Everything shifts to a blur as your sister continues grinding your lithe and helpless body against her newly slicked foot ball, using up every drop of foot lotion left smeared on you.  You are conscious of her speaking calmly at you to hold your breath, and almost out of instinct you take a deep breath and close your eyes as you are dunked a final time into the bottle.  After that, you’re aware that you’re being applied to her other foot ball, the final dry section, but your chest, although slightly still stinging, has started to mellow out, numbed.  It’s an improvement, at least.

                With a final, triumphant swipe, your extremely greasy body having no more visible lotion to surrender to your sister’s foot, the cold, soft fingers release you and you fall straight to the ground of the bed spread, which was honestly not far down since her foot has been resting on its side, but you were unable to touch it this whole time as Carly used your tired and apparently now-useless form to finish applying the foot lotion, holding you just above ground level.

                Pampering.  That was the word she used.  You look down at your chest and slowly run a hand over it, the blood no longer flowing but the scratches from the peeling skin coating your chest and abs, your entire front completely red, as if you were just whipped with a wet towel continuously.  Pampering.  If this is the type of pampering women want, you think sarcastically, you don’t ever intend on indulging a woman.  That is, if you live long enough to become normal again and meet one worth pampering.  Your sister would normally have not exactly fit the bill for a soothing foot massage and pedicure, but it’s not like you had much say in the matter.

                Silence hangs in the air for a few moments, your stinging, scratched chest rising and falling normally as you regain your breath.  You try to sit up, but it stings a little too much.  You see Carly’s huge face looming over you as she leans over to observe the work you’ve done on her peds.  And the work she’s done on you.  You watch as her fingers run smoothly over the balls of her feet, rubbing it to test the job.  Finally, nodding her head, her eyes meet yours once again.

                “That’s how you treat a woman, little bro.  So next time you feel like saying something or doing something just because you feel like you can to us, I want you to remember how you feel right now.”

                You groan, your chest stinging like crazy.  It’s hard to say what hurts more right now: your hungry stomach or your ravaged upper torso.

                “You look a little messed up there, Jack.  Here…” she says, reaching to the side table of the bed and grabbing a tissue.  “I don’t want you getting yourself all dirty…” she says, pushing a thumb into the tissue and bringing it to your chest, pressing.  The stinging increases immediately, and you clench your face together, tightening your fists, as your sister dabs at your body with the tissue.  After a minute or so of this, her finger rises back up with the tiniest dots of blood on the tissue.  She tosses it off to the side of the bed, clearly not caring about the cleanliness of your room.  “There!  All cleaned,” she says positively. 

Suddenly you hear the soft trail of a pop song ringtone coming from Carly’s pocket.  She swipes out her phone, putting it to her ear.

“Hey, weirdo face,” she says playfully.  “What?  Elaine, I can’t-I can’t hear you, talk louder!  What?  Right now?” she says, looking down at you thoughtfully before nodding.  “Sure, I’m not doing anything.  Great.  See you in like fifteen minutes.”

Carly snaps the massive piece of machinery closed, re-pocketing it.

“Listen, little bro, you don’t look like you can move anymore, so it’s not like I can actually use you for anything right now.  I’m going to go to Elaine’s for a little while.  So just try to relax,” she says, and a second later her fingers are folding underneath your back and lifting you up gingerly.  “And maybe if you actually can wake up, we’ll have some more fun later on,” she says, smirking.  “I hope you appreciate all these lessons, Jack.  How they’re going to make you a better person.  You do, don’t you?”

“Ungh.”

“Louder, little bro.”

“Yea…”

“That’s what I like to hear,” she says, grinning ear to ear and closing her fingers around your chest tightly, stinging you through to your core, forcing you to grunt painfully.  “That’s what big sisters are for, after all!”

You’re in total, pitch blackness.  The gnawing feeling of your stomach, begging you painfully for food, has at least subsided because of the sensation of tightness now covering your midsection.  You’re currently tied up in a thick, pink shoe lace around the stomach and back and dangling helplessly in midair from a hangar in Carly’s closet, the lace long enough (on purpose, of course) that there’s no shirt hanging low enough from the clothes rack for you to reach up and grab onto.  After you’d been in the dark for the first couple hours or so, just calming your breathing, thankful that due to the blackness you couldn’t see how high of a drop it was to the carpet below, you tried swinging back and forth, gaining some momentum, but you could never swing high enough to touch another solid object.

Your chest still stings from the tight little squeeze Carly gave to you prior to tying you up like a little sack of meat and leaving you hanging here for her to find you later, conveniently immobilized just like she left you.  You wonder if this is how sides of beef feel after they’ve gone through the meatpacking grinder.  You note how bitter and sarcastic even your idle, passing thoughts have become in the past day.

You think of Elaine, normal-sized and hanging out with your little sister just three blocks away, unaware of the fact that her best friend just subjugated a human being in painful, dehumanizing ways that threatened to crush your spirit, that at one point made you nearly desire death over continued humiliation and torture.  You think of Carly, the fact that she’s probably listening to one of her cheesy pop songs and helping Elaine pick out an outfit for the slew of weekend parties coming up: how easily she’s probably reintegrated herself into real life after descending so deeply into cruel and violent madness.  The way her moods flip-flop around you, you just know that she’s capable of turning it on like a light switch, putting on that mask of cuteness: freckles, blond hair, deep eyes, and a perfect white smile, to hide the incredible darkness inside of her, the bottomless desire and need she has to force you to be a piece of dirt; her piece of dirt to play with, laugh at, hurt, keep tied up in her closet for hours on end with nothing but a cold breeze from the AC to keep company.

                You sway your legs, swinging back and forth absent-mindedly.  Despite the fact that most of your body is now very chilly from the wide open space your temperature has been regulating into, your chest wounds still burn and sting a bit, so the cool air actually helps alleviate the pain.  It’s the only thing you have to try and heal yourself for whatever’s next, to desperately try and prepare yourself for another brutal onslaught of your sister’s brand of life lessons.  The day’s almost over.  It’s only been a single day since you shrunk down to less than three inches tall in a scientific anomaly you wonder if the world will ever be able to truly answer.  A single day since you were found by your sister, at first gratified and relieved to be carried up in her warm, soft hands.  A single day since you realized the deepness of your sister’s precocious insanity towards you, her ruthless and unstoppable drive to purge you of all the faults she sees in you.  It feels like a lifetime ago.

                You wonder if you’ll be alive in another twenty-four hours.  Each lesson seems to be getting worse and worse.  With each event, you, in pain, sorrow, and utter humiliation, mentally proclaim that THIS is as bad as it can get.  Live through this, and you’re home free.  But you know this is so untrue, after each successive event, despite the fact that even now, your brain refuses to accept the idea that it can get worse.  It can’t.  It just can’t.

                False.  It can.  It ALWAYS can.

                The door swings open with a massive creak, and you are suddenly about chest level with your massive sister, light flooding the closet from her bedroom, the chill wind of the door swing sending you bouncing back and forth ever so slightly from the breeze.

                “Did you miss me, Jack?”

                The massive fingers grab onto your naked, suspended body, twisting the shoe lace around so that you’ll face your sister’s face fully.  She steps partway into the closet, her face just above you.

                “Mmmmm?” she murmurs gently, the tips of her fingers kneading your battered obliques and stomach as she holds you in place, still tightly attached to the shoe lace.  “Did you miss your big sister?” she says, in a lower, more expectant voice to make sure you hear her correctly.  The string still bobbing you a little despite her grip on you, you nod, dizzy, your eyes adjusting again to the light blinding you.

                She smiles, then stretches her massive arms upward, above your head to the place where the shoe lace is tied to the hangar.  In a couple of seconds, her fingers undo the knot, and she grabs it up at the top of the lace in a fist, removing you from the closet as she takes a couple steps back, but she keeps her hand up at that level, continuing to dangle you in front of her face.  Her eyes widen in wonder as if seeing you for the first time, watching you squirm fruitlessly from your vulnerable dangling position.

                “I’m glad.  Because I DEFINITELY missed you…” she whispers quietly, pulling the string closer to her face.  As you continue to spin around, you see her massive lips pucker up, the plushness wrinkling on itself.  With a final swing, you back smacks into her bouncy lips, and you feel the slightest give of suction on your back as she kisses you gently, the dampness of her lips actually giving way to a small splotch of wetness she plants onto your back, fresh from the depths of her mouth.  Giving a small pop, she releases her lips from your body and pulls you back out, smiling as you spin around in circles.  However, this look doesn’t last long, because as you spin around again, this time facing her, she pulls you in again.  Her massive, sopping lips press onto your battered chest this time, wrinkling her plush lips against you, her upper lip right under your chin.  You feel your wounds dampening in her slobbery smooch, the slight suck from her lips on your upper body as gently as possible.  Then, as she releases you again, you look at the dribble of wetness left as a mark on your chest.  A single drop of warm saliva trickles down your chest and abs and into your crotch, where it settles in, moistly tickling and heating your freezing dick.

                “I mean, I was thinking about you the WHOLE time I was gone…” she says, bringing a finger up to you.  Holding her extended pointer finger out, she bats at your right shoulder, sending you spinning around quickly.  Just as the lace stops twisting and you come to stop, she bats your other shoulder with the fleshy pad of her fingertip, sending you off in the other direction.  “…I was thinking about how much fun we were going to have when I got back.  You know, little bro…” she says.  “I actually kind of like hanging out with you now.”

                You just bet she does.  Your vision blurs as you try to regain your sense of direction, very dizzily.

                “So, I think I’m kind of hungry.  I’m going to go make some dinner.  Do you want to come?” she says, tilting her head to the side to get a better look at your face.  You grimace and nod weakly.  Maybe she’s actually going to ensure you have enough strength to continue on now by feeding you.  Your stomach growls hungrily, giving you that hollow feeling again at the mere thought of food.

                “Okay.  Here, let me just…” she says, her other hand going to the top of the lace again.  Roping it down, she ties a new knot around the top of the other knot, just above the tie point around your stomach; this creates a loop in the lace.  Then, her fingers hooked under the lace, she lifts it over her head, sending up for just a moment before she settles the loop around her neck, wearing you as a necklace on her shoestring.  Without another word, your sister starts off.

                Carly power walks confidently down the hall, a new spring in her step, a slight bit of extra bounce.  As she does, you are continually slammed back and forth from the chill, gravity-defying space in front of Carly and then back with a hard wham into her tight yellow shirt, slamming into the space right in the middle of her chest.  Admittedly, you note to yourself, your sister (toned and athletic as she may be) hasn’t really developed much, so at the very least, there’s no uncomfortable mass of hard flesh for you to smack into with each stroke.  Of course, at this size, you can still feel what she’s got, and even at their smaller size to a normal person, the give they have bounces you back outward in tandem with Carly’s overdramatic stomps like a taut trampoline, only to reel you back in for a hard blow to your bruised body from your sister’s teenaged chest.

As you pass the windows leading outside, you see that it’s pitch black.  You must have been in the closet longer than you thought; you would surmise that it’s around 8 o’clock now.

Carly re-enters the kitchen, still wearing you around her neck, and begins to walk more slowly now, opening the refrigerator.  The icy and biting conditions inside the gargantuan vault of chilled foods rolls out at you in a visible cloud, and it makes you shiver.  With nothing else to go on, you grab onto the thick, rug-like fabric of Carly’s tight shirt, trying to hug it around yourself, shivering from the cold.  Carly looks down at you, chuckling.

“Too cold for you, bro?  Just give me a second… I have to choose what I want for dinner…” she says thoughtfully, putting a finger to her lips as if seriously contemplating.  She keeps the door open for over a full minute, leaving you to cling desperately to her shirt for warmth, or at least the little warmth it has to give.  Finally, her hand shoots up and grabs onto the jar of grape jelly and she removes it, shutting the door at long last.  “I’m sorry if you didn’t like that, Jack.  But I just couldn’t DECIDE…” she says, grinning.  Under normal circumstances, you would have expended the necessary energy to think to yourself what a gargantuan bitch she is, but you stopped caring about certain things like this a while back.

Your next trip brings you slamming back into Carly’s tender chest as she stops in front of the pantry, from which she removes a fresh bag of white bread and a half-emptied jar of smooth peanut butter.  Placing all the ingredients on the kitchen counter along with a butter knife, you watch greedily from your perch above the scene as Carly removes two pieces of bread and slowly spreads each substance very thickly over them.  You feel your mouth water just seeing it as her massive hands powerfully handle the knife, squeezing the metal as she swoops through the cool jelly and gummy peanut butter, redoubling the thick layers of the stuff into the sandwich before closing it all with a smack of her palm.  Picking up the sandwich, Carly takes a seat at a bar stool that happens to sit in front of your kitchen island.  The three overhead lamps of your kitchen’s makeshift bar shine down and blind you as you try to shield your vision from above, looking anxiously down at the sandwich.  Carly lightly places the massive sandwich, about double the length of your body end to end, down on the counter.  Your eyes gleam as you watch a few crumbs tumble off the crust and land on the marble counter, illuminated by the reflection of the light above.  You can almost taste it.

“Do you want to get down, now, little bro?” says your sister kindly, looking down at you.  You shake your head feverishly, hardly able to wait.  Her cool fingers close around your body, lifting you up as she unhooks the shoelace from around her neck, her soft palm cradling you as she lowers you toward the marble.  She stops just short of the ground, and begins undoing the knot with her large fingers.  Secretly, you wish she would just leave the knot on for now and let you eat, but you can live with it.  You’re seconds away from the pain in your stomach going away.  The knot comes undone in her hand, and she lowers it all the way to the ground, tilting it to the side, allowing you to gleefully leap from her hand to the counter.  You’re still very tired, although it did help to have a sort of respite in the dark closet.  With your motivation so close, you feel like you could run ten marathons.

You dash forward, your hands outstretched, your stomach gurgling.  So close.  With your hands just inches away from the beautiful, fresh bread crust, you watch as a shadow is cast over your head.  Your sister’s hand darts down, her fingers pressing into the cushy white part of the bread, pinching it, as she lifts it up and off the counter.  You turn around frantically as Carly lifts it up to her face.

You watch as Carly’s plush lips compress together ever so slightly before parting, opening her mouth wide.  Inside, even from down here, you can see half a dozen thick strands of translucent slaver connected to the top and bottom rows of Carly’s teeth.  Her tongue, shining with mucus-clogged spit, rises up and slides over the top of her lips, tapping the bread.  Carly giggles a little as she pokes at the crust with her tongue, just tasting the bread, releasing a spray of microscopic crumbs down to the counter below.

Finally, you watch as her hands shift forward, moving the bread closer to her lips and inside them.  A corner of the sandwich disappears into the dark cave, two gleaming rows of pure white teeth biting downward.  They press together, mashing down the bread corner like a mattress under a steamroller as your sister rips through the soft, grainy fibers and into the juicy interior of the sandwich.   You hear a soft squishing sound as her teeth slide easily through the generous layers of peanut butter and grape jelly.  Pulling the remainder of the sandwich back from her mouth, Carly’s eyes meet yours, squinting into a cheeky smile.  Gloating.  You feel sick, your heart crushed, your stomach growling more than ever.  She’s taunting you.  She knows how much you want; correction, how much you NEED to be fed right now, and yet she does this, holding the food just out of reach.  She could so easily tear off the tiniest corner, half a bite’s worth for her, and it would be a feast for you, saving your life.  But she doesn’t.  She doesn’t need to.

You distinguish the absolute pleasure in her eyes as she watches your body begin to tremble, feeling a lot sadder than you have in a long time.  All over a PB&J.

With the bite still trapped in her mouth, your sister finally begins to chew, slowly, fully extending her jaw all the way.  You watch as her lips part again; inside you watch as the grinding chompers ground up the sandwich into a white and tan pulp inside her mouth, her glossy froth-covered tongue twisting around madly, churning the bready mush into a liquid for her to easily swallow and digest.

You stagger forward, uneasy.  You don’t even know what you’re doing, you can’t even think now.  You just need food, and you need it desperately.  You pad across the cool marble floor of the kitchen island, walking until you’re directly underneath Carly’s chin, and the roof of wonderful-looking, soft, white bread that could so easily ease your pain with just a few crumbs.

“Oh, God, so GOO-” Carly begins to say, her speech muffled by the fluffy, phlegm-logged bite of sandwich still being swished around in her mouth.  As she says it, you look up and see the corner of her lips part just a bit.  A long stalactite of drool begins to drip out of the corner, so thick has it become from the mushy mix inside her mouth, that it remains attached for several seconds, stretching down at the base of her chin before breaking.  You have no time to react as the gooey dribble falls down, splashing directly against your face.  You wipe the sticky wash away quickly and uncaringly, waiting intensely.  Surely she’ll give in soon.  You need food so badly, surely she knows.

                With a hard and loud gulp that echoes down to you, you watch the small bump under Carly’s skin working its way down into her throat as she swallows the bite.

                “Mmmm… I love peanut butter and jelly…” she says slowly and dramatically, clearly trying to remind you how distinctly un-sandwich-possessing you are at the moment.  You almost want to cry in frustration.  But you can’t.  You have to stay strong if you’re going to get anything done.  You walk out a bit further, still trying to swab away the gooey dribble on your cheeks, and look up at your sister’s massive face, which turns down toward you as well.

                “P-please, Carly… may… may I please have a-a little piece?” you say, much more pleadingly than you intended to, your stuttering not so much out of tiredness at this point, but more out of nervousness at the stern look Carly gives you as you begin speaking.  As if she didn’t already know exactly what you wanted.  You don’t even care anymore, you just want a piece of the damn sandwich.  As soon as you finish your sentence, though, you are surprised to see the sternness melting away, leaving a look of concern.  It reminds you of the one time your sister has actually looked kindly at you in the last day: while she gave you a bath in the sink.  Is she actually going to do it?  Mentally, you hope with all your might.

                “Oh… I…” she begins, sounding almost flustered.  “I’m sorry, little bro.  I guess I hadn’t thought of that.  You’re tired, aren’t you?”

                You nod.

                “I thought so…” she coos gently.  You’re dangerously close to being soothed here.  “Are you hungry, little Jack?”

                You nod again, with more fervor this time.

                “I’m sorry.  You poor thing, you’re tired and hungry and I’m here eating right in front of you.  Of course you can have some.  Here, let me just…” she says, a hand disconnecting from her squeezing grip on both sides of the sandwich.  Using two fingers, she pinches off a small chunk of crust.  It’s not much, but it’s plenty for you.  Almost anything would be.

                You hold out your hands, up in the air, gleefully awaiting it.  Finally, it’s coming.

                However, just as her fingers, with the crust chunk pinched between nears your hands, you watch her massive mouth open again as wide as possible.  With a quick flick of her wrist, your sister sends the small bread ball flying backward, into her damp mouth cave.  Her teeth close around it with a massive, gleaming smile, locking it helplessly inside her mouth.

                It occurs to you how helpful it would be, at this moment, to have a large punching bag in front of you so you could whale on it until your fists bleed.  That way, you’d at least be safe from the potential danger of looking your sister in the face and screaming at her what a bitch she is.

Wordlessly, she begins to chew, smiling at you.  You want so badly to eat something now that you begin to get a severe headache.  You can’t believe how far she’s been willing to drag this out.  The trauma she’s putting you through right now in the simple act of eating a sandwich is mind-boggling.

                After a few minutes of chewing, you watch Carly’s mouth stop moving, and she looks upward, as if concentrating.  You see a form pressing against the inside of her cheek, rolling around.  Finally, her lips part as she lowers her face slightly lower to the countertop.  Then, tipping her tongue, you watch a tan blur fly past your face and land with a slimy squish on the marble.

                You look ahead of you to see an amorphous ball of sputum-laced, viscid bread-mush a bit larger than your head.

                You look up at your sister questioningly, unmoving.

                “I thought you were hungry, little bro,” she says, and all a sudden, her twisted, evil grin returns, stretched across her billboard face as what she’s telling you to do sinks in.