Marbas and Andousha were nowhere to be found, but Tanith Nightingale had been found, dead – her throat slit, her body splayed out in the middle of a crudely drawn pentagram on the floor of her studio apartment.

This, of course, sent the media into paroxysms of muted glee (“Were Adam White’s kidnappers…Satanists?” they asked. It was probably for the best that they didn’t know the real answer). Adam and Stephanie, however, had stated flatly that they’d have no further statement after the press conference, and to underline that, Stephanie had decided to do exactly what she was planning to do when that day began – only with much more joy in the action.

Hey, she was already packed.

And so she and Adam checked in to a very nice hotel, the kind with turn-down service and late night room service and large, cushy beds. And Stephanie promptly turned off her cell phone, hung a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door, and stripped.

*  *  *

The bistro was about halfway full; this town wasn’t much for staying up late, and the small group at the table in the corner appeared to be the group that would close down the place. Not that the staff was complaining – the three women were stunningly beautiful, each in their own way, and for fanciers of the rougher sex, the man was quite delicious himself. They ordered big and appeared more than willing to tip big as well – the group was clearly in a celebratory mood about something.

“Sounds like they’re attorneys,” Meg said, conspiratorially to her on-again, off-again, but presently on-again lover Pete. “The black woman was telling the brunette something about a closing argument.”

“No way,” Pete said. “She looks like she’s about 19. Maybe 20.”

“Been looking at her a lot, have you?”

“No,” said Pete. “At least, not more than you’ve been looking at her brother.”

“Her brother? The guy? You think so?”

“It’s the nose. Anyhow, you’re out of luck; I think he’s dating the redhead. Certainly can’t keep his eyes off her. Not that I blame him. She is smoking.”

“Hmf. And here I was going to suggest you come over to my place after closing. But I see you’re distracted.”

“Oh, come on, Meg, don’t be like that. You know exactly how hot I think you are.”

“Yeah? Well –”

The two stopped their conversation as the door opened. It was very late for another diner to come in on a weeknight, but the restaurant was still open, and the man certainly fit the place – dapper, smooth, wearing a pin-striped black suit with a red tie and rose in the lapel. He scanned the room, and seeing the party in the corner, smiled at Peter, the maître d’.

“Don’t worry,” the gentleman said. “I see my party.”

He glided over to the four in the corner, and delighted as the conversation died down. “Excuse me, ladies and gentleman,” he said. “May I join you?”

The brunette woman looked at him, frowned dubiously for just a moment, and then fixed a winning smile on her face. “Of course, Lucifer. Though I must say, I’m surprised.”

“No more than I, dear. No more than I.”

*  *  *

Adam looked up at the goddess who was his wife, and gulped. She was so damn big – six or seven times as big as she’d been on their honeymoon, what seemed a lifetime ago.

When last he’d seen her, she’d seemed about 36 feet tall. Now, that’s really, really tall – her knee was a good meter over his head, and he could fit his head in her vagina. But now? Now she was well over two hundred feet tall. Had he been viewing her from the floor, he knew her ankle would have been far above him. Each leg of hers was the height of a middle-sized office building, and she herself was approaching that line of demarcation that divided office towers from skyscrapers.

Of course, she was doing no such thing, he knew; it was he that was dwindling. But it was so hard to think of it any other way.

He stood on the night stand by a king-sized bed that was the size of a few football pitches, and gazed up at the immense, beautiful woman and swallowed again. He was just above knee level, looking up at her smooth, naked form, and he had no idea where to begin.

Then, suddenly and without warning, that mammoth creature dropped down, so that her face was at his level. Her breasts swayed dazzingly as she descended; he saw to his amazement that each aereola was almost as wide as he was. The nipples were as big as his head. Her face filled his visage, like looking at a billboard from up close. She smiled at him, the same quiet, loving smile that she’d smiled at him the first night they’d made love (okay, technically they hadn’t actually had sex that night, but it was close enough), and while it was a smile that was wider now than he was tall, he finally felt the blood return to his stomach.

It was okay. This massive landscape was Stephanie. And that was all that mattered.

“You are adorable,” she said, her breath cascading around him, bathing him in warm humidity. “And you still think I look all right, I see,” she said, the smile growing to a grin.

Adam didn’t have to look down to know that he’d reacted with the gallant reflex.

“You’re amazing, as always. I just…I don’t even know where to start,” Adam admitted. “I mean…there’s not very much of me left.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” said Stephanie. “I don’t want to break you. But I do want to welcome you back.”

And with that, she leaned in and kissed him, hard, and proceeded to run her tongue down, then up the front of him, then down again, and up, but in shorter strokes, until she settled on a point that she was quite familiar with.

Stephanie was very, very careful. She could still feel the proud flesh of her husband, and she slid along it gently, as if he were made of porcelain.

Adam, for his part, was instantly moving toward orgasm, but about halfway through, he said, loudly, “Stop!”

Stephanie pulled back instantly. “What? Too hard? Did I hurt you? Adam, I –”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re being too gentle,” he said, smiling. “Do it with abandon.”

Stephanie was quiet for a moment. “You might get hurt,” she said, finally.

“I’ve been hurt,” said Adam. “You can’t hurt me. Not in any way that matters.”

“But if you got injured, or died….”

“I’m gonna die, Steph,” Adam said. “I can’t think of a better way to go.”

Stephanie looked at her husband. It was brave, and stupid, what he was saying. What he wanted to do.

“You know,” she said, “I threw in the massage oil. Just on the off chance….”

“Perfect,” said Adam, beaming. “That’s the stuff. I’ll need your help to pour it.”

“I can help however you need me to,” Stephanie said. “Let me get a couple towels for the bed. I’ll be right back.”

*  *  *

“So,” Mami Wata said, after a long, long silence, “what brings you out tonight, child?”

“Well,” said Lucifer, surveilling the menu, “I’ve been meaning to visit this restaurant for some time. I hear the quail is excellent.”

“Seriously,” said Eros. “Why are you here? You want to interrupt the party?”

“Hell, no, Eros. Believe me, you have earned your celebration. I have not seen such a magnificently argued case before the Council in many a decade. As soon as I have the opportunity to order wine, I fully intend to toast the victor; you outmaneuvered me, Aphrodite. I lost this one. And I take my losses graciously.”

“Aye, that’s all well and good,” Aoibheal said, “but it still doesn’t explain why you’re here, and here now.”

“Isn’t the willingness to congratulate an adversary on victory enough? And here I thought good sportsmanship was the essence of gentility.”

Aphrodite smiled. She found herself doing it quite a bit over the last day. “Lucifer, my dear, I accept your gracious concession. And now, please cut to the chase – so we can get whatever unpleasantness there is behind us, and get on with the celebration.”

Lucifer returned Aphrodite’s smile. “Well said, my dear. I am here primarily to enquire about something you said in your argument. About there being sad stories, as well as happy ones.”

“Go on,” Aphrodite said.

“Well…it seems to me that you were allowing for the idea that I and my cohorts might be granted the ability to use your discovery to tempt and vex mankind. Which is, I must say, all I ever wanted in this matter.”

“I know,” Aphrodite said. “And don’t worry; you’ll get the information on how to do what I’ve been doing. After the Whites have found their ending.”

Eros and Aoibheal broke out into objections; Mami Wata smiled quietly. Aphrodite raised her hand.

“It is impolite for Gods to deny other Gods information,” she said, firmly. “And I meant everything I said – Satan needs to be able to tempt humans, so that they can say ‘no.’ Or ‘yes,’ as some do wish to yield to temptation, don’t they?”

“But – won’t this increase pain in the world?” Eros objected.

“Of course it will,” Aphrodite said. “Which is why it’s our job to use it to advance the cause of love. And to, from time to time, go up against Lucifer in an effort to save damned souls. Something I’m sure he understands, don’t you?”

Lucifer smiled a toothy grin. “But of course, Aphrodite,” he said. “I look forward to many battles to come.”

“Mmm, I bet you do,” she replied. “And you’ll get them. Incidentally, please remind your Chancellor, next time you see him, that the bet should resolve itself in the next few weeks, and I want him to be around for its resolution.”

“Of course,” Lucifer said. “Of course.”

And with that unpleasantness behind them, the five Gods ate quite a nice dinner, and left quite a nice tip.

*  *  *

“So how do we do this?” Stephanie said.

“Well,” said Adam, looking at the gap between the nightstand and the bed, “I really have no idea.”

Stephanie chuckled. “Glad I’m not the only one.”

Adam looked over at his giant wife, laying with her stomach on the bed, her soft behind looming like a mesa, her long hair laying haphazardly like a field of vines. He said, finally, “Can you reach out your hand and put it on the table?”

Stephanie instinctively reached out palm-up, to carry him over, but he shook his head. “Face down. And try to stay as still as you can.”

She flipped her left hand, and Adam walked over to the junction between her third and fourth fingers, lovingly stroking the now-enormous rings on the fourth. “I didn’t realize I’d bought this big a diamond,” he said, cheekily. “I think I got a pretty good deal.”

“I love it,” the monument rumbled, softly, as Adam grasped the webbing at the base of her hand and pulled himself up on top of her smooth skin.

Her hand was soft, and the skin yielded just a bit under his feet. He stood up, and surveyed the area; the back of her hand was eighty feet square, give or take. He could feel her pulse in his feet as she walked, and then, suddenly, the ground shifted, just a bit.

He fell to the ground, bouncing on his butt. “Oh! Sorry,” Stephanie said, struggling against her instinct to move, lest she cause Adam further indignation. “It tickled.”

“’Sokay. I need to be careful. Can’t forget the ground’s alive, and attached to a pretty girl. All right,” he said, getting up.

He walked to the arm, which bridged the twenty foot gap between the nightstand and the bed. This was the most dangerous stretch; after this, a fall would land him on the bed, and he would be okay.

Carefully, Adam got down on all fours, the better to hold on to the six-foot-wide path. He felt her pulse even more clearly here. Carefully, he edged his way across the gap, exhaling only when he was over the bed.

“So do you want me to lift you onto my back now, my little daredevil?” Stephanie asked.

“Nah. I’ve got a nice road to follow,” Adam replied, sliding along the smooth, mottled skin of his wife.

A different mind might have looked at Adam’s journey and seen the imperfections in Stephanie. The mole here, the freckles that were bigger than the palms of his hands. The foot-tall hair that isn’t supposed to cover women’s arms, because beautiful women are supposed to be hairless for reasons that nobody quite understands.

Adam saw these things, of course, because he was there, on the seventy-odd foot journey along her arm. But he didn’t see them as imperfections. They were just a part of Stephanie, magnified as all of her was. The cute freckles that had always dotted her forearms were just what they’d always been. The hair had always been there. So had the moles. They didn’t bother him, They were, if anything, reassuring. He knew these moles; he’d seen them. Traced them idly, in the nights when they were worn out and happy, drenched in sweat and sex.

He reached her upper arms, which were less yielding than her forearms. He could feel her solid muscles now, feel the athleticism in her that he’d always loved. He was very close to his destination now. He reached her shoulder blade, smelled the scent of Stephanie emanating from the armpit below; he reached the back of her scapula, and stepped down onto the back, breathing at last. He walked over by her spine, and said, “I’m ready for the oil.”

“That looked like hard work,” Stephanie said.

“That was amazing,” Adam said. “You’re amazing at this size.”

Stephanie felt the tiny footsteps of her husband on her back, and had to fight down the shivers they sent down her spine. “You know,” she said, “if we cover my back in oil, that’s going to make it hard to maneuver.”

“I can put up with that,” Adam said.

“Yeah, but…you know what I’d like more than a massage?”

“What?” Adam said, somewhat surprised.

“Just…keep exploring,” she said, dreamily. “Keep exploring for as long as you want to. It feels nice,” she said.

Adam didn’t need prodding. He did just what his wife said – walking down her back, climbing the soft, round hillocks of her behind, sliding between her legs, feeling the damp, soft folds of her vulva – teasing her with just a touch there, before asking (three times – he was far away, and distracting her) her to roll over. He accepted the proffered hand, and let her set him on her stomach; he headed north, to her magnificent breasts, climbed the left one and simply lay on it, feeling its softness and her heartbeat, solid and strong. He kissed her nipple, slid down and climbed up her ear, peered in the massive pool of her eye. He knelt by her lips and kissed them.

He was quite surprised when her massive mouth opened up  and a tongue popped out, picking him clean and pulling him inside.

For half a second, he panicked, before his mind overrode the old, instinctive fear of being eaten. Stephanie simply held him in the warm cave of her mouth, sliding her massive, rough tongue over him as the world did somersaults, maneuvering him until he lay with his back against her incisors, where she could resume the blow-job she’d begun quite some time ago.

This time, Adam had no reason to complain about gentility. Stephanie wasn’t rough, but she didn’t hold herself back. She slid the tongue over and over, coating him in her spit, sliding the tip over his penis quickly, then slowly, then quickly again until he couldn’t take it anymore and burst, coating that tip of her tongue with semen.

He lay there, weak and spent for just a moment, as she moved her tongue up and opened her mouth. He was pushed backward into a free-fall – just a short one, which ended with him on her pillow, staring up at the massive, smiling woman he was bound to.

“Wow,” he said, eliciting a giggle from Stephanie.

“So you didn’t mind that?” she asked.

“No,” said Adam, who couldn’t think of a witty riposte.

She kissed him, gently, and they lay there for a little bit, before he said, “Well, you know there’s someplace I’d like you to put me.”

“My ear? I can do that,” she said, smiling.

“Yes, that’s exactly where. Come on, Stephanie. It’s been too long.”

“Mmm…I agree,” she said. “But I want you to promise me you’ll be careful.”

“Nope,” Adam said. “I want to take you with everything I have.”

Stephanie sighed, but she still gave him her hand, and deposited him between her thighs.

She was face-up, leaning against the pillows so she could see him. He walked over to the daunting gates of her sex, which were actually elevated just a little bit. He used the hair down there to pull himself up beside the glistening lips, lips that were already inviting him. He slid between them, and against them, covering himself with the viscous fluid that seeped from between them. And grabbing a lungful of air, he pulled himself inside.

He had pushed his head in before, just for a moment. This was something else. All around him, he felt the pulse of Stephanie, the rush of blood, the rivulet of fluid. Her smell filled the world. He slid a fair way in, but not too far – he didn’t want to drown – and he felt for just a second like he could wait her forever, pushed between the yielding walls of her pussy.

But he pulled himself out, at least long enough to grab another lungful of air, and to go back in.

Ten times he did that, before he finally surfaced completely, and pulled himself to the edge of the lips, where a nub of flesh somewhat larger than his head stood, bouncing with the pulse of its owner.

He fairly tackled it, rubbing against it with all his strength, as from some eighty feet above him, a low, rumbling moan escaped. He slid against it, slick with the sex of his wife, letting it slide against him. He found himself growing hard again, and he ground his erection against it, as the rumbling moan grew deeper, and urgent.

And then, the earthquake came. It was all he could do to maintain his grip, to keep from being thrown to the bed below. When finally the ground stabilized, he lay down upon it, enjoying its warmth, the pulse that kept it going, the smell that he knew so well.

Eventually, two soft fingers carefully plucked him, and brought him back to the pillow, where the beautiful face of his wife gazed down at him.

They didn’t speak for a long time. They didn’t have to.

They were home.