"What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won." 

                  --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German Poet (1749-1832)

In the dream, Brenton was shouting at the screen like a viewer at a horror movie. "Don't go in there! Look out!" But Tom was not listening. He was creeping through the dark, up against Rose, moving inexorably toward her truly spectacular ass. The slumbering form of the woman-mountain radiated warmth and a sweet, intoxicating scent that Tom knew he'd sensed before, but never so strongly.

He slid his hand along the soft skin of his object of desire, brushing his hand over the unending tapestry of skin. He reached her hip, and leaned up against her behind, planting a kiss upon it before he continued on to the point where it sloped away into her thigh.

His eyes had adjusted now to the dim light filtering into the cavern of Rose's bedsheets. He looked up to the top of her thigh, and noted that the leg on top was set forward some distance, and there, in the space between, he saw the bottom border of her labia.

He paused. He paused for a good minute, staring up at the cleft of her pretty pussy, trying to decide what to do next. He probably should turn around now. Go to her head. Get her attention. He could make up a story about being shrunk; it wasn't like he hadn't read a macrophile story or two. He could probably convince her that it had happened when he came over to visit; yes, that seemed likely to work. He'd shrunk in the entryway. Sure. He could tell her that. She'd probably believe him.

Or he could climb up her thigh, and look at her vagina more closely.

He knew he might never get this chance again if he went to her. She would help him, of course, if she thought he was in trouble. But would she ever put him here? At this size? Here was a girl he had wanted for years. And her pussy was a short climb away.

He began to ascend the thigh.

He was drawn like a moth to the flame. He could smell her, feel the heat radiating from her. He ascended along the thigh where buttock met it, pulling himself inexorably along, grabbing at the skin as if it were a rock wall.

And then he was there. Even in the dim light, he could see the bottom of her labia, two lips poking out between her thighs.

He reached for them, and slid his hand between them.

What happened next was unexpected by Tom, to say the least. He had read a ton of stories on giantess sites, and unconsciously or not, those stories informed what he thought would happen. Which is to say, he didn't think much would happen. The objet d'amour always would remain unaware in those stories until it was time for her to pay attention.

Rose was not an objet; Rose was a woman. She reacted the way most of us would react if, three-quarters of the way to being fully asleep, we suddenly felt our gentials being played with by something mouse-sized.

The world exploded, near as Tom could tell. Rose rolled, and Tom found himself flung through the air by her sudden movement. He bounced twice, and fell off the cliff of the bed, falling some distance down and landing on a soft, warm surface -- the belly of Rose, who had in her sudden panic rolled completely out of bed and onto the floor.

Still dazed, Rose looked down at her stomach, and saw the tiny man -- Tom -- sitting there. He'd been the one poking her. Not a mouse. A Tom.

Tom looked up at Rose, looking down at him bemusedly. He started to raise a hand in greeting.

But he stopped when her eyes began to narrow.

The goddess whose stomach he rested on recognized him. He could see it. She didn't speak. She didn't have to. The look she gave him told him everything he needed to know about what she thought.

"I...uh...I was shrunk, and...uh...."

He stopped. He had been of a mind, briefly, that maybe he could bluff his way through. Claim he'd been shrunk, claim he'd just been trying to get her attention.

But he could see it in her eyes. She was mortified. And she was furious.

When she finally reached for him, as he'd always dreamed she someday would, she did not grasp him gently.

Indeed, Rose had to fight the urge to simply deposit him in the toilet and flush.

Instead, in short order he was dumped unceremoniously in a drawer in her nightstand. He found himself unable to speak as she shut the drawer, not even gazing at him.

Some time later, through the wood, he thought he heard the sound of her crying.

*  *  *

It was deep, deep into the night when the drawer finally opened again.

He couldn't explain why he hadn't used the stone to change his size. He could have shrunk to nothing, so she couldn't find him. He could have grown to full size, and exploded the nightstand in an awesome display of the power he wielded. But he had done neither. He had been too in shock to even contemplate it.

She was dressed, now. Nothing fancy; a shirt, some shorts. Her enormous eyes were red with the tears she had cried.

"What the fuck were you doing, Tom," she said. It was not a question. It was an accusation.

"I'm sorry," Tom said. "I didn't -- I didn't mean to...."

"You didn't mean to stick your hand in my vagina? No, Tom, I'm not buying that one at all. What, did you shrink, trip, and suddenly fall into my vagina? Nope."

"I just...I was shrunk, and I...you were so...."

"It isn't a fucking complement, Tom!" she said, eyes cold. "You didn't ask."

"I just...."

"You. Didn't. Ask."

"No," he said, quietly. "I didn't."

She stared down at him. "What really sucks, Tom, is that I actually liked you. If you'd asked...I might have said yes."

Those words wounded him far more deeply than anything ever had.

"I was shrunk...." he said, lamely.

"I know; you got White's Disease, evidently. Sucks for you. Maybe you found your way here heroically. Maybe you were going to get my attention or something. And if you had done that, I would have taken care of you.

"But you had to go and rape me. That I won't forgive."

"I didn't!" he cried, but she stopped that line of attack cold.

"What do you call sneaking into someone's bed and stuffing your hand in someone's pussy without her consent, Tom? A friendly hello? You bastard. You don't deserve to live, you know that, right?"

Tom couldn't answer her, because it had finally penetrated his skull that she was absolutely and completely right. What he had done in service of his fetish...what kind of man was he?

"I'm not going to kill you, though I probably should. But I'm not going to make life easy for you, either. We're going."

"Going? Where?" Tom mumbled.

"I didn't catch that, but assuming you're wondering where we're going, the answer is simple: somewhere else. Somewhere where you can't find your way back to me, ever again. And before you think you can find some other friend to assault, believe me, Tom, I'm going to let everyone you've ever met what happened to you, and what you tried to do to me. If you ever poke your head up in civilized society again, I will press rape charges."

Tom thought about arguing with her, thought about telling her that she was bluffing, that she had no proof. He could grow back, go home, tomorrow when she was telling people that he'd raped her while shrunk he could simply call her a liar, say it never happened, it was a delusion.

But he looked up at her giant, wounded visage, and he knew he could never do that. He had hurt her so badly already. How could he hurt her more?

And so when she shoved him in her purse, he did not fight. During the several hours in which he felt the car in motion, he did not attempt to escape. And when she dropped him, alone, in the high grass in some bland suburban cul-de-sac, he did not run, and he did not return to normal size.

She dropped him on the ground, paused only a moment, and headed back to the car, and as dawn broke, she drove away.

"I'm sorry," Tom said quietly, and then he began trudging through the shoulder-high grass, looking for a place to lay his weary head.