It was 11:00 PM in Nick's apartment, the sky dark outside and a cold wind battering at the old panes. The TV was mainly on for background noise, showing some "World's Worst Culinary Disasters" documentary or something, largely ignored by the two people in the living room. Nick and his girlfriend Elisa were at it again: though very in love with each other, there were a couple points of irreconcilable contention between them, usually revolving around physical expressions of affection. Each tended to blow the other argument up into something larger, forcing the other to defend a ridiculous situation that bore little relevance to the original issue.

"You seem to believe in absolute equality," Nick repeated, rubbing his temples, "while I'm trying to tell you I believe in balance, and they're not necessarily the same thing."

"I believe in balance too," Elise said quietly.

"No, let me explain. Your ideal relationship would be one in which both partners are equally matched in capability, weaknesses and strengths?"

"Yes, equality everywhere."

"But if each one of them is a capable individual, why would they need to be in a relationship at all?"

Elise narrowed her eyes at him. "What are you saying?"

Nick got up from the floor and joined her on the loveseat, where she sat with her feet tucked up beneath her. She was wearing a large, oversized sweater that made him want to drop everything and just cuddle her, but some sterile, rational part of him insisted on being understood. "I'm not saying we should break up!" he assured her, holding her hand. "I'm saying that I believe in balance: partners have different strengths, different weaknesses that work around each other. Sometimes one person's in control, sometimes the other one is."

Elise shook her head, and her auburn hair shimmered in the dim apartment lighting. Nick's fuses had been blowing lately, so he back on candles whenever possible. "I can't accept being tied up. I can't see how that's an expression of affection at all," she said, raising her voice. Though six inches shorter than him, Elise had a personal presence that put nearly everyone off-balance. Not that she was hostile, but she was remarkably self-assured and didn't cater to people's insecurities or sensitivities. Her slender hands rested on the knees of her black jeans, and her grey sweater looked almost ochre in the candlelight.

Nick wore a black T-shirt over a long-sleeve grey thermal and black jeans as well. He unlaced his combat boots as he composed his thoughts. "I know where you come from, I know your history about being tied up."

She sighed. "It wasn't as dramatic as that. I just tried it with an ex-boyfriend, and it didn't work out. I didn't like being helpless, and I didn't want him helpless beneath me. I believe both people should be in control at all times. Your issue with domination and submission is really disturbing, Nick."

He looked over at her thoughtfully. "I don't think it's disturbing. I'm just tired of being in control all the time. I'd really like someone else to take charge. And before you say it, no, it's not enough to agree to be in charge. I really want someone to overpower me, overwhelm me. That's what I like about my giantess fetish."

This was a recent area of discussion for them, ever since his Towering Temptresses catalog came in the mail. Elise found it lying around and went through its pages, progressively more unsettled by everything she found until she sat him down and asked him what it was about. She could understand being obsessed with women's bodies, she could even understand objectification to a certain extent, but the predominant theme of women aggressively dominating women truly disturbed her and she couldn't accept it. She asked Nick to just keep it away from her, keep that part of his life to himself, and he agreed to that.

"I can't talk about this anymore tonight, Nick," she said. "I'm going out for a cigarette." Nick couldn't permit smoking in his apartment, so Elise would light up outside, at the front of the building.

"Want me to come with you?" he asked - he didn't like her being alone in his low-income neighborhood.

She shook her head, and again her hair bounced and lofted in the warm apartment atmosphere. "I need to be alone for a few minutes, sort this all out." She pulled her shoes on, slipped into her jacket, and locked the apartment door behind her as she left.

Nick sighed heavily and leaned back in the loveseat, truly frustrated. He didn't feel the need to bring Elise into his sordid fantasies—sometimes they made him feel dirty and callous, and he never wanted to associate that feeling with her. However, it was still a tremendously powerful erotic force, one he was unwilling to give up simply because his girlfriend couldn't reconcile with it. He lit up some incense and set it next to the candle on the steamer trunk that served as a coffee table, and curled up sideways on the loveseat to try to calm down.

He dozed for just a moment, so briefly that Elise hadn't returned from her smoke break, but when he opened his eyes he saw the incense had wafted up into a cloud above the candle. The candlelight illuminated the cloud, and for a moment he thought it had taken the shape of a woman's face.

Nick sat up and stared into the cloud, and then he knew it was a woman's face. It was two feet across and three feet high, nearly transparent and slightly shifting as the incense caught every tiny breeze in the apartment. The face was evenly balanced and finely-sculpted, with high cheekbones, full lips, and a stern gaze that bore down upon him. The apparition seemed to open its lips and exhale.

"You've got to be kidding me," Nick said flatly, as the world rushed up around him. The loveseat cushion spread outward in all directions, the weave of its fabric thickening and bulking up beneath him. His shirts welled up around him and billowed to the cushion, nearly empty but for a tiny, naked man sitting up in near (but hardly complete) surprise. His jeans draped over the edge of the loveseat and onto the hardwood floor. As Nick crawled out of the neck of his shirt, he saw the smoky apparition dissipate into thin air, just as Elise slipped the key in the lock of his door to let herself inside.

Nick watched his girlfriend enter, gazing far overhead. Her normally slight body now took on a monumental proportion and moved massively through the air, like a flying skyscraper or something like that. Nick shook his head at this ridiculous situation, getting inexplicably shrunk down by some mysterious mystical force, for his girlfriend to find him. And find him she did, eventually. She shed her jacket and tossed it onto the arm of the loveseat, nearly burying him in leather. She pulled off her shoes and sat down on the loveseat where she'd been before - he saw her full hips expand above him as she bent over, and then she sat down in slow motion... His heart raced as her buttocks stretched the black denim like two massive planetary spheres, perfect and inviting in their roundness, as they descended from the heavens to strike near him. Their collision with the cushion rocked his gigantic world, toppling him to the side. He had to grab the hem of his shirt collar to keep rolling down against her hip.

Elise sniffed the incense and grinned softly, though Nick could only peer up at the side of her face and see the cheek pull back. She ran her fingers through her hair –Nick saw fingers nearly as long as himself disappearing into her tresses—and leaned back in the loveseat. It was then she seemed to notice her boyfriend's clothes on the seat beside her and for a moment she wondered if he were naked in the bedroom, waiting for her to find him stretched out on the bed. But her keen eyes picked out her diminutive boyfriend, reeling from this overwhelming experience to try to kneel and look up at her.

Unflappable as ever, she pursed her lips for a moment and studied him before saying, "Okay, this is a remarkable development in our relationship, but I'm still not going to be dragged into these fantasies of yours."