As I sat there and quietly seethed to myself, a thought took hold in my head and refused to go away. What if there was an obvious solution to this problem…and what if it wasn’t an accident at all? Rachel may very well be misremembering things: maybe she had taken her flash drive out of her pocket, even if just for a moment, and maybe someone had taken it while she wasn’t looking. It sounded farfetched, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility…and that maybe there was some way for me to get it back for her. Of course, the first thing to do would be for me to get off this desk and make my way down to the floor, eighty feet below me.
After walking around the whole perimeter of the desk, I decided to take a risk and climb down to the floor, using the cord of a small desktop lamp which led to a wall socket. I had done something like this once before: on the first night back at Rachel’s place after the accident, when I had foolishly decided to run away from her before regretting it and almost dying in a storm. Descending down an electric cord had not been too difficult then, and I managed it pretty well now as well. I shimmied down to the plug and dropped down the final twelve feet to the floor, where I stood for a few moments to catch my breath.
My next challenge was to get out of this room. The door was closed, but there was enough of a gap between its underside and the floor for me to crawl through, if I pressed myself as close to the floor as I could and sucked in my breath. My shirt and pants both snagged on some rough edges, but I managed it in the end and found myself in the vast corridor that stretched by outside. I began to make my way to the next office along the corridor, hugging myself tightly against the wall to try and make myself as inconspicuous as possible. Several times, I had moments of panic when I saw a pair of colossal legs walking down the corridor or heard booming footsteps behind me. In each such case, I curled up into as small a ball as possible and prayed that whoever was passing by wouldn’t notice me way down here at their feet. Thankfully, no-one did and I managed to make it all the way to the next door, which lead to the office room adjacent to Rachel’s.
I knew, from what Rachel had told me, that this was Leanne’s office. If my hunch was correct, she was the most likely culprit for taking the USB drive. On the other hand, if I was wrong, I was not only wasting my time her but also risking the chance of being seen, or possibly even my own life. But it was too late to turn back now, so I pressed on and crept underneath the door. The room on the other side was nearly identical to the one where Rachel worked, and to my great relief it was empty. But now I was faced with the problem of where to begin looking for the thing, since, if Leanne did take it, she could have hidden it anywhere, most likely in a drawer or somewhere that was far out of my reach. As I was wondering what to do next, I heard someone unlock the door behind me and, before I could run for cover, it swung open.
There was nothing for me to do but fall to the floor and curl up into a little ball, as I heard the deafening sound of Leanne’s giant footsteps approaching me. They stopped for a brief moment while she locked the door, then carried on towards me. I saw a pair of gigantic high-heeled pumps bear down on me, with an attractive tanned leg above each shoe rising up far above me. But I had no time to look even higher before her shoe came down right on top of me, and I closed my eyes and prepared for the worst. I nearly fainted from fright, but when I opened my eyes again, I was still alive and unscathed. Leanne was standing still for some reason, and I found myself underneath the arch of her left shoe. Her stiletto heel was a thin pillar holding up a roof eight feet above me. She had missed crushing me to death by the luckiest chance. I collapsed onto my back and breathed out again.
A minute later she was on the move again, heading towards her desk. I watched her ease into the chair behind her desk, admiring her curvaceous figure, clad in a pink blouse and matching skirt, and showing off quite a bit of cleavage and thigh. She had long dark hair and a facial expression that showed she knew how attractive men found her. She looked like the type of girl I’d dated all through college – before I met Rachel, that is. But I didn’t come to admire her looks; I had to find out if she was responsible for taking Rachel’s flash drive, and I soon got my answer.
While creeping towards the desk, trying to stay out of her line of sight, I saw her hand insert something into the USB port on the side of her laptop. Even from way down here, the quick flash of purple that I saw confirmed my suspicions. Leanne was trying to steal Rachel’s work, or at the very least trying to disadvantage her, get rid of her as competition for the job opening. I knew I had to think of something fast. If I drew attention to myself and got her to notice me, would that do the trick? Would she scream, or faint, or run out of the office – or would she not behave in such a stereotypically feminine way and instead catch me, or hurt me, or even step on me if she didn’t realize I was a man and not some kind of insect?
No, getting her attention wasn’t an option. I had to get that drive back somehow, without her noticing me. And to do that, I first had to climb up to the top of the desk. Her laptop had a cord that dangled down to the floor, but climbing it for eighty feet while also hanging on for my life was a tall order. Still, it was the only thing I could think to do, and I was in pretty good shape, having kept on exercising while being shrunk. So, I began to climb. The cord was as thick as one of my legs, but it hung down from the desk at a bit of an angle instead of straight down. It was a lot more tiring than climbing down from Rachel’s desk had been, but I gritted my teeth and kept on going, never once looking down. Eventually, I pulled myself up over the edge of the desk and paused to catch my breath, hoping Leanne wouldn’t hear the panting noise coming from behind her laptop screen. But another noise distracted her and came to my rescue. Her cell phone, lying on the desk next to her laptop, rang, and it nearly gave me a heart attack. She picked it up and began chatting excitedly.
“Hi baby, how are you?” she said, her voice sounding overwhelmingly loud from as close as I was to her. “No, we can talk…yeah, I’m at work, but I’m not busy…just copying some stuff onto my computer…uh-huh…yeah, I’m only presenting at the end of the day, after everyone else…yeah, it’s such bullshit, but what can I do? Listen, what are you and I gonna tonight, hmm?”
As she said that last sentence, her voice began to grow fainter. I peeked around the edge of her laptop screen and saw that she was no longer sitting behind her desk. She was standing and looking out of a window in the opposite wall, and had also lit a cigarette. I didn’t know if smoking was allowed in here, or if maybe she thought she could get away with it if she stood at the window. But that wasn’t important – what was important was that she wasn’t watching her computer. Now or never, I thought. If she sees me…no, I couldn’t stop to think about that. I ran forward and stepped onto her keyboard.
Looking up at the laptop’s screen, as large as that of a movie theatre’s, I saw that a folder was being copied from the drive onto the computer. It was Rachel’s work all right – the folder was labelled with her name. I ran to the touch pad and fell down on my hands and knees, then used both arms to move the cursor and cancel the copying process. Leanne was still talking to her boyfriend (that’s who I guessed it was, from the way she talked) and not paying me any attention. My heart rate was beginning to go into overdrive, but I didn’t stop. I closed down everything open on the desktop, then jumped up and rushed over to the USB drive. It was about three feet long compared to me and it took every last ounce of my strength to pull it out of the port, but I managed it. Being made of plastic, it wasn’t too heavy and I could drag it behind me while running. My luck held steady; Leanne still had her back turned to me, but from the remaining length of her cigarette I knew it wouldn’t be for much longer.
I ran back the way I came, but then I realized that I wouldn’t be able to climb down the cord while carrying the drive. I had no alternative but to push it off the desk and let it fall to the floor, and hope that it would, firstly, survive the fall and, secondly, not attract Leanne’s attention. Once that was done, I wrapped my arms and legs around the cord and slid down as quickly as I dared. The friction burned my skin, but I hardly noticed with all of the adrenaline flowing through me. My skin was moist with sweat and my heart felt ready to burst from my chest. I let go about ten feet from the bottom and fell on my behind, but got up at once, grabbed the flash drive and began racing towards the door.
When I had almost reached the bottom of the door, I heard Leanne’s phone conversation end. I knew it was a matter of seconds before she realized that the drive was missing. The gap underneath the door was only just large enough for me to shove the drive underneath, which I did with all of the strength I had left, just in time for me to hear Leanne cry out when she saw that it was gone. I looked back and saw her hunched over her laptop, a look of bewilderment on her face, as she cursed loudly and looked around on her desk for the missing drive. Then her eyes happened to dart in my direction and she looked straight at me. I stood dead still for a moment that seemed to last much longer than it actually was. Then I returned to my senses and dived underneath the door, wriggling through the gap as quickly as I could and getting my clothing torn through-and-through in the process. I could hear Leanne’s footsteps approaching the door and I had a sickening feeling that it was all over for me. She had seen me – she must have seen me – and now she would find me…and who knew what she would do to me when she did?
On the other side of the door, I barely had time to look around, before a gigantic hand scooped me up, and I let out a breathless scream. It couldn’t be Leanne – she was still busy unlocking the door – but someone else who must’ve stood outside the door and saw me. I was shoved into a deep pocket. It was dark in here, but I could tell that the fabric that surrounded me was a dark red color. Then I heard voices and I knew who it was that had found me, and, for the first time since leaving Rachel’s desk, I exhaled with relief.
“Oh, hey, Leanne,” Rachel’s voice sounded high above me. “Were you looking for me?”
“No…no, I wasn’t looking…were you in my office just now?”
“Right now? No, of course not! I was just walking past the door. I have to present in about fifteen minutes, so I’ve got to get ready. I’ll talk to you again some other time, I’ve got to go now.”
“Yeah…yeah, okay, sure.”
Without another word, Rachel left Leanne standing in the doorway (no doubt with a look of utter bewilderment on her face) and headed back to her own office. Once safely inside, she took me out of her pocket. I had no idea how she’d found me, but before I could ask, she pushed the entire upper half of my body against her lips, almost smothering me.
“Oh Sam, thank you, thank you, thank you!” she gushed. “I have no idea what you did, but you probably just saved my career. Oh my God, I never thought Leanne would do something like this! Not that I ever liked her, but I didn’t think she was such a backstabbing bitch!”
“Yeah, wow…” I said, still overwhelmed by the smooch she’d given me. “How…how did you know I was there?”
“I didn’t. I was just wandering around – I’d looked everywhere for the drive, without finding it of course – when I saw something pop out from underneath Leanne’s door, right in front of me – and there it was, and then you appeared too! Lucky for me, I guess, that you came back at that moment, otherwise you might’ve been seen by someone!”
“Yeah, lucky me! Not that getting your drive back was easy or anything like that! You have no idea what…”
“I’m sorry, honey, you’re gonna have to tell me afterwards, okay? I’m due to present my report in less than ten minutes. I just ran into Alan outside the conference, and I almost told him I wouldn’t be able to make it. Thank God I didn’t! Okay, I’m gonna put you in my desk drawer again, then I’ll come and collect you once I’m finished.”
“Are you serious? Come on, Rachel, after all I’ve been through, you can at least let me come with you when you’re doing your speech thing. I can just ride along in one of your pockets, like I did just now. No-one will know that I’m there!”
She gave me an annoyed look and sighed, but she agreed to my suggestion. In fact, I think she appreciated the support, even if she was the only who knew I was there. Having a pocket-sized boyfriend did have its advantages, as she had admitted to me before. She kissed me again, then stashed me into the same jacket pocket as earlier, and got all of her things in order before heading off to the conference room. For someone who’d been on the verge of becoming a nervous wreck only an hour earlier, she’d made a remarkably quick recovery. I could only hope that she kept herself calm and composed while impressing the bosses, or else my daring escapade would’ve been in vain.
Although I didn’t have any interest in the field of investment analysis, I was fully prepared to listen to Rachel’s presentation, despite not being able to see anything of it from inside my pocket. However, after the harrowing experiences I’d just been through, I was feeling completely drained of energy. That, coupled with the fact that it was warm and cozy inside Rachel’s jacket pocket, meant that I was beginning to drift off into dreamland while she was still introducing herself to the higher-ups, and I was fully asleep once she’d begun with her presentation. I didn’t think she’d notice, or if she did, I knew she wouldn’t be mad.
Giantess World
