Suzy left when Naomi and Cheryl got home. She gently kissed me, then placed me in my house. "See you later, Ray," she said, and I watched her leave. My mind raced, praying with each step that she would turn around and offer to take me with her. It was a petulant and unlikely fantasy, but I was still disappointed when she walked out the door. Now I'm standing on the kitchen table, waiting for Cheryl and Naomi to get bored with me. They're about halfway through a bottle of wine, and their giggles get louder with each sip.
When they first got home, they put me on the floor so I could admire their pedicures. I walked back and forth between Naomi's pale pink and Cheryl's bright red, oohing and aahing appreciatively, as if I were at the Guggenheim. Both women slid off their sandals and displayed their toenails for my approval, wriggling their toes and sliding their feet to block me if it looked like I was about to wander off.
I hate to admit it, but I was really beginning to enjoy myself. I was a little nervous at first, after the ordeal with Nicole, but Naomi and Cheryl were both so pleasant and playful, vying for my attention. Perhaps it was the euphoria of my afternoon with Suzy, but I really began to relax and throw myself into the part. I touched their toes, ran my fingers along their polished nails, and informed both ladies that I had never seen more beautiful feet in my entire life.
When they finally decided I'd had enough, Naomi picked me up and handed me to Cheryl so she could hold me. They cooed and stroked me, passing me back and forth as they drank their wine and smoked their cigarettes. Even this I didn't mind so much... I began to wonder if I had been unduly harsh in my judgment of Naomi. Maybe I had been a bit of an ass since I'd gotten here...
For the past fifteen minutes, they've been talking about Naomi's sister Debbie, who shares a trailer with some guy named Walt, who spent two years in prison for the statutory rape of a girl named Ellen, although there's a good chance she was just making the whole story up because she comes from white trash and everyone knows her daddy smokes crack all day while her momma busts her ass waiting tables at the Denny's, yadda, yadda, yadda...
I finally walk over to Naomi's hand and touch her finger to get her attention. I tell her I need to use the bathroom.
"Okay, sweetie," she says, scooping me up. She carries me over to my dollhouse and sets me down at the front door. I run inside and latch it shut, safe at last. It was more of an excuse than anything, but I still run upstairs and take a quick pee.
"Oh shit!" Naomi says as she walks back to the table. "Cheryl, it's almost six. What about your little girl?"
Cheryl's voice, as always, is hoarse and grating. "Oh, Kim's having dinner with The Prick tonight." The Prick is, naturally, Cheryl's pet name for her ex-husband.
"Well, at least he keeps in touch," Naomi says. "Nicole's daddy won't even send a goddamned birthday card if I don't call him first."
"I'd settle for that," Cheryl says. "The only reason The Prick even bothers is so he can turn her against me. No wonder the poor kid's in therapy. No telling what kind of stories he's filling her head with."
"We married some worthless sons-of-bitches all right," Naomi says. I hear the clink of their glasses.
"I'm never making that mistake again," Cheryl croaks, before slurping loudly at her wine. "I'll rot in hell before I ever get married again."
"Never say never, sweetie," Naomi says. "I used to think the same thing until I met Paul."
"Never," Cheryl repeats, then adds, "except maybe someone like Ray." She giggles and looks right at me. "I'd love a man I could keep in a jar by the bed."
Naomi snorts with laughter. "Stop that, you naughty thing."
"Manicures, pedicures, and occasional service in the tub," Cheryl says. "And if he ever forgot his place, I'd flush him down the toilet and go find another one."
"You're terrible," Naomi says, still laughing.
"I'd like to catch The Prick like that." Cheryl's voice is cold now. "I'd take a pair of fingernail clippers to him..."
I can't listen to any more of this. I storm down the stairs, trying not to hear Cheryl's sick fantasies. I open my front door and peer out towards the kitchen table. Neither of them are looking at me, so I slide out the door and move quickly across the carpet.
Nicole's door is slightly open. I squeeze through, looking around cautiously as I walk past her nightstand. Nicole is lying on her stomach on the bed, reading a magazine. Some annoying n'Sync song is buzzing from her clock radio, and she's humming along with it.
Just before she left, Suzy told Nicole, "You're lucky Ray's such a nice guy. I wanted to tell your mom, but he convinced me to give you another chance. Maybe you should try being nicer to him." Nicole simply glared at her without answering.
I'm tired of being scared, and I'm sick of waiting for the other shoe to drop. So now I'm standing on the floor near her bed, wondering what's going to happen next. I take a deep breath and call out her name.
She looks down at me, brushing the hair out of her eyes. "What do you want?"
I shrug, and try to sound nonchalant. "I just want to talk."
She eyes me suspiciously. "Did you tell Momma about what I did to you?"
"No."
"Are you going to?"
I shake my head. "No."
She sighs. "Okay." Her hand comes down to take me, and she gently lifts me up to her bed. She sets me down on the mattress and rolls onto her side, propping her head on her bent arm. The mattress trembles beneath my feet and I put out my arms for balance.
"Sorry," she says.
"It's okay," I say. "Just need to get my sea legs."
"No, I mean about this afternoon," she says. "I really wasn't going to hurt you or anything. I was just trying to scare you."
"Why? Why did you want to scare me?"
She shrugs, making the bed shake again. "I don't know."
"Look, Nicole. I know we kind of got off on the wrong foot with each other, but I could really use a friend right now."
She says nothing.
"Of course, if that's too much to ask, then could we please just leave each other alone while I'm here?"
She frowns. "While you're here? Where're you going?"
"Depends on the court case. If SPECTRUM wins, I'll be going back there."
"How come you wanna go back there?" she asks. "I thought they did mean things to you there. Daddy said they did experiments and stuff."
"They were my family," I tell her. "I miss them."
"We're your family too," Nicole says. "Are you going to be sad if you have to stay here?"
I sigh. "That depends. Are we friends?"
She reaches for me again, her enormous fingers wrapping around my body and lifting me into the air. She rolls over on her back and lays me on her chest. She presses down gently.
"Your heart is pounding," she says. "Are you scared of me?"
"A little," I answer.
She begins stroking me with her fingertips. I can feel her heartbeat and the warmth of her skin through her t-shirt.
"I guess we can be friends," she says.
The warmth of her hand and the steady beating of her heart are soothing. I feel her chest rise and fall beneath me.
I feel knots untying in my shoulders as Nicole continues to gently pet me. It's a load off of my mind just to know that we've buried the hatchet. Now if I can just keep things under control with Naomi, life with the Dalton family might just become tolerable.
I find myself telling Nicole about SPECTRUM, about Louise and Gary, who were like parents to me. About Sally, who devoted so much of her time figuring out how to make things convenient for someone my size. And I tell her about Alan Mackey.
Alan was our Security Liaison at SPECTRUM. He was beefy and freckled, with red hair and this nasty scar that ran from his right ear to the middle of his cheek. I guess he would have been pretty imposing if not for this easy grin that was a permanent fixture on his broad face.
The grin seems especially poignant to me now, but not because I remember it vividly. Rather, I remember the one time I ever saw him without it.
Alan was a regular fixture around the lab. He also popped into my classes from time to time, where he would flirt bashfully with Dana until she or Leslie ordered him out of the room. He was big, goofy, and infinitely likable. Even Dana had to admit there was something absolutely endearing about him, even though she consistently rebuffed his advances.
I never had the nerve to ask him about his scar, but curiosity drove me to ask everybody else. Dana and Leslie both told me that he'd received it during the Gulf War. Sally told me that he'd been injured while helping some bioengineer defect from GenetiTech (SPECTRUM's chief rival). Gary told me a lurid story about how Alan had prevented the assassination of one of SPECTRUM's corporate officers in a fancy restaurant by killing the would-be assassin with a fork. Louise, of course, told me to mind my own business.
So I tried to reconcile these exciting stories with the man I knew, but could never manage it. It was hard to imagine anyone as amiable as Alan ever being in a knife fight, let alone picture him ruthlessly stabbing someone in the neck with a piece of cutlery. I finally just chalked it up to an injury he had incurred while doing something banal, like skiing or playing football or even shaving.
Anyway, Alan was offsite during my birthday party last January, which is why Tony was able to snap my picture and get out of there with it so easily. Although the incident was clearly not his fault, Alan was called to the carpet along with the rest of the security branch when my story appeared in The National Mirror in February. I'm a bit hazy on the details, but Alan simply received a reprimand. His superior officer, who had ordered him offsite in the first place, was terminated.
So my last memory of Alan is of him sobbing like this enormous cherub a day before Paul and Naomi came to collect me, begging me to forgive him and swearing, quite melodramatically, that he'd fix things somehow.
Cheryl is staying for dinner, which seems to peeve Paul slightly. I think he was looking forward to unveiling me at the barbecue tomorrow, and he feels like Naomi stole a little bit of this thunder by introducing me to Cheryl early.
For the first time, at Paul's insistence, I eat at the table with the rest of the family. Naomi carries my plastic dining table and chair from the dollhouse and sets it down on the corner between her and Cheryl. As Naomi dishes up the spaghetti, Cheryl drums her fingers behind me. I cringe every time she moves her hand, thinking she might be reaching for me. After listening to the torturous blow-by-blow of her fantasies, I have decided that I never EVER want to be alone with her.
Naomi sets a plate of chopped spaghetti bits on my table, then finally takes her seat. Paul suggests that the family say grace, and Cheryl snorts, asking when in the hell they started that tradition. Ignoring her, Paul asks everybody to join hands. Cheryl's hand moves towards me with lightning speed and, startled, I leap from my chair and stumble onto the tablecloth.
"I just need your hand, silly," Cheryl says, giggling. "Why are you so jumpy?"
I stand up, blushing, and hold out my hands. Cheryl takes one gently between her finger and thumb. Naomi does the same for my other one. For one horrible moment, I imagine them pulling me apart like a wishbone. Damn Cheryl and her stories, anyway. I was fine until she started going on about nail clippers.
Paul delivers a stilted, awkward prayer all full of thees and thous. At one point, he actually gives thanks to God for "returning my prodigal son Ray to his loving family." When he finally says "Amen," the two women release me and everybody sets to.
Dinner passes without further event. I do manage to choke down all of the abysmal spaghetti pieces on my plate, which pleases Naomi to no end. She beams down at me as she takes my plate and carries it with the rest of the dishes to the kitchen.
Cheryl takes off about eight o' clock so she can be home when "The Prick" drops off Kim. I heave a sigh of relief once she's out the door. Paul goes into the living room to make a phone call. Nicole drops me off at my dollhouse then goes into the kitchen to help Naomi with the dishes. It's all just too Normal Rockwell to be believed. But it's bearable, bordering on pleasant. I think I might just sleep soundly tonight.
Giantess World
Homunculus by Cayce